From assessing channel distribution and performance to determining optimal go-to-market strategy, headcount, channel and e-commerce distribution, skills and competencies, a comprehensive review of placement has been initiated and can now be completed with sales enablement.
Sales enablement involves engaging sales teams and the entire organization to address the market, identify opportunities, and close deals. It requires implementing numerous tools and operational mechanisms to streamline business activities. CRM systems, sales operating mechanisms, shipment, installation, and all back-office operations that are part of the sales ecosystem must be established and activated. These elements are what make your sales organization efficient.
By measuring sales performance, the entire sales ecosystem is assessed. Revenues and profitability are derived from the collective efforts of many individuals, both in the back office and the front office. The variety of tools and methods employed underscores their importance in enhancing overall performance and success.
Numerous tools and methods are proposed online, often by CRM companies, consulting firms, and others offering services. The section below on “further reading and tips” may prove useful from that perspective.
Many aspects of sales enablement cover topics already mentioned in the Placement mix. For example, sales training becomes a solution for driving sales efficacy, enhancing the collective knowledge of the sales team, and reinforcing mentoring and other positive behaviors.
Sales enablement addresses two essential needs: increasing revenues and reducing costs, both of which contribute to improved profitability.
When assembling a team responsible for Sales Enablement, you will need resources capable of handling marketing, commercial operations, quality, and capable of navigating across multiple functions and data sources to identify growth opportunities. Multiple corrective paths will need to be deployed in parallel, becoming sources for reconsidering tools and methods—for instance, CRM, sales operating mechanisms, training, marketing, and the go-to-market approach. Fortunately, there are some approaches that work well and can simplify this work.
A CRM simply focused on identifying sales activities and creating reports for management is surely missing the mark.
The CRM must support the information streams that permeate company functions. When done well, all functions—marketing, sales, manufacturing, service, and others—can be fully aligned to support and drive sales.
The primary mission for a CRM is transparency. All teams can share up-to-date information and help make decisions faster and better. There is a constraint on sales teams to properly report sales activities and ensure the latest information is available to colleagues and support teams. Behaviors where information is not shared and is concealed can lead to incorrect decisions. Sales individuals must be convinced that information can be shared clearly and simply, similar to meeting a colleague in a corridor and sharing a two-minute brief update.
Incorrect, unreliable information creates issues for all and must be addressed without mercy. Constructing a CRM system that can be trusted by all is essential. While ideal scenarios maximize effectiveness, the reality is that errors will occur, and information will likely be incomplete or incorrect. Ensure to correct the data initially and train individuals to do things right the first time. Avoid creating alternative lenses where instead of correcting data, additional filters are implemented, creating an environment where information is deemed unreliable and untrustworthy.
A well-designed funnel helps clarify the various steps from opportunity identification and validation to deal closure. These multiple steps must be well designed to allow marketing, pricing, sales support, manufacturing, shipment, and all other support functions to take appropriate actions and effectively support sales.
The revenuegrid.com site shares the Miller Heiman steps:
https://revenuegrid.com/blog/miller-heiman-sales-process/
There are at least two actions to promote among salespersons.
Even before an opportunity is identified, salespersons can work with potential customers and discuss needs and solutions. Customers in an early phase of discussion are often very open to discussion and can be sensitive to arguments that are otherwise difficult to share when multiple companies provide discordant messages. Coming early is a strong advantage that the best salespersons know how to capture.
The quality of the funnel. Measuring the funnel across the sales team and by individual is an opportunity to discuss with those who do not communicate their opportunity in time and don’t update those open. They tend to share very high win rates because few opportunities are actually mentioned in their funnel. Those individuals who claim high win rates often declare their territory is too small and targets are difficult to achieve. Ensure to evaluate the true market size not from what is available in the CRM; it is probably wrongly updated by your salesperson, but through external data use. Using a waterfall can be an approach to discuss the full scale of the market to be converted to opportunities and then to wins. It works well with both direct and indirect sales distribution.
Implementing a sales rhythm where events are orchestrated, allowing one-to-one reviews with managers and team reviews, is essential.
This article provides insights: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sales-rhythm-business-finding-beat-success/
Making a list of these meetings is crucial, and setting an agenda is the manager’s responsibility.
