Tag: Sales Enablement

Redefining Sales Enablement for the Future: The AI Advantage

The world of sales is evolving at a breakneck pace. The days of manual processes and guesswork are long gone. They’ve been replaced by a new era of data-driven insights and cutting-edge technology. A recent Salesforce study revealed that over 95% of sales operations professionals and sales leaders believe that Artificial Intelligence (AI) coupled with automation gives sales reps more time to focus on selling.  A fairly large number of sales professionals also believe that AI will play a significant role in their industry in the foreseeable future. This number is growing every day. The rapid shift is causing businesses to rethink their approach to sales enablement, and one game-changing technology is leading the charge: artificial intelligence.  Imagine a world where your sales team can: instantly identify high-potential leads,  use detailed customer profiles to tailor sales pitches,  close deals at a significantly higher rate, all while spending less time on administrative tasks. No! This isn’t a scene from a science fiction movie; it’s the reality of sales enablement powered by AI. As organizations around the globe continue to embrace AI-driven solutions, the gap between those who adapt and those who resist will only widen.  As we explore the AI advantage in sales enablement, let’s dive into the benefits and innovations transforming the way businesses approach sales. Let’s look at the practical issues faced by organizations looking to adopt AI-driven strategies and prepare for the future of sales. Get ready to redefine your sales enablement strategy for the AI-driven future. Read Ebook: The Future of AI-Assisted Account Planning The AI Advantage: Key Benefits for sales enablement As we explore the remarkable impact of AI on sales enablement, it’s crucial to recognize the main advantages that artificial intelligence offers. From improved efficiency and productivity to smarter decision-making and customized customer experiences, AI is set to reshape the sales landscape. Let’s dive deeper into these benefits: 1. Enhanced efficiency and productivity Incorporating AI into sales enablement strategies not only enhances the overall performance of sales teams but also streamlines their day-to-day activities. By reducing time-consuming tasks and optimizing workflows, AI brings a whole new level of productivity to the sales process. a. Automation of repetitive tasks: One of the most significant advantages of AI in sales enablement is its ability to automate repetitive tasks, freeing up valuable time for sales representatives to focus more on strategic initiatives. Tasks like data entry, lead qualification, appointment scheduling and follow-up emails can be taken over by AI-powered tools. Free of these routine activities, sales reps can focus on nurturing relationships, closing deals and driving revenue growth. b. Streamlined sales processes: AI can streamline sales processes by optimizing workflows, reducing bottlenecks and increasing overall efficiency. AI-powered analytics can help sales teams identify inefficiencies in their sales funnel, uncover best practices, and make data-driven decisions to optimize their processes.  AI can also assist in managing and prioritizing tasks. This ensures that sales reps focus on the most impactful activities. 2. Improved decision-making through data analysis The ability to make well-informed decisions is critical to the success of any sales team. By harnessing the power of AI, sales professionals can unlock valuable insights from data and make smarter, more strategic choices to drive business growth.  a. Predictive analytics and forecasting: AI-powered predictive analytics can dramatically improve decision-making by providing accurate sales forecasts and identifying potential risks and opportunities.  AI is characterized by advanced algorithms that analyze historical data, market trends and customer behavior. Using these algorithms, Ai can generate reliable sales predictions, enabling sales leaders to make better decisions about resource allocation, territory planning and sales strategies.  b. Identification of high-potential leads: AI can help sales teams identify high-potential leads. This is done by accurately analyzing vast amounts of data and uncovering patterns that may not be easily apparent to human analysts.  By leveraging AI-driven lead scoring, sales reps can prioritize leads with the highest likelihood of converting. This results in a better lead nurturing process and higher conversion rates.  3. Personalization and customer-centric selling In today’s competitive market, understanding and catering to individual customer needs is vital to stand above the competition. With AI, sales teams can design a personalized and customer-focused approach. This results in stronger relationships and increased sales success.  a. AI-driven customer profiling: Understanding your customers is crucial for sales enablement. AI-driven customer profiling can help demonstrate a deeper understanding of prospects. The profiling is done by analyzing data from various sources like CRM systems, social media and website interactions.  These insights can provide a comprehensive view of each customer’s preferences, pain points, and buying behaviors, enabling sales reps to craft personalized sales strategies that appeal to their target audience.  b. Tailored sales pitches and content: Personalization greatly appeals to today’s consumers. And AI can help sales teams create tailored sales pitches and content that speak directly to the unique desires and needs of each customer. AI can analyze data on individual customer interactions, preferences and past purchases. Through this data, AI can then personalize sales messages and content recommendations that are more likely to engage prospects and convert them into customers. Sales teams can therefore build stronger relationships, improve customer satisfaction, and ultimately drive higher sales performance. Download: The Future of Key Account Management Report – A Global CSO study by DemandFarm AI-driven strategies: Innovations transforming sales enablement Artificial intelligence is reshaping the world of sales and strategic account management. Advancements in AI can help businesses analyze, strategize and engage with key accounts more effectively. Sales teams are rapidly adopting AI-powered digital tools. This helps them improve their strategies, enhance their productivity and ultimately, drive growth. Here are some ways in with AI can assist improvement and growth in Sales: 1. AI-assisted account planning: AI can be used to recommend ideal account plans for the year. This is done by reviewing data, sales intelligence and historical performance across a company’s portfolio of key accounts. This data-driven approach is more efficient and ultimately leads to planning and implementing more effective and impactful strategies. Read

