Sales can be a brutal business, made all the more so by the variety and complexity of sales materials and sophisticated training. Reps are expected to internalize a tremendous amount of knowledge—about the product, buyers, and the sales process itself—and any gap in knowledge can potentially turn buyers away. Many sales organizations struggle to get all their reps on the same page and to consistently hit quota quarter over quarter.
This is where Enablement comes in—and not just Enablement, but Strategic Enablement, which provides a clear and actionable roadmap for sales organizations looking to drive measurable change at scale.
What is the Strategic Enablement Framework?
The strategic enablement framework helps organizations drive change at scale, by turning strategy into execution. Its raison d’être is to provide an enablement methodology that can help implement the work of enablement by changing rep behavior to drive consistent performance across the sales organization. These behaviors are tied to specific goals, from strategic ones—like launching a new product—to foundational ones—like how new reps are onboarded. A “call to action” should provide reps with the specific behaviors they need to demonstrate, and those behaviors are then reinforced and improved over time, ideally with the help of an enablement platform. Consistent execution then leads to measurable business results, thus driving the organization’s revenue engine.
Why do I need the Framework to help my strategies land in the field?
Sometimes, it’s possible to capture lightning in a bottle, and reps can pull off sales miracles. And as any sales manager will tell you, some reps just seem to have whatever it takes to always pull off a sale, which can lead to a massive imbalance on the team. This leads to an “80/20 problem,” with 80 percent of your revenue being driven by only 20 percent of your sellers.
So what’s going on? How can you get all your reps on the same page?
Reps might struggle to implement your strategy for a number of reasons. Sometimes their content is unreliable or out of date, leading to a breakdown in trust in marketing assets. Other times, reps are given directives that aren’t specific enough, or they’re far too complex or ambitious. Over time, this leads to fragmentation in the sales organization, with reps nurturing their own personal libraries of content that may or may not be suited for their prospects, all while they measure their performance against goals that can seem either murky or too lofty.
How does an enablement platform support the Strategic Enablement Framework?
There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to sales enablement, but there are some basic structural building blocks that can make your life tremendously easier than it was before you invested in an enablement platform. Think of an enablement platform as a tool that can “futureproof” your sales strategies, allowing you to update and make changes with ease as your team grows and changes. It’s a bit like the difference between making meringue with a stand mixer versus manually whipping the eggs and sugar with a spatula—both can technically get the job done, but if you’ve ever dumped your ingredients in a stand mixer and let it combine your ingredients together in a few easy minutes, it’s hard to go back to the old-fashioned (and time-inefficient) way of doing things. Plus, all your competitors are investing in state-of-the-art appliances, and you won’t want to be left behind as they drive seller behavior as easily as flipping a switch.
A robust enablement platform can house all of the content you want your sellers to use, ideally in the form of sales plays, which help sellers parse out exactly what to know, say, show, and do during their calls. It can help sales managers and leaders track the success of their reps’ sales pitches, allowing them to better coach and guide their teams, either individually or as a whole. A good sales enablement platform can also provide baked-in training modules so that sellers can quickly pivot to new behaviors their managers seek to drive.
Of course, this article has only scratched the surface on the power of the Strategic Enablement Framework and how it can revolutionize how your Enablement team operates. For a more thorough breakdown of the framework and how it can serve your goals, download the Introduction to the Strategic Enablement Framework here.
