How to Make Your Sales Enablement Strategy Actually Work
Sales enablement has become an integral component of the modern sales organization, yet there is still confusion around what sales enablement actually is and, crucially, how to really make it deliver results for your salespeople and your business.
As sales leaders grapple with continual volatility and complexity in the selling ecosystem, they’ve increasingly turned to sales enablement strategies to help improve sales outcomes and drive growth more efficiently. In a recent survey examining the state of the sales enablement function, 68% of respondents agreed that advancing a sales enablement strategy is key to business performance. And companies are certainly going all-in on sales enablement as a core go-to-market function. Research shows 87% of top cloud companies are investing in it and that it is a priority investment for 55% of C-suite leaders.
Effective sales enablement strategies are intended to provide salespeople with the support they need to address critical sales goals, from converting more prospects and increasing win rates and deal size to shortening the sales cycle, strengthening customer relationships and achieving revenue targets. Yet many organizations are finding that their efforts and investments aren’t living up to the purported benefits.
To understand why, let’s start with an example outside the world of selling. Imagine this scenario: You are a new coach of a tennis team comprised of mostly average players. Over the past few seasons, they’ve consistently landed in the middle of the pack, but you see the potential they have to be so much better and win more league matches.
To address this problem, you take a number of steps:
- Provide them with more strategic analysis of their opponents before games, including data on the other players’ weakest shots over the course of a game, broken down to include factors such as temperature at game time, shot selection under stress and average racquet velocity during each set.
- Incorporate this analysis into a series of on-demand, video-based online modules that suggest appropriate shot selection to capitalize on the precise moments in a tight match when their opponent exhibits vulnerability.
- Equip them with the latest racquet and shoe technology to ensure they have the resources necessary to excel.
Your players are thrilled. They appreciate the investment and tell others that their new coach is the best! Even so, they still keep losing tough matches. The ball still seems to find the net too often, and players still seem to be getting to the ball a few seconds too late.
This is not unlike the situation many sales leaders are finding themselves in. They’ve provided their team with the information, the training, the guidance, the frameworks and the latest technology and tools…and yet their salespeople continue to struggle.
There’s a reason this kind of performance enablement strategy doesn’t deliver much of a payoff. While it’s true that all of these actions will help the players know more about what’s required to win, as is the case with every strategy, the results come down to the execution. It’s not about what they know; it’s about what they can (and are willing to) do and, crucially, what they habitually do under pressure.
Whether they’re a pro tennis player or a sales pro, a person’s success doesn’t hinge on what resources they have at their fingertips; what matters is how they successfully use those resources—in the lead-up to the big plays and in the heat of the moment.
In all too many sales organizations, this is exactly where the sales enablement strategy starts to fall apart.
What Are the Elements of a Sales Enablement Strategy?
Here’s what a sales enablement leader from one of the big three telecommunications companies said to me recently:
“We’ve trained all of our national account reps on business acumen. They know how to read a P&L statement and how to identify weaknesses in a company’s financial picture. We’ve provided them with the online tools and data to accurately provide ‘commercial insight’ to a client. But it’s been over ten months now and sales haven’t moved.”
Change a few of the specifics, and it’s the same scenario we see playing out over and over again across multiple different industries. Sales enablement departments are providing reps with more and more helpful content and data, and that information is more and more accessible. That’s a good thing. But it’s also only part of the strategy.
Technology, marketing tools, lead scoring, research, talking points, buyers journeys — these kinds of elements get a lot of attention in the sales enablement space, and to be sure, they play a key role in any effective strategy. But ironically, many organizations emphasize them to such a degree that they miss the vital ingredient that will ensure these investments actually pay off.
Information is only valuable if it’s being used — and being used appropriately. At a broad level, the purpose of all of these elements is to improve the quantity and, more importantly, the quality of sales conversations and lead to better outcomes from those conversations. Yet most sales enablement strategies fail to consider this crucial question: How do your reps take this information and training and translate it into a conversation that a customer would care about?
The Keys to Effective Sales Enablement
If your sales reps lack the confidence, willingness and conversation skills to take that data and deploy that marketing information and all of those tools in a relevant, credible way that connects with the customer and their needs, then inevitably, you’re going to end up in the same place as that leader from the big three telecommunications company — with a lot of time, money and resources invested and little to show for it in the way of actual sales.
When it comes to sales enablement strategies, all too often, companies are tripping up at the last mile. Yes, those elements of the strategy matter. But on their own, they’ll only take you so far. Ultimately, their usefulness hinges on a frequently overlooked yet non-negotiable element of effective sales enablement: Making sure your sales reps are equipped to have value-creating conversations with their customers.
This customer-centric approach requires:
- cultivating a mindset that’s based in a genuine desire and curiosity to understand, and
- developing the skillset to ask compelling questions and seek thoughtful answers.
There’s little value for the customer if a salesperson is simply repeating scripted talking points or running through a list of stats and product features and benefits. Especially in a selling environment where customers are both more informed and busier than ever, the real value salespeople bring is an ability to listen — and truly listen to understand — and then make relevant use of the enablement tools based on what they learn.
There’s one final, critical success factor in this equation and it’s another one that often gets overlooked: the role of the manager. Managers play a critical role in coaching their reps in order to develop their potential to execute those conversations with confidence.
4 Tips for Improving Your Sales Enablement Strategy
How do your sales reps take sales enablement tools and translate them into conversations a customer would care about? As you think about your sales enablement strategy, here are four essential areas to focus on.
Measure what matters
Evaluate the success of your approach to date in terms of its impact on actual performance. Positive feedback, portal utilization rates and data-filled slide decks are all good points to consider. But how has your strategy moved the needle on productivity? If what you’re doing is leading to increased sales, keep doing it! If sales are not where your sales leader needs them to be, it’s time to examine what may be missing and adjust ASAP.
Emphasize a listening mindset and skillset
Develop your sales reps’ abilities to translate all of the content, research, data and tools you have provided them with into productive conversations. Make sure that they have the real-time skills to engage potential customers and create value. Can they link their enablement content to actual problems through effective questions during a customer conversation?
Equip your managers to coach your reps
By “coach,” I don’t mean performance reviews or pipeline and numbers analysis; I mean building their skills, confidence and belief that they can be successful. That’s what effective coaching is all about.
Take another look at your sales training
Don’t fall into the trap of hoping and praying that online modules will build hands-on skills! Make sure your sales training is centered around building skills to execute more effectively in front of customers, not just on providing your reps with additional knowledge. To gauge the effectiveness of your training, evaluate it against the factors that are proven to boost performance: time-spaced repetition, application in the real-world, coaching and accountability.
Taking these tips into account, the tennis coach who wants to help her players actually start winning games will add a few essential elements to her team’s practices, such as fitness, stroke accuracy and confidence. Similarly, sales managers who take an honest assessment of the four areas above will be able to take steps to fully leverage the sales enablement investment and translate it into winning sales performance.
Want to discuss how to leverage sales enablement to make a real difference for your salespeople and your organization? Email me at bwedderburn@integritysolutions.com or connect with me through my LinkedIn profile below.
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