Revenue Enablement vs. Sales Enablement: What’s Right for You?
Revenue leaders always look for strategies and tactics to boost sales performance and revenue growth. Sales enablement is one particularly popular strategy.
In fact, 84% of organizations invest in sales enablement.
But sales reps aren’t the only ones responsible for revenue growth. As such, many revenue organizations are extending the impact of their enablement efforts by investing in revenue enablement teams and tools.
You may be wondering which is the right choice for improving performance at your organization: revenue enablement vs sales enablement. If so, you’ve come to the right place.
In this post, we’ll examine revenue enablement and sales enablement in depth. We’ll explore how these practices are similar and different and which approach best fits your organization.
Sales enablement vs. revenue enablement: What’s the difference?
Sales enablement and revenue enablement are two terms that are often used. It’s easy to assume they are synonymous.
That’s not the case.
Sales enablement and revenue enablement are certainly related. Although the two practices share many key similarities, they also have significant differences.
What is sales enablement?
Chances are, you’re familiar with the concept of sales enablement. It’s a practice that equips sales reps with the tools, training, and information they need to be effective and efficient. Some such tools and information include:
- Sales onboarding
- Ongoing sales training
- Sales coaching
- Sales content
- Role-plays and other practice opportunities
The goal of sales enablement is to improve sales performance. With the right sales enablement strategy and tools, sales reps can close more deals faster.
What is revenue enablement?
Now we’re clear on what sales enablement is. But what is revenue enablement?
Think of revenue enablement as the next iteration of sales enablement. It’s a practice that leverages many of the same programs and tactics as sales enablement – including ongoing learning, content, and coaching. However, there are some significant differences between sales and revenue enablement practices.
How goals and audiences differ
The goals and audience of sales enablement and revenue enablement are different. Sales enablement focuses solely on ensuring sales teams have what they need to engage buyers and close deals. On the other hand, revenue enablement aims to equip all customer-facing roles with the tools, information, and resources they need to engage customers – wherever they are in the customer lifecycle. In addition to the sales team, revenue enablement often supports:
- Marketing teams
- Customer success teams
- Customer support teams
How each practice measures success
Sales enablement and revenue enablement are measured differently.
Some sales enablement teams track adoption and completion metrics. In other words, they track metrics to understand what portion of sales reps are completing sales enablement activities.
While completion metrics are important, the best sales enablement teams understand it’s more important to track how their sales enablement programs and initiatives impact sales outcomes.
Sales enablement teams track KPIs, including new rep ramp time, quota attainment, and average deal size. The right sales enablement analytics software makes it easy to keep a constant pulse on the metrics that matter most.
Revenue enablement teams also track adoption and completion metrics. They also gauge the sales impact of their programs by tracking KPIs like quota attainment, conversion rates, and average deal size. However, revenue enablement teams also track how their efforts are impacting the business’ long-term relationships with customers and revenue generation with metrics like:
- Customer retention rates
- Customer satisfaction
- Customer lifetime value
- Customer referrals
- Cross-sales and upsells
- Revenue growth
Revenue enablement vs. sales enablement: Who owns each function
Another key difference between sales and revenue enablement is who is responsible for it. Increasingly sales enablement is led by a dedicated sales enablement team. This team often reports up to the chief sales officer (CSO) or other sales leader. Revenue enablement, on the other hand, is led by a revenue enablement team. Typically, this team reports up to the chief revenue officer (CRO) or other revenue leader.
Sales enablement vs revenue enablement: What’s the difference?
| Sales enablement | Revenue enablement | |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Equip sales teams with the tools, training, and resources they need to be effective and efficient in their roles | Ensure all customer-facing teams have the tools, training, and resources they need to deliver engaging experiences throughout the customer lifecycle |
| Audience | Sales | All customer-facing roles, including Sales, Marketing, Customer Success and Customer Support |
| Responsible party | Sales enablement manager or sales enablement team | Revenue enablement manager or revenue enablement team |
| Who team reports to | Chief sales officer or other sales leader | Chief revenue officer or other revenue leader |
| Examples of tactics | Sales onboarding, ongoing training, sales content, sales coaching, and conversation intelligence | Onboarding, ongoing training, content, revenue intelligence, and customer feedback solicitation |
| Examples of KPIs | New rep ramp time, quota attainment, average deal size, and conversion rates | All of the same as sales enablement, plus others including customer retention rates, customer satisfaction, CLV, cross-sales and upsells, and revenue growth |
| Tools of the trade | Multiple sales enablement tools or an integrated sales enablement platform | Multiple revenue enablement tools or an integrated revenue enablement platform |
How does revenue enablement work?
Revenue enablement empowers organizations to deliver outstanding experiences throughout the customer journey. But how exactly does revenue enablement work?
