Checking In: How Well-Aligned Is Your Sales Enablement Strategy?
A comprehensive Sales Enablement strategy is aligned with the customer path. Are you arming reps to have impactful conversations at every step of the way?
Perceptions of Sales Enablement can be ambiguous, but the bottom line is simple; sales enablement empowers your salespeople to be the best they can be. Simply managing your sales assets as an enablement strategy doesn’t cut it anymore. Enablement strategies should arm reps with the information they need to have impactful conversations with customers — where they are.
That’s where the importance of the buyer’s journey comes in! A key component of a comprehensive enablement plan is a fully mapped-out customer path. That way, you can provide your reps with the toolkits that they need to curate their messaging specifically for where prospects are. In doing so you’ll uncover potential gaps in your current Sales Enablement strategy. A strong enablement plan supports teams from buyer’s initial awareness all the way through adoption.A CSO Insights study found that 42% of organizations that do align their sales enablement services to the customers paths achieve an 8.1% better win rate. That means that not taking the time to check in and ensure that your current strategy is well-aligned is costing you too much.
Is your Sales Enablement strategy aligned?
Evaluate how aligned your Sales Enablement strategy is with your customer’s journey by asking yourself these questions:
Have you collaborated with sales, marketing, CX teams and your existing customers to map out your buyer’s journey?
Is that journey the primary design point for your current SE strategy?
Do you have specified content for reps to utilize at each stage?
Does your current enablement tech stack empower reps to have curated conversations that move prospects through that journey?
How Sales Enablement strategy impacts the customer
Customers have an increasing amount of control: they’re doing extensive independent research before any initial interaction with your reps. It’s important that your reps are able to pinpoint where your prospects are within their buyer’s journey and curate their messaging accordingly. 67% of B2B decision makers say they prefer not to interact with a salesperson as their primary source of research (Forrester). Consider not only which phase of the buyer’s journey your prospect is at, but when they want to talk:
- 19% of buyers want to connect with a salesperson during the awareness stage of their buying process, when they're first learning about the product.
- 60% want to connect with sales during the consideration stage, after they've researched the options and come up with a short list.
Map out these stages and the coinciding content to give consistency to your process. The first step is to create a customer-centric strategy. From there, arm your reps with up-to-date information. 71% of sales reps say they don't have enough knowledge to move deals forward (Source: TOPO). Build out an enablement tech stack that equips reps with the knowledge that they need to move customers through that journey seamlessly. Once this process is well defined and deeply ingrained, your sales team should recognize the buyer’s journey as second nature and have the tools to effectively interact at each and every step of the way.
Looking to learn more? Check out our fresh new Guide to Sales Enablement:
Perceptions of Sales Enablement can be ambiguous, but the bottom line is simple; sales enablement empowers your salespeople to be the best they can be. Simply managing your sales assets as an enablement strategy doesn’t cut it anymore. Enablement strategies should arm reps with the information they need to have impactful conversations with customers — where they are.
That’s where the importance of the buyer’s journey comes in! A key component of a comprehensive enablement plan is a fully mapped-out customer path. That way, you can provide your reps with the toolkits that they need to curate their messaging specifically for where prospects are. In doing so you’ll uncover potential gaps in your current Sales Enablement strategy. A strong enablement plan supports teams from buyer’s initial awareness all the way through adoption.A CSO Insights study found that 42% of organizations that do align their sales enablement services to the customers paths achieve an 8.1% better win rate. That means that not taking the time to check in and ensure that your current strategy is well-aligned is costing you too much.
Is your Sales Enablement strategy aligned?
Evaluate how aligned your Sales Enablement strategy is with your customer’s journey by asking yourself these questions:
Have you collaborated with sales, marketing, CX teams and your existing customers to map out your buyer’s journey?
Is that journey the primary design point for your current SE strategy?
Do you have specified content for reps to utilize at each stage?
Does your current enablement tech stack empower reps to have curated conversations that move prospects through that journey?
How Sales Enablement strategy impacts the customer
Customers have an increasing amount of control: they’re doing extensive independent research before any initial interaction with your reps. It’s important that your reps are able to pinpoint where your prospects are within their buyer’s journey and curate their messaging accordingly. 67% of B2B decision makers say they prefer not to interact with a salesperson as their primary source of research (Forrester). Consider not only which phase of the buyer’s journey your prospect is at, but when they want to talk:
- 19% of buyers want to connect with a salesperson during the awareness stage of their buying process, when they're first learning about the product.
- 60% want to connect with sales during the consideration stage, after they've researched the options and come up with a short list.
Map out these stages and the coinciding content to give consistency to your process. The first step is to create a customer-centric strategy. From there, arm your reps with up-to-date information. 71% of sales reps say they don't have enough knowledge to move deals forward (Source: TOPO). Build out an enablement tech stack that equips reps with the knowledge that they need to move customers through that journey seamlessly. Once this process is well defined and deeply ingrained, your sales team should recognize the buyer’s journey as second nature and have the tools to effectively interact at each and every step of the way.
Looking to learn more? Check out our fresh new Guide to Sales Enablement:
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