State of Sales Enablement 2015

EFFECTIVENESS SALES ENABLEMENT SUPPORT PRODUCTIVITY ENGAGEMENT CONTENT TRAINING
NT SUPPORT PRODUCTIVITY ENGAGEMENT CONTENT TRAINING ONBOARDING REVENUE MARGIN QUOTA EFFICIENCY KNO
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TIVITY ENGAGEMENT CONTENT TRAINING ONBOARDING REVENUE MARGIN QUOTA EFFICIENCY KNOWLEDGE ATTAINMENT
EFFECTIVENESS SALES ENABLEMENT SUPPORT PRODUCTIVITY ENGAGE
EMENT CONTENT TRAINING ONBOARDING REVENUE MARGIN QUOTA EFFICIENCY KNOWLEDGE ATTAINMENT GROWTH BES
EFFECTIVENESS SALES ENABLEMENT SUPPORT PRODUCTIVITY ENGAGEMENT CONTENT TRAINING ONBOARDING REVEN
SALES ENABLEMENT SUPPORT PRODUCTIVITY ENGAGEMENT CONTENT TRAINING ONBOARDING REVENUE MARGIN QUOTA
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QUALITY VELOCITY EFFECTIVENESS SALES ENABLEMENT SU
ODUCTIVITY ENGAGEMENT CONTENT TRAINING ONBOARDING REVENUE MARGIN QUOTA EFFICIENCY KNOWLEDGE ATTAINM
BOARDING REVENUE MARGIN QUOTA EFFICIENCY KNOWLEDGE ATTAINMENT GROWTH BEST PRACTICE MARGIN VELOCITY
IVENESS SALES ENABLEMENT SUPPORT PRODUCTIVITY ENGAGEMENT CONTENT TRAINING ONBOARDING REVENUE MARGIN
TY ENGAGEMENT CONTENT TRAINING ONBOARDING REVENUE MARGIN QUOTA EFFICIENCY KNOWLEDGE QUALITY ATTAIN
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2015 STATE OF
SALES ENABLEMENT
RESULTS AND ANALYSIS FROM THE 2015
RESEARCH STUDY ON SALES ENABLEMENT
BY HIGHSPOT & HEINZ MARKETING

2015 STATE OF SALES ENABLEMENT 2
“Sales enablement” as a general business process has been around in B2B
organizations for quite some time. That is, most organizations have had people in
marketing and sales dedicate time to helping the Sales team be more effective. But
in the last 5 years, its importance has skyrocketed, due to its ability to increase sales
productivity and effectiveness. Leading organizations are forming Sales Enablement
teams dedicated to this task and the market for Sales Enablement technology
solutions has exploded.
According to Aberdeen research1
, these leading organizations are seeing incredible
results such as:
• 99% overall team attainment of sales quota
• 9% advantage in year-to-year revenue growth over average companies
• 7.4% year over year growth in average deal size (ASP)
But how many companies are taking advantage of this opportunity? And how well
have they implemented sales enablement programs to achieve these results? What are
sales enablement activities, how effective are they, and how actively are organizations
executing them?
These were the questions at the heart of a groundbreaking study conducted in August
2015 by Highspot and Heinz Marketing among more than 400 B2B sales & marketing
professionals.
The results may surprise you. The importance of sales enablement activities rank high
across all organizations, but there is clearly a gap between the ‘have’ and the ‘have nots‘
in achieving the intended results. Many of the pains of sales-marketing misalignment exist
across most organizations.
If nothing else, let these insights inform your prioritization and provide focus heading
into 2016.
INTRODUCTION
JEFF DAY
VP of Marketing
Highspot
@highspot
MATT HEINZ
Founder and President
Heinz Marketing
@HeinzMarketing
1
“Making Sales Enablement Work: Nine Must-Haves for the Modern Sales Ops Leader”,
Aberdeen Group, March 2015

