Data-Driven Sales Coaching: How to Use Data to Drive Coaching Conversations

Helen Waite on July 18, 2024

As a revenue leader, you’re likely well aware of the potential impact of great sales coaching on team performance. In fact, the power of sales coaching is proven. A recent analysis found that top sellers receive significantly more sales coaching than average.

But generic, one-size-fits-all sales coaching doesn’t work. Furthermore, while deal coaching may improve the outcome of a single deal, it won’t have much of an impact on a rep’s long-term behaviors and sales performance.

Instead, sales managers must deliver tailored skill coaching that addresses the strengths and weaknesses of each of their sales reps. But first, they must have the right data to understand what those strengths and weaknesses are.

In this post, we’ll explore why your current approach to sales coaching isn’t working – and why data-driven sales coaching is the answer.

Why coaching conversations must change

Having conversations about performance can be hard, especially if a rep isn’t doing well. It can be especially difficult to call out areas for improvement when you don’t have the specifics to back it up. Relying on data makes these conversations easier.

For sales managers, being able to track and analyze seller performance all in one place using revenue enablement software provides concrete insight into every time you say “you’re doing a great job” or “there’s room for improvement.” Your feedback is rooted in actual performance metrics, rather than running the risk of being considered your opinion rather than fact.

Data also helps us to identify the exact ways each seller can improve. Perhaps one rep is weaker in their competitor knowledge while another may need more support when it comes to operating sales technology. By digging into the data, an effective sales coach can identify opportunities for improvement and, in turn, maximize each rep’s performance.

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What a data-driven approach looks like

In order to adopt a data-driven coaching approach, you should have a clear understanding of the key metrics you should be looking at. These will help you gauge the overall success of your sales force, but really allow you to dig into individual performance to fuel more impactful coaching conversations.

Below we’ve highlighted some key criteria you’ll want to evaluate—and how you can gather the data.

Product knowledge: Assess and certify sellers on their product knowledge with quizzes using different formats. You can create a proficiency threshold score for reps to show they’re knowledgeable experts on your product, which you can test through multiple-choice quizzes, checklists, and written tests.

Reps can also be assigned role-plays to see if they can demo the product, describe what it does and accurately express the value of the product. If you’re using sales readiness technology, all of this can be easily reviewed and scored through artificial intelligence (AI).

Selling behavior: Evaluate how articulate and enthusiastic a rep is on a call, voicemail or presentation as well as the tone. You can also keep track of how many filler words are used. This will gauge their overall confidence in selling your solution.

Selling skills: By tracking sellers’ progress in real-time, sales coaches can get data insights on each rep’s ability to demo, use a sales methodology (e.g. MEDDPIC) on a call, challenge competition, handle objection questions, and evaluate whether or not the correct terms are used to describe the product.

Message consistency: AI-powered keyword analysis is a great way for sales coaches to get better insight into individual competencies and needs based on live interactions during the selling process. When you analyze sales calls (and leave the hard work to AI), you can uncover key problems in deals that didn’t close and start training on common questions you’re finding reps are being asked in the field.

Technology skills: How well do your reps use sales tools? Assess sellers on their knowledge (and correct use) of sales stack tools like Outreach, Ring, Zoom, and Salesforce to see how effectively they’re being put into action.

Using a revenue enablement platform, reps can actually record themselves using the tools, which can then be evaluated and scored. This will give sales coaches visibility into any challenges with tech on the team.

Your new approach to coaching starts now

On top of using data to coach reps, this data-driven approach also empowers you to establish a “profile of excellence” on your sales team. This helps sales managers to identify their best performers and replicate their skillset amongst other reps through training and coaching.

While it certainly makes it easier to track and report on these metrics with revenue enablement technology in place, it’s not impossible to do without. However you gather the data, it’s important to start bringing it into coaching conversations in order to pinpoint areas for improvement, provide more specific feedback, and ultimately empower you as a sales coach to help your team succeed.

Start delivering effective, data-driven coaching at scale with Mindtickle

The impact of sales coaching can’t be denied. However, in order to be effective, sales coaching must be tailored to the needs of each sales rep.

With Mindtickle’s integrated revenue enablement platform, you can start delivering data-driven coaching that’ll improve reps’ behaviors and grow sales performance.

With Mindtickle, you can easily understand deal risk and buyer engagement. Then, you can use those insights to provide coaching to improve the outcome of deals.

Mindtickle also empowers you to go beyond deal coaching to deliver skill coaching that improves long-term results. With Mindtickle, you can understand how reps are performing in the field and what their strengths and weaknesses are. Then, you can use this intel to deliver coaching to improve lagging skills and long-term behaviors and performance.

Of course, delivering coaching and hoping for the best isn’t an effective approach. With Mindtickle, revenue leaders can actually understand the impact of their coaching efforts. Then, they can optimize their approach for even better results.

This post was originally published in June 2021 and updated in July 2024.

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What is Sales Training? 

Helen Waite on July 9, 2024

Hiring strong sales reps with the right mix of skills and experience is important. But sales training is key to ensuring all sales reps (even your top performers) are properly equipped to close more deals, faster.

In fact, sales training is an essential component of any winning sales enablement strategy. When it’s done well, training can have a big impact on sales outcomes.

But what exactly is it?

In this guide, we’ll explore everything you need to know about sales training, including:

  • What it is and why it matters
  • How it can benefit your revenue organization
  • How you can build and deliver the best program
  • Key pitfalls to avoid when building your  program

Sales training: What it is and why it matters

First things first, what exactly is sales training?

Sales training ensures your sellers have the knowledge, skills, and competencies they need to be ready for every step of the sales journey – from prospecting to closing the deal.

Going beyond sales onboarding

At most organizations, the training journey starts with onboarding. Sales onboarding is an important way to get new reps up to speed with your organization, products, and goals – as well as their role in achieving those goals. It makes sense why organizations invest in sales onboarding. When it’s effective, onboarding can greatly impact key business outcomes.

But all too often, it ends at onboarding. Per an analysis of Mindtickle users, onboarding took 21-22 days in 2023, compared to 58 days the year prior. 

Days it took to onboard sellers

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However, sales training shouldn’t stop at onboarding. Why? There are a few important reasons.

For starters, sellers are thrown a lot of information during sales onboarding. Even if you’ve built a great, engaging sales onboarding program, new reps are going to forget some of what they’ve learned. In fact, they’re going to forget most of it. Per Gartner, sellers forget 70% of the information they learn within just one week of training. Ongoing training (what we at Mindtickle refer to as “everboarding”) ensures learning sticks – and that sales reps are actually applying what they’ve learned to drive sales.

In addition, it’s important to remember that change is the only constant – both in life and in sales. Products, markets, competitors, and priorities are constantly changing. All reps – from the newest to the most seasoned – need ongoing training to ensure they’re up to speed on these changes and ready for whatever comes at them in the field.

The key benefits of sales training

There are many benefits of sales training. Here are two of the most important.

1. It positively impacts sales growth

Today, many sales leaders buy into the 80/20 rule, which is the outdated notion that 80% of sales will be driven by 20% of your reps. That means the vast majority of your reps will miss their sales quotas quarter after quarter.

But there’s a way to make sure all your sellers are meeting and beating their quotas.

With a strong program, you can create an entire team of sellers that are equipped to close deals and meet quota. Of course, when more sellers are closing more deals, that’s going to lead to more revenue growth.

2. It improves seller engagement and retention

When a great rep decides to leave, it’s costly to your company. For starters, you’re losing revenue the rep would have generated. Plus, you have to factor in the costs of recruiting, hiring, and training a new rep to replace them. It adds up! In fact, according to research from DePaul University, it costs nearly $115,000 to replace a sales rep.

Cost of replacing a sales rep
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Either way, the message is clear: when you find great reps, it’s important to do what you can to retain them.

Research tells us you can lose upwards of 60% of your entire workforce within four years if your sales reps don’t feel like they’re learning and growing at your organization. Providing ongoing sales training is a great way to engage your sales reps and give them opportunities to learn and grow. This will boost job satisfaction, which will increase retention. Higher retention will save you the headache and costs of filling vacant roles – or the pressure of meeting your sales goals with a leaner team.

Six tips for more effective sales training

The potential benefits are clear. However, claiming to deliver training isn’t enough to see the benefits. In fact, according to ES Research, between 85% and 90% of training has no lasting impact.

What is it that sets great training apart from the rest?

Here are six tips to improve the effectiveness of your program.

Tip #1: Don’t stop at onboarding

We’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: training should extend beyond sales onboarding.

Sellers forget the vast majority of what they learned during onboarding. What’s more, products, markets, and selling landscapes are constantly changing and evolving.

Ongoing training is a key component to ensuring all of your reps are ready to sell. Training should be delivered regularly for maximum impact. According to a Heinz Marketing and Mindtickle report, among respondents who hit 75% or more of their quota, 90% participate in monthly training.

Tip #2: Define excellence

Sales training aims to create more, great sellers. But first, you have to determine what a great seller looks like.

Chances are, you have an ideal customer profile (ICP), which outlines what a good fit customer looks like for your business. But it’s just as important to define your ideal rep profile (IRP), which is the skills and competencies a seller needs to succeed in your organization.

Ideal rep profile competencies

Then, you can plan courses and programs that map to each key area. That way, you can be sure your training is helping sellers boost the skills and competencies they need.

Tip #3: Make it personal

Imagine you have two sellers in the same room. One is a veteran seller, and has been with your company for a few years. The other is a recent college grad with big potential – but only a year of sales experience. Does delivering the same training to those two sales reps make sense?

Absolutely not. The newer seller likely needs more training on being a great seller. But if you deliver that same training to the veteran seller, they’ll get bored and disengaged.

Of course, there will be certain training all sellers need to complete. But as a general rule, it shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all. Instead, sales leaders must work to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each seller. The best way to do this is to measure each rep against your ideal rep profile. By doing so, you’ll see where they’re shining and where there are gaps. Then, personalized training can be delivered to each rep to close gaps – and improve sales performance.

Tip #4: Reinforce training

It’s disappointing, but it’s true: sellers will quickly forget what they learned in training. If you want that learning to stick (who doesn’t?), you’ve got to reinforce it.

Be sure to incorporate reinforcement exercises into your strategy. For example, after a training session, assign your sellers a quiz. If they earn a low score, assign them bite-sized video modules reinforcing the concepts presented during the training session.

It’s a best practice to house all  materials within a single sales training platform. That way, reps have a one-stop-shop for everything they need.

Tip #5: Mix up the format

The phrase “sales training” might conjure images of an instructor standing at the front of a room filled with sales reps. Sure, real-time training sessions – in-person or via video – are an important part of it. However, it also makes sense to incorporate other types of training.

For example, you might assign bite–sized training modules for sales reps to complete on their own time. You might also assign a quiz to test knowledge. Another idea is to assign role-plays to allow reps to practice their new skills and get feedback from either their manager or peers (or both).

Again, it’s important to ensure all training material is housed within a single platform so reps can easily find what they need.

