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Sales, sales enablement, sales training

7 Reasons Why Your Company Needs a Sales Enablement Platform

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Is your sales department not faring well enough? There are many reasons why you need a sales enablement platform.

Sales enablement is basically giving your sales team everything it needs to drive good business. Traditionally, sales professionals put an overwhelming amount of pressure on achieving a target or bringing in a certain number of clients. Companies that drive sales through this pressure tactic are likely to fumble at some point. This happens because teams are focused on converting just about anyone rather than working on quality leads for long-term business.

While many brands think their existing strategies are good enough, here are 7 reasons why your company needs to take the plunge to incorporate a sales enablement platform:

  1. Your revenue is stagnant

One of the first reasons for thinking about opting for a sales enablement platform is if your revenue is either stagnant or not growing as expected. For any organization, there are updated goals for sales revenue and the number of clients acquired in every quarter. If you see your sales reps struggling to keep up with this consistently, a sales enablement platform can be the additional boost that can sort this out! 

  1. Sales machinery isn’t bringing in leads

A sales-enabled platform is one that provides all kinds of resources for an overall improvement in sales. A significant reason for considering this is when your existing sales machinery is failing to deliver leads. If marketing or other channels are bringing in the majority of your leads and not sales, there’s a problem! Your sales funnel can be boosted with some custom sales enablement initiatives for your business.

  1. Your sales process is broken

Number 3 is if you don’t really have a fixed sales process or are unsure of what’s wrong. This is a common occurrence with many organizations and a popular reason for enforcing sales enablement strategies. You can analyze your broken sales process with AI predictions, accurate data forecasts, and analytics. Tools for this aspect of sales enablement can help identify the problem areas. 

  1. The turnaround time to close deals is too much

A valid reason why you need sales enablement is also to do with your conversion and retention time spent on customers. It is an issue if you’re spending too much time on a single client or compromising client retention due to failed follow-ups. It’s high time that administrative and scheduling elements are automated for your sales funnel, and yours is converted into a sales-enabled organization!

  1. Sales tools are outdated and wasteful

Some companies get sales tools on board and never look back at them! It is not enough to have CRM software or team management tools if they are not working any longer for your team. With time, all these tools require upgrading and a performance check. The benefit of using a sales enablement platform in tandem is to always remain in check with what is working for you and what is not!

  1. Your competitors are outperforming in a similar zone!

A big reason for employing sales enablement is to be at par or have an edge over your competitors. If your competition is outperforming you with similar resources, you are most likely not deploying yours too well. A sales enablement tool can be the contextual guide to drive strategic sales growth. Designed primarily to support sales, these platforms can take care of multiple aspects, from training and management to even active customer engagement.

  1. Sales reps are underperforming consistently

At the end of the day, you can clearly gauge the ground-level performance of your sales reps. You might see a consistent underperformance or lack of proper workflow. The absence of a sales-specific competitive and intelligent platform could be the reason. Platforms like Salshood, Highspot, Seismic, and HubSpot Sales Hub are potent tools. These can empower them with features to boost their performance! Thus, instead of thinking of the reasons to use sales enablement, there are no reasons why you shouldn’t! 

Conclusion 

Sales enablement is the way to go for businesses that want to stay in the game in the longer run. Forcing sales or pressuring employees into delivering is redundant. Try enabling them with platforms that can streamline their efforts. Quodeck is one such gamification-driven e-learning platform. It can be used effectively for training, learning, analytics, and improved interactivity. Try it out to build your custom sales training platform and help your employees learn in a stimulating environment!

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Corporate Learning Best Practices, Employee-Training, Mobile Learning, Online Learning, QuoDeck, Sales, sales enablement

What you need to know about sales enablement: 3 crucial steps for success

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 Sales Enablement can change the growth story of your company boosting revenue by at least 20%. Here’s what you need to know. 

Sales enablement has been an integral part of growing companies, especially in the latter half of the decade. Organisations have been subscribing heavily to the concept of an enablement team purely because of its conversion potential.  

Even though the idea is almost a buzzword nowadays, it’s still widely misunderstood. There’s a lack of clarity on what sales enablement actually is and how it impacts the overall KPIs. And believe it or not, this murky distinction hurts the potential that sales enablement could have. 

We’ll be clearing the fog and shedding some light on what sales enablement in reality is & why it is an absolute necessity in today’s conversion-focused business environment. 

How to define sales enablement? 

Sales Enablement is a term loosely used in the context of an overlap between VP of sales & sales manager, which is somewhat true but not entirely. 

By definition, it is a strategic placement that focuses on increasing the numbers and productivity of sales teams by providing tools, content, and resources across the buyer’s journey. 