Mapping the customer journey
First, key teams must come together to map the customer journey. In other words, organizations must define the path their customers take, incorporating everything from initial contact to ongoing, post-sale engagement.
Building enablement programs for all customer-facing roles
Then, organizations can build revenue enablement programs. These programs ensure each customer-facing team has the tools and resources to deliver outstanding, connected experiences throughout the customer journey.
Revenue enablement can’t be one-size-fits-all. Instead, programs and initiatives must be customized to the needs of specific teams and team members.
Measuring the impact of revenue enablement
Finally, revenue enablement teams must measure the impact of their strategies and programs. Consistent measurement helps them understand what’s working and where there is room for improvement. Teams can leverage these insights to optimize the revenue enablement program.
Finding the right sales enablement tools
The right revenue enablement software is key to any revenue enablement program. With an integrated revenue enablement platform, teams can build and deliver personalized enablement programs and initiatives to all customer-facing roles. In addition, revenue enablement teams can use the revenue enablement platform to measure impact. These insights can help revenue enablement teams optimize their programs and initiatives for maximum impact.
Who owns revenue enablement?
Sales enablement is often managed by a dedicated sales enablement team. But who owns revenue enablement?
Increasingly, revenue enablement is also led by a dedicated revenue enablement function or team. The revenue enablement team is typically led by a revenue enablement manager.
However, effective revenue enablement isn’t the sole responsibility of just one person or team. Instead, it requires the close collaboration of key teams, including:
- Sales
- Marketing
- Customer success
- Customer support
- Revenue operations
Each team brings a unique perspective and is responsible for different holistic revenue enablement strategy elements.
For example, the marketing team may be tasked with developing an email campaign to increase engagement and product feature adoption among existing customers. However, they need insight into which types of content are useful for new customers.
Why revenue enablement is the right approach for your business
So, which approach is right for your business: sales enablement vs revenue enablement?
Customer experience drives behavior
Increasingly, B2B buyer behavior is driven by their experiences with a business. They choose businesses (and whether or not to stick with those businesses) based on their interactions across the customer journey. Research tells us that eight in 10 customers say experience is as important as a company’s products or services.
Sales teams are key in delivering great experiences and providing trusted advice that helps B2B customers make informed purchase decisions. So it’s no wonder why so many organizations invest in sales enablement to ensure sales teams have the right tools, resources, and information to engage buyers and close more deals.
Customer experience is a team sport
But sales reps aren’t the only employees interacting with customers and prospects. Many other teams—including marketing, customer success, and customer care—play an important role in engaging customers across the entire lifecycle. It’s critical to ensure all customer-facing teams are prepared to deliver outstanding, seamless experiences, whether a customer is making initial contact or seeking help after they’ve purchased a solution.
Consider a business that focuses solely on enabling the sales team. Sure, prospects have excellent, personalized experiences during the sales cycle. But after they purchase a solution, their experiences as a customer fail to meet their expectations. As a result, they’re likely to churn.
Now, consider a business that invests in revenue enablement. The customer has a consistent experience every step – from their initial interactions with the business to their ongoing engagement with their assigned customer success manager. This happy customer is likelier to renew, purchase additional solutions, and refer your business to others.
Revenue enablement is key to delivering outstanding, consistent customer experiences
A holistic revenue enablement practice ensures that all customer-facing teams are equipped to interact effectively and efficiently with buyers.
As Doug Bushée, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, put it, “[Revenue enablement] provides buyers and sellers with a seamless and more effortless experience.”
Enabling your entire revenue team will boost customer satisfaction, retention, and revenue generation. Revenue enablement is a more effective, holistic strategy for growing revenue long-term.
Take your revenue enablement to the next level with Mindtickle
A winning revenue enablement program requires the right technology.
Some organizations purchase point solutions that address a different sales or revenue enablement element. For example, they use different tools to address sales content management, training, and coaching. Or, organizations use a sales enablement platform for their sales team – but use entirely different platforms to train and enable other customer-facing roles.
This approach often leads to bloated tech stacks. A recent report found that 63% of sales leaders say their current tech stacks include 10 or more tools.
However, simply having a tool doesn’t mean it’s being used. The same report found a trend where the number of tools in the tech stack often exceeds the number of tools that are actively used daily.
Today, leading revenue organizations are streamlining their tech stacks (and equipping all customer-facing roles for success) by investing in an integrated revenue enablement platform.
Mindtickle is an award-winning, integrated revenue enablement team that ensures all your customer-facing teams have what they need to be ready for any customer interaction. The best revenue enablement teams use Mindtickle to create and deliver winning enablement programs – and then measure their impact on revenue performance. In addition, revenue-generating teams – including sales, marketing, and customer success – turn to Mindtickle to access the tools, training, and resources they need to engage with customers throughout the customer lifecycle effectively.
Revenue Enablement with Mindtickle
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