Tip #6: Measure the impact

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. And without regular measurement, it’s impossible to determine what (if any) impact your training has on reps’ performance.

Many organizations measure completion rates. While this is important, it doesn’t tell the whole story. A seller may fly through their assigned training but fail to perform when interacting with buyers.

As such, it’s key to measure how your training impacts key business outcomes, such as quota attainment and win rates. In addition, be sure to continuously measure your reps against your ideal rep profile. That way, you can understand how training is positively impacting skills and in-field behaviors.

Sales training vs. sales coaching: What is the difference?

Training and coaching are key components of a sales enablement strategy. Often, these phrases are used interchangeably. Training and coaching are two pieces of the same puzzle, but they’re not the same.

At each organization, there are a certain set of skills and competencies a seller needs to be successful throughout the sales cycle. Training is focused on delivering knowledge to help reps learn those skills and competencies.  Classes and modules can be focused on any number of things, including (but not limited to):

  • Product knowledge
  • Sales methodology
  • Ideal customer profiles
  • Pitch delivery
  • Objection handling
  • Use of tools, including CRM

Sales coaching is aimed at improving sales performance. However, the delivery methods and tactics are different. The goal of sales coaching is to improve sales performance through strategies including:

  • Relationship-building
  • Knowing and analyzing what’s happening in the field
  • Delivering individualized plans to improve deal outcomes and build key skills for each sales rep

When it’s done well, sales coaching can extend the impact of training and have a big impact on sales results. In fact, effective sales coaching can boost win rates by as much as 29%. 

What exactly does sales coaching look like?

The most effective managers work closely with each sales rep to understand their unique strengths and weaknesses. In addition, they leverage meeting intelligence to see firsthand how reps are performing in the field. Armed with these insights, sales managers can deliver sales coaching that helps reps capitalize on strengths and improve weaker skills and competencies.

Often, sales coaching is limited to deal coaching. In other words, a rep and manager regularly review in-flight deals and determine how to move them forward. However, it’s also important to provide skills coaching. Skill coaching drives long-term behavior change and helps reps hone the skills they need to close deals.

Training and coaching shouldn’t be viewed as an either/or choice. Instead, both are key to ensuring reps are ready to move deals through the funnel and eventually close them.

Sales training mistakes to avoid

Many organizations invest time and resources into developing sales training programs. However, the harsh reality is that these programs often fail.

If you’re looking to increase the effectiveness of training at your organization, be sure to avoid these four common sales training mistakes.

Mistake #1: Taking a “one and done” approach 

It’s not realistic to deliver training one time and expect the entire team to retain what they learned and apply it in the field. Instead, it’s important to deliver training on an ongoing basis and provide reinforcement exercises and practice opportunities.

Average companies

Winning companies

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Role-plays are one popular way to allow sales reps to practice their new skills, and they’re correlated with sales success. A recent analysis found that the average company has sellers complete 13 role-plays in a year. However, top companies have sellers do an average of 80 role-plays per year.

Mistake #2: Requiring every seller to complete every training

It’s not effective to create a generic sales training that requires every member of the revenue team to complete. If a sales training is focused on a skill a seller has already mastered, they’ll be disengaged. Plus, they’ll be wasting time that could be better spent engaging with buyers and closing deals.

Instead, measure each sellers’ mastery of the skills and behaviors that matter most. Then, assign relevant training that helps each seller strengthen their weaker skills.

Mistake #3: Only measuring success with completion metrics

Ongoing measurement is a key component of any sales training program. However, many organizations focus on completion metrics. In other words, they measure what percentage of sales reps complete a specific training.

Revenue organizations must go beyond completion metrics to understand the actual impact. Be sure to track sales training completion and how it is (or isn’t) impacting sales productivity.

Mistake #4: Depending on an outdated LMS to power your sales training program

A learning management system (LMS) can be a great solution for more general training, such as that that HR and IT teams deliver. However, an LMS isn’t built for the unique needs of the sales team.

A better approach is to invest in an integrated revenue enablement solution that incorporates all the key elements of revenue enablement, including sales training, sales coaching, sales content, and conversation intelligence. That way, sellers can access everything they need in one location. This is great news, as Salesforce research found that 66% of sales reps are overwhelmed with the number of tools they’re expected to use.

Salesforce research found that

of reps are overwhelmed with sales tools
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Furthermore, an integrated revenue enablement platform allows enablement teams to create and deploy personalized programs that meet the needs of every seller – at scale. Enablement teams can also holistically measure the impact of all their initiatives on sales productivity and performance.

Supercharge your sales training program with Mindtickle’s integrated revenue enablement platform

Hiring experienced sellers is one piece of the puzzle. But even the most seasoned sales reps need ongoing training to ensure they’re ready to conquer any deal.

Generic sales training simply won’t do. Instead, revenue enablement teams must work to define what excellence looks like – and then deliver personalized sales training and sales enablement to ensure every seller has what it takes to succeed.

Today, some revenue organizations continue to leverage a learning management system (LMS) to deliver sales training. However, a growing portion are trading in their LMS for an integrated revenue enablement platform.

With an integrated revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle, revenue organizations can power their entire revenue enablement program – including sales training – all from one central location. That means revenue enablement leaders can build, deliver, and measure the impact of sales training and sales enablement initiatives – all in one platform. Furthermore, sellers can easily access the sales training, coaching, content, conversation insights, and other information and resources they need to close more deals, faster.

Sales training in Mindtickle

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This post was originally published in November 2022 and updated in July 2024. 

Revenue Enablement vs Revenue Operations: What’s the Difference?

Helen Waite on June 26, 2024

Revenue leaders are always looking for strategies to boost the bottom line. Two practices they often turn to are revenue enablement and revenue operations.

Perhaps you’re unsure what the difference is between revenue enablement and revenue operations. Or maybe you’re weighing revenue enablement vs revenue operations to determine which practice will help you grow revenue.

Spoiler alert: you need both.

Combining revenue enablement and revenue operations is the most effective way to boost business results.

In this post, we’ll explore how revenue enablement and revenue operations differ, how they’re similar, and why you need both practices to drive revenue growth.

Revenue operations vs revenue enablement: How are they different?

Let’s start at the beginning, by defining both revenue enablement and revenue operations.

You’re likely familiar with sales enablement and sales operations. You can think of revenue enablement and revenue operations as the next iteration of these two practices.

What is revenue enablement?

Revenue enablement is the next generation of sales enablement. It is a practice focused on equipping all customer-facing roles—including sales, marketing, customer success, and customer service—with the tools, training, information, and resources they need to deliver outstanding, connected experiences throughout the customer lifecycle.

When revenue teams are equipped to deliver great experiences, the business is better positioned to win new customers and retain existing ones.

What is revenue operations?

Revenue operations (also known as revenue ops or RevOps) is focused on empowering revenue organizations to be as productive as possible. Revenue operations teams achieve this goal by streamlining processes, improving data visibility, and aligning go-to-market teams. They work behind the scenes to ensure an organization’s revenue generation machine runs on all cylinders.

What’s the difference between revenue operations and enablement?

There are many similarities between revenue operations and revenue enablement. For starters, both teams aim to increase revenue teams’ effectiveness and efficiency.

But the ways revenue enablement and revenue ops teams achieve their goals is different.
Revenue enablement vs revenue operations: How they achieve their goals
Revenue enablement teams develop tools and resources to ensure customer-facing teams have what they need to engage with customers across the lifecycle. Some examples of revenue enablement tools and resources include:

Revenue enablement aligns all customer-facing teams. That way, customers have seamless experiences across their entire relationship with an organization. Great experiences increase sales, customer satisfaction, and customer retention.

Revenue operations teams work to optimize the revenue generation process. Successfully generating revenue involves dozens of moving pieces, and revenue ops teams work to ensure the process is as efficient as possible.

Revenue operations teams achieve their goals in several ways, including:

  • Optimizing the sales process
  • Ensuring sales data is accurate and that the right people have access to the right data and analytics
  • Implementing and managing new sales tools
  • Analyzing revenue metrics

Revenue enablement vs revenue operations: Who is responsible?

Another key difference between revenue enablement vs revenue operations is who is responsible. Revenue enablement is typically owned by a revenue enablement team. Revenue operations, on the other hand, is owned by a revenue operations team. Typically, each of these teams reports up to the chief revenue officer (CRO) or other revenue leader.

Both revenue enablement and revenue ops teams must collaborate with key teams throughout the organization, including sales and marketing.

Revenue enablement vs revenue operations: How do they measure success?
Revenue enablement and revenue operations both aim to increase productivity. As such, both practices measure success with many of the same KPIs, including

  • Win rates
  • Customer acquisition cost
  • Customer lifetime value

Revenue enablement teams track certain additional KPIs. For example, they track KPIs related to how customers and sales reps engage with sales content and how that content impacts sales outcomes. Revenue enablement teams also track adoption and consumption metrics, such as what portion of the sales team completes an assigned training.

What tools do they use?

Revenue enablement and revenue operations teams require the right tools for success. One key tool used by both is a revenue enablement platform.

Revenue enablement teams use revenue enablement software to create and deliver personalized enablement to help each member of the revenue team build the skills necessary for success. They can also use a revenue enablement platform to measure the impact of their programs so they can optimize them properly.

Revenue operations teams use an integrated revenue enablement platform to consolidate the tech stack and drive sales productivity.

Revenue enablement Revenue operations
Goal Increase the effectiveness and efficiency of customer-facing teams Increase the productivity of revenue organizations
How they achieve their goal Equip customer-facing roles with the tools, resources, training, and data they need to engage customers throughout the customer lifecycle Streamline processes, improve data visibility, and align go-to-market teams
Audience All customer-facing teams, including
  • Sales
  • Marketing
  • Customer Success
  • Customer Service
 		All customer-facing teams, including
  • Sales
  • Marketing
  • Customer Success
  • Customer Service
Responsible party Typically, a revenue enablement team Typically, a revenue operations team
Who they report to Chief revenue officer or other revenue leader Chief revenue officer or other revenue leader
Examples of tools Point revenue enablement tools or an integrated revenue enablement platform Revenue enablement platform
How the team uses a revenue enablement platform Build, deliver, and measure enablement programs and initiatives that empower customer-facing teams to master the skills necessary for success Streamline the tech stack and boost sales productivity
Examples of KPIs
  • Sales productivity
  • Sales cycle length
  • Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
  • Win/loss rate
  • Quota attainment
  • Customer retention
  • Customer lifetime value (CLV)
  • Revenue growth
  • Sales content engagement
  • Sales training engagement
  • Customer acquistion cost
  • Sales cycle length
  • Win/loss rate
  • Customer lifetime value (CLV)
  • Customer churn
  • Annual recurring revenue (ARR)
  • Sales pipeline conversion rate

What are the roles and responsibilities of revenue operations and enablement?

Now that we’re aligned on the key differences between revenue enablement and revenue operations let’s examine the roles and responsibilities of each team more closely.
Revenue operations roles and responsibilities

Who owns revenue operations?

