Sales enablement is the process of providing the sales organization with the information, content, and tools that help sellers sell more effectively. The foundation of sales enablement is to provide sellers with what they need to successfully engage the buyer throughout the buying process.
The concept of sales enablement originated in 2013 and caught on quickly when companies realized the impact it can have on business outcomes. Consider the following from research from Heinz Marketing and Mindtickle:
78%
of companies with effective sales training programs meet 100% of their quotas
Sales enablement is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s a must-have. This guide will explore everything you need to know about sales enablement, including:
- The benefits of sales enablement
- How to measure sales enablement
- How sales enablement drives revenue
- Who owns sales enablement
- How are sales enablement and revenue enablement related?
- What’s the difference between sales enablement and sales productivity?
The benefits of sales enablement
Sales and marketing have traditionally been siloed, with little interaction or collaboration between the two departments. Considering that companies are better at closing deals when their sales and marketing departments are aligned, any chasm between them poses a significant problem.
Although organizations have known about this siloing for many years, bridging the gap has always been easier said than done. Until now.
Sales enablement is the solution for marketing-sales alignment. It paves the way to wider communication channels and frequent collaboration. Adopting an advanced data-driven sales enablement platform and following some best practices makes alignment possible at your organization.
Here are some of the most prominent benefits of sales enablement.
Improved communication and teamwork
Many organizations face challenges communicating between sales and marketing teams. Sales enablement helps address this challenge by providing a better system for managing sales content. This content management system (CMS) is a centralized database that houses sales resources for all departments and promotes marketing and sales collaboration while creating sales content.
Further, when both departments share the same sales enablement tools, CRM data, and business processes, marketing and sales teams can operate with combined insights into the target market and the sales funnel. The two teams collaborate to better define buyer personas and improve lead-scoring processes.
Optimized content
With open collaboration, content can be fine-tuned using the sales team’s knowledge of buyers and marketing’s knowledge of leads. This highly optimized content moves prospects through the buyer journey faster.
Marketing and sales can also work together to create customizable content that reps can tailor to match the needs of any prospect. The result is highly relevant content created for any circumstance “on the fly.”
Also, with both departments sharing the same content management system, marketing can purge outdated versions of a piece of content to make sure a sales rep doesn’t accidentally present it to a buyer. Reps and marketers can also make small adjustments to keep the content up to date for continued use.
Marketing and sales transparency
Sales enablement provides visibility into the effectiveness of sales and marketing processes. Transparency ensures that both marketing and sales can see which tactics and content are working and which ones aren’t. Both departments can, therefore, pinpoint inefficiencies and correct them quickly.
For example, with the right sales enablement technology, marketing and sales can access a dashboard that reveals how buyers engage with sales materials. Both departments can see which materials are being ignored and which content brings prospects closer to buying decisions.
Increased revenue
Bottom-line performance is obviously the most important benefit of sales enablement. With optimized and customizable content, better customer insight, and full visibility into sales processes, reps close more deals and generate more revenue.
How sales enablement technology transforms the selling process
Sales enablement technology does more than create marketing-sales alignment and boost content effectiveness. It enhances the entire sales process by improving efficiency, providing detailed analytics on sales activities, and improving training and development processes.
Enhanced onboarding
Efficient, simplified onboarding leads to faster quota attainment. The most advanced sales enablement technology helps sales trainers identify their reps’ knowledge gaps and adjust training accordingly. Trainers can automatically assign learning paths based on their sales reps’ roles and monitor their progress with milestones and certifications.
Continuous growth and skill development
Training is only effective when ongoing—in fact, 80% of what is learned in sales training is forgotten within 3 months. You can develop a more structured and interactive approach to ongoing training with the right sales enablement tool. Sales enablement tools provide virtual role-playing exercises, simulated selling scenarios, and personalized feedback for growth and improvement to help sales reps continually sharpen their skills.
- Micro-learning capabilities: Micro-learning presents sales training information in short, engaging training modules to promote knowledge retention. Highly specific learning objectives, interactive gamification elements, and spaced reinforcements help reps fill their knowledge gaps right from their computers or smartphones.
