In today’s competitive business environment, sales professionals need to leverage data to position their services and excel in their job. The constant flow of information can become overwhelming, without a strategy in place to filter information and turn it into an asset. Sales enablement covers the technology, processes and content which will help sales teams make the most of this data and allow them to work more effectively. 

Why your business needs sales enablement

Consumer buying behaviour has fundamentally changed since the internet has become the most popular source of information. Your potential customers typically go through more than 70% of the buying decision process before they even talk to your sales team. Before contacting the sales rep, customers are therefore already equipped with plenty of information, so what they want from your sales team is added value.  Also, any inconsistency between what they learnt online and what the sales team say may lead to confusion or distrust in your brand. 

It’s crucial that you align sales and marketing within your organisation, and get both teams working together. The way you do that is through an effective sales enablement strategy to allow your business to stay ahead of today’s empowered buyers. To succeed in this changing consumer landscape, your organisation’s sales team will need effective, robust processes and impactful content. 

How can your business benefit from sales enablement? 

Sales enablement can allow your business to improve performance at every stage of the sales process.  

Create an effective Sales and Marketing Service-Level Agreement 

Having measurable goals in place will help to align your staff behind a set of shared goals. In the context of sales enablement, your goals are, of course, going to focus primarily on revenue, and a service-level agreement (SLA) will allow sales and marketing to fully understand their role in achieving those goals. 

An SLA represents a two-way agreement, with marketing having to generate a certain number of leads and sales having to contact those leads within certain timeframes, with both teams becoming jointly accountable to reaching the set revenue goal. An effective sales and marketing SLA will require both teams to determine together roles, responsibilities, process, targets and accountability. 

Qualifying leads and targeting your ideal customers 

Sales enablement can help your sales team target the leads that are most likely to convert. Focusing on the right prospects will improve your sales’ team efficiency and allow them to focus on those leads that will be a good fit for your company.  A lead scoring system will then allow your team to assign points to contacts or companies, indicating whether they are a good - or a bad fit. 

Organising data and standardising reporting 

Prospects tend to spend a lot of time interacting with your website and content before they even speak to a salesperson. Implementing inbound marketing tactics can, therefore help your business capture essential information about your prospects.  

Organising the data your marketing team captures can provide your sales team with valuable insights on who the leads are, their previous touch-points with the business, as well as revealing individual characteristics and interests. This data will allow sales to personalise conversations and add value from the get-go.   

Companies will also gain more insights from standardised sales reports on activities logged by salespeople, generated leads and won and lost deals. Having systems and standardised processes in place will allow you to turn data into a true asset. 

Optimise valuable sales content  

A content strategy is a key element of any effective sale enablement strategy. In many companies, marketers tend to be solely responsible for the generation of content. However, input from other teams can create richer value-driven content. Your sales team, for example, is probably also producing content, even if they don’t refer to it as that.  

Centralising all existing sales content into one location can ensure sales and marketing have quick and easy access to resources, such as customer case studies, whitepapers and eBooks, product demo decks, pricing and discount information and more - meaning they can give that all-important added value.

Using technology and automation to improve productivity 

Automating sales processes can save valuable time and allow sales professionals to concentrate their efforts on the activities that bring the most value to your business. This will empower your team to sell better and sell faster. 

• Craft automated follow up email sequences to chase up leads who haven’t responded in a while. 
• Automate prospecting by sending your leads a link to your calendar, where they can schedule appointments, allowing you to talk to those that are more likely to convert. 
• Set up a live chat function on your website that will allow your sales team to talk to prospects who are on your website, looking for more information about your business. 

There is so much you can do to empower your sales team to sell more efficiently, and to drive revenue growth. If you are looking for help with setting up a leading CMS or to develop a solid process for qualifying leads, we'd love to discuss how we can help - why not speak to one of our team today?