Why should Organizations Implement Sales Enablement?

Consumer behavior has undergone a complete transformation in recent times. In a dynamic market when the demands of the consumers are changing at a fast pace, it is vital that the sales team adopts strategies that are aligned to the buyer needs. The sales team needs to adopt a fresh innovative approach to delight the customers. The onus is on the organization to equip their sales teams through sales enablement.

What is sales enablement?

Sales enablement is enhancing the efficiency of the sales team by equipping them with the necessary data, tools, technologies, and strategies.

Sales enablement stood at a mere 20% in 2013. But the next few years have witnessed a rise of 60%( Source: Sales Enablement Statistics)

Why has sales enablement become important?

The traditional sales approach was that of sales personnel making cold calls to prospects expecting to generate leads. This was time-consuming and it was also difficult to identify qualified leads.

As technology advanced and the internet became available, it revolutionized the entire marketplace. One of the things that was easily available on the internet was information. And, this transformed the buyer’s journey. The buyers became proactive and started to research on the internet for any product/service they required. They were able to compare the products and make well-informed decisions. They no longer required inputs from salesmen about products. Hence, they stopped entertaining cold calls and other methods by which sales teams approached them.

Did this imply that sales teams have no role to play in the buyer’s decision-making?

The answer to this is NO! Sales personnel could very much become a part of the buyer’s journey if they adopted smart strategies. This is where sales enablement comes in!

The sales teams needed to be taught to give up the obsolete methods of prospecting, lead-generation, and closing and empowered with new tools and technologies to connect with the buyers.

How should an organization implement sales enablement?

• Sales enablement is not just for the sales teams. It warrants the synergistic functioning of the sales and marketing teams. There should be clear communication between sales and marketing and both the teams should work towards a common goal. The sales team is in direct contact with the customer, and so it can provide vital inputs to the marketing team to strategize according to the needs of the customer. A survey indicates that 73% of sales teams say cross-functional collaboration is very important to their overall sales process.
• Assign responsibilities to individual teams.
• You will need to train the teams on how to delight the customer. As an outcome of this training the sales teams should be able to identify the channels their audience is active on and connect with them. The sales team should also listen to the audience and be alert to their needs and fulfill them. The sales training should equip the sales personnel to identify the type of content the audience requires and provide these inputs to the marketing team to create the content.
• Teams also need to be trained on how to harness the large amounts of data available and glean relevant data about their audience.
• According to the nature of business of the organization, the sales enablement training should enable the sales teams to leverage the relevant tools such as information brochures hosting events, etc. that will engage the users. Some of the popular tools being used to delight customers are YouTube videos, podcasts, etc.
• The sales enablement training should be an ongoing process. Regular training programs should be held to ensure that the team is up-to-date with the latest techniques.

Wrapping Up

Although technology has transformed the buyer cycle, the same technology has equipped sales teams with data and tools to delight their buyers. It is the responsibility organizations on how they enable their sales teams to leverage technology and tools through sales enablement.

George Albert is a COO of Sales for Life having years of experience in sales and strategy. Sales for Life is a global sales training company which is helping B2B companies with social selling strategies within their process to increase revenue.