As we mentioned earlier, revenue operations are typically the responsibility of a dedicated revenue operations team. The team most often reports to the chief revenue officer (CRO) or another revenue leader.

The makeup of a revenue operations team varies from company to company. However, some examples of RevOps roles include:

  • RevOps manager
  • VP of RevOps
  • RevOps specialist

While the RevOps team leads the revenue operations charge, they must collaborate closely with other key teams including sales and marketing. This helps ensure alignment and that RevOps initiatives align with the overall revenue strategy.

The roles and responsibilities of the revenue operations team vary. However, some examples of revenue operations responsibilities include:

  • Collaborating on sales forecasts
  • Optimizing the sales process
  • Ensuring sales data is complete and accurate and that all members of the revenue team have access to the right data
  • Contributing to revenue strategies
  • Collaborating with other teams to ensure initiatives are aligned with business goals
  • Implementing and administering technology for use by the revenue team, such as a revenue enablement platform
  • Regularly analyzing revenue metrics to identify opportunities for optimizations

Revenue enablement roles and responsibilities

Who owns revenue enablement?

Increasingly, revenue enablement is owned by a dedicated revenue enablement team. Mindtickle research found that 84% of organizations invest in a dedicated enablement team. The revenue enablement team typically falls under the purview of a CRO or another revenue leader.

of orgs invest in sales enablement
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Some examples of revenue enablement roles include:

  • Revenue enablement manager
  • VP of revenue enablement
  • Revenue enablement specialist

Effective revenue enablement is a team sport. Revenue enablement teams must regularly collaborate with teams including sales, marketing, and customer success to ensure everyone is aligned and working toward the same goals.

The responsibilities of the revenue enablement team vary. However, some examples of revenue enablement responsibilities include:

  • In collaboration with other teams, defining the necessary skills and behaviors for each customer-facing role
  • Developing onboarding and ongoing learning programs to ensure each revenue team member can build the skills necessary for success
  • Collaborating with marketing and sales to develop sales content for team members to use throughout the sales cycle – as well as training and enablement on how to best use content
  • Developing a coaching strategy to ensure managers have the tools, data, and resources to deliver coaching that improves business results
  • Regularly measuring the impact of revenue enablement initiatives to make data-based optimizations

Combining the power of revenue operations and revenue enablement to grow revenue

Revenue enablement and revenue operations are both impactful practices. But when considering revenue enablement vs revenue operations, which is the better option for your business?

The truth is, you need both. Revenue operations and revenue enablement are both critical to revenue growth. While revenue enablement ensures teams have the right tools and resources to engage customers, revenue operations work to optimize the process of generating revenue.

When you combine revenue operations with revenue enablement, you’ll experience a whole host of benefits, including:

Many teams play a role in revenue generation. Yet often, these teams work in silos. Revenue enablement and revenue operations help align key teams, including sales, marketing, and custo

Revenue enablement ensures sellers master the skills and behaviors needed to close more deals. Revenue operations ensure processes are streamlined so sellers encounter less friction in the sales cycle and can move more deals to the finish line.

Research from Salesforce found that sales reps spend less than 30% of their time selling. Most of the time is spent on laborious tasks like searching for content or logging activities. Revenue enablement makes it easier for sales reps to find everything they need quickly. Revenue operations, on the other hand, ensure processes are as efficient as possible. Both revenue operations and revenue enablement ensure sales reps can spend less time on administrative work and more time actually selling. That means sales reps can shorten the sales cycle and close more deals faster.

B2B customers have high expectations – no matter where they are in the customer lifecycle. Revenue enablement and operations equip revenue teams with the right tools, technology, processes, and information to meet customers’ expectations. When customers’ expectations are met consistently, their satisfaction grows.

When B2B customers are satisfied, they’re more likely to stick around long-term. In addition, satisfied customers are more likely to be open to future cross-sales and up-sells. This increases their lifetime value.

Revenue operations and enablement are critical to revenue growth. When customer-facing teams have the right tools, resources, data, and processes in place, they’re better equipped to close new business and retain existing customers, leading to revenue growth.

The winning combination for driving revenue growth

It’s not a matter of revenue enablement vs revenue operations. Instead, revenue enablement and operations are necessary for a winning revenue strategy.

While revenue enablement ensures customer-facing teams have the right tools, information, and resources, revenue operations ensure that growing revenue is as seamless as possible.

Both revenue enablement and operations teams depend on the right tools to power their strategies and programs. An integrated revenue enablement platform is one essential tool.

Revenue Enablement in Mindtickle

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What is Sales Engagement and How is it Different From Sales Enablement?

Helen Waite on June 24, 2024

There’s a lot of digital noise out there – the average person gets 121 emails a day.

For sales reps, standing out in someone’s inbox or a cold call can be a tall task. Effective sales engagement can make a rep stand out, but it takes a strong foundation to give reps the training and tools they need to do it well.

In this post, we’ll explore what sales engagement is, why it’s important, and how sales engagement differs from sales enablement. We’ll also explore steps you can take to create a plan that empowers your sales reps to build relationships, foster trust, and close more deals.

What is sales engagement?

Sales leaders recognize the need for effective sales engagement. Recent research from Gartner found that 90% of sales leaders plan to invest in “technologies and methodologies to help their sellers engage effectively with prospects and customers.”

Gartner research found that

of sales leaders plan to invest in technologies to help sellers engage prospects
0 %

But what is sales engagement?

The term refers to all interactions a sales rep has with their buyers. This includes:

  • Email interactions
  • Phone calls
  • Interactions on social media
  • Face-to-face interactions

Why is sales engagement important?

Now, we’re in alignment about what sales engagement is. But why does it matter?

Great products and services are still important. That will never change. But the experiences a buyer has with your brand also have a big impact on whether they choose your solution – or opt for another.

A sales rep who effectively engages with a buyer is more likely to earn their trust – and ultimately, their business. After all, people want to do business with people they like and trust. Of course, when sellers close more deals, your business’ revenue grows.

On the flip side, if a seller struggles to engage buyers, they’re more likely to lose deals. Over time, this will have a negative impact on your bottom line.

Sales engagement vs sales enablement: How are they different?

These two terms are often used interchangeably. Though they’re certainly related, they’re not the same thing.

As we’ve already covered, sales engagement is focused on the interactions a sales rep has with their prospective buyers. As a general rule, better sales engagement leads to better sales outcomes.

On the other hand, sales enablement is focused on providing sales teams with the tools, training, information, content, and support they need to close more deals. Every seller needs a certain set of tools and competencies to be successful in the field, and sales enablement is focused on ensuring sellers master those skills and competencies.

There is often overlap between the two. For example, a sales enablement team may develop a training module on more effective email communication. Or, they may provide the sales team with email templates for sellers to use in their interactions. These are both examples of sales enablement. However, the goal of these initiatives is to improve sales engagement.

Sales engagement Sales enablement
What is it? Interactions and communication sellers have with prospects throughout the purchase journey Equipping sales reps with the training, tools, content, and information they need to be successful in the field.
What is the focus? Buyers Sellers
What is the goal? Building trust and fostering relationships with prospects Ensuring sales reps have the skills and competencies needed to close more deals
What are the key components? Calls, emails, face-to-face interactions, sales engagement platform Sales coaching, sales content, sales enablement platform
KPIs Win rate, quota attainment, time to close Completion rates, ramp time, productivity

How to create a sales engagement plan

Leaving your sellers to their own devices usually isn’t the best approach. Instead, it’s best practice to develop a plan first.

What is a sales engagement plan?

Think of your plan as a documented outreach roadmap for your sales team. It’s a framework that outlines how and when sellers should engage with buyers. It should also cover how sales reps can leverage the technology that’s available to them to improve sales engagement.

A sales engagement plan isn’t based on what sales leadership thinks will work. Instead, it’s based on what’s proven to work for that particular organization.

Your plan must be flexible. For example, if a prospect is largely sharing negative feedback during interactions, it’s probably best to back off, rather than proceed with the next outreach effort.

Tips for developing an effective sales engagement plan

What does a winning plan look like? There’s no easy answer. The right plan is the one that works best for your business.

However, there are certain steps you can take to help ensure you create an effective one.

Before developing a plan, it’s important to take a step back to define who it is your sellers are engaging with on a daily basis. You should define who these prospects are, what titles they hold, and what their key challenges and pain points are (among other things). You may already have this information documented in ideal customer profiles (IDPs) or buyer personas.

At many organizations, marketing teams spend time creating content to support sales engagement. For example, a marketing team might develop email campaigns tailored to specific industries. Or, they might develop social media content that sales reps can post on their own social media channels. Those are just a couple examples.

But all too often, marketing content is created in a vacuum – without input from the sales team. That’s a big mistake.

Instead, marketing and sales teams must be aligned on content creation. A great way to do this is to schedule a recurring meeting between the two teams.

During these meetings, sales teams can provide feedback to marketing teams on their challenges in the field. Then, marketing teams can create content that addresses those challenges.

When marketing and sales teams are aligned, sales reps are more likely to have the content they need to increase sales engagement and ultimately, close more deals.

There are many stages of the sales journey – from prospecting to closing the deal. It’s important to define what this journey looks like for your customers. Your sales team can provide great insight on this topic.

Once you’ve defined the customer journey, you can create a plan to effectively engage prospects every step of the way.

After you’ve documented the customer journey, it’s time to determine the key touchpoints a sales rep will have throughout the journey. This might include:

  • Marketing emails
  • Emails from the sales rep
  • Phone calls
  • Voicemails
  • Engagement on social media

This will provide reps with a framework they can use to understand what step to take when.

How many customer touchpoints should there be? Again, there’s no easy answer. It depends on a number of factors including industry and how engaged the buyer is.

The right content can help your sales reps effectively engage with buyers. Sales and marketing teams should take an inventory of existing content and determine where there may be gaps. Then, these teams can work together to develop content to engage buyers throughout the purchase journey.

The best place to store completed sales content is in a sales content management solution. That way, sellers can always find the latest versions of any content they need – all in one place. In addition, organizations can track how both buyers and sellers are engaging with this content – and how (or whether) it’s impacting sales outcomes.

It’s important to remember that buyers are more informed than ever before. Often, they’ve done plenty of research on their own.

As such, generic, one-size-fits all outreach, communication, and campaigns aren’t effective. Instead, it’s important to develop targeted, personalized campaigns that address the challenges and pain points of each prospect.

You can’t simply develop your sales engagement plan – and then never think about it again. Instead, it’s important to monitor and measure the success of your sales engagement plan on an ongoing basis.

Make it a priority to examine your sales engagement and sales enablement dashboards and analytics on a regular basis. In addition, ask for feedback from your sales team. Your top sellers have great insight into what’s working and what isn’t. Then, use the insights you uncover to make impactful changes to your sales engagement plan.

How to choose a sales engagement platform for your business

The right technology is essential to a successful strategy. After all, sellers need the right tools to effectively engage with buyers.

