For any team of salespeople to succeed and live up to their highest potential, having a foundation of sales enablement is of paramount importance. This is what you, as an entrepreneur, would need, if you are looking for creating a team of salespeople who would have the skills to close deals seamlessly.
Sales enablement is a dynamic force. In more ways than one, it is a long-term plan dedicated towards helping entrepreneurs solve the increasing amount of challenges that they face while running their businesses.
So, let us take a linear approach towards understanding this substructure of sales that will accelerate the rate of success and eventually kick your business to the zenith of where you want it to reach.
What is Sales Enablement?
Sales enablement refers to the continuous strategic process of providing sales teams with the training, guidance, and material they require to efficiently engage existing and potential customers.
The analytics derived from the sales enablement process helps the marketing and sales team to assess the current and future situation ahead of them. Through this statistical data, they drive insights that eventually help generate revenue leading to optimization of their business.
It serves as the nucleus around which salespeople formulate their sales strategies to win more business. In other words, sales enablement can be viewed as a prolonged approach that is derived through an amalgamation of training, strategy, and technology.
You know how professional athletes can reach their optimal level when supplied with the best training arena, best coaching, best footwear, and best sports gear? In a similar fashion, sales representatives can only contribute towards enhancing their business when they have the apt set of knowledge and tools required to optimize sales which is possible through sales enablement.
Why is Sales Enablement Important?
The sales process is no walk in the park. From the pressure of constantly updating oneself with new launches to hitting quotas, from managing customer relationships to keeping up with the sales trends, it is no less of a Herculean effort that sales reps have to put up with regularly.
Not to mention, they always have to maintain a line of communication not only with their customers but also with their marketing managers, sales managers, product managers, and other support teams. So, as you can guess, they can use all the help here to thrive in this whirlwind.
Sales enablement helps sales representatives in cutting through all this noise and focusing on the task at hand while also actively listening to what truly matters.
It should be noted that sales enablement is not just about educating your salespeople about your product or service or teaching them how to sell or helping them learn value proposition. It is about empowering them to bring in more business directly and to let them drive the task at hand.
It has been recognized by the busiest business minds in the world as a valuable entity and the statistics back it. In 2021, reports suggested that there has been a whopping 343% increase in the adoption of sales enablement in the last five years.
How is Sales Enablement Practiced?
When finding the answer to how to employ sales enablement in your organization, you have multiple ways to go. The route that you take will depend on the scale of your business and how much time, effort, and resources you are willing to afford to the cause.
Sales enablement focuses on sharpening the already existing skills of sales representatives while also helping them adopt new ones that will help them create a successful sales campaign.
With these in mind, sales enablement is practiced through the following courses of action:
Prioritizing the Customer’s Experience
Once the goals and objectives of the sale campaign have been set, your first line of action in the sales enablement process is putting the experience of your customers on the threshold of every activity.
This is done by allowing the customers to know who the seller is and making them feel part of the sales journey so that they feel valued. When you map out the needs and aspirations of your clients, you will be able to make effective sales pitch.
Training Fluidly and Continuously
Sales enablement is a continuous process that would relentlessly encourage you to push your horizons. If training is spaced out at huge intervals or is irregular, then it runs the risk of salespeople not retaining what they learned last time. This is why sales enablement tends to be a continuous cycle.
Usually with one formal coaching every month, alongside circulating information through newsletters, the continuity ensures salespeople are always at the top of their game.
Supplying High-Quality Content
Mass communication is one of the core elements of sales enablement content dishing strategy. When you can impart information on a large-scale basis in a controlled environment, you are more than likely to grab the attention of your target audience.
So, providing related content that will lead the way for the buying process is one of the most well-known practices of sales enablement.
Statistically Defining Customer Engagement
Sales enablement thrives on statistical insights into customer patterns, actions, and behaviors. You can only maintain a proactive relationship with your customer if you know at kind of mind space they are in.
This is why sales enablement relies on tools like CRM (Customer Relationship Management) that help break down the engagement level of your customers. Information on these analytics will help shape your future endeavors by knowing what approach to take while dealing with your customers.
Who Owns Sales Enablement in an Organization?
In an organization, sales enablement is a collaborative joint effort between marketing and sales departments who have to work side-by-side to reach the end goal.
Whether it is defining the guidelines or mapping out the training process or creating content, both the marketing and sales team have to mutually brainstorm and come to an understanding of how to best utilize their resources.
While the marketing team acts as the creator of the information, the sales team handles how to operationalize that same piece of information to make the sales campaign a success.
At the end of the day, it is not a tug-of-war of ownership between the marketing and sales departments. They have to work as allies with the same end goal. Combining the power of sales and marketing will only result in maximizing their potential.
How CloudFiles Aids in Sales Enablement?
Consider sales enablement as a project, and we all know certain tools can come in handy in the completion of a project. CloudFiles is that tool for you in this case. Being one of the best CRM tools in the market, CloudFiles acts as a stimulator for sales enablement by strengthening your connection with both your existing as well as your potential clients.
One of the crucial features that make sales enablement so effective is its reliance on statistical insights. CloudFiles is built with the intention of letting salespeople provide a wholesome experience for their clients.
The analytics provided by Cloudfiles – right from the number of times your client opens, views, and downloads a content shared by you to how much time is spent on each content – helps sales representatives relate on a more personal level with the customers. As such, the correspondence offered by them yields more positive results.
Thus, CloudFiles essentially acts as a catalyst for fast-tracking the procedure of turning prospective clients into actual clients while also gaining customer loyalty from the existing clients. Serving as a chain between the needs of your customers and your product or service, it will help you create relevant content that will actually sell and put your brand on the map.
With this by your side, you will be able to keep a close watch on every facet of your business all the while collaborating on deals and ensuring the fulfillment of seasonal sales goals.
Final Thoughts
The disciplinarian mechanism of sales enablement makes it a reliable and trusted approach in the formulation of sales strategy. Evidently, the top-notch companies around the globe are leaving no stones unturned to ensure that their sales representatives are caught up with everything the concept of sales enablement has to offer to them.
This cross-functional strategical element has proven to enhance productivity and generate sales, which is why so many salespeople and front-line sales managers swear by it. Including this in your sales strategy is an absolute no-brainer because in this never-sleeping, competitive world we reside in today, you need all the tools to equip yourself to stay in tune, if not ahead, of your peers.