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How to Close More Deals with Sales Enablement

8 mins read

Sales enablement is all about equipping sales teams with the relevant content and training so that they can not only focus on the better-qualified leads but also be in a position where they can actually close them.

Introducing Sales Enablement and Why It’s Needed

Empowered by technological advances, buyers are smarter and more informed than ever before. They can obtain information about a product or service without needing to talk to your sales team at all. In fact, they typically embark on over 50 percent of the buyer’s journey alone before speaking to a salesperson.

With savvier buyers come new demands. Namely, they want sales teams to present them with something new and information they can’t get themselves.

This is why sales enablement is so important right now. It helps facilitate a smoother selling process that revolves around the customer. Without a customer-centric approach to selling, your sales team won’t succeed.

Sales enablement stat

For example, did you know that only 1 percent of cold calls actually result in successfully organising meetings? If marketers are to succeed in cold calls, they need to work tirelessly so that they can somehow get lucky in locking in the right person.

But the problem is it could take hundreds of phone calls throughout an entire day before you even find the right person to market to.

If your sales team can’t show how your offering will solve the buyer’s problems, then they’ll lose the potential buyer’s interest so it’s important that you find new ways to engage with customers.

Cold-calling sales approaches aren’t an efficient way to reach out to your customers. In fact, 74 percent of buyers choose the salesperson who was first to add value and insight to them.

In order to do this, your sales team desperately need information, resources and content that’s going to be impactful. That’s where your marketing team comes in, as they need to create valuable and impactful content that hits every pain point and solves every challenge for your sales team to use.

By doing so, both teams can understand your customer better and in the long run, that amazing content can help your sales team close more sales.

There’s more to sales enablement, though. Read on to find out more on what it is, how it works, benefits and how you can implement it for your business.

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Want to skip to a particular section? Just click on the headings below.

Introducing Sales Enablement and Why It’s Needed

The Importance of Aligning Marketing and Sales

So, What is Sales Enablement?

Succeeding with Sales Enablement

Sales Enablement Best Practices

Finding the Right Sales Enabler

The Importance of Aligning Marketing and Sales

Traditionally, it’s thought that the two butt heads and have an unproductive relationship. One needs the other to succeed so overall, your business benefits greatly when both teams are aligned and working on the same page.

As well as the alignment being a giant leap toward implementing sales
enablement, other benefits of aligning the two departments include:

  • Better-Qualified Leads. Your sales team can tell the marketing team what is and isn’t working so that the marketers can adjust strategies based on what they’ve been told.
  • Better Engagement and Stronger Relationships. By implementing one shared vision and goal, they can rely on each other to hit their targets.
  • Accurate Buyer Personas. Understanding customers better and having accurate buyer personas allows for a smoother buying experience.
  • Better and Clearer Feedback. By having that communication and trust between both, they’ll be more comfortable when asking the other to make adjustments.
  • Stay Ahead of the Competition. Your marketing team can keep your sales team informed of the tactics being used and the positioning of the competition.
  • Increased Revenue. Organisations with excellent sales and marketing alignment close 38 percent more deals, which obviously leads to an increase in revenue.
  • Better Marketing Materials. When your sales team inform your marketing team of what questions are most popular amongst prospects, your marketing department can target their content very specifically.

Sales enablement quote

How to actually do it

The first hurdle you need to get over when it comes to aligning your sales
and marketing is actually figuring out how to get there. Check out these helpful tips below on how to get the process started. And for further reading, check out this detailed post on the key benefits and how to get the wheels in motion.

Start by:

  • Using lead scoring.
  • Setting mutually agreed goals and definitions.
  • Encouraging communication.
  • Building a sense of connection between both teams.
  • Getting sales involved in campaign planning.
  • Integrating sales and marketing software.

A Service Level Agreement (SLA) between the two departments is a contract that binds the teams together and points them in the right direction and towards the same goals. Companies that have introduced these tend to see better relationships, both socially and work-related between the two teams. This ultimately drives revenue and is a more efficient, healthier way of working and operating a business.

