What Is Sales Enablement?
Sales enablement can help companies that are suffering due to the recession these days. Sales professionals can sell the products with the knowledge of products at their fingertips. Now, the conundrum is to decide what to include in sales training, because this can decide the fate of the company. The salespeople have to be taught correctly during such training courses. For example, if the products can be ordered online within the next few months, the sales team must inform the buyers of this. Companies can’t deny the criticality of sales enablement, which differs from the sales itself.
Sales involves setting up the tools to ease such operations, like setting up a CRM to be used by the reps. But who teaches the representatives how to enter customer details into this software? The enablement team’s job is to train the sales reps about all the software features and how the company is willing to help buyers. Sales reps should be prepared well before they are asked to sell the product; they should know how to get information while answering a call.
Effects Of Poor Enablement
When sales enablement has not been properly activated, problems occur. The sales reps may not know how to retrieve information during a call due to a lack of training. So, all the endeavors of the marketing team, who have spent considerable time in getting a lead interested, go to waste, and the sales rep ruins the lead. Today, the customer is very well-informed and wants to know complete details about the product so that they can leverage it in any situation. Any lack of knowledge on the part of the sales rep, and the customer runs away to the competitor.
Also, the choice of poor sales enablement software (i.e., a CRM), can prove to be a costly mistake when the reps don’t understand how to use it. It may also lack features, or have undesirable ones like an obfuscating User Interface, making using it more problematic. Sales reps have to be encouraged to use the sales enablement tools. They like storing customer data in MS Excel sheets, but this is outdated. Hence, it’s the sales leaders’ job to encourage them to use the new CRM software for better results. This way, only, can they get the best business for a company.
Cooperation For Sales Enablement
This is how the perfect enablement training can happen:
Departments Need To Work Together
Every department needs to work in coordination with each other, to ensure that the company’s sales goals are met. With a proper program, such cooperation between departments can be attained. For example, when the marketing team does not know how to entice the customer, it can consult the product team to know the product’s particular and unique features. This can help the marketing team to create an effective ad copy.
Alignment Between The Marketing And Sales Departments
Sales enablement, which generates content for the sales team, differs from the marketing team, which creates content to attract buyers. However, the jobs of these two departments intersect when they involve product training, which is relevant for both the sales reps and the buyers. Sales enablement is about explaining the product to the sellers, such as how it can be customized for different users. The content for the sellers focuses on how to use the product in different situations, but every buyer does not need to be aware of this. Buyers just need to know how the product applies in their specific situation.
Due to this duality, cooperation for sakes enablement between the marketing and sales enablement teams is necessary. Both the sales reps and the customers need to know about the product in detail. But the sales reps should also know the USPs of the product, which they can then acquaint the buyers with.
Using Feedback From Sales Reps
The sales enablement team can also share the most effective feedback about the utility of the training materials and whether they are being used as expected. Getting this feedback from the sales/enablement team is getting it straight from the horse’s mouth. Apart from the feedback, any LMS being used for providing customer training can also be used to gain statistics about content usability, and whether it’s getting viewed or not.
Conclusion
Clear communication between the sales and the marketing teams is the main goal of enablement training. This is because when both departments work on the same topic, it can cause duplication of effort and time. For example, they should divide and share the responsibility for creating customer training content between themselves. With clear responsibilities lucidly split between each team, there is no scope for confusion and misunderstanding, plus there is a saving of time. When the right kind of content has been created, sales reps have a big advantage: they can find all the content in one place. They are easily able to guide customers on calls, without facing any issues. The marketing and enablement team leaders should be in sync with one another regarding what material is being sent to the sales team so that they know about the latest product updates from only one source. When too many emails are sent to them, sales reps may puzzled. That’s why cooperation for sales enablement and training is necessary for departments. Any kind of communication barrier can cause chaos.
