Sales Enablement Grows Up...selling processes to the steps and gates the buyers go through along their path. Second, align the enablement services (content, training, coaching, tools)

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Sales Enablement Grows Up:4th Annual Sales Enablement Study

REPORT SUMMARY


Sales Enablement Grows Up: But Not Fast EnoughThis year CSO Insights conducted its fourth annual sales enablement

study, with more than 500 participants from all over the world.

Over the last couple of years, sales enablement grew quickly, from 32.7%

of organizations having sales enablement in 2016 to 59.2% in 2017. The

data for 2018 shows a leveling off in growth at 61.0%.

Having an effective enablement function matters: It leads to two-digit

improvements for quota attainment and win rates for forecast deals

compared to those organizations without enablement.

The 2018 Sales Enablement Report provides enablement leaders with

data and practices to drive the effectiveness of their enablement practice,

covering all facets of the sales enablement clarity model.


Setting Up For Success: The Game-Changing Charter

How organizations approach sales enablement

determines how successful their efforts will be. A

formal sales enablement charter is a business plan

for creating a comprehensive enablement function

that aligns the enablement approach to the

executive sponsors and their strategic initiatives.

As the chart shows, formality matters: Organizations

that used a formal enablement approach, backed by

a charter, reported the best performance as

measured by win rate of forecast deals. And this

holds true for another important performance

measure: quota attainment.

In 2018, for the first time, more than half the study

participants are following a formal approach to

enablement (41.3% formal without charter, 9.2%

formal with charter). The data on the left suggests

that it’s worth the effort to run sales enablement

with a formal business plan, captured in a charter.

Charters tend to be more common in larger

organizations, especially those with more than $1B

in annual revenues. But given the potential for

performance gain offered by the formal-plus-charter

approach, organizations of all sizes may want to

consider taking this route.

Sales Enablement Approach vs. Win Rate

How different approaches to sales enablement (ad hoc, informal, formal, and formal with charter)

impact the win rates for forecast deals. The more formal, the better the impact.


The customer’s path refers to the process, often

iterative, the customer (buyer) follows to approach a

challenge or opportunity, gather information, make a

decision and implement the solution.

To be successful, all customer-facing roles have to be

engaged, equipped and empowered to have

relevant, valuable and differentiating interactions at

each phase of the customer’s path.

To achieve this goal, two steps of alignment to the

customers path are important. First, align all internal

selling processes to the steps and gates the buyers

go through along their path. Second, align the

enablement services (content, training, coaching,

tools) to the different phases of the customer‘s path.

The majority, 60.5%, align their selling processes to

the customer’s path and achieve 13.6 points better

quota attainment rates than those without

alignment.

Only 42.0% are consistent and also align their

enablement services, and achieve 11.5 points better

win rates compared to those that have no alignment.

Aligning to the Customer’s Path

Customer’s Path

This simplified illustration of the customer’s path shows how the internal processes, from marketing to

sales to service, align to it.


With the customer’s perspective as a foundation, we can use the sales enablement clarity model as our guide, focusing on Effective Enablement Services that should ideally be provided for all Customer-facing Roles and Their Managers.

The chart shows where study respondents are focusing their enablement efforts. For the first time in the four years of this annual study, the top three enablement services for salespeople have changed.

Content services entered the top three for the first time, while sales process improvements dropped to fifth place. As sales enablement and sales operations mature, they become more specialized, and sales processes are owned by sales operations.

Priorities for enabling sales managers have also changed, with analytics and metrics now taking precedence over sales coaching skills. With the rise of AI-powered technology, a tremendous amount of data is now available to sales managers. But without a deep understanding of what the data means, and without highly developed coaching skills, changing sales behaviors will remain difficult if not impossible.

Enablement Services Are Evolving

Primary Enablement Services for Salespeople

These are the most important enablement services for salespeople. Study participants could select all

that apply.


It has been more than 20 years since Bill Gates

made the phrase “content is king” famous. The

2018 Sales Enablement Report highlights the

importance of content strategy.

Who creates content salespeople need along the

entire customer’s path? Marketing is often assumed

to be the main source, but this year, they created

only about one-third of it (39% in 2017).

Salespeople continue to create about one-fifth of

the content they need on their own from scratch.

This is a situation that sales leaders may want to

investigate. The 2018-2019 Sales Performance

Study shows that salespeople only spend 32% of

their time actually selling. If content creation is a

drain on their time, it would be more efficient to

focus on tailoring or customizing content rather

than creating it.

With many content contributors providing different

types of content for external and internal use in all

phases of the customer’s path, sales enablement

should implement an overarching content strategy.

Only one-third of organizations do that, but they

see 12.2 points better win rates than those without.

Multiple Content Contributors Require A Content Strategy

Who Creates the Content Salespeople Need?

This chart shows all functions that create various content types salespeople need along the entire

customer’s path to be successful.


To assess the performance impact of training

services, we looked at the study participants who

ranked specific services as “meets/exceeds

expectations” as well as participants who ranked

those same services as “needs

improvement/redesign.”

How well training meets expectations has a clear

impact on performance, and this is evident when

we look at the study data regarding selling skills

training and quota attainment.