SALES TEAMS PERCEIVED AS
NOT EFFECTIVE
Across the board, organizations ranked the effectiveness of their sales
teams functions pretty low—the majority scored them as “not effective.”
Clearly respondents expectations are high and there is a need for
increased attention on improving Sales’ performance. But there is a
significant gap in reported effectiveness between those companies with
focused sales enablement teams and those that do not. Organizations with
sales enablement teams scored much higher.
1
4
SALES ENABLEMENT DRIVES
REAL IMPROVEMENTS IN SALES
Reported business benefit of sales enablement efforts align with key sales
performance metrics such as improving conversion rates, sales productivity and
ability to sell.
3
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.
CONTENT IS KING.
When respondents ranked the activities associated with sales enablement,
creating, managing, distributing and presenting content ranked highest. It is clear
that quality content and knowledge transfer through training are critical activities
that Sales Enablement teams must drive to reach their business objectives.
KEY FINDINGS
SALES ENABLEMENT FUNCTIONS RANK HIGH IN
IMPORTANCE ACROSS ALL ORGANIZATIONS
Across all organizations, those activities that were identified as sales
enablement ranked very important in their value to the company. Across
the board, organizations recognize the importance of sales enablement
activities, but few have focused their organization with dedicated teams
in order to improve their effectiveness.
2

THE MACRO PROBLEM:
SALES ENABLEMENT EFFORTS ARE NOT
LIVING UP TO EXPECTATIONS
B2B companies are struggling to increase sales
effectiveness. With 60%-70% of the buyer’s journey
happening before a prospect ever talks to sales,
sales is in a tough position to increase their
effectiveness once they are able to engage with
the customer. And according to our study, most
organizations are coming up short.
Across all respondents, only 48% ranked their
sales efforts as effective (4 or 5 on the 5 point
scale)—less than half. Surprisingly, those
respondents from the sales side of the house,
rated themselves worse; only 35% rated their
efforts effective or very effective.
This is a discouraging sign.
But when segmented as those organizations
that have sales enablement teams versus those
that don’t, 57% of organizations that have
sales enablement ranked their sales efforts
as effective or very effective versus only 35%
for those that don’t, indicating a correlation
between the existence of a sales enablement
team and a more effective sales organization.
SURVEY RESULTS
QUESTION
How would you rate the overall effectiveness of your company’s sales efforts
on a 1–5 scale?
All Respondents With Sales Enablement (SE) Teams
Without SE Teams
33%
22%
35%
10%
25%
Very Effective Effective OK
Poor Very Poor
15%
33%40%
11%
1%

SALES ENABLEMENT EFFORTS ARE
FALLING SHORT
Similarly, organizations are failing in their
sales enablement activities,
despite reported high importance.
When asked about their sales enablement efforts,
only 31% of all companies reported that their efforts
were effective (4–5 on a 5 point scale). Only 6% of
the population rated their efforts as very effective,
while 8% rated themselves on the far other side of
the spectrum, very poor. This certainly leaves a lot
of room for improvement.
8%
Very
Poor
23%
Poor
32%
OK
25%
Effective
6%
Very
Effective
QUESTION
Please rate how effective you believe your company’s current
“sales enablement” efforts are on a scale of 1–5

QUESTION #1
Please rate how important you believe each of the following activities are to the success of
your company on a 1–10 scale
QUESTION #2
Please rate how effectively you believe your company is currently performing and/or completing
the following sales related activities on a scale of 1–10
A GAP BETWEEN
IMPORTANCE AND EFFECTIVENESS
When asked to rate the importance of
sales support related activities, many sales
enablement activities ranked high in “contributing to
the success of your company.”
Unfortunately, most organizations report a stunning
difference between rated importance and the
effectiveness with which they are accomplishing
those activities. Organizations without sales
enablement teams report very mediocre
effectiveness (scores 5–6) in
sales enablement tasks.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Training/
Onboarding
Producing
Content
Identifying
Best Practices
Helping Sales
Find Content
Measuring Content
Effectiveness
MEDIOCRITY
Importance
Effectiveness
8.32
5.58
8.29
6.18
8.18
5.63
8.16
6.08
8.02
5.21
Organizations without SE Teams

QUESTION
Does your company currently have some type of defined
sales enablement team in place?
ADOPTION OF BEST PRACTICES IS LOW
Only 14% of respondents have
a sales enablement team.
This will be an interesting trend to watch.
Other studies suggest that sales enablement is on
the rise. As we do this study each year, we will track
the adoption rate of sales enablement.
Yes
No
Not Sure
14%
62%
24%

