The right sales enablement tools can help to increase your sales and efficiency, and cut down on wasted time. However, before you ask yourself which sales enablement tool is right for your team, you need to ask two fundamental questions. These will allow you to determine the key areas of improvement within your business.
1. What Are the Failure Factors I Need to Avoid as a Sales Organisation?
As we like to say, you cannot have a winning player in a losing team, so it’s critical, for your bottom line and business as a whole, that you have a solid foundation for your sales team to build on.
The following series of questions is based on Steve W. Martin’s article in Harvard Business Review: Why Sales Organisations Fail.
1. The personnel
Are you hiring the right people and giving them proper training? Consider whether:
- Your hiring process is up to scratch
- Your training is efficient and up to date
2. Measuring up to the competition
Are you making the right choices when it comes to scaling up? Are you on par with your competitors?
3. The plateau
If you have fully implemented your sales territory plan, ask yourself how you will face further challenges, such as finding additional revenue or hitting sales targets.
4. The cull
How do you handle frustration within the organisation if competitors are beating you? Does this mean you have to start cutting back on employees? This is a sensitive area and begs for caution.
Once you have answered the questions about your organisation’s performance as a whole, you can start evaluating your sales team.
2. What Are the Failure Factors I Need to Avoid Within My Sales Team?
Some of the failure factors mentioned below are directly related to the failure of the organisation as a whole. However, others are down to management, team leaders and individual salespeople.
1. Do you give your salespeople the credit they deserve?
Keep in mind that your sales reps play a vital role — perhaps the most critical role — in creating business and keeping the sales pipeline alive. Without sales, the company will fail. Make sure they are not forgotten when it’s time to credit individuals for the results your organisation has achieved.
2. Does everyone know what the mission is?
What is your rallying cry that readies your sales team to tackle the market? What purpose do you give your sales team to believe in and reach their goals?
You need to convey your mission statement, not just to those in your business, but outside of it, too. Only then will people be aware of where you are going and, crucially, why you are heading in that direction.
3. What’s your standard definition of the term ‘qualified lead’?
There is nothing worse for a salesperson than getting bombarded with leads that are not qualified. The result is wasted time, resources, and unnecessary debate and conflict between colleagues.
4. Is your compensation plan and incentives fair?
Do the incentives and compensation — or commission — you offer for a successfully closed deal reflect the hard work your sales team puts in? If not, it can cause demotivation and decreased productivity. Consequently, it can increase employee turnover, which is bad for brand consistency and can cost a considerable amount of revenue.
5. Do you have strong people management and leadership in place?
A sales team is only as strong as the individuals who comprise that team. The most influential individual in that team is the leader. If they fail to motivate, educate, innovate and delegate properly, there is no chance that the team will succeed and goals will not be met.
How Can a Sales Enablement Tool Actually Help?
Following on from these questions, what can sales enablement tools do for you? The table below addresses three main predicaments that many salespeople face. The list is not exhaustive, but it can help you to start thinking about areas for improvement.
| Problem | Sales enablement tool solution |
| Slow response to a lead’s request: If your salesperson doesn’t have the requested information on hand, it could delay, if not completely derail, the deal. | You can store documents in the cloud for quick and easy viewing when you need them. Having sales materials, such as an expected timeline for results, ROI or pricing information, on hand can allow you to save time and close the deal faster. You can give the lead their requested information right away for a successful close. |
| Presenting information that is not conducive to sales: With printed collateral, or even materials on laptops, it’s difficult to measure what actually works. | Collect measurable data that you can use to state your case for investing in creating other similar materials. You can also gain insight into which materials actually have the biggest impact on closing deals. |
| Not being able to adapt to last-minute changes: Last-minute requests just before your make-or-break presentation could send you into panic mode if you do not have the means to fulfill them. | A sales enablement tool, such as a mobile presentation app, allows you to retrieve ad-hoc-requested information and add it to your sales presentations. This means you are able to easily create something that will help you close the deal. You score points for being prepared for any eventuality — which is crucial for client satisfaction. |
What to Look for When Choosing a Sales Enablement Tool for Your Team?
1. It should be user-friendly
The first thing to consider when choosing a sales enablement tool is whether it’s easy to use. The tool should aid you, not make processes even more complicated and time-consuming. You need to know how to effectively use it when talking to a client or prospective client.
Remember, for sales enablement to work, your whole team needs to be on board. If the tool you are using is difficult to implement and takes time to learn, it can cause problems. Find a sales enablement tool that is streamlined, intuitive, simple to use and includes top-level training.
2. It should be easy to integrate
Purchasing a new tool doesn’t mean neglecting the current framework and sales tools used. This means you should choose a tool that integrates easily with the current systems you have in place.
The time and money you could lose if you choose a tool that does not integrate easily could have a colossal impact. You should opt for a tool that complements the technology you are currently using — a tool that enhances your efforts.
3. It must give you total control of your content
When it comes to communicating with prospects and clients, your content is your most powerful asset. Valuable and enriching content will drive the performance of your team and earn you results. Despite this, content is an aspect most companies struggle with.
The most common reason for this struggle is a lack of content management. Your salespeople need to be able to quickly and effectively find and use content wherever and whenever they need to. The tool should help aid content management through:
- organisation
- automation
- scheduling
- analytics
- multimedia support
4. You should be able to analyse accurately
Internal results
A vital part of a sales enablement tool is its analytics function and ability to provide quantifiable results. Having this provides you with an understanding of how individual salespeople and the team as a whole is performing. This will inevitably encourage your salespeople to measure their performance and challenge themselves. You can then use the top performers’ success as a blueprint to motivate and improve the entire team.
Customer insights
Being able to see real-time reporting and results is paramount to continuity and maximising sales. Knowing what content engages prospects and clients, and works — be it pricing details or a case study — is crucial to closing deals faster and more efficiently.
5. Its mobile functionality and access should be flawless
Your sales team’s most valuable time spent is out in the field, such as when they’re heading to meet a prospect or client. Providing easy access to all the content they need on the go is essential.
As such, your content needs to be optimised for mobile and tablet devices. Your team needs to be able to deliver sales communication seamlessly across multiple devices and platforms.
After asking yourself these questions and checking what can be improved within your sales team — and your organisation as a whole — you can decide if a sales enablement tool is what your business is looking for. If it is, find one that ticks all the boxes and enhances — not hinders — your day-to-day work processes.
