So you’ve heard the term “sales enablement” being thrown around, maybe this was in your sales organisation monthly meeting, or perhaps it was discussed in some sales training that you recently attended,
either way, it sent you down a rabbit hole trying to find as much information as possible… because that’s how you roll (you’re a details person).
After all, a great sales professional knows their stuff, right?!
This article aims to help you get complete clarity about sales enablement and whether or not this is something you should be focussing on in your business.
What is sales enablement, and why is it important?
Sales enablement is about providing your salespeople with the right knowledge, tools and resources to engage with your buyer persona, sometimes called customer avatars. (A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and actual data about your existing customers)
Giving the salesperson resources and additional knowledge can help the buyer at each stage of the customer journey, sometimes called “the Buyer’s Journey“.
Sales enablement is ultimately about providing the salespeople with what they need to engage their target buyers. Therefore it’s essential to provide sales teams with the resources the buyer wants.
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How To Get Started With A Sales Enablement Strategy
In order to understand what the best sales strategy may be, first, you need to understand what inbound and outbound marketing is. Then based on this understanding, you can employ the appropriate strategy for your company and customers.
Inbound marketing is a type of marketing that attracts potential customers from different sources like social media, blogs, search engines etc.
Outbound marketing is one where companies reach out to consumers by sending them direct mail or cold call them on the phone etc.
Outbound sales strategies are more traditional and are less expensive than inbound strategies because it doesn’t require as much creative work or automation skills and is considered by most as “interruption marketing.”
However, inbound marketing, instead of being an interruption, hoping to get your customers attention, you attract them with valuable content and conversations that establish you as a trusted advisor.
With a clear understanding of inbound and outbound marketing, sales enablement can play a crucial step in the sales process.
It’s the time that you’re the most accessible to your prospects, so you need to make sure that they are getting their questions answered via the inbound marketing strategy, and they get to understand how your product or service can help them.
Ultimately sales enablement is the process of providing sales teams with the necessary knowledge, skills, and tools to be successful.
What strategy should you use when implementing sales enablement?
The best sales strategy for sales enablement is to train and educate your sales team on how to sell better.
The first step in any effective sales enablement process is training. You must equip your people with the most up-to-date selling skills so that they can put them into practice as soon as they hit the phones or go out into the field.
It helps to train the sales team on how to use the company’s tools and resources and how to market themselves.
Sales enablement should start with developing a culture of training in the workplace. The team will be more successful if they are well educated about their product, their customers’ needs, and other essential skills. It is also crucial for managers to dedicate time outside of regular work hours for training sessions.
We like the way HubSpot outlines the importance of sales enablement; they say:
Suppose you give someone a task and provide that person with an array of resources to use and refer to while they work to get it done. In that case, it’s probably safe to assume they’re going to complete it more efficiently and effectively than someone without those resources.
The same goes for your sales team — if you provide reps with the right materials, tools, and resources they need to convert leads, they’ll close more deals and drive revenue for your business.
By aligning your sales team and marketing team, not only do you have detailed content that can your potential buyer, you have access to historical data that enables you to produce better content.
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