Myths Debunked: A Look at Sales Training ROI

Marie Martin on July 5, 2018

While reliable and useful at times, age-old (supposed) sales training best practices can turn into myths and urban legends. In fact, they can even become your sales training program’s roadblocks.
How do you know if a time and tested best practice have become outdated? To avoid myopia when it comes to your sales enablement, make sure you don’t let “traditional” sales training objectives overshadow innovation.
In this article featured in Training Journal, our Director of Product Marketing Daniel Kuperman exposes the myths for all sales professionals – rookies and gurus alike.

  • Myth 1: People tend to forget everything they learn, regardless of how they learn it.
  • Myth 2: Sales skill training cannot yield quantifiable results.
  • Myth 3: Adapt your sales training to different learning styles.

He concludes: “While it’s comfortable to maintain consistency, it doesn’t help businesses and their employees achieve their short- and long-term goals—or revenue numbers…For a sales force to be truly effective and produce positive outcomes, the conversation must shift from sales training to sales enablement.”
Learn about why sales enablement is your key to overcoming outdated methods of sales training myths.

How Large, Innovative Companies Are Using Their LMSs for ‘Revenue Enablement’

Ryan Pimlott on June 15, 2018

I’ve been in the trenches for over three years with big enterprises while they’ve grappled with leveraging their LMSs (Learning Management Systems; and yes, many have more than one) to drive the continuous learning and development that their sales enablement programs can provide to sales reps so they can stay ahead of their discerning, self-qualifying customers. They all have one common question, “how do we leverage our LMS systems for effective sales enablement? Or do we?”
I usually respond with, “We see the need to drive more productivity from innovative top companies like yours every day. And most companies we encounter are actively seeking better ways to diagnose, swiftly and effectively react to customer requests, and ultimately drive more sales predictability.” But, what’s usually not apparent is that change is happening so fast that companies are failing when trying to use their LMSs for effective sales coaching or adequately disseminating ever-changing sales requirements. LMSs were built for managing and certifying large company employee’s accomplishments (such as certifying that personnel is trained on sexual harassment or discrimination laws). LMSs are not designed for helping effective sales teams consume and retain useful knowledge, develop skills and behaviors they can continuously improve upon, or finally, targeting specific needs and skills’ gaps.
When it comes to enabling sales and client professionals to be successful and repeatedly win deals or renew accounts, corporate learning management systems don’t do the job.

What sales need to be customer ready – beyond an LMS

What do salespeople need? Beyond LMS systems? They need to be prepared to effectively field customer requests and objections. Therefore, they need access to the latest information in an easily consumable format—in real time, not days after a training or coaching session, but at the exact moment, the information is made available.
Then, they need to be able to articulate the right messages during crucial customer conversations. There are no second chances when your competition is on the next call. Sellers who are knowledgeable and articulate are more valued, and often the winners of new business. The fact is that today’s sales professionals need more than reviews, webinars, and classroom sessions. To truly address knowledge and skills’ gaps, managers need to coach their team members on how to improve sales strategies at an ongoing basis. And for coaching, they need robust sales enablement solutions.
Plus, many managers, especially first-time managers need meaningful guidance on what effective sales coaching looks like. Even experienced managers who know how to coach and have exhausted the capabilities of corporate learning management systems need enablement tools to help them identify problem areas and gaps. Coaching is not possible with just an LMS.

More than just sales teams impact revenue

While revenue growth involves new business from sales, it must maintain (or grow) existing revenue from expansions to renewals. That’s why it’s important to point out that those who impact overall revenue growth include not only sales reps, but also customer success managers, customer support professionals, call center professionals, sales engineers, sales enablement managers, learning and development professionals, and product marketers alike. Enablement programs must reach beyond sales’ teams and extend to everyone who impacts revenue maintenance and growth. “Revenue enablement” if you will.
When customer satisfaction (CSAT) and NPS scores are low, customers are highly unlikely to expand or renew existing products or services. That’s why many Mindtickle customers are working on pilot programs and deployments that focus on improving customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores. They repeatedly ask, “how can I diagnose and influence my company’s CSAT scores? Is it by providing all revenue influencers (sales, customer support and service roles) the right knowledge? Or skills? Or tools? How about through effective sales coaching?”

