With 79% of sellers missing quota each year, many sales and marketing teams are clamoring for ways to boost seller effectiveness and improve customer engagement.
That’s why Sales Enablement is such a hot topic of late – because companies are learning how critical it is to equip sellers with the resources to hit every customer engagement out of the park.
For those of you who are thinking about launching (or optimizing!) a Sales Enablement program, here are 3 tips from industry experts to help you get started.
1. Build with your customers in mind
Though your internal sales process is important, your customer journey should be the focal point of Sales Enablement planning.
“As buying decisions are still made by customers, the entire customer’s journey has to be the main design point for sales force enablement… Our data shows that the better the customer’s journey alignment, the better the sales performance: win rates, for example, can be improved by 15%.” – Tamara Schenk, CSO Insights
As you’re designing your Sales Enablement program, remember to ask yourself: What experience do you want customers to have as they’re going through the buying process? How can you facilitate this journey and enable champions to sell internally on your behalf? Keeping these questions in mind will ensure that you’re designing a program that’s TRULY customer-centric. And will lead to optimal results.
2. Tear down the silos between sales and marketing
Customer alignment is pivotal to ensure Sales Enablement program success, but this alignment can only happen when your market-facing teams are on the same page. This means you have to bridge the gap between Sales and Marketing to ensure a great customer experience – a task that can seem daunting, but is well worth the effort.
“Start by allowing the lines between marketing and sales to blur to better serve your customers. Identify a couple of buyer-centric initiatives like social selling or account-based marketing and align marketing and sales compensation in more meaningful ways. Be open to new profiles and constructs. Place the buyer at the center of your universe and seed more cohesion between teams.” – Mary Shea, Forrester
Fortunately, improving communication between departments doesn’t have to happen all at once; you can find small ways to begin uniting forces and expand as you begin seeing success.
3. Leverage technology for some of the heavy lifting
Technology exists for a reason – use it! I expect by now you’ve invested in “systems of record” like CRM. This is a great start! But have you thought about the “systems of engagement” that enable awesome interactions between your sellers and customers? This could be the next place to invest… ESPECIALLY when you’re rolling out a Sales Enablement program.
“While systems [like CRM and SFA] are critical for managing internal operational processes, they are typically transactional systems. Now, companies must complement systems of record with systems of engagement to provide an interactive, personalized sales engagement.” – Sheryl Kingstone, 451 Research
A Sales Enablement platform is a “system of engagement” that is critical to help your enablement program take flight. That’s because it helps turn your strategy into reality by pulling together the resources your sellers need to engage – in one place and at the right time in a deal.
