The second and final day of the Sales 3.0 Conference is in the books! Messages of improving the sales landscape with technology, training, and the merriment of the two continued to be at the forefront of each discussion. Once again, we’re operating in a tough environment:
57% of reps miss their quota. 80% of deals won’t close. Sales meetings cost $100 per minute.
If you’re still wondering why you should leverage Sales Enablement, may I direct you back to the beautiful green lines of text above. Sales Enablement professionals are a steward of corporate resources on behalf of sales, accountable for aggregate productivity of the sales force. The resources that sales needs to succeed are found in every department – marketing, legal, sales, finance, etc. They need to be streamlined and centralized in order to properly combat the ever difficult sales landscape. But where do we start? How can we break down the various components of Sales Enablement? Well, today we learned the 4 Pillars:
- Strategy – Is your go-to-market message clear, current, and does everybody in the company know it?
- Content – Is your current go-to-market strategy and vision on message? Is your content accessible and accurate?
- Journey – When are your sales reps getting content? Are they getting it at the right time during the buyer’s journey? Are they getting the right information? Are the not being inundated with information that they don’t need?
- Feedback – What’s working? Are your sales reps trying something new that you don’t know about? It’s up to sales enablement professionals to make sure all reps get heard.
If people, whether they be sellers or buyers, keep asking the same question over and over, you need Sales Enablement. Based off what I’ve heard over the past two days, SE professionals are driving their sales organizations towards the ideas and methodologies of Strategic Partnership, Value-based Selling, Buyer Enablement, and Customer-centricity. The common thread: The Buyer is #1. Sales must leverage the voice of the customer to drive alignment and close deals.
“Your salespeople should be creators of value for their customers.”
– Tim Sullivan, Corporate VP of Business Development at Sales Performance International
A lot of money is being left on the table by poorly trained sales reps utilizing the traditional, product-centric sales approach. This no longer fits for today’s modern buyers that are looking for how you can help them fulfill their needs. Jim Berryhill, CEO & Founder at DecisionLink, said, “The ability to articulate value by role and to bring that together as a whole is the optimal way [to improve your sales process].” Anneliese Jacobson, Director of Global Commercial Effectiveness at Becton Dickinson, continued, “Calculators that help the salesperson apply that formula to show what kind of value they will bring buyers [are the kinds of tools that need to be provided to sales teams].” If there is value to be captured, there is opportunity. Sheryl Upkes, Senior Manager of Global Sales Development at Perkin-Elmer, stated, “The most successful sales people aren’t the ones that can sell the best, they are the ones that understand business the most.”