Sales Enablement – Everything You Need to Know

Sales Enablement in simple terms is any technology, process, or software that helps the sales team increase their efficiency. This may vary from giving your sales team the right information to move the sales acceleration forward, tools to handle their leads better, tools that help the sales team reach the prospects in a better way, or even the tools that help in sales training. If you have been following the stock and crypto markets lately, you know that something unprecedented has been working its charm. Nobody in their right mind would have predicted that a global shutdown in the 21st Century would ignite an investment frenzy that would put the Tulip mania of 1637 to shame. Total global equity traded in 2020 alone stood a whopping $137.64 Trillion, a steep 54.8% rise when compared to 2019 (according to Statista). So what made investors jump onto the money wagon? It takes a keen eye to understand all the factors that contributed to this bullish growth: The pandemic caused massive behavioral changes due to lockdown and free time. People were spending way less due to no social life and saving more. Relief packages from governments left them with some extra cash. The proliferation of digital apps and devices has made trading child’s play Growth in support ecosystems, such as digital banking and online media, has contributed to superior accessibility. In other words, it takes an entire ecosystem working in tandem for any major market movement to flourish and sustain, a prerequisite that Key Account Managers should aim for in the context of Sales Enablement. There is no denying that if you create the right ecosystem for your sales reps to succeed, they will naturally close more deals and drive higher revenues. But where do you begin? How do you find the right sales tools that foster sales enablement to the point that you can have a revenue squeeze of your own? Today’s blog aims to answer all this, and more. What is Sales Enablement? Sales Enablement is a framework that provides the sales team of the business with the necessary tools and resources that they require to close more deals and, in turn, drive more revenue. Let’s start with the basics and understand what it is about and the importance of Sales Enablement. The tools and assets that are leveraged can include knowledge, key information, content, and anything and everything that makes the sales process more optimized and geared for better conversions. It is a great practice for Sales Enablement to be owned by both Sales and Marketing teams as a function. While the marketing team often contributes with collaterals such as blogs and product guides, sales teams leverage them to the maximum by driving more contextual conversations with prospects. What is Sales Enablement Strategy? A Sales Enablement Strategy is aimed at helping sales reps to add more value at every customer touchpoint by defining a framework through which they can acquire all the necessary resources they need to effectively sell. In practice, it defines and lays down the entire path of reaching the target sales figures with the best change management and process adoption strategies. 5 Ways to Track and Measure your Sales Enablement Efforts If you look at the Sales top down, you will see that things are pretty measurable. As you travel down the funnel, things don’t seem so clear. We talk about increasing the sales pipeline, about white space opportunities, traffic, leads, warm, hot, cold but once we get to those numbers, no one can tell how to prioritize the projects on hand. This is the Sales Enablement Measurement conundrum. Organizations are uncertain about how to measure sales enablement efforts. How do we measure the alignment between marketing and sales? We have tried to resolve your conundrum here to some extent, using both, qualitative and quantitative methods of measurement. These are at best taken as indicators but will help your sales enablement efforts stay on track. 1. Track the lead-to-deal rate or lead-to-conversion rate ‍The Sales Enablement team should be more focused on the bottom end of the sales funnel. This means tracking the lead to conversion rate. This is what will indicate the impact of your sales enablement strategies. Although not entirely, because the conversion rate depends on the number and quality of the leads. Besides this, this can be a good measurement index that also helps to identify trends over a period. Ask yourself the question “Will this project help me close more deals?” If the answer is “yes”, put it on priority. The others can be taken up later or delegated. 2. Measure win/loss rates against key competitors ‍Sales is a race to the finishing line for every lead to be cracked. Your sales team needs your help and support all the time as they face the toughest of competitors. Monitoring your wins and failures and comparing them with your competitors’ wins and losses, will help you identify the gaps and fill that in. It will help you even further to know where you need to put your energy. Your CRM system will help you with this metric. 3. Amplify your content so that it influences a decision to buy ‍Content is a universal weapon in the sales arsenal; right from the top end of the funnel to the bottom end. Supply your sales team with the right documents and decks but also, leverage the online medium to publish content through visual media. Then monitor it to see which one is more influential as the buyer is in the last stages of his buying decision. Scaling up online with content is good as you can measure the results of what works and what doesn’t. A good CMS and an analytics tool will help you in this task. This will be a perfect time to go for a sales enablement tool. Also, keep a track of and measure your content production – how many pieces of videos, infographics, newsletters, blogs, etc. produced in what month.