Increasingly, sales teams are leveraging B2B sales engagement software to improve sales engagement at scale. In fact, research from Gartner tells us that 87% of sales teams use a sales engagement platform.

According to Gartner

of sales teams use a sales engagement platform
0 %

Not all tools are the same, though. It’s important to find the right sales engagement platform for your organization. The right platform will have robust features and functionality that automate and optimize sales engagement and improve your organization’s outcomes.

A solution can also help ensure sellers are ready to engage with buyers throughout the sales cycle.

Revenue enablement platforms like Mindtickle equips sellers with the training and content they need to engage sellers throughout every stage of the sales journey effectively. In addition, a revenue productivity platform with conversation intelligence helps sales managers understand how sales reps engage with buyers on calls. These insights can shed light on opportunities for additional coaching to improve sales engagement.

Finally, strong revenue productivity solution provides robust analytics that help sales leaders understand how buyers and sellers are engaging throughout the sales cycle. Sales leaders can use these insights to optimize their sales engagement plan and ensure their sellers have what it takes to effectively engage with any buyer.

Taking the next steps toward better sales engagement

A well-crafted sales engagement plan is essential for standing out in today’s crowded digital landscape. Sales reps can build meaningful connections and close more deals by personalizing outreach, maintaining consistent follow-ups, and leveraging data.

Investing in the right sales engagement platform, such as Mindtickle, can significantly enhance your team’s ability to engage effectively with prospects and customers, ultimately driving revenue growth. 

Sales Enablement in Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle helps winning sales organizations boost sales engagement at scale?

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This post was originally published in December 2023 and was updated in June 2024. 

Training Automotive Sellers Isn’t Always a Smooth Ride (But it Can Be)

Helen Waite on June 20, 2024

Are you struggling to train and certify your network of automotive dealerships?

Whether you are an automaker or parts manufacturer, managing a distributed field force of dealerships and keeping them updated on training and certifications can be challenging.

Ensuring this training is transferred to an expert buying experience can be difficult to measure and achieve.

Low adoption

Often, the dealer network you are tasked with training is distributed, and dealerships are not owned by manufacturers. This proves challenging when requiring training and certification for dealer sellers. In addition, dealerships often experience a high turnover of sales and service staff and use various technologies to manage their salesforce.

Traditional approaches to learning, like a push-based training approach where courses are assigned to reps, can make it difficult to achieve adoption goals across your dealers. If training is completed, it is not transferred to long-term knowledge or forgotten quickly afterward. We see this across industries, with 80% of training being forgotten after completion.

of training is forgotten after completion
0 %

Distributed network using out-of-date and off-brand content

Your cars, trucks, SUVs, and accompanying services are constantly evolving. But keeping a distributed dealership network up to speed on your new models and approved marketing content can feel near impossible.

One-and-done consumer engagements

All this effort in training and enabling your field force means nothing if you aren’t improving customer experiences and accelerating deals. We often hear dealers struggle to engage buyers beyond the showroom, with seemingly hot leads going dark once they leave the dealership. Those brochures are thrown away, the sellers’ emails get ignored, and the deal is lost.

Modern revenue enablement for automotive manufacturers

Leading automotive manufacturers deliver modern revenue enablement, rethinking how to train and certify their dealer networks and delight customers.

Certify a network of top-notch product specialists

Training and certifications have historically been approached as static and one-size-fits-all. This is what typical Learning Management Systems (LMS) deliver. Think of a new automotive seller sitting at a computer for the first few weeks of their job, completing onboarding videos and assessments.

To ramp new dealer sellers quickly, you don’t need just to onboard them, but everboard sellers. But do it in a way that is engaging and just as mobile as they are. Our top tips for certifying a network of distributed dealership sellers are:

Ensure sellers can access training across devices and platforms, so if they have iPads on the show floor, they can knock out required training before a prospect walks in.

Training will depend on the role and tenure of a salesperson; make your training personalized and create options for testing out of programs

Deliver various modes of reinforcing knowledge, like using short videos followed by a quiz instead of long-form text-heavy documents.

Don’t wait for a customer to walk into the dealership for reps to practice their pitch; use AI for realistic pitch practice.

Hear from Navistar on why they plan to use AI to prep their network of sellers for every consumer interaction.

Keep your dealer network up-to-date and on-brand

You have a brand to uphold, and with a network of dealerships, new sellers continually being hired, and new products and services launched, it can feel like you have little control over what is being pitched out in the field. With a centralized approach to training and content in a single platform, you can ensure your dealer network uses approved and up-to-date collateral. Our top tips are:

Make sure you have a single source for approved auto collateral so your entire network of sellers is using the most up-to-date content and have one place to find it.

It’s important for dealer sellers to be able to customize certain content based on consumer needs, but put guardrails on the content you allow to be customized to maintain brand standards and consistency across dealerships.

When sending digital content to consumers, ensure it is trackable so you can measure the impact this content is having on your car and service sales.

Deliver personalized buyer engagement to accelerate auto deal cycles

While most deals originate on the show floor, continuing the engagement and excitement past that initial interaction is often hard.

The top automakers personalize the buying experience and engage with consumers digitally to accelerate deal cycles and get to a final signature faster. To do this, we suggest:

Centralize your buyer engagements with a persistent digital room that includes vehicle collateral, services information, and a single location to collaborate with the dealer seller

Create a clear and concise action plan on how to buy a vehicle, including financing information.

 

See how Ford launched Ford University to train their dealer network and create a transparent and simple buying experience.

By reimagining your approach to training dealership sellers, you can transform sales for your network of dealers and deliver a transparent and personalized buying experience for your consumers.

Train Auto Sales Reps better with Mindtickle

Deliver modern revenue enablement by rethinking how to train and certify your dealer networks.

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Revenue Enablement: What is it and What Do You Need to Know?

Helen Waite on June 17, 2024

As a revenue leader, you’re likely quite familiar with the concept of sales enablement. You’re probably already investing in sales enablement teams, technology, and programs to improve sales engagement and performance.

But increasingly, winning organizations are shifting to the next iteration of enablement: revenue enablement.

Why the shift?

Modern B2B customers expect great experiences, whether they’re engaging with a sales rep for the first time or seeking advice from a trusted customer success manager. Revenue enablement ensures all customer-facing roles—including sales, marketing, customer success, and support—are aligned and have the right tools, data, and resources to deliver outstanding, connected experiences across the entire customer journey.

Ready to learn more about revenue enablement, how it can positively impact business outcomes, and how to get started with revenue enablement? Read on as we explore everything you need to know about revenue enablement.

What is revenue enablement?

First things first: what is revenue enablement?

Revenue enablement is an expansion of sales enablement. It is a practice focused on ensuring all customer-facing roles—including sales, marketing, and customer success (among others)—have the right tools, resources, processes, and data to deliver outstanding experiences throughout the customer lifecycle.

Today’s B2B buyers expect seamless experiences wherever they are on their journey. Revenue enablement ensures alignment across the entire customer journey, allowing for connected experiences that delight customers. Doug Bushée, Senior Director analyst at Gartner, says revenue enablement “provides buyers with a seamless and more effortless experience.”

"[Revenue enablement] provides buyers with a seamless and more effortless experience.”
Doug Bushée
Senior Director Analyst, Gartner

Revenue enablement vs. sales enablement: How are they different?

Sales enablement and revenue enablement are related concepts, but there are some key differences between them.

Sales enablement refers to the strategies, processes, and technologies that support and empower sales teams to sell more effectively. This includes activities such as providing sales training and coaching, developing sales collateral and tools, and ensuring that sales teams have access to the right information and resources to close deals.

Revenue enablement, on the other hand, encompasses a broader range of activities that go beyond just supporting sales teams. It involves aligning all customer-facing functions of an organization, such as:

    • Marketing

    • Sales

    • Customer Success

    • Support

This includes optimizing the entire customer journey, from lead generation and nurturing to post-sales support and renewal. Revenue enablement aims to drive revenue growth by maximizing the lifetime value of customers.

In summary, sales enablement is focused on supporting and empowering the sales function specifically, while revenue enablement is focused on aligning all customer-facing functions around a common revenue goal. (Find out where your revenue enablement IQ stacks up here.) 

Revenue enablement Sales enablement
Purpose Ensure all customer-facing teams have the tools, resources, processes and information to engage customers throughout the customer lifecycle Ensure sales teams have the tools, information, content, and resources to engage with buyers and close more deals.
Goal Consistent, streamlined customer experiences Improved sales performance
Primary audience All customer-facing roles, including Sales, Marketing, Pre-sales engineers , Customer Success, and Customer Support Sales
Examples of KPIs Revenue growth, customer retention, customer satisfaction, customer lifetime value, cross-sales, upsells, and referrals New rep ramp time, quota attainment, average deal size, sales cycle length, conversion rates, and cost per customer
Primary responsible party Revenue enablement team Sales enablement team
Who team reports to Chief Revenue Officer Chief Sales Officer

Why should you implement revenue enablement?

Today’s business-to-business (B2B) customer expects more from their buying experience. They want relationships, experiences, and understanding, not sales-driven transactions. In fact, Salesforce research indicates that 66% of customers expect companies to respond to their unique needs.

of customers expect companies to respond to their unique needs
0 %

When sales enablement and revenue operations (RevOps) work hand in hand, organizations are poised to:

1. Increase revenue

By aligning all customer-facing functions around a common revenue goal, you can help optimize the entire customer journey, resulting in increased revenue generation.

2. Improve customer experience

You can ensure that customers receive a consistent, high-quality experience throughout their entire journey with an organization, from initial engagement to post-sales support.

3. Better alignment and collaboration

Promote better alignment and collaboration between different customer-facing functions, such as marketing, sales, customer success, and support, improving efficiency and effectiveness.

4. Increase customer lifetime value

By optimizing the customer journey and ensuring a positive customer experience, you can help increase customer loyalty and retention, leading to higher customer lifetime value.

5. Better data and insights

 Get a have a holistic view of the customer journey, which can lead to better data and insights into customer behavior, preferences, and needs.

Overall, revenue enablement can help organizations drive revenue growth, improve customer satisfaction and loyalty, and increase operational efficiency and effectiveness.

How can revenue enablement help your sales team?

Taking this approach can help your sales team by doing the following:

1. Better aligning with other customer-facing functions

Revenue enablement aligns all customer-facing functions around a common revenue goal, ensuring that sales teams work collaboratively with marketing, customer success, and support teams. This alignment ensures a consistent customer experience throughout the entire customer journey, which can help sales teams close deals more effectively.

2. Improving lead generation and nurturing

 Revenue enablement helps organizations develop a more comprehensive understanding of their target market and buyer personas. This knowledge can help sales teams generate higher-quality leads and nurture them more effectively, resulting in a higher conversion rate.

3. Enhancing sales enablement

Revenue enablement helps organizations develop more comprehensive sales enablement strategies that go beyond just providing training and collateral to sales teams. It ensures that sales teams have access to the right information and resources at every stage of the customer journey, enabling them to sell more effectively.

