Do These 8 Things to Create Effective Sales Enablement Goals

Vivian Batman on May 29, 2024

If your sales reps are regularly missing quota, you’re not alone. A survey from Salesforce found that just 28% of sales professionals expect their team to hit quota.

But that doesn’t mean it’s time to throw in the towel.

Increasingly, revenue organizations are turning to sales enablement to ensure their sales reps have the skills needed to be successful in the field. According to the 2024-2025 Chief Revenue Officer + Sales Leader Outlook Report, 84% of C-suite executives invest in a sales enablement team.

According to research

of orgs invest in sales enablement
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Setting goals is foundational to any successful sales enablement strategy. After all, how can you create sales enablement programs and initiatives if you haven’t first defined what you’re trying to achieve?

In this post, we’ll explore sales enablement goals and why they matter. We’ll also share some best practices for setting goals that work for your organization and some real-life examples.

Why are sales enablement goals necessary?

What exactly are sales enablement goals? Let’s start by defining what sales enablement is.

Sales enablement is the practice of equipping the revenue organization with the information, training, content, and tools needed to increase effectiveness and efficiency. Because each sales rep is different, a generic approach to sales enablement won’t cut it. Instead, organizations must create and deliver enablement that’s tailored to each seller’s needs.

These goals are the objectives you have for sales enablement efforts. In other words, they spell out what you hope to achieve with your sales enablement strategy, program, and initiatives.

Do sales enablement goals matter?

Establishing goals takes time. Is it worth the effort?

Absolutely yes.

Goals are critical to any sales enablement initiative. Without them, creating effective sales enablement programs and measuring their success is impossible.

For example, let’s say you’ve been tasked with developing a new sales onboarding program. There are no clear goals for the program beyond a generic goal of “onboarding new reps.” Because there are no clear goals, you’re unsure what content needs to be created and how and when it should be delivered.

Furthermore, without clear goals, the new onboarding program’s success or failure will be impossible to measure.

Establishing goals is key to developing the right programs and initiatives. For example, if increasing buyer engagement is the goal, your team can create a sales playbook to help achieve that goal. Or, if decreasing sales cycles is a key objective, you can develop content to accelerate sales.

Establishing goals is also important to ensure everyone is aligned on what you’re trying to achieve with your sales enablement initiatives.

When everyone is on the same page, you’re more likely to achieve your goals. In addition, with sales enablement goals in place, you can more effectively measure success and identify areas for improvement.

How to define sales enablement goals for your organization

Sales enablement goals serve as the north star for your sales enablement programs and initiatives. But what’s the best way to set them for your organization? There are a few important steps to follow.

Step 1: Consider your overall business objectives

Sales enablement goals can’t be set in a vacuum. Instead, they must align with the organization’s overall goals. As such, the first step is to understand the organization’s goals as a whole.

Step 2: Reflect on where you are now

Before determining your goals, you must take a hard, honest look at your current state. As part of your assessment, be sure to look at:

  • How are your teams performing
  • What challenges your teams are facing
  • What opportunities may lie ahead

This reflection should be a cross-functional effort as each team provides a unique perspective.

For example, marketing may spend a lot of time creating sales content – but sales may share the perspective that content is hard to find or they’re unable to find the right content for certain sales scenarios. Or, marketing may generate a high volume of leads. However, sales may find that a large portion of these leads end up being unqualified.

Step 3: Define your sales enablement goals

Once you understand where you are today, you can better determine your goals for the future. For example, you might set a sales enablement goal to decrease new ramp rep time. Or, perhaps you’re aiming to decrease sales cycles and increase quota attainment.

Setting vague sales goals like “improve seller performance” isn’t effective. Instead, a best practice is using the SMART methodology to set sales enablement goals. SMART goals are:

  • Specific: Be extremely clear about what you hope to accomplish.
  • Measurable: Make sure your sales enablement goal can be measured with the right metrics.
  • Attainable: Sales enablement goals should be challenging yet realistic. If you set sales enablement goals that are too easy, you’ll never achieve your full potential. If sales enablement goals are too hard, you’ll never achieve them, negatively impacting morale.
  • Relevant: Sales enablement goals should be relevant to the goals of the revenue organization and the company.
  • Time-bound: The sales enablement goal should have a specified time frame for achieving it. For example, you might set a sales enablement goal to increase quota attainment by 15% during Q4 2024.

