The science behind talk ratios and winning sales conversations in 2025

This article is part of the Gong Labs series, where we publish findings from our data research team. We analyze sales conversations and deals using the Gong Revenue AI Platform and then share the results to help salespeople win more deals.Subscribe here to get our upcoming research. It was originally authored by Chris Orlob, former Senior Director of Product Marketing at Gong in 2016. It has since been updated with new data and insights by Dan Morgese on March 20th, 2025. 

Revisiting the talk-to-listen ratio: What’s changed in 9 years (and millions of sales calls)?

Nine years ago, we published one of our most popular Gong Labs posts. It was about the impact of the talk-to-listen ratio on sales success, and the key takeaway was this: Top-performing sellers listen more than they talk.

At the time, our data revealed that:

• Sales reps who listened more and encouraged buyer participation closed more deals.
• The “golden ratio” for sales success was 43% talking to 57% listening.
• Talking too much — especially for more than 65% of the call — led to lower conversion and win rates.
• The best sales reps didn’t just listen more, they asked better questions and created a balanced dialogue.

Now, nearly a decade later, we’ve revisited the data in a follow-up article to see what’s changed … and what hasn’t.

What is the talk-to-listen ratio?

The talk-to-listen ratio measures how much time a seller spends speaking versus listening during a sales call. For example, a 60/40 talk-to-listen ratio means the seller talks for 60% of the time and listens for 40% of the time.

Why does this metric matter? Because sales isn’t about delivering a monologue. It’s about creating a two-way conversation where buyers feel heard, engaged, and understood by the sales team.

When the Gong Labs team first wrote about this metric for us in 2016, many sales teams had no way of measuring it. But thanks to Gong and the rapid adoption of conversation intelligence in recent years, sales managers can now review their team’s performance and tailor their sales coaching accordingly. 

For an updated look at the data, we analyzed 326K sales calls that lasted at least 10 minutes between reps and potential customers.

The baseline: Talk-to-listen ratios today

In our new 2025 analysis, we found that the average talk-to-listen ratio across all calls remains 60% talking to 40% listening.  Not surprisingly, reps who closed deals talked a bit less than average, and reps who lost deals talked a little more than average: 

• Closed-won deals: 57% talk time
• Lost deals: 62% talk time

But that difference isn’t massive. 

The real insights emerged when we broke the data down further, and uncovered the three things that top-performing sales professionals do differently to close deals:

1. Consistency is the mark of high-performing sellers

The biggest separator between high and low performers isn’t just how much they talk — it’s how consistently they stick to their sales process and behaviors that win deals. They maintain, for example, an ideal talk-to-listen ratio, even across different deal outcomes.

• High performers maintain roughly the same talk ratio whether they win or lose a deal.
• Low performers’ talk time swings by 10%, from 54% in won deals to 64% in lost deals.

This inconsistency suggests that lower performers behave reactively in conversations rather than sticking to a structured, repeatable way of surfacing their buyer’s needs, pain points, and goals.

2. Asking more questions doesn’t lead to better outcomes

On average, sellers who won deals asked 15 to 16 questions in their calls, while sellers who lost deals asked more questions — about 20 per call.

The takeaway is this: More questions don’t always lead to better conversations. 

It’s likely that struggling sellers fire off too many questions without driving meaningful dialogue. That leads to an interrogation-style experience for the buyer, rather than a pleasant, natural, value-driven conversation.

3. Interactivity is good and buyer monologues are even better

The final defining factor we uncovered in successful sales calls is interactivity. That refers to the amount of back-and-forth that happens between buyers and sellers during a call.

Data from the past two years show that even on calls with similar to talk-to-listen ratios, high-performing sellers consistently generate more interactions with their buyers than low-performers. 

There’s another metric that correlates to interactivity, and that’s a rep’s longest monologue. Lost deals often feature long seller monologues. That’s because, not surprisingly, when a rep dominates the conversation, buyers disengage, and the deal slips away.

How to improve your talk-to-listen ratio with active listening

Hopefully you know your talk-to-listen ratio. If it’s too high, create more balance in your conversations by improving your active listening. Here’s how to make that happen:

Use the “two-second rule”

It’s normal to want to avoid awkward pauses, but before responding, pause for two seconds. This prevents you from interrupting your buyer and gives them time to elaborate. Yes, two seconds can feel like a very long time, but that’s only until you get used to it. Pause often enough, and it will feel entirely normal — especially when you see how well buyers react! 

Paraphrase and confirm your understanding

Instead of jumping into your next question, rephrase what the buyer just said and confirm that you’ve heard them correctly. Here’s what that might sound like: 

“So what I’m hearing is that efficiency is your top concern. Does that sound right?”

Not only does this get the buyer to elaborate if you’ve misunderstood them, it also gives you an opportunity to describe the customer’s needs better than they could themselves.

Many times prospects will have a lingering problem they “can’t put their finger on.”

When you describe a problem they’ve been unable to name, they’ll feel seen and heard. That drives them to believe that your solution will address their problem better than any other.

Ask open-ended questions

You’ll talk too much on a call if you ask questions that can be answered in a word or two.

Instead, replace yes/no questions with ones that encourage deeper, more meaningful discussions. Instead of asking, “Do you use automation,” ask “How does your team currently handle automation?” It raises the same topic, but in a way that invites a fuller and more thoughtful answer from the buyer.

This simple rewording is a surefire way to increase the length of your buyers’ monologues. (It also gives you more information about the buyer and their team, which you can use to frame your solution as perfectly suited to their needs.) 

If you need a place to start, check out our free guide with 30 questions guaranteed to get your buyer talking and improve your talk-to-listen ratio. Give them a try on your next discovery call.

Use “tell me more” as a secret weapon

When a buyer shares a challenge or goal, simply say: “That’s interesting … tell me more.”

Few people can resist the invitation to talk about their team and its daily challenges. Plus, when you initiate a deeper discussion without using a new question, you make it clear that you really want to understand your buyer’s perspective. 

It’s a simple phrase that opens up a world of possibilities in terms of where the discussion might go — and that’s good for your deal.

The takeaway

Nine years later, the fundamentals haven’t changed: 

Listen more than you talk, and importantly, stay consistent in how you execute your sales process. 

Ask the right number of high-impact questions, not just more questions. 

Avoid long-winded monologues during sales meetings. 

Keep buyers engaged with an interactive conversation. 

If you’re still wondering how to track these sales call stats on your team, let’s talk. Gong makes it easy to measure and correct your talk-to-listen ratio