How to Optimize Your Business? – Thanks to Sales Enablement Tools

Nowadays, businesses need the right tools and data to remain competitive in their respective market. This makes now the best time that you check out sales enablement software. These are solutions that provide your team with the proper tools, knowledge, processes, and functions to maximize every sales opportunity. Sales enablement is more than just about lead generation. It covers an umbrella of functions such as recruiting, hiring, onboarding, training, coaching, providing resources, and evaluating the effectiveness of certain programs within the organization. Likewise, sales teams are not the only ones who benefit from such sales enablement tools. It can also help marketing teams, human resource teams, and more. It syncs every department within your organization and ensures that their goals are aligned towards one goal, which is an increase in productivity and efficiency of sales. With that said, here’s how you can optimize your business with the right sales enablement tools in the market. 1. Synchronize source of content and data As mentioned earlier, sales teams aren’t the only ones who get to use sales enablement tools. It can affect your whole department as well. It does so by providing a centralized source of content and data for all departments. This source of content and information is critical for engaging with potential customers and closing deals with them. Having a single source of truth for all your content can help you create a more streamlined and organized sales enablement strategy. This helps sales reps and other teams reduce wasted time and efforts on searching for and using relevant content to use for their campaigns and operations. This centralized repository of data can also help you improve your sales account planning, especially if you integrate it with your customer relationship management (CRM) software. DemandFarm is a powerful account planning platform for integrated planning where you can connect your data with external sources for a holistic approach. 2. Personalize buyer’s journey With your customer data organized and aligned properly across departments, this makes it easier for you to personalize your potential buyers’ journey and experience with your company. After all, not all customers need and want the same thing. You would often need to use different tactics to close a deal for each prospective customer. Through sales enablement tools, you can create a relevant and personalized sales account plan for each respective prospect. This serves as a guide that contains all the critical information you will need to interact and close a deal with them. As more customers begin to look for genuine and dynamic interactions, relying on a scripted sequence for each sales pitch won’t be enough. You need to be in tune with your targets’ behaviors, needs, and wants instead of forcing them to fit into your own sales process. And since sales enablement aligns your sales team across all departments, they can get the needed data to learn more about their leads. 3. Streamline communication between marketing and sales team Marketing and sales team may have different functions and tasks within an organization, but they are inevitably tied with one another. A study by LinkedIn shows that 58% of aligned sales and marketing teams have higher lead conversion rates compared to those companies with teams that have poor communication. Sales enablement software can help you with that. It does so by streamlining content for both sides. What one produces, the other can use for its operations. These may be in the form of content, data, and reports. Likewise, it provides transparency on both sides to keep goals aligned throughout. Nowadays, this alignment between the two teams is becoming increasingly important for your business’ growth. With digital marketing blurring the line separating the two departments, these two teams must collaborate to ensure meaningful engagement with potential buyers. 4. Leverage data and analytics Nowadays, data and analytics have become an integral part of running a business. It helps generate relevant content for their brands, make smart decisions, develop better strategies, and create meaningful relationships with their customers. According to a report by the Havas Group, 81% of brands often go extinct because they no longer create relevant content for their customers. Meanwhile, only 19% collect and utilize data for marketing and sales purposes. This goes to show how much data can affect your business’ growth. One of the benefits of sales enablement is its ability to track and measure the performance of your sales process. You can gain insights from your interactions with your prospects and those who are engaging with your marketing content. This includes top-performing content, trends and prospect behaviors, and areas of improvement. You can use these insights to develop content and process to close deals faster and more frequently. 5. Improve customer engagement The different types of sales enablement tools are geared towards one thing, and that is to drive up your sales productivity and revenues. It would also help in sales acceleration and sales transformation. With the right data and relevant content, you can improve interactions with target consumers and create meaningful relationships with them in the long run. Engagement is essential when it comes to closing deals. The constant streams of communication ensure that your leads are nurtured, and your potential buyers remain interested in your company. Without that point of contact, all your marketing and sales teams’ hard work can fall apart along the way. Sales enablement gives you the necessary tools and data to keep engagement with your prospects and consumers relevant and effective. This includes videos, CRM, whitepapers, datasheets, and more. 6. Integrate with your other solutions The beauty of technology is that you now have other tools, devices, and solutions within reach to help you manage and operate other aspects of your business. Sales enablement applications are just one of the software you can integrate within your system. Having one software may sometimes not be enough. After all, no solution is one-size-fits-all. Sales enablement software has its limitations. Nonetheless, you can incorporate sales management software into your strategy to further enhance your

