Six Sales Enablement Best Practices

Sales enablement is a reference to the combination of technology, processes, and content which enable sales teams to sell efficiently. The main intention of enablement is to improve the productivity and performance of sales teams. Accompanying this is ensuring higher rates of customer and prospect satisfaction.

When successfully implemented, sales enablement practices cause a dramatic reduction in onboarding times and increased correspondence between sales and marketing departments. Of course, this increase in productivity amounts to an increase in profit for businesses.

The complexity of functioning within the ever-evolving B2B industry makes sales enablement a difficult task. With consumer activity and purchase trends constantly shifting, how does a business stay afloat with marketing strategy and selling?

This article will explore the best sales enablement practices to adapt to the transforming market, commencing with the adoption of software.

1 Implement a Dealroom

A Dealroom unites vendors and customers in a digital sales room. Within this room, technology, documents, and data are combined. Each room offers personalization to buyers and is available at all times to stakeholders. Other features offered by Dealrooms include terms of service, esignatures, and the provision of accurate quotes.

Its benefits vary from tracking buyer engagement to improving revenue operations. Extending beyond this is its collaborative nature and sales team efficiency.

2 Define clear cross-team KPIS between sales and marketing

Clearly defined KPIs are at the heart of all successful businesses. Even more importantly are cross-team KPIs for sales and marketing departments. The importance of clarity is undoubtedly, as when sales and marketing teams are misaligned there is a direct impact on their efficiency. However, when marketing and sales departments are united in their aims, one can expect to see an improved marketing ROI, a shortened sales cycle, and thus increased sales productivity, alongside top-line growth.

Common problems which aligning sales and marketing teams resolve:

1. Sales team inefficiency regarding following leads: When cross-team KPIs are given clarity, sales teams will more easily recognize which leads should take priority. In the same sentiment, marketing teams will advertise to more relevant prospects.
2. Misalignment between sales and marketing strategies: This is solved through consistent team meetings where workflow, obstacles, and goals are discussed. As a result of this, shared goals will develop, and the quality/efficiency of strategies and content will strengthen.
3. Lengthy sales cycle: Coordinating segmentation, customer support, and targeting all amounts to shortening the sales cycle and also alleviating the workload of both teams through the division of tasks.
4. Overly complex workflows: The fusing of sales and marketing consolidates leadership and formulates shared goals. This is accompanied by the sharing of tools. Both marketing and sales teams can log into the same system and use the same dashboards, thus simplifying workflow.

3 Measure customer experience

There are a variety of ways and KPIs to measure customer experience. The importance of doing so is to track the strengths and weaknesses of your business. Measuring customer experience highlights the improvements which can be made in order to heighten the rate of sales alongside customer retention.

Some ways of measuring customer experience which we recommend:

1. NPS (Net Promoter Score): Centers on the extent of customer loyalty and advocacy. Considers factors such as price, products, onboarding, marketing, retail experience, and customer service.
2. Customer Satisfaction Score:  This score is applicable to different sections of their experience, such as specific interactions or the experience in its entirety. Customer satisfaction can also be measured based on specific questions relating to the experience, which is a useful method when aiming to fix a specific element of your business.

4 Strive to improve your customer experience score

You can conduct surveys every few months to generate your customer experience score. This consistent generation enables you to track the progress of your business. If you have implemented changes to certain departments or elements in reference to previous scores, you can test how such changes have been received by your clientele.

The generation of a customer experience score is a waste of time and resources if changes are not made after criticism. The point is to confer with clients and make them aware that their opinion is valued and influential. Creating this sentiment renders customers more likely to continue utilizing your services.

5 Apply automation to achieve scale

To scale your business extends beyond mere company growth. Scaling also means ensuring the availability of resources and team organization to cater to an increase in sales. The key to scaling is to avoid the compromisation of value. In other words, your service must maintain its quality whilst sharing its quality with a wider range of customers. The use of automated software helps to achieve scale as it provides more services to customers whilst lessening the need for human resources.

In relation to sales, some of the most useful automation software is: 

1. If your company is having difficulty converting leads, adopt lead enrichment tools. Such tools gather information from a variety of data sources to create a comprehensive profile of prospects.
2. Automated lead scoring systems. These systems use data to determine how reputable a lead is, informing the sales team about who to prioritize.
3. Proposal software which is integratable with CRM. The combination of these two software means that during the creation of a quote, customer information, product details, and price are all automatically transferred.

The above softwares achieves scale by automating tasks. It is this automation which means that businesses can cater to a larger number of clientele, yet the automation simultaneously strengthens the quality of such services.

6 Define and measure your prospect onboarding process

Customer onboarding refers to the process of customers becoming acclimated to your products and services. Onboarding plays a significant role in customer retention as whilst customers learn how a product functions, its strengths, and weaknesses are identified.

Important elements to track within onboarding: 

1. The number of active users on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis
2. User retention rates
3. Churn rates. This refers to the percentage of users that stop using a service/product in a certain amount of time.

The main process of tracking user onboarding begins with mapping out the user journey. After this, it is common to create a funnel model in order to measure retention rates. The final factor of tracking onboarding is monitoring the areas which need the most changes and then experimenting with what works best to resolve them.

Conclusion

To conclude, sales enablement combines technology, processes, and overall strategy to improve the productivity of sales teams. The most useful practices to achieve this center: are the implementation of Dealrooms, the unification of KPIs between sales and marketing teams, measuring and improving customer experiences, the use of automation to ensure scale, and finally, the measuring of the prospect onboarding process.