- Coaching: With sales enablement technology, coaching can be designed around the unique needs of each sales rep. Sales coaches can create personalized learning paths based on competency maps. Coaches can also assign the exact micro-learning modules a rep needs to reinforce specific concepts.
- Analytics: Sales enablement gives you visibility into your reps’ understanding of their training. Analytics dashboards help sales coaches track, measure, and improve their teams’ capabilities.
Getting started with sales enablement
Wondering where to begin your sales enablement journey?
Many companies worldwide turn to Mindtickle for marketing-sales alignment and a more competitive salesforce. With innovative training capabilities, advanced micro-learning, analytics, and the ability to integrate a wide range of sales tools, Mindtickle offers a 360-degree solution for sales organizations.
Who is responsible for sales enablement
Ownership of sales enablement varies by organization. According to CSO Insights, just under half (49.2%) of sales enablement teams report to sales leadership, and just over one in five (22.6%) report to another C-level function, such as the Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, or Chief Growth Officer, among others.
According to CSO Insights,
The remaining sales enablement teams report to sales operations, marketing, customer, experience, or another team.
Sometimes, sales enablement teams work in silos without additional engagement or external guidance. However, the most successful programs are those that include cross-functional collaboration across key teams including:
- Sales leadership
- Sales or revenue operations
- Marketing
- Dedicated sales enablement team
- Customer success
Cross-functional collaboration ensures each area of the organization is in agreement and working toward the same goals.
How to measure sales enablement
Continuous measurement is essential to determining the success of sales enablement – and pinpointing opportunities for improvement. Yet, per CSO Insights, less than a quarter of organizations consistently measure the impact of their sales enablement efforts with productivity metrics, milestones, or leading and lagging indicators.
Of course, measuring revenue and number of units sold is important. However, measuring sales enablement also involves correlating sales activities with tangible business outcomes to determine what works and what doesn’t.
There are many many metrics to track to gauge the impact of sales enablement initiatives. Here are 13 of the most common.
| Ways to measure | What to measure |
|---|---|
| Lead-to-opportunity conversion rate | % of leads that are converted to opportunities |
| Win rate | % of opportunities that end up as signed deals |
| Competitive win rate | measures the rate of closed deals where prospects are also considering a competitor |
| Average deal size | average amount a customer spends on your product or service |
| Quota attainment | measure of how your reps are meeting their quotas |
| Adherence to sales process | tracks how well your reps follow established sales processes |
| Ramp-up time | measure of how quickly it takes a new rep to hit full productivity |
| Time-to-quota | amount of time it takes new reps to meet their quota for the first time |
| Seller turnover rate | measures how often reps voluntarily leave the company |
| Rep NPS | measures rep satisfaction with your company |
| Knowledge retention | measures post-training assessments, role-plays, and listening to conversations between reps and customers |
| Content use and adoption | tracks how both sellers and buyers use content |
| Calls to action | tracks how often a prospect or customer takes action on content |
1. Lead-to-opportunity conversion rate
As the name suggests, this metric tracks the percentage of leads that are converted to opportunities. This metric is calculated by dividing the number of opportunities by the total number of leads.
A high lead-to-opportunity conversion rate indicates sellers have the skills and knowledge to convince buyers to learn more and consider purchasing.
2. Win rate
The win rate is the percentage of opportunities that end up as signed deals. Win rate is calculated by dividing the number of closed won deals by the total number of opportunities.
A high win rate indicates sellers have what it takes to carry opportunities across the finish line.
3. Competitive win rate
Competitive win rate specifically measures the rate of closed deals where prospects are also considering one of your competitors. The competitive win rate is calculated by dividing the total number of wins over a competitor by the total number of opportunities who considered a competitor.
Competitive win rate can be more challenging to track than win rate. That’s because accurate calculation depends on whether or not prospects inform you that they’re considering a competitor.
4. Average deal size
This metric is the average amount a customer spends on your product or service. It’s calculated by dividing the total amount of money from all customer orders in a specific time frame by the number of deals in that same time frame.
5. Quota attainment
Quota attainment is a measure of how your sales reps are (or aren’t) achieving their goals during each sales cycle. To calculate the quota for a seller, divide their sales during a set time period by their quota for the same period.
If a seller consistently misses quota, additional training and coaching may be available.