4. Better data and insights

Revenue enablement requires organizations to have a holistic view of the customer journey, which can lead to better data and insights into customer behavior, preferences, and needs. Sales teams can use this information to tailor their sales approach and messaging, resulting in higher win rates.

5. Increasing customer lifetime value

By optimizing the customer journey and ensuring a positive customer experience, revenue enablement can help increase customer loyalty and retention, leading to higher customer lifetime value. Sales teams can benefit from this by having a larger pool of loyal customers to upsell and cross-sell to.

Overall, revenue enablement can help sales teams sell more effectively by providing them with the right information, resources, and support to close deals, and by ensuring that they work collaboratively with other customer-facing functions to provide a consistent, high-quality customer experience.

What are some examples of revenue enablement tools?

Revenue enablement tools are software solutions that help businesses increase revenue by improving their sales and marketing processes. Some examples include:

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software

A CRM system helps businesses manage their customer interactions and sales pipelines, enabling them to track leads, forecast revenue, and automate sales workflows.

Marketing automation software

Marketing automation software helps businesses automate their marketing processes, such as email campaigns, social media management, and lead scoring.

Sales enablement software

Sales enablement solutions provide sales teams with the tools and content, such as sales collateral, training materials, and analytics, they need to engage with prospects and close deals.

Content management software

Sales content management software allows businesses to organize and manage their marketing and sales content, such as product information, marketing collateral, sales decks, competitive battlecards, pricing sheets, and case studies.

Sales forecasting software

Sales forecasting software uses data analysis and machine learning algorithms to predict future sales trends, enabling businesses to make more informed decisions about their sales and marketing strategies.

mt-platform-forecasting-screen

Customer analytics software

 Customer analytics software gives businesses insights into their customer behavior and preferences, enabling them to tailor their sales and marketing strategies to better meet customer needs.

Best practices for getting started with revenue enablement

As you’re building up your revenue enablement strategy, here are key things to keep in mind:

  • Establish key business objectives for revenue enablement, such as overall revenue growth and individual seller productivity metrics
  • Decide whether to consolidate technology and data under one revenue productivity platform versus integrating point solution products, or some version of each
  • Determine a cadence for discussing and analyzing revenue enablement initiatives – prioritize and stick to it
  • Hold front-line management, marketing, sales enablement, and ops accountable to overall business goals
  • Create a cadence around org readiness to be discussed alongside forecasting and pipeline reviews

Ready to take the next step?

To pivot toward a revenue enablement-focused approach, organizations should take the following steps:

  1. Align around a common revenue goal: The first step is to align all customer-facing functions around a common revenue goal. This involves setting clear revenue targets and ensuring that all customer-facing teams understand how their activities contribute to those targets.
  2. Develop a comprehensive understanding of the customer journey: To optimize the customer journey, organizations need to develop a comprehensive understanding of their customers and their buying journey. This includes understanding their pain points, preferences, and needs at each stage of the journey.
  3. Implement a technology stack: Revenue enablement requires a technology stack that supports the entire customer journey, from lead generation and nurturing to post-sales support and renewal. This includes marketing automation, customer relationship management (CRM), and customer success platforms.
  4. Develop a sales enablement strategy: Revenue enablement goes beyond just sales enablement. However, it’s still essential to develop a sales enablement strategy that ensures that sales teams have the right information, resources, and support to sell effectively.
  5. Measure and optimize performance: To ensure efforts are effective, organizations need to measure performance regularly and optimize their approach based on data and insights. This includes tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) such as revenue growth, customer lifetime value, and customer satisfaction.

Implementing revenue enablement is an ongoing process that requires continuous refinement and improvement. By taking these steps, organizations can create a customer-centric revenue growth engine that optimizes the entire customer journey and drives business success.

Ready to learn more about how Mindtickle can make this a reality at your organization?

Revenue Enablement in Mindtickle

Connect with our team so we can learn more about your revenue enablement challenges and discuss how Mindtickle can help. 

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This post was originally published in April 2023, updated in November 2023, and again in June 2024.

Revenue Enablement vs. Sales Enablement: What’s Right for You?

Helen Waite on June 13, 2024

Revenue leaders always look for strategies and tactics to boost sales performance and revenue growth. Sales enablement is one particularly popular strategy.

In fact, 84% of organizations invest in sales enablement.

But sales reps aren’t the only ones responsible for revenue growth. As such, many revenue organizations are extending the impact of their enablement efforts by investing in revenue enablement teams and tools.

You may be wondering which is the right choice for improving performance at your organization: revenue enablement vs sales enablement. If so, you’ve come to the right place.

In this post, we’ll examine revenue enablement and sales enablement in depth. We’ll explore how these practices are similar and different and which approach best fits your organization.

Sales enablement vs. revenue enablement: What’s the difference?

Sales enablement and revenue enablement are two terms that are often used. It’s easy to assume they are synonymous.

That’s not the case.

Sales enablement and revenue enablement are certainly related. Although the two practices share many key similarities, they also have significant differences.

What is sales enablement?

Chances are, you’re familiar with the concept of sales enablement. It’s a practice that equips sales reps with the tools, training, and information they need to be effective and efficient. Some such tools and information include:

The goal of sales enablement is to improve sales performance. With the right sales enablement strategy and tools, sales reps can close more deals faster.

What is revenue enablement?

Now we’re clear on what sales enablement is. But what is revenue enablement?

Think of revenue enablement as the next iteration of sales enablement. It’s a practice that leverages many of the same programs and tactics as sales enablement – including ongoing learning, content, and coaching. However, there are some significant differences between sales and revenue enablement practices.

How goals and audiences differ

The goals and audience of sales enablement and revenue enablement are different. Sales enablement focuses solely on ensuring sales teams have what they need to engage buyers and close deals. On the other hand, revenue enablement aims to equip all customer-facing roles with the tools, information, and resources they need to engage customers – wherever they are in the customer lifecycle. In addition to the sales team, revenue enablement often supports:

  • Marketing teams
  • Customer success teams
  • Customer support teams

How each practice measures success

Sales enablement and revenue enablement are measured differently.

Some sales enablement teams track adoption and completion metrics. In other words, they track metrics to understand what portion of sales reps are completing sales enablement activities.

While completion metrics are important, the best sales enablement teams understand it’s more important to track how their sales enablement programs and initiatives impact sales outcomes.

Sales enablement teams track KPIs, including new rep ramp time, quota attainment, and average deal size. The right sales enablement analytics software makes it easy to keep a constant pulse on the metrics that matter most.

manufacturing-powerful-analytics

Revenue enablement teams also track adoption and completion metrics. They also gauge the sales impact of their programs by tracking KPIs like quota attainment, conversion rates, and average deal size. However, revenue enablement teams also track how their efforts are impacting the business’ long-term relationships with customers and revenue generation with metrics like:

  • Customer retention rates
  • Customer satisfaction
  • Customer lifetime value
  • Customer referrals
  • Cross-sales and upsells
  • Revenue growth

Revenue enablement vs. sales enablement: Who owns each function

Another key difference between sales and revenue enablement is who is responsible for it. Increasingly sales enablement is led by a dedicated sales enablement team. This team often reports up to the chief sales officer (CSO) or other sales leader. Revenue enablement, on the other hand, is led by a revenue enablement team. Typically, this team reports up to the chief revenue officer (CRO) or other revenue leader.

Sales enablement vs revenue enablement: What’s the difference?

Sales enablement Revenue enablement
Goal Equip sales teams with the tools, training, and resources they need to be effective and efficient in their roles Ensure all customer-facing teams have the tools, training, and resources they need to deliver engaging experiences throughout the customer lifecycle
Audience Sales All customer-facing roles, including Sales, Marketing, Customer Success and Customer Support
Responsible party Sales enablement manager or sales enablement team Revenue enablement manager or revenue enablement team
Who team reports to Chief sales officer or other sales leader Chief revenue officer or other revenue leader
Examples of tactics Sales onboarding, ongoing training, sales content, sales coaching, and conversation intelligence Onboarding, ongoing training, content, revenue intelligence, and customer feedback solicitation
Examples of KPIs New rep ramp time, quota attainment, average deal size, and conversion rates All of the same as sales enablement, plus others including customer retention rates, customer satisfaction, CLV, cross-sales and upsells, and revenue growth
Tools of the trade Multiple sales enablement tools or an integrated sales enablement platform Multiple revenue enablement tools or an integrated revenue enablement platform

How does revenue enablement work?

Revenue enablement empowers organizations to deliver outstanding experiences throughout the customer journey. But how exactly does revenue enablement work?

Mapping the customer journey

First, key teams must come together to map the customer journey. In other words, organizations must define the path their customers take, incorporating everything from initial contact to ongoing, post-sale engagement.

Building enablement programs for all customer-facing roles

Then, organizations can build revenue enablement programs. These programs ensure each customer-facing team has the tools and resources to deliver outstanding, connected experiences throughout the customer journey.

Revenue enablement can’t be one-size-fits-all. Instead, programs and initiatives must be customized to the needs of specific teams and team members.

Measuring the impact of revenue enablement

Finally, revenue enablement teams must measure the impact of their strategies and programs. Consistent measurement helps them understand what’s working and where there is room for improvement. Teams can leverage these insights to optimize the revenue enablement program.

Finding the right sales enablement tools

The right revenue enablement software is key to any revenue enablement program. With an integrated revenue enablement platform, teams can build and deliver personalized enablement programs and initiatives to all customer-facing roles. In addition, revenue enablement teams can use the revenue enablement platform to measure impact. These insights can help revenue enablement teams optimize their programs and initiatives for maximum impact.

Who owns revenue enablement?

Sales enablement is often managed by a dedicated sales enablement team. But who owns revenue enablement?

Increasingly, revenue enablement is also led by a dedicated revenue enablement function or team. The revenue enablement team is typically led by a revenue enablement manager.

However, effective revenue enablement isn’t the sole responsibility of just one person or team. Instead, it requires the close collaboration of key teams, including:

Each team brings a unique perspective and is responsible for different holistic revenue enablement strategy elements.

For example, the marketing team may be tasked with developing an email campaign to increase engagement and product feature adoption among existing customers. However, they need insight into which types of content are useful for new customers.

Why revenue enablement is the right approach for your business

So, which approach is right for your business: sales enablement vs revenue enablement?

Customer experience drives behavior

Increasingly, B2B buyer behavior is driven by their experiences with a business. They choose businesses (and whether or not to stick with those businesses) based on their interactions across the customer journey. Research tells us that eight in 10 customers say experience is as important as a company’s products or services.

of customers says experience is important as products or services
0 %

Sales teams are key in delivering great experiences and providing trusted advice that helps B2B customers make informed purchase decisions. So it’s no wonder why so many organizations invest in sales enablement to ensure sales teams have the right tools, resources, and information to engage buyers and close more deals.

Customer experience is a team sport

But sales reps aren’t the only employees interacting with customers and prospects. Many other teams—including marketing, customer success, and customer care—play an important role in engaging customers across the entire lifecycle. It’s critical to ensure all customer-facing teams are prepared to deliver outstanding, seamless experiences, whether a customer is making initial contact or seeking help after they’ve purchased a solution.

