What Is Sales Enablement? (Ultimate Guide)
Sales Enablement: is it a buzz word or a must-have strategy?
Modern buyer behavior and the current economic climate have changed how people sell. Strategies that were once foolproof no longer get the job done. With more aggressive sales goals becoming the norm, that’s exactly where “sales enablement” comes in.
Read on to learn more about what sales enablement is and how to implement it so you can decide if it’s just a buzz word or something valuable.
What Is Sales Enablement?
Sales enablement is the process of providing a sales team with resources such as training, content, technology, coaching, and processes to engage buyers and close more deals.
The intent of sales enablement can vary per organization, but many sales leaders care about:
- Measurable/trackable business impact
- Increasing productivity
- Training reps faster and more effectively
By equipping sellers with training and coaching, connecting sellers to relevant sharable content, and applying analytics & data to pitches, sales teams are ultimately more effective and successful.
Why Is Sales Enablement Important?
What’s the difference between sales enablement and training or onboarding a new sales rep? Why would sales enablement be important?
While sales training or onboarding is necessary, it’s just one piece of the puzzle. Typically, onboarding and training is consolidated to the beginning of a sales rep’s employment. Sales enablement, on the other hand, is ongoing and relies on more tools than just training.
If there aren’t closed sales, there isn’t revenue. Sales are the lifeblood of most organizations, but sales has also never been easy. Sales enablement is important because it equips sellers to move prospects through the sales pipeline, ultimately closing deals and increasing revenue.
Benefits of Sales Enablement
The two major benefits of sales enablement are Increased Revenue and Improved Productivity.
Beyond that, an effective sales enablement strategy also comes with additional benefits such as:
- Consistency: Sellers all speak the same company language, ensuring there’s a central source of truth of marketing-approved, brand-accurate content.
- Alignment: Sales, marketing, and operations teams are all aligned on clear messaging to ensure brand integrity and compliance.
- Efficiency: With more effective selling strategies that require less steps, sellers can focus their time and energy on building relationships that ultimately close deals.
- Marketing Insights: By utilizing marketing content consistently, marketing teams have a clear understanding of what content is helping accelerate deals.
Who’s Responsible for Sales Enablement?
Some companies have a dedicated sales enablement manager, which is becoming more common as sales enablement picks up momentum. However, many companies rely on sales executives (such as the VP of Sales) or sales operations leads to spearhead a sales enablement strategy.
While it’s typically not marketing’s responsibility to create a sales enablement strategy, marketing still plays a large role in sales enablement. It’s important to communicate with your company’s marketing team so that sales reps have access to marketing-approved content that can support their efforts, such as:
- Blogs
- Videos
- Images/Graphics
- Presentations/Pitch Decks
How to Build a Sales Enablement Strategy
Sales enablement isn’t something you can go blindly into. While trial and error can be helpful until your team figures out what works best, it’s important to start with an intentional strategy so that you’re using your resources as best you can.
Setting up an initial sales enablement strategy can follow this framework:
1. Lay the Groundwork
Start by setting goals and getting organized. What do you want to accomplish by implementing sales enablement? Which people should take on which responsibilities? Do you want to bring in a 3rd party resource to help with training?
2. Determine How to Measure Success
Consider your desired output. What are the expectations for each team member? What are current numbers and averages, and what numbers do you want to see after implementing sales enablement? Even actionable items such as creating a coaching schedule are ideal in this step.
3. Decide Timing & Tools
What is the timeline for getting sales enablement off the ground? When will you analyze and compare numbers? What tools will you use to track progress?
4 Types of Necessary Sales Enablement Tools
Boosting your tech stack to help support your sales enablement efforts is one of the most valuable things you can do. There’s a wide range of tools that support sales enablement— some are quite literally “sales enablement platforms,” while others support a specific aspect of the sales funnel.
1. CRM Software
It’s more and more apparent that every modern business needs a CRM (customer relationship management) software. A robust CRM like Hubspot, Salesforce, or Microsoft Dynamics 365 allows you to connect your sales and marketing efforts by having access to all customer and prospect information in one place.
2. Sales Enablement Platform
To track and manage all the coaching and sales training a sales team needs, consider implementing a sales enablement platform like Seismic or Highspot. Sales enablement platforms can house:
- Content/asset management
- Training, coaching, and skill development
- Buyer engagement tools
- Strategy planning and insights
- Analytics on the sales funnel
3. Presentation Platform With Analytics
In the sales process, the initial proposal can often make or break a prospect’s journey. So if you’re still presenting on an outdated PowerPoint or Google Slides presentation, consider a tool that will better support your sales enablement efforts.
Modern sales presentation software like DIGIDECK supports sales enablement with viewership analytics, a centralized asset library, and time-saving automations.
4. Call Coaching Tool
Call recording and coaching tools like Gong.io and Chorus by ZoomInfo are invaluable for finding coachable moments during sales conversations. These tools can help track keywords to ensure you’re discussing the right talking points. They can also point out areas of improvement and suggested adjustments for future calls.
Pro Tip: Prioritize choosing tools that have the capability to integrate with each other for an advanced approach to sales enablement.
Keys to Success in Sales Enablement
To ensure your team has the best possible chance of success, be sure to follow these sales enablement best practices:
- Don’t be afraid to try new selling strategies and prioritize sales training. Consider a 3rd party source to kickstart your training before your team takes over.
- Prioritize investing in helpful technology with automation and analytics.
- Collaborate between sales and marketing departments to create new, relevant content that supports sales conversations.
- Understand the pain points of your sales team and of customers and focus on how to better address them.
- Train sales reps in small bites, not in large volumes.
- Train in parallel. Have reps be actively selling as they onboard and learn your CRM, content library, and other tools.
- Document why customers use your product or service and any success stories they’ve had.
Boost Sales Enablement With DIGIDECK
What’s your verdict? Is sales enablement a valuable strategy or still just a buzzword? Top sales professionals agree that it’s necessary to keep up with the modern sales climate.
Sales enablement improvement comes after really investing in the right people and tools to set your sellers up for success. As you look to round-out your sales enablement tech stack into something robust and concrete, consider how you’re currently presenting.
It’s almost impossible to have effective storytelling and engagement with a pitch deck based in PowerPoint, Google Slides, or a PDF. That’s why hundreds of top organizations that are prioritizing sales enablement have made the switch to DIGIDECK.
DIGIDECK is more than just a design tool or presentation platform. It’s a sales enablement tool that allows sellers to present and follow-up more effectively thanks to viewer analytics, custom automations, and a centralized content library.
Curious to see how DIGIDECK can support your sales enablement strategy? Request a free demo today.
