As the chart below shows, before about 2010 sales enablement didn’t even exist as far as Google search was concerned. Since that time, interest in the term has exploded. Yet despite the popularity of the term, it has yet to develop a clearly defined meaning. Ask 20 sales leaders what they think sales enablement is, and you will likely get (at least) 20 different responses.
At Imagine, we’ve spent much of the last year digging deeply into the issues addressed and the importance of sales enablement. Specifically, we wanted to determine what problems - if any - sales enablement addresses, and who is likely to have those problems. While I certainly don’t want to claim that we have finalized our research, we have reached the point where we are confident in putting forth a clear definition and to definitively answer the question, “Is this something I should be paying attention to?”
These are not “beginner” issues. If your major barriers to growth are poor messaging, lack of content, poor lead generation or inept sales efforts, then sales enablement should not be on your radar right now. Focus on the fundamentals of building a solid demand generation system first.
Efficiency and acceleration are both very important to companies desiring consistent growth (of top and bottom lines) and are very misunderstood. There are several reasons for this, chief among them are:
This is unfortunate because I can say unequivocally that if you are not increasing your efficiency and acceleration, then you are losing ground. Consider the following trends in the overall market:
I could go on, but I think you get my point. A major challenge for small and mid-market companies is that the stakes are growing. For most of the last 50 years, being good was good enough to create real wealth and income; however today being good merely allows you to struggle and compete from one year to the next.
If you’re looking to truly create wealth in a business, or drive solid income growth in service of the business, then you simply must be great. Think about it this way, five years ago:
So increasingly there is this growing void between the strategy and intent of a growth organization and the actual results and return on their efforts. For the first time ever, I’m hearing smart, successful people questioning the real value of proven demand generation tactics. They say things like, “Sure, they’ve made things better and we even have more predictability, but is the energy and effort to execute these programs really worth it?”
If that’s where you find yourself. You’re doing things well. You’re creating good content. You’ve got good salespeople. You know you’ve got product/market fit...then sales enablement should not only be on your radar, it should be at the top of your radar.
There are five key areas that are the focus of an effective sales enablement effort:
Marketing automation mainstreamed the idea of closed loop reporting. While there are still a minority of companies that are actually taking advantage of this capability, most have improved greatly at being able to accurately assess what marketing and demand generation actions are more effective than others.
However, even companies that are closing the loop aren’t monitoring crucial data to determine what’s working and what’s not. Again, marketing automation has created much greater clarity and accountability through the lead generation and management phases, but for most companies, once the lead is turned over to a salesperson, the black box is back. There is virtually no data or metrics on things like:
I could go on (and on and on). In this day, “big”, “little” and “rich” sales decisions are still dominated by gut instincts and opinions. Don’t believe me? Simply look at how much attention is still placed on “closing sales,” and the idea that you need to try to close often. This despite hard data (shared in the book SPIN Selling) that has been around for more than 30 years that completely disproves this belief.
An effective sales enablement approach provides valuable, actionable data from the top of the funnel all the way through the bottom and back again. It enables the right information to be put in the right people’s hands at the right time so that you are able to constantly test and improve every facet of your approach.
While technology will not (and I want to emphasize that it will not) produce success on its own, the lack of or ineffectiveness of technology will drag or destroy an otherwise solid growth program.
Today your technology strategy must be just as strong as your customer development and revenue generation strategy. This means that the vast majority of companies must start looking at their use of technology from a completely different mindset.
Most companies I’ve met make one of three mistakes with their approach to technology:
A clear approach to technology is core to effective sales enablement.
I worked with a company that had 15 people on their sales team. They conducted an audit of sales materials and learned there were more than 37 different versions of the same core sales deck. Every salesperson took the deck provided to them and created multiple versions for various scenarios.
While I certainly understand the desire, and in some cases need, to customize/personalize a presentation to your customer/audience, the problem is that there’s no control or discipline around what changes are made and why; and further, there’s no data to assess what worked and what didn’t to inform leadership so they can improve their overall process.
This lack of message control leads to inconsistency in sales and chaos on the service/delivery side as each customer is given a different promise. This complexity is one of the major causes of stalled growth for growing companies.
An additional challenge faced by companies that have been effectively doing content marketing for some time is that they have a mountain of good content that just sits there without ever being utilized on the sales side. Figuring out how to index, curate and drive effective content utilization through the sales team, and by extension the bottom of the funnel, is one of the top priorities of leading sales organizations.
Good, clean data is (and has been for quite some time) the holy grail of demand generation. Research shows that a good list decays by 22 - 27% per year, and indications are that number will increase. It doesn’t matter how good your message is if you don’t know who to deliver it to.
As content, outreach and the democratization of information increases, what you need to know about your prospects before your first touch is expanding. The strength of your lists is becoming (if it hasn’t already become) the single most valuable asset of a sales organization.
Today only the best sales and marketing organizations pay significant attention to their lists, segmentation and enrichment. Within the next three years, average companies will be (or they won’t be growing).
Research from SiriusDecisions showed that salespeople waste more than 50% of their time on administrative tasks surrounding demand generation. A growing complaint of companies that are are utilizing sales development tactics is the amount of time sales development reps spend on tasks that don’t directly connect to lead generation or conversion.
Additionally, as you implement effective demand generation strategies, the velocity of activity is going to increase. As it does, the complexity you must manage will explode and if you don’t manage that effectively, chaos will dominate.
Enter sales operations. An increasingly important role responsible for managing the core processes and infrastructure surrounding everything that relates to managing an effective and efficient bottom of funnel.
An effective sales operations role requires more than “throwing” someone to manage the administrative tasks associating with your selling process. It means designing the processes and providing the authority to ensure that sales execution stays on the track created to achieve growth targets.
While it would be easy to write off Sales Enablement as today’s buzzword or a passing sales management fad, I’d caution you from taking such a view. Recent research from The Aberdeen Group highlights the emerging advantages strong sales organizations are enjoying.