What effective ‘revenue enablement’ should accomplish

An effective revenue enablement solution begins where an LMS ends. It should onboard and updates all revenue influencers quickly and efficiently, and in a way that simultaneously helps them reinforce and retain the knowledge and skills they need.
Moving towards a complete revenue enablement model is the perfect opportunity for enterprise enablement leaders to move from measuring program adoption to correlating programs to performance. Imagine doing real-time correlations with transactional metrics, such as win/loss analysis, conversion rates, etc.
I consider Mindtickle a true revenue enablement solution because our solution actively helps managers coach, enables the retention and reinforcement of knowledge and develops skills and behaviors in an efficient and easily consumable manner. An effective revenue enablement solution like Mindtickle’s should always be there to help revenue influencers fill in skills and behavior gaps throughout the time they’re with a company.
So, if you are like many of our customers who ask where their LMS fits into sales, or what I call revenue enablement, understand that LMSs are key to a modern-day enablement solution, but, they’re just not all you need. Effective revenue enablement solutions begin where the benefits of LMSs end.
Imagine elevating the role of enablement leaders by presenting to your exec team and peers metrics that show a direct correlation between your “revenue” enablement programs and revenue growth?

When Launching Sales Enablement Tools, Create a Change Management Strategy

Deepti Sundareshan on May 24, 2018

We’ve talked about best practices for successful implementation, how to increase the adoption of initiatives, and how to manage change when launching sales enablement tools.

But before you begin your sales enablement implementation process, you must understand how creating a change management strategy can ensure you receive the desired outcomes.

Mindtickle Sales Enablement Benchmark Report

What is a change management strategy?

Change is necessary for companies to remain competitive in today’s marketplace. Unfortunately, people tend to resist change and wish to continue doing what they’ve been doing. Change management helps guide an organization through the transitional process as quickly and easily as possible. Change management strategy is a framework to support changes. It isn’t about the alterations themselves.

Why you need a strategy before your implementation

When preparing to change any processes in your organization it is important to create a unified strategy. Having a strategy ensures that everyone is on the same page before you start to make a change. You’ll confirm that everyone impacted by the upcoming transition understands the need for it. Plus they’ll know what to expect and will help you collect any needed input. When this all happens ahead of time, it brings people closer together and makes them feel more comfortable. This leads to increased compliance and adoption throughout the entire journey to your new desired state.

Creating your strategy

Preparing a strategy is about gathering information that allows you to make educated decisions when you create your actual implementation plans. Your strategy helps ensure changes are consistent and successfully applied to your entire organization. It’s about being aware of key factors ahead of your actual planning and implementation. There are three main steps to creating your change management strategy. They include:

  1.    Situational awareness
  2.    Supporting team structure
  3.    Change management strategy analysis

Let’s take a closer look at each of these steps.

Situational awareness

This step involves gaining a better understanding of the actual change, who will be affected, and how your organization may have previously worked through similar changes, if applicable. Specifically, you need to look at change characteristics, organizational attributes, and groups that will be involved.
Change characteristics

  • Gain an understanding of the change that you’ll be introducing. Answer the following questions to uncover the characteristics of your planned change: What is involved in the change? How many people will it affect? Who will be impacted? Will they all be affected in the same way or differently? What is being changed – processes, systems, job roles, etc? Over what period of time will the change occur?
  • Organizational attributes: This is about understanding the history and culture of your organization as a means to better understand the people and groups being impacted. Remember that various groups will be affected in different ways. Considerations here include: How do employees and managers perceive the need for this change?  Has your organization ever managed similar changes? If so, how was it done? Does the organization have a shared vision of the final outcome? How much change is already taking place prior to the upcoming implementation?
  • Groups that will be involved: This final step in situational awareness entails developing a picture of who will be most involved in the change and how they will be impacted. You want an understanding of how different groups will be affected in their own unique way. This will enable specific and customized plans to accommodate each group during the actual change management process.

Supporting team structure

It’s important to identify a team and sponsor to support your change management strategy. Without this, it will be quite difficult to implement your plans when the time comes. Let’s take a look at both of these.

