Sitting in Google drives, SharePoints, and laptop folders across the world, collecting digital dust and just waiting to see the light of day, are hundreds of enablement programs that were initially meant for day-long, in-person training sessions.
But let’s face it – they aren’t going to happen any time soon.
Sales enablement is a broad term that covers a wide gamut of efforts, ultimately aimed at driving more revenue. This includes stuff like tools and processes, but also content, coaching frameworks, and practice spaces for sales to get better at their jobs.
There are several stages involved in implementing a sales enablement program. You need to create a hypothesis, get all stakeholders on board, and roll it out effectively. Once the process is in motion, there's another crucial phase — proving it works. Or, if it's not working, to quickly identify the problem and go back to the drawing board. What follows are some guidelines on how to show that sales enablement is working, and how to make improvements in any areas that need tweaking.
Last week I was lucky enough to sit down and “moderate” (read: shoot the breeze with some cool people) a panel discussion between Matt Biggerstaff, CSM at Gong, Adriana Romero, Sales Enabler at Clearbanc, and our senior CSM here at LevelJump, Becca Shaffer.
There are several key steps to building a successful digital sales enablement program. The most exciting part, however, is actually shipping the program so you can see it in action. The way it’s executed will have a major effect on how it’s received and the results you see. Here are some best practices and common mistakes to avoid to ensure you build a scalable sales enablement strategy that meets your objectives and drives revenue.
All too often, enablement managers design programs reactively, based on an ad-hoc requests sales leaders toss their way. It inevitably ends up being random acts of enablement, rather than a deliberate sales enablement strategy.
Who doesn't like scavenger hunts? We'll do you one better: what if the next scavenger hunt could help you save significant resources and play a vital role in your sales enablement process?
That might sound a bit extreme.
But that's exactly what a content scavenger hunt can do.
Sales enablement is the process of building a comprehensive program designed to provide your sales team with the content and tools they need to close more deals. From training materials and product information, to highly effective email templates, competitor battlecards, and much more, content is an important part of the process to help your team drive more revenue.
But it’s bonkers expensive and takes ages to build. On average, marketers spend about 26% of their budget on content.
So a big part of being an effective enabler is learning to use what you’ve got. And a scavenger hunt can help you surface existing content across your organization, enabling you to leverage it into better sales training and optimization.
That's right: no new content required. Instead, follow these 4 steps to run an effective content scavenger hunt that can lead to almost immediate ROI.
In order to effectively implement digital enablement, it's imperative to get all the essential stakeholders on board. Without buy-in throughout your organization, it will be difficult to roll out your digital enablement strategy. But obtaining the necessary support can seem like a daunting task when you need to convince a diverse group of people, each with their own viewpoints and objections. With the right preparations, however, you can convey the benefits of your position and secure the support you need.
When it comes to training your sales reps to be successful in the digital, agile, modern world, it might seem like there are a lot of different kinds of tools to help them do that.
As you might have noticed, podcasts are sort of a thing. And you also might have noticed, there’s an awful lot of chaff in that wheat.
So we did the hard work for you and rounded up the 22 best sales podcasts we could find. These podcasts vary from pure tactics and the latest trends, to management expertise and insightful tips backed by years of experience.
Get ready to smash that subscribe button 22 times in a row.
There was a clear trend of remote working even before COVID. Global Workplace Analytics reported in 2019 that in the last decade and a half, the remote working population has grown 11% faster than the rest of the workforce. This also applies to sales companies and teams, where in the US, about half of all sellers are now on inside sales teams.
It’s QBR season again. Normally this would mean getting all of your sales reps and sales leadership into one room for 8 hours (sometimes for more than one day) to recap the previous quarter and plan strategies for the next one.
But this year, things have been different. Due to COVID, many teams will be running virtual sales QBRs.
Sales QBRs don’t have a great reputation even at the best of times. They are not always known to make waves, and many leaders and SDRs often view them as an obligatory exercise that comes with the job, like the occasional dinner with your in-laws. This will make your virtual sales QBR all the more challenging.
It sometimes feels like sales enablement suffers from middle child syndrome. Leadership is quick to shower sales reps and marketing with attention, and forgets all about sales enablement.
But as a sales enablement manager, if you want your efforts to get noticed, you have to build a business case for yourself. And that means showing your efforts have had an influence on revenue.
This is part 1 of a 4 part series on CS onboarding & enablement. Stay tuned for part 2 next month!
Millennials are no longer just a part of the workforce. They are the workforce. 56% of US workers are millennials today, and that number will grow to 75% in the next 10 years.
The COVID pandemic has validated what we already suspected:
Modern enterprise runs on video.
Streamlining internal communication for newly-remote teams, video conferencing solutions have gained widespread adoption. Long a weapon of choice for tech and SaaS sales teams, video solutions like Zoom are now being used by virtually every sales organization.
Summary: non-native apps integrate with Salesforce using APIs, and that can cause problems. If tieing enablement to revenue is important, then a Salesforce native app built on Force.com is the way to go.
We’re big fans of Gong.
In fact, I’d go as far to speculate wildly and say that Gong is possibly our favourite sales tool.
But that’s not why we partnered with them earlier this year to bring together outcome-based enablement and revenue intelligence.
We did it because revenue intelligence solutions, combined with LevelJump programs that tie enablement to revenue, is a killer combo.
And because it’s so cool, I thought it’d be worth sharing how our customers are using it.
Check it out.
Summary: taking your sales academy digital isn’t an impossible task. Start with the sharpest pain, ship programs quickly, get executive buy-in, reuse your existing content, and be bold – you can probably digitally enable more than you think.
