What Is Sales Enablement (and Why Do I Need It?)
As experts in providing sales enablement services to our Fortune 500 clients, we talk a lot about the necessity of a strong sales enablement program. Any company who wants to…
- keep their revenue goals on track,
- maximize the time their sales teams spend on selling,
- and recruit plus retain the very best sales professionals
…will need to invest in a comprehensive sales enablement strategy. But if you’re new to the concept of sales enablement, some of these terms and concepts may be foreign to you. So let’s break it down!
What Is Sales Enablement?
Simply put, sales enablement is anything you do to help your sales team do their jobs effectively. This can range from training and incentive programs to slide decks, promotional leave-behind materials, call scripts, and more. If it helps your sales team do their jobs, it’s sales enablement!
So Wait... Isn’t That Marketing?
Not exactly. Sales enablement tools are a part of your overall marketing effort, but marketing is much broader because it encompasses every point of customer contact. So most of your sales enablement pieces can live under the umbrella of “marketing,” but not all your marketing materials are related to sales enablement.
Why Do I Need Sales Enablement?
In many organizations, sales reps spend only 33% of their time on sales calls. What are they doing instead? Well, up to 25% of the time, they’re working on creating marketing and sales content: drafting emails to clients, creating slide decks from scratch, writing up product descriptions, or even teaching themselves how your products work.
Up to 45% of sales reps say they lose leads due to a lack of internal resources.
In an organization with a focus on sales enablement, the sales team has access to templates, prewritten call scripts that address client questions, comprehensive training so they’re up to speed on all facets of your product offering, and more. When this work is done ahead of time, the sales team always has access to the exact tools they need, when they need them, which makes your sales process more efficient and more effective.
Sales enablement is even more important in our new hybrid work world, which means your sales team is probably working in both virtual and in-person sales environments. The tools they need to thrive in each space are slightly different, and strategic sales enablement will ensure you give your teams the tools they need to be successful.
Remote sales are here to stay: McKinsey reports that 70-80% of B2B customers prefer remote sales interactions and 75% say remote sales are just as effective as in-person.
What Should I Include in My Sales Enablement Toolkit?
To determine which sales enablement tools will work best for you, it’s good to conduct an audit of your existing processes and talk to your sales team about what’s working well for them now. The tools you include will be dependent on the type of business you have, and the size and makeup of your sales team.
After your initial fact-finding, you can begin to create the most basic sales enablement materials (like standardized, on-brand print and web marketing copy and product descriptions) and then move on to more sophisticated enablement tools, including:
- Case studies and customer success stories
- Slide decks to support sales presentations, in-person or virtually
- E-books, white papers, and thought leadership articles to show your expertise
- Branded data sheets that give your sales team and customers a quick overview of all the nuts and bolts of your products
- Talking points or scripts for in-person or phone pitches
- Video content to demo products anywhere, anytime
- Competitor research to help define and highlight your products’ advantages
- Updated training programs for new and existing sales reps to ensure they’re all working from the same playbook when talking to your customers
Looking for an experienced sales enablement team to guide you through the process of auditing your existing procedures and creating these materials? Creatives On Call has dedicated sales enablement experts who can work with you and help to create the tools you will need to maximize your sales team’s effectiveness. Call us today and get started!