  • Team structure: The change management team structure establishes who will be managing the change. It explains how the project team and the change management team will work together. It also specifies the team members and their responsibilities.
  • Sponsor coalition: The sponsor coalition specifies which sales executives, operations, managers, and top performers should be onboard and actively involved in driving the change. It also designates the primary sponsor who authorizes and champions the specific change. The sponsor must be actively and openly engaged throughout the change project. All members of this coalition are responsible for building support and communicating with their particular audience within your organization concerning the change.

Change management strategy analysis

To ensure your change management strategy is effective, it’s important to consider what could cause your implementation to fail. Doing so allows you to proactively determine how to address these stumbling blocks so they don’t cause any delays in reaching your desired outcomes. Below are the three steps you need to take in this part of strategy creation.

  • Project risk assessment: The more dramatic and extensive the change, the higher the risk. You also have a greater chance of difficulties if your organization tends to have a history of resisting change. As you develop your strategy, the change management team should document all potential risk factors.
  • Anticipated resistance: Think carefully about where you might anticipate push-back on the upcoming change. Are there particular divisions, groups, positions, or individuals that are most likely to resist the new implementation? Making note of these can prevent them, or help prepare you to address them when they arise.
  • Developing special tactics: Once you’ve identified your potential risks and resistances, you should determine how you will deal with each when and if they arise. Have these strategies prepared to facilitate smoother progress throughout your implementation? Of course, it is impossible to anticipate every issue in advance, so you’ll want to revisit this step periodically during your launch process.

After you create your strategy you’ll be ready to devise your change management plans. Be sure to stay focused on the information you uncovered while developing your strategy. It will greatly impact the success of your implementation. Without taking the time to create your change management strategy, you risk disorganization, a lack of compliance, or incomplete change. This will only lead to greatly reduced results. Now it’s time for you to create a change management strategy to prepare for your upcoming sales readiness implementation to ensure the best possible outcomes.

Knowledge Transfer: The Achilles Heel of Sales Enablement

Daniel Kuperman on May 21, 2018

“The biggest challenge for sales reps to meet their quota is difficulty in differentiating offerings from competition or buyer status quo.”

At the SiriusDecisions Summit this year one of the best sessions I attended was the one on “Sales Knowledge Transfer Framework.” It laid out the case for changing how companies are transferring knowledge to their sales teams.

However, despite all the advancements made in educating companies on the value of sales enablement, it’s surprising that many salespeople are still lagging behind.

Why is this is happening? SiriusDecisions shed some light on the problem:

  • 36% of high-performing reps feel they need more coaching from their managers.
  • High-performing reps are 3X more likely to use role-play when learning.
  • 26% of low-performing managers lack guidance, resources, or support to coach new hires.
  • Low performers are 8X more likely to

    not

    to use role-play in their training programs.

When creating great onboarding or ongoing enablement programs, it’s important to understand how your sales team learns, practices, and receives feedback. Without incorporating these elements, adoption will be low and, you won’t see results.

Competitive updates, objection handling, new messaging, market information and all the knowledge and information you need to transfer to the minds of your sales reps require a considerate plan. Technology now enables you to leverage virtual role-play to complement in-person exercises. Electronic coaching forms can assist managers in following a prescribed approach to observe and help reps in the field. And mobile-enabled micro-learning modules can reach your field team wherever they are without taking time away from selling activities. But technology alone is not enough.

If you are thinking about deploying an enablement solution, first stop to make a list of everyone involved including sales, marketing, and product marketing. Ensure you have buy-in as any new technology deployment is only as good as the people using it. Then, those who create content and want to transfer their knowledge to the sales reps will have new guidelines.

If you’d like to see how other companies have done this successfully, contact [email protected] and we’ll put you in touch with someone that has transformed their sales enablement and can share what they’ve learned. You can also read some of our

customer stories here

.

Gaining a Competitive Sales Advantage with Virtual Micro-Learning

Deepti Sundareshan on May 16, 2018

In today’s ever-changing marketplace, it’s becoming more and more difficult to get an edge over competitors. Developing a strong value proposition is one way to clearly explain to prospects why they should buy your solution over others. In fact, a great value proposition could be the difference between losing a sale or closing it. According to HubSpot, only 69% of B2B firms have established value propositions, yet 54 percent of companies do nothing to optimize theirs. A strong value proposition alone is not enough to get ahead of your business rivals. It takes a well-prepared salesforce who can effectively leverage your value proposition to make the difference. The best way to prepare them to do so is with the ongoing, bite-sized training that’s accessible from anywhere. Here, we’ll show you how you’ll gain a competitive sales advantage with virtual micro-learning.

