Do you have an “Effective” Sales Enablement Strategy?

There is a lot of talk today around Sales Enablement, but there is also a lot of confusion as to what it is. I mean the name alone pretty much explains what it is, but let’s take a look at how it is defined. “Sales enablement is a strategic, ongoing process that equips all client-facing employees with the ability to consistently and systematically have a valuable conversation with the right set of customer stakeholders at each stage of the customer’s problem-solving life cycle to optimize the return of investment of the selling system.”  Forrester

I happen to like IDC’s definition: “The delivery of the right information to the right person at the right time in the right place necessary to move a specific sales opportunity forward.”  However, I would add ‘The delivery of the right information or assets’ to expand upon it to encompass the delivery of the right content or collateral and I think even ‘tribal-knowledge’ would also work here.

Jeff Ernst, The Sales Enabler says: “Sales enablement is about ensuring salespeople are able to have valuable conversations that help buyers advance their buying process.”

Let’s face it, every organization encompasses some type of sales enablement within their organization and it could be something as simple as sales training, but is it an effective strategy?

According to Demand Metric: “Sales Enablement is a new emerging function within most organizations today. As such, like all emerging arenas, the definition of Sales Enablement often shifts depending on the perspective of the company, user and implementation. Still, based on our research a foundation definition of Sales Enablement is clear. Demand Metric defines Sales Enablement as: the processes, practices, technologies and tools that improve performance and productivity of the sales organization.

Sales Enablement enhances the ability of the sales team to increase company revenue through sales.

Bottom-line – Sales Enablement drives revenue by directly impacting the sales teams’ ability to close more deals.”

We are seeing that organizations realize the value in developing a Sales Enablement strategy, and some organizations have even created a Sales Enablement position that is responsible for administering this function. But a lot of organizations still haven’t embraced this as something that is uniquely different from anything else they are already doing. So, if your organization isn’t getting the results you need and expect from your sales organization, then perhaps you should consider what you are doing to help them achieve those objectives and maybe the answer is to implement a Sales Enablement strategy that you can measure. At least that’s the way I see it, what say you?