Sales Enablement: is it worth the investment?

By: Rachel Powers

Searches for the term ‘sales enablement’ on Google have continued to increase by over 50% year over year. In the past two decades, sales enablement has become more and more of an asset and necessity for growing sales organisations in order to keep up with the changing landscape and evolution of tech.

The definition according to Gartner, is “the process of providing the sales organization with the information, content and tools that help salespeople sell more effectively.” The key to a good sales enablement team is to streamline focus on building a strategy to maximize sellers’ ability to communicate both value and differentiation, in order to produce a high level of sales execution.

But why is this so valuable to your sales organization?

According to Sales Enablement Pro, ‘Teams with sales enablement techniques in place for more than two years, are 48% more likely to experience high buyer engagement.’

HubSpot released a statistic that states ‘65% of sales leaders who hit revenue targets have a dedicated sales enablement manager.’

And LinkedIn has published that ‘54% of sellers say sales tools enable them to build trust and close deals with buyers.’

Is sales enablement going to be the magic solution to infinitely increase your sale’s team’s targets? Of course not. But a good sales enablement strategy focused on some clear outputs, will drive better best practices and increased sales execution.

These outputs include:

1. Communications: Streamlining all the ‘noise’ around a sales person and ensuring they have a clear, concise understanding of any new information or changes to the product or the business. This is often through curated newsletters, intranet resource sites, and organized ‘all team’ meetings.
2. Live Training Sessions: Interactive knowledge sharing sessions focused on improving sales skills, establishing a foundation around product / solution knowledge, and allowing for exposure to cross-functional experts in the company as well their own peers around best practices and successful cases will ultimately help each sales individual feel more confident and prepared to go into a call with their prospect.
3. Stand and Deliver Exercises: Providing opportunities for salespeople to practice and demonstrate their sales skills through role play exercises with their manager and enablement support will help to reinforce their abilities as well as give them feedback for areas of improvement.
4. Onboarding: A strong new hire training program to set new starters up for success in your sales organization by ensuring they have the knowledge and skills to be successful in your company and to get them to their first closed deal as fast as possible.
5. Sales Coaching: 1x1 coaching conversations as supplemental enablement for those who are struggling to master a specific skill or looking to expand their expertise to grow in their career.