It Won’t Work Without Measurement

Before we take a look at the figures that show how much the business can gain by enabling sales, it is essential to stop for a minute. The mentioned numbers would not be available without companies measuring their efforts.

Sounds so fundamental, right? However, you would be surprised how many of them forget about that in the rush of implementing the new workflows. Alternatively, according to our sources from around the online water cooler, each of the stakeholders considers different measures the most relevant and the projects slip on disagreement.

Don’t be that company! Arrive at an agreement with the C-suite on the measures in advance and continuously monitor your KPIs – just as you are already doing it with your targets. Sirius Decision’s State of Sales Enablement 2017 study shows that 57% of the companies use some impact-based measurement of their sales enablement efforts.

Have the Cracks Been Fixed?

So many hard-working hours and good intentions can fall through the cracks if those have not been fixed. Processes tend to erode over time and, before you introduce any new technology or method, they should be checked for faults and fixed.

The most common mistake is letting data gather in different systems that are not integrated with each other. The bottom line is your CRM is well-connected. Even better is a mobile app, combined with the CRM, that can also function as a distribution and command center for sales ops. From a C-suite perspective, that central hub becomes essential when creating the reports, which are only as good as the input of data.

The other well-known phenomenon is the inability to react to changes midst the complexity of the products and customer demand. More complex products require more consultations, and engaging today’s more informed customer requires competent advice all the way through the buyer’s journey.

Numbers, please!

So if everything goes as planned and you have avoided all of the above pitfalls, how far can you get with sales enablement? With 44% of Sales Tech survey respondents stating that failing to get approvement from the C-suite for their sales technology purchases, it is more important than ever to see clearly about the return of such investment. However, sales enablement is even more than tech: it needs to help the organization excel in many ways.

A 67% improvement in closing deals

One of the significant advantages of sales enablement technology is that it can closely align the sales efforts with the marketing operations, e.g., by providing content for all steps of the journey the potential buyer goes through. With this close cooperation, companies can become 67% better at closing deals, as well as grow their revenues 24% faster and their profit 27% faster in three years’ time, according to a Wheelhouse Advisor infographic.  

At least 10% increase in conversions

In their Sales Enablement Practitioner Survey of 2016, Highspot found that half of the respondents could increase their pipeline conversion rates by at least 10%, with 12% of the companies recording an over 30% increase. Higher conversion rates mean the revenue per rep increases, too.

59% of top performers use it

Of those organizations that earned more than their targets, 59% have a dedicated sales enablement function. Moreover, of those that could do even better, achieving a 25% growth compared to goals, 72% had already invested in sales enablement, a Forrester Insights and Brainshark joint report claimed.

17%-21% potential improvement in quota attainment

An essential pillar of sales enablement is training, including the onboarding of new reps. With a dedicated investment in the necessary services through sales enablement, the potential to attain quotas improves by 17.7% for conventional methodology or process training and 21.3% for onboarding, according to the Sales Enablement Optimization Study by CSO Insights.

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Enablement Is More Than Support

Has your marketing team created content (brochures, presentations, photo galleries, white papers, ebooks, blogs, infographics) to support your sales team? If it has: great! But you’re not done just yet. (If you haven’t got such assets, our best advice is to stop reading this article right now and create some.)

Have you ever asked around if the sales agents use those materials? More often than one would think, the answer is no. And the reason, more often than one would think, is: “I have no idea where to find them.” Or, sometimes: “It doesn’t fit my client’s needs, and I have no way to customize it.” In fact, stats show that, although 95% of clients make a buying decision when they get content at each step of their journey, 65% of reps can’t even find the content the clients are expecting and 90% of them avoid using the material they locate because it is outdated and not fit.

Thus, putting the corporate content in a central place is the first step. The next one would be automation. When you have a well-specified workflow, it is quite easy to associate the right content with the right step of the process and offer the agent just the piece he or she needs at the right moment. For example, the sales insurance products always starts with an assessment and most likely goes on with product presentations. Sales enablement automation will make sure the assessment questionnaire is the first content piece an agent sees and that they won’t see any presentations until that questionnaire is clicked through.

Having the content in place is the support that forms the base for enablement, where the material provides a seamlessly integrated background to the sales rep’s work, i.e., using the persuading power, product knowledge, and personalization skills to offer a tailor-made solution to the client’s problems.

Enablement Triggers Efficiency

Sales reps are pushed from two directions to increase their efficiency: the employer wants them to contribute to more profitability while the clients expect them to save their time while helping them make well-informed decisions.

By its very definition, sales enablement does just that: it creates a business-friendly environment by giving the agent all the engagement tools and information that he or she needs to forward the sales process.

If this is too vague, let’s take a closer look. The most critical barrier to efficiency, according to a survey conducted among sales practitioners but also confirming common beliefs, is the time spent in the CRM. However, searching for content is also among the most time-consuming activities. When enabled by technology, sales reps have a more streamlined process for CRM use (as it is integrated into the sales enablement tool), and a central place to look for the content they need for their work. In return, the conversion rates, as a measure of efficiency, have improved at 95% of the companies of the survey mentioned above, at least to some extent.

A sales enablement automation tool also support the sales managers in being more efficient. The technology can log all the processes, all the time measures, and all the content usage, that managers use to inform themselves and make decisions. These logs are then quickly put together into a report and can be automatically sent to the management level. The time previously spent on administration and chasing down reps for the report now can be spent to work on strategic initiatives!

Mobilization Puts the Icing on the Cake

Today, when no technology is binding sales agents anymore to their desks for any tasks, sales enablement cannot be complete without a mobile solution, either. Companies are already investing in mobile technology, hardware and software alike, and it’s just a bonus that some of those solutions have the potential to also enable their sales teams.

The interaction that requires the most support from mobility is the personal meeting. In today’s customer-driven business environment, not being able to respond to a client request immediately and adequately easily becomes a dealbreaker. Meanwhile, a mobile device, equipped with a corporate app specially developed for these sales interactions, is a tool that delivers accurate information to the prospect, in real time.

A mobile sales enablement tool is the sales rep’s Swiss army knife: it has all the functionality for the assessment and the engagement of the prospect, as well as all it takes to contract on-site. What functions are we talking about? We have mentioned questionnaires and product presentations before, but integrated client data, emails, todo-lists (either by the manager or by the agent himself), multimedia, electronic signature, or voice notes. Furthermore, tracking and reporting is also an essential part of any mobile sales enablement tool.

The sales profession has exciting times ahead as the digital transformation allows the traditional interactions to develop in many ways. Technology helps to achieve a sense of purpose again by offering opportunities to win the almighty trust of the prospects. Who, in turn, become more engaged by experiencing a new type of sales activity. As much a higher achievable pay, this engagement will drive the agents’ commitment, too, and motivate them to perform better and better.

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