COMPELLING
BUSINESS BENEFIT
That’s the bad news, but the benefits and
positive impact on key sales metrics for those
investing in sales enablement are compelling
and highly encouraging.
Despite a current lack of investment in sales
enablement, many of these same companies
recognize the benefit of effective sales enablement
practices. There is also a clear, measurable
improvement in results for those with dedicated
sales enablement functions.
Improving sales conversion rates and sales
productivity are top priority objectives for any
business team and have a direct impact on
increasing revenue. Improving Sales’ ability to
sell is inherently beneficial. Both ”improving
knowledge” and “delivering quality content”
point to a key aspect of sales enablement;
coordinating with marketing to create, deliver
and train the sales team on quality content,
which in turn leads to higher conversion rates
and increasing revenue.
THE UPSIDE POTENTIAL
QUESTION
In your opinion, which of the following benefits that could come from a successful sales
enablement process do you believe would deliver the greatest value to your company?
Select the top three.
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Improving
Conversion
Rates
Increasing
Sales
Productivity
Improving
Knowledge &
Ability to Sell
Delivering
Quality
Content
%ofRespondents

QUESTION
How would you rate the overall effectiveness of your company’s sales efforts
on a 1–5 scale?
SALES EFFECTIVENESS UP IN
ORGANIZATIONS WITH SALES
ENABLEMENT
Comparing the responses of effectiveness for those
companies with sales enablement teams in place vs.
those without shows a stark improvement in results:
57% of respondents reported that their sales efforts
were effective or very effective for companies with
sales enablement teams versus only 35% without.
With SE Teams Without SE Teams
22%
35%
10%
25%
Very Effective Effective Not Effective

QUESTION
Please rate how effectively you believe your company is currently performing and/or
completing the following sales related activities on a scale of 1–10
SALES ENABLEMENT DRIVES
EFFECTIVENESS IN KEY ACTIVITIES
Organizations with sales enablement teams were also
significantly more effective (by as much as 25%) on
key sales support activities vs. organizations without.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Training/
Onboarding
Producing
Content
Identifying
Best
Practices
Helping Sales
Find Content
Measuring
Content
Effectiveness
Without SE Team With SE Team
Managing
Sales
Comms.
Choosing
Technology
for Sales
Running Email
Campaigns
for Sales
Coordinating
Sales
Meetings
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
% Improvement

QUESTION
How do you define sales enablement? Which activities do you believe should be included in
sales enablement?
Sales Related Activities Total
Marketing
Teams
Sales
Teams
Sales
Enablement
Teams
Making sure sales team can find content 65% 71% 62% 80%
Producing materials for sales 63 64 64 50
Identify/implement sales productivity tools 62 64 61 90
Producing content for sales 61 62 57 40
Training and onboarding sales team 61 65 55 70
Identifying best practices in sales 59 54 60 80
Sales playbooks 57 56 51 80
Measuring sales content effectiveness 54 56 47 60
CRM configuration 52 52 46 50
Choosing tech. solutions for sales 48 49 43 50
Email campaigns for sales reps 47 56 47 40
Managing sales team communication 46 46 42 30
SalesEnablementNotSalesEnablement
DEFINING SALES ENABLEMENT
When asked what activities were included in
Sales Enablement the responses were pretty
consistent, with some notable exceptions from
Sales Enablement practitioners, themselves.
In general, activities that the majority of
respondents indicated were “in” included content
for sales, training sales, identifying best practices
and creating sales playbooks. In other words,
knowledge transfer, knowledge sharing and tools
and processes to identify and share best practices.
These are all activities that were traditionally
part of the product marketing or field marketing
role. And in many institutions, they still are.
We’re seeing a small, but meaningful shift in
responsibilities from Product Marketing to
Sales Enablement.
Generally, activities that were left out were
those traditionally in the Sales Operations role;
CRM configuration, choosing tech for sales, and
managing sales communications.
The biggest difference in opinion was that Sales
Enablement practitioners scored “Producing
content for sales” very low. We believe that is
because Marketing is still expected to produce
the content and Sales Enablement is in charge
of training the sales team on it, ensuring they
can find it when needed and measuring the
effectiveness of it.
BEST PRACTICES IN
SALES ENABLEMENT