Of course, this is an immensely broad definition of sales enablement, presented just to give you an outline. It’s way more nuanced than this. Here’s what sales enablement teams do on an average day: 

A day in the life of a sales enablement team

The role of Sales Enablement would be different for every organization. But the purpose is more or less identical. In most organizations, Sales Enablement bridges the gap between Marketing & Sales by: 

  1. Crafting sales assets & trainings
  2. Leading new hire onboarding and continuous learning of the sales reps
  3. Heading the evaluation of the reps’ product & user knowledge 
  4. Paving the way for cross-functional communication
  5. Managing all the sales tools & resources
  6. Creating reports measuring sales enablement impact

Who heads the sales enablement team? 

Now that’s a bit tricky because this is not a traditional function. So it can be very contextual. The head of sales runs almost 40-50% of the functions, the rest being accountable to any of the executives from the management or marketing depending upon the organization’s needs. 

You must have a fair idea by now of what to expect while building a sales enablement team. So let’s move on to the meat of the matter – does sales enablement actually impact the bottom line, or is it just another frivolous corporate jargon? 

What makes sales enablement so crucial (and an absolute must-have in 2021)

In plain numbers, organizations have witnessed up to 15% more success in closing deals. 

Companies like Ringcentral, a business communications SaaS, saw a massive revenue run rate of $775M. The stock shot up to $126 from $22 in about two years of the sales enablement settling in. 

Other than that, some companies have also experienced stronger customer relationships & higher quota attainment. 

Here are three direct practical benefits of sales enablement

Maximum Sales Potential at each touchpoint 

An essential part of sales enablement is sales readiness. It’s the strategic orientation preparing reps with all the armor they require before going ahead and making a sale. The resources can be anything, from the intricate details of the product to the competitive positioning.

Usually, if done right, clients end up having memorable experiences even if the sale doesn’t go through. It’s potentially a candidate for word-of-mouth. 

The process includes some strategic activities like: 

  • Onboarding
  • Sales coaching
  • Materials for consistent & updated knowledge 
  • Reinforcement 

Engaged Salesmen are Productive Salesmen

The main goal of any Sales Enablement team is to aid sales reps in closing better. Subsequently, it also plays a crucial role in keeping them better engaged & equipped. 

There was a report by SiriusDecisions that mentioned high-performing organizations having high rates of early enablement adoption, as compared to the low-performing ones. 

Better pre-qualified leads, Increased conversions

Sales teams always complain about the quality of marketing qualified leads. According to Market Sherpa, most sales teams report that only 27% of b2b leads passed from marketing to sales are actually really qualified. 

With transparent & consumer-centric resources answering all the generic questions ideal buyers have – the tedious part is cut in half. Now, salespeople have to cater to prospects that are pre-educated. This saves a lot of time & effort, leading to better conversion rates.

Best practices include: 

  • Working in sync with the sales team to prepare the resources 
  • Focusing more on the present-day immediate buyers’ needs than long-term traditional pieces

Moreover, your salespeople are allowed to focus on the meat of their job, i.e., selling, and the tedious parts of their job is taken away. This has a minimal but effective impact on the conversion rates. 

These were the top three benefits that having a sales enablement team can incur. Here we conclude this edition on sales enablement. 

Final Words

Conclusively, Sales Enablement is an efficient sync between the marketing and sales departments. It’s an absolute must-have in today’s tech-oriented times where the scope of marketing & sales has changed. They are codependent more than ever but still can’t function appropriately in sync with each other. That’s why you can’t miss out on sales enablement. 

Corporate Learning and Development, Corporate Learning Best Practices, Employee-Training, Gamification, L&D professionals, Sales, sales enablement

The Top 5 Ways to Transform Your Sales Team into a Sales-Enabled Organization

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Wondering why your team is lagging behind in sales? Here are some tips to transform yours into a sales-enabled company!

The sales team of any organization is a crucial driving force for good business. While standard sales strategies are used by a majority of organizations, the sales aspects are often undermined with more focus on enhancing your brand identity and other peripheral aspects.

For a business, at the end of the day, sales stand to be the most important. Even if you’re a brand that believes in making an impact or looking at the larger picture, you really can’t keep your vision going without having the basic funds for it. Many businesses fall to their ends due to the lack of a prompt sales team.

But the question is – how to make your company a sales-enabled one at large? Here are the top 5 ways with which you can transform yours into a sales-enabled organization:

  1. Modernize with CRM and collaboration tools

As much as you’d think your sales reps can handle it all, making their lives easier with some modern sales elements is always a good idea. Sales-friendly CRM systems can help to manage quality leads and target relevant consumers. Interactive and collaboration tools for your sales team can also do wonders for an effectively managed sales funnel. 

