In this video, we are going to get advanced and take your Sales and Marketing to an entirely new level using Sales Enablement!
Sales Enablement can be a complicated subject. I think it’s because for some reason experts define it differently. But I’ve come to realize their definitions are based on their individual experience with it.
So you may question why I am going to give you what seems to be yet another definition.
I appreciate that. But, stick with me because I think we have boiled it down to its essentials … while incorporating everyone else’s ideas about it.
And while there may be some topics left out of this video, it’s by design. My goal is to give you an overview of Sales Enablement so you know what it is, what it can do for you and what value it brings to your business. And honestly, I think that’s all you really care about!
So, to get a solid grasp on Sales Enablement, let’s start like we always do with the #1 client acquisition framework, the Client Magnet System.
The Client Magnet System is the complete model for uniting and aligning Sales and Marketing and creating an Inbound and Outbound client acquisition engine in your business – that attracts more leads, boosts sales and energizes your growth!
And remember, you want to align Sales and Marketing because they are just like the wheels of a car. You want them working together, moving in the same direction,
So you get this and not this.
There’s 4 layers, or stages: Tools, Traffic, Client Acquisition, and Post-Sale. We’ll go over all of it in future videos, but in this video we are discussing Sales Enablement, in the Client Acquisition layer, on both the Sales and Marketing side of the map.
Did you notice there on the map that I have content and not Sales Enablement? And did you notice it spans both sides? This is because Sales Enablement is responsible for all the key ways Marketing can align with Sales … and content is the major, essential piece.
You align Sales with Marketing in 4 ways:
Ways you align Sales with Marketing:
- Process
- Tools
- Data
- Content
The Sales Enablement function is a bridge between Sales and Marketing.
In larger companies, this can mean a separate team with defined roles, while in smaller companies Marketing and Sales can work together to achieve all of the same objectives and outcomes Sales Enablement gives you.
So … other than the bridge between Sales and Marketing, and content, what exactly is this thing called Sales Enablement that I keep referring to?
Simply put, Sales Enablement has two areas of focus:
- The needs of the buyer – ensuring they have the content they need, when they need it, to make an informed buying decision.
- The effectiveness of the Salesperson – ensuring they have the process, tools, data and content they need to close deals as quickly and as effectively as possible.
You could dive deep into each of these areas of focus and branch off into many other realms. For instance, in some companies, Sales Enablement teams help train and role play with sales people in addition to assisting them with sales sequence development, content creation and research.
This is why you get different definitions of Sales Enablement depending upon who you ask.
And while in larger companies Sales Enablement goes deep into assisting and working with the salesperson, for smaller companies, and especially companies that utilize the Client Magnet System, this is overkill.
You can have a robust Sales Enablement program with just a little forethought and planning. Besides, unless we are honing an already sharp blade, we don’t need to support sales in such a customized way.
Instead, we can combine the Sales Enablement areas of focus by making the customer our first priority and serve their needs … In doing so, we automatically give our sales team everything they need to obtain superior results from their outbound efforts.
Why Content is Essential for Sales Enablement
If you take nothing else from this video, I want you to remember this:
Buyer behavior has changed.
Today, before a Buyer ever contacts your sales team they will typically:
- Identify a need they have, a problem they want to solve, and research solutions to it themselves.
- During that research, they will be exposed to solutions, ideas, products/services and brands.
- They will develop preferences as they browse these websites and other information
- They will ramp up their engagement and move toward contacting those they “like” the best. (like = for whatever reason – from experience, to brand mindshare, to community, belonging, in the club, cool logo to price to offer, service, guarantee and specifications.)
This buyer behavior is what I’ve referred to before as the Buyer’s Journey. And this is what the marketing funnel on the marketing side of the map is built around.
This new Buyer’s Journey is built around the Internet because the Internet has given your buyer the ability to move 70% of the way to the sale (from not knowing they have a problem to giving you money) they can move at least 70% of the way by themselves.
This is why you need content.