Introducing KAM Enablement

Last month, I met a very soft-spoken executive – Patrick, who leads the Key Account sales globally for an IT Services and Consulting firm. This meeting was about to change the way I looked at Key Account Management. I always knew Key Account Management helped in revenue growth, but that day I came to know its true potential.We met in downtown Manhattan at Pete’s Coffee shop. As the CEO of a company that built KAM enablement technology, I was excited about this meeting. So, I came early, took a two-seater table in a quiet corner, and waited for him to arrive. My eyes glanced out the window and noticed the people outside. He arrived. We ordered our coffee – I took my favorite Hazelnut latte, and we went back to the corner I had reserved. Patrick flew into New York to attend his company’s Q4 board meeting but graciously spared an afternoon to catch up with me. We talked a lot – from the cold summers of San Francisco to the Jets preparation for the upcoming SuperBowl. But, I could not help notice the palpable stress on Patrick’s face. When I asked, he shrugged it off by mentioning the usual pressure of business growth. I asked again, “What is keeping your mind occupied, Patrick? Did everything go well at the meeting?” He opened up a bit. “Our next year goals are now more focused on profitability, so I have to find a way to grow the business by 18% in next year without increasing the costs of new account acquisition”, he replied. “Hmm, isn’t that the puzzle most CEOs and sales leaders grappling with?”, I questioned. He nodded, and said, “For businesses such as mine, with several multi-million dollar clients, it sounds less like a puzzle and more like rhetoric”. He continued, “We have made maximum in-roads with our major accounts by utilizing the information in our Salesforce CRM”. I immediately asked, “Why don’t you adopt Strategic Account Management as a standard practice for your larger accounts. The methodology and processes are well established now”. It looked like this was something on his mind already. He replied “I know KAM can help, but I am not sure what is the best way to do it. With Salesforce, we know how to make decisions for sales planning. Without any means to know which levers to pull within complex Key Accounts, how will I even propose institutionalizing Key Account management process within my organization” I instantly understood Patrick’s dilemma. He was aware of the importance of KAM technology but also knew that mere CRM cannot show him the path to nurture his Key Accounts and farm them for more revenue. I did not have the answer then. Soon after, Patrick left, and I walked back to Times Square. I kept thinking. Why were sales leaders not thinking in terms of technologies that can enable KAMs, just like CRMs help in sales enablement? Seemed like I had gotten a hangover of Patrick’s dilemma. As I walked into the Times Square, I was stopped by a giant screaming display of T-mobile’s 4G network. The display showcased T-mobile’s 4G technology, which enabled people to do more! “This is it”, I said to myself. “This is the gap which Patrick wants to fill”. Just like the 4G network, Patrick needs a technology that can help him institutionalize Key Account Management in his organization. To enable his KAM teams to navigate the complex ecosystem of large accounts. Now, I became optimistic! Perhaps, KAM enablement is the answer to Patrick and many such B2B leaders, who need an intelligent layer above industry-standard CRMs to power their decision making in Account Management. That night, I slept well, knowing that there is true potential for institutionalizing KAM in large organizations using key account management tools. What is KAM Enablement? Think of KAM Enablement as James Bond’s Q. We see a KAM as a hero who accomplishes highly complex and uncertain objective of growing Key Account revenues year-on-year. He needs an intelligent aide to achieve his goals in a more deterministic manner. KAM enablement is a means to support KAMs in making decisions regarding their Key Accounts. While industry-standard CRMs do a great job as storage, retrieval, and high-level, averages-based analytics of the information, KAM enablement technology acts as an add-on layer on top of the CRM and processes the existing information to support deeper-level decision-making regarding Key Accounts. As important as Key Accounts are for an organization (80% revenues coming from 20% accounts), the future sales opportunities cannot be left at the mercy of a KAM’s behavior (what if he leaves your company), or the ability of the people to analyze all the information stored in the CRM. Enablement technology in 2017 is the precursor to Artificial Intelligence-driven CRMs – already talked about by Salesforce founder and CEO – Marc Benioff. Read this article for more info. I would paraphrase Marc Benioff here: The goal with SalesForce Einstein is to know what customers want before they know it. Eventually, we are also headed there, just that we started with the particular niche to serve KAMs. At DemandFarm, we built a technology that uses advanced algorithms to churn the existing information in the industry-standard CRMs (such as SalesForce, Microsoft Dynamics) to uncover unparalleled insights into your Key Accounts’ needs. Learn more about how KAM Enablement will help you grow your business in 2017.

