How's it going, everyone?
Today, we're talking
about sales enablement,
what it is, why it's important,
and how to do it in a
cost-effective way that scales.
I'll also give you three tips you can use
to turn every rep into your best rep
with a few examples on how
we do it here at Salesforce.
All right, let's jump right in.
Welcome to "Salesforce on Salesforce,"
an inside look at our sales, service,
marketing and IT businesses
with helpful how-to tips you
can use for your business.
we'll have tips that can help businesses
save on cost with automation,
be more efficient with productivity
tools and so much more.
As always, you can
learn more on Trailhead,
Salesforce's online learning platform
for more information on this topic
and many others you might
find useful for your business.
So first, what is sales enablement
and why is it important to drive pipeline?
Enablement can simply be defined
as providing your sales organizations
with the right training, tools,
content and processes they
need to sell more effectively.
and an increasing number
of consumer businesses
are dependent on a sales organization
to drive their company's growth.
They are the ones out
there day in and day out,
speaking with customers,
hearing their pains
and providing solutions
through products and services.
Not every business is
supporting their sellers
in the right way, which makes it difficult
and expensive to efficiently
generate revenue.
76% of organizations
who invest in enablement
see a significant impact on
sales according to CSO Insights.
So, prioritizing strategies
that are relevant,
actionable, measurable and predictable
shouldn't be a part of the strategy,
but an imperative for every sales leader.
Since the beginning, Salesforce
has been hyper-focused
on turning every rep into our best rep,
and we've learned a lot along the way.
So, here are three tips you can use
to enable your sales teams
to drive success, efficiency,
increasing revenue while saving on costs.
Tip number one, focus on
outcome-based enablement.
Outcome-based enablement is when you use
specific business results to
drive the enablement agenda
and track the impact of your enablement
on those metrics and KPIs.
It is about providing a
clear plan for your reps.
You'll wanna tie your
enablement to revenue outcomes
to prove the business impact
of what you're working on
According to CSO Insights,
76% of enablers are unable to prove ROI.
If this is something you
are struggling with also,
try this four-step method
that will help improving ROI
for your enablement strategy.
First, analyze your sales engine
to identify one thing your
reps are struggling with.
Say, connecting the value
of your product or solution
to your customer's specific
pain points or needs.
Next, devise a training program
to impact the specific
behavior they need to change
to improve their targeted revenue metric.
Then, validate the program
is changing how reps
approach their day-to-day
selling activities.
It helps to have a powerful analytics tool
to help identify those threats.
And finally, prove that new behavior
is moving the needle on revenue.
And if it's not moving the needle,
identify where exactly the
efforts are falling short.
At Salesforce, we looked closely
at our pipeline generation numbers
for our small medium business
reps and saw an opportunity.
We created a training specific
to increase connect volume
which are calls and emails to customers
with relevant, targeted and
industry-specific communication.
We then monitored rep
behavior and overall pipeline
over the course of the single quarter.
We saw that pipeline
generation overall went up
more than 50% in that
enablement population
and those that achieved
company enablement targets
saw more than 85% uplift.
It's about investing in the
right tools for your reps.
Think of it as an insurance policy
to protect you against
losing winnable deals
and unnecessary confusion for your reps.
Tip number two, integrate
enablement into the rep workflow.
Have you ever heard the
saying people hate change?
Well, that's not entirely true.
People don't hate change.
about implementing a
new enablement strategy.
The key to effective sales enablement
is to weave into existing workflows
and the tools reps are
already using every day,
which will lead to higher
adoption and more everyday impact.
At Salesforce, we want to
help reps support customers,
which means putting information, resources
and support right into their flow of work.
That might look like an in-app guidance
to speed onboarding and adoption
or creating a global
consistent selling methodology
and then embedding it into the
process throughout our tools.
With Slack, we integrate
enablement into the rep workflow
We speed up onboarding
and minimize manual tasks
by automatically adding new reps
to cohort-specific and
account-specific channels.
With workflows, we make it easy for reps
to access account
information right from Slack
This way, they know
exactly where they can go
to ask questions, as
well as stay up to date
with new training and resources.
And when reps have access
to information they need
right in the moment they need to use it,
it helps them avoid one of
the worst phrases in sales,
I'll get back to you on that.
personalize enablement in
the moments rep need it.
Every seller has their own
unique set of skills and areas
they should be focusing on
to improve their tool set.
Enablement should be
relevant to the person
and the skill that they
are trying to improve.
It's future-looking and it's proactive.
To do this, sales leaders
can set priorities
and work in tandem with the reps
to identify what skills need improvement.
For example, one group of
reps may need to improve
how they approach discovery calls.
Another group may need to refine
how they approach roadblocks or objections
You can create segmented,
customized programs
to address those skill gaps
to train and upskill at scale.
the help of specialized training teams
who work with sales leaders
to create customized
enablement experiences
for their operating unit or teams.
They build personalized training
based on each customer's needs
and a deep understanding
of their business.
we have additional personalization
components in onboarding,
like team-based simulations
that require each person
to play different role in
the sales conversation.
predictable quarterly
enablement expectations,
where sellers are encouraged
to carve out learning time
at the beginning of every quarter.
Sales leaders can also build
on personalized training
through one-on-one coaching.
For example, a sales manager
may use conversational insight tool
to review customer calls and
surface common objections
and then share those with the reps
facing those specific challenges.
Three ways to make enablement
work for your reps,
your team, and ultimately your business.
Check out the additional
resources provided
and be sure to watch other
episodes in this series
to learn how we at Salesforce
deliver exceptional selling experiences.
