[This post was updated June 8, 2016 to account for changes in the sales enablement landscape.]
While the term “sales enablement” continues to blow-up all over the Web, some of the best sales enablement resources are often hard to locate or go unnoticed.
Any sales enablement individual should spend time consuming new information every day in order to keep up with the newest sales enablement strategies, tips and tools that will improve the process for his or her sales team. Here are the top 35 resources for sales enablement:
1. Forrester
The Forrester B2B Marketing Blog is particularly informative, as it provides executive insights and sales experiences from senior analysts who serve marketers and sales enablement professionals. Peter O’Neill, Laura Ramos, Mary Shea, Lori Wizdo and Stephen Wright all specialize in research and advisory, and the majority of their blogs and reports focus on the development or sales and marketing strategies. They deliver understandings on new sales enablement methods and tools for training, hiring, coaching, and managing B2B organizations in ways that drive revenue growth. These blogs also focus on topics ranging from social media best practices to executing a successful sales enablement strategy.
2. LinkedIn
While many users limit their LinkedIn experience to connections and job postings, others have joined the Sales Training & Sales Enablement Pros and Sales Enablement Leader Exchange groups in order to gain valuable insights and experiences from other professionals. Members not only post interesting articles regarding sales enablement practices, but also pose questions for the experts in the group to answer and discuss. Whether you hold the position of CEO, VP of Sales Enablement, or sales rep, these groups are an excellent place to gather information and ask valuable questions that can be quickly answered and debated by other sales enablement professionals.
3. Salesforce
Much like Forrester, the Salesforce blog focuses on ways to help sales teams develop valuable business relationships, improve customer satisfaction, and determine efficient ways to create alignment and drive company revenue growth. The blog is segmented by Sales, Marketing, IT, Customer Service, and Small Business, allowing you to easily navigate based on your topic of choice.
You can also read posts from Seismic’s own Doug Winter, Ed Calnan, and Daniel Rodriguez on the Salesforce blog.
The MarketingTech Sales Enablement Blog, written by Douglas Karr, is a unique addition to the list as it focuses primarily on content marketing strategies, and ways marketing teams are efficiently and effectively communicating company benefits. The blog also covers topics such as social media marketing and search marketing, and how these methods are being used by companies to collect, identify, and research prospects. [Update: Karr wrote this great feature on Seismic after being included on our list of sales enablement resources.]
5) Tamara Schenk: Miller Heiman
Tamara Schenk’s Blog for Sales and Sales Enablement Professionals includes blogs covering Go-To-Customer approaches, and bridging the gap between business strategy and execution. Schenk is a research director for the Miller Heiman Research Institute, and her professional blogs are based on her own international experience as a sales enablement executive. She’s also a great person to follow on Twitter.
6) Stratascope
The Stratascope Sales Enablement Blog not only discusses best practices in sales enablement, but marketing services, business acumen, and research as well. The majority of these blogs focus on the consumer and the way B2B buying is changing. Stratascope looks to improve the sales process by understanding the buyer’s point of view.
7) Rick Roberge: Selling in the 21st Century
Rick Roberge’s “Blog for Sales Rockstars & RainMakers Selling in the 21st Century” is an entertaining and easy-to-read blog that focuses on sales and sales development. Roberge not only examines different sales tools and ways to keep your sales team competitive, but also provides coaching lessons and real life experiences to guide his posts.
Hank Barnes, a member of the Gartner blog network, focuses his pieces on sales enablement strategies and the future of sales in a go-to market. He stresses the importance of quality connections as well as how marketing and sales team alignment dictate sales success.
9) IDC
IDC serves as an outstanding professional resource that consists of free published research, product information, and blog posts regarding sales enablement. Research consists of everything from best practices reports to buyer experience surveys, forecasts, and revenue models. The site serves as a hub of information for any sales enablement professional, or anyone simply looking to learn more about the sales enablement process.
10) Demand Metric
The Demand Metric Sales Enablement Page is a great learning resource. The site filters pieces of sales enablement content by categories that consist of PDFs, documents and PowerPoints. These content pieces include valuable sales enablement information and analyses, such as best practice reports, benchmarks, workshops, and solution studies.
11) AIPMM
Update: Link removed; resource not accessible.
AIPMM is a hub for product marketing and product management webinars that serve as excellent resources for creating effective sales and marketing tools. The webinars include sales enablement essentials such as how to adopt a sales team, tactics that will speed up sales, and how to generate sales for new products.
The Pragmatic Marketing Sales Enablement Resource Page takes a deep look into sales tools and training guidelines that are intended to reduce company friction and help differentiate their products to the market. Their course on sales enablement and organizational readiness is pricey yet perfect for any individual with a burning desire to see their product sell.
13) Spice Catalyst
The Spice Catalyst Blog, written by David Fradin and Mike Connor, emphasizes the importance marketing plays for a B2B company toward generating more leads and sales. Along with this, they stress how creating an emotional bond with prospects and customers goes a long way and delivers huge results
The Marketing Practice Blog analyzes what is working in B2B marketing on a daily basis. The blog consists of best practices, marketing experiments, and tips for marketing automation success. Along with this, the “Seven New Priorities In B2B Marketing: Sales Enablement” blog provides step by step analysis to how the marketing function today plays a bigger role in the overall pipeline process more than ever.