6.5
7
7.5
8
8.5
9
Training/
Onboarding
Producing
Content
Identifying
Best Practices
Helping Sales
Find Content
Measuring Content
Effectiveness
With SE Team
Without SE Team
QUESTION
Please rate how important you believe each of the following activities are to the success of
your company on a 1–10 scale
ACTIVITIES TO FOCUS ON
Organizations focused on sales enablement
place higher importance on the key
sales enablement activities.
It is worth noting that three of the top five
sales enablement activities relate to producing,
distributing and measuring effectiveness
of sales content.
The activity with the biggest gap between the two
segments is measuring the effectiveness of sales
content;those organizations with sales enablement
teams are 20% more effective at measuring the
impact of sales content.
RatedImportance

QUESTION
How important is having objective quantifiable measurement of the effectiveness of sales
enablement to your organization?
MEASURING THE PERFORMANCE OF
SALES CONTENT
Despite a general lack of formal
sales enablement functions, most companies still
rate the importance of measuring sales content
effectiveness as very high.
More than 75% of respondents rated sales
enablement measurement as important, very
important or extremely important.
13%
27%
36%
16%
3%
6%
Extremely important
Very important
Important
Not very important
Not important at all
Not sure

0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Email CRM Cloud-
Sharing
Shared
Drive
%ofRespondents
QUESTION
What technologies is your company currently using to deliver sales collateral to the sales
organization today?
ORGANIZATIONS STILL REPLY ON
ANTIQUATED SYSTEMS TO DISTRIBUTE
CONTENT TO THEIR SALES TEAMS
More than 70% of respondents rely on email to
distribute content to their sales organization. More
than 45% of marketing respondents rely on a shared
network drive to deliver sales collateral and content.
Only 12% have a dedicated Sales Enablement
solution in place—possibly another key to the
performance gap.
80%
Web
Portal
Sharepoint Sales
Enablement
Technology

0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
One
Solution
Two
Solutions
Three
Solutions
Four
Solutions
Five
Solutions
Six
Solutions
Seven
Solutions
…And, 55% of respondents have three of more
channels for sharing sales content, further
complicating the content delivery process for both
sales and marketing, increasing inefficiency for the
sales organization.
20%
26% 25%
13%
7%
3%
2%

KEY TAKEAWAYS Sales Enablement is growing movement with clear benefits to improving
sales effectiveness.1
To achieve similar results, organizations would be wise to:
Identify or create a team dedicated to improving sales enablement
Develop a charter that focuses on these core activities
Establish cross-functional (sales and marketing) support to ensure good
alignment and ability to execute
Provide the tools, resources and support to be successful
Set goals for better sales enablement in 2016
2
Early adopters who have formed dedicated teams to improve sales
enablement report much higher effectiveness in sales and sales
enablement activities.
3
Across all organizations, sales enablement is seen as a critical business
function with meaningful impact on Improving Conversion Rates, Increasing
Sales Productivity and Improving Ability to Sell. These have direct impact on
both top-line revenue and cost-per-sales which impacts margin.
4
Leading organizations are being successful by creating teams dedicated
to Sales Enablement and its core activities including training the sales
team, ensuring they have easy access to quality content, developing tools
and processes to identify and share best practices and measuring the
effectiveness of sales content.

For more information on Sales Enablement, including getting started tips and
implementation best practices, read “The Definitive Guide to Sales Enablement”
online at www.highspot.com/sales-enablement.
ABOUT HIGHSPOT
Highspot is the industry’s most advanced sales enablement platform, using data science
to improve sales effectiveness. With Highspot, sales teams are connected to the most
relevant content for each situation, have flexible ways to present content to customers, and
gain real-time visibility into whether customers find the content engaging. By closing the
loop across marketing, sales, and customers, Highspot uniquely delivers insights that help
companies engage more effectively with customers, driving increased revenue and customer
satisfaction.
For more information, visit www.highspot.com.
ABOUT HEINZ MARKETING
Heinz Marketing is a B2B marketing and sales acceleration firm that delivers measurable
revenue results. By focusing on demand generation, lead management and sales enablement
strategy & execution, the experienced Heinz team focuses on helping you build a sustainable,
repeatable and predictable engine for sale & revenue growth.
Learn more about Heinz Marketing at www.heinzmarketing.com.

State of Sales Enablement 2015

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State of Sales Enablement 2015