Attract and retain good talent

According to research by Gallup,

59% of millennials say opportunities to learn and grow are extremely important to them when

applying for a job

. In comparison, 44% of Gen Xers and 41% of baby boomers say the same about these types of opportunities. Plus, the Harvard Business Review found that dissatisfaction with development efforts such as training and coaching cause many to leave their job for another with better development opportunities.

Sales rep engagement increases when micro-learning is used instead of other training methods because it’s in a format that’s easily incorporated into their routine while meeting their desire to learn. It also increases job satisfaction, since the sales staff feels more prepared and enjoys their work more. Plus, micro-learning is fun!

Faster onboarding

Effective salespeople are masters of a complex skill set. It takes technical expertise and fine-tuned people skills to translate product specs into persuasive value. Micro-learning

shortens ramp time. This means less time to full productivity and more reps selling at their full potential at all times. This reduces the financial drain on the organization and creates a stronger selling team compared to those of competitors.

Always up-to-date

In today’s marketplace, there’s always something new to learn and changes to know. They include updates relating to product, marketplace, prospect challenges, industry information, competitors, and the best sales techniques. With micro-learning, your reps are continually learning and always up to date on the latest need-to-know information.

It helps them easily

keep their knowledge and skills fresh. Consistently improving through reinforcement with practice and application, they’re always ready for any prospect or scenario.

The right information at the right time

Since virtual micro-learning is available from anywhere on any device, sales reps can review the information they need, when they need it. For example, they can refresh on value propositions for specific prospects just prior to presenting to or meeting with, them. This easy-to-access information makes it possible for reps to respond promptly to prospect and customer questions too, resulting in increased sales and customer satisfaction.

This content, consumed at the moment the rep most needs it, is reinforced with an immediate application that results in greater retention. The individualized learning experience that micro-learning provides keeps reps interested and wanting to learn more to fill their individual learning gaps.

Increased productivity

Unlike other learning methods,

micro-learning doesn’t interrupt your reps’ daily work, it fits right in. They remain on-the-job instead of sitting in a training room where they aren’t productive. Also, your team members learn faster and retain more with micro-learning, so they’re better prepared to close more business in less time.

Agile

Matching the pace of today’s business, virtual micro-learning is agiler than other forms of training and communication. Due to their brevity, micro-learning courses can be produced quickly and updated on the go. Plus, notifications about changes to your company, competition, product, and more are easily created and distributed with just a few clicks.

This allows your organization to adapt to change quickly and easily in the marketplace.

As you can see, micro-learning enables your sales force to be better prepared to meet with various prospects, differentiate your solution, and win more deals. With the top talent that’s always up-to-date and continually improving, you’ll already have an edge over your rivals. The resulting productivity combined with your ability to rapidly change with the marketplace, your industry opponents will be no match. It’s time for you to give this method of learning a try and experience the competitive sales advantage with virtual micro-learning in your company.

Why a Sales Onboarding Program Design for Sales Engineers is Important

Deepti Sundareshan on May 14, 2018

Strategic sales onboarding, regardless of team size or role, should be a non-negotiable priority for any company.

Research by the Aberdeen Group backs this up: a recent study found that when onboarded effectively, 71% of employees exceeded expectations, versus a reported 8% by companies without an onboarding strategy. And while it’s a given that every team member needs to learn the same foundations about the company and its culture, different roles require specialized learning.

What’s a sales onboarding program just for sales engineers?

Due to the particular focus on cross-disciplinary skills, the specialized role of the technical sales engineer is a perfect example of the impact effective onboarding can have. Sales engineers bridge the gap between the sales reps and the product: since sales engineers bring deep technical knowledge to the sales process, they need in-depth immersion and training on the product.

