There’s always a new buzzword in the inbound marketing world.
At present, sales enablement seems to resonate with most sales managers and executives. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that it is a great differentiator. Especially when it comes to winning business and besting your competition.
For more insights, we’ll be reviewing what the phrase really means and why you need to embrace it today.
What is Sales Enablement?
Sales enablement refers to the art of equipping your sales team with the right resources to excel. This may mean providing them with the right content, technology, and tools to drive your campaign forward.
Salespersons are actually very much like pro athletes. They need to have the right gear, support structure and training methods to thrive. It’s a great analogy when you consider numerous impediments exist in the current business scene.
Today, most sales enablement solutions are buyer-centric. Objectively, the goal is to ensure that as a seller, you’re able to target the right buyers. It becomes easier to do this once there are minimal inhibitions during the customer journey. Sales engagement provides you with enough fodder to keep the conversation going whilst and showcasing your expertise and credibility.
Curious? Here’s a closer look at why sales enablement is just what the doctor ordered for your enterprise.
Why is Sales Enablement Important?
Since sales enablement makes transactions smoother, it’s highly likely that this will translate to more sales.
With a happy client base, it’s easier for you to register higher customer retention numbers. As the numbers show, about 90% of happy customers are likely to purchase more than once.
Importantly, your bottom line is likely to benefit from this approach. This is because it’s relatively cheaper to retain your clientele than to go out on the hunt for new customers.
With a great strategy in place, you become more receptive to opportunities that exist. This means it becomes easier to achieve your sales targets.
Having revealed all this, it’s pertinent to note that B2B selling is a little bit more nuanced in this day and age. To ensure that you have the full grasp of what’s needed of you, here’s a look at why sales enablement is important.
1. Keeps your competitive edge
The internet has played a big role in revolutionizing how people consume products. Popular brands like Netflix and Uber which are continually conditioning people to expect bespoke, on-demand experiences.
With the internet awash with plenty of information about products, the modern buyer is at an advantage. This is because they can solutions to their problems once you’re unable to fulfill their expectations. To avoid becoming just another statistic, you need to be at the forefront of meeting your customers’ needs.
Sales enablement helps you put your priorities in order. It’s a great strategy because it does away with the age-old aggressive tactics employed by salespeople in the last century. Instead, it embraces an information-based approach.
Equipped with more inbound selling knowledge and best practices, your team is better able to find a footing. This is because being in tune with your audience makes it easy for them to connect, build relationships and close deals.
2. Synchronizes the team
The modern business environment has had a big role in blurring the lines between sales and marketing. Today, the best performing organizations have figured out how to blend the two into one entity. As such, if you’re looking to boost sales, it’s necessary that both teams work together.
Importantly, you also need to ensure that your salespersons perfectly comprehend inbound sales and buyer behaviors.
This is vital because it gives them a clear perspective of how customers feel along the buyer journey. It makes zero sense for them to feel cared and nurtured for during the start only to be pressured later on to complete a sale. In such a situation, it’s highly unlikely that anything fruitful will emerge.
With sales enablement, it becomes easy to take customers through the entire buyer journey. This is because it strengthens the relationship and collaboration between sales and marketing. In the end, you’ll be able to realize improved ROI and a synchronized team that reads from the same script.
3. Reduced turnover
It’s hard to register higher revenues when your staff members are constantly quitting. This is because you have to spare more time to onboard and train new reps for the job. At the same time, it’s a rather expensive undertaking that may bite into any profit margins made.
One of the key reasons why turnover is usually high is because of a lack of morale. Among salespersons, a dip in confidence usually creeps in when they are unable to meet their sales targets. With diminished confidence, many people tend to quit in a bid to explore new lands.
As an entrepreneur, turnover can be quite detrimental to the business. Thankfully, you can curb its effects by embracing sales enablement. Using the strategy, you can facilitate your salespersons to cope in the digital age and connect with various audiences better.
Sales enablement also gives you a helping hand in the onboarding process. The new sales reps you bring in are likely going to be better prepared to sell quickly. The more deals your reps are able to close deals, the motivated they’re going to be to keep pushing on. Through this, you’ll be able to notice a reduced turn over. At the end of the day, it’s a win-win for everyone involved.
4. Scaling success and stronger sales data
Because sales enablement provides sales reps with the right tools for success, you’re less likely to be overly reliant on traditional top performers to push you forward.
This is because the fantastic support offered by this strategy propels great sellers to the very next level. Remarkably, even laggards benefit from the system since it’s much easier for them to achieve their targets.
With continued use of sales enablement, you’re also going to find yourself more proficient at collecting user data. With this kind of access, you’ll gain plenty of insights on buyer preferences and the key pain points.
The end result? You’ll be able to tailor a more personalized customer approach. Ultimately, this may translate to higher sales since 65% of B2B decision-makers have exclaimed they can’t engage salespersons who don’t offer personalized services.
Conclusion
Sales enablement is a powerful ingredient in pushing your sales agenda. This is because it helps build reps’ skills through engaging activities and gives you insights on where you need to strengthen.
By tracking performance, you can also accelerate business outcomes by making use of reports and analytics.
Having highlighted all this in our review, we’d love to know whether you’re ready to embrace sales enablement. How do you think sales enablement is going to work for you? Do you have anything extra to add to the points we touched on?
Let us know in the comments section below!