Step 4: Identify key sales enablement metrics

Once you’ve defined your goals, you must determine which metrics you will track to measure your progress.

The sales enablement metrics you must track vary depending on your goals. However, some examples of sales enablement metrics include:

  • Average time to productivity
  • Win rate
  • Conversion rate
  • Average deal size
  • Sales cycle length
  • Quota attainment
  • Time to quota
  • Content adoption
  • Sales rep retention
  • Adherence to sales methodology

Step 5: Socialize your sales enablement goals

Once you’ve established your sales enablement goals, it’s important to communicate them. Be sure all key stakeholders understand the goals of sales enablement and their role in achieving those goals.

Step 6: Ensure you have the right sales enablement tools

The sales tech stack is a key piece of any sales enablement strategy. With the right sales enablement tools, you can build and deliver winning sales enablement programs. These tools can also give you the metrics to gauge progress on your sales enablement goals.

Today, many enterprise software solutions promise to boost your sellers’ performance. However, many sales enablement software options address just a single aspect of sales enablement.

For example, learning management systems are used to deliver training. Sales content management systems provide a solution for storing and organizing sales content.

Typically, these sales enablement solutions provide data and analytics. But if you use multiple sales enablement tools, it can be challenging to get a holistic view of how your sales enablement initiatives are (or aren’t) impacting business outcomes.

Instead, consider consolidating your sales enablement tech stack by adopting an integrated platform. An integrated sales productivity platform like Mindtickle incorporates all the key pillars of sales enablement, including sales content, sales coaching, sales training, and conversation intelligence.

When a single platform powers your entire sales enablement program, you can also get a 360-degree view on how all sales enablement initiatives—from content to training to coaching—are impacting sales outcomes.

Step 7: Monitor and track progress towards your sales enablement goals

Of course, you can’t simply set your sales enablement goals and never think about them again. Instead, you must regularly track your key metrics to understand whether you’re on track to achieve the sales enablement goals and where there may be opportunities to make adjustments.

For example, one of your goals is to shorten the sales cycle. However, upon analysis, you find that the sales cycle is increasing. You dig further and find that prospects often drop off at the negotiation stage. This may be an opportunity to optimize your existing training and enablement related to negotiation – or create something new.

As a reminder, regular measurement requires the right sales enablement software. Your chosen solution should go beyond adoption to show how (or whether) your initiatives are making an impact.

Step 8: Be prepared to adapt

Change is always guaranteed. New products are introduced, and old ones are retired. New competitors enter the scene, and customer expectations evolve.

Adjusting your goals may sometimes be necessary based on these changes.

Examples of sales enablement goals

Now that we’ve explored why sales enablement goals matter and how you can set better goals for your organization, let’s look at some real-life examples.

Focus Sales enablement goal example
Conversion rate Increase the percentage of leads that convert to customers by 5% in Q4 2024
Sales cycle length Decrease the average sales cycle length by 10 days by the end of 2024
Ramp time Decrease new rep average time to productivity by 10% in Q1 2025
Quota attainment Increase the portion of sales reps that achieve at least 75% of their quotas by 18% in 2025
Sales coaching Increase the average number of coaching sessions delivered by sales managers in the Northwest region by 10% in the next 60 days.
Product knowledge Achieve 90% completion of new product training in Q1 2025, with at least 75% of sales reps achieving a 80% or higher on assessment

Achieve all of your sales enablement goals with Mindtickle

Leading organizations are investing in sales enablement teams and tools, and it’s no wonder why. When it’s done well, sales enablement can greatly impact sales performance.

It’s important to set clear goals for your sales enablement programs. Then, you can develop initiatives that’ll help you achieve those goals. Remember: regular measurement is key to understanding how your efforts are performing and where there are opportunities for improvement.

The right sales enablement technology is key to developing effective sales enablement and measuring its impact on the metrics that matter most to your business. But, adding multiple sales enablement solutions to your software stack can create chaos. Instead, leading revenue teams opt for an integrated revenue productivity platform like Mindtickle.