Sales Enablement Tools for Key Accounts

Sales enablement as a concept is still evolving. Typically, sales enablement tools ‘enable’ sales teams with the right intel and content at the right time to make the right selling decisions to their most important prospects and customers. ‍ Sales enablement tools are powered by technology and allow scaling up of the processes that help move white space opportunities forward. However, when it comes to B2Bs that earn up to 80% of their revenues from a few (say 20%) Key Accounts, the whole ball game demands a different level of engagement and enablement. Undoubtedly, it is easier to grow the business from existing customers than to win new ones. This is all the more true in the case of large B2Bs selling high value, high engagement solutions, which are hard – and expensive – to win. Such B2B Key Accounts are typically complex, global entities. They have multiple buying units spread across varied lines of business, verticals, geographies and even functions. With the right enablement tools, the potential to farm and mine these Accounts for optimal revenues is virtually unlimited. Each key Account is owned by a Key Account Manager (KAM) who is responsible for managing the relationship and growing revenues from the Key Account. Without enabling technology, managing Key Account complexities and growing revenues would be unfeasible. Hence for good Strategic Account Management, you need a great Key Account Management tool. However, the nature of technology enablement required goes far beyond what sales enablement solutions offer. B2Bs need KAM Enablement tools, a subset of sales enablement tools specially designed keeping the complexities of Account Management in mind. KAM Enablement tools like a Key Account Management Software typically combine the ability to ‘manage the repetitive tasks at an operational level, the data & analytical complexities at an organizational level, and the flexibility KAMs need to build the relationships at a strategic level’. DemandFarm seamlessly enables all three so that KAM can most effectively and efficiently handle both- the scale and complexity of Global Key Accounts. This helps the key accounts grow while making the life of a key account manager easier. Learn more about how KAM Enablement will help you grow your business: Read the blog here.

Sales Enablement, Tops the C Suite’s List of Must-Dos.

As per a recent Forbes Insights New Report with Brainshark, “The Power of Enablement: Bridging the Sales Productivity Gap,” that studied 200 plus US base executives, what topped the charts of priority for the C-level executives, was ‘How to improve sales productivity’ and how ‘Sales Enablement’ was important to productivity. They believe that sales productivity is critical to future growth and are willing to put their money where their belief is, as it has obviously been paying them rich dividends. Sales enablement solutions, as we see, are the top technology solutions they plan to invest in. Scaling up in numbers and the quality of selling across the chain becomes important as organizations grow. As the sales in organization grow, it is not just enough to focus on each sales representative, each account, and even each Key Account manually or through traditional methods and tools. Sales enablement in this situation plays a critical role. As Brainshark CEO, Joe Gustafson says, “You have to tackle sales productivity from two angles: improving efficiency and improving effectiveness.” This happens with Sales Enablement. It’s helpful to go through what this Report reveals. It reveals certain interesting findings of Sales Enablement and top-performing organizations. CEOs look at Sales Enablement Technologies to leverage their content. The two things important to CEOs are Sales Content Analytics and giving the sales representatives easy and instant access to content in the field. With Sales Enablement, organizations can make sure that their sales team always has information and resources at their fingertips. It is like a Content ATM- but accessible across devices. Integration with the organization’s CRM further improves content disbursal at the right time to the right people and in every selling situation. Moreover, it provides the right training for every such situation as well. With Content Analytics, you can measure the impact of content through revenue analysis, white space opportunity analysis and also help in identifying best sales practices. Content plays an important role in Sales Enablement for top-performing organizations. Consistent sales messages: All leading sales organizations provide consistent sales messages throughout the buyer’s journey. Sales enablement helps to scale up in communication and messages; this is how consistency in sales messages is made possible. Value and consistency separate top salespeople from the rest: Selling value over price is made possible with the help of sales enablement solutions, so is the consistency of the salespeople in impactful delivery. Continuous sales coaching and mentoring: Sales managers consistently coach and mentor their sales representatives. This would not have been possible without sales enablement as a key enabler. Performing companies value and harmonize sales and marketing: The Report says that 3/4ths of the top-performing organizations follow a good syncing of its sales and marketing functions. This helps in better utilizing the joint prowess in identifying leads and closing deals. There are multiple takeaways from this Report that a CSO can use. Trust you have already picked those up and are following those.

How to Measure Sales Enablement Efforts?

Efforts. Data. Metrics. Efforts. Data. Metrics. Repeat. Without metrics, efforts don’t work. Without results, efforts don’t count. This is true in today’s data-driven world of sales too. If you look at the Sales top down, you will see that things are pretty measurable. As you travel down the funnel, things don’t seem so clear. We talk about increasing the sales pipeline, about white space opportunities, traffic, leads, warm, hot, cold but once we get to those numbers, no one can tell how to prioritize the projects on hand. This is the Sales Enablement Measurement conundrum. Organizations are uncertain about how to measure sales enablement efforts. How do we measure the alignment between marketing and sales? We have tried to resolve your conundrum here to some extent, using both, qualitative and quantitative methods of measurement. These are at best taken as indicators but will help your sales enablement efforts stay on track. 5 ways to track and measure your Sales Enablement efforts. Track the lead-to-deal rate or lead-to-conversion rate: The Sales Enablement team should be more focused on the bottom end of the sales funnel. This means tracking the lead to conversion rate. This is what will indicate the impact of your sales enablement strategies. Although not entirely, because the conversion rate depends on the number and quality of the leads. Besides this, this can be a good measurement index that also helps to identify trends over a period. Ask yourself the question “Will this project help me close more deals?” If the answer is “yes”, put it on priority. The others can be taken up later or delegated. Measure win/loss rates against key competitors: Sales is a race to the finishing line for every lead to be cracked. Your sales team needs your help and support all the time as they face the toughest of competitors. Monitoring your wins and failures and comparing them with your competitors’ wins and losses, will help you identify the gaps and fill that in. It will help you even further to know where you need to put your energy. Your CRM system will help you with this metric. Amplify your content so that it influences a decision to buy: Content is a universal weapon in the sales arsenal; right from the top end of the funnel to the bottom end. Supply your sales team with the right documents and decks but also, leverage the online medium to publish content through visual media. Then monitor it to see which one is more influential as the buyer is in the last stages of his buying decision. Scaling up online with content is good as you can measure the results of what works and what doesn’t. A good CMS and an analytics tool will help you in this task. This will be a perfect time to go for a sales enablement tool. Also, keep a track of and measure your content production – how many pieces of videos, infographics, newsletters, blogs, etc. produced in what month. This will help you measure the time invested and resultant output from these. Do not dismiss attribution reporting: Attribution reporting helps you to see what content helped influence the buyer in the latter stages of his buying journey. This helps in building more content that was successful and cutting down on content that produced weak results. Sit with your sales team: We mean ‘physically’ sit with your sales team regularly. Maybe for some time, every single day. This helps you to know what content they are sharing with customers, what they are saying to leads, how they are doing their demos. By physically being there, you also absorb the underlying vibes, energy and understand a lot that is unsaid or unseen to the naked eye. The team also finds you more accessible and is more inclined to share feedback openly. This helps them voice their needs when it comes to sales enablement efforts. The above 5 are indicators to measure sales enablement efforts. Share your experiences once you start putting these into practice, or in case you have already done so.

When Should you Go for Sales Enablement Tools?

As per industry figures, only a third of the sales team meet their quota, and just a few exceed it. So how does an organization get its sales team to deliver a great performance? Simple answer really- get in new tools to help your sales team. Empirical evidence shows that the right sales enablement technology implemented correctly, at the right time, makes the difference between lead, deal, and a loss. Organizations need sales enablement tools for a superlative sales performance. And the perfect time to do it is when you see any of the following happenings in your organization. Onboarding time for new salespersons exceeds the average Thousands of dollars are spent and hundreds of man-hours invested in getting the new salespersons get up to speed in their onboarding. And despite this, the performance is average or even poor. The right sales enablement tool can help cut this time by 30 to 40 % while ensuring the right content and knowledge of products and services are at hand for the new sales team to move ahead with confidence, sound knowledge and perform well. Productivity is suffering due to less time spent on core selling Sales productivity is a challenge, has been one, for a long time for many B2B companies When sales productivity dips, revenue is heavily impacted. The primary cause of this decline is attributed to the sales team performing more functions other than core selling. Usually, these tasks are routine, non-core and repetitive. Perfect candidates for automation. A good example would be a CRM that helps automate major such tasks and increases productivity by at least 30%. A blanket approach to sales The buyer is getting smarter and more demanding. If sales are using a blanket approach to selling, then it is the seller’s loss, for certain. To stem the loss and to transform the selling process vis-à-vis the changing buyer scenario, it is critical to get into automation. These tools can help tailor the offering or solution based on buyer persona, preferences while also tailoring the content, messaging and interaction timing between the salesperson and buyer. Sales strategies have to take this into account to ensure that the sales team meets the buyer one-on-one, thus improving effectiveness. Taking the sales further in the journey is a problem There is a cost attached to not taking the sale further in its journey, in time and in the right manner. Often, salespersons are not aware of how to do it; they get stuck after a point, or maybe they are not so sure about the next step in certain situations. Sales enablement tools like relationship mapping come to the rescue once again by helping the salespersons with the right help through persona-based selling tips, just-in-time coaching, and effective collaterals. These are also instantly accessible to any of the sales team members. Sitting on the fence ends up in more losses than anything else It is incredible to note that anything up to 50% of the sales forecasts ends up as a no-decision. Something that is neither here nor there and as time lapses, the decision goes the wrong end of the funnel and is declared as a lost deal. It is interesting to see that this happens because, in many cases, it is easier to do nothing. “Why challenge the status quo?” is always a better proposition. With sales enablement tools, it is easier to overcome the status quo. This happens by offering value. The more the salesperson gets to the depth of the prospect and understands his business, addresses his pain points, the more the engagement between the salesperson and the buyer. This often results in a deal. Sales enablement tools help salespersons by guiding them on how to build a case, helps them to engage the prospects with value-added content and help them to advance the deal. The right content at the right time is not available to the sales team A survey shows that 90 percent of content is not used. Where we know that impactful content influences 95 percent of B2B sales, sales teams say they never have the right content on hand when they want it. As a result, sales teams waste valuable time away from core selling and in finding the right content or creating it themselves. With sales enablement tools, real-time data shows what content a sales rep may need at what time for a maximum turnaround and helps put up that content for the salesperson to use. Right content, at the right time for the right sales person, is the best thing that can happen to sales effectiveness. Limited insights into what works and what doesn’t, hampers the sale If data is there, then data analytics are not there; this is true in many cases. This hampers the sale as has been proven time and again. Insights help in closing a deal because insights help the salesperson in knowing more about his prospect. Sales enablement tools help in data mining and with predictive analysis helps the sales persons to glean insights from data captured. This helps the sales team to improve sales performance, through improved productivity, increased effectiveness and thus improves revenues. The above 7 signs are clear indications of when an organization should start getting in automation and look at sales enablement seriously. If you have spotted any of the above signs, we recommend you start getting into action immediately and get in Sales Enablement.