This means that basic product training or an overview of APIs, integrations, and use cases are not enough: sales engineers need to know and understand their product like the back of their hands. However, some capabilities that sales engineers need are similar to sales reps: they need to understand their customers and all the ways the product helps them relieve business pain points.

So, what should a sales engineers onboarding include?

Sales engineers need to understand the intricacies of how your product works and be able to apply specific use cases and solutions. They then must be able to explain these to a customer in a way that actually sells your product. To help them become proficient in each of these as quickly as possible, your onboarding should include:

  • Time with your product – The role of sales engineers is to know your product inside out. And, they don’t just need to know the features, they must understand how people use the product and be able to demonstrate it. They need to be able to test and put into practice what they’ve learned.
  • Detail on your product roadmap – Sales engineers need to understand what the product roadmap looks and how it affects your industry and competitive positioning. This will help them tailor discussions and solutions for customers. During the onboarding process, ask engineering and product development to get involved so they can give your engineers a holistic view of how the product works today and the future product roadmap.
  • Certify they can demo – The first time a customer meets an engineer will often be at the product demo. Before the demo, engineers need to understand the customer, their pain points, and needs so they can tailor the demo accordingly. Getting the demo right can make or break the deal. As part of their onboarding let sales engineers see other use cases (recorded or live) and get them to practice different scenarios. They should also be certified in how to complete a tailored demo before meeting a customer. This process ideally will include receiving plenty of feedback from both their peers and managers so they can keep improving and refine their technique.
  • Practice objection handling – Considered an expert, technical sales engineers often face the most challenging objections. They not only need to know what to say but also how to say it in a way that keeps the sale in play. This is a learned skill as it can be easy to get caught up in technical details that the customer doesn’t necessarily need to know. Using role plays and scenario-based training, technical sales engineers can make sure they have mastered handling objections.
  • Understanding competitor products – To explain to a customer why your product is superior to a competitor’s your sales engineers need to understand exactly what your competitor’s products do and don’t do; not just listed features. Depending on how complex your product is, your sales engineer’s onboarding should include a detailed explanation of your key product differentiators as compared to your competitors. For more complex products, give them access to your competitor’s products and let them spend some time seeing how they work.
  • Customer-based Solutions – To give customers real solutions to their problems, engineers need to understand your product in the context of how it works in a business environment. By spending time with your customer success team they can see these use cases in action and perhaps also gather feedback from customers so that they can learn what works and what doesn’t.
  • Relationship building with sales reps – Sales engineers need to build relationships with sales reps so that they bring them into their deals and promote overall sales effectiveness. It’s important to help sales engineers build these relationships and you get the ball rolling by onboarding them together where their coursework overlaps. Enabling engineers to shadow sales onboarding and vice versa, sharing technical sales engineer onboarding with the reps – including the checkpoints and certifications they must complete – will help build their relationships.

Leveraging onboarding course for two different sales roles

When developing your onboarding program you can create a range of courses that cover different roles, and then assign those that are relevant based on job role or even location. For example, your course on buyer personas could be assigned to both sales reps and engineers, but your product training modules for each role may be different.

The need for two sets of skills combined into one company representative, as important as a technical sales engineer, means you can leverage the sales enablement courses for:

  • General corporate onboarding – policies, culture, and organizational strategy
  • Buyer and user personas
  • Product positioning and messaging
  • Industry trends

While it may be tempting to put your engineers through the same onboarding program as your sales reps, it’s important to remember that this may impact their ability to ramp up quickly and start helping your reps sell. Investing in onboarding your sales engineers is one of the best ways to make sure your new hires – reps and engineers – achieve their quota quicker.

Reducing Overall Sales Training Costs By Using Virtual Micro-Learning

Deepti Sundareshan on May 9, 2018

Historically sales training has been event-based. The costs can really add up with this style of learning. Fortunately, with today’s sales technologies, you no longer need to invest in old-style educational methods. If your organization is like most, you’re looking for ways to contain spending. Using virtual micro-learning is a great way to do so. In fact, it’s been found to cost at least 50% less to develop than traditional training. That’s some significant savings. So, how is it possible to reduce costs with virtual micro-learning for sales?

What is virtual micro-learning?

