What is Sales Enablement & How Can it Work For Your Business?

Perhaps you’re aware of sales enablement as a buzzword – or a vague term that’s generally thrown around. But what does it mean exactly and what could be the benefits of sales enablement be to your business?

It’s quite a broad statement that can often leave people scratching their heads.

Sometimes it’s referred to as part of sales training, other times it’s talked about in terms of digital tools such as a Content Management System (CMS), Product Information Management System (PIM), Digital Asset Management System (DAM) or other technology that can help your team make a sale.

Below, we’re going to talk more about what sales enablement actually means, some of the different ways it can work for you and how you can add interactive sales enablement tools to your sales toolkit. Read on as we answer:

• What is sales enablement?
• What does sales enablement do?
• What are sales enablement tools?

What is sales enablement exactly?

There are a few different definitions of sales enablement out there. We particularly like this one from CSO, as it pretty much covers everything:

“A strategic, cross-functional discipline designed to increase sales results and productivity by providing integrated content, training and coaching services for salespeople and front-line sales managers along the entire customer’s buying journey, powered by technology.”

Essentially it’s a holistic, all-encompassing strategy that involves aligning your sales and marketing processes, and ensuring your team has all the right sales tools, training AND content (basically everything they need) to make that all-important sale.

And it never stops.

Sales enablement should always be adapting and evolving. Whether that’s refreshing your training, updating your content, or finding the best ways or tools to present that content to the buyer.

But here’s the trick; it’s all about your customers and how your sales team can best connect with them to provide them with the best content that’s going to close the deal (you have to be aware of their current trends and challenges, questions, interests and concerns).

What does sales enablement do?

Now we’ve talked a little bit more about what it is, here are some of the ways your sales team could benefit from sales enablement:

• With sales and marketing processes and goals aligned (ever heard the term ‘smarketing’?), everyone can work harmoniously and keep lines of communication open so that both teams are on the same page
• They’re provided with effective, up-to-date training content that engages them (such as interactive videos) and ensures they have all the knowledge they need to start selling
• Your sales team is empowered to give buyers all of the right content (that’s completely customer-centric), at the right time and in the right way – helping them make their way through the sales cycle faster as a result
• Your team will have various tools and technology available to deliver that helpful content to the buyer in a number of ways (such as delivering an in-person presentation, showing the customer content on an interactive touchscreen, or just emailing content to the buyer upon request)
• Access to support and coaching to promote best practice and refresh training
• Advanced analytics to help them make the most out of their content and sales pitches

How to make sales enablement work for you

The best place to start when it comes to sales enablement is not to look at what you’re currently doing but instead look at your customers or buyer personas and how they like to purchase and the information they need in order to make informed decisions. The fuller the understanding you have of what makes them tick, the better.

Then, look at your current sales/training processes and see how they could be improved to be more customer-centric. Are they aligned with your marketing team? If not, this is something that’s worth investing the time in when creating new sales or training content. Take a look at our blog which focuses on the discovery process and how to align your sales and marketing teams at the very beginning of the process.

Now, think about the types of content that your customers or buyers will be interested in. What types of content will resonate most with them? Could some of your content be visual or interactive – and how can your team deliver that?

If you have lots of static content – or an overwhelming amount of information that your sales team needs access to – what’s the best way they can easily access the content they need within just a few clicks?

What are sales enablement tools?

Interactive content, presentations and touchscreens are a great addition for any sales team to have in their toolkit, have a look at this article empower sales with everything they need.

Want to know more about what’s possible with an interactive sales tool? Get in touch with us on 0117 329 1712, email hello@popcomms.com or watch our introductory video: