Become an expert in sales enablement strategies

Learn everything you need to know about sales enablement strategy and tips to create content that will drive your sales.

In an increasingly competitive market that seeks consumer attention, it is not enough to offer a better quality product or at the best price.

For people to be interested in your business and, as a consequence, sell more, it is essential to create a sales enablement strategy .

After all, with so many resources and tools available in the market, it is necessary to take advantage of each one of them to meet business objectives and demands.

The main objective of developing such a strategy is to prepare the sales team, in order to create the most favorable scenario for the conversion.

However, do you know what it takes to create an efficient sales enablement strategy for your business success and what skills are required to play a productive role in that process?

Read on to get all the facts on the subject and increase your sales performance!

• What is sales enablement and what are its benefits? 
• What should a sales enablement professional keep in mind? 
• What skills are needed to be successful in this job?
• How to create a sales enablement strategy from scratch?
• What content formats work well in a sales enablement strategy? 
• What is sales enablement and what are its benefits?

Before showing you how to apply a sales enablement strategy, it is essential to understand what it means.

In practice, it is a collaborative planning that involves different areas of the company to create content and materials that facilitate the work of the salesperson.

In a widely contested market, consumers increasingly value a positive experience in every contact with companies.

Therefore, the objective of applying a sales enablement strategy is to facilitate and bring the relationship between the two parties closer, boosting the sales potential of the team.

The main benefit of this strategy is to increase the effectiveness of your company's actions.

The idea is that the salesperson has as much information as possible about the potential customer, due to the integration between the Sales and Marketing teams.

The alliance between the two areas tends to generate more useful information for your company.

It aims to avoid wasting time and resources on useless content, which, according to a SiriusDecisions survey, represents 60% of what companies produce.

Thus, you can offer content that is relevant to the consumer and, in addition to lead generation work , facilitate your team's negotiations.

What should a sales enablement professional keep in mind?

Professionals and experts in sales enablement strategies must take into account their main challenges and tasks.

The first of these is to create content that is relevant to the audience and that can be used by the seller.

In addition, it is also their responsibility to prepare the professionals involved in the process to use the solutions correctly.

In terms of tools, they are essential for efficient sales enablement work, as they will allow your team to obtain more practical information about the consumer.

It is also the job of this professional to find and use strategies that increase the possibilities of doing new business, such as cross selling or cross selling, for example.

What skills are needed to be successful in this job?

Some characteristics are essential for the professional who assumes this position, otherwise they will not be able to improve the performance of the sales team. These particularities or abilities are the following:

Be a good communicator

Communication is essential for the professional responsible for implementing a sales enablement strategy to be successful.

After all, he will have to deal with different professionals and make the connection between the different sectors of the company.

Therefore, communication should be as transparent as possible to ensure that everyone understands their roles.

Organizational skills

Another critical point is the organization, since professionals will have this type of demand in their work routine.

It is necessary to organize all the required functions, so that the departments work in an integrated way, avoiding rework and planning errors that damage the entire strategy.

Be a data-driven thinker

It is essential to have technology and the enormous amount of information that a company generates.

For this reason, a necessary skill to be successful in the role is to be data-driven, that is, to use it to make more precise and efficient decisions, always based on detailed studies and analysis.

Promote a healthy organizational climate Whether it's adding a new member or getting the most out of each salesperson, knowing how to deal with the people on the team is critical.

The leader responsible for implementing the sales enablement strategy must manage the professionals well.

Put the focus on constant improvement

Another important skill is to always look for ways to improve performance and work.

In other words, it implies not being satisfied with the results obtained and always looking for tools, solutions and ideas that can make the project even more efficient and accurate.

How to create a sales enablement strategy from scratch?

How can you create and apply an efficient sales enablement strategy within your company?

To help you do this, we will present below a step-by-step approach with all the tips and points to keep in mind if you want to start your own strategy from scratch and get more sales.

Step 1: set clear goals The first step in implementing an efficient sales enablement strategy is determining your goals and aligning them to actions. In other words, do an in-depth analysis and discover errors, faults and difficulties. Then think about the situations you want to improve. 

 Step 2: talk to the sales team What follows is the time to understand the difficulties of the department that will benefit the most from the implementation of this strategy: the sales team . So talk to your members and identify what you can do to improve focus and, of course, to increase sales. This will give you information so that your strategy is really efficient. 

 Step 3: understand your audience's behavior Understanding the behavior of your audience is another fundamental point. It is not only about data and demographic information, but also what they are looking for and what are their main difficulties. So find out what can help you get their attention that will increase your chances of selling. 

 Step 4: don't forget the customer journey It's also important to configure your sales enablement strategy in sync with the customer journey .

Analyze the sales funnel and take into account the needs of your potential customers at this time.

As a consequence, you will also be able to identify with greater precision which content is the most appropriate.

Step 5: select the contents Now is the time to determine what content you will use in your sales enablement strategy. What will be efficient at each point of contact? How will the seller use this content to promote the conversation and increase the chances that the potential customer will make a purchase?

 Step 6: prepare the team for work When defining the strategy, it is necessary to prepare all professionals to implement these actions. Marketers, for example, must create content with a specific goal. At the same time, salespeople need to understand that they must always analyze their conversations to identify areas for improvement. 

 Step 7: grab your tools The next challenge is to gather all the tools you will need to put your sales enablement strategy into action. What resources and solutions can be used to facilitate human work? These points must be carefully evaluated, especially to choose useful tools for your objectives.

 Step 8: Analyze Even when the strategy is in place, the job is still far from done, as now is the time to regularly monitor the results. 

What difficulties arose? 
What materials are working well?
The analysis must be constant. What content formats work well in a sales enablement strategy? 

Now that you know what the sales enablement strategy is, why it is important, and how to implement it, how about checking out some content formats that you could use?

For inspiration, look at some examples that your company can use for different purposes, always aiming for more sales.

Lead generation To improve lead generation, you can use blog posts, white papers, and case studies. The objective at this stage is to get the user to take an interest in your company and help them solve their problems. 

Team support As we said, it's important to prepare your team to handle sales, as only 16% of salespeople say they are ready for the job, according to IDC research . 

 To do this, the most appropriate types of content are forms and spreadsheets that contain information on the performance of the competition. Sales conversion When it comes to making sales, the ideal option is to invest in really interesting content.

 A growing trend is personalized interactive content , which can be produced with the help of tools like Ion Interactive. You can generate better sales results. Creating a sales enablement strategy is essential to boost the performance of your entire team.

 Since there is so much competition, you should do your best to ensure that users always have a good experience with your content and, most importantly, that your sales team is prepared to deal with these solutions. 

Interactive content not only captures the user's attention, it also provides the information that the marketer needs to take a more precise approach and have a better chance of generating conversions. So how about you learn more about Ion Interactive and its features? Here you will find all the information !