Many sales leaders often wonder, “Why are the average sellers on my team not rising to the level of my top sellers?” While there can be several reasons behind why your average sellers aren’t seeing success, the problem usually boils down to sellers lacking personalized content, effective sales enablement, or oftentimes, both.
With sales enablement initiatives increasing, it’s clear many companies are seeing the competitive advantage of incorporating sales enablement in their sales teams. Driven by good content management practices, sales enablement leverages CRM, automation and analytics to ensure sales teams have what they need when they need it.
After years of assisting several Fortune 500 companies with their digital sales transformations, we’ve noticed that companies without sales enablement in their toolkit often come across the same challenges and problems.
For example, an estimated 66% of a seller’s day is focused on a lot more than selling. Frequently, sellers are spending time writing and designing presentations, managing accounts or performing customer service. When sellers actually get time to sell, they usually lack the right content and materials to make their time count. In fact, last year, Salesforce predicted 56% of sales reps would not meet their quotas.
Rather than have your sellers writing content or designing presentations, incorporate sales enablement to transform average sellers into elite sellers. Below, I put together four reasons on why you should prioritize sales enablement.
Good content exists, but your team isn’t using it
The reason why your best sales reps are successful is because of content. Surveys show 95% of buyers buy from someone who gave them content at each stage of the buying process.
Unfortunately, many sales reps struggle to find the right content to send to prospects. Beyond trying to find the right content, sometimes sellers uncover that the right content doesn’t exist or it’s outdated and not customizable. To avoid your sales reps running around in circles to find content, provide a single source for relevant, accurate and compelling content they can access in real-time.
Source: Mediafly
The right content at the right time for the right customer
As I previously mentioned, having the right content for the customer at the right time can be the deciding factor in whether a customer moves forward with your company or not.
Many buyers are stuck seeing the same presentation that showcases the seller’s company and product, but no information on how their solution can impact the buyer’s business. When buyers see a polished presentation that incorporates specific information about their company, they are more inclined to go further down the sales journey with the seller.
To set your sellers up for success, make it easy for them to pivot presentations based on audience feedback and have interactive, prescriptive sales conversations.
Save your sales team time on data entry
We already know sales reps are spending a significant amount of time not doing sales. Another activity that takes up copious amounts of a seller’s day is data entry. During a presentation, sellers keep track of content presented in meetings, notes and additional customer data.
However, modern sales enablement platforms utilize AI and machine learning to autonomously capture all of this information. This not only helps the seller but also shows sales leaders what content is being used at every point in the sales cycle. Through this information, teams can gain a better understanding of what content drives revenue.
Source: Mediafly
Customize your presentation in real-time
Buyers are tired of static, traditional sales pitches. Rather than follow the norm, sales teams can utilize sales enablement to help them lead real, engaging conversations centered on the buyer’s challenges or interests.
Source: Mediafly
You hired your sales reps to sell. Many are unable to do so because they’re stuck creating content, customizing presentations and entering data into a CMS. What your sellers are capable of doing is telling a compelling story.
By incorporating sales enablement, you can make the sales process easier for your team by providing content and insightful data so they can in turn put on amazing sales performances, leading to faster closing rates and increased revenue.
About the Author: Matt Suggs, EVP of Sales, Mediafly. As the EVP, Matt leads the commercial and customer success teams at Mediafly, driving overall revenue growth and guiding the company to better understand the enterprise sales cycle. Since joining the company in 2010, Matt has been integral in adding and growing the company’s customers across different verticals. As a member of the executive committee, he also guides the overall strategy for Mediafly.