Sales enablement is a popular term that exists among savvy marketers. Everyone has his own kind of definition of this term, and this has created a lot of confusion among students and other people who are interested in becoming marketing experts. This post will look into what this term means and why it is very popular among marketers.
The Actual Definition
Sales enablement is the process of providing a sales team with crucial information, tools and content to help them market the company’s products and services more effectively. The aim of this process is to provide the team with everything they need to successfully engage prospective customers and convince them to buy specific products or services. A big part of the process involves giving the team the information they can use throughout the sales cycles. This may include customer buying habits, demographic trends, taste and preferences and sales best practices. The information provided should be easy to understand and use, regardless which form it takes.
Defining Attributes
The enablement process has key defining attributes one must understand.
- The objective of the process is to provide sales teams with the resources they need to bring quality sales.
- The process is less about the sales team but more about the buyer. The sales teams are provided with the resources the buyers want, not what they want.
- The sales team must know how to use the resources they are provided with to maximize sales. This makes training and development essential parts of the process.
- The best process must have measurable key performance indicators (KPIs). These may include average sale cycle length, deal size and number of sales representatives achieving their targets each quarter.
Benefits
The enablement process is a highly effective strategy for increasing the productivity of the sales team. Since it provides the team with data such as buyer insights, interests and personas, the team can effectively address the buyer’s needs, increasing the chances of making a sale. Another benefit is that the process allows the sales team to stay in touch with buyers without wasting a lot of resources and money. The team can continuously nurture leads by providing them with relevant and updated information and insights based on their specific needs. This makes the company to be at the forefront of the lead’s mind until he makes a decision to buy. The process also helps companies build long-lasting relationships, leading to continuous sales.
Best Practices
The sales enablement process can only work if companies employ best practices. Companies should ensure their sales team have easy access to content. This may mean pulling all the content together in a central repository where the team can easily use them. Apart from easy access, companies should make sharing a policy. This way, the sales team can easily get useful information from other staff members and among themselves. Companies should also improve sales training, leverage technology and reduce the time the sales team spends on non-sales activities. When observed, these practices can drastically improve sales.
Every company loves to generate more leads and record many sales. However, this may not be possible if the sales team cannot access the resources they need to sell more effectively. Sales enablement provides the team with such resources.
