Explore how well your sales and growth marketing operations are aligned and how sales enablement processes can positively impact your business’s bottom line by helping your sales teams win more deals.

if you provide sales teams with the right materials, tools, and resources they need to convert leads, they’ll close more deals and drive revenue for your business.

Do you know or have the mechanism that ensures the access and knowledge of usage of the right resources to sales teams to boost conversions and handle more leads?

The answer is - Sales Enablement to get your marketing and sales team work closely as one revenue generation team.

What is Sales Enablement?

“The processes, content, and technology that empower sales teams to sell efficiently at a higher velocity.”

It is the iterative process of providing the sales team the key targeted resources they need to win more deals. These resources may include content, tools & technology, knowledge & expertise, and the right information at the right time to effectively help buyers and close the deals.

Figure 1 Three components, one outcome

The definition this section quotes names three things, and binds all three to a single result. None of them sits above or below the others.

Schematic. It shows the structure of the definition, not measured volumes: the three named components are drawn as equal units on one bar because the definition binds them to one outcome in a single sentence. Source: the definition of sales enablement as quoted in this article.

Why You Need Sales Enablement

Inbound is about creating marketing and sales that people love by providing helpful content and resources that attract people to you by providing helpful content and resources that attract people to you.

Get your sales and marketing teams working together.

Sales enablement is jointly owned by marketing and sales teams.

Marketing contributes to the variety of resources; videos, blogs, and conversation and product guides which support sales reps’ interactions with potential customers.

Sales teams can collaborate with marketing about the types of content and materials needed, helpful for leads to understand the value propositions throughout their journeys, and also share feedback and customer inputs with marketing to prepare more empathetic collaterals.

Figure 2 Jointly owned means traffic in both directions

The same two teams, drawn twice. On the left the flow runs from marketing to sales and carries collateral. On the right it runs back the other way and carries what the sales floor heard. The article describes both legs, which is what it means by jointly owned.

Schematic, drawn from the two contributions this section describes. The two panels are the two legs of one exchange, not a before and an after; read together, the opposing arrows are the loop that the phrase “jointly owned” stands for. Nothing here is a measured volume. Both captions under the arrows use the article's own words for what each leg carries.

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Developing a Sales Enablement Strategy

The best practices and key elements of a sales enablement strategy

A SMART and Clear Goal

Marketing and sales have to be aligned around a single revenue goal. Setup meaningful pipelines, deal stages. Service-level-Agreement ( SLA) and goal agreements between sales and marketing teams will add velocity in wining rates

Align the Team Around Your CRM

Make sure your team is working and communicating efficiently by making the CRM as a single source of truth for your organization. You should have a clear insight into the activities of sales reps and where deals are in the pipeline, and how the teams, sales, and marketing, are tracking towards their goal.

Conversational Marketing

Use a mix of Chatbots, AI bots as the first line of defense and well supported by Live Chats processes. This will help your sales team time to focus on qualified leads.

A target buyer profiles

Being able to put up the Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs) is a big success and it’s an ongoing process of fine-tuning it. Our aim here is to increase the time sales reps spend speaking with more qualified buyers and developing personalized solutions for their needs.

A buyer-fit content strategy

Producing content that addresses the needs of target buyers, not just any content. Conduct a full content audit. It is critical to the success of the sales enablement strategy. Centralize all existing sales content in one location, ensure contents are accessible to teams for a quick share.

The marketing and sales team must align on below type of contents, to fine-tune and should be audited and organized:

  • Customer case studies
  • Whitepapers and ebooks
  • Product demo decks
  • Pricing and discount information
  • Competitive intelligence briefs
Figure 3 The content audit list

The marketing and sales team must align on below type of contents, to fine-tune and should be audited and organized.

The five content types this section names, drawn as the audit checklist it describes. The article says to centralize all existing sales content in one location; these are the items it lists.

Work with Marketing

It’s important that the sales team is working in close alignment with marketing to create the prospect-fit blog posts, case studies, or one-pagers necessary to answer prospect questions and close deals.

And as per research reports, when salespeople have access to the content they need from marketing and are trained to use the content effectively - research shows deals success rates can increase by up to 16.6%.

Replicate High-Performer Best Practices

Do you identify the working practices and where your sales and marketing teams excel, pick up what makes them so and replicate those practices across your organization.

For example, if a sales rep has a specific call cadence (or sales sequences or opening offers,) they’ve experimented with to get just right. If that call cadence consistently lands big target accounts, it might be time to implement that call cadence as the standard for all your reps.

Formalize Your Process

And finally, look at the scale. Be informed that not everyone will adopt the strategies and execute them effectively. It would be helpful to bring standardization and formalize the approach to sales enablement and process, to ensure the teams are working efficiently.