Mindtickle incorporates sales training, enablement, sales content, and call insights—all from one platform. Sales enablement teams can develop and deliver enablement that addresses the needs of each sales rep. Sales reps can access everything they need to be ready to sell—all in one place.

Sales Enablement in Mindtickle

Ready to see why winning revenue teams choose Mindtickle to build a team of high-performing, quota-crushing reps?

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What is a Sales Playbook and How Do You Build One? 

Vivian Batman on May 29, 2024

Every sales leader wants their sales reps to close more deals – faster. But it’s not enough to tell your sales reps to do better. Instead, you must equip them with the tools they need for success. Sales playbooks are one key type of sales tool.

Today, some of the best revenue organizations use sales playbooks to boost sales results. Sales playbook adoption is correlated with success. According to the Aberdeen Group, sales reps using sales playbooks are significantly more likely to meet their sales target than those not.

Perhaps you’re unfamiliar with the concept of sales playbooks. Or, maybe you’ve spent time developing playbooks – but they’re not having the impact you hoped for, and you’re looking for ways to improve. Whatever the case, you’ve come to the right place.

In this guide, we’ll explore everything you need to know about playbooks. We’ll answer key questions, including:

  • What is a sales playbook?
  • What is included in a sales playbook?
  • How can I create a winning one?
  • What are some key challenges I’ll face when creating and implementing a playbook – and how can I overcome these challenges?

What is a sales playbook?

Before we discuss how to create a sales playbook, let’s define what it is.

A sales playbook is a guide that outlines your organization’s sales strategies, processes, procedures, and best practices. Playbooks aren’t simply a collection of generic tips and practices. Instead, they outline strategies, processes, and techniques that have been proven to work at that specific organization.

There are many benefits. But at the end of the day, a playbook is a great resource for engaging any buyer at any point in the sales cycle. When sellers employ the strategies in the playbook, they can close more deals, hit quota, and grow revenue.

A playbook is a powerful tool. However, sales organizations must deliver training and ongoing learning opportunities to ensure sellers master the strategies outlined in it. In addition, sales managers must deliver sales coaching to help sellers understand how to use the strategies and best practices in the sales playbook.

What is included in a sales playbook?

There is no single sales playbook that works for all companies. Instead, they vary from company to company, depending on factors including industry and audience (among others).

However, you’ll find some common elements across most sales playbook templates. Let’s look at a few of those B2B sales playbook components.

Company overview

This section of the sales playbook includes high-level information about your company, its goals, and the role of sellers in achieving those goals. That information includes the organization’s:

  • Mission
  • Values
  • Strategy

This section also includes an organizational chart to help sellers understand who reports to whom – and how the organization fits together. There may also be a section in the enterprise sales playbook that outlines the roles and responsibilities of each individual on the sales team.

Product information

Successful sellers must become product experts. This section of the B2B sales playbook includes details about each of your product or service offerings – including pricing. Here, sellers can better understand:

  • What you sell
  • What your products and services do
  • How your products and services help buyers solve challenges and address pain points
  • How much your products and services cost

This section should also include details and pricing for any packages your company offers.

Compensation structure

HR should communicate a rep’s compensation structure during the hiring process. However, it’s also important to incorporate information about the compensation structure. Be clear and transparent. This will help sellers understand what to expect and eliminate confusion down the road.

Sales methodology

In the world of sales, there are myriad sales methodologies. Some of those methodologies include:

An organization must identify the sales methodology that best aligns with its goals and values.

Be sure to outline your organization’s chosen methodology in your enterprise sales playbook. This will serve as a framework for every deal your sellers face. In addition, you may want to include information about why this methodology was chosen.

Sales process

The sales process section should take up a good portion of your B2B sales playbook. Essentially, it explores each step sellers must take during the sales process – from identifying prospects to closing the deal. This section is a key resource for helping sellers understand what they need to do to be successful at each stage of the selling cycle.

Ideal customer profiles

Your reps have limited time. As such, you want them to spend their time with good-fit prospects.

