Sales enablement part 2

Written by Ellipsis Technologies on June 30, 2024

Sales Enablement: A Practical Guide

Table of Contents

• Sales Enablement: A Practical Guide
  • Table of Contents
  • Introduction
  • What is Sales Enablement?
  • Key Components of Sales Enablement
    • 1. Sales Enablement Self Assessment
    • 2. Target Buyers
    • 3. Technology
    • 4. Designing Your Vision
    • 5. The Ideal Customer Profile
    • 6. Measuring Sales Readiness
    • 7. Qualification
    • 8. The Sales and Marketing SLA
      • Key Takeaways:
  • Additional Considerations
    • Sales Velocity Formula
• Sales Velocity Formula
  • Formula Breakdown
  • Calculation
  • Conclusion
  • Recommended Reading

Introduction

This guide aims to provide a comprehensive overview of sales enablement strategies. By following these steps, you’ll be better equipped to align your sales and marketing teams, improve your lead qualification process, and ultimately increase your sales velocity.

We’ve created this article to provide high-quality, useful, and practical insights about sales enablement. Rather than just explaining sales enablement and ADR, we’ve developed an outlined guide to help you work out a plan. We’ve relied on HubSpot’s expertise and summarized their guide on sales enablement (available here 🔗).

What is Sales Enablement?

Sales enablement is the processes, content, and technology that empower sales teams to sell more efficiently at a higher velocity. To succeed in digital sales, you need to implement a sales enablement strategy at your company, with marketing and sales teams working closely together.

Sales enablement is the processes, content, and technology that empower sales teams to sell more efficiently at a higher velocity. This multifaceted approach involves:

• Aligning sales and marketing teams
• Providing relevant content at each stage of the buyer’s journey
• Implementing technology to streamline the sales process
• Continually measuring and optimizing sales performance

By implementing a comprehensive sales enablement strategy, companies can significantly improve their sales outcomes and customer relationships.

Key Components of Sales Enablement

1. Sales Enablement Self Assessment
2. Target Buyers
3. Technology
4. Designing Your Vision
5. The Ideal Customer Profile
6. Measuring Sales Readiness
7. Qualification
8. The Sales and Marketing SLA

1. Sales Enablement Self Assessment

• Align goals
• Describe the relationship between marketing and sales goals
• Evaluate goal alignment

2. Target Buyers

• Describe your company’s target buyer
• Compare your description with colleagues
• Analyze lead passing processes
• Evaluate content creation and usage

3. Technology

• Assess marketing technology usage
• Evaluate sales tracking and reporting tools

4. Designing Your Vision

• Describe your organization’s vision
• Align teams around a unified revenue goal
• Consider costs and resources

5. The Ideal Customer Profile

• Define attributes of an ideal customer
• Consider economic factors, market segments, and geographic locations
• Use data for fact-based conversations

6. Measuring Sales Readiness

• Identify actions correlated with purchasing
• Consider content conversions, email engagement, and social media engagement

Consider the following actions when measuring sales readiness:

• Content conversions
  • Number of page views
  • Specific pages viewed
  • Forms submitted
• Email engagement
  • Email opens
  • Email clicks
  • Email replies
• Social media engagement
• Online and in-person event attendance

7. Qualification

• Develop a lead qualification matrix

• Define strategies for lead nurturing and notification

  Once you’ve defined your ideal customer profile and established sales readiness metrics, you can develop a robust lead qualification process.

8. The Sales and Marketing SLA

• Calculate key metrics (lead-to-opportunity, opportunity-to-close, average deal size)
• Consider marketing and sales velocity

Key Takeaways:

• An SLA aligns sales and marketing teams around shared goals
• Key metrics include lead-to-opportunity and opportunity-to-close rates
• Regular review and adjustment of the SLA is crucial for optimal performance

Additional Considerations

• Productive meetings
• Developing buyer personas
• Content strategy
• Email templates
• Technology implementation

Sales Velocity Formula

Here’s a visual representation of the sales velocity formula:

Sales Velocity Formula

The image represents the formula for calculating Sales Velocity, which is composed of four main components:

1. Number of Opportunities
2. Average Deal Value
3. Win Rate
4. Sales Cycle Length

The formula is structured as follows: (# of Opportunities) x (Average Deal Value) x (Win Rate) Sales Cycle Length

Formula Breakdown

• The top three components (# of Opportunities, Average Deal Value, and Win Rate) are multiplied together.
• This product is then divided by the Sales Cycle Length.

Calculation

The image provides a space to fill in the final calculated value:

SALES VELOCITY = ___________________

This line is intended for writing out the final calculated value of the Sales Velocity after plugging in the specific numbers for each component of the formula.

Conclusion

Remember, while technology is important, it shouldn’t come first. Focus on your goals, achievements, knowledge, and understanding of your buyer persona before implementing technological solutions.

Recommended Reading

“They Ask, You Answer” by Marcus Sheridan 🔗

Implementing a robust sales enablement strategy is crucial for modern businesses. By focusing on alignment, understanding your ideal customer, and leveraging the right technology, you can significantly improve your sales process and outcomes. Remember, the key is to start with strategy and end with technology – not the other way around.