Companies that still rely mostly on their sales reps’ wits to close deals in today’s business environment risk falling behind and their win rates plummeting.
To remain competitive and excel in their initiatives, they need to develop and implement a comprehensive sales enablement plan capable of driving success at every stage of the sales cycle.
In this article, we’ll be taking an in-depth look at what a sales enablement plan is and how it can benefit your salespeople and the organization as a whole.
We’ll also be providing a step-by-step implementation of an effective sales enablement strategy.
What is a Sales Enablement Plan?
A sales enablement plan represents a collection of tools, strategies, knowledge, training, and best practices meant to empower sales teams.
The aim is to boost their sales performance, improve their win rates, increase their number of closed deals, and improve the company’s bottom line.
An effective sales enablement plan includes a clearly defined sales process and methodology that covers the entire buyer journey from first contact until the deal is closed, and even beyond.
The overall sales strategy needs to align with the company’s sales enablement goals, objectives, and preferred sales processes.
This implies companies map out their internal and external sales enablement content. It also includes sales training, methodologies, messaging, metrics, and key performance indicators (KPIs) that best line up with their objectives.
Comprehensive sales enablement plans provide several key benefits to organizations that implement them.
Benefits of a Sales Enablement Plan
There are several benefits that companies can expect from their sales enablement efforts.
Aside from increasing their sales numbers, organizations will also see some improvements in other key areas of their business.
Break down departmental silos
Developing a sales enablement process will result in more collaboration between different departments across the organization.
The sales enablement team will often include people from sales, marketing, product development, customer service, human resources, and other relevant stakeholders.
For example, the marketing department will mostly be in charge of content management.
They’ll work in close collaboration with product development to create effective sales enablement content for sales teams to use throughout the customer journey.
Customer service teams will gather and forward client feedback to sales leaders and other decision-makers, further improving the messaging used during sales operations.
The HR department will use sales enablement tools to help onboard new hires and train existing sales professionals on best practices.
In short, the entire company will come together under the same strategy and work toward the same goal — streamlining the sales enablement process, driving sales, and ultimately improving the bottom line.
Increase sales representative efficiency
At its core, a comprehensive sales enablement strategy helps train and equip sales professionals with the right tools and knowledge to close deals faster, increase the average deal size, and boost win rates.
A sales enablement program assesses the needs and experience of each individual sales rep.
It assesses their skill and knowledge gap, typically during the onboarding process, upskilling and reskilling them to fit the new methodology wherever needed.
Improve customer experience
As sales reps become more knowledgeable, they’ll be better able to listen to customers’ needs and pain points and address them effectively.
This will lead to better customer relationships and their overall experience will improve.
Another client-facing area of the business that stands to benefit from sales enablement is customer support.
Similarly to salespeople, customer rep training can improve interactions with clients, boosting customer loyalty over the long term.
That being said, let’s take a closer look at how to begin implementing an effective sales enablement plan.
Step #1: Assessing Sales Needs and Goals
As with every worthwhile strategy, you need to start by evaluating and determining your needs, goals, and requirements.
This means you should conduct a modern sales-needs assessment.
You start by figuring out what the sales department should and shouldn’t do to operate at peak efficiency.
This includes looking over all of the sales processes, tools, and resources in the team’s sales playbook.
At the same time, it’s important to determine the limitations that prevent you from reaching your goals. This can include everything from inefficient sales content or sales enablement tools, to insufficient staff members.
Also, consider asking for feedback from internal stakeholders (sales reps and customer service) and external stakeholders (customers) regarding your current processes and what they believe could be improved.
Once you’ve collected this information, identify any emerging sales challenges and figure out ways to overcome them before they can pose a significant issue down the road.
The key challenges facing sales teams nowadays revolve around building trust with clients in a virtual environment and including more social selling in the overall sales process.
In fact, according to LinkedIn, 78 percent of social sellers outsell peers who don’t use social media. Sales organizations need to find ways to include social media in their methods or risk becoming obsolete.
Next up is setting SMART goals for all team members and departments. It’s next to impossible to be effective if you’re not sure what you need to achieve.
You’ll also find it difficult to reach the desired level of company-wide cohesion.
The SMART framework implies that every goal needs to be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
This way, everyone knows what they need to do, how to achieve it, and in what time frame. A vague goal is pretty much the same as not having a goal at all.
Once your sales needs and goals are addressed, it’s time to look at your sales content.
Step #2: Designing and Developing Sales Content
There are two main types of sales enablement content that professionals use both before and during the sales process.
- First, there’s internal sales content. This is the type of content that salespeople use for themselves to better understand the product or to reinforce their sales skills and knowledge.
Examples of internal sales content include FAQ sections, sales playbooks, battle cards, customer persona guides, and online training courses. - External sales content is for the target audience to consume on their own or for a sales rep to present it to them.
Examples include high-quality blog posts, case studies, infographics, explainer videos, product demos, testimonials, on-demand learning content, and more.
Sales reps use this type of content across the entire buyer’s journey and it can be useful even during the customer onboarding phase.
To create both internal and external sales enablement content, you need to start by assessing your existing content and analyzing its potential.