15) MarketingProfs
MarketingProfs provides dozens of free online seminars on marketing resources that also focus on how to get sales and marketing teams on the same page to meet customer needs. These seminars include keys to creating winning marketing concepts, using buyer personas, and how to develop effective content for each stage of the marketing journey.
16) KZO Innovations
KZO Innovations recognizes the importance of sales training. Their webinar, “Get That Impact: Reinforcing Sales Training with Video” not only provides training mechanisms, but includes their top 10 key selling steps as well. The page also consists of blog posts that define sales enablement and CRM strategy and how they successfully work together.
The True Sales Results Blog is full of marketing and sales best practices. They start with sales enablement strategy, which is then used to develop custom content in various forms for training and coaching purposes. They also developed an Ebook on the site, “Planning Progressive Enterprise Sales Enablement”, intended for senior level executives who are looking to improve the productivity of an existing team.
18) Enduro-Marketeer
Update: Link removed; resource not accessible.
Mike Marks is a “B2B Marketeer” and endurance athlete who blogs about community topics, marketing, strategy, and sales enablement. His blog serves as an enjoyable and easy read that connects the sales enablement practice to the world of sports.
Update: Link removed; resource not accessible.
Professional blogger Stefan Funk created this website to discuss recent business trends on sales enablement such as learning strategies, sales alignment and content strategies. Funk serves as Head of Communications and Social Learning for SAP.
20) Gleanster
The Gleanster Sales Enablement Archive consists of articles on marketing automation and how to create a content library for your sales team. The website goes on to include B2B marketing techniques, the customer experience, and ways to find quality leads.
21) B2B Fusion Group
Jon Russo is a three time Chief Marketing Officer who created this website to help B2B companies improve revenue conversions by generating new leads, and to optimize the sales and marketing business processes. His blogs discuss the “many faces of marketing automation” and expectations for marketing ROI.
Update: Link removed; resource not accessible.
The “Highlander Chronicles” include blog posts that discuss the client experience, educating customers, and CRM transformation. While it does not specifically mention sales enablement, these are important aspects of the practice, and the posts are extremely informative.
23) Inflexion Point
The Inflexion Point Blog, written by Bob Apollo, discusses ways of raising B2B sales to the next level by analyzing studies from Forrester, Gartner, Aberdeen, and other research firms. The “Sales Enablement” topic section consists of a lengthy list of articles, all of which serve as great learning resources.
McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm, and the material on their blog draws on the research and experience of their consultants. Blog pieces consist of insights and publications regarding all things marketing and sales.
25) Aberdeen
The Aberdeen Group conducts research focused on helping business leaders across different B2B technology disciplines improve performance. Their sales enablement blog contains research reports that deal with sales and marketing effectiveness.
26) IBM
The IBM “Knowledge Center” is a hub for informative case studies, videos, and whitepapers regarding sales enablement. These resources include material dealing with sales training effectiveness, sharing knowledge across an organization, sales readiness, and other useful topics for anyone with a sales enablement position.
27) ASTD
Update: Link removed; resource not accessible.
The ASTD Sales Enablement Blog provides insights on how to lead sales teams, improve selling with 21st century skills, and how to challenge the thinking of sales reps. The site is particularly informative for anyone holding an executive sales enablement position, as it provides coaching techniques and models for improvement.
28) DemandCon
The DemandCon Sales Enablement Archive spotlights the sales and marketing funnel and ways to accelerate lead generation. The blog also consists of expert presentations from marketing thought leaders and industry experts. Along with this, their “Sales Enablement Virtual Summit” discussion reviews and information are also available for free.
29) Heinz Marketing
Matt Heinz brings more than 15 years of marketing and sales experience from a variety of organizations to his “Matt on Marketing” blog. Articles range anywhere from CRM to social media, hiring, and strategy. His free best practice guides include secrets to successful selling, marketing planning, productivity, and more.
30) SiriusDecisions
SiriusDecisions empowers the world’s leading sales, marketing, and product leaders to make better decisions, and accelerate growth. Their blog discusses sales enablement, content, and tools. The majority of their articles relate to their annual summit, and these pieces address how transforming sales, marketing, and product alignment are all essential to powering B2B companies and bottom-line growth.
31) Yesler
The Yesler Sales Enablement Blog takes a modern approach toward B2B marketing, and examines the essential steps that lead to successful leadership management and customer engagement. The sales enablement articles entitled “7 Must-Haves For Sales Enablement” and “Erase the Lines Between Sales and Marketing” are easy reads and particularly informative.
32) SMM
Update: Link removed; resource not accessible.
Sales and Marketing Management provides free webinars regarding sales enablement that serve as excellent learning tools. Along with this, their archive page consists of fun and easy reads that combine sales enablement practices with secrets to channeling success.
The SBI Sales Ops & Sales Enablement Blog provides insights on how to better sales enablement, specifically the sales and training processes. Other resources include useful case studies, presentations, and webinars for executives or anyone in a leadership role.
Update: Link removed; resource not accessible.
The Launch International B2B Marketing & Sales Enablement Content Agency Blog focuses on driving sales effectiveness with content, and recaps big themes from the SiriusDecisions Summit. Their webinars also serve as an excellent resource for ways to create the right content and drive sales.
35) HubSpot
HubSpot is a marketing automation software that serves as a powerful tool for inbound marketing, used to attract visitors and create leads. While they do focus more on sales and marketing specifically, their blog contains relevant information that can serve as a helpful guide for sales enablement leaders.
We hope these resources help you better understand the ever-changing sales enablement landscape.
