While one would think of sales enablement as a means of bridging the gap between marketing and sales, it’s much more than that. The primary purpose of sales enablement is to create a structured process that enables marketing and sales to work together to attain their business objectives.
However, it’s not something you can accomplish in a day. And if you don’t know what you’re doing with your business operations, you’re guaranteed to fail. Sales enablement demands a high degree of your organisation’s vision and a high level of business coordination.
But how do you implement sales enablement the right way? Here’s a quick guide to getting the most out of sales enablement:
1. Search for the Right Operating Model
Many business leaders often have a powerful vision that helps employees understand the ‘Why’ of the business.
However, in some cases, the actual vision isn’t achieved since employees can’t connect to the strategy in real-time. Since they don’t seem to be tied to a larger context, we witness processes that never fully attain efficiency. As a result, their companies may not reach their full potential.
This is evident when an operating model creates more costs than revenue from its consumers.
So, if you want your business to succeed as it scales, you need to think about the perfect operating model for you.
Based on our experience, an operational model with a clear and well-structured framework fixes this gap and serves as the bridge between the strategy and run-of-the-mill operations.
It enables the actions and behaviours that will bring your company’s strategy and vision to success. In totality, it outlines your company’s key organisational features and elements.
Leaders who create and implement the correct operating models can make positive changes in their company such as the following:
- The business can scale fast
- GTM teams can deliver superior business results.
- Processes can be better integrated among different departments.
- GTM teams can work together more effectively and make better decisions.
- The company’s risk management can be strengthened.
- Relationship with stakeholders inside and outside the organisation can be improved
According to Venturebeat, 43% of CIOs are improving their IT strategy and operating model to be more adaptive to suit the demands of the remote workplace.
But what are the factors you need to consider to find the perfect operating model for your business?
- Consider your customers when choosing your operating model
- Make sure that your value proposition is the foundation of your operating model.
- Take into account the scalability of your business
- Consider how technology can support your operating model
- Identify the roles that are required within your operating model
- Don’t forget to also consider software maintenance and updates
These factors will ensure that you can find the right operating model for your business to help your Go-to-Market (GTM) teams to become more effective in their roles within your company.
Check out blog to find out more about why your business needs sales operations and enablement.
2. Utilise technology and platforms effectively
To improve sales enablement, it’s also essential to consider choosing and providing the appropriate digital tools and platforms for your business effectively. So what are these digital tools and platforms?:
- Communication Tools
- Marketing platforms
- CRM Tools
- CMS Tools
- Collaborative Suites
- Project Management Tools
- Process Integration Tools
- Training and coaching tools
These tools and platforms have a significant influence on your company’s scalability. If you make the wrong choice, it can dramatically increase your business’ costs unnecessarily or obstruct future progress within your organisation.
A study by Deloitte shows that 43% of highly digital mature businesses report that they have higher net profit margins due to digital maturity compared to industry averages.
One of the pain points that we see today among different companies is that they acquire a CRM and then apply it into their operations, but they don’t even have the right operating model in place. Thus, it leads to inefficient utilisation of CRM in their companies which causes poor business results.
So, the question is, how do we use these digital tools and platforms effectively?
Go back to your foundations. Why?
Even if you have the best technology and platforms on the market, if your GTM team doesn’t have a clear strategy and well-defined sales operation, it won’t work out the way you want it.
And once this initial step has been established in your business, your team can utilise all these tools effectively, and you’ll have smoother transactions with all of your company’s processes to achieve your business goals.
Also, here are some of the benefits of these digital tools and platforms once you’ve used them effectively:
- Enhanced sales processes
- Improved team collaboration
- Effective presentation of ideas and data
- Better engagement with colleagues
- Better engagement and consistent messaging with customers
- More organised calendars, contents, meetings, training, and coaching
- Integrated AI and automation within the business operations
You can also read our blog on transforming your sales process to learn about 4 strategies that you can implement to transform your sales process to impact your business and customers positively.
3. Improve your Communication Processes
Have you ever had a lead that gets stuck at the MQL to SQL stage and not been able to move forward to get them into the pipeline?
If so, what seems to be the issue?
One of the main reasons for this is that your internal and external teams’ communication and messaging may be out of sync.
Do your teams communicate your business’ value proposition effectively and adequately to your customers? Or are all your teams on the same page when it comes to messaging of your brand?
This is one of the challenges that most companies face in shifting consumer trends.
A critical aspect of being effective as a business is to improve your communication and messaging to deliver your business objectives and obtain incredible results.
When it comes to communication, we can’t dispute that it is seen everywhere and at any time, especially in this age of technological breakthroughs.
So how can you communicate your brand effectively?
- Revisit your business objectives
- Develop a marketing plan with the brand positioning strategy
- Align your marketing, sales, and customer success teams when it comes to brand messaging
- Assess your website for improvement
- Provide better communication tools for your teams
- Use the Flywheel Model for lead generation and nurturing
- Utilise CRM and CMS effectively
- Train your go-to-market team members to improve capabilities and speed up onboarding
4. Establish a coaching culture
One thing that leaders forget most of the time is that coaching is all about consistency. It’s not just a one-shot session, especially in the hybrid workplace.
The importance of a coaching culture in helping teams acquire skills and perform at a high level may be apprehensive to C-suite executives who haven’t experienced it firsthand, but once they see the benefits of implementing one, they frequently alter their thoughts.
According to International Coach Federation, higher than average ROI and employee engagement are achieved once an authentic coaching culture has been created.
One of the problems that some businesses have is that if their teams do not have healthy relationships with one another, the company’s vision and goals are at risk.
This means that they will not get repeatable and scalable processes in their organisation.
However, you can still overcome this if your organisation has a well-established coaching culture. Moreover, trust is also built by coaching your team to choose their own way.
Creating a coaching culture within your organisation is the final key component to implementing sales enablement successfully.
According to Global Leadership Forecast, firms that employ direct management coaching and external mentors have much stronger bench strength. This leads to the promotion of more leaders internally.
But how can you create one? Check out these steps to get the benefits of establishing a coaching culture:
- Obtain support from senior levels and stakeholders
- Provide coaching skills to all leaders and managers
- Encourage your teams to use their coaching abilities in their jobs
- Instil a sense of accountability within your organisation
Ready to execute sales enablement in your organisation?
By now, you will have learned a few methods to execute sales enablement correctly.
This is only the tip of the iceberg, and there are many approaches available to help you scale your organisation through sales enablement.
Book a FREE 30-minute session with me, and we’ll talk about how to take your business to the next level!
