Helen Waite, Author at Mindtickle

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.

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:

Sales
Marketing
Customer success
Customer support
Revenue operations

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.

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

faster profit growth when marketing and sales teams work together

0 %

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.

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

of what they learn within a week of training

0 %

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.

of orgs say inaccurate forecasts is their top challenge

0 %

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.

Request a Demo

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:

In-video questions

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

Role-plays and hands-on exercises

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.

Peer examples

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.

Gamification

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

without templates

with templates

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

0 %

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Get a Demo

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

How to Measure the Impact of Your Sales Training Program

Helen Waite on March 4, 2024

Sales leaders increasingly see the importance of investing more in their sales training programs.

But are they investing in the right things?

While the majority of organizations are investing in a sales enablement department (84%), only 40% of these C-level executives said they can identify rep strengths and weaknesses for customized training.

You should constantly evaluate your sales training program so you can make the most of your investments. Evaluating your sales training allows you to see what areas of training need more or less resource allocation, so you can improve performance and reach your goals.

Why do you need to measure your sales training impact?

The core question at the heart of sales training evaluation is: Did your results benefit the organization in some way? If your training is going to be impactful, it has to provide measurable ROI. Evaluating the impact can be done by measuring how much time was saved, how much money was made, and/or how many clients were gained as a result of your program.

Evaluating your sales training program enables you to:

Identify what the organization gained.
Determine the costs versus benefits of the gain.
Determine justification for continuing training.

If you’re not measuring and evaluating the results of your efforts, you won’t be able to see how well your sales training program is working. By creating a clear evaluation process — and a timeline for studying results — you can help everyone stay focused on the end goal.

Step 1. Set a goal & define metrics

Every sales training program should have a goal or desired outcome. Then you can use that goal to define the metrics that will measure progress toward that goal. For example, if your goal is to increase the number of new accounts opened by 20% over the next six months, then you’ll need to define what that looks like and how you’ll measure it.

First, define your goal. Most goals fall under one of three categories: time-related, quota-related, or revenue-related. Here are a few examples:

Time goals

Goals that deal with getting your sales team trained during a certain time frame. These include decreasing time to productivity or time to the first milestone.

Quota goals

Goals that focus on making sure your sales team meets their quota. For example, your goal might be to increase quota attainment by X% in the next year.

Revenue goals

Goals that focus specifically on increasing revenue over time. For example, your goal could be to increase sales revenue by X% in the next year.

Step 2. Establish sales training costs

To know if you’re getting a return on your training investments, keep a record of the costs associated with the program. The costs associated with your sales training program will be both indirect and direct. You have to consider not just the cost of what you spend directly on the training program but also the cost of time spent on training and time spent away from work.

The standard formula for calculating your training ROI is: ROI (percentage) = [(Monetary benefits – Training Costs)/Training Costs] x 100. ROI can also be measured in terms of decreased product cost or time.

Development costs

Salaries, benefits of personnel, technology, tools, and other equipment

Direct implementation costs

Sales onboarding costs, training material, technology costs, facilities, travel, communication and marketing of the program, instructor’s salary, and benefits

Compensation for participants

The salaries and benefits costs that will be dedicated to the time spent on training

Lost productivity during training

Cost of time spent away from work

Learning curve cost

Cost of time needed for your employees to adapt to new practices and ways of working after the training program

Change management costs

Cost of incentives (tangible and intangible) put into place to foster wanted behavior after training

Evaluating training costs can be challenging without having a system in place. Here are some areas to consider when building an all-inclusive training cost analysis framework:

Once you’ve established the full costs associated with the program, you can figure out the monetary benefits — the revenue your sales training has generated for your company — and calculate the ROI. For example, have there been significant sales increases after employees have gone through training or a noticeable boost in productivity? These are tangible areas that can be measured by looking at the before and after stats.

Step 3. Gather feedback from sales representatives

Feedback from your sales reps will be crucial to understand what is and isn’t working with the program. It’s important to make sure that the program you’ve put together for them is effective in helping them meet their individual goals and, therefore, helping the company meet its commercial goals.

Use quarterly surveys, anonymous feedback forms they can submit anytime, and one-on-one meetings with managers to find out how employees feel about the sales training program. Here are some example questions to ask to get the answers you need:

Are you able to easily apply what you’ve learned from the training program to your job?
Did you learn a new skill or enhance an existing one?
Do you believe the training program helps you bridge any gaps in your knowledge or skills?
Has the training program been effective in helping you meet your goals?

Use these open-ended questions to build a dialogue between sales reps and sales leadership.

It’s important to understand that not all feedback will be feedback that you implement. Your sales leaders will have to evaluate all feedback to decide whether or not to implement it. For example, some feedback may not improve the sales training program or won’t be feasible to implement.

Step 4: Continually assess results + implement feedback

Establish a cycle of assessing results using these steps and then implementing team feedback so that you can identify and improve areas of weakness in the sales training program.

Evaluating the program can help you identify problems in the sales training program that need to be fixed or components of the program that need more resources allocated. If the results show that your training program has weak areas, you can make a plan to identify specific bottlenecks or issues within the program.

Sales coaching report card in Mindtickle

Sales coaching timeline

Sales coaching in Mindtickle

For example, if you see that your training program isn’t helping your sales reps improve their win rate, that’s something that needs to be assessed. Maybe they need more sales coaching or skills training to increase their confidence. These are weak areas that an evaluation of your training program can uncover.

Make an ongoing plan to set aside time (e.g., every quarter or twice a year) to go over the training program and compare it to the goals you set for the program and the sales outcomes from that time period. Go through any feedback you’ve received from sales reps to identify areas where specific improvements could be made. For example, if several sales reps leave feedback about needing more resources for cold calling, you can easily add more resources to the program. This small change could have a big impact on your sales reps and their confidence in making calls and talking to customers, leading to more deals closed.

Effective sales training yields stronger sales enablement and productivity

By taking some time to evaluate your current sales training program, your team will be better prepared to meet their goals and achieve success. Regularly evaluated training is crucial if you want to create a winning sales team for the long term. It’s not enough to just hope that your staff will improve on their own. In order to prepare your sales reps to be ready to confidently sell your product, they need resources, knowledge, the right content, and coaching. Your sales training program has to provide that for them.

