If you have heard the term sale enablement but aren't exactly sure what it means, you're not alone.
A relatively new business function, sale enablement departments were first seem from rapid growth B2B SaaS companies with high performing sales teams. As selling processes evolved, grew longer and became increasingly complex, these companies saw a need to stay ahead of the curve with the way their sales team was reaching and selling to prospects.
Sales enablement teams typically focus on these areas:
- Research and implementation of new tech: Staying in-the-know about the myriad of new tech- and more specifically, how to utilize it- is an unrelenting job. With every company having different sales cycles and processes, sale enablement teams are tasked with distilling the impact of these new tools and then understanding how to deploy them internally. Internal education on what the tool does, instructions for how the company plans to use it, and why it's worth the sales team's time is at the core of the sale enablement function.
- Automation of manual sales tasks: How can a person do more in the same amount of time they have now? That question is at the heart of sales enablement, and generally is addressed by automation of time consuming, manual tasks. For example, list building, first-touch outreach, pipeline management and custom sales asset preparation are among the most time consuming operations for a sales rep, but some of the easiest areas to automate with the right technology (take PieceKeeper for sales asset personalization as an example). This in turn saves an incredible amount of time for the reps and allows them to focus their time on deals that are closer to closing versus keeping their pipeline full.
- Focusing on providing clean data: Today, sales and marketing teams have absolutely staggering access to data. But ensuring that data is clean and structured properly comes before using it effectively. Enablement teams must be keen on ensuring that structure and cleanliness is in place, especially when the list of sales technology and marketing channels begins to increase. Bad data is problematic on every level, but for sales enablement teams, improper attribution for deals worked and closed by a sales rep is one of the first areas of friction that bad data leads to. Misattibuted deals can be incredible time consuming to fix. The more marketing channels and sales technology your company uses, the higher the chance a sales rep loses attribution of a deal that they were integral in closing. Sales enablement teams are tasked with reducing the chance of poor data impacting sales operations.
- The bridge between marketing and sales: As alluded to above, sales enablement teams often act as the middleman between marketing operations and sales functions. It is imperative that new technology roll outs are understood by all organizations involved in the sales effort, with a clear vision of the tech's benefits and where responsibilities lie around ensuring it is being utilized to the full capacity.
Sales enablement is still a nascent department in more organizations, but one that can bring outsized impact quickly. PieceKeeper is a cutting edge enablement must-have for sales teams and part of the modern efforts to reduce manual work and make reps more efficient. Get started today or schedule a demo to learn more.