Consider a business that focuses solely on enabling the sales team. Sure, prospects have excellent, personalized experiences during the sales cycle. But after they purchase a solution, their experiences as a customer fail to meet their expectations. As a result, they’re likely to churn.

Now, consider a business that invests in revenue enablement. The customer has a consistent experience every step – from their initial interactions with the business to their ongoing engagement with their assigned customer success manager. This happy customer is likelier to renew, purchase additional solutions, and refer your business to others.

Revenue enablement is key to delivering outstanding, consistent customer experiences
A holistic revenue enablement practice ensures that all customer-facing teams are equipped to interact effectively and efficiently with buyers.

As Doug Bushée, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, put it, “[Revenue enablement] provides buyers and sellers with a seamless and more effortless experience.”

“[Revenue enablement] provides buyers and sellers with a seamless and more effortless experience.”
Doug Bushée
Senior Director Analyst, Gartner

Enabling your entire revenue team will boost customer satisfaction, retention, and revenue generation. Revenue enablement is a more effective, holistic strategy for growing revenue long-term.

Take your revenue enablement to the next level with Mindtickle

A winning revenue enablement program requires the right technology.

Some organizations purchase point solutions that address a different sales or revenue enablement element. For example, they use different tools to address sales content management, training, and coaching. Or, organizations use a sales enablement platform for their sales team – but use entirely different platforms to train and enable other customer-facing roles.

This approach often leads to bloated tech stacks. A recent report found that 63% of sales leaders say their current tech stacks include 10 or more tools.

of sales leaders say their current tech stacks have 10+ tools
0 %

However, simply having a tool doesn’t mean it’s being used. The same report found a trend where the number of tools in the tech stack often exceeds the number of tools that are actively used daily.

Today, leading revenue organizations are streamlining their tech stacks (and equipping all customer-facing roles for success) by investing in an integrated revenue enablement platform.

Mindtickle is an award-winning, integrated revenue enablement team that ensures all your customer-facing teams have what they need to be ready for any customer interaction. The best revenue enablement teams use Mindtickle to create and deliver winning enablement programs – and then measure their impact on revenue performance. In addition, revenue-generating teams – including sales, marketing, and customer success – turn to Mindtickle to access the tools, training, and resources they need to engage with customers throughout the customer lifecycle effectively.

Revenue Enablement with Mindtickle

Ready to see why leading revenue teams choose Mindtickle’s integrated revenue productivity platform?

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What is a Revenue Enablement Platform? (+8 Must-Have Features of Any Solution)

Helen Waite on June 5, 2024

Every profession has certain “tools of the trade.” A carpenter needs a hammer and nails. A nurse requires a thermometer and a stethoscope.

Revenue teams also need certain tools to do their jobs well. A revenue enablement platform is one such tool.

The right platform empowers organizations to create a team of top performers that consistently crush quotas.

But what is a revenue enablement platform, and what are the must-have features of such a platform?

In this guide, we’ll set the foundation by discussing a revenue enablement platform and how the right platform can boost your revenue team’s performance. We’ll also explore the key features to look for when deciding which platform fits your team and share some of the best platforms in the market today.

What is a revenue enablement platform?

Perhaps you’ve heard the term “revenue enablement platform” before, but you’re not exactly sure what it is. Or maybe you have a better idea of what a revenue platform is. Regardless of where you are on your revenue enablement journey, we’ve got you covered.

Revenue enablement, defined

To explain a revenue enablement platform, let’s first define revenue enablement.

Today, most organizations are familiar with sales enablement. A recent report found that 84% of organizations are investing in it. Sales enablement equips sales teams with the tools, training, information, and content they need to deliver engaging buying experiences and close more deals. Many organizations use a sales enablement tool (or tools) to power their programs and initiatives.

Think of revenue enablement as the next iteration of sales enablement. While sales enablement focuses on supporting the sales team, revenue enablement takes things a step further, ensuring all customer-facing functions are aligned around the customer journey and have what they need to deliver outstanding experiences.

Revenue enablement platforms, defined

A revenue enablement platform is an essential component of any revenue enablement strategy. An integrated revenue enablement tool centralizes everything related to revenue enablement, serving as a single source of truth for the entire revenue team.

Enablement teams use a revenue enablement tool to create and deliver programs, initiatives, and content and measure their impact. Customer-facing roles leverage revenue enablement solutions to access the tools, training, content, and information they need to engage with customers effectively – no matter where they are on the purchase journey.

We’ll look closer at a revenue enablement platform’s key features later.

How a revenue enablement platform can boost your business results

Organizations that adopt an integrated platform experience several benefits. Let’s look at a few that rise to the top.

Better sales content management

Modern B2B buyers depend on content to make informed purchase decisions. Many marketing teams invest significant time and resources into developing content, but sales reps often struggle to find relevant, up-to-date content.

An integrated revenue enablement platform simplifies content management, allowing reps to spend less time searching for content and more time engaging with prospects. With a platform, all content is housed in a single, searchable location. Some solutions offer AI capabilities that suggest content proven to work in similar sales scenarios. This helps sellers more effectively leverage content to engage buyers.

Personalized training and coaching for reps

A one-size-fits-all approach to sales training and coaching is ineffective. Instead, organizations must deliver personalized training and coaching that addresses each rep’s needs.

With the right revenue enablement platform, organizations can pinpoint which skills each rep has perfected and which they need to continue to practice. Then, organizations can deliver customized training and coaching that addresses their needs – without bogging them down with unnecessary, irrelevant training.

Streamlined analytics and reporting

Ongoing measurement is key to determining whether revenue enablement initiatives positively impact the metrics that matter most to revenue teams.

Some revenue organizations use multiple point solutions that each address a specific component of revenue enablement. For example, an organization may use a content management system to house and organize content, and another solution to create and deliver sales training. These point systems include analytics, but it can be challenging to cobble them together to determine overall impact.

An integrated platform streamlines sales enablement analytics and reporting into a single platform. Organizations can get a holistic picture of how revenue enablement efforts are helping sales reps sharpen skills, engage buyers, and close more deals.

manufacturing-powerful-analytics

Better alignment of customer-facing teams

All too often, marketing, enablement, and customer-facing teams work in silos. However, when these teams are aligned, it improves business results. Research tells us that when sales and marketing teams work in coordination, businesses can see 27% faster profit growth.

Businesses can see

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A revenue enablement platform can significantly improve alignment by providing these key teams with a single source of truth for everything related to revenue enablement.

More accurate sales forecasting

An integrated platform equips organizations with revenue intelligence, which analyzes data across customer interactions. With these insights, sales leaders can more accurately predict outcomes and provide the right support to help sales reps close winnable deals.

Salesforce - Revenue Intelligence

Improved revenue operations

Revenue teams depend on the right tools to do their jobs. But adding a ton of tools can create chaos for revenue teams.

An integrated platform allows revenue operations teams to streamline the tech stack – while still ensuring sales reps have what they need to be productive and effective.

8 Must-have features of a revenue enablement platform

The right revenue enablement platform can greatly impact the effectiveness of your enablement program and the performance of your entire revenue org. Perhaps you’ve heard the message loud and clear and have begun shopping for a platform for your organization.

Many vendors offer solutions that promise to boost the effectiveness and efficiency of your revenue team. Weighing your options can be confusing, especially when you’re not sure what features and functionality are most important.

Each platform incorporates unique features and functionality. It is important to find the option that works best for your organization.

That said, certain must-have features should be incorporated into every revenue enablement platform. Let’s explore eight.

#1 Sales content management

According to Salesforce research, sales reps spend a mere 28% of their time selling. The rest is spent on meetings and admin work, including hunting down the right sales content.

Furthermore, while your marketing team may spend a lot of time creating content, there’s a good chance a lot of that content is sitting unused. That could be because sales reps don’t know it exists, don’t know how to use it, or find it irrelevant.

Any revenue enablement solution you’re considering should incorporate content management capabilities. That way, sales reps can easily surface content that’ll resonate with any prospect – no matter where they are in the purchase journey. Keep an eye out for a solution that incorporates AI. That way, your sales reps can get suggestions for content based on a prospect’s behavior and how content has performed in similar scenarios.

Your chosen platform should also feature robust analytics that helps you understand how content is (or isn’t) being used and how it is (or isn’t) impacting sales outcomes. That way, you can invest more in effective content and eliminate assets that aren’t working.

#2 Sales onboarding

Sales onboarding helps new reps get up to speed with your company, its goals, and their role in achieving those goals. Be sure your chosen platform incorporates features that allow you to develop and deliver sales onboarding programs that get your sellers ready to hit the ground running.

#3 Continuous learning

Learning shouldn’t stop after onboarding. Instead, revenue teams need continuous learning to ensure they’re always ready to deliver engaging customer experiences. Your revenue enablement software should incorporate features and functionality that allow you to deliver engaging, ongoing learning that helps revenue team members stay fresh.

Ongoing learning shouldn’t be “one-size-fits-all.” With the right revenue enablement platform, you can assess the strengths and weaknesses of each revenue team member. Then, you can deliver personalized learning opportunities that address the needs of each sales rep, without bogging them down with irrelevant training.

#4 Engaging reinforcement and practice opportunities

Research from Gartner found that B2B sales reps forget 70% of what they learn within a week of training. 

B2B sales reps forget

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For example, leading revenue enablement platforms allow you to build virtual role-plays. Sellers can record themselves giving a practice pitch, and they get instant, AI-powered feedback for improvement. They can also submit their role-plays for their manager and peers’ feedback.

#5 Sales coaching

It’s no secret that sales coaching improves performance. According to the 2024 State of Revenue Productivity Report, top-performing sales reps receive more coaching than their lower-performing peers.

While the importance of sales coaching is clear, it can be difficult to deliver effective coaching at scale.

Revenue enablement platforms incorporate revenue intelligence, which helps sales managers understand where there are risks. That way, the manager can provide deal coaching to help improve the deal’s outcome.

In addition, a platform provides managers with robust data that sheds light on where sales reps excel and where they need improvement. The best platforms also offer conversation intelligence capabilities which help managers understand how sales reps are performing on calls. With these insights, sales managers can provide personalized skills coaching that improves reps’ behaviors and long-term performance.

#6 Sales call recording and analysis

A sales rep may complete all assigned training and enablement activities. But that doesn’t mean they’re applying what they’ve learned.

However, sales managers can’t sit on every sales call to identify a rep’s strengths and weaknesses.

Winning revenue enablement incorporates conversation intelligence capabilities, which record and analyze reps’ calls. Each call is scored, and reps receive real-time feedback for improvement. Reps can use this feedback to improve their approach. In addition, sales managers can look for trends to see where additional skill coaching may be needed.

#7 Revenue intelligence

Accurate sales forecasting fuels better decision-making about key factors like goals, budgeting, and prospecting. But often, sales leaders aren’t confident in their forecasts. According to the Chief Revenue Officer + Sales Leader Outlook Report, 34% of organizations say inaccurate forecasts and limited predictability in the business are some of their top pain points.