Mindtickle has a comprehensive suite of sales enablement and productivity tools to provide your sales team with a positive learning environment that engages them and sets them up to succeed. With Mindtickle, you can easily create sales training programs that reinforce knowledge quickly to improve your overall sales process.

Are you able to show the ROI of your efforts?

Learn how you can stand up effective sales training in Mindtickle that actually impacts revenue.

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This post was updated in August 2023 and again in March 2024.

What is Sales Effectiveness – and How Do You Improve Yours?

Helen Waite on February 28, 2024

Every revenue leader aspires to have an entire team of effective sellers. After all, effective sellers are well-equipped to engage with buyers, deliver value throughout the sales cycle, and close more deals.

But in many cases, sellers aren’t as effective as they could be. Often, it’s because they’re spending so little time interacting with buyers and closing deals. Salesforce research found that sales reps spend a mere 28% of their week selling.

Sales reps spend only

of their week selling

0 %

The rest of their time is spent completing time-consuming administrative work and toggling between the tools they’re expected to use to close deals.

Even when buyers are meeting with prospects, they aren’t always effective. Sometimes, they’re not spending time with the right prospects. Over 70% of sales reps believe 50% of the prospects they speak with aren’t a good fit for what they’re selling. Sales effectiveness can also fall short when sellers haven’t yet perfected the skills they need to be successful.

To grow revenue, leaders must make it a priority to boost sales effectiveness. But what exactly does that mean?

Read on to explore sales effectiveness, why it matters, and how you can measure it at your organization. We’ll also share some best practices you can use to increase your organization’s sales effectiveness (and revenue growth).

Sales effectiveness definition

Most sales leaders agree that sales effectiveness is important. But without a clear definition, it’s impossible to measure it. If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.

With that in mind, let’s start by answering the question, “What is sales effectiveness?”

At the most basic level, it refers to how well your sellers turn prospects into buyers. Throughout the typical purchase journey, a seller has multiple interactions with a potential buyer. Effectiveness gauges the seller’s ability to conquer each of these interactions. Of course, their ability to conquer these touchpoints depends on many factors, including the quality of training and coaching – and how (or whether) they put this training and coaching into practice to improve.

Sales effectiveness vs. sales efficiency

Oftentimes, “sales effectiveness” and “sales efficiency” are used interchangeably. While they’re certainly related, they’re not the same thing.

Sales efficiency is about what your team is doing. For example, you might measure how much time your sales team is spending on training.

On the other hand, sales efficiency is how your team is performing. Sales effectiveness considers how much your sales reps are actually getting out of their training – and whether they’re putting that learning into practice in the field.

It’s possible to have a team that’s efficient – but not effective. In other words, your sales reps may complete tasks quickly. However, that doesn’t mean they’re completing the right tasks to move deals forward.

How to measure sales effectiveness

There’s an old adage that you can’t improve what you don’t measure. This definitely rings true for sales effectiveness. If you’re not continuously measuring it, it’s impossible to identify areas for improvement.

But many aren’t sure how to measure sales effectiveness.

5 essential sales effectiveness metrics

There’s no single metric for gauging sales effectiveness. Instead, sales organizations must track myriad metrics to get an accurate picture of it.

The exact measurements vary from organization to organization. However, there are five key metrics for any organization.

Quota attainment

Quota attainment measures the percentage of your reps that are achieving quota. This metric is one of the most obvious ways to determine sales effectiveness.

Conversion rates

This is the percentage of prospects who ultimately end up purchasing your product or service.

Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

CAC is a measure of how much it costs the company to convert a prospect to a customer. This includes both the cost of sales and marketing, divided by the number of new customers acquired.

Sales cycle length

This is how quickly prospects progress through the sales cycle. Obviously, the shorter the sales cycle length, the faster money comes in. This is a metric you’ll want to compare to industry benchmarks. If your sales cycle length is significantly longer than industry average, there’s obviously something that needs to improve.

Average deal size

The average amount of money a business makes from closing a deal. A high average deal size can be an indicator that your sellers are effective at building relationships with customers.

Using KPIs to assess and improve sales performance

Sales effectiveness measures how your sales team is performing. As such, it’s important to focus on accessing your reps’ performance – and then taking data-based action to improve it.

Let’s take a look at some of the tools and techniques winning sales orgs are using to access and improve sales rep performance.

Sales dashboards and reporting

Improving your reps’ performance requires access to the right data. You can’t help them improve if you don’t know where they’re excelling and where they’re falling flat.

Most organizations have no shortage of data. But often, it lives in myriad locations. It’s important to ensure you have access to sales dashboards and reporting tools that make it easy to not only pull the right data – but also make sense of it so you can take action on it.

Sales call recording analysis

Sure, a sales rep may complete all training and enablement activities. But that doesn’t guarantee success. It’s important to understand whether the rep is actually using their newly acquired selling skills while in the field.

Conversation intelligence software records sales calls – and then analyzes those calls. This gives managers insight into what’s really happening in the field. That way, managers can provide training and coaching to improve the effectiveness of the rep – both on that deal and long term.

Quarterly rep feedback cycles

Ongoing feedback is essential to improving rep performance and boosting sales effectiveness. Managers should perform quarterly reviews for each rep. These reviews are a great opportunity to examine sales performance quarter-over-quarter. In addition, it’s an opportunity to discuss opportunities for improvement.

But remember: feedback should be ongoing. Don’t wait until these quarterly meetings to provide feedback.

Newer reps vs. experienced rep analysis

It’s important to measure overall sales effectiveness. But be sure to measure sales effectiveness on a variety of levels too.

One example is newer reps vs. experienced reps. Experienced reps likely have different strengths and weaknesses than newer ones. Measuring sales effectiveness based on tenure can shed light on opportunities for improvement specific to each group.

Sales enablement and sales training technology

Each rep has different strengths and weaknesses. Ongoing measurement helps you identify where sellers may need additional support to improve sales effectiveness.

Sales training, sales enablement, and sales coaching are all key to boosting seller performance. The sales effectiveness tools can help you identify the needs of each rep – and then deliver personalized sales training, sales enablement, and sales coaching to increase sales effectiveness.

Proven techniques for improving your sales effectiveness strategy

Improving sales effectiveness is a top goal of most sales organizations. But what can you do to boost this key metric?

Here are some foundational techniques to improve your sales effectiveness strategy.

