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Most sales leaders wish that C-level executives would view sales enablement as a necessity, not just an amenity for teams; but to get buy-in from the top can take some work. In a perfect world, enablement would just be a standard line-item on the go-to-market spreadsheet. 

But we don’t live in a perfect world.

It’s often a grueling uphill battle for sales leaders trying to make a case for sales enablement to hard-nosed CFOs and other execs.

All too often, sales leaders are forced to build their case for enablement from scratch — articulate its value, paint a picture of the enablement function, and present evidence why hiring one enabler is better than just pouring that money into even more BDRs.  

If you don't have enablement as part of your current system (but you know it's a good idea - because it IS a good idea), here's how you build a business case for sales enablement so that you can get buy-in from your CFO.

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.

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.

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.

How do you measure the effectiveness of your sales enablement program?

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.

Sales enablement and sales training, while certainly related, are certainly not the same thing.

Peloton is a tech / fitness company launched in 2012 and is reportedly now approaching an $8 billion evaluation. In addition to being wildly successful, they’re the first company to break the SoulCycle cult, surpassing their active users in Q4 2018.

'Tis the season to be shopping. Not just for your friends and family, but spending some cash to supercharge your sales team.

Maybe you have end-of-year budget to spend, or you’re planning your sales tech spend for 2020.

Where sales tech should you buy?

How do you onboard new sales reps who aren't in the office? That are remote?

What do you mean you don't have a sale onboarding process in place? Are you kidding me? Every one of you, you need to have a sales onboarding process in place.

How do you reverse engineer the building of a sales onboarding program, such that it completely aligns with your company goals?

Any good sales rep will tell you – the most valuable resource they have is time.

Which is why it’s absolutely critical to both understand and improve your sales productivity.

And sales enablement is the team best poised to help.

What if you could improve ramp time by 5-20% next year? What financial impact would this have?

How do you improve your sales onboarding programs over time?

What metrics should you be measuring specifically to really determine if your sales onboarding program is actually succeeding?

How do you quickly create an effective sales onboarding process? Hard thing to do for sure, and many times it’s just knowing where to start and what you want to do.