Your sales agent is going all out to convince a prospect to make a purchase and is about to seal the deal when the prospect asks your agent — how have other clients benefited from the product?
The agent manages to mention a few client names but is unable to come up with specific numbers to show how the product has added value to other clients.
In a situation like this, all your agent needs are internal resources and tools to close the deal — unfortunately, many times that is not readily available with them. According to a recent report, 36% of sales teams say that they are not equipped with enough resources and material to sell effectively. 26% of sales agents feel that their sales training is ineffective.
However, if you have a good sales enablement strategy in place, you can equip your sales reps to sell better.
What is sales enablement?
Sales enablement is the process where a company provides its salespeople with all the necessary resources that they need to sell a product or service effectively. These include helpful tools, skills, training, content and education. This process involves working together with other departments in your company like the marketing department to enable salespeople to pitch successfully to prospects and convert them into customers.
For instance, the marketing department prepares blog posts, case studies, tutorials and other resources that salespeople can use when they talk to customers. The marketing department also puts together training or onboarding material and provides continuous training so that your sales agents understand how to access and use the resources that are provided to them. Studies indicate that when sales and marketing teams work in unison, it can help your business become 67% more efficient at closing deals.
With the necessary resources in hand, your sales reps will be better equipped to handle any queries that may arise during client meetings.
Businesses are in dire need of sales enablement, now more than ever, as today’s customers are looking for a personalised pitch from sales agents.
Nearly 32% of sales managers say that customers expect salespeople to have a good understanding of their business and the problems they face. Sales enablement offers sales reps the context they need concerning each customer and the solutions to their unique problems. 66% of customers want companies to understand their needs and expectations.
Sales enablement aligns the sales, marketing and customer support teams to increase sales efficiency and produce a higher return on investment.
Here are some statistics that show the importance of sales enablement:
- 84% of sales reps hit their quotas when their company builds a good sales enablement strategy
- Companies that have implemented a sales enablement strategy see a 49% win rate on forecasted deals
- Companies with a sales enablement strategy in place see a 6-20% increase in sales.
Sales enablement is customer-centric, it’s all about giving buyers what they want.
How to incorporate a successful sales enablement strategy in your organisation?
A sales enablement strategy empowers your sales reps to sell better. The strategy created must blend into the larger sales strategy of your company.
Here are 7 steps to building a successful sales enablement strategy:
a) Evaluate the sales process
To build a good sales enablement strategy you need to ensure that you are building it on a strong foundation. If the steps in your sales process are redundant, enabling your sales team will be a challenge.
When you review your sales process, you will identify where your reps are excelling and where they need to work harder. You may observe that your reps are taking far too long to convert leads. Or you may notice that they spend too much time on unqualified leads. By asking the right questions and identifying issues, you will understand what you need to work on.
For instance, if your salespeople are taking longer than expected to close deals, you can update your sales tool and automate a few of the time-consuming administrative tasks.
b) Know your buyer
Effective sales enablement strategies are built on customer data. Customer data will give you all the information you need on which leads you should target and what content to give them. It will help you make accurate and informed decisions.
A CRM tool is necessary to boost productivity and processes. By implementing one, you can track metrics that are important to both marketing and sales teams and it will help answer important questions about your customer, that will help you create a buyer persona.
Based on the information that you gather from your interactions with buyers, you can create a successful sales enablement strategy.
c) Work alongside other departments
Sales enablement is not the work of only the sales department but involves the sales, marketing and customer support teams. Salespeople don’t collaborate with the marketing team regularly and nearly 40% of marketers are left in the dark when it comes to the type of content the sales teams want them to create. Due to the communication gaps, sales reps miss out on presenting relevant content to customers. Marketing material may exist, but prospects don’t get to see the content because of the lack of communication between sales and marketing teams.
d) Improve the quality of the sales content
Audit existing content to see if there are any gaps in it. You need to have enough content ready that covers all the stages of a customer’s journey so that your sales reps are prepared to offer relevant information to buyers.
It’s good to document questions that are frequently asked by buyers. You may be tempted to quickly prepare individual pieces of content to answer these questions. However, the best way to go about it is to integrate it into your larger content marketing strategy with the help of the marketing team.
It’s pointless to create sales content if it never gets used. The content created should be visible and accessible to all. It’s important to track and analyse each piece of content. Identify which ones are leading to conversions and which ones need to be worked on to generate better results.
e) Implement sales enablement tools
Sales enablement tools give reps information about each buyer, helping them stay equipped to hold engaging sales conversations. It simplifies work for your reps by automating manual tasks which were otherwise eating into their time. These tools will help you identify the kind of content that will add the most value to buyers. Remember to involve your team in the process of selecting the software. It’s crucial to let the team know why you are adopting new software and how it will help them achieve their sales goals.
f) Revamp sales training
Training your agents on how to adapt to the sales industry is as essential as providing effective sales enablement tools. The sales process is constantly evolving and you need a sales training program that keeps up with the times.
Sales training should aim to develop certain key skills like critical thinking, self-motivation and empathy to enhance selling opportunities.
g) Review and optimise your strategy for better performance
Evaluate your sales enablement strategy from time to time to improve performance. Monitor the progress by asking these questions:
What went well with our efforts and what did not?
What factors led to our success?
Where did we fall short?
After collating all the answers from your team, redefine and enhance your sales enablement strategy and implement the new and improved version of it.
Time to build a sales enablement roadmap
Empower your sales teams with the content and resources they need to succeed at selling. Sales enablement is vital to your organization to boost growth and revenue.
If you’re looking to power your sales teams then get started with Unomok today – it’s the all-in-one platform that will turn routine tasks into games and keep your reps engaged all the way!