One of the main questions when starting conversations about a new CRM is profitability. How quickly can this tool become profitable? One of the advantages of working with software is how sales enablement will bring results immediately.
Be careful, just because it's quick to implement doesn't mean it's easy or that you can do it in your spare time. It's easy if you have the necessary assets and someone experienced enough to set up an automated operation.
What is Sales Enablement?
It is a process where the sales team is armed with the necessary tools to optimize their work. It is a technique used by thousands of companies where the sales team is provided with everything they need to make their work more efficient, including tools, training, resources, and content to improve their productivity and close more sales.
This can have an impact on two sides of the coin. The first is direct with the customer since valuable content is offered, making their interaction and purchase decision easier. The second revolves around the sales representative as they are also offered valuable content to master the product they sell, and engage and measure prospect commitment.
Oftentimes, this not only requires input from the sales and marketing teams but ideally involves all areas of the company, providing resources that help the sales team close deals faster and shorten the sales cycle.
For example, marketing can make reference materials such as blogs, videos, tutorials, and case studies that facilitate the nurturing of prospects, help resolve customer questions before they are asked, and reinforce the sales team’s knowledge about the customer. The Customer Service team can also contribute with a Knowledge Base of frequently asked questions that other customers have already encountered, or by sharing solutions to specific pain.
For best results, these resources should be found somewhere that is easy to access for all interested parties, such as the CRM, which, if used correctly, can proactively automate several of these customer communications.
Steps for Successful Sales Enablement
A good sales enablement process does not depend only on the content or the CRM that is used. It is a sum of different factors that can result in success, a shortened project, or unused, unhelpful processes.
At CRM Toolbox, one of our favorite things about HubSpot is implementation, as it allows us to have an immediate impact where our clients become immersed in the added value that is having a well-nourished CRM.
These are some of the steps you should take into account for successful sales enablement:
Document Your Sales Process Well
Improving something that is not well mapped is very difficult since there is no starting point to use as a benchmark/comparison. Before doing any content generation, automation, and training work, you must have a perfectly-identified the point-to-point sales process - from the moment the prospect comes into contact with your brand the first time, until the moment they close the deal, as well as the post-sale stages. It’s important to have a clear idea of what pain prospects have when they find your company, what their main objections are, what their frequent doubts are, and what your sales agent is doing in each of these stages.
Doing this documentation will help you identify which processes can be automated, which ones require improvement, where your sales team is lacking when it comes to training and knowledge, and what content will need to be developed in the next stage.
Focus on the Customer
Although the sales enablement is designed to help the commercial team, you must not lose sight of the fact that everything you do must have the client as a priority. If your focus is on how to get your team to sell more you will probably achieve some results, but if the goal is how to help your customers solve their pain and have the least amount of friction with your brand, then the results will be extraordinary. Everything you do should be focused on how the customer is impacted in each stage of the sales funnel. Each training for your sales team should not be about how to close the sale, but rather about how to be the best customer advisor.
A good seller is not the one who convinces their client, but the one who accompanies them during his purchase moment. If you just want to convince, you might win clients in one fell swoop; if you accompany and resolve, you will win long-term clients in your business, and those are the ones that really help to generate value and grow your company.
Train
Just as your focus should be on the end customer, it is also true that the focus of your sales enablement process cannot neglect your agents. If hundreds of tutorials, videos, and other resources are generated but deposited in a knowledge base, what do you think they will genuinely be used for? Nothing, right? If instead, in addition to creating content focused on the end user, you dedicate time and resources to explaining and training your team on how to get the most out of a sale, the chances of success increase significantly. They say that if you give a person a fish, they will eat for a day, while if you teach him to fish, they will eat for the rest of their life.
The same concept applies here. It will be through trial and error that your agents perfect them. Save them time and effort by teaching them, from the beginning, what is expected of them and unifying processes as much as possible with pre-established scripts and templates that result in constant user experiences.
One of the most common reasons why a CRM fails to meet expectations is adoption because end users are not fully trained in its use, meaning they are unlikely to see the value in using the tools properly.
Automate
Once you have done all of the previous steps, the moment of true magic arrives. If your sales reps spend more time doing monotonous tasks than selling, how can you expect them to have better results? An essential part of sales enablement is creating automation within the CRM to shorten the buying cycle and streamline interactions with prospects and customers. The big advantage of this is that once the automation is up and running, it's completely scalable, so it doesn't matter if it's 10 or 1,000 customers, you'll be able to give everyone good, friction-free service.
Perfect
There is no process that cannot be perfected, and in the case of sales enablement, this could not be more true. In addition to creating all of these flows, training, and content, it will be important that you define the KPIs and the goals with which the performance of this project will be measured. In addition, you should monitor each of the automation to see where in the flow you are having the most bounces. You can also analyze which of the scripts delivered to your agents is having the worst responses or which content is generating more friction than results. Once you detect these red lights, it is important to return to point one and improve as much as possible. This way you will always keep your process fresh and your sales team active.
Where to Start?
If this is starting to make sense to you, but you still feel that you still have a lot to understand, don't worry. We know that all this information can be overwhelming. In fact, an implementation is more likely to fail due to underestimating the complexity required. It’s not about how much someone is willing to improve. One solution is to work with a team that has experience with this type of project, helping you get the most out of your CRM while challenging the content you have and helping you improve it.
At CRM Toolbox, we have helped hundreds of companies to enable their sales team with tools and techniques that translate into visible results very quickly and, if you think we can be a good fit for your company, I would love to talk with you to understand more about your sales team. We can work together to help you grow your business in a scalable way.
Feel free to look in my calendar for space and schedule a call with me, I'll be happy to hear from you.
