Sales enablement is a framework specific to each company — one size does not fit all.
As such, its implementation and execution across the corporate spectrum vary greatly. If your organization is aiming to improve sales effectiveness, leverage marketing collateral and win deals faster than ever before, a sales enablement program is a productive place to start.
What is sales enablement?
Sales enablement is the process by which sales teams procure all the resources, data, information and tools they need to engage and nurture prospects throughout the buyer journey. With all collateral and insights on hand, sales agents can close deals faster through personalization, automation and innovation — creating relationships competitors can’t.
Check out our in-depth guide for all things sales enablement here.
What are the benefits of sales enablement?
Sales enablement benefits are far-reaching, and can transform under-performing or average sales teams into high-powered units of excellence.
As sales enablement programs are integrated into the fabric of your organization, you inevitably uncover collateral benefits and new opportunities throughout the rest of the business — stretching into the C-suite as well as the marketing, IT and customer service departments.
Below we’ll walk through some of the top benefits of sales enablement and how they can unlock bottom-line ROI:
Marketing and sales unification
The ultimate dream of every director or executive is total transparent collaboration between marketing and sales teams for mutual gain. This is only a pipedream for some companies, but not yours.
At its core, sales enablement requires the full participation and integration of marketing and sales processes from end to end. They are two sides to the same coin.
Granted, dissolving silos and getting everyone to play on the same team is easier said than done without the proper tools and protocols in place. A sales enablement platform, for instance, is the glue holding the two departments together.
A platform that serves as a single source of truth for all marketing collateral, customer insights and sales data means everything a sales agent or lead-gen specialist needs is housed in a centralized location. So it’s in everyone’s best interest to keep this index updated.
We’ve seen a 300% increase in content usage through the implementation of a sales enablement platform, allowing all of the investments that went toward content creation to live on forever as your assets are shared with prospects. You already paid for it, right? So get your money’s worth!
Sales efficiency
It might go without saying, but a chief benefit of sales enablement is that your sales teams operate more efficiently on a technical level.
Sales enablement data can be integrated with existing CRM and DAM systems. Every process change or strategic realignment you make within your sales department can easily be scaled as needed. You don’t have to worry about contrasting data sets or time spent manually updating various software.
The result is that you can spend more time actually selling than on data entry. Reduced overhead, less admin and more uptime — a win, win, win.
Cross-selling and upselling
Sales enablement initiatives produce immediate returns in the form of cleaner workflows, closer collaboration and greater opportunities at point of sale (or pre-sale). They also empower you to cross-sell, upsell and re-sell existing customers, broadening sales enablement’s impact and driving commercial value.
For example, it’s not uncommon for companies to see a 40% uptick in cross-sells and upsells after deploying an effective sales enablement reboot.
Empowering sales managers
Sales managers are the key implementers of sales enablement, so their buy-in is crucial.
Strategic coaching and training of reps takes months, and ongoing professional development is an annual pursuit. A productive sales enablement program — backed by sophisticated, user-friendly technology — empowers managers to hire better and ramp faster.
We’ve noticed a 60% reduction in new-hire ramping and 30% decrease time spent on admin.
Sales enablement platforms are pre-loaded with self-service tools, asynchronous learning modules and interactive developmental milestones, taking the burden off sales managers who would otherwise do all the heavy lifting.
Intelligent buyer interactions
Depending on where prospects currently are in the funnel, their content needs change: blogs and infographics up top, then case studies and customer testimonials further down.
But how do you manage each touchpoint? How do you personalize every customer journey? How do you know you’re approaching every sales conversation with the intelligence and foresight you need?
It’s sales enablement’s job to answer these questions.
Sales enablement programs work because they remove guesswork and “do what you can with what you have.” Powered by intuitive sales data, you have complete confidence and control over every sales interaction, so you can steer prospects in the right direction, target them with the right language and correctly address their pain points.
This is accomplished through data profiles like:
- Behavioral personas
- Firmographics
- Content performance metrics
- Channel analytics
- Prospect interest
- Goal completions
When your sales enablement efforts are powered by data, the sales process is optimized for complete success from start to finish.
Implement a sales enablement program today
Recording sales enablement ROI starts with a platform and an integration.
Showpad’s innovative sales enablement solutions combine a host of powerful features like AI, native search functionality, in-app analytics and seamless integrations into a single tool. Sales agents reap the benefits of sales enablement as soon as they log in, with granular access to every piece of marketing content and customer data they could ever need to hit or exceed quota.
Plus, sales managers can fuel their teams’ success by leveraging best-in-class sales coaching tools that drive efficiency across the board.
For more information on making sales enablement work for your organization, contact Showpad today.