To read more about all things sales and marketing alignment - including
the benefits in more depth, why it actually works, the challenges and how
to overcome them - head over to this blog.

So, What is Sales Enablement?

Sales enablement is all about strategy that equips your sales team with the
tools they need to constantly have effective engagements with good-fit prospects and customers throughout their buyer’s journey.

Aligning sales and marketing is the first step toward implementing sales enablement. But, there’s a lot more that goes into achieving sales enablement, such as:

  • Improving sales productivity and motivation.
  • Create an effective lead qualification process.
  • Sales automation.
  • Sales trigger events.
  • Use sales collateral.

The primary focus of your sales enablement strategy should be the buyers. Think about it - the reason sales enablement has become a thing in the first place is so that your sales team can be given the resources a buyer wants.

By following the tips above (and we’ll explain them in more depth below), your marketing and sales teams will be working together efficiently to help achieve business growth sales retention and save more time on what matters - focusing on securing good-fit leads.SE quote - Focus should be buyers

Succeeding with Sales Enablement

Various pieces have to come together for the sales enablement puzzle to work properly and successfully. We’ve made it a lot easier for you to find out what you need to know by collating all of the relevant information in one place.

Follow and implement the tips below as a good starting point to achieve
sales enablement in your company...

Improving sales productivity and motivation

Chasing bad leads can make any sales team lose motivation. Luckily, there are ways you can help boost productivity and morale so they can keep chasing amazing leads.

These are:

  • Say no to bad opportunities.
  • Use lead scoring.
  • Use a CRM and automation technology.
  • Align your sales and marketing teams.
  • Set individual and team goals.
  • Build a level of trust.
  • Offer monetary and creative rewards.
  • Ask what motivates your teams.
  • Create a culture of recognition.
  • Get teams involved for shared goals.

Nobody wants their team to become unmotivated and unproductive. Want to learn how to avoid this? Check out this post.

Create an effective lead qualification process

A lead qualification process determines which leads your sales team should focus on and which they should ignore. It’s important for sales and marketing teams to align here so that they can both see success.

Follow the tips below so your sales team can get better-qualified leads...

  • Identify top qualification questions.
  • Create a sales-specific process.
  • Implement lead scoring.
  • Create service level agreements.
  • Emphasise constant communication.
  • Adopt an account-based marketing process.
  • Integrate sales and marketing software.

Need some more information on the benefits of an effective lead qualification process? Our post will inform you of everything you need to know.

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Sales Automation

Yes, sales automation is the best way to close leads when used effectively
to automate the manual and repetitive processes. Tasks that can be simplified with automation include:

  • Approvals.
  • Notes recording.
  • Lead scoring.
  • Call logging.
  • Lead delivery.
  • Customer onboarding.
  • Meeting scheduling.
  • Sales quotations.

Sales automation is a crucial part of an effective sales enablement strategy.
But sales automation also has many benefits. These include:

  • Identify potential customers.
  • Lead information.
  • Easy reporting.
  • Create proposals.
  • Call analysis.
  • Email templates and automation.

To find out more on how it can benefit your business, click here.

Sales Trigger Events

A trigger event is an occurrence that signals a buying opportunity. Again, it works when sales and marketing join forces as automation workflows use trigger events to scale customer interactions.

Some events your teams can track include:

  • Buyers opening emails.
  • Awards.
  • New roles.
  • Unhappiness with current service.
  • An actual evidence of interest.
  • New legislation.
  • Entrance into a new market.

For more in-depth information about sales trigger events, why not
take a look at our super informative post?

SE Triggers quote

Sales collateral to use

This is the point you’ve been waiting for since we mentioned it - content
your marketing team needs to create for your sales team to use when
communicating with prospects.

The collateral needs to be valuable and impactful to act as extra support,
so use these ideas in the future.

  • Email templates.
  • Videos.
  • Downloadable content like case studies and eBooks.
  • Blog content.
  • Awards and recognition.
  • Background and biographies.
  • Testimonials and reviews.
  • Portfolio.
  • Sales presentations.
  • Newsletters.