You want to be seen when your buyer starts searching for solutions to their problems. You want to be a part of their decision process and shape and influence their opinions.
This is what good content does. It attracts buyers and brings them to your website where they can engage with you in deeper, more meaningful ways.
This is how you speed up the sales cycle and get a buyer to come to you presold – knowing what they want, cash-in-hand ready to pay for it.
How Sales Enablement Works within the Client Magnet System
So with all this talk of content and Buyer’s Journey, you may be thinking I’m talking about content marketing and not Sales Enablement.
Actually, I’m talking about both and I’m about to pull Sales into the mix because remember, we are talking about aligning Sales and Marketing with Sales Enablement.
Everything we’ve discussed in the last 15 videos is in play here.
With content marketing, we are creating content that answers the buyers questions and shows them the solutions to their problems at each stage of the buyer’s journey. We are creating blog posts and videos for the top-of-the-funnel; creating eBooks, guides, whitepapers, checklists, and more in the middle-of-the-funnel; and we are creating webinars, case studies, spec sheets, buyer’s guides, and more for the bottom-of-the-funnel.
With Sales Enablement, we are taking this content and organizing it for the sales team. And when the sales team encounters:
- A new reason for buying
- A new objection
- A new problem your product/service solves
- A new way to say the same thing (frame)
- A new step on the Buyer’s Journey
- A new Ideal Client to target
The Sales Enablement team jumps in to create content that answers the question or problem, overcomes the objection, re-frames, and speaks to the buyer where they are on their buying journey.
Plus, they can go even deeper and help create other types of content Sales uses like phone scripts, sales sequences and messaging, playbooks, battlecards, presentation decks, and more.
Remember, in larger companies a Sales Enablement team may create this content in association with Sales and Marketing. In a small team, Sales and Marketing collaborate on the needed content and message and Marketing creates the content because they have the resources.
How Sales Uses Sales Enablement Content
Sales has two flows of leads:
- From their own outbound activity
- From inbound marketing when leads enter the marketing funnel
In both cases, the best way to engage the buyer is through content and a content offer.
It’s getting harder and harder to get buyers into a meeting where you pitch them. They need to see and understand the value you offer. They need to see you as different, unique, special.
Once they do, they won’t have a price objection. They won’t have to kick tires. They won’t corner you into free consulting.
By planning the content and your message to match the buyers needs at each step of the buyer’s journey, you leverage their buying process, and through Sales, take control of it.
Your sales team can use content when they reach out to potential buyers, and they can use content to follow up and stay top of mind.
Introducing the Resource Library
So, now you know why content is so important to Sales and how by coordinating the needs of the buyer and your message you can align Sales and Marketing with it.
But to take it from a theoretical idea to an asset that you deploy every day, you have to overcome one hurdle.
That hurdle is: what content do we have and where can I find it?
Luckily, there’s a tool and a process for that. We call it the Resource Library.
We think of the Resource Library as storage for all of your marketing and sales collateral that has been organized by the stage in the funnel, or buyer’s journey, as well as the challenges the customer is experiencing and the objections they would have.
Now you can easily create your own resource library in a drive, or with cloud storage. But for larger businesses and larger teams there are SaaS tools specially designed for this.
For instance, this is Seismic, one of the top tools in the Sales Enablement space.
Notice how just like us, they are focused on content and telling stories that engage your buyers.
And notice too how they focus on helping sales teams, sales enablement teams, and marketing teams.
And on their solutions page, they wrote: “The modern buyer expects a personalized experience, supported by relevant content”
This reinforces everything we’ve just talked about in this video.
And finally, you can see how Seismic also talks about aligning Sales and Marketing through Sales Enablement and Sales Enablement content.
I hope this video not only clarifies what Sales Enablement is, and what you can do with it, but also the value you can get from it.
By using Sales Enablement content to get attention, gain interest and build desire in your buyers for your products/services, you can expect to attract more leads, and convert more of them to sales faster and easier than you ever thought possible.
::: Articles Discussed in the VLOG :::
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