Improving Sales Enablement Keeping it Simple

1. IMPROVING SALES
ENABLEMENT KEEPING IT
SIMPLE
FOR SALES INTAKE
Lisa Dennis
President

2. OVERVIEW
 Top 5 sales enablement misfires that too many
companies make
 Sales enablement best practices and next
practices
 How content marketing fits into the sales
enablement strategy
 How to assess if technology has taken over
your smart sales enablement process

3. SALES ENABLEMENT –
DEFINITIONS
Getting the right information into the hands of the right
sellers at the right time and place, and in the right format,
to move a sales opportunity forward.
Sales enablement is a strategic, ongoing process that
equips all client-facing employees with the ability to
consistently and systematically have a valuable
conversation with the right set of customer stakeholders
at each stage of the customer’s problem-solving life cycle
to optimize the return of investment of the selling system.

4. IS THE TERM A MISNOMER?
Sales Enablement Buyer
Enablement

5. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
SALES
ENABLEMEN
T
FIELD
MARKETING
SALES
OPERATION
S
MARKETING
OPERATION
S

6. TRENDS, THOUGHTS THAT MATTER
24% less B2B
sales people will
be required by
2020
Andy Hoar,
Forrester Analyst
Marketing = Enablement
Paul Gottsegen, Sr. VP Chief Marketing & Strategy
Officer, Mindtree
The nature of marketing has
exploded from an ancillary
communications function to the
Grand Central Station of
customer experience.
Scott Brinker,

7. SALES ENABLEMENT MISFIRES
Mistake #1: Equating sales enablement with just sales
collateral
creation & delivery
Mistake #2: Adopting a top-down approach to sales
enablement
Mistake #3: Defining Content from a Marketer Point
of View
Mistake #4: Sales Enablement is not goaled and
measured.
Mistake #5: Don’t publish results of sales enablement

8. MISFIRE REDIRECTS
Redirect #1: Focus on the Buyer, not on Marketing or Sales
Redirect #2: Identify and engage a sales “Poster child” to
help deploy
Redirect #3: “Install” Content and how to use it with Sales
Team
Redirect #4: Define enablement metrics WITH Sales
Redirect #5: Announce deals won & highlight enablement
contribution

9. GOALS OF SALES ENABLEMENT
 Identify and install the right seling behaviours that
drive execution
 Drive the customer value proposition in all
communications
 Deliver the right materials and make it easy for
sales people to access and locate
 Cover all the bases of training, content, tools,
communication and measurement.
 Increase the speed at which sales people can
respond and deliver a presentation or a proposal to
drive opportunities more effectively

10. THE
RIGH
T
STUF
F
@
THE
RIGH
T
TIME

11. ENABLEMENT IS EVOLVING
THEN
 Automating sales materials
 Sales portal as a storage vault
 Standard content for sales
person to customize
 Management decides what
collateral is needed
Now
 Collateral + content/assets,
process, skills, people,
technology, metrics
 Cloud for anytime / anywhere
access
 Version control: latest &
greatest
 Sales input on necessary
content & tools
 Move to mobile delivery
 Tracking of buyer engagement

12. REAL
LY?
1,876
VENDORS
REPRESE
NTED
ACROSS 4
3
CATEGORI
ES
OVER 50%
GROWTH
SINCE
2014

13. GETTING CLEAR ON NEEDS IS AN
IMPERATIVE

14. ASSESSING TECHNOLOGY
TAKEOVER
 Is the sales enablement process entirely determined by the
software?
 How many “work-arounds” or manual inputs to you have to
address this?
 Are you more focused on delivery than on impact?
 Is content asset consumption factored into your usage of
tools?
 How much integration is possible across marketing, sales, and
enablement tools?
 What is the state of compliance in using the tools?

15. BEST PRACTICES IN SALES
ENABLEMENT
Define best practices on attributes that matter to your
own organization
- what do your top performers
Use for content
Total sales generated
Percentage of quota attainment
Average time to close deals by product
Product mix sold
Tools used and how
Relationship management practices

16. NEXT PRACTICES IN SALES
ENABLEMENT
• Are you serving up the content across device
types?
• Do you have a mobile strategy?
• Is training on demand, interactive, as well as
delivered quarterly?
• Are you enabling regular, online role-playing?
• Are you measuring content usage?

17. CONTENT IN SALES ENABLEMENT
Develop content strategy and SEO strategy in tandem
or review SEO strategy and embed in content development.
Go conversational, use story telling as the primary approach.
Which content assets are driving the best results in:
Lead generation
Field activities
Sales usage
Develop a content map aligned to YOUR buyer’s journey

18. IN ACTION – PROGRESS
SOFTWARE
Asset Inventory – all product & industry managers
 STATUS
 CATEGORY
 TITLE
 DESCRIPTION
 ASSET TYPE
 BUYER TYPE
 INDUSTRY
 URL

19. IN ACTION – PROGRESS
SOFTWARE
GLOBAL FIELD ORGANIZATION PORTAL
- Defined content requirements & limitations
Prod 1 Prod 2 Prod 3 Prod 4 Prod 5
Prod 6

20. IN ACTION - WEBBMASON
SOLUTIONS PACKAGES DEFINED
QUICK REFERENCE GUIDES
LIVE TRAINING
8 WEEKS OF VIRTUAL COACHING

21. IN ACTION - WEBBMASON
PITCH BOOKS
- PRESENTS OFFERING
- ALLOWS BALL PARK PRICING
- ACTS AS DRAFT OF PROPOSAL
- FINAL VERSION OF PITCH BOOK
BECOMES THE PROPOSAL

22. FINAL THOUGHT
LESS IS MORE

23. LISA DENNIS
Ldennis@knowledgence
.com
@knowledgence
P: 617-901-7366