Identify target markets and ideal customer profiles

Sometimes, a deal doesn’t move forward simply because the prospect isn’t the right fit for your products or services. It’s important to develop ideal customer profiles (ICPs), outlining the qualities of companies that are a good fit for your products and services. Be sure your sellers know these ICPs inside and out. Sellers should be spending the bulk of their time with prospects that align with these ICPs.

Provide personalized training and coaching

Sales training and coaching are key to building each seller’s competencies to succeed. But oftentimes, organizations deliver training and coaching that’s one-size-fits-all.

First, organizations must define the skills and competencies that are required to succeed in the field. Then, each rep should be measured against that ideal rep profile (IRP). Finally, personalized training and coaching can be delivered to strengthen those weaker skills – and boost sales effectiveness.

Improve sales and marketing collaboration

Typically, marketing teams create plenty of material for reps to use throughout the sales cycle. But often, these materials are created without input from the sales team. Marketing and sales teams must work together to identify what reps need throughout the sales cycle – and what actually helps move deals closer to the finish line. That way, marketing teams can focus on the content that’s proven to work. Sales and sales enablement teams can help ensure sellers know how and when to use these marketing-created materials.

Deliver continuous feedback

Feedback shouldn’t just come during a quarterly review. Instead, managers must make it a priority to deliver feedback on an ongoing basis. That way, their reps understand what they need to work on to improve sales outcomes.

Improving sales effectiveness with Mindtickle

Your sales reps might be efficient at “checking off the boxes.” But that doesn’t mean they are effective in the field. Increasing sales effectiveness must be a top priority for any organization looking to grow revenue.

It’s key to identify the competencies needed for success at your organization. Then, you must measure your reps against this gold standard to understand where additional support is needed.

With Mindtickle, you can shed light on where reps are excelling – and where they’re falling flat. Then, you can leverage the platform to deliver personalized, data-based sales training, coaching, and enablement to boost skills – and increase sales effectiveness.

Hypercharge sales effectiveness

See for yourself how Mindtickle can help you increase sales effectiveness at your organization.

Get Your Demo

This post was originally published in September 2023 and was updated in February 2024.

Video: How to Use CRM Data and Conversation Intelligence to Inform Your 2024 Enablement Plan

Helen Waite on February 20, 2024

Over the past few weeks, we’ve shared some tips on reducing the chaos in your tech stack. (You can check out Rahul’s video on accelerating bigger, faster deals with consolidation and Elisha’s tips for using your CRM, enablement analytics, and Call AI to inform better coaching.)

Today we’re sharing one of our most popular videos, which features Helen Waite from our product marketing team sharing ways for enablement professionals to streamline their tech stack and enhance their 2024 enablement plans.

Key takeaways:

During sales stage review:

Use CRM data to analyze conversion rates at different sales stages.
Identify specific stages to see where win rates may decline.
Leverage conversation intelligence tools to review calls from the identified stage.
Examine whether sales methodologies like MEDDPICC are consistently followed.
Take corrective actions, such as reinforcing training or coaching, to address weaknesses in specific stages.

For a product or service launch:

Evaluate revenue performance against goals for previous product or service launches.
Assess how reps messaged, used content, and addressed prospect concerns.
Refine content based on reps’ understanding, prospect engagement, and feedback for future launches.
Incorporate learnings into the plan for subsequent product or service launches in the coming year.

To help ramp time for new reps:

Look at your CRM to determine the time to first deal for new hires.
Assess coaching effectiveness and manager involvement for new reps in the field.
Conduct role-plays to prep new reps for real-world selling scenarios.
Implement a new hire survey to gather feedback on the onboarding process.
Use feedback to improve coaching strategies, enhance onboarding processes, and reduce ramp time.

Transcription

Hey there. I’m Helen Waite from the product marketing team here at Mindtickle. And today I will talk a little about how to reduce your tech stack chaos. And really how enablement professionals can use all the different tech they use in their day-to-day job to better inform their 2024 calendar enablement.

Professionals, just like sales reps, are juggling a ton of different tech just to get their job done. Sometimes this means we’re not always using all the insights data and reports from these different systems to best inform a cohesive strategy.

Today, I’ll cover three ways that our customers have shared that they’ve used specifically their CRM data, and their conversation intelligence data, to better inform their enablement calendar.

As we’re getting into planning season, think of these three tips and how they can help you. First, we’ll look at a sales stage review. How CI and CRM data can play into looking at the individual stages your reps go through and how they perform in each stage? Then we’ll look into how to use this data to inform a product or service launch you may have coming up next year. And finally, we’ll look at ramp time. If you have new reps coming on board next year, how can you use learnings from this year to inform that plan? So let’s get into it.

The first tip is around a sales stage review.

A customer came to us who saw a massive spike in a decrease in their win rates at a certain sales stage, the discovery stage. How can they use the data points they have from their CRM and conversation intelligence to better attack this sales stage for the coming year? So in this scenario, the report you’re going to use will come from your CRM, and that’s your conversion rates by sales stage.

In this example, this customer saw this discovery stage was declining in their win rates; their win rates weren’t good and discovery, so the enablement team wanted to look into why that was. You’ll take action to review calls from the discovery stage of those reps to look at what’s happening in these discovery calls. And what’s the action that you’re going to take?

In this case, you can look at sales methodology. Is the methodology that you’ve implemented, maybe it’s MEDDPIC being followed? Or are there certain stages in discovery where MEDPICC is not being adhered to? You can look at the types of questions that your reps are asking or the content that they’re sharing in this stage, what is being evaluated across several different calls, and then take those findings and make sure that’s implemented in our 2024 plan, that could be in the form of reinforcement.

If a certain stage has declining win rates, you may need to focus on reinforcing training around that stage; what are your best practices that reps, or BDR, is depending on the stage you should be doing? And then also look at how role plays or coaching can play a hand in reinforcing this sales stage performance. By doing these call reviews, looking at if there’s a certain sales stage where you’re losing more than you were before, how can you find similarities across these calls and implement this as part of your plan for next year?

Our second tip is around a product or service launch.

In the next year, if you are launching a new product or service, take learnings from the previous year; how you’ll do that is looking at a report for a new product or service launch, what the revenue you made on that launch was versus your goal.

Maybe you launched a new service into the market and you’re looking at how you achieved how you performed on that launch versus your goal. Maybe you didn’t quite reach that revenue goal for that new product or service, and you want to reinforce that going into the new year. Maybe you have an additional product or service launch where you want to take learnings from that initial one last year.

