Recently, we were engaged by a client to help with the adoption of a new sales enablement platform. Before they signed the purchase order, I asked them to consider these two statistics:
• The sales enablement platform market will be worth $2.6 billion by 2024, according to a recent report published by MarketsandMarkets.
• Nearly 60% of salespeople today missed their quotas in 2018, according to Salesforce.
As the head of a consultancy that regularly works with large organizations to improve their sales enablement performance, and as a sales enablement and training leader myself, I am noticing a trend. As sales enablement leaders, we’re willing to buy into new technology to improve sales efficiency, even when the data suggests that technology alone can’t save us. The sales enablement leader in this example was only doing what his job title demanded: trying to make the sales team more efficient and therefore increase productivity. This was the source of the problem.
Start with the end in mind.
In an era of customer self-service, I've seen that there is an argument that sales teams in their current state are not the most efficient way to service customers or improve profitability. Customers themselves are telling us as much. For example:
• A report by Accenture found that customers are 57% through the buying process before ever meeting with a representative.
• Sixty percent of buyers prefer not to communicate with salespeople as their primary information source.
Yet, rather than address this problem, the industry is focused on platforms that promise to increase the efficiency with which salespeople can continue to under-serve the customer faster.
Enable the customer to buy.
Rather than throw tech at the problem, look at how to enable the customer to buy, instead of enabling the sales team to sell. This is an important distinction since it doesn’t assume that salespeople are central to the buying process.
Starting with the end goal in mind, we worked with the client to map the customer buying journey, looking at the points where we could improve on the efficiency of helping the customer and the business get to the desired end goal: a purchase. Without giving away our customer’s specific challenges, I would advise all sales enablement leaders to:
• Serve the self-server: Make sure the right information is available to the buyer. This must be a cross-departmental initiative among marketing communications, product marketing and sales. This initiative should make it easy for them to learn about and build a preference for your brand through insight and endorsements. Make sure you’re delivering information in the places they search for information (e.g., websites, social media, review sites, etc.), not just where it's easiest for you to host it.
• Consider automating: Less than 20% of people would speak to a salesperson for something they're repurchasing, so where possible, give them the ability to buy without sales involvement. Making sure your customer success team is properly trained will ensure that add-on purchases are addressed without taking up valuable sales time.
By enabling buyers to purchase in a way that works for them, the enablement team can make huge efficiency gains for their organization. They can also free up the sales team to work with customers who genuinely want to engage. At this point, it’s time to:
Ditch the traditional role of your sales team.
It's clear from the data, most sales teams aren’t working. It falls to sales enablement to fix them. When you focus on buyer enablement, you quickly identify that salespeople still play an important role in driving sales -- and ultimately profit -- but that their place in the buying chain and the associated skills required for them to do their job well have changed. What is required of them is considerably more nuanced, and just adding technology will not address this fact.
In a world where knowledge is everywhere, Gartner recommends that account managers demonstrate three behaviors:
• "Provide customers with a unique perspective on their business."
• "Offer customers a vision of improvement for their business."
• "Explain the potential ROI of acting on an improvement opportunity."
Sales enablement leaders must give salespeople the skills, knowledge and tools to deliver in this type of role. Only then will sales teams be able to do what customers demand of them -- namely, help them and their buying teams turn knowledge into insight relevant to their business and help them make the right buying decision as efficiently as possible.
For any technology implementation to work, the first step must be behavioral. Only then can tools to enhance efficiency be considered. In previous posts, I've discussed the benefits sales enablement platforms can deliver, and I’ve shared the importance of the standard sales model to ingrain new ways of selling and to address new opportunities or buying personas. It's clear that sales enablement platforms can be useful for guided learning, among other things, but not when they're used to paper over the needs of your sales team and ignore your customers.
Prescription without diagnosis is malpractice. In short, the technology available for sales teams today surpasses anything we’ve seen before. But no matter the tools your sales enablement vendor offers, if you implement them without first making sure you are tackling the root cause of your sales challenges — and not just the symptoms — you are failing in your duty as a sales enablement leader. Take time to diagnose and use tech as a part of the treatment, not the whole cure. Your sales team will thank you in the long run.
