Strategic Value of Sales Enablement

Posted on Jan 31, 2011 in iDeclare Blog | 0 comments

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SiriusDecisions points out in a recent blog post that sales enablement is moving from an ancillary set of activities within marketing to a more strategic nature .

We would go further and say that a well thought through and implemented sales enablement strategy, for both the short and long term, provides the missing link to achieving increased customer satisfaction, market differentiation, and increased revenue. And, when viewed in the longer term, provides a mechanism to also achieve increased employee satisfaction, progression, development and retention.

The diagram below shows many of the key areas that can be brought together to form an integrated sales enablement model which helps to galvanise the goals of an organisation.

Sales Enablement Content & Communications Model

The key to applying the model and to truly enabling a sales organisation lies in how and when each element is communicated, executed and updated. In today’s business environment content is equally vital to prospective customers as well as to those customer facing people carrying the message to them and creating opportunity for the business. Creating valuable, relevant and useful content and delivering it at the right time underpins more successful sales campaigns and to adding real customer value.

The more knowledgeable a sales team is about the true capability of their company, the more closely they will be able to work through business issues with their customers and create effective and profitable solutions by adding incremental value and truly performing the role of trusted advisor. And, that requires up to date, clear, concise and creative content available in many forms across the board coupled with a mix of delivery mechanisms ranging from face-to-face, on-demand and self-service. Detailed data driving these trends can be found at this excellent blog post from Tom Pisello entitled “IDC: Economic Buyers, Digital Overload and Sales Enablement Define Marketing for 2011″.

Agreeing with SiriusDecisions, sales enablement is a key initiative going forward which, when viewed in the round and creatively executed with measurable KPIs, can truly differentiate a company, increase revenues and create greater employee satisfaction.

We’ll discuss in more detail the elements contained within the sales enablement content and communications model and provide some ideas on how to design and deliver it and create motivation and momentum too.

Click here to read more on sales enablement.

Click here for sales enablement case study 1 and click here for sales enablement case study 2.

We’d like to hear your views or answer your questions. Please feel free to comment below or contact us.

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