Many companies currently practice sales enablement on some level but just don’t know it or recognize it as sales enablement. Often, a lot of these sales enablement practices are done randomly with no clear mission or strategy involved. In order to really take advantage of sales enablement, you need to integrate all of these aspects together, involving the right people, the right tools, and the right processes to really promote the growth of your sales and your company as a whole.
What Is Sales Enablement?
While there are many different definitions of sales enablement, generally, it is the strategic use of people, processes, and technology to improve sales productivity and increase revenue. That definition may sound simple enough, but there is actually a lot that goes into sales enablement. What exactly sales enablement entails will vary depending on the organization, the industry, and the products but some general functions of sales enablement include things like:
- Onboarding, education, and training
- Sales communications
- Management of tools and technology
- Creating and implementing sales coaching strategy
- Measuring and analyzing overall program success
How you choose to organize your sales enablement program can also vary a lot. Some of these responsibilities might fall to the sales manager, or you can have a specific sales enablement manager instead. A lot of this will depend on the size and resources on your company – as some bigger companies have entire teams of multiple people who are focused on sales enablement full-time, while others might have one person that works on it part-time.
Why Is It Important?
The importance of sales enablement is stated in its most basic definition – it increases sales and helps to grow the revenue of the company. That is beneficial for obvious reasons. And the numbers speak for themselves – sales enablement can lead to 15% better win rates. If that wasn’t important enough, there are also several other benefits to sales enablement, including:
- Sales readiness – Sales enablement increases sales readiness and allows each salesperson to have the knowledge and skills to best meet customer needs and expectations. Things like coaching, product details, and competitive positioning can all increase sales readiness.
- Increased retention rates – Sales enablement makes your salespeople more successful which makes it more likely that they will stick around to continue to enjoy that success. Retention is key in any business but especially in sales because you invest so much into your sales team because they are such an important part of the business.
- Better training programs – Sales enablement allows for better training programs to be implemented so that salespeople are constantly learning about the products and also the tools that they use to do their jobs. That way they can be both more efficient and more effective.
- Positive customer experience – Finally, sales enablement can reach beyond the sales team alone to every position that deals with your clients. By offering extra support in these areas as well, everyone can do their jobs better than before and create a robust system that guarantees customer satisfaction.
How to Implement Sales Enablement
Implementing a sales enablement strategy within your business will take some work, but there are some simple steps that you can take incrementally to work towards this goal. It won’t happen overnight, but is instead a long-term project that will also ensure the long-term growth of your company as a result. Some steps that you can take to implement sales enablement include:
- Choose your team and divide up responsibilities
- Promote cooperation, collaboration, and communication
- Research sales enablement tools and best practices
- Come up with an overall strategy that helps work towards the goals of your organization