You know your work is essential to your sales organisation’s success. But does your Chief Sales Officer understand your impact?
Whether you’re trying to rally stakeholders around a new technology investment, expand your team’s headcount, or gain momentum behind a new initiative, the road to success is paved with hard data.
To help you get started, we’re breaking down the 2022 State of Sales Enablement Report. Chock-full of industry best practices and proof points, these insights will help you build the case internally for your next big idea.
More Tenured Sales Enablement Teams Perform Better
- 80% of organisations with enablement functions have had their teams in place for over two years
- Organisations are 48% more likely to experience high buyer engagement when sales enablement processes have been in place for more than two years
- Organisations with sales enablement processes or practices in place for more than two years report a 7-percentage-point improvement in win rates
- A formal charter for your enablement function increases the likelihood that stakeholders will be satisfied with enablement’s efforts increases by 44%
- The number of sales enablement teams with over six members has increased by 63% year over year to nearly 50%
- Sales enablement teams with six or more members report 14-percentage-point higher quota attainment compared to teams with two to five members
- The takeaway: The best time to invest in sales enablement was yesterday. The second best time to invest is today. As your team matures and further integrates itself into your customer-facing motions, you reap the benefits of tighter alignment, scalable processes, and increased revenue. If you don’t have an enablement function in place, it’s time to invest. If you have an existing team, consider deepening your investment with additional headcount.
Sales Enablement Teams Guard Against Shifting Markets
- 46% of organisations list competitive pressure as one of their top challenges this year
- 30% of respondents reveal that sales enablement is heavily involved in competitive analysis efforts at their organisations
- Companies that involve sales enablement in competitive analysis report a 3-percentage-point increase in win rates
- 43% of executive leaders noted that buyers now prefer a digital-first experience
- Organisations are 57% more likely to experience high buyer engagement with dedicated sales enablement teams.
The takeaway: Our world is moving quickly but enablement can help you stay one step ahead of the competition. Teams facing complex business challenges – new buyer expectations, totally digital sales landscapes, market uncertainty – can find success by orchestrating their organisation’s response. This ensures reps stay focused on impactful activities and helps revenue teams panic-driven new initiative overload.
Strategic Sales Enablement Boosts Win Rates
- When enablement effectively manages sales content efforts, the likelihood that organisations will struggle to achieve sales goals falls by 27%
- Organisations that find sales content tools to be extremely effective in supporting sales efforts report improved win rates by 9 percentage points
- When organisations use sales plays with their revenue teams, the likelihood that they will struggle with seller engagement falls by 32%
- Enablement teams that can effectively streamline processes to unify buyer experiences see 12-percentage-point higher win rates
- Enablement teams that provide insights into what works to maximise sales rep consistency, and report 4-percentage-point higher rep quota attainment and 6-percentage-point higher win rates
- When enablement effectively uses data to analyse the business impact of its efforts, it is 2 times more likely to exceed executive expectations
- Teams that communicate enablement’s business impact effectively are 230% more likely to be seen as aligned to executive-level goals
The takeaway: Enablement is good but strategic enablement – or rather, enablement that tightly aligns with company initiatives to move the needle on revenue growth – is better. However, strategic enablement as a formal practice is still a relatively new concept. If you find yourself unsure of where to start to uplevel your program, a great first step is to start with our Strategic Enablement Framework.
Sales Enablement Helps Retain Your Top talent
- Sales enablement is involved in the talent management process at 18% of organisations
- Companies with low rep engagement are 30% more likely to experience rep turnover
- When enablement effectively manages talent processes, the likelihood that organisations will struggle with hiring top sales talent decreases by 32%
- 47% of sales enablement teams are heavily involved in the onboarding of reps and those organisations report decreased rep turnover by 5 percentage points
- With the use of onboarding tools, the likelihood of experiencing increased rep ramp time decreases by 26%
- 54% of enablement teams that manage sales training programs report a 6-percentage-point increase in customer retention
- When enablement leads sales training efforts, organisations are 10% more likely to have high rep engagement
The takeaway: Sales talent is expensive to recruit and difficult to retain. Your secret weapon against high turnover? Sales enablement. Deeper investments in onboarding, training and coaching can ensure your top sellers are here for the long run. Even better, when these programs are done right, they can lift the performance of your entire sales team.
Building the Business Case for Sales Enablement
The data has spoken: strategic sales enablement touches every part of your revenue organisation – and with good reason. Its ability to increase the performance of your customer-facing teams, retain talent, and deliver a consistent customer experience is unmatched.
Take your sales enablement program to the next level with updated best practices from the 2022 State of Sales Enablement Report.