As per the CSO Insights research aligning the sales enablement plan with your business strategy provides a 19.2% higher close rate.

Figure 4 The two figures this section quotes, on one scale

One is a ceiling and one is a stated result, so they are drawn differently: the tinted bar is an upper bound the article says can be reached, the solid bar is a figure the article states outright.

Both bars run from zero on a single nought to twenty per cent axis. They do not measure the same thing: the first is a deal success rate and the second is a close rate, and only the second is stated as a figure rather than as a ceiling, which is why it alone is drawn solid. Source: the research reports and the CSO Insights research, both as quoted in this article.

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Your Sales Pipeline and Velocities

Sales pipelines work as a guide to plan out the buyer journey and track the progress and also helps to identify the roadblocks in progress. This not only helps us to increase closer rates, but it’ll also make those customers more valuable to our company.

Each pipeline will contain stages. The stages are mainly for the actions that the sales team takes to turn prospects into customers. This way, your whole sales team will have a clear view of how the deals are moving, the time taken in between, and over all won or lost percentages towards the sale.

Remember: what would be the best-suited sales pipeline will depend on how your business works and how your team sells best.

“A sales pipeline is only valuable to you if it helps your team close deals faster and convert more customers.”

A few useful types of Sales Pipelines to consider

  • sMarketing (Sales and Marketing) Pipeline

The sales and marketing pipeline is to connect the two teams, giving both access to the common areas. This pipeline could be fit for stages at the beginning for lead generation and cater more to the inbound leads generated by marketing.

Figure 5 A few useful types of Sales Pipelines to consider

Five options, not five steps. The article is explicit that the best-suited pipeline depends on how your business works and how your team sells best, so none of these sits before or after another.

The five pipeline types this section lists, in the article's own words. The numbering is the order they appear in the text and carries no ranking.
  • Post-sale pipeline

If your business has significant after-sales services, you might need a post-sale pipeline for the work items after the contract is signed. This could include many activities including providing a service, asking for a referral, or providing training etc.

  • Retargeting pipeline

How do you keep an eye over the lost leads or deals? The easy way to arrange them into a retargeting pipeline. This pipeline will have specific stages to retarget lost leads with relevant follow-ups.

  • Product/service-based sales pipeline

Based on whether you’re a product or service-based business, your pipeline can be specifically adapted to what you sell.

  • Profile-based sales pipeline

Are you targeting very different buyer profiles, a profile-based pipeline will be a go-to thing for you. Selling a product to both SMBs or Startups and Enterprises will have a different selling process for each.

Sales Enablement Softwares/Tools

Sales enablement tech-stack allows your team to centralize and manage all of your materials and content from one location. These tech solutions help you to create, share, edit, and manage all the key materials and resources with ease.

Here are a few commonly-used sales enablement software options:

Figure 6 A few commonly-used sales enablement software options

Five tools the article names, each with the one thing it says that tool does. The article does not rank them and neither does this table.

ToolWhat the article says it does
HubSpot HubSpot as CRM and Growth Platform- provides your business with a complete look at your sales pipeline as well as full access to a wide variety of marketing creation tools.
Seismic easy for your sales and marketing teams to seamlessly collaborate
create and share, reach, and convert more leads into customers.
Zendesk keeps track of every interaction your sales teams have with a prospect throughout the entire buyer’s journey.
Outreach aligned your marketing, sales, and customer success efforts so you can efficiently share insights and content cross-team.
Highspot customize different guided experiences and conversations for customers and share them useful and relevant information that suits their specific needs.
Each description is the article's own wording for that tool. The article lists these as commonly-used options; it does not compare them on price, scale or fit, and nothing here should be read as a recommendation between them.

HubSpot

HubSpot as CRM and Growth Platform- provides your business with a complete look at your sales pipeline as well as full access to a wide variety of marketing creation tools.

Seismic

  • Seismic
  • easy for your sales and marketing teams to seamlessly collaborate
  • create and share, reach, and convert more leads into customers.

Zendesk

Zendesk - keeps track of every interaction your sales teams have with a prospect throughout the entire buyer’s journey.

Outreach

Outreach - aligned your marketing, sales, and customer success efforts so you can efficiently share insights and content cross-team.

Highspot

Highspot - customize different guided experiences and conversations for customers and share them useful and relevant information that suits their specific needs.

Thoughts on Sales Enablement strategy at your business?

Do share your thoughts and questions regarding the sales alignment and enablement process via comments. If you are exploring a pipeline acceleration strategy and plans to activate for your business, more than happy to help and feel free to connect for a friendly chat.