Sales enablement is all about giving sales teams the right tools, training, resources, and content they need to connect with buyers and improve sales conversions. Having a successful sales enablement strategy includes focusing on five key areas—surviving changes, understanding buyer and organization personas, navigating the benefits and dangers of AI, motivating the seller to improve retention, and building virtual frontline talent.
Sales enablement helps sales teams adjust to constant changes. It helps teams overcome sales challenges when there are shifts in the buying environment, the economy, and changing sales roles. Sales enablement roles should focus on increasing sales productivity and customer interaction consistency. It should also focus on improving the overall seller experience. One more effective method to engage customers using sales enablement strategies is by promoting self-directed learning. This helps improve knowledge retention and application.
Research over the past 40 years on self-directed learning has shown that giving adults more authority over their learning goals, techniques, and results leads to positive outcomes. These strategies have been incorporated into business training programs. Since salespeople need a lot of independence and face many different scenarios, experts in adult education believe that the personalized learning strategies of self-directed learning are perfect for training sales professionals.
Additionally, Gartner data indicates that 65% of B2B sales teams will rely on data-driven decisions by 2026. These teams will use technology integrations to make improvements to their workflow, data, and analytics. Only 22% of current sales enablement budgets are allocated to technology. Using this technology helps businesses create more future-proof teams and increases team efficiency.
Many sales teams create buyer personas for different roles, but just like individual personas vary, organizations also differ within the same industry. The vast majority of B2B purchases take place during changes to that organization. How a buyer manages these changes can make or break their decision to buy. Buyers want to feel understood and also want to be able to easily access the information they are looking for about a business.
Sales enablement leaders can help sellers recognize different customer profiles and adjust their strategies accordingly. Sellers who do not “speak the buyer’s language” have a harder time building the connections necessary to nail down sales. Sellers will also have to consider company-specific characteristics during these times. This might include the organization’s:
AI is no longer a new topic. Sales teams have been making use of the resource for several years now. It can be used to create content and predict what action can be expected from certain customers. 2023 studies showed that 84% of sellers' AI systems were used to guide them through their “next-best” actions for customer acquisition and lead generation strategies.
While AI can be a great tool to use, there are also a few things to keep in mind while using this resource. The seller needs to make sure that the AI-generated content is both accurate and is fitting for their brand. If they come off as insincere, it could really harm the trust between them and their clients. Sales enablement leaders should develop resources that help pinpoint what needs to be checked and guide how to review it properly before any information is shared.
The overall goal of an enablement strategy is to boost customer retention and reduce customer churn. One of the things that can hold companies back from this is having unmotivated sellers. Sellers may either have the motivation to work towards the sales goals, or they may feel a drag that diminishes that motivation. More motivated sellers are generally better at their work. For example, one Harvard Business Review predicted that removing sales representative earning caps would increase sales by 8%. When this was put into practice, the company’s total revenue increased by 9% within the following year alone.
A successful enablement strategy should include an investment in this driving motivation for sellers. This might include providing new internal growth opportunities, showing sellers their value, giving helpful feedback for their work, and cutting down on less important tasks that overburden employees' schedules.
The use of digital channels is becoming an increasingly preferred way for customers to partake in the learning and sales processes. This makes it all the more important for sellers to be good at using those tools and online platforms. Additionally, Gallup data shows that there is an average of 11% higher volume and 6% higher closing percentage for salespeople who have undergone strength coaching. Organizations offering this type of training also see between a 10% and 19% increase in sales.
With so much of sales happening online, sellers should be able to easily collaborate with their team in an online environment and understand and make the best use of data collected about online performance. They should also have a good understanding of the information surrounding purchasing decisions so they can better understand and guide potential buyers, and they should be up to date with the skills they need to be able to make sales in a virtual environment successfully.
A lot of changes are taking place in the sales world. Having a successful enablement strategy is key to staying on top of these trends and allows organizations to increase revenue. Sales enablement strategies are necessary for creating the best sales pipeline optimization. By focusing on key areas like overcoming organizational changes, getting a better understanding of your target audience, weighing the benefits of AI use, motivating sellers, and increasing virtual talent, organizations can improve their sales conversions and create an overall more positive experience.
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