7 Steps to Create a Sales Enablement Program

Sales representatives are the lifeblood of any organization. Whether they're selling cutting-edge Enterprise SAS tools or residential HVAC systems, the process demands not only product knowledge and customer empathy but also unwavering determination. Sales enablement is the key to helping these sales reps excel in their roles and achieve outstanding results.

Sales enablement might not always be easy to implement, but it's a critical process for streamlining the journey from lead to customer. In this session, you'll discover why sales enablement is essential for your organization and gain insights into crafting a foolproof sales enablement strategy that you can start implementing today.

Understanding Sales Enablement

In simple terms, sales enablement is the process of equipping your sales reps with the tools, resources, and competitive intelligence they need to excel in their roles. To do this effectively, you must have a 360-degree understanding of how your sales reps sell your product. This understanding allows you to identify roadblocks and create enablement materials and solutions to overcome them.

When executed correctly, sales enablement can be transformative. It can rescue underperforming reps from the brink, elevate your median performance, and turn your top performers into true legends. It empowers your entire organization with the competitive intelligence, resources, and tools needed to close deals more efficiently.

But it's essential to recognize that sales enablement goes beyond creating a few battle cards and wishing your reps good luck. It's about teaching them how to fish, showing them how to leverage your hard work for better business outcomes in a short period.

The Sales Rep's Journey

Sales reps face a challenging journey. They must grab a qualified prospect's attention, build rapport, highlight pain points, and position your product as the ideal solution. If they can make the prospect a hero in the process, that's even better. Handling objections and ultimately closing the deal are crucial steps. To succeed, sales teams must be armed with training and readily available materials designed to simplify and expedite the buyer's journey.

The Seven Steps to Sales Enablement

To begin building and implementing a successful and sustainable sales enablement strategy, follow these seven steps:

Step 1: Assemble Your Team

Ideally, you'd have a dedicated sales enablement team focused on delivering strategic training and collateral to sales reps. In reality, this responsibility often falls on product marketers because they are the go-to resource for positioning, messaging, and competitive intelligence.

Step 2: Establish Specific Goals and KPIs

While the ultimate goal of sales enablement is to improve sales, it's essential to set specific short-term goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) as your roadmap. Common KPIs include lead to opportunity conversion rate, win rate, competitive win rate, average selling price, sales cycle length, quota attainment, and content adoption.

Step 3: Delegate Action Items

Determine who within your team will be responsible for specific goals. Product marketers typically handle positioning, messaging, and competitive intelligence, while demand gen marketers excel at nurturing leads. Ensure clear ownership of deliverables to drive accountability.

Step 4: Create Collateral

Whether it's case studies, business case templates, or ROI calculators, now is the time to bring your sales enablement collateral to life. Collaboration and attention to detail are key in this step.

For more insights on creating essential collateral, check out our Sales Battle Cards 101 video.

Step 5: Develop Your Rollout Plans

Congratulations, you've created game-changing sales enablement collateral. Now, it's time to ensure that your sellers know where to find it, why it's important, and how to use it. A thoughtful rollout plan is crucial to drive material adoption.

Step 6: Distribute Collateral

To ensure your sales enablement materials are being used and continue to drive adoption, distribute the collateral where your sellers spend their time. Accessibility is key to success.

Step 7: Analyze and Optimize

Sales enablement is an ongoing process. Use your KPIs to identify what's working and what's not. Continuously improve your approach to achieve better results over time.

Fueling Sales with Competitive Intelligence

Competitive intelligence is a critical aspect of sales enablement. Pairing sales enablement with competitive intelligence can amplify its impact. 

Watch this session to learn more about how to empower your sales reps, improve productivity, and drive better business outcomes through effective sales enablement. Remember, the journey to success begins with equipping your sales team with the right tools and resources.