Did you know 50% of B2B sales teams’ time is wasted on unproductive prospecting? In today’s customer-centric landscape, it is essential that sales teams graduate from outdated tactics and ineffective sales methodologies. This is where sales enablement enters the scene. So, what is sales enablement?
Sales enablement is the set of practices, processes and platforms that improve the performance of sales teams to increase revenue through new customer acquisition.
More and more B2B organizations are partnering with a B2B sales enablement agency to assess their underperforming sales processes and recommend process optimizations and new technologies to improve sales operations and effectiveness. We further define what is sales enablement by highlighting 3 keys to understanding its role and importance for your B2B organization.
SALES ENABLEMENT MANDATES SALES & MARKETING ALIGNMENT
Part of why sales enablement exists today is due to misaligned sales and marketing teams within B2B organizations. The traditional sales funnel where a lead is engaged through marketing and is handed over to a sales rep to close the sale is ingrained in our minds. However, 65% of sales reps say they can’t find content to send to prospects. This is the most common complaint of sales teams.
This means either marketing is not sufficiently educating and ensuring lead qualification prior to the hand-off to sales or sales is not adequately leveraging existing marketing assets to continue educating and nurturing prospects into new customers. An aspect of sales enablement is identifying and assessing this breakdown and recommending ways to bridge the gap between sales and marketing to seamlessly engage prospects through the buyer journey from awareness to revenue.
SALES ENABLEMENT BUILDS ON B2B DEMAND GENERATION
While marketing is historically viewed as the owner of all B2B demand generation activities, it should be viewed as a shared onus between marketing and sales teams. Sales enablement builds on B2B demand generation by equipping sales with an equally-important role as marketing in generating and nurturing leads.
44% of sales reps give up after one follow-up, yet 80% of sales require 5 follow-up phone calls after the meeting. When sales teams have subpar lead follow-up times and an insufficient number of touches, much of marketing’s initial lead generation efforts are diminished. Sales enablement can help establish sales team standards of performance and service level agreements (SLAs) like reducing follow-up response times to increase conversion to close rates.
SALES ENABLEMENT ALIGNS WITH A FOCUSED B2B SALES STRATEGY
Tying these pieces together is a B2B sales strategy aligned with the processes, platforms and practices defined in a sales enablement engagement with an agency partner like Overground. A critical part of a successful B2B sales enablement program is a clearly-defined and focused B2B sales strategy. This holistic B2B sales strategy defines the aspects of a sales team’s role in customer acquisition to meet and achieve your growth goals.
The B2B sales strategy often includes how technology, such as a CRM, can be more effectively configured to streamline processes and provide valuable customer data insights. With 71% of sales reps saying they spend too much time on data entry, CRM enablement is critical to successful sales strategy adoption. Sales enablement works with sales teams to access valuable customer insights through CRM and through exercises that help you better understand your target audience and buyer journey through B2B customer journey and persona mapping.
Interested in learning more about sales enablement for your B2B organization? Contact us today to learn how Overground works with B2B companies to revolutionize sales technologies and processes to improve sales performance and increase revenue.
