Any company with a sales team needs a sales enablement strategy. Sales enablement is all about supporting your sales team to do their best work. It involves both sales and marketing teams, and it tends to cover two key areas:
- The tools, data, training, and resources you give to your sales team to help them sell and close deals.
- The marketing processes that help sales reps sell — think messaging, lead generation, and lead management.
That’s a quick summary of what sales enablement is. But what does sales enablement do for your business? What makes sales enablement important?
Let’s take a closer look.
Why is sales enablement important?
Sales enablement is important for many reasons, including:
Setting your salesforce up for success
When everyone in your sales team has the right training and tools, they become better at what they do. They influence more buyers and close more sales.
Sales enablement is also good for overall team performance. You stop relying on your top salespeople to do the lion’s share of the work, and you equip everyone in sales — from new starts to seasoned staff — with what they need to bring their A-game.
Team alignment
Sales enablement gives your sales reps information from every relevant corner of your company. Marketing, development, product, and finance teams can all share their perspectives.
This means sellers can align their approach with the needs of the whole business and guide customers through the sales process in a way that works for everyone.
Meeting buyer expectations
Buyers are more informed than ever. They get product information, reviews, and pricing information online and expect more than those basics from the salespeople they speak to.
Arming your sales team with the right training means they can better answer queries and convert leads. They can quickly get their hands on unknown information and tailor their approach to the buyer’s needs.
Consistent messaging
With good sales enablement, all sales reps understand the positioning and messaging they need to get across to buyers. This means buyers get a consistent experience across marketing touchpoints and with every member of your sales team.
Consistency is good for building buyer trust in a brand. Buyers can feel confident they’re getting accurate information when they get consistent messaging at every interaction.
This helps convert leads and enables you to hone your sales approach. Plus, tracking metrics to see what works and what doesn’t is much easier when every salesperson sticks to the same playbook.
Greater efficiency
Sales enablement puts a standard sales funnel in place. This saves time because sales reps are never left wondering what to do next.
They know exactly what is required at each stage in the buyer journey, and they know where to find additional information should they need it.
Deep sales team knowledge — of both the product and the company approach — also helps reduce sales cycles. This lets sales teams address customer needs and concerns more effectively, reducing decision-making time.
Focusing on the fundamentals
The basics of good selling, like pre-call planning, call execution, and consulting skills, haven’t changed much over the years.
Good sales enablement allows you to focus on fundamentals and coach your sales team until they know them like the back of their hand. But that doesn’t mean your team can’t adapt. Following sales enablement best practices lets you build upon these solid sales foundations.
By updating processes when things change and sharing new insights into buyer behavior and the competitive landscape, you can set your sales reps up for success.
More supportive managers
Too many companies fail to invest in sales management training. A team is only as good as the person who leads it, and managers have a big impact on staff retention, too.
Management training is part of any good sales enablement strategy. It gives managers the skills and understanding they need to better support the salespeople in their teams.
Providing sales process insights
As we touched on earlier, good sales enablement allows you to gather data and track metrics regarding the sales process. By analyzing this data, you can find new ways to support the sales process and refine your approach.
The top benefits of sales enablement
So, we’ve looked at why sales enablement is important. But what concrete outcomes can you expect when you follow sales enablement best practices?
Here are some key sales enablement benefits:
- Better customer experience – 83% of salespeople say that sales enablement allows them to provide a better experience for customers.
- Consistent brand messaging – When you incorporate sales enablement best practices into your organization, your sales teams are another consistent brand touchstone. They boost brand awareness, recognition, and trust.
- Greater employee satisfaction and retention – Sales enablement gives teams the knowledge and support they need to succeed. A culture of continuous learning makes them feel valued and increases their company loyalty.
Make sales enablement part of your sales strategy
If you want to clinch these sales enablement benefits for your organization, you need to weave enablement seamlessly into your workflow.
Training is a vital part of the process. You’ll need to make sales training part of the onboarding process and incorporate it into your continuous learning plans.
How do you integrate sales training in a way that works for your organization? Moodle can help with that. Our online learning specialists can quickly build a learning management system (LMS) around your company and your needs.
We provide dedicated technical support, integrate with the tools you already use, and craft personalized learning journeys for your employees.