Look at your revenue versus goal. The action you will take is digging into each of the calls where this product or service was pitched. So you can do this in conversation intelligence tools by easily searching the product name you’re looking for. You can drill down into the calls where this was discussed. To analyze what happened in those calls, what content was used or not used? How was the rep landing the messaging for this product or service launch? Was it aligned with what marketing or product marketing put together? Were they using the content correctly? Did the prospect understand the new product or service? Did it fit with their use case or help them solve a problem for them?

And then your action, how this will inform your plan for next year, is any launch plan adjustments, maybe there was some content missing that the rep didn’t have, to speak to this product or service?

Maybe there’s team-specific enablement where your reps were able to nail the messaging for this product. But when it comes to implementation, things fell short of what the customer expected. Or maybe the implementation wasn’t as smooth as possible. That could be something that you want to focus on for next year. And then, finally, content refinement. How was the content that you had for this new product or service? Did the reps understand it? Did they use it? Did prospects engage with it? Are there learnings from prospect reactions to further pass on to marketing or product marketing for next year?

Finally, ramp time evaluation. So if you have new reps coming on board, you are always looking at that time to first deal for new hires. How long is it taking for them to get revenue in the door? That’s the report you’ll look at in CRM. And then the action you’ll take is looking at these new reps when they’re in the field. How are they being coached? Is this an opportunity to coach the coach where their managers weren’t as present, or do they need more feedback and guidance from their managers? Maybe their managers need a little help on how best to coach new hires coming in.

You can also look at role plays. So preparing them for the field by doing several simulations that prepare them for real-world selling scenarios. And finally, doing a new hire survey. What is the feedback from new hires on their onboarding process? What do they think could be improved? Make sure all of that is incorporated into your plan for next year.

Those three tips can help you use your CRM data in your conversation intelligence data to help inform your 2024 enablement plan. For more actions and insights into how you can help plan and use all of your different tech and reduce some of that tech stack chaos, scan the QR code here to get more tips from our team. Thanks so much.

Tech Consolidation in Mindtickle

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The 6 Best Sales Enablement Tools of 2024

Helen Waite on February 15, 2024

Only 43% of salespeople reach their quota. On top of that, without the proper tools, it’s hard to tell what problems make them miss their quota. But with sales enablement tools, you can understand the attitudes, content, and skills that help your sales reps reach their objectives.

With features like personalized skill development and user analytics, sales teams can improve closing rates, strengthen communication skills, sales coaching, and provide insights to enhance sales cycles.

What to look for in a sales enablement tool

Sales enablement tools help teams understand the health of a sales cycle, spot weaknesses, and manage content that reduces a company’s risk of falling behind its goals by 27%.

Ease of use

Understanding analytics and finding material should be easy. And, as sales reps are always on the go, opt for cloud-based and mobile-friendly tools that are always accessible.

Analytics and data

You should be able to extract insights to perform better and points to improve on for future sales.

CRM integration

Merge contact information with the sales cycle so sales reps can personalize the right content and approach for each contact, depending on previous sales history.

Centralized material management

Content distribution and storage is important for fast and accessible material. It is also important to track data to show which content performs the best depending on the user profile.

Growth and development

Insights on sales rep performance can spot weaknesses and strengths. These data points capture roadblocks in the sales process, and you can offer sales rep coaching and training when needed.

The following list goes over the best sales enablement tools of 2024. Each platform has strong features that offer support for your sales team.

Mindtickle

Mindtickle is a market-leading sales enablement platform that helps revenue leaders boost sales through analytics, skill development, and content management. The platform has proven to increase sales rep revenue by 64%.

Benefits of Mindtickle

The biggest benefit of Mindtickle is the integrated platform of sales enablement insights, content management, conversation intelligence, coaching, and training.

Here’s why.

The platform records each interaction with customers, the content used, and the sales courses that the sales rep has completed. Not only that, but Mindtickle also compares every sales rep’s behavior and tone through recorded calls and emails to find the winning strategy and improve its sales recommendations.

With all this data, Mindtickle gives a full understanding of weaknesses in the sales pipeline and what skills a sales rep should learn to improve their sales rate.

In turn, the continuous development of sales reps increases win rates whilst simultaneously improving sales strategy and learning pitches for future suggestions to other sales reps.

Lastly, Mindtickle sales training differentiates itself by using gamification and video to tap into personal motivation and encourage employees to develop their skills. The platform uses engagement tactics like quizzes and role plays to ensure learned skills are applied to everyday tasks.

This is especially helpful for new hires and developing managers. In fact, Mindtickle was able to cut Janssen India’s onboarding ramp time in half.

Features

Analyzes account interactions and sales rep negotiations to identify winning behavior.
Centralized content management accesses situation training, tools, and marketing content and provides insights on when and how to use each piece of content to suit the customer target.
AI engines give feedback on tone, keywords, and pace of conversations. Then, the conversation insights are used to create training programs and personal coaching.
AI-recommended next steps and deal risks are identified with health scores, calls, and email sentiments.
Predictive revenue models use real-world pipeline data to suggest training with role-plays and recommended content.
Integrates with CRMs, APIs, calendars, and most platforms to centralize the sales stack. This avoids lost information and reduces scheduling, account notes, and communication time.
Mobile experience for sales reps on the go.

Price

Schedule a demo to learn about Mindtickle’s offer and experience a personalized walkthrough of the platform.

Final thoughts

Mindtickle was ranked the highest-rated sales enablement platform by G2. The platform’s ability to translate sales rep performance into insights helps teams improve and integrate new skills in a way that is evident in their future sales interactions.

Additionally, the app has the best adoption and is rated the easiest to use by G2.

G2 rating: 4.7

Seismic

Seismic equips sales teams with training and content to close deals. The biggest differentiator is the ability to pull data from CRMs and create personalized charts, presentations, and other sales material automatically.

Benefits

Seismic can personalize the buyer experience with customizable dashboards that give detailed buyer insight and recommend actions. The platform pulls data and content performance insights from CRM data.

It gives sellers ownership over the sales materials with centralized content management, where reps customize materials to add personalization to their deals.

Features

Content management for teams to create, organize, control, and take ownership over content.
Automate and personalize content with data integrations to deliver a customized workflow.
Learning and coaching courses to onboard and improve sales skills.
Integrates with all types of platforms, from analytics to CRM.