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The best revenue enablement platforms feature revenue intelligence capabilities, which allow revenue leaders to predict outcomes more accurately. Revenue intelligence also flags at-risk deals so teams can take action to improve outcomes.

#8 Robust data, analytics, and dashboards

When it comes to revenue enablement, ongoing measurement is key. Regular measurement allows you to see what’s working and identify areas for improvement.

Your revenue enablement platform should make it easy to surface insights that matter most to your business. In addition, look for a platform that uses AI to analyze reports so you can get the answers you need. Your chosen platform may also use AI to suggest actions to take based on your data.

The best revenue enablement platforms

When researching revenue enablement platforms, you may wonder which one is best. There’s no simple answer. The best solution incorporates features and functionality that meet your revenue organization’s needs and goals.

That said, the following are some of the most popular tools on the market today.

Mindtickle

Mindtickle is an award-winning, integrated revenue enablement platform used by top revenue organizations across the globe.

Winning revenue organizations depend on Mindtickle to streamline revenue operations and improve sales results. With Mindtickle, enablement professionals can quickly and easily develop and deliver engaging, effective training and enablement programs that ensure revenue teams are always ready to sell. Enablement professionals can also use Mindtickle to measure the impact of their programs and initiatives on sales performance.

Mindtickle also offers a user-friendly experience to sales reps. Sellers can easily find the training, enablement, and content they need to deliver engaging experiences and close deals.

With Mindtickle, revenue leaders always have easy access to the data and analytics that matter most. Sales managers can understand reps’ skill development and how they’re performing in the field. These insights help them deliver personalized coaching that improves reps’ long-term performance. Sales leaders can also access revenue intelligence, which fuels more accurate sales forecasting, pipeline, and deal confidence.

Seismic

Seismic is an enablement, training, and coaching tool that sales and marketing teams use. Sales reps turn to Seismic to access content, tools, and insights to engage prospects and convert them to customers.

Allego

Allego is a revenue enablement platform that provides sales teams with knowledge and content to move deals forward. Allego also provides actionable insights that revenue teams can use to maximize the potential of each sales rep.

Highspot

Highspot is a software company offering a revenue enablement solution that promises to improve sales performance. Highspot equips revenue teams with the tools, information, and content needed to improve behavior and close more deals, faster.

Take your revenue enablement to the next level with Mindtickle

Modern revenue teams face more challenges than ever before. It’s no wonder why so many sales reps fail to meet their sales quotas.

Today, many organizations are investing in revenue enablement teams and programs to ensure the entire revenue team is aligned and ready to deliver outstanding experiences throughout the customer journey.

The right revenue enablement tools are key to success. But not all revenue enablement solutions are the same. It’s important to find the option that best fits your organization’s needs.

While some organizations opt to invest in multiple point solutions, a growing number are streamlining their tech stacks by investing in an integrated revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle.

With Mindtickle, your entire revenue team has easy access to the tools, information, and content they need to effectively engage with buyers and close more deals – all in one platform.

Revenue Enablement with Mindtickle

Give your entire revenue team access to the tools, information, and content they need to effectively engage with buyers and close more deals – all in one platform.

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The Recipe for a High-Impact Sales Enablement Program

Helen Waite on May 31, 2024

Sales enablement professionals play an essential role in ensuring the revenue team is ready for any deal that comes their way. But at a time when customer expectations are high and quota attainment is low, the job of a sales enablement professional isn’t easy.

Sales enablement teams are responsible for building and executing high-impact programs and initiatives that improve sales onboarding, accelerate ramp time, and ensure sellers can be as effective and efficient as possible. But while the expectations placed on sales enablement teams continue to grow, their headcounts and budgets often remain flat—or even shrink.

For sales enablement teams, the pressure is on to do more with less.

This may sound like a tall order, but with the right strategy, tools, and technology, it’s definitely possible to build a high-impact sales enablement program—even when resources are tight.

In this guide, we’ll provide an overview of a sales enablement program and why it’s important. Then, we’ll share seven tried-and-true tips and techniques for building a high-impact program that equips each of your sales reps to close more deals faster.

Sales enablement program – What is it and why is it important for sales teams?

Sales enablement programs refer to how sales enablement professionals structure and present training and content related to a specific initiative, topic, or theme. They’re a combination of activities, assets, and resources wrapped together to execute sales enablement at scale for different scenarios. These activities can be delivered on-demand, live, or both.

The ultimate goal of a sales enablement program is to make sellers better prepared, more knowledgeable, and more effective in the field. Sales enablement teams typically train them on a topic and then provide hands-on practice and reinforcement to ensure that sellers remember the information and can translate what they’ve learned into in-field behaviors.

Different assets and activities act as the building blocks for the program and can come in various formats and modalities. They typically include training videos, instructor-led sessions, interactive role-plays, assessments and quizzes, writing exercises, marketing materials or other PDFs, gamified challenges, and more.

But the keyword here is variety.

If every program follows the same format and contains the same types of assets, sellers will get bored and tune out quickly. But we’ll get into that more in tip #1.

There are sales enablement programs for almost every topic under the sun. But we typically see programs categorized into these key use cases consistently across sales organizations:

  • Sales onboarding
  • Competitive takeout
  • Marketing messaging and positioning
  • Product training
  • Product releases & updates
  • Sales methodology
  • Sales skills, like discovery, negotiation, prospecting, storytelling, and more
  • Sales processes and tools
  • Coach-the-coach
  • Pricing and packaging

7 tips for creating a high-impact sales enablement program

As mentioned, not every sales enablement program is created equal. And that’s why the outcomes of enablement programs can vary widely from one organization to the next.

For example, Company A and Company B both enabled their sellers on a new quoting process, and each assigned them a program to complete that consists of the following:

Company A
Sellers read a 10-page PDF and sign to confirm that they have read and understand the new process.
Company B
Sellers watch a 5-minute video explaining the new process, view a demo video, complete a short quiz, and do a hands-on exercise by screen-recording themselves completing the new process.

Which company do you think experienced higher adoption of the new process? Duh! Company B! Company B’s program had a higher impact because it was more interactive and more engaging, and as a result, they’re more likely to see adherence to the new process.

But creating a high-impact sales enablement program is easier said than done. It’s a lot easier to assign a PDF for sellers to read and call it a day than it is to create a new and interesting piece of content.

That’s why our tips for creating a high-impact program include not only the types of activities that go into the program itself but also the tools that sales enablement leaders have to create those activities as quickly and easily as possible.

#1 Capture the seller’s attention from the first click

A high-impact enablement program delivers modern sales content and training, and that experience starts with the seller’s first interaction with and impression of the program. That’s why you need to create engaging, immersive experiences for sellers.

One way is by intuitively displaying the program content and training with relevant context. This eliminates any potential sense of confusion or lostness, which typically hampers seller completion.

From the first click, sellers should understand:

  • Program purpose and goal: What they will learn and how it help them crush their quota
  • Program outcome: What they expect to earn, whether a certificate, approval to sell a new product line, etc.
  • Program path and milestones: What activities do they need to complete, in what order, and in what context of how does that connect back to the program goal

Additionally, once they begin the program, you need to ensure there is variation in the format and types of activities. Like Company B, you must ensure you’re leveraging a sales enablement platform that arms you with both breadth and depth in the building blocks you can use to build the program. This includes on-demand, interactive, and instructor-led elements, all available side-by-side with unified reporting.

#2 Combines training and content side by side

While training and content on a particular topic are good, like any dynamic duo, they’re more powerful together. That’s why a high-impact sales enablement program not only provides training on a relevant topic but also presents it side by side with the associated relevant content that sellers will use post-training.

For example, if you’ve launched a program on new marketing messaging, don’t make sellers search for and access the new pitch decks and marketing collateral elsewhere. Provide it right there in the program for easy access.

#3 Make the program interactive

We’ve all done our fair share of multitasking while brainlessly clicking through a long enablement video. That’s why high-impact enablement programs are heavy on interactive, hands-on elements to ensure sellers to stay engaged and reinforce knowledge and skills throughout.

Some common interactive elements include:

Asking questions and conducting surveys periodically within video content increases engagement on content and performs just-in-time knowledge checks

Assign prompts and scenarios for sellers to record role-play or written exercises to ensure comprehension and ensure sellers can apply the concept and articulate it in their own words.

Include snippets from real-world customer calls, peer role-play submissions, and peer success stories to make the content more relatable and bring it to life.

Incorporating point-keeping, leaderboards, badges, competitions, team activities, and other game-like features into your enablement program boosts concentration and participation.

#4 Create built-in certifications

Becoming certified in a topic or process is a motivating factor for many high-impact enablement programs. However, sales enablement leaders need to be able to scale and automate certification efforts easily. They need to be able to track seller performance on individual learning components in the program, award certificates using complex criteria, and manage recertifications as necessary.

Certifications also motivate sellers and partners when a social component is incorporated. Making it easy for sellers to share their certifications on social platforms like LinkedIn from within your sales enablement platform creates a sense of reward and recognition. Customizing your certificates to your brand, product, or initiative also boosts your brand awareness.

#5 Individualized to sellers’ needs

Even the best, most riveting sales enablement program won’t be high-impact if it’s one-size-fits-all. Programs need to be relevant and personalized at scale, focusing on each rep’s unique needs and the skills that will move the needle for them.

Leading sales enablement platforms provide automation that adjusts programs to sellers’ skillsets and competencies. Not forcing sellers to complete components of the program focused on knowledge, skills, or behaviors they’ve already mastered generates more buy-in and engagement for programs as a whole.

#6 Use program templates

As mentioned, sales enablement teams are usually short on time and resources, which can drain the creativity juices from even the most innovative sales enablement professional.

That’s why using a sales enablement platform that provides quick-start tools like templates is key to program creation. Top sales enablement vendors provide pre-built yet customizable templates for key sales enablement use cases, eliminating blank page paralysis and accelerating program creation.

From the 2024 State of Revenue Productivity Report, we found that using program templates decreased the time to launch a program from 3-4 weeks to 7 days.

Days to launch a program

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These templates include pre-built best practices and engagement mechanics which provide the blueprint for the best structure and pieces of content for each use case.

#7 Leverage industry expertise and pre-made program content

Ready-to-deploy content is similar to, yet different from, program templates. While templates provide the blueprint for a high-impact program, ready-to-deploy programs provide the whole enchilada.

There are key topics that sales enablement leaders worldwide across different companies are all enabling their people on. Think sales discovery, cross-sell and upsell, objection handling, certain sales methodologies like MEDDPICC, etc. But all of these sales enablement teams are starting from scratch, wasting valuable time, and creating the same things when they could be working on more strategic initiatives.

That’s why sales enablement platforms provide sales enablement teams with prebuilt programs on these key topics created by industry experts and top-tier sales consulting firms. This lets sales enablement teams leverage this expertise and incorporate new modalities and approaches based on modern learning design and industry best practices to stop reinventing the wheel and focus more on strategy and execution.