Your ideal customer profiles outline the key characteristics of a prospect that’s a good fit for your offerings. The ICP can include information such as:

  • Company size
  • Industry
  • Geographic location
  • Job title
  • Challenges
  • Goals

Of course, a rep may engage with multiple personas during the sales cycle. For example, a rep selling sales enablement software might interact with sales, marketing, and sales enablement professionals. Including these personas in your sales playbook can help your sellers understand who these people are and what matters to them.

Sales plays

This critical section provides sellers to follow in a specific sales scenario – whether it be lead qualification or negotiation. Remember: sales plays shouldn’t be based on hunches. Instead, they should be rooted in practices proven to work at your organization.

Sales messaging

It’s important to ensure sellers are aligned on company messaging. This section helps sellers know what to say in certain circumstances. It might include messaging for:

  • Prospecting via phone or email
  • Delivering an elevator pitch
  • Handling objections
  • Asking questions
  • Closing deals

KPIs

Sellers must have a good understanding of what’s expected of them. That way, they can prioritize their time accordingly. Be specific about the seller’s key performance indicators (KPIs) and keep them in the loop if those KPIs change.

Additional resources

Most likely, your sellers have plenty of additional resources at their disposal to help them move deals forward. For example, they may have access to internal sources, including:

  • Training
  • Battle cards
  • Sales decks

They may also have access to customer-facing content, such as:

  • Sales sheets
  • Case studies
  • Product presentations

This section of your enterprise sales playbook should outline what resources are available to sellers and where they can find these resources.

How to create a sales playbook

Sales playbooks are unique to each organization. So it’s not as simple as running a Google search for “sales playbook” – and then adopting one of the top results as your own.

So, how can you build one that works for your organization?

Some organizations start with a template. In addition, there are some key sales playbook best practices to keep in mind.

1. Form your playbook team
2. Do your research
3. Determine your sales methodology
4. Map the sales process
5. Design sales plays based on what works for your top sellers
6. Create your playbook
7. Revisit your playbooks often

1. Form your team

A sales playbook can’t be a single-person effort. Instead, it requires cross-functional collaboration. Typically, you need to include representatives from the following groups:

  • Sales leadership
  • Top sales reps
  • Marketing
  • HR
  • Product development
  • Executive team

While this is a collaborative effort, one person should be tapped to lead the project. This person will coordinate the entire process and ensure the team develops an effective sales playbook.

2. Do your research

Once you’ve established your team, it’s time to audit your organization’s current processes. During this stage, your goal is to understand what processes, strategies, and resources are currently being used in the field – and how (or whether) they’re driving reps’ success. You’ll also want to identify common challenges and pain points.

Your sales reps are a great source of information. After all, they’re in the field interacting with buyers all day. Top sellers can convey what they do, which sets them apart. In addition, sellers of all experience levels can share insights on their processes and key challenges.

3. Determine your sales methodology

A sales methodology sets the tone for how your sellers interact with buyers. If you haven’t already, now is the time to determine which sales methodology fits your organization’s goals and values best. Be sure to include details on your chosen sales methodology in your playbook.

4. Map the sales process

To create an effective playbook, it’s key to understand how buyers and sellers navigate the sales process.

Based on your research, map the sales process – both from a buyer’s and a seller’s perspective. Be sure to define the common needs and pain points at each point in the purchase journey.

Then, identify which tactics and techniques are most effective for moving buyers from one stage of the sales process to the next.

5. Design sales plays based on what works for your top sellers

Sales plays are a key component of a sales playbook. But those sales plays shouldn’t be based on what should work. Instead, they must be based on strategies and techniques that are proven to work. Your top sellers are a great source of information for what works well.

6. Create your sales playbook

Once you’ve done all the background work, it’s time to write and format your sales playbook.

One common question is, “How long should a sales playbook be?” There’s no easy answer. It’s important to include all necessary information. But don’t be needlessly verbose. Sellers are more likely to read the entire playbook if it’s clear and concise.

Regardless of length, be sure to include a table of contents. While sellers should read the playbook, they will also use it as a reference guide. A table of contents helps them easily find exactly what they want.

