What is the Value of Sales Enablement?
As you are starting reading here, your top prospects, your best customers, have started their next buying process, and they started it without you. They are talking to peers and Googling ideas so that by the time you make the sales call, you're already behind. Sales enablement puts you, the sales professional, in front of your prospects at every step of their buying journey. If you work in sales today, chances are you have heard the term sales enablement.
The definition that I think is the most inclusive and descriptive for sales enablement is this one, the strategic process of providing the sales organization with the information, the research, the tools, the training, and the content they need to be even more effective, more effective at finding leads, more effective in engaging prospects, more effective in building their reputations, and more effective in closing deals. To enable your sales team to improve, it might mean getting the right marketing collateral to your sales team at the exact moment they need it. For others, sales enablement might be tools to improve training, coaching, or content. Others might need tools to enhance data, prospecting, or market strategy. The goal of sales enablement is to make sales easier and more effective, not to redesign your sales strategy.
Remember the good old days of sales, when the competition was the guy down the street, and ordering online meant the Sears catalog and waiting for, like, three months for your product to arrive? In those days, we as sales professionals, we ran the show. Our customers needed us way more than we needed them. They were limited in not only where they bought a product, but who they purchased it from. Well, those days are long gone, and the options and choices our customers have are tenfold. How they buy, how our customers make decisions, how they get information, it has all changed. And those changes have severely impacted the sales cycle. The traditional selling skills of prospecting, making sales calls, and presenting proposals are not enough anymore, not enough to capture your customers' attention, differentiate yourself from the competition, and meet your sales goals.
To succeed in sales today, we need sales enablement to support and do the heavy lifting to ensure we have the tools we need to focus on what we are best at, selling products and services. Sales enablement enhances our skills and is badly needed in a fast-paced, overcrowded, and continuously shifting marketplace.
“To succeed in sales today, we need sales enablement to support and do the heavy lifting to ensure we have the tools we need to focus on what we are best at, selling products and services.”
Here are just a few ways that sales enablement makes our lives as sales professionals easier.
sales enablement makes you more effective and efficient as a sales professional.
Sales enablement focuses on deeply understanding the buyer's journey. They don't focus on the sales process. Learning the right customers to target, understanding what information and products your customers want, and when and how they want it. By knowing that information and then giving it to you as the sales professional, you enter the sales process better informed, prepared, and with a deeper understanding of how to sell in a way that your customer wants to buy.
sales enablement is so much more than a set of tools, research, and content.
It's a process, a well-aligned process. Sales enablement ensures that marketing is working with sales, that research is focused on the right customers, and the data and information you receive are aligned with the customers you want to attract.
sales enablement helps sales professionals stay committed to learning and growth.
The sales cycle has changed so much, and sales enablement is a critical piece of ensuring that we as sales professionals have the resources we need to not only meet our goals but to exceed them.
When we think about sales enablement and the value it has to the sales process, we never really talk about the customer and what the value sales enablement has for them. But it's an important subject to discuss, especially if you're just getting started on, or if you're struggling with bringing sales enablement into your organization. Integrating sales enablement, no matter its depth of benefits can be a tough transition.
People, especially salespeople, can be comfortable with how they do things and are resistant to change, even change that has real value. So while your team may not always embrace sales enablement because you want them to, they will often be more willing if they understand the value sales enablement has for their customers because every sales professional knows the happier their customers are, the more they will buy, and the more loyal they will be. Understanding the importance of sales enablement from the customer's perspective and being able to communicate that to your team consistently is one of the most effective ways to help them embrace the concept.
Honestly, it's one of my favorite things about sales enablement, that it's good for everybody. You will definitely have a more productive team and better bottom-line results, but your customers will also see the true value added to their relationship and experience. And the better overall experience is one of the most significant impacts that sales enablement creates for your customers. The moment they start researching products and services, they begin to see the value of sales enablement. They find educational content and information that helps them learn more about your products and services, content that lets them learn and experience what it would be like to work with you, allowing the relationship to form before the sale.
“You will definitely have a more productive team and better bottom-line results, but your customers will also see the true value added to their relationship and experience.”
Sales enablement also takes the customer relationship to a whole new level by engaging customers in improving their journey; using surveys, focus groups, and online tools, customers are given a voice, and a say in improving their experience, making them feel heard, valued, and more like a member of your team. And sales enablement creates a whole new level of involvement for the customer by keeping the sales conversation going.
The tools and strategies of sales enablement proactively look for ways to deepen the relationship by solving more of the customers' challenges and creating new opportunities to do business together. This builds trust and loyalty. Yes, sales enablement is a win for everyone involved: your company, your sales team, and your customers.
If you want to know how organizations are using sales enablement to enhance the customer experience, and how this could help your organization, simply contact our expert.