6. Adherence to sales process
This metric tracks how well your sales reps follow your established sales process. Establishing a standard way for sellers to follow and document the sales process is important for tracking this metric.
If a seller isn’t adhering to the sales process and isn’t meeting quota, additional training or coaching may be needed.
7. Ramp-up time
Ramp-up time, also called time to productivity, measures how quickly it takes a new sales rep to reach full productivity. To calculate ramp-up time, divide the total amount of time to productivity for all reps who ramped up in a given quarter by the number of reps.
It’s important to determine how your organization defines productivity. For example, an organization might define it as reaching a certain percentage of quota or making a certain number of daily calls.
8. Time to quota
This is how long it takes new reps to meet their quota for the first time. It’s measured by adding the number of sales cycles it takes each new rep to meet their quota and dividing that sum by the number of reps being measured.
9. Seller turnover rate
Turnover rate measures how often sales reps voluntarily leave the company. It’s calculated by dividing the number of reps voluntarily leaving the company within a certain period by the total number of reps.
A high rep turnover rate suggests a problem. One way to determine the cause is to ask reps for feedback about the effectiveness of the sales enablement program.
10. Rep net promoter score
This measures your reps’ satisfaction with your company. Employees are typically asked to complete a survey with questions about their experience. A high net promoter score indicates an employee is satisfied and likely to stay with the company. A low net promoter score indicates the employee is dissatisfied and unlikely to recommend the company to others.
You can calculate NPS by subtracting the number of detractors from the number of promoters, dividing it by the total number of respondents, and multiplying it by 100.
11. Knowledge retention
Reps must learn certain things to be successful. But more importantly, they must retain this knowledge to apply it in the field. Organizations can measure knowledge retention in a number of ways, including post-training assessments, role-plays, and listening to conversations between sales reps and customers.
12. Content use and adoption
Most sales enablements invest time and resources to create internal and external content. Yet, 65% of B2B content is never used.
It’s important to track how both sellers and buyers are using this content – if they’re using it at all. Key content-related metrics include number of views, time spent on a piece, and how often a piece of content is opened, used, or shared. These insights can help you refine your content strategy.
13. Calls-to-action
This metric tracks how often a prospective customer takes action on content, which might include ads, blogs, or emails. The most effective content generates the highest number of clicks.
How sales enablement drives revenue
Today, a mere 43% of sellers meet their quotas. Sales enablement, when done right, can have a dramatic impact on a seller’s ability to close deals – and an organization’s ability to drive revenue. Here are some of the key reasons why.
1. Sales enablement provides sellers with a single source of truth
Sellers need on-demand access to information to move deals forward. For example, sellers often leverage:
- Talk tracks
- Training modules
- Customer content
The information a seller needs is often housed in different locations, such as the CRM, multiple drives, and a company wiki. In those circumstances, it’s challenging for sellers to find what they need when they need it.
However, a solid sales enablement program provides sellers with one single knowledge base. That way, they can always access the knowledge they need whenever needed. That means they can more easily move deals through the funnel – and across the finish line.
2. Sales enablement provides ongoing training
Sales training is a key component of sales enablement. Of course, it all starts with sales onboarding. But that’s not enough.
In the world of sales, change is inevitable. New products are released, and existing products are updated. New tools are introduced. New competitors enter the market. Sales enablement teams provide sellers with the ongoing training to build their skills and knowledge to overcome challenges and close more deals.
3. Sales enablement can help create a culture of coaching
Continuous coaching is essential to sales success. Research tells us that 8 out of 10 teams with effective coaching practices hit greater than 75% of their sales quotas.
A successful sales enablement strategy includes a strong coaching component. Deal coaching is the most common type of coaching. However, sales managers must also incorporate skill coaching to drive behavior change.
4. Sales enablement can improve sales and marketing collaboration
Oftentimes, marketing and sales teams work in silos, with each focused on different goals. This negatively affects overall productivity. However, sales enablement can remove these silos and encourage better collaboration between the two teams. When sales and marketing are working toward the same goals, companies can attract and close leads better.
5. Sales enablement can speed up onboarding
Onboarding is an important way to orient new sellers and help them understand the company, its goals, and their role. Sales enablement can help accelerate onboarding – without sacrificing quality.