Price

Prices are unavailable.

Final thoughts

Seismic is helpful for teams looking to automate and customize their sales materials. And Seismic’s strong analytics helps sales reps improve their sales and onboarding.

G2 rating: 4.4

Highspot

Highspot focuses on coaching and measures seller behavior to give recommendations that improve sales.

Benefits

Highspot aligns sales templates with selling scenarios to suggest the appropriate approach. The training portal helps sellers follow role-specific courses to improve knowledge retention by engaging in virtual selling activities.

Highspot integrates with social media platforms to directly pitch to customers through their network.

Features

Content management stores personalized content and uses AI management to highlight resources relevant to existing workflows.
Integrates with over 100 platforms.
Reps have access to sales templates that are industry best practices.
Analytics on content usage, sales performance, and interactive data reports to pinpoint content performance.
Personalization of landing pages, emails, and micro-portals.
Sales performance using scoreboards and customer scenarios.

Price

Prices are unavailable.

Final thoughts

Highspot provides industry context recommendations which are helpful for teams learning different industries that need fast adaptation. ROI pinpoints successful content in the pipeline, which is helpful for companies who require high buyer engagement to invest in products.

However, Highspot doesn’t offer call monitoring and feedback.

G2 rating: 4.7

Showpad

Showpad improves B2B selling by giving reps guided experiences for each scenario. It has two main solutions that can be used separately or together. Showpad Coach is for sales training and coaching. Showpad Content is for content creation and distribution.

Benefits

For companies with many different industries and target audiences, Showpad’s sales plays help reps with new client relationships. Reps are given seller information, industry insights, and opportunities for upselling or cross-selling.

And to ensure each team member is working towards better selling behavior, Showpad uses quizzes and tests to identify any skill gaps for training.

Features

Tracks buyer interest to recommend which customers to invest time in.
Analytics to gather top performance and replicate behavior.
Content management identifies opportunities for cross-selling and recommends next steps.
Powerful integrations and collaboration features for content creation and management.
Sales forecast predictability.
Videos embedded for personal workflows.

Price

Prices are unavailable.

Final thoughts

Showpad continuously trains employees and has analytics to understand skill gaps. Its content management stores and distributes selling content easily. Although Showpad does identify winning sales behavior, it doesn’t offer an ideal rep profile for selling behavior reference.

G2 rating: 4.6

Allego

Allego’s platform is comprehensive with analytics, skill training, conversation monitoring, and content management. The differentiation comes with using video for learning and communication.

Benefits

Allego records pitches and asynchronous communication, and course creation are easy with content tools that publish new lessons onto the platform.

Analytics monitors conversations, gives sellers feedback, and gives written suggestions when reps feel stuck in customer interactions.

Features

Accessible content management and analytics show ROI, instructions, and peer examples.
AI-powered coaches recommend next steps and courses.
Conversation intelligence to improve the conversation.
Pre-board new hires with onboarding channels and virtually show good examples.
Insights on calls and deals to identify weaknesses in pipelines.
Score sales readiness to assess the probability of sales closing rates.

Price

Not available

Final thoughts

Allego has extensive AI-powered metrics for sales readiness, sales content, and courses. Although Allego analyzes words spoken, it doesn’t provide feedback on tone or presentation to improve sellers’ communication skills.

G2 rating: 4.6

Gong

Gong captures customer interactions and analyzes salesperson behavior for communication risks and improvement opportunities.

Benefits

The benefit of Gong is the amount of analysis and reports given to coaches from sales rep interactions.

Front-line managers receive insights on sales reps for improvement, but successful sales cycles record talk tracks so the next sales rep knows exactly what to say to close a deal.

And for busy sales reps, Gong ensures no actions are missed with real-time alerts when actions are required.

Features

Shares top-performing salespeople strategies.
Identifies weaknesses in sales rep interactions and provides insight for improvement.
Helps strategize buyer path from other successful reps.
Comprehensive integrations with every type of platform.
Centralizes the content for revenue teams to work together and collaborate on accounts.

Price

Not available.

Final thoughts

Gong’s platform transforms each interaction into insights. However, there’s little onboarding and educational training for sales reps to work and develop their skill set. And Gong doesn’t offer video role plays or practice situations to reinforce learned behaviors.

G2 rating: 4.7

Whatever you choose, your sales enablement tool should scale as your company grows

Your sales enablement tool choice should complement your team’s needs. As your company grows, your choice of sales enablement platform must scale with you. So it’s important to look for a solution that gives support to growing roles and content libraries.

When companies grow, their products and offers expand. It’s important to ensure your sales team feels supported with the tools to navigate growth and new clientele without losing the brand’s guidelines and company objectives. That’s why clear content management and analytics help sales teams keep content that performs and organize material that drives revenue.

And this can come in the form of courses and knowledge tests to onboard new hires into the company with clear expectations and ideal rep behavior. The insights from winning sales rep behavior ramp up the onboarding process and empower hires with knowledge and traits to reach their quota.

Mindtickle supports your team with its content management system, sales readiness, analytics, and courses to provide support and direction for your team to grow.

Sales Enablement in Mindtickle

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This post was originally published in September 2022 and updated in February 2024.

The Ultimate Guide to Building a Sales Enablement Strategy

Helen Waite on January 10, 2024

When sales enablement is done well, we know it gets results. Research shows that orgs with sales enablement achieve a 49% win rate on forecasted deals, compared to 42.5% for those without.

Win rates for orgs

with sales enablement

0 %

without sales enablement

0 %

But there’s still a disconnect.

According to CSO Insights, only 27.5% of stakeholders feel that sales enablement initiatives meet or exceed their expectations

A well-designed sales enablement strategy can provide the necessary tools, resources, and support to empower sales teams and drive revenue growth.

In this guide, we will explore:

What sales enablement is
Why it is important
How to implement a sales enablement strategy
Best practices to consider
How to find the best sales enablement platform

What is sales enablement?

Sales enablement is the training, tools, and resources provided to sales reps to help them successfully close more deals. The goal of sales enablement is to equip salespeople to be indispensable consultants to their buyers, build long-term customer loyalty, and drive profits for the organization as a whole.

With an effective sales enablement program, reps are better equipped to provide their customers with valuable information and offer insight that guides buyers into optimal purchasing decisions. Salespeople, therefore, become trustworthy resources that buyers rely on for the long haul.

