As the enablement profession grows, the opportunities for roles in enablement continue to become more prominent. LinkedIn has almost 7,000 enablement-focused job titles currently open, for job-seekers looking for a change And as Rachel Auer, Product Marketing Manager from Calabrio points out, “[Even if] you are not in currently in enablement, a lot of skills from other jobs translate nicely into enablement.”
To delve into the key skills and the opportunity in enablement, three skilled, passionate enablement leaders shared their top tips for leading a successful enablement practice and for those looking to join the enablement profession.
The panelists:
- Rachel Auer, Product Marketing Manager at Calabrio
- Heather Pelzer, North America Customer Engagement Planning Lead at Bayer Crop Science
- Susan Felke, Associate Director, Commercial Enablement at Illumina
So what are the three top tips from this group for enablement success?
Prepare to make a digital transformation
While enablement professionals come from a variety of professional backgrounds – our group here represents a variety of sales and marketing roles in their previous positions – one key skill is ensuring you have a digital-first mindset to optimize your enablement program. Some of this is technical skills – Susan Felke mentioned the importance of “taxonomy and metadata build, to organize content and make it easily accessible to teams.” But the skills don’t have to be technical. As long as you have a digital-first mindset and a “comprehensive understanding of processes and solutions across the business,” as Heather Pelzer put it, you can be ready to make the changes your organization needs to make.
Communicate directly and simply
In enablement, it is critical to effectively communicate with your sellers to ensure they understand your initiatives and the most important facets of your program. That comes partially from creating a two-way street of communication. “You have to be an excellent listener,” says Susan Felke, Associate Director of Commercial Enablement at Illumina, emphasizing how critical it is to “synthesize feedback into actionable tasks.” The other piece to effective communication, as Felke mentions, is to be as direct and simple as possible.
“Simple is better,” Heather Pelzer emphasized. Pelzer also emphasized the importance of “streamlined communications and prioritization of what is important now,” so teams across departments can easily understand their most important tasks. For Rachel Auer, Product Marketing Manager at Calabrio, you need to be as direct as possible. “No fluff or buzzwords – get to the point in emails to sales,” she said.
Collaborate effectively, and take pride in team success
Lastly, the best enablement professionals are true team players who find accomplishment in success across the sales and marketing teams. All three panelists mentioned how important collaboration is to building an effective enablement practice. “Work with multiple groups to focus on the top three enablement initiatives, and drive those initiatives together,” said Felke.
Auer also emphasized this, adding that a lot of the joy in her job comes from improving the experience of Calabrio’s sales team. “I have always had a passion for helping sales, so I am always driving to help sales do their jobs better and more efficiently,” she said.
And finally, wins for enablement professionals come across the entire sales and marketing organization, so building and supporting the initiatives that drive those wins is critical to being a successful enablement professional. Ultimately, driving those successful experiences is what makes enablement such a unique and special function. “I have a passion in seeing our business succeed,” said Heather Pelzer. “At the end of the day, my paycheck comes from ensuring everyone is successful.”