Per our 2023 State of Revenue Enablement Report, sellers at winning organizations take just 21-22 days to complete the onboarding program. That’s significantly less than the industry average. With streamlined onboarding time, reps can achieve their revenue targets more quickly.
6. Sales enablement can improve rep retention
Sales enablement can increase seller engagement – which can in turn increase satisfaction. Engaged, satisfied reps are more likely to stick around and be productive.
7. Sales enablement leads to informed, engaged buyers
Sales enablement helps ensure reps are always prepared for any interaction with a potential buyer. When reps have the knowledge and content they need to keep buyers informed and engaged, those buyers are more likely to end up as customers.
Who ownssales enablement?
Ownership of sales enablement varies by organization. But typically, sales enablement is owned by a dedicated sales enablement team. As mentioned earlier, most organizations now invest in a sales enablement team.
The size of the sales enablement team varies and may include functions like:
- Sales enablement director
- Sales enablement manager
- Sales enablement specialist
Most commonly, the sales enablement team reports to the chief revenue officer or another revenue leader.
Sometimes, sales enablement teams work in silos without additional engagement or external guidance. However, the most successful sales enablement programs are those that include cross-functional collaboration across key teams, including:
- Sales leadership
- Sales or revenue operations
- Marketing
- Dedicated sales enablement team
- Customer success
Cross-functional collaboration ensures each area of the organization is aligned on goals and the role they play in achieving those goals.
How are sales enablement and revenue enablement related?
Sales enablement and revenue enablement are closely intertwined and interdependent concepts, with several key connections:
- Sales enablement equips the sales team with tools, resources, and support to enhance their selling effectiveness.
- Revenue enablement takes a broader perspective, aligning departments such as marketing, customer success, and operations to optimize revenue generation.
- Sales enablement is a critical component of revenue enablement, directly impacting sales productivity and contributing to revenue outcomes.
- Both enablement strategies foster collaboration, alignment, and data-driven decision-making.
- Sales enablement focuses on equipping sales reps with the right content, training, and technology to engage buyers and close deals successfully.
- Revenue enablement encompasses various functions and aims to maximize revenue growth, enhance customer experiences, and drive overall business performance.
Together, sales enablement and revenue enablement create a cohesive and efficient revenue generation ecosystem.
What is the difference between sales enablement and sales productivity?
Sales productivity and sales enablement are two distinct concepts that play crucial roles in a sales team’s success. Sales productivity focuses on maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of individual sales representatives. It involves providing them with the tools, resources, and training necessary to close deals and achieve their targets.
On the other hand, sales enablement takes a broader approach, aiming to empower the entire sales organization. It focuses on aligning processes, strategies, and technologies to optimize the sales ecosystem. Sales enablement ensures that the sales team has the right knowledge, content, and support to engage buyers effectively throughout their journey.
Ultimately, sales productivity enhances individual performance, while sales enablement drives overall sales effectiveness and revenue growth.
Drive sales enablement success with Mindtickle
A growing number of organizations are investing in sales enablement teams and programs. That’s not surprising, as sales enablement is proven to impact outcomes. But only when it’s done well.
The right sales enablement technology is crucial to any sales enablement program.
Today, some organizations continue to use point solutions that address a specific sales enablement component. However, the most successful organizations are choosing to streamline their sales enablement tech stacks by investing in an integrated revenue productivity platform like Mindtickle.
Mindtickle incorporates all the key components of a holistic sales enablement program – including sales training, content, coaching, digital sales rooms, and AI role plays – all in one platform. That means sellers have a single source of truth for everything they need to master key skills and behaviors and close more deals faster.
Sales enablement teams depend on Mindtickle to quickly build and deploy personalized, effective enablement programs that drive business results. Mindtickle also includes robust analytics to help revenue leaders understand how sales enablement impacts the metrics that matter most. Teams can use these insights to optimize their programs and drive greater impact.
Sales Enablement in Mindtickle
Let's talk about your sales enablement strategy and how Mindtickle's platform preps reps to hit quota every quarter.
Get a DemoThis post was originally published in January 2020 and updated in September 2022 and again in July 2024.
By Helen Waite
By Rahul Mathew