Keep in mind that some of your marketing content can find its way into sales enablement, as long as it works for either sales training or customer education.
You should also develop buyer personas for your target audience, based on your existing customer base.
These personas should take into account high-value customer profiles and copy their characteristics as much as possible.
These can include elements such as industry, position, geographical location, expertise, pain points, and more.
Your sales enablement team can use these personas to create content that’s specifically tailored to address new customer needs and pain points.
They also help sales reps improve their messaging when interacting with potential customers.
Step #3: Implementing Cutting Edge LMS
The right sales enablement learning management system (LMS) helps businesses and sales teams address their needs and reach their revenue goals much faster and easier.
These LMSs provide several benefits in streamlining sales enablement, such as providing relevant sales training as well as acting as content repositories that both sales reps and customers can access on demand.
You do need to make sure the LMS you choose integrates with your customer relationship management (CRM) human resources information system (HRIS) and the rest of your sales and marketing tech stack.
Docebo is one such sales enablement LMS. It integrates with both HubSpot and Salesforce — two of the biggest CRMs in the industry.
Docebo also integrates with many other third-party tools in sales, marketing, video conferencing, customer experience, e-learning content authoring, and more.
It automates many repetitive and time-consuming tasks, freeing up sales teams to focus on building and maintaining customer relationships.
You can also use it to coach your sales force on the latest selling techniques such as social selling, B2B selling, or consultative selling through a diverse set of methodologies such as multimodal, social, or blended learning.
Docebo acts as an all-in-one environment where sales reps get their training and access to the right sales enablement content, be it internal or external.
With its mobile access and learning capabilities, Docebo also provides access to the right sales enablement content material whenever and wherever sales reps need it most.
Step #4: Onboarding and Continuous Training
Sales enablement needs to start the moment a new hire decides to join your organization.
There are many benefits to an optimized onboarding process, such as improved productivity, employee engagement and retention, and overall customer satisfaction.
With an LMS like Docebo, you can optimize your onboarding process for new sales hires to hit the ground running.
A well-implemented sales enablement strategy also includes continuous learning for existing teams. This is not a set-and-forget process, after all.
As sales tactics evolve and new challenges arise, your sales force needs to be on top of the situation and ahead of the competition.
Microlearning and just-in-time training are excellent ways to promote a company culture of continuous learning.
Instead of having to sit through hours-long lectures, sales reps get access to bite-size snippets of information that serve them at the right moment.
If, on a critical sales call, for instance, a salesperson can quickly access the right snippet of information, it can help them make a good impression, provide the right data, and even close the deal.
Step #5: Sales Coaching and Role-Playing
You should also consider developing sales coaching programs designed to build a high-performing sales team.
Role-playing is a great training program to help salespeople develop their skills in a controlled environment. You can recreate various situations and scenarios, handle more difficult situations, and teach how to build rapport with customers.
It’s also an excellent place to experiment, try different sales techniques, and build confidence and other soft skills relevant to the job.
Another useful tool is mentorship. By pairing an experienced sales professional with a rookie, the mentor can provide guidance and support to help the less-experienced salesperson improve their skills.
Also find ways to provide feedback and encourage a business environment focused on continuous learning, improvement, and talent development.
Step #6: Measuring ROI and Training Impact
Among the biggest challenges of getting a sales enablement project off the ground is to get buy-in from C-suite executives and other decision-makers.
More often than not, executives won’t be moved by anything other than hard numbers. You’ll need to demonstrate the program’s value to stakeholders by being able to back up your claims.
And even if they back the project, you’ll still need to check in and show how things are progressing.
Some sales enablement metrics to be mindful of include things like:
- Win rates
- Number of closed deals
- Lead conversions
- Training course completion rates
- Training turnover rates
Keeping a constant eye on these metrics will help you determine the overall effectiveness of your sales enablement program and uncover any areas that need improvement.
In terms of sales enablement ROI, you should consider key performance indicators such as platform adoption, sales enablement content effectiveness, revenue generation, and other success-related metrics.
Conclusion
Although a relatively new concept, sales enablement is quickly becoming a must-have among all sales companies.
Businesses that ignore it risk falling behind the competition and losing large chunks of market share.
By assessing their needs, creating effective content, and investing in the right tools and technologies, companies can enable their sales teams to boost their performance, close more deals, and build lasting relationships with customers.
Schedule a demo with Docebo today and see how it can empower your sales teams.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Here are a few quick answers to your questions.
How do I align sales enablement plans with business strategies?
If designed and implemented correctly, a sales enablement plan integrates seamlessly into your other business strategies.
The role of the process is to bring together many departments across the organization, such as sales, marketing, product development, and more to work together toward a common purpose.
Does sales enablement include training?
Sales rep training is a major part of a sales enablement plan.
It ensures the sales team has the necessary knowledge and know-how to handle all aspects of the sales process and provide an excellent customer experience throughout the entire buying process and beyond.
What is the main goal of sales enablement?
A sales enablement process aims to improve the sales team's performance and provide a consistent customer experience throughout the customer journey.
It also aims to develop a company culture of continuous learning and improvement.