Why is a sales enablement strategy important?

With a clearly defined sales enablement strategy, sales enablement practitioners can continually drive revenue and achieve key business objectives like quota attainment.

A sales enablement strategy encompasses a range of tactics and initiatives aimed at empowering sales teams with the necessary tools, knowledge, and support to drive success.

The importance of a sales enablement strategy lies in its ability to address common obstacles faced by sales teams, streamline processes, and maximize the potential of every salesperson. By aligning marketing and sales efforts, optimizing training and development, and providing the right resources, a sales enablement strategy can have a profound impact on an organization’s bottom line. Here are just a few hard-to-ignore benefits of sales enablement:

#1 Onboard new salespeople faster

Sales enablement is critical for organizations to onboard new salespeople faster, ensuring they are equipped with the knowledge and skills to contribute quickly. In fact, our 2022-2023 Sales Enablement Outlook Report found that almost a quarter (23%) of C-level sales executives said onboarding was a top priority in 2023. By reducing ramp-up time, organizations can accelerate the time it takes for new hires to become productive members of the sales team, resulting in increased revenue generation.

#2 Enable salespeople to spend more time selling

Almost 65 percent of a salesperson’s time is spent on tasks that don’t generate profits, such as administrative work or data entry. Effective sales enablement programs help an organization identify processes that waste time so reps can be more efficient and profitable. Some sales enablement technology can also automate CRM data entry and other repetitive, manual processes so reps can spend more time selling.

#3 Help retain sales talent and boost revenue

Sales enablement ensures that salespeople have the support and resources they need to succeed. This not only increases job satisfaction and reduces turnover but also helps drive revenue growth by equipping sales teams with the necessary skills and knowledge to close deals. Enablement driving more revenue means more sellers are meeting or exceeding their quota. In addition, an enablement strategy that encompasses sales coaching ensures a more positive relationship between sales reps and their managers, also reducing churn and turnover.

#4 Effectively meet next year’s increased quotas

An organization’s plans to increase sales quotas can be a stress point for sales managers. While most of the top salespeople will be ready for the higher requirements, many of the C- and B-players will need to be coached up to prepare. Sales enablement mitigates this challenge by using bespoke training processes that shorten sales cycles and boost sales rep performance.

#5 Maintain a long-term strategy in seasons of high growth

As the business grows, organizations experience new customer expectations, unexpected employee challenges, and other growing pains. When company leadership gets caught up in these urgencies, they’re usually focused on the here and now rather than long-term strategies and future growth. This approach, albeit understandable, leads to unpreparedness over time.

Effective sales enablement programs help organizations conduct effective sales training and coaching to prepare reps for future growth even while other priorities dominate leadership’s attention.

Naturally, all of these benefits work to achieve the most important goal of any sales team: driving revenue. Sales enablement empowers reps to become more knowledgeable, maximally efficient, and capable of building profitable client loyalty that the competition can’t match.

How to implement a sales enablement strategy

Because every organization is different, there isn’t just “one right way” to implement a sales enablement program. There are, however, a few important pillars to keep in mind. Here are a few non-negotiables:

Establish leadership

The first step to creating your sales enablement process is to establish your sales enablement manager. This person will be responsible for unifying marketing and sales and overseeing the entire process, so the person should be a great fit for both areas and have the buy-in of executive leadership.

Align your teams

For a sales enablement process to succeed, your organization will need an environment of alignment and unification. No more silos, anywhere! The unification process might be one of the first tasks of the sales enablement manager.

First, the executive team must be aligned and supportive of the organization’s sales enablement mission. Next, all employees in the organization, especially marketing and sales, need to understand the role of enablement and how marketing and sales interact and support the enablement function. Some common frameworks, like RACI, can be really helpful here when outlining all of the priorities for enablement and how other teams will work together to achieve shared goals.

Train

In collaboration with marketing, start developing your onboarding materials and an everboarding strategy. If there is onboarding already in place, interview newly onboarded reps on their experience and measure key indicators like time to first deal and time to fully ramped quota. Use this information to determine changes in your onboarding approach. Use best practices in enablement like making training engaging, using many modalities of instructor-led, bite-sized microlearning, and knowledge tests.

You’ll also want a sales coaching system in place for ongoing encouragement and development. This will require a strong partnership and buy-in from your sales management to implement. Check out our resources on implementing a coaching culture.

Equip

Next, equip reps with content and vital field resources that will help them effectively sell and provide value. These can include white papers, data sheets, sell sheets, product videos, and playbooks that outline effective next steps and milestones. An effective sales content management system can ensure your content is available to reps anytime, the content is up to date, and can be tracked as they share collateral with prospects.

Also, offer in-depth information about buyers and buyer personas so your team can effectively maintain long-lasting buyer relationships. This can include persona deep-dives, common pain points, industry knowledge, and use cases that solve persona challenges.

Monitor and provide feedback

Now that you have the key pillars of your sales enablement strategy in place, ensure you have open channels for feedback from all stakeholders. This includes your reps, like issuing surveys and conducting interviews to gain insight into their experience going through onboarding and ongoing enablement. Meet regularly with your sales leaders and sales managers to stay apprised of challenges their teams are facing and how enablement can be nimble and release targeted programs to resolve these. Finally, attend weekly pipeline and forecasting meetings with your CRO or CSO to know how deals and teams are progressing, where gaps are related to deal stages or competitive hardships, and how enablement can be leveraged to accelerate and close more deals.

Sales enablement best practices

With a solid sales enablement foundation in place, you can now build on it. These best practices will help boost the effectiveness of any sales enablement program.

Align sales enablement with sales operations

Just as the sales team should be aligned with the marketing department, sales enablement should be aligned with sales operations. The role of sales ops is to ensure that the sales organization is functioning efficiently. A sales enablement program should therefore be built and maintained with sales-ops in mind.

Sales enablement should glean from the data that sales ops uncovers. For example, sales ops might reveal certain stages in the sales cycle that are falling flat. When problems are flagged by sales-ops, sales enablement can roll up its sleeves and determine the best fixes.

Make sure reps know about new content, and make it easy to find

Staggeringly, up to 80 percent of content created by marketing goes unused by sales teams. Much of the reason for this low usage stems from a lack of marketing-sales alignment. But another simpler reason is that reps either can’t find the content they need or they don’t even know a certain piece exists.