One-to-one meetings between manager and employee: these meetings can involve reviews of activity funnels, past deals, sharing field learning about competition, identifying training needs, setting targets, and early planning in the quarter with detailed reviews of key prospects and the need for assistance.
Team reviews with manager and team: discussions on key insights from the market and competition, topics of interest for the sales team, marketing plans, new products/solutions, annual plans, and team training. Multiple opportunities exist for discussion across teams with the manager.
These various meetings must remain short and effective. Sharing one topic at a time in a team meeting can be a waste of time for many. Ensure all individuals feel the meeting is instructive and useful to them. Multiple short meetings can be more effective than one long meeting.
We have already addressed this topic in a special section. There is no doubt that sales training is essential, and multiple opportunities exist to facilitate knowledge and expertise growth among a salesforce. Interestingly, one-to-one meetings and team reviews are excellent opportunities for sharing best practices or pieces of learning.
Improving efficacy by addressing sources of inefficiency that drive increased costs and non-quality is crucial. Quality initiatives must receive high attention.
Ensure that these activities are handled by individuals capable of supporting sales, marketing, and support functions while managing numerous data points. It is essential to free up time for the sales team so they can spend more time with customers than internally with support teams.
There are many different definitions of sales enablement that have strong marketing appeal. We invite you to search the web for descriptions of what sales enablement covers as a function of the company covering that topic.
Another marketing term is “sales activation,” but this term seems to have taken on a somewhat narrow sense recently, where focus and attention are directed towards selected customers more likely and capable of purchasing their own solutions, with sales armed with appropriate sales and marketing messages to address and close deals focusing on those customers. This approach is unfortunately narrow-minded, as attention is mostly driven by short-term objectives. Mastering such an approach is key, but without unduly losing ground in other segments and losing market share to competition.
Microsoft recommendations are quick and easy to read. Many of the benefits relate to using data appropriately across sales and support functions and leveraging AI. There are, of course, more benefits to expect from sales enablement. A good synthesis article can be found at this location:
https://dynamics.microsoft.com/en-us/sales/sales-enablement/
Here is an article with many good points on sales enablement. Of course, sales enablement must be adapted to your own company and environment. This article covers many concrete aspects of sales enablement. With this presentation, it details many of the people and operating mechanisms to evaluate how to improve sales enablement. It is probably very sales-centric, but you can consider the same from the perspective of other functions:
https://www.zendesk.fr/blog/sales-enablement/
Gartner introduces important concepts related to sales enablement. Their presentation is very complementary to other presentations mentioned in this section. A very good read where sales is clearly a part of what a company has to offer to its customers:
https://www.gartner.com/en/sales/topics/sales-enablement
Salesforce defines Sales enablement mainly by the approach to support and train the sales persons to achieve more and better. This is clearly another definition for Sales enablement:
https://www.salesforce.com/blog/what-is-sales-enablement/
Here is a very clear presentation of the Miller Heiman approach. As shown here, this is a recognized methodology for large and complex deals with multiple decision makers—to be identified:
https://revenuegrid.com/blog/miller-heiman-sales-process/
When dealing with the internet, many articles can be found on sales enablement. The trick is that this is not only about sales; it includes many other functions, those in the frontline facing customers and those who support and collaborate with the first line of customer contact.
Sales enablement is a large and complex topic with many components. When discussing with various companies, the answers you will get will probably be a function of what those companies can offer you. The first rule is, in fact, to question oneself on the need and the “why”.
Handling this not just as a sales question but as a company strategy is essential. Multiple teams contribute to the sales operations and are part of the microcosm of sales. Ensuring this complex organization with multiple heads works simply with little friction and full efficacy requires coming back to the essential objectives and the mission of the company, no less.
Ensure to identify issues early and find resolution paths promptly. The worst scenarios occur when multiple causes impact a process because no action was taken in time when just one cause was to be addressed. Speed and efficacy are key to addressing issues.
Sales enablement is company enablement. Sales is the visible part of your company organization to customers. A healthy organization, where sales are successful, is an organization where all functions are successful.
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Sales enablement should be viewed as a journey. If a plan was established years ago, it is reasonable to compare its outcomes with initial expectations—similar to the approach used by sales benchmarking tools.
Be sure to analyze the sales benchmark, assess progress achieved since its initial development, and consider future improvements needed for continued growth.
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