Tightening the Lead-to-Deal Cycle with Sales Enablement

The first contact of the buyer with company and product information today is the Internet and, more precisely, the handheld device, which is an all-too-familiar sight anywhere in the world, even in its remotest corner. Gone are the days when the company sales representative would knock on the doors of the buyers and share information about his product, hoping to make a sale, eventually. The internet has taken over the lives of the buyers completely. With the kind of overwhelming information that is available on the internet in a single swipe, there is no wonder that the buyer knows a lot about your product, company, competitor products, the category and almost everything there is to know, from the internet. You may, therefore, ask – “Of what use is our sales representative?” Good question. Your sales representative needs to be well equipped with advanced information that will pre-empt all the prospects’ queries, doubts, concerns at that stage of the buying cycle. A sales representative needs to remember that buyer queries at this stage when he has gobbled up all the information from the internet, tends to be highly advanced, specific and sophisticated. How does one handle this? The answer is two powerful words- Sales Enablement. Brainshark defines Sales Enablement as a “Systematic approach to increasing sales productivity, by supporting reps with the content, training, and analytics they need to have more successful sales conversations.” Sales Enablement demystified For all the glamor or mystery that shrouds sales enablement, it is a simple concept that encompasses all those activities that optimize the effectiveness of the sales effort. Sales enablement is known to increase sales productivity with sales enablement tools. It covers many aspects such as client-facing content; education and analysis; coaching, training, buyer’s insight, content creation, guidelines for using sales assets, sales automation, technology for finding and accessing the right content, and fast and easy access to the right content and knowledge. This helps the salespeople in having all the tools at their beck and call so as to focus on providing value during client discussions. It has been shown in a survey of 400 B2B Sales and Marketing professionals that 57 % ranked their sales efforts and effective or very effective, in organizations that had sales enablement. In another survey, one could see a clear 50% increase in sales team goal attainment. It is all very well to see and say that sales enablement is a must for sales effectiveness and sales acceleration. However, implementing it the right way needs a certain amount of discipline on the organization’s front. This can be applied in three ways: Sales and Marketing working as a Team ‍Too often we see sales and marketing passing the buck on each other. Sales say, marketing does not generate enough leads or generates poor leads, while marketing says, sales wastes the leads given to them. If instead, the two join hands and communicate in unison with the customer, the effort will be fruitful. Marketing can glean and share insights generated through nurture campaigns and digital listening with sales. This way, sales can work on intuitive insights thus leading to better results and conversions with customers. Integrating systems to ensure the end-to-end lead flow ‍With all the talk going on, about lead generation, nurturing and conversion, one cannot afford to ignore the integration of systems so as to leverage the lead to deal process. The smooth flow of leads in the funnel from marketing to sales is important. Marketing should pass on all the insights to sales that are generated during the nurturing process; they need to create a clear customer profile for sales; so that when sales walk in, they pass on the right message, catch the right white space opportunity and move in for closing the deal. Today, this smooth flowing of leads, lead profiling, and customer understanding is critical because sales come in later in the buying cycle than used to happen earlier. The marketing and sales alignment helps the sales organization follow up with the right communication and cut down the duration of the buying cycle. CXO backing ‍Talking about sales enablement and sales transformation is easy, but implementation, not as much. Like any other new tool, technology, process or practice that needs to be incorporated into an organization, even this one needs top-level backing. The support also has to be active; with clear, planned communication, benefits, and schedules from the top, reinforcing the change. Sales and marketing leadership is the best place to begin this shift. A good part of sales enablement is good, impactful content. If sales have to try hard to access it, they lose time. If they do not understand what content the buyer needs in a face to face discussion, they lose the buyer. Sales enablement does not come alone. To go with it, it needs good content and great integration between sales and marketing, in spirit, function, and systems. This will help organizations in upping their customer experience, making a positive difference in conversion rates and improving sales effectiveness and productivity. Explore the complete guide to Cross-selling and Up-selling to identify unexplored opportunities for your business as well as your clients’ business and grow better in 2021.

Why You Should Watch Out for Sales Enablement?

Companies are increasingly understanding the importance of implementing marketing and sales technologies to their functions in order to increase efficiencies and drive growth. Sales enablement is one function that has received increasing acceptance across firms to help sales teams do their jobs better. As a huge chunk of marketing and sales budgets can go into replacing B2B sales representatives, and several months are spent in training new recruits, companies are instead increasingly looking to invest in technology solutions for these teams. However, the extent of adoption differs from one company to another. Companies are generally classified into two sets when it comes to sales enablement. The first set of companies which have made significant and mature investments in the sales enablement function have already experimented with several kinds of solutions. These firms will now look to consolidate their existing basket of tools. In companies where sales enablement is in full swing, it is likely that mature investments have already been made in ramping up the sales and marketing IT infrastructure. Their existing technology bouquet would likely boast of a CRM solution, a marketing automation system, and tools well-suited to their business. These companies also would have senior executives focused on Business Intelligence, Big Data, and Analytics. On the other hand, organizations which have recently come to realize the importance of CRM are yet to entirely expose themselves to sales enablement and sales transformation. They are now focusing on broadening their understanding of the CRM ecosystem, including more tools and obtaining SaaS solutions to enhance their existing marketing and sales technologies. Companies with nascent investments in sales and marketing technologies are likely to spend more time on strategizing. Their primary objective is zeroing in on a solution that helps the sales team save time. The solutions they adopt generally include CPQ, content delivery, proposal automation, and mobile applications, among others. They are generally on the lookout for a scalable platform which can help them with strong analytics. Either situation calls for heavy contribution from an investment into Big Data. According to Aberdeen Group, more than half of the best-in-class firms find it useful to implement analytics to sales data such as past activity and current pipeline. While the general trend points towards an increase in marketing budgets over the next few years, with the sheer range of tools available, the C-suite is expected to be pickier while expanding their technology bouquet. CMOs and CIOs will strive to obtain a more holistic view of the various stages of the project lifecycle, from generating leads to closures. The coming years will only heighten the importance of a more closely-knit relationship between sales and marketing teams, as companies look to consolidate their investments, especially related to SaaS. Having said that, despite the selective investments surrounding SaaS, companies will be willing to make valuable additions to their technology systems. The coming times can be challenging for those who companies who do not fall into either category. The key is to open up to the idea that initial and additional investments in SaaS will be a given, but will prove to be valuable in the long term if they are aligned with the company’s plans and objectives. Explore the complete guide to Cross-selling and Up-selling to identify unexplored opportunities for your business as well as your clients’ business and grow better in 2021.