Incorporate microlearning

Lengthy course work is difficult to remember and frustrating to reps. Microlearning removes the frustration by presenting content in short, easy-to-consume training modules. Short and engaging learning sessions improve memory retention, reduce learner fatigue, and make training enjoyable. Microlearning modules are also easy to update and less expensive than traditional training formats.

Go beyond sales enablement

Your sellers are just one piece of the revenue puzzle. Ensure your enablement extends beyond sales, to other revenue-generating roles such as:

Customer success
Presales
Sales engineers
Business development representatives
Marketing

This is becoming more popular in terms of revenue enablement. Some enablement departments even break their team members up to focus on enabling certain roles. If you are able to grow or restructure your enablement team, consider focusing resources on the additional revenue-generating roles outside of sales.

How to find a sales enablement platform and what to look for

When researching sales enablement platforms, begin with a list of must-have features based on your needs and nice-to-have features. Consider some of these table stakes capabilities when creating this list.

Learning and testing

Trainers should be able to create engaging micro-learning modules and update them as needed. The modules should be mobile-friendly so reps can access them anytime and from anywhere. Automated training paths are a must for ensuring each team member is progressing in his or her specific role. Also, look for gamification capabilities that provide scoring, badges, and leaderboards for healthy team competition.

Skill certification

Look for a platform that provides sales certifications to help reps and managers track progress. If you can accurately gauge whether or not reps have acquired the intended knowledge and identify any gaps, you’ll be confident every time a rep comes face-to-face with a client.

Sales content management

Streamlining your sales and training content in a singular enablement platform is key. You want to ensure you can easily store and manage sales collateral, making it filterable and easy for sales reps to find in the moment. A huge plus in a sales content management platform is the ability for reps to share content with prospects and customers and track their engagement. We also suggest a content management provider that also has digital sales rooms for tailored buyer enablement.

Sales coaching

You’ll want to find a sales enablement platform that enables you to incorporate a structured coaching program. Coaching paths should be guided by competency maps, and your coaches should be able to assign new training and micro-learning modules based on the results of the coaching. In addition, knowledge retention for a range of topics including products, services, and industry trends is critical for sales representatives to have educated, direct conversations with customers and prospects. In addition, the ability to deliver role-plays (including video-based and screenshare) and get immediate AI-powered feedback on role-plays are critical for skill development.

SKO and events

Sales Kickoff and events are intended to make a lasting impact on sales reps’ motivation and readiness. You’ll ensure time and money are well spent by leveraging the technology that a great sales enablement tool can offer. Find a platform that can collect, measure, and analyze feedback during every step of your SKO or event to determine what worked, what could be improved, and whether or not your desired objectives have been met. Even more, your platform should allow reps instant access to videos and presentations shown during the event, which will encourage teams to continue their engagement.

Integrations

Look for a platform that provides the ability to integrate with CRMs, business intelligence tools, content management systems, and communication tools. This will provide a seamless and efficient sales enablement ecosystem.

Analytics

There are table-stakes analytics and reporting that should be available like engagement, adoption, and performance on enablement programs. Also, seek platforms that can report on the impact enablement is having on business outcomes like quota attainment, win rates, and increase revenue. Bonus points for being able to import data into Business Intelligence tools for even deeper analyses.

Getting started with your sales enablement strategy

Now that you’ve learned the importance of enablement, how to structure a strategy, and how to implement that strategy it’s time to start driving revenue for your organization.

Sales Enablement in Mindtickle

Request a demo to learn more about how the Mindtickle data-driven sales enablement platform can help your sales teams close more deals.

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This post was originally published in January 2020, updated in June 2023, and again in January 2024.

How to Create a Sales Certification Program That Actually Build Sales Competencies

Helen Waite on November 2, 2023

You wouldn’t put a pilot in a cockpit without ensuring they’d passed the simulator first, right?

It’s the same idea behind sales certifications. It’s your way to measure whether a new hire is ready for actual sales — how much knowledge they retained, where the gaps are, and what they’ll be able to utilize when face-to-face with a customer. Sales certification or sales training programs include knowledge-based assessments and simulations to answer all those questions and more. All you have to do is determine which key skills a sales rep must demonstrate to pass.

Here’s what to know about sales rep certification, how it works, and what sales training programs should look like.

Defining sales certification

Sales certification is proof that a rep has completed assessments, exercises, or tests to demonstrate specific knowledge and skills. Certification can begin as early as onboarding, where reps learn what and how to sell and are ready for coaching; however, sales training certification programs can occur at all levels and take different forms depending on your goals.

Of course, there’s more to sales certification than just passing or failing. Sales reps should be able to demonstrate their knowledge and skills and how these meet customers’ business needs. Essentially, it’s important to set a standard of achievement.

What is a sales certification program?

Sales certification or sales training programs are the systems through which you deliver educational material and experiences. They can include courses, learning modules, role-plays, assessments, and more. Our research found that most sales certifications are completed in January and March.

January and March

Months when most certifications programs are completed

Good sales representative certification programs should provide visibility into every step of the learning process, allowing trainers to track progress, identify gaps in the material, and connect educational outcomes to future sales performance.

Sales training certification programs can be as basic or specific as necessary. You can choose the best training topics based on existing knowledge gaps, common questions during the onboarding process, and any relevant goals.

How to create a sales certification program for your sales reps

When you know what you want to assess, you need to design a sales certification program (or choose a premade option) that achieves your objectives.

Firstly, you need to set up an effective review process. No matter what assessment or sales certification training program you choose, a real person should review most exercises. That’s how you can determine whether the rep has “passed” and achieved their certification. This is also a great opportunity to learn more about your reps’ selling styles, habits and coaching needs — not to mention the effectiveness of your learning material.

Along the way, keep in mind that you’ll need to connect your learning objectives with business and revenue outcomes. That often means collaborating with leadership on multiple levels and going beyond the sales department to get the big picture. On top of that, you’ll need to balance the pacing of your sales training program; self-paced is often best, but you still need to be careful to avoid “information overload” — especially during onboarding.

As learners progress through your program, check in to evaluate engagement, readiness and confidence levels. If you notice your content isn’t “clicking” for new hires or existing reps, consider restructuring your approach so topics more gradually build on one another — and remember to utilize roleplaying to let sales reps cement their new skills and take a break from book learning.