Micro-learning involves bite-sized, mobile-friendly, highly focused, individualized training content that can be retrieved from anywhere. That’s what makes it virtual. It includes various content types such as videos, games, quizzes, audio recordings, simulations and more. Research shows that learning in short bursts over time, combined with short quizzes, results in a better long-term recall. That’s why this method of learning is more effective than traditional classroom or event-based training.

Where can you reduce costs?

There are many categories where you can reduce costs with virtual micro-learning for sales. They include:

  •         Travel
  •         Facilities and planning
  •         Materials
  •         Trainers
  •         Re-training
  •         Onboarding
  •         Productivity

Travel

Traditional classroom or event-based training often requires your sales staff to travel to a central location. Costs such as airfare or mileage plus meals and other travel-related expenses can really add up. The larger your salesforce the higher this expense. Of course, for global enterprises, travel is even more significant. When utilizing virtual micro-learning, you reduce or eliminate the need for these sales training-related travel costs.

Facilities and planning

Sales training often involves locating and renting facilities for educational events. Even single-day events, or those taught in your own facilities, typically include meals and/or snacks for all participants as well. Micro-learning is incorporated into your sales reps’ activities on an ongoing basis. Plus it’s accessible from anywhere and on any device. This means you no longer need to incur facility expenses or a planner to make the arrangements.

Materials

Sales readiness materials are all stored in the cloud. This virtual micro-learning eliminates the need to produce, transport, or ship bulky training manuals and hand-outs. You no longer need to update existing print manuals or bear the costs associated with such a time-consuming process. The content used for micro-learning are considerably shorter than traditional materials and can be created much more quickly. This reduces development costs.

Trainers

Switching to this short-format, easily accessible learning format means that you no longer need to pay a trainer to teach in live classroom-like settings. You won’t have to pay an instructor’s hourly rates. In fact, you’ll be able to use many internal SME’s, and other knowledgeable staff members, to create training materials. You can also repurpose your existing training content.

Re-training

It’s a known fact that learning is forgotten if it’s not reiterated often. Based on research by Hermann Ebbinghaus’ research, more than 40% is forgotten within just a few days. By the end of a months’ time, participants have lost 80-90% of the information taught. This creates the need to re-train on topics periodically when traditional training methods are used. Reps are taken out of the field, yet again, simply to refresh their memory of material already covered. With micro-learning, you never need to conduct retraining or refresher training sessions. Plus, information reinforcement is built into the easily accessible bite-sized training style.

Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve

(as seen on flashcardlearner.com)

Onboarding

Research indicates that employee retention increases when companies keep them engaged and provide quality training. Virtual micro-learning enables excellent training that accomplishes both of these needs. This, in turn, reduces sales rep turnover, the need for new hires, and the resulting onboarding expenses. Plus, micro-learning accelerates new rep ramp rate because modules are short and easy to digest. This means that they reach full productivity faster, reducing onboarding costs, and increasing their contribution to the bottom line sooner.

Productivity

Although productivity is a soft cost, its financial impact is very real. Traditional training requires your sales force to lose valuable selling time that can never be recovered. Sales dollars are reduced during the time your sales team is at an event. It also takes your reps time to get back into their normal routine once they return from training. Micro-learning doesn’t have this negative impact on sales productivity because it easily fits into your sales reps’ daily schedule.

These savings are just one aspect of the value of using virtual micro-learning to educate your sales force. With pressure to contain costs, this is one way that you can accomplish this goal while getting an edge in the marketplace. Next time we’ll be talking about gaining a competitive advantage with virtual micro-learning. In the meanwhile, you can reduce costs with virtual micro-learning for sales so your organization can start experiencing the benefits now.

Why Its Important to Integrate Sales Engineers into Your Company’s Sales Process

Deepti Sundareshan on May 8, 2018

Sales engineers play a crucial role in the sales process for complex products. With their deep technical expertise, they bring to life the value your product adds to customers. But many sales organizations make the mistake of bringing them into the process too early or too late.

When you’re in the discovery stage, customers don’t need an engineer’s level of expertise, they just need to qualify that your product may be right for them. But if you bring them in when a customer has started to question your product features or value, it may be too late for them to change their mind.

So when should you involve a sales engineer?