Quota attainment also improved when participants

ranked sales methodology/process training and

onboarding services as meets/exceeds

expectations. Effective onboarding services are also

crucial for managing the voluntary turnover rate.

When implementing new training services, get

feedback from both salespeople and sales

managers. Use both lagging indicators, like win

rates and quota attainment, and leading indicators,

like conversion rates and follow-up call rates.

Leading indicators can show that the desired

changes are happening in the early phases.

Training Services Impact Performance

Selling Skills Training vs. Quota Attainment

Training services – in this case, selling skills training – can impact quota attainment. The higher the

training service is ranked, the better the results


Let’s be clear on what sales coaching is: The process by which sales managers and others use a defined approach and specific communication skills, combined with domain expertise, to facilitate structured conversations with team members to uncover improvement areas and opportunities for new levels of sales success.

Sales coaching is the most effective enablement service, but it’s also something most sales organizations struggle to do well. The approach to sales coaching is crucial: the more formally implemented and the better aligned to the sales enablement services for salespeople (dynamic approach), the more effective sales coaching is.

In 2018, 40.1% of organizations follow a formal or dynamic approach (more than ever) and could leverage the performance potential to achieve significantly better win rates for forecast deals compared to the random group.

A critical step toward effective sales coaching is implementing coaching services that are designed to support the enablement services for salespeople. Study participants who apply this practice reported 13.5 points higher win rates than those said they did not.

Sales Coaching Is a “Must Have”

Sales Coaching Approach vs. Win Rate

How different approaches to sales coaching (random, informal, formal, and dynamic) impact the win

rates for forecast deals. Only formal and dynamic approaches lead to significant improvements.


We’ve touched on the importance of content and

content strategy. Sales enablement increasingly relies

on technology to assess and track the content and

tools salespeople are using. While sales technology

management is generally the responsibility of sales

operations, sales enablement content management

systems (SECMs) are often run by sales enablement.

Content can’t be king in a vacuum. Getting content

into the hands – and minds – of the sales team is a

battle that not all organizations are winning. Yet

simply sharing sales content on one platform, with

SECM system or even integrated in the CRM, leads to

8.1 points higher win rates. However, 47.5% still

email content out or store it in multiple repositories,

and see win rates below average.

SECM solutions are on the cusp of a major change as

AI moves to the forefront. CSO Insights reviewed

more than 80 AI solutions, and found four areas

where AI can make a difference: 1) what content to

use and when; 2) who to engage; 3) what is working

or not working; and 4) surfacing best practices.

For enablement leaders, it is essential to make the

right technology choices. And remember that

implementation is one thing, and adoption another.

Technology Enables Sales Enablement

Primary Method Used to Share Content with Sales Teams

How content is shared with sales teams can impact win rates.


How should sales enablement leaders work across

the organization to achieve the goals that have

been defined in the sales enablement charter? One

of the keys is a formal approach to cross-functional

collaboration.

A second key is efficient enablement operations,

which mainly involves production processes and

metrics. A stable production process ensures

quality, effectiveness and scalability of enablement

services. Metrics measure progress and impact and

connect the dots to the goals in the charter.

Of all these practices we looked at in this year’s

study, metrics were the area that needed the

biggest improvement. Less than one-fifth of

organizations worked with leading and lagging

indicators, were able to determine the ROI of their

enablement efforts, or were able to measure

milestones or productivity. Those who did follow

these three practices achieved substantially better

win rates.

Investing in enablement without a meaningful

framework of metrics is dangerous: Enablement

runs the risk of being seen as a tactical initiative

that can easily be cancelled.

Collaboration, Enablement Operations and Metrics

Measuring Enablement Impact

Fewer than one-fifth of sales organizations use all three types metrics to measure their enablement

efforts.


Conclusion

Sales enablement as a discipline is maturing and growing up. However, only a

third of enablement teams meet all or a majority of their expectations and

achieve significantly better performance results.

Our recommendations: Invest in a strategic and formal approach to sales

enablement. Address the basics: Develop a vision of what you want to achieve

and a related strategy that defines the necessary steps to get there.

Document this vision and strategy in a formal charter that is approved by the

senior executive sponsors. Our sales enablement clarity model enables

enablement leaders to address all facets of sales enablement.

For more information about sales enablement and other key elements of sales

transformation, contact your CSO Insights analyst at [email protected].


CSO Insights is the independent research arm within Miller Heiman Group, dedicated to improving

the performance and productivity of complex B2B sales. The CSO Insights team of respected

analysts provides sales leaders with the research, data, expertise, and best practices required to

build sustainable strategies for sales performance improvement. CSO Insights’ annual sales

effectiveness studies, along with its benchmarking capabilities, are industry standards for sales

leaders seeking operational and behavioral insights into how to improve their sales performance

and to gain holistic assessments of their selling and sales management efficacy. Annual research

studies address sales and service best practices, sales enablement and sales performance

optimization.

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Sales Enablement Grows Up...selling processes to the steps and gates the buyers go through along their path. Second, align the enablement services (content, training, coaching, tools)