Sales Enablement Best Practices

For sales enablement to work in your company, there are some best practices that you should consider following to ensure success.

Otherwise, there’s a danger of the entire process falling flat.

#1 FOCUS ON THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Turns your sales enablement focus towards improving the customer experience for the best chance of securing new leads and holding onto existing customers. This approach helps your sales team to engage with customers to build better long term relationships.

#2 ALWAYS SHARE CONTENT BEFORE AND AFTER CLOSED DEALS

Make sure your marketing team is always creating compelling content that’s
relevant to the needs of your customers. Content is a good way of bringing
value to your customers and it’s a sure-fire way of continuing to build long-term relationships that are sustainable.

Rounding up relevant content makes it simple for your sales team to know when to share what type of content. This way, they can move prospects through the buyer’s journey more efficiently.

#3 ADOPT A SALES ENABLEMENT CULTURE

By making sales enablement a part of your company culture, your sales team can constantly adapt and evolve to increase their selling efficiency and quality. By offering regular training and workshops, your sales team can offer more relevant strategies to other members of your sales team.

Finding the Right Sales Enabler

As you can imagine, there’s a lot involved when it comes to sales enablement. The big challenge companies like yours are facing is the level of skill involved, the time it takes to learn everything about sales enablement
and the level of expertise needed for it to run like clockwork.

That’s why working with an inbound marketing agency that specialises in sales enablement - with a proven track record to back it up - is an option worth considering. But with over 2,500 HubSpot partner agencies to choose from, it can be difficult to narrow down your options.

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Here are a few things to look out for before you make your final decision…

#1 THEIR RANK IN THE HUBSPOT PARTNER TIER PROGRAMME

There are four tiers available once an agency has been certified. The higher the tier, the more successful the agency is when it comes to providing services for their clients. Only 1 percent of agencies have reached the highest level of Diamond, highlighting just how hard they’ve had to work to get there.

Tip: Diamond agencies are most often the best choice. These have proven that they’ve consistently used HubSpot to help clients to surpass their goals. This is reason enough to work with them, but there are additional benefits to choosing a Diamond tier Partner over one that’s at another level.

#2 READ REVIEWS FROM PAST AND PRESENT CLIENTS

Before getting in touch with any of the agencies, be sure to read reviews from the clients they’ve worked with. It’s a good opportunity to see if they have experience working with someone from a similar industry.

#3 WHETHER THEY WORK ON PLATFORMS OTHER THAN HUBSPOT

If an agency works solely on HubSpot, then it highlights how much belief
they have in inbound marketing over traditional methods. Working across multiple platforms can result in their work harming rather than helping you as they’re still supportive of outdated strategies.

#4 THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH HUBSPOT

The best agencies have a close relationship with HubSpot. This is because they know the platform inside and out and they usually have contacts they can turn to for assistance if needed.

We work with a channel manager at HubSpot to make sure our clients have the right tools to enable them to reach and beat their goals.

#5 WHETHER THEY OUTSOURCE ANY OF THE WORK THEY DO

When an agency carries out all of their services under the same roof, you
can expect a consistent quality of work and ensure you can easily get in
contact with the right people. No middle-men required.

Tip: The best way to check that an agency is carrying out all of their services in-house is by paying them a visit. It’s also a good opportunity to put a name to the agency and meet exactly who’ll be working on your account. Is there a big enough team to cope with all of the services you’ll need to succeed?

At Digital 22, we can help you figure out the current state of your sales and set you up on automation software like HubSpot.

Stick at it and you’ll soon begin to see the rewards - like one of our clients did. With no CRM at all, to begin with, we had the task of helping them move from traditional sales techniques and implement HubSpot sales automation software.Through the introduction of sales automation, we helped them nurture leads both digitally and physically.

To see the incredible results they had after we helped them boost ROI through sales enablement, download the case study below to see the figures and the process we put in place to get there.