Sales engineers should be brought into the sales process early enough to add value to your customer. They often do this by helping the customer understand how your product may solve their problem and address their pain points. In the early stages, sales engineers may make suggestions or give a customer new ideas for them to consider. This helps the customer understand what their own requirements are before they start to evaluate specific solutions.

By the time a customer is matching requirements to vendors, the opportunity for your sales engineer to add value has been lost. This is because customers narrow their perspective of what they need as they progress down the sales process. While sales engineers add a lot of value later in the process, they can really help seal the deal early on by helping customers define their requirements. This process can begin before a customer has even seen a demo of your product.

Sales engineers process

How do you integrate sales engineers into the sales process?

By getting a sales engineer involved in the pitch stage, they can start to understand your customer’s unique needs, what they need and your sales strategy. If they are only brought in at the demo stage, they will be essentially walking into a customer meeting blind – without any context to what has happened before. This is less than optimal for both the sales engineer and your customer.

As sales engineers are involved in many crucial parts of the sales process, from pitch right through to RFP, it’s important to integrate them into the sales process so they, and your reps, always have the information they need. There are four ways to integrate your sales engineers into the process.

1. Tell reps when to get them involved

Your sales process should help your reps understand when they should get a sales engineer involved and how they should be involved. The right moment will depend on your product and how complex it is.

If you’re not sure when or how to get a sales engineer involved, take a look at past success stories that have involved sales engineers. Where and how did they add the most value? This will help you identify where to incorporate engineers into your process.

Once you’ve identified the right time, make sure your sales reps and engineers are trained on this. They should understand why they’re getting a sales engineer involved, the role they play in the sales process and what they can expect. This will give both sales reps and engineers clarity on their roles.

2. Incorporate their tools

Sales engineers use a range of tools to help them work effectively and efficiently. These may include worksheets and selling aids, for example. These tools should not be kept and maintained outside the sales process, but rather integrated into it. This means they should be included in workflows, available centrally so that they’re easily accessible and incorporated into the standard process.

3. Put them in the system

An important part of integrating your sales engineers into the entire sales process is through systems. Your CRM is the heart of your sales stack, so the role of the sales engineer should be incorporated into its workflows. Adding all of their tasks and tools into your CRM workflow will ensure that they know where each customer is in the sales process and are ready to go when your reps need them.

Sales engineers should also use the same enablement or sales readiness software as your reps. This will make sure there are no gaps in their capabilities or the information that both engineers and reps receive. By using the same sales readiness software they can receive the same learning modules, the same quick updates on competitors and product features and the internal communications. This ensures that everyone is on the same page.

4. Connect them to the conversation

There are often many people involved in the sales process and social or collaboration tools are a great way to keep everyone on the same page. Sales engineers should be included in those conversations so they have all the information they need to help your reps close the deal. This is crucial, especially considering that sales engineers often bring in expertise from other parts of the organization. They work closely with the product to understand features and customer success for use cases. By bringing them into collaborative discussions, they can not only add value to the sales strategy but also stay on top of it.

By integrating your sales engineers into your sales process, you can ensure your engineers have all the information they need and are ready whenever your reps need them. This will give each opportunity the best chance of success.

A Sr. Sales Enablement Leader at MuleSoft Explains Effective Best Practices [A Podcast]

Deepti Sundareshan on May 3, 2018

As

Senior Manager of Sales Enablement, Ali Jones is responsible for MuleSoft’s early stage opportunity strategy and executive briefing program. Her experience brings together Ali’s experience in direct selling and consulting.

“We have a relatively small enablement team at MuleSoft. One person is focused on sales analytics, then three enablement managers each have ownership over part of the sales process. Each of us also has ownership over specific programs and regional alignment as well. We’re generalists yet we also have the opportunity to go deep and really maximize how we engage with our customers and generate revenue,”

explains Ali.

Each function also has their own enablement team, but they each leverage the content and assets that are built by the central team. This flexible structure has enabled MuleSoft to grow and scale up very quickly.

Two crucial parts of their central enablement program are MuleSoft’s onboarding KickStart program and its certification process.

“We take our certification process very seriously,” says Ali. “Salespeople go through multiple rounds and the bar is really high. People take weeks to prepare for their certification. The nice thing is that when they come out of it we are 100% positive that they will nail it in front of a customer.”

