You’ve likely heard the term “sales enablement,” but what does it really mean, and why is it important for your sales team?
At its core, sales enablement is the process of equipping salespeople with the knowledge, tools, and resources they need to be successful.
Through sales enablement, you’ll unify sales and marketing efforts, provide training and coaching, respond to competitor insights, and use technology to create consistent messaging and improve efficiency.
In this blog post, we’ll explore why your sales team needs sales enablement now and how it can help you achieve your sales goals.
Why Is Sales Enablement Important?
Sales enablement can take underperforming or average sales teams to new heights of success. Here's how.
Marketing and Sales Unite to Reach Goals
Sales and marketing teams have a notoriously complicated relationship. Are we not making enough sales because marketing-generated leads aren’t good enough, or because sales isn’t following up sufficiently?
It doesn’t have to be that way. When sales enablement is a focus, your marketing team and sales leaders work together to share information and ensure that the sales representatives have the resources they need to close more deals.
Sales leaders share the questions they hear over and over again in sales calls so marketers can create content to address those issues before a sales call is ever scheduled. And they can share the objections sales reps must overcome to make the sale, particularly when there are competitors involved, which can be turned into public-facing content as well.
Marketing can assist by creating blog posts, FAQs, sales decks, competitor insights, and sales playbooks or “Battlecards” which serve as a guide during sales calls. Battlecards should include information about why you win compared to the competition, how to overcome common objections, competitor feature comparisons, and anything else your sales team might reference during a demo or sales call.
Greater Sales Efficiency & Faster Onboarding
All the collaboration between marketing and sales teams becomes truly useful only when there is a shared repository for up-to-date marketing materials and competitor insights that the sales team will actually use.
Sticky notes on monitors and out-of-date Word documents do not count. You can use something like Dropbox or even Google Drive to provide access to the latest version of sales materials, just be sure to remind people when you make an update so they are always working with the newest version.
Ideally, your sales team can access everything they need to close a deal right inside their customer relationship management (CRM) system. Most modern sales enablement and competitive intelligence platforms enable this in some way and with good version control, everyone always has the up-to-date insights they need.
This eliminates manual updates and the potential mess of having various versions of the same document floating around, which allows you to focus on selling rather than performing administrative tasks. The result is increased efficiency, reduced overhead, consistent messaging, faster call prep, and more time dedicated to closing deals.
When messaging is consistent and the playbook for sales calls is clear, onboarding is faster, scalable, and all your sales reps have what they need to succeed.
More Consistent, Effective Interactions with Prospects
What works in connecting with customers, overcoming objections, and positioning your product as the best choice shouldn’t be locked in the brains of your best, most-seasoned reps.
When “what works” is distilled into easy-to-follow Battlecards and reinforced with sales trainings, everyone on the sales team can confidently deliver a consistent pre-sales experience that closes more of the deals you should be winning.
Cross-selling and Upselling
Implementing sales enablement strategies delivers immediate benefits, but it also equips sales teams for more cross selling, upselling, and reselling to existing customers down the line.
With data-driven decision-making at its core, sales enablement optimizes the entire sales process and sets the stage for optimal sales success from beginning to end.
How Can I Enable My Sales Team?
Some of the basics include:
Providing Quick Access to Key Content
Ideally, you share enablement content in an environment that acts as a centralized repository for all sales-related content and tools, that seamlessly integrates with other tools you’re already using (Salesforce, HubSpot, etc.)
Continuously Training and Coaching
Drive success by providing ongoing training and communication that covers messaging, objection handling, and competitor insights.
Leveraging Technology
Leveraging the right technology stack can boost sales efforts. Consider aligning with the marketing team’s technology to ensure seamless coordination and boost your sales potential.
For example, Circle CI, is a DevOps product that manages change for software teams so software teams can innovate faster. They partnered with Kompyte to handle competitive intelligence and monitor insights in real time and now use these insights to successfully pivot conversations with prospects and customers to improve their results.
Real-World Sales Enablement Strategies and Examples
Influitive, a leader in customer engagement software, partnered with Kompyte for improved sales enablement.
Initially, they struggled with too much competitor information and were without a central source of truth, which inevitably leads to inconsistent messaging and results. However, with Kompyte’s fully loaded, automated CI tool, they were able to set up Battlecards that are available to sales reps in the tools they already use on sales calls.
The result was an extensive library of better, more accessible competitive insights that the sales team actually uses. With this new, comprehensive win/loss analysis, they can now leave competitors in the dust.
Who Is Responsible for Sales Enablement?
Companies typically designate a sales leader, PMM (product marketing manager), or a dedicated sales enablement manager to take charge of the sales enablement program.
They ensure that sales teams have access to the necessary resources, tools, and training to achieve their sales goals and drive the success of sales enablement initiatives.
Among their responsibilities are aligning sales and marketing efforts, creating a centralized repository for sales content, coaching, and training sales reps, and continually assessing and improving the sales enablement program.
Takeaways
Sales enablement is a critical aspect of a successful sales strategy. With the right resources, training, and technology, a sales enablement program can help sales teams close more deals, improve communication, and streamline the sales process.
By implementing best practices and using the right tools, you can help your sales team reach its full potential and achieve their goals.