A sales enablement strategy is at the core of business relationships within and outside of the organization. From a high-level perspective, sales enablement is the web that weaves together sales, marketing, operations, and the C-Suite. How? Sales enablement is there to ensure that the marketing team’s efforts are on-target, and in turn, the sales team is pursuing the best fit leads in their sales cycles. This approach is interactive and is focused on conscientiously building relationships.
Your sales enablement leaders are there to help the customer-facing team members develop skills that support the modern selling process: how we foster connections, what those look like from both sides and a high level, and how we maintain them.
What Does This Approach To Selling Look Like To Customers?
At Tricycle, we spend a lot of time on the inside working with our valued clients on how to build and sustain a sales enablement team. However, we don’t often share what a sales enablement approach would look like to potential customers, leads, or clients.
The person receiving the connection request will have a high-level understanding of what you’re offering before they even hit “Accept.” Since they’re the decision-maker in the organization they understand on a finite level what the business needs to run at its optimal best. On the other side of the coin, they’re keenly aware of what could be done to improve the organization.
The first interaction feels natural. There isn’t an immediate ask for a meeting, to read a blog post, or a sales pitch. A first hello at a networking event, if you will, simply goes over the high level of what they do, what they enjoy, and what they wish they could change.
As the salesperson gets to know their new LinkedIn connection, they might receive a few blog posts that are a top-of-the-funnel perspective of solving the problem. At this point, the lead should feel heard. Purchasing the service has not entered the conversation. Humans want to feel understood and hearing their own interests and values reflected back to them triggers fascination.
Sales enablement is truly coming into play when it comes time to learn about the product itself. As the decision-maker, it’s very clear to them how this can impact the overall business. From the outside looking in, the social media pages are active and everyone is posting relevant, industry-related content on their LinkedIn profiles. These online activities coming from the business are a mark of social proof for the lead. They have a reason to trust you and can see that the other members of the organization also believe in the product as well.
From Purchase to Advocacy
When the lead has finally learned enough about the product to present the decision to the C-Suite, they’re excited. It’s easy to get everyone in agreement when they see that not only the salesperson, but the entire company believes in it as well.
Following the purchase, this client is more likely to advocate for you due to the great experience from start to finish. You have established trust. The business operations are running more optimally than ever and despite the investment in the service, it’s now saving and earning more money. Clients that are happy want to scale up their services and stay with you for the long term.
What Does This Approach To Selling Look Like For Sales Teams?
We’ve discussed what a sales enablement strategy looks like from the outside, now how does this affect the structure and operations of the sales team? At the core of successfully carrying out this strategy, you must first build a sales enablement team.
Internal alignment is the first component that’s central to success. Your marketing team and sales teams need to maintain a constant flow of feedback to ensure that the buyer personas are appropriately responding to the messaging. The second layer of the messaging is taking the time to provide “shareables” to everyone in the organization so that their LinkedIn pages are always active. As mentioned before, this shows stakeholders on the outside that everyone in the organization believes in the product.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the second important layer of a sales enablement strategy. The sales leaders and team members know whom they’re looking for on LinkedIn, but Sales Navigator makes the process more efficient. The tool can filter for the right-sized companies, specific verticals, roles, locations, and even down to how active individual pages are within these parameters. No time is wasted finding the right people and all the data can be quickly fed into the CRM if the integrations are set up.
These lists of potential leads can be saved. Salespeople are now spending more time selling and less time on administrative tasks. Leads are qualified in minutes and the salesperson spends significantly less time trying to learn about their industry or business. Now, more time can be spent selling and sharpening sales skills.
What Does Sales Enablement Success Look Like From Within The Organization?
How does Tricycle know when their sales enablement coaching is a success? Sales Enablement success is apparent when sales leaders can quickly see which activities and which customer segments are generating the most stable profit. Essentially, the marketing team’s prescribed personas are broken into segments and the sales leaders are able to better inform the marketing team what is working and where adjustments need to be made.
Where does this data become the most apparent?
- Renewals: The CRM houses the relationship history with the client. In a few minutes, sales leaders know what services they’ve purchased, if it has scaled up or down, and if there have been any issues during that time period.
- Sales Cycles/Lead Times: The CRM can show how long it is taking leads to move through the process. This can be further analyzed for inefficiencies and opportunities.
- Quality of Interactions: The CRM can show how many interactions and what type of interactions are yielding the best results.
When marketing is aligned with sales, both teams have a consistent understanding of what is working and what needs to improve. Salespeople at all levels of seniority will feel empowered to share their real-time results and offer suggestions to strengthen and grow the organization.
How Tricycle Can Help
Tricycle will act as your coach and guide to sales enablement success. Our team will look closely at your current suite of tools and tactics and enact changes that will help your business win in the digital space. At our core, Tricycle is made up of Sales Enablement Leaders. Our approach is to come in and provide coaching and training to customer-facing professionals. LinkedIn and Social Selling are a key component, and we ensure that every client we work with is positioned to maximize their capabilities through these tools.
Would you like to learn how sales enablement leaders can develop digital selling skills and lead their teams? Read this article!