You should also think about what happens after sales training. Once a rep has passed, remember they’ll need to hone their skills through:

Feedback sessions
Shadowing senior reps
Listening in on calls
Developing confidence and capability through face-to-face coaching

Noting all of these things is key to creating an effective sales certification program for your reps. When you know where you’re going, it’s much easier to create a path — or in this case, a program — to get you there.

Here are three different training approaches and how to leverage them:

Knowledge assessment

This assessment is focused on sales rep knowledge — what they’ve retained and understood — and how they apply it in the context of customer needs. Tests and quizzes are a common choice but roleplays can be particularly useful.

Knowledge assessments should include a range of materials and test structures to more accurately gauge different aspects of the training. For example, Mindtickle’s sales training software has eight quiz types — from multiple choice to label matching — that can all be performed using our online platform. The platform calculates whether the rep passes this section and is ready for the next level of certification.

There are two ways to structure these assessments:

Closed book

Participants don’t have access to any resources, notes or supporting material. This is purely a test of what they’ve retained and how well they adopted key concepts or skills.

Realistic

Participants have access to the sales enablement or support content they would utilize in a real scenario. This more closely simulates the job environment, where sellers have access to specific resources but have limited time to act.

Simulation missions

These “missions” are a dry run of the sales process and the associated techniques. For example, to test the rep’s ability to articulate your company’s value proposition, you could have them record their sales pitch. This video can be used to:

Help the rep get a more objective view of how they performed.
Inform trainers and coaches on knowledge gaps or problem areas.
Test the rep’s ability to respond to unfamiliar questions, situations, and objections.

To get even more out of these missions, create a library of sales pitches from all new hires. This library isn’t just a training tool; it’s also a way to gamify your sales training programs by using crowd voting to highlight pitching styles, share ideas, and get the whole sales team engaged.

Dummy leads

Another great exercise to test a sales rep’s understanding is to have them actually run through the sales process using “dummy leads.” This allows you to give out leads depending on what you need to assess; for example, one dummy lead might be a tough sell, making it a great way to test sales reps on their ability to position your value proposition.

Through this assessment process, sales reps can:

Identify and track leads.
Do background research on leads.
Populate the CRM.
Demonstrate knowledge of your systems and processes.

Better yet, the dummy lead approach can connect with a simulation mission for an even more in-depth process. This helps leaders, managers, and trainers know whether reps can juggle the right things when working with real leads.

Benefits of a sales certification program

Sales training certification programs aren’t just a great way to hone key skills, improve sales readiness and close more deals. They also have significant benefits for your teams, including:

Increased morale

Passing a training program gives reps the confidence and engagement they need to better connect with their roles.

Better visibility

Training courses provide vital performance information and can help address issues before they arise.

Boosted productivity

When reps know more about processes and tools, they spend less time asking questions or fixing mistakes.

Case studies

Want to see how four companies revamped their sales certifications and saw real benefits thanks to Mindtickle sales training programs? Here’s a quick look:

Introhive

Improved onboarding and used gamification, roleplays, and microlearning to grow certifications by 100% and shorten sales cycles. Read the full case study here.

Trimble Viewpoint

Used analytics-driven enablement dashboards to reduce ramp time from 69 days to 52 days. Read the full case study here.

Integrace Health

everaged manager dashboards and certification programs to win up to 82% sales rep approval ratings and reduce onboarding times from 22 to five days. Read the full case study here.

MongoDB

Implemented a 30-60-90 day onboarding program to reduce ramp time by 45%. Read the full case study here.

Plus, check out this case study from Wiley Publishing:

Get sales-ready with the right training programs

The right sales certification program can take your new hires from good to great. This is your chance to start them off on the right foot — not just for their own sake, but for the rest of their team, the company overall, and even the customers they’ll someday serve. Don’t forget that sales training certification programs benefit leaders and coaches with rich insights and valuable data, too.

Scale your sales certifications

Take your sellers' skills to the next level by building out your sales certification program in Mindtickle.

Get a Demo

This post was originally published in February 2016, updated in April 2023, and again in November 2023.

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About Mindtickle

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

What is sales enablement?

What is revenue enablement?

How goals and audiences differ

How each practice measures success

Revenue enablement vs. sales enablement: Who owns each function

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

How does revenue enablement work?

Mapping the customer journey

Building enablement programs for all customer-facing roles

Measuring the impact of revenue enablement

Finding the right sales enablement tools

Who owns revenue enablement?

Why revenue enablement is the right approach for your business

Customer experience drives behavior

Customer experience is a team sport

Take your revenue enablement to the next level with Mindtickle

Revenue Enablement with Mindtickle

What is a revenue enablement platform?

Revenue enablement, defined

Revenue enablement platforms, defined

How a revenue enablement platform can boost your business results

Better sales content management

Personalized training and coaching for reps

Streamlined analytics and reporting

Better alignment of customer-facing teams

Businesses can see

More accurate sales forecasting

Improved revenue operations

8 Must-have features of a revenue enablement platform

#1 Sales content management

#2 Sales onboarding

#3 Continuous learning

#4 Engaging reinforcement and practice opportunities

B2B sales reps forget

#5 Sales coaching

#6 Sales call recording and analysis

#7 Revenue intelligence

#8 Robust data, analytics, and dashboards

The best revenue enablement platforms

Mindtickle

Seismic

Allego

Highspot

Take your revenue enablement to the next level with Mindtickle

Revenue Enablement with Mindtickle

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

7 tips for creating a high-impact sales enablement program

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

#2 Combines training and content side by side

#3 Make the program interactive

#4 Create built-in certifications

#5 Individualized to sellers’ needs

#6 Use program templates

Days to launch a program

#7 Leverage industry expertise and pre-made program content

Create a high-impact sales enablement program with Mindtickle

Sales Enablement in Mindtickle

In 2023, only

Key takeaways

Sales enablement supports overall seller productivity

Example: Skill and knowledge gaps

Sales enablement provides an accessible knowledge base

Example: One source of truth

Sales enablement promotes ongoing sales training

Example: Stopping skill erosion

Sales enablement helps your managers create a coaching culture

Example: First-time manager training

Sales enablement removes silos between sales and marketing

Example: Content creation

Sales enablement can expedite onboarding for new salespeople

Example: Personalized training to decrease ramp time