It’s one of the hottest two-word topics among business-to-business companies these days, and, no, we’re not talking about March Madness.
We’re talking about sales enablement, which can be defined as … well, it depends on who you ask. Developing the perfect sales enablement strategy is almost as impossible as filling out a perfect NCAA tournament bracket, just because there are so many factors to consider.
In simplest terms, sales enablement can be summarized as anything that makes it easier for salespeople to successfully do their job. This can include reporting and analysis, sales content, task automation, training, and more.
Or, as Gartner defines it: “Sales enablement is the process of providing the sales organization with the information, content, and tools that help salespeople sell more effectively.”
That definition sounds great, but also raises more questions. Such as:
- Who owns sales enablement—sales or marketing?
- What are the best practices for messaging and content?
- What kind of technology is best for sales enablement?
Each of these questions merits a longer discussion, but let’s touch on them briefly before exploring a crucial element of sales enablement that too often gets overlooked.
Who owns sales enablement—sales or marketing?
The answer is both. Ideally, sales enablement should be a collaborative effort, representing a big part of both marketing strategy and sales tactics. It’s often marketing’s responsibility to create the content needed for sales enablement, and sales’ responsibility to enforce it.
What are the best practices for messaging and content?
Any content that enhances the buyer experience and increases engagement is effective sales enablement. This means it’s essential to understand the buyer and their challenges, and not provide conflicting or confusing messaging. Call scripts, email templates, customer testimonials/case studies, blog posts, and videos are all ways to deliver this cohesive messaging and represent your brand more clearly.
What kind of technology is best for sales enablement?
There are multiple sales enablement software options on the market and plenty of factors to consider, but two of the most important are ease of use and seamless integration with your CRM. The sales process is challenging enough without introducing complications that widen the learning curve and make it more difficult for salespeople to access vital resources and content when needed.
Of course, the greatest technology in the world won’t matter if it’s not accompanied by genuine human connection. No matter how effective your marketing tools are and how many leads are generated, you still need to keep your prospects engaged throughout the entire buyer’s journey.
Which brings us to what should be one of the most important steps in any sales enablement strategy: outbound calling. From cold calling potential leads to following up on unfinished conversations to nurturing warm leads, the phone keeps prospects moving through the pipeline and absolutely helps salespeople sell more effectively.
Unfortunately, it’s often not being utilized to its fullest extent. While the best salespeople are exceptional at building relationships, demonstrating value, and closing deals, they’re not necessarily as successful at prospecting, which is a whole other skillset.
According to statistics compiled by career planning site Zippia.com, 63 percent of salespeople say cold calling is the least favorite part of their job. And 42 percent of reps say they lack the necessary information to make high-quality cold calls. It’s as if they expect the call to be a failure before they even make it.
Given salespeople’s lack of time, desire, and maybe ability to make cold calls or even warm calls, it’s understandable that they’d ignore certain prospects entirely. Modern marketing automation tools such as Marketo, Pardot, and Hubspot allow companies to rank leads and determine their sales-readiness, which is seemingly great for sales enablement. If leads don’t score high enough, the salespeople might feel like they don’t have to worry about them.
But does a low sales-readiness score mean there’s zero chance the prospect would be interested in buying, or at least learning more?
Of course not. And even if they’re not interested in a particular offering, they might be able to refer the sales rep to somebody else in the company who is.
Point is, no cold or warm lead should be completely written off without some type of human-to-human contact—and the most direct method of that contact is the phone. A first conversation is arguably the best way to determine if a prospect is ready for the next conversation.
Even if a call doesn’t yield the desired result of a scheduled appointment, information can be gathered that increases the chances of subsequent calls being successful. Every call is a potential learning experience.
Remember, the basic definition of sales enablement is anything that makes it easier for salespeople to do their jobs. This includes knowledge obtained during cold calls.
That said, there are plenty of companies that eschew the phone as a sales enablement tool, perhaps because they don’t have enough time, resources, or personnel to use it to its full potential.
That’s where utilizing an outside partner like VSA can help. We know the value of employing the “latest and greatest” tools and technologies, but we also understand that the human voice is still a critical part of a successful sales enablement strategy.
If you’re looking to enhance your sales process this year, give us a call. We can’t help you win your March Madness office pool, but we can certainly help your sales team score more appointments.