Thu, 6 June 2019
Many people get sales enablement wrong because they have different concepts and ideas about what it actually is. Roderick Jefferson began his sales career as a BDR, then an AEE, and finally moved into sales management. He discovered that he enjoyed sales more than he enjoyed closing deals. So he stepped into sales training. Now, through his company Roderick Jefferson and Associates, he breaks the complexity of sales into practical ideas through scalable and repeatable practices. SALES ENABLEMENT MISTAKESSales enablement helps develop the right conversations the right way with the right tools. Ultimately, it seeks to decrease time to ramp or increase productivity and revenue. Many companies make mistakes implementing their sales enablement.
Many companies aren’t really sure what they need. They know what isn’t working and they treat enablement like IT. But those who do sales enablement aren’t the fixers of broken things. They aren’t sales scribes or sales support. They must be sales partners. TRAINING VS. ENABLEMENTA difference exists between training and enablement. Roderick believes that training applies to animals while enablement applies to humans. Enablement is woven into the fabric of the company. It literally has to be one of the top five initiatives of the overall success of the company. It also must have specific time-bound and measurable deliverables, metrics, and KPIs. MEASUREMENTSSome of the sales enablement measurements have changed. We used to talk about butts in seats, headcount, and NPS scores, but those things don’t carry water. Sales enablement now focuses on different questions.
Many of the old measurements aren’t definitions of success and they won’t help move the needle forward for sales. BIGGEST MISTAKECompanies aren’t tying their goals, their sales processes, or their sales methodology to figure out where they fit into their buyer’s journey. They are trying to make their buyer fit into their processes, methodologies, sales stages, and CRM. They must step back and reverse engineer their process and document what the buyer’s journey looks like. They must also figure out where to fit in multiple touch points in the buyer’s journey. Sales enablement must be in place before you need it. By the time you need it, it’s already too late. If, for example, you’re planning to hire more people over the next year, you must have the content ready for them. You must have a process for onboarding. Without these processes in place, you’ve essentially planned to fail rather than ensuring success. RETHINK ICPRethink the ideal customer profile. Start thinking instead about the ideal employee profile. From an enablement perspective, you start to get a feel for new hires and who is going to be a rock star. Instead of doing that after the hire, Roderick focused on working with HR resources around talent acquisition. Consider what a rock star looks like especially in the context of where the company is going. Then take that job description to HR and explain what you’re hiring toward. Sometimes sellers do well by accident because the prospect happened to need their product or service. In that case, they become simply order-takers. When we fail to measure, plan, or structure our efforts, we don’t optimize. Imagine if every organization operated that way. It’s the detriment of the sales industry. Supply chain ensures that you hit your markers and that sales leaders don’t move the goalposts. If you’re in the red zone about to score, you don’t want anyone to move the goal post. RESOURCE VS. CONSULTANTMany companies don’t want to pay for consultants but they want help connecting the dots. It’s important to use resources and consultants because what one lacks, the other brings. Roderick’s team brings templates to their clients so they don’t have to recreate the wheel. The process includes four stages.
HOPEInstead of hoping that marketing does its job and that the customer buys, institute a clear process instead. Remove hope at every stage and rely on the process that focuses on your buyer’s journey. Enablement is an ongoing conference rather than a single event. “SALES ENABLEMENT” EPISODE RESOURCESYou can connect with Roderick on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, or you can email him directly with questions at roderickjefferson.com. Connect with me at donald@thesalesevangelist.com. Try the first module of the TSE Certified Sales Training Program for free. This episode is brought to you by the TSE Certified Sales Training Program. I developed this training course because I struggled early on as a seller. Once I had the chance to go through my own training, I noticed a hockey-stick improvement in my performance. TSE Certified Sales Training Program can help you out of your slump. If you gave a lot of great presentations and did a lot of hard work, only to watch your prospects choose to work with your competitors, we can help you fix that. The new semester of TSE Certified Sales Training Program begins in April and it would be an absolute honor to have you join us. TOOLS FOR SELLERSThis episode is also brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. It’s super easy, it’s helpful, and I recommend that you try it out. You’ll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link. Mailtag.io allows you to see around the corners. You can see when people open your email, or when they click on the link you sent. Mailtag.io will give you half-off your subscription for life when you use the Promo Code: Donald at check out. I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility. If you haven’t already done so, subscribe to the podcast so you won’t miss a single episode. Share it with your friends who would benefit from learning more. |
Tue, 14 February 2017
Predictable revenue is what everybody wants but nobody wants to do the work to get. My guest today, Sean Burke is going to share with us some relevant strategies and principles you can implement to help you see predictability in your revenue. Sean is the CEO of KiteDesk, a sales development platform that helps sales […] The post TSE 508: Building Predictable Pipeline With Sales Development appeared first on The Sales Evangelist. |
Thu, 28 April 2016
The concept of sales enablement is pretty much becoming a buzzword in the sales world today, but what is it exactly? Mr. Enablement here is going to give us great new insights into that. TK is the founder and CEO of ToutApp, a sales success platform where they offer a one stop shop for customers […] The post TSE 300: Is Sales Enablement Working For You? appeared first on The Sales Evangelist. |
Tue, 15 March 2016
Today, I will share with you a very effective sales enablement tool with Gmail to help you speed up the amount of emails you send. This way, you will be able to work more effectively and focus on the more important things. Work smarter, not harder. What is Sales Enablement? It means utilizing technology, means, […] The post TSE 273: Sales Enablement “Gmail Email Templates” appeared first on The Sales Evangelist. |