In a recent Forbes article, VP of Enablement Excellence and Innovation Pat Lynch touched on a few different strategies that contribute to being successful when organizing sales enablement programs.

In the post, he explains how success consists of laying a solid foundation of commitment and communication, delivering powerful content and building up processes that are measurable so that the data can reinforce the methodologies.

It’s not back to the basics, but forward to the facts, so we can give salespeople the help they need to win.
Establishing and maintaining strong communication

As a rule of thumb, it’s essential to communicate strong, visible executive support. Visible support means that leadership is communicating the importance of the initiative from the top down, looking at the metrics and following up. At the end of the day, reps are going to focus on what helps them to close business. Show them how it works, and demonstrate that you’re dedicated to their success.
Curating meaningful content

All of your content — sales assets, videos, gamification modules — must be aligned with strategic initiatives for the business and must directly impact success in the field.

The right content at the right time can go a long way toward driving revenue in a more direct way than traditional approaches, such as relationship building.
Minding the metrics

To win more deals, you need solid information about the impact of your sales enablement program.

With the learning platforms and data available today, front-line sales managers can start to correlate learning outcomes with performance outcomes.

For a bigger picture of Pat’s advice,

check out his Forbes article here.

While the ever-changing tech world urges us to have tunnel vision on the numbers associated with sales, what often is not so obvious is the value of cultivating genuine relationships with clients throughout the sales process. While it’s easy to single-mindedly charge towards quarterly goals, outstanding salespeople develop sales rep skills that can make their performance consistently effective over the long haul.

1. Embrace sales storytelling

There are hundreds of ways to deliver a value proposition to potential clients – but what unites them all is the fact that at the end of the day, you’re weaving together a narrative about your product or service. Any salesperson can go through a list of benefits and features, but putting them together into something that’s relatable through sales storytelling makes selling far more effective.

In other words, sell your story – not your features.

This is important for a few reasons. Mostly, it’s important to remember that most people learn through storytelling because they can establish their own connection to the topic at hand. Here are three steps that can help you develop your storytelling skills:

• Articulate the potential. Describe where the opportunity lies for your prospect and address how they will benefit from the onset.
• Align the opportunity with the pain point. Acknowledge your prospect’s pain point and provide an example of how the opportunity will help them solve it.
• Acknowledge their concerns. By paying attention to your prospect’s concerns and addressing them (perhaps even before they do!) you’re showing how your product can be uniquely suited to their particular needs.

2. Cultivate emotional intelligence

All relationships have ups and downs – including those with customers. So, when it comes to the conversations you’re having with your clients, especially when they don’t go the way you want, it’s crucial to nip any possible emotional stressors in the bud so as not to negatively impact the outcome.

If you take some time to focus on recognizing your reactions and emotions throughout the ups and downs of any sales cycle, you can actually turn potentially emotionally fraught situations into opportunities.

If during a demo or pitch, you’re frustrated or worse, ask yourself these questions:

• Am I prioritizing instant gratification or is the development of my sales skills and abilities a long-term process with tangible accomplishments throughout?
• Is the time I’ve devoted to engaging with my prospects focused on relatable content and conversations, or am I going back to a one-size-fits-all approach?
• Are those who I’m having conversations with actually influential in my sales process, or am I avoiding high-pressure situations out of fear of the sale not working out?

3. Take care, you are not what you do

President and CSO of Salesleadership Inc. Colleen Stanley said, “Teach your salespeople the concept of separating what you do for a living from who you are. Your role in sales is just that — a role.” Indeed, when fostering a high-EQ, successful sales culture, managers should encourage their reps to take time away from their work with the goal of taking care of yourself.

But how is downtime supposed to help you foster active self-reflection? At the end of the day, it’s easy to discourage, especially after a presentation doesn’t go the way you planned. Instead of focusing on what went wrong, try analyzing your process from the inside out.

Customer Experience Insight suggests asking yourself these five questions:

• What was the reason for my reaction to the prospect or customer?
• What would have been a better response during the sales meeting?
• What can I do differently to prevent getting into a dead-end selling situation?
• Who did I need to ask for help and perspective?
• What did I do well, and how do I repeat that behavior?

If you go through asking yourself these questions and take time to actually go through and answer them, your ability to take a situation with a less-than-desirable outcome and turn it into a learning experience will ultimately help you become a more effective sales rep.

As technological disruption and change impacts companies and ultimately, their revenue, it’s absolutely crucial for your sales enablement strategy to be adaptable. But with a team of seasoned sales professionals who have years of experience under their belts, just starting to make that change can seem daunting. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, right?

So when it comes to modernizing your sales enablement technique without the right guidance or goal, it becomes easy to run into roadblocks and get stuck. With digital-first selling, it’s particularly important to work from the inside out.

For organizations, recognizing that there is always room to grow, and enabling their reps to make the shift to digital-first selling is a crucial first step. Traditional sales training methods like classroom learning and the use of LMSs (learning management systems), are not just outdated, but are time-consuming and lack inspiration.

That’s why we’re making it easy for your sales strategy to undergo a digital transformation.  I

n the “Building Sales Capabilities for the Digital World” eBook, Mindtickle explains:

• The successful traits of a 21st-century digital seller
• The difference between a traditional and digital-first approach
• How truly innovative companies put the customer first
• How your organization stacks up against today’s digitized B2B market

With the help of our eBook, you can transition your sales strategy to a modernized, digital-first sales approach.

Download here today!