Today’s buyers are in full control of the buying process, and they know it. By the time your sales team has that first conversation with a potential buyer, the buyer has already formed a baseline understanding of who your company is and if you can solve their problem.
The job of a salesperson is no longer to act as a gatekeeper of basic information. Instead, their role is to deliver the best experience, service, and information possible when guiding a prospect through the sales process.
To meet your prospect’s expectations, it’s important that every member of your sales team has all the needed information and resources available at the tip of their finger. Hence, the importance of a sales enablement tool.
What Is a Sales Enablement Tool?
In its simplest form, a sales enablement tool is any software or system your team has in place that supports their sales efforts and, frankly, makes it easier for them to do their job.
Think about it this way. If your sales team is constantly hunting through server folders or bugging their marketing department for a specific case study, wouldn’t they benefit from a tool or system that centralized that information?
This is exactly the problem a sales enablement tool solves.
Sales enablement tools help reduce the sheer amount of effort it takes to service a single prospect by automating certain aspects of the sales process or creating a content hub for key pieces of marketing collateral.
The less time your team spends tracking down assets or creating net-new material, the more time they can spend pushing prospects through their pipeline. This is what makes sales enablement tools a critical component of any successful sales organization.
What Can a Sales Enablement Tool Help With?
There are dozens of sales enablement tools available in the marketplace. Some are dedicated to providing a single service, while others offer a more robust experience that addresses several needs. In general, most sales organizations use sales enablement tools to assist with the following.
Organize Contacts/Prospect/Pipeline Data
You may be using a sales enablement tool already and not even realize it! Your CRM helps your team visualize your pipeline, organize your contacts, and keep tabs on where your prospects are in the buying process.
Organize Sales Supporting Content
Does it feel like your team is gearing up for an expedition every time they try to hunt down a case study? If this sounds like your team, then it’s time to take an active stance in organizing your sales support content.
Not only will centralizing your sales content make it easier for your team to locate the requested content, but it’ll also allows them to respond to prospects faster. Never underestimate the power of a speedy reply during the sales cycle.
Create New Content
In addition to organizing key content pieces, your team can also use certain sales enablement tools to create new pieces of content. This offering can come in a couple of different flavors, but the two most popular functions are:
- Tools that allow a salesperson to mix-and-match specific pieces of content to create a tailor-made single dynamic resource
- Tools that provide your team with a system for requesting new collateral from their marketing department or other content creators
Provide Communications Templates
It’s just plain inefficient to rewrite the same email repeatedly. Which is why your team should have access to a library of approved templates that they can use when communicating with prospects.
This holds true for emails, call scripts, and meeting agendas. Don’t let your sales team reinvent the wheel continuously. Place templates and guides in a centralized location that they can customize as needed.
Even better, use a sales enablement tool that allows the sales team to share their own high performing call scripts and templates with the broader team. A powerful tool for organizations that have their sales organization split across multiple offices.
Automation
Earlier this month we published an in-depth article about the benefits of incorporating automation into your sales process. We won’t go into the details here, but yes, any software that lets you automate any aspect of your sales process would be considered a sales enablement tool.
Benefits of a Sales Enablement Tool
We’ve talked about what a sales enablement tool is and how it can help support your sales team. Now let’s hit the important bit. Why your organization needs to invest in sales enablement tools.
Top 4 Benefits of Sales Enablement Tools
Faster Close Rates
The quicker your team can provide your prospects with the information needed to make a buying decision, the earlier that decision can be made. If your team is burning days, or even weeks, digging up a relevant case study or securing a customer testimonial, then it’ll take that much longer to close a deal.
Even worse, if you take too long to provide a prospect with the requested information, that prospect could abandon their journey with you and go with a competitor who responded faster.
Yikes!
Stronger Data
You can only improve what you can measure. Infusing your sales process with the right sales enablement tool can provide your team with the data and clarity they need to identify areas for improvement. Data can also enhance your prospecting and outbound efforts. The more insight you have on your prospects, the more you can personalize your sales pitch to meet their specific needs.
Satisfied Sales People
Keeping your burn and churn rates low is more than just offering competitive compensation. A poor sales environment can have a direct impact on your organization’s turnover rate. The more supported a salesperson feels by the company, the likelier they are to stay loyal to the company over the long haul.
By using sales enablement tools to ease the daily frustrations experienced by a salesperson, you’re communicating that you care about empowering them to do their job. By supporting their success, you, in turn, support your company’s success.
Scalable Success
Speaking of success, sales enablement tools can help your team produce scalable results! Sales enablement is all about the process. A systemized approach that, when executed through the right tools, can provide predictive, tangible results.
Even better, as you grow your sales team, they’re coming on board to a system that’s already built and ready to support them from day one.
Supercharge Your Sales Efforts With the Right Tool
There are multiple sales enablement tools available on the market, selecting the right one isn’t as simple as throwing a dart at a board. You need to take the time to choose the tool that best fits your biggest frustrations.
Take an honest look at your current process, maybe talk to a salesperson or two, and identify what’s broken. Are you spending too much time researching a prospect? Does it take forever to find that perfect testimonial?
Identify your needs then select the sales enablement tool that best solves your problem. The right sales enablement tool at the right time can make all the difference when it comes to engaging with your prospects, closing more deals, and driving more revenue.
Put even more intelligence at your sales teams' fingertips. Learn how FinListics' ClientIQ can create a stronger business case.