  1. Automate administrative and mundane tasks

Do everything you can to ensure your reps are focusing on sales and not mundane paperwork or other administrative tasks that could be managed digitally. If you’re still doing things the old-fashioned pen-to-paper way, it’s time to upgrade. Incorporate apps and devices into your workspace for digital signatures, cross-platform networking, and centrally updated data. In fact, handling mundane things electronically ensures not only saved time but improved security, privacy, and authenticity of data! 

  1. Use gamification strategies to encourage competition amongst reps

The sales playing field has traditionally been a competitive one. Who can finish their targets first? Who can get that promotion? How about easing the pressure-based competition and gamifying the competition between reps. Quodeck is a one-of-a-kind SaaS tool that allows you to create a gamified interactive interface that can be the next big thing to keep your sales reps engaged and on their toes. 

  1. Invest more in sales training and enablement

The businesses that experience a dip at the earliest are those that don’t train their reps well. You can’t expect your employees to deliver if you don’t provide them with the best training and set of resources to close the most number of deals! It is high time to invest in more effective sales training strategies, new technologies, and sales-enablement platforms for your business. 

  1. Analyze data to optimize strategy

Last but not least, fine-tuning your strategy as per your prior performances will truly make an impact. Insights from performance data can greatly transform your sales team and fine-tune their responses for client conversions. Classify and recognize aspects that are working and figure out strategies that are not working. You’d be blown away by how much data can reveal about your organization’s performance! Employ effective data analytics tools to reap the benefits of this. 

Conclusion

A few steps in the right direction can change your existing team into one with a little more perspective on sales. Assess your organization and shortlist what would work for you to boost up the potential of your sales department. Jump into these top options and find out what works for your business!

Sales, sales enablement

Sales Enablement: The Strategic Art of Selling

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Imagine yourself on a deserted island with no or little resources for survival. Now imagine that you are on the same island with information and resources for surviving. It implies that it is easier to handle complex challenges with appropriate tools and resources. Likewise, a sales team with no strategy has no meaning by itself.  

Simply having buyer’s information is not enough for making high sales. Here comes the importance of a sales enablement strategy. It is an approach that equips your sales team with adequate resources by aligning their selling tactics. 

Businesses applying sales enablement achieve a 49%-win rate on deals compared to 42.5% of companies that do not enable sales processes.  

A sales enablement strategy provides a seamless experience to the buyers with the right tools or content. It is effective when tools are applied at the right moment during the ongoing buying process. But how do you build an effective sales enablement strategy? 

Create valuable content  

A successful sales strategy involves valuable content to plan it around. Sales representatives require appropriate content to engage prospects and answer their queries. Buyers prefer choosing sales personnel who offer content to guide them well through each purchasing stage.  

You can collaborate with your sales and marketing teams to discover common questions they face at each stage of the buyer’s journey. Once your teams start to communicate effectively, you can plan different content types based on needs. 

Create a buyer’s journey map that associates different journey stages with multiple content types you can use. Create and plan social media posts to drive prospects directly to buyers.  

Sell with a personal touch  

Remember! You are not selling products and services for yourself but prospects. Try to lead with empathy and think about how you can solve your prospects’ challenges or issues. Approach the leads with a genuine concern to solve their obstacles. Let them know you are here to improve their lives with products and services and not simply for profit. 

Focus on building a relationship that involves giving genuine advice to prospects, and maintaining contact. It includes offering alternatives like discounts, trials, and payment terms. 

Quodeck is a robust platform that helps you focus on your targeted audiences. It applies micro-learning and gamification to drive engagement. Quodeck helps evaluate learner behavior through market analytics.   

Create customer-centric approach  

You would now agree that sales enablement centers around meeting customer expectations by creating an effective customer experience. Brands that offer superior consumer experience had 5.7 times more revenue than competitors that do not focus on it.  

You need to focus on personalization that begins with collecting valuable customer data and creating a specific profile. Correct lead distribution tools can enable sales personnel to approach leads based on customer data. Segmenting customers, identifying needs, answering doubts, and offering suitable content increase lifetime value for customers. 

Customer retention is mainly dependent on the company’s ability to provide a practical customer experience. Likewise, segmentation, understanding customer needs, and targeted content are necessary for sales enablement. 

Develop your expertise  

Try developing expertise in your operating industry as a whole. Have a thorough understanding of the products and services that you are selling to prospects. You should be able to address your prospects’ queries thoughtfully. It will help you in building rapport and trust among potential customers.  

However, your expertise should extended beyond the product. In this context, you need to understand competitors’ strengths and weaknesses and products and services. You should know your rivals’ pricing structure and their customers in the market. It will help you frame your sales enablement strategies better to suit your prospects’ needs and interests. 