Create a high-impact sales enablement program with Mindtickle

Modern sales reps face more challenges than ever before. It’s no wonder why just 28% of sales professionals expect to meet quota.

Increasingly, organizations are turning to sales enablement to ensure their entire sales team is ready to conquer any deal that comes their way. Per Mindtickle’s 2024-2025 Chief Revenue Officer + Sales Leader Outlook Report, 84% of organizations are investing in sales enablement.

However, establishing a sales enablement department doesn’t guarantee great results. Instead, sales enablement professionals must have the right strategy and tools in place to create high-impact programs that actually improve sales outcomes.

The right technology is a key component of any sales enablement strategy. Mindtickle’s integrated revenue productivity solution incorporates sales training, sales enablement, sales content, and call insights – all in one platform. With Mindtickle, sales reps can find everything they need to be ready to sell. And sales enablement professionals can build, deliver, and measure their programs – all in one place.

Ready to see why winning revenue teams are choosing Mindtickle to power their sales enablement programs? Schedule a live demo to see for yourself.

Sales Enablement in Mindtickle

Ready to see why winning revenue teams are choosing Mindtickle to power their sales enablement programs?

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This post was originally published in November 2022 and was updated in May 2024. 

8 Reasons Why Sales Enablement Is Important to Help You Drive Revenue

Helen Waite on March 13, 2024

Sales enablement leaders often struggle to demonstrate the impact of their efforts on business outcomes.

But closed deals don’t happen in isolation; effective sales enablement is an important piece in making sure sellers have everything they need to be productive.

The truth is that in 2023, only 42.8% of reps hit their quotas.

In 2023, only

of reps hit their quotas
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Companies miss significant benefits without proper investment and structured programs geared toward revenue generation. Effective sales enablement drives revenue and equips sales reps with the tools to cultivate meaningful customer relationships, attract qualified leads, and close deals successfully.

Key takeaways

  • A robust sales enablement structure centralizes all resources, knowledge, and content into a single source of truth. This means reps have just-in-time access to the information they need to engage buyers, saving time and enhancing productivity.
  • Continuous training and skill development are essential to successful sales enablement initiatives. By providing regular training and opportunities for practice, sales enablement ensures that reps stay updated on industry trends, product updates, and best practices.
  • Sales enablement empowers managers to create a coaching culture by providing them with data-driven insights and tools to facilitate individual reps and teams coaching sessions.  Managers are better able to identify areas for improvement.

Sales enablement supports overall seller productivity

We define sales enablement as the process of providing the sales organization with the information, content, and tools that help sellers sell more effectively. The foundation of sales enablement is to provide sellers with what they need to successfully engage the buyer throughout the buying process.

Practically speaking, sales enablement teams identify skill gaps through performance metrics, assessments and feedback. They then tailor training and development programs based on these skill gaps.

Example: Skill and knowledge gaps

Let’s look at a hypothetical, but realistic, problem. ABC company is in the process of assessing its sales readiness. During the process, the sales team noticed that there were gaps in the skills their sales reps have versus the skills they need to sell effectively. Sales leaders at ABC correlate this to a recent decline in deals closed, which has also resulted in not meeting revenue goals.

ABC can employ sales enablement efforts to fix this misalignment. They can identify which parts of the sales workflow are most difficult for each sales rep, like converting leads into opportunities or upselling, for example. Then they can leverage that data to train and enable each rep based on their individual skills gap.

Mindtickle Missions

Sales enablement provides an accessible knowledge base

A strong sales enablement structure gives your salespeople access to a knowledge base, one that’s designated as a single source of truth. A designated knowledge base saves them from spending a lot of time looking for information or answers while they’re working with a customer. It promotes just-in-time access to the resources they need.

Sales enablement makes knowledge more accessible by gathering all resources, knowledge, and sales content into one spot. Here are some examples of what to include in your knowledge base:

  • Sample scripts or talk tracks
  • Information about customer personas and pain points
  • Links to training modules
  • Customer-facing content

No matter what they need to access, they can get it all within this single source of truth.

Example: One source of truth

Say your sales teams have knowledge spread out across multiple tools (like a CRM, a company wiki, and multiple drives). With too many places to look, it’s hard for your reps to find what they need in a timely manner during a customer interaction.

Sales enablement managers should come together to decide which source will be designated as the single source of truth. If you already have a drive or knowledge base tool in place that every necessary person has access to, start there. Even a simple tool like Google Drive can work for organizing all your relevant content and knowledge in one spot.

Mindtickle Asset Hub

Sales enablement promotes ongoing sales training

Sales enablement helps your reps hone their skills and develop industry knowledge through ongoing sales training and practice. Technology evolves all the time – products are updated; new tools are adopted; objectives and KPIs are changed. Ongoing training prepares your reps for these inevitable changes. Training gives them insights and advice they can use during customer interactions like more compelling messaging examples or how to resolve common conflicts or objections effectively.

Training is a big part of any successful sales enablement initiative. Sales enablement promotes an environment where your salespeople are continually building their skills and knowledge. Then they put their skills to the test in common real-life scenarios through role-playing or other simulations.

Example: Stopping skill erosion

Skill erosion refers to a decline in a certain skill set, usually because that skill isn’t used often enough. Ongoing training helps your reps with skill reinforcement, so they can integrate those skills into their tasks, leading to more valuable and successful customer conversations.

To avoid skill erosion, make ongoing learning part of your sales team’s everyday routine. One tool that can help is Mindtickle. In the Mindtickle platform, you can use AI-powered skill reinforcements, role plays, and more to protect your reps from skill erosion.

Sales enablement helps your managers create a coaching culture

For your sales teams to succeed, they need a supportive and knowledgeable coach. Sales enablement can help you create an effective coaching culture using data-driven insights, provide teachable moments, and easily facilitate coaching sessions for teams and individual reps.

A strong sales enablement strategy includes specific skill resources and behavioral training that help your managers coach your sales reps. This includes data they can use to identify areas of improvement in the workflow and technology to help make those improvements.

Take conversation intelligence technology, for example. This technology lets you tap into sales calls to understand your sales reps’ behaviors and skill sets. 

“With recordings and transcripts from sales calls, I can get a sense immediately if a rep is struggling with closing a call, and listen in on what’s going well. This allows me to coach my team to more wins and emphasize what’s working for us."
Greg Myers headshot
Greg Myers
Regional VP of Sales at Turing Video.

Example: First-time manager training

If you have a lot of first-time managers, it’s especially important to provide training on topics relevant to leading a team. These topics include effective communication, conflict resolution, how to handle performance reviews, and how to provide support to sales reps.

For instance, all sales managers should be well versed in how to handle objections since this is a common obstacle for every sales rep. Moreover, your managers should have resources and support to make them feel confident in their coaching abilities, enabling them to give their sales reps effective solutions to any problem.

Sales enablement removes silos between sales and marketing

When marketing and sales are siloed, each one is more focused on their individual goals rather than the overall company goal. This can affect overall productivity and collaboration, making it harder to get tasks done related to content, branding, and general marketing.

When sales and marketing can work together, companies can attract and close more leads. Think of marketing as the bait that attracts the leads and sales as the line that reels them in.

By implementing standards and processes on how these two teams should work together, you can break down the silos and increase collaboration.

Example: Content creation

Sales reps don’t have the time or often the skills to create their own content – they need marketing. Your marketing team is experienced in creating content that resonates with your target audience and attracts qualified leads.

Let’s say you need a specific piece of relevant content from your marketing team. With no standards or processes for content creation, your marketing team doesn’t know that they’re supposed to create the content. Your salespeople may feel obligated to create it themselves or skip it all together. The result is often less effective sales tactics and resources.

Alternatively, with a process in place, your sales reps will know when and how to engage marketing, and marketing folks will understand the types of situations they may be employed to help.

Sales enablement can expedite onboarding for new salespeople

Sales enablement in your onboarding programs can get your reps effectively prepared to sell. Reps at winning orgs onboard their reps faster and get their sellers out into the field — and productive — much faster. 

Example: Personalized training to decrease ramp time

Each one of your salespeople is different. They all have varying skill levels and skill sets, and they come from different professional backgrounds. The idea behind sales enablement is to be able to personalize training based on the experience each rep already has and the skills they still need.

A sales enablement platform like Mindtickle automates your onboarding process from start to finish with personalized training based on each rep’s background and experience. It helps them build on the specific skills and knowledge they need to be successful without sitting through training that might be irrelevant to them.

Sales enablement can reduce sales rep turnover

Sales enablement can decrease rep turnover by keeping your salespeople engaged. Engaged employees feel more committed to the work they do and to the company they work for. On the other hand, disengaged employees often feel more burned out and end up costing you much more than engaged employees.

Sales enablement can help build a team of engaged sales reps by helping them develop their skills and navigate challenges as they arise and generally cultivating a positive seller environment – all factors that make them less likely to leave.

Example: Keep your reps engaged

Engaged salespeople are more optimistic, selfless, and team-oriented and show a passion for learning. One way to keep your sales reps engaged is by showing an interest in their career goals and helping them reach those goals.

For instance, if you have a sales rep who wants to become a sales manager, you can suggest resources, training, and content they can access to build their knowledge and skills.

automotive-enable-on-the-go-learning

Sales enablement keeps your potential customers informed

Sales enablement is also about properly communicating and educating your customers via helpful content and your well-prepared sales reps. Informed customers are more likely to make a purchase from you if your product aligns with their needs.

With effective sales enablement, you can proactively answer customers’ questions and acknowledge the challenges they experience every day.

Example: Create memorable experiences to keep customers in the sales funnel

To keep your customers engaged, create memorable experiences that keep them in your sales funnel. Personalize your communications to them, craft impactful messaging, and provide high-value content that meets them where they’re at in the funnel.

For example, if you’re writing content for people who are somewhere in the middle of your sales funnel, write blogs or emails to offer helpful advice and tips like “How to Use [Our Software] to Do [This] Task” or “X Reasons You Need [Our Software] to Boost Sales.”

This type of content addresses pain points and offers helpful solutions, which can help convince them that your product is the right one for them.

Refine your sales enablement by measuring sales effectiveness over time

We know what you’re probably thinking: “This is a lot.” 

It can be.

But one easy way to incorporate sales enablement into your company is to use a software tool specifically designed for that purpose. A sales enablement tool can capture, analyze, and score all buyer interactions, so you can measure how effective your sales tactics are.

Rather than trying to change the systems of multiple departments and processes, you’ll have one platform from which you can roll out the changes with minimal disruption.

Mindtickle’s suite of tools and processes can help your salespeople increase their knowledge, boost their performance, and feel confident going into every customer conversation.

Schedule a demo with us or learn more about how sales professionals use Mindtickle for effective sales enablement.

Sales Enablement in Mindtickle

Schedule a demo to learn more about how sales enablement pros at winning orgs use Mindtickle for effective sales enablement.

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This post was originally published in August 2022, updated in July 2023, and again in March 2024. 

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