So far, over 500 people have been through MuleSoft’s certification program, and they aspire to do so much more with it.

As Ali says, “

sales enablement is such an interesting place to be in the software world. It’s exciting and there are so many interesting things to do.”

In this 20 minute

podcast Ali explains:

  • How MuleSoft has structured its enablement team and compensation to drive sales results
  • What makes MuleSoft’s Kickstart onboarding experience so unique and impactful
  • The tools that have helped MuleSoft enable and scale its sales team
  • The advice she would give to herself if she could do it again

Building an Integrated Sales Enablement Ecosystem

Deepti Sundareshan on April 25, 2018

With today’s buyers waiting until they are 60 – 80% along their buying process, depending on which research you read, it’s becoming more and more important for these cross-functional departments to get on the same page. Without this alignment, it becomes nearly impossible for sales to function efficiently and close business as effectively as possible. That’s why building a completely integrated sales enablement ecosystem is important.

A sales enablement ecosystem should ensure that salespeople have access to the right content at the right time to advance sales. Plus, it should provide technology to sales staff that will help them streamline their tasks. An ecosystem that consists of a sales enablement platform that sits between the enterprise marketing automation (MA) system and its customer relationship management (CRM) system can facilitate the collection of intelligence from both systems and everything else that happens in between. Combining the data from both systems can help provide analytics and insights to use in decision making. With such a platform, the more solutions you can be integrated, the greater the insights. This intel is valuable to all involved departments including Marketing, Sales, Sales Ops, Product Development, Customer Service, and more. And, it puts everyone on the same page for more streamlined and efficient operations.

There are many benefits to building a completely integrated sales enablement ecosystem, including:

Consistent messaging
Improved communications across the entire enterprise help with consistency of branding, messaging, and updated product information. It provides sales with timely information that’s needed to craft messages for specific prospects. Without this free flow of information between departments, it’s more difficult to achieve business success.

Buyer’s journey alignment
Improved marketing and sales alignment with the buyer’s journey is a result of improved intra-department communications. Marketing needs to remain informed concerning prospect motivators and challenges. Sales reps are in the best position to acquire this information and share it with Marketing. Salespeople see the ever-evolving pain points of their leads and are able to share them. This allows Marketing to continually create content to address these as they change.

Agile strategy adjustments
This open feedback from sales reps to other departments, such as Marketing and Operations, facilitates quick changes to sales and marketing strategies.

Ability to share quickly and easily
These adjustments are then easily communicated through this shared platform in the form of updates, training, and new content. And it’s all done with the simple click of a button.

A huge competitive advantage
Due to increased efficiencies, organizations who build a completely integrated sales enablement ecosystem gain a huge competitive advantage in the marketplace.

A fully enabled sales team
With all training, coaching, content, and communications funneling through one platform, your sales team is always up-to-date. They are prepared for any prospect or situation and able to create valuable solutions easily.</>

Increased sales performance and productivity
With everything available in one place, sales reps are able to find the content they need quickly, gaining increased selling time. Plus, consistent updates, training, and coaching make them more effective. These elements improve sales results as well.

Building your ecosystem

With so many benefits you’re probably wondering how to go about building a completely integrated sales enablement ecosystem for your organization. Start by determining your objectives and goals. Next, select a sales enablement platform that will best meet your requirements. The selection process includes considerations such as ease of use, mobile readiness, integration options, and analytics capabilities. Be sure to consider whether the vendor will be a good partner on the long-term. Implement your selected solution. This includes defining scope, allocating resources, building a process, training, and more. You’ll find additional information about this process in this article.

A clearer structure and open communications provide for better operations. Building a completely integrated sales enablement ecosystem keeps Sales, Marketing, Operations, and more on the same page. The many benefits you’ll gain include consistent messaging and improved buyer’s journey alignment. Agile strategy adjustments and sharing of information at the touch of a button allow your organization to stay ahead of other businesses in the marketplace. This gives your company an advantage over the competition. A fully enabled salesforce increases sales performance and productivity. Of course, all of this adds up to a stronger organization and better bottom line. As you can see, it’s worth the effort to start building a completely integrated sales enablement ecosystem so your organization can reap the benefits too.

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