In addition, be sure to consider format. Some organizations use printed playbooks. However, this approach isn’t usually effective. A better approach is to ensure sellers can digitally access it – and all supporting resources – within a single platform. With such a platform, you can also make updates digitally. That means sellers always have access to the latest and greatest version of the sales playbook.

7. Revisit your sales playbook often

In the world of business, change is constant. Markets evolve, and product and service offerings change. New sales techniques and tactics emerge that help sellers successfully close more deals. Your sales playbook must evolve to keep up.

Be sure to track the usage of the playbook. In addition, ask for feedback. This will help you understand what’s working – and what’s not. Then, you can use those insights to optimize your sales playbook regularly.

Sales playbook templates and examples

There’s no one-size-fits-all playbook that’ll work for every company. Instead, it’s important to build a playbook that’ll work for the needs of your revenue team.

That said, a template can serve as a starting point. You can then customize it to meet your organization’s needs.

Sales playbook templates vary. However, some common components should be included in every template. Let’s take a look at a few examples.

This section focuses on information about your company, including its mission, vision, values, and strategy. It may also include an organizational chart so sellers can understand where they fit and who they will work with.

Sales reps must become product experts. This section provides a breakdown of your products including what they do, how they help buyers, and how much they cost.

This section should outline how sellers are being paid.

This section should spell out the sales methodology your revenue organization has chosen as well as background information on why it was chosen.

These personas should give your sales reps a picture of an ideal customer. That way, they know where to focus their attention and how they can customize their outreach.

This outlines the steps the sales rep must go through in order to close a deal. You may also want to incorporate any messaging templates (such as email templates and elevator pitch scripts) that sales reps can use throughout the sales process.

This section spells out best practices for moving deals through the funnel. Remember: best practices aren’t created based on hunches. Instead, they’re based on what’s proven to work.

This section helps reps understand how success is measured – both at the team and individual levels. That way, reps can focus on what matters most.

Seeing real-life sales playbook examples can be extremely helpful when developing your own sales playbook. But generally, sales playbooks are only used internally. Companies don’t typically share their sales playbook examples with the public.

Key challenges when creating and implementing a sales playbook

A sales playbook serves as a guide to help sellers successfully navigate deals. As such, it’s well worth the time and effort required to create an effective sales playbook.

However, there are some challenges organizations face when creating and implementing a sales playbook. Let’s take a look at some of the common challenges.

Change can be difficult in all facets of life – including business. When you introduce a sales playbook, this is a change for your sellers. Some sellers and sales managers will resist this change

The market is always in flux. It’s important to ensure your sales playbook serves your sellers today – and in the future. However, it can be challenging to ensure your sales playbook always reflects these constant changes in the market.

Ongoing feedback is key to creating an effective sales playbook. Early on in the process, sales feedback ensures you understand what techniques and strategies are (and aren’t) working in the field. You’ll also have sellers who share feedback after the sales playbook has been created and distributed.

It can be challenging to collect feedback in a way that represents all sellers. In addition, it’s tough to distill this feedback into actionable insights you can use to improve and enhance your sales playbook.

The most effective sales playbooks are those that are revised regularly to reflect changes and feedback. However, regular updates increase the likelihood that sellers are using an outdated version of the sales playbook. This is especially true if you use printed sales playbooks or PDF versions that are distributed via email.

Using a revenue productivity platform can help. Your sales playbook – as well as all accompanying training and resources – are all housed in a single platform. It’s easy to make changes to the sales playbook and you can be sure your sellers are always turning to the most up-to-date version of the sales playbook.

Elevate your sales performance using sales playbooks

Sellers have a limited number of hours in the day. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel for each deal – especially when there are strategies that are proven to work.

Sales playbooks are a powerful tool for new and veteran sellers alike. Sales playbooks – when they’re done well – equip sales reps with proven tools and strategies to move any deal forward. When sellers have access to a proven formula, they’re more likely to close deals and drive revenue growth.

Printed and PDF playbooks aren’t the best approach as they quickly become outdated. A better approach is to create your sales playbook with a revenue productivity platform like Mindtickle. With Mindtickle, your sellers always have access to the sales training, enablement, and call insights they need to close more deals – all within a single platform.

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This post was originally published in November 2023 and updated in May 2024. 

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