Quodeck helps you customize your content based on customers’ preferences, including colors, banners, icons, and landing page layouts. Quodeck is an asset for enterprises as it offers internal and external marketing options.  

Train and train 

Sales enablement training is an exclusive activity. Business and customer needs keep on changing rapidly, which implies that buyer’s issues are evolving. Your sales force needs to have the latest updates at all times to build brand credibility. Can you believe that sales trainees forget around 84% of sales training after 90 days?  

So, sales enablement training is not a one-time activity. Instead, an effective way is setting up shorter, weekly, or fortnightly, but regular workshops. A continuous effort will drive the sales team and keep them updated of customer requirements. You can use weekly newsletters, workshops, and competitor updates to strengthen your sales enablement team. 

Conclusion 

You cannot deny that we are living in times where customers prefer quality content.  Sales enablement enables the sales team to approach customers and results in higher productivity. Effective sales enablement strategies help your business stand out in the competition. So, empower your sales team with the correct tools and resources for better results! 

Sales, sales enablement

Sales Enablement: The Strategic Art of Selling

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Do you know that effective sales enablement strategies are the key to high sales? The ideal strategies empower sales personnel to carry out the proper conversation at all stages of sales funnel. Believe it or not, the sales team is your firm’s engine that keeps running and growing your business. The business can come to a halt without a high-performance sales team. 

Now, big B2B brands provide their sales team appropriate selling tools or assets, technologies and training. The resources enable the sales team to effectively work towards the buyer’s journey. It results in optimum conversions. 

Here lies the importance of sales enablement. 75% of the companies agree that sales enablement strategies contribute fairly to their businesses. The blog includes effective sales enablement strategies to improve sales. Here we go!  

Provide right tools 

Do you know the right technology hacks that can allow your sales team to focus on optimizing conversions and increasing revenue? 90%  of B2B sellers do not use their sales materials because the information is either outdated or difficult to customize.  

HubSpot has multiple shopping platforms that work well for the sales enablement team. It includes CRM software, sales automation software, and CMS.  

Other software for strengthening sales includes Databox, Slack, and Zoom.  

Automating the sales team with the best technology is critical to boosting sales. You can use email templates that cater to leads at each stage of the buyer’s journey. The templates will make the process simpler to connect with ample sales opportunities.  

You can implement automated prospecting that includes scheduling sales conversations. The team can conduct meetings with SQLs or sales-qualified leads. You can incorporate a live chat option on the business website. It enables the sales representatives to connect with an exciting lead.  

Offer training and support  

The best sales enablement software will be useless if your sales team does not know to use it.   So, you need to make sure that the sales and marketing team experience thorough training. If the team understands that the sales enablement processes will make their work more imaginative, they will participate actively. The training enables the team to turn prospects into customers. It will allow them to run the operations smoothly.  

You need to provide sales enablement tools and train them to use them in the short and long term. And yes! Show your team the immediate value that training will bring to them. It will be in the form of more sales and increased personal payoff. This will motivate and engage the team for training.  

QuoDeck commits to offer the most appropriate mobile learning system It provides access to your learners from wherever and in whatever way they want. QuoDeck creates engaging content on mobiles and learning games to help your sales and marketing team learn quickly.  

Reinforce best practices  

A sales enablement strategy demands a major shift in the organization’s daily operations and culture. Such changes require commitment from senior executives and managers. They take an interest in regularly testing and enhancing the strategies. You need to create a plan that gives you early wins. Following that, you can work to build them more robust and improve on progress. 

Do not forget to check the strategy progress by using surveys, metrics, and other ROI tools to analyze sales optimization. Try to focus on building a sales enablement strategy that aligns and grows with the business.  

Align with other departments  

Your sales team needs support from all other departments in the business. Understanding of the sales processes by marketing department will make the firm productive. Uninterrupted communication between the sales and marketing teams is the key to success. You can allow team collaboration technologies like Proofhub and Freshdesk. These ensure consistent content sharing across departments on one platform.  

Appropriate training of other departments with a sales-focus mindset will strengthen the sales enablement strategy. It ensures that everyone is working with a common goal.  

QuoDeck is a fantastic platform builder for delivering an interactive experience for engaging learners actively. It also helps in building mobile-ready content that you can share across multiple platforms. QuoDeck enables you reach to your learners through easy to use sharing interface.  

Conclusion 

So, implementing an appropriate sales enablement strategy is beneficial for businesses.  It opens up opportunities for more cross and up-selling. The strategy gives a path for approaching new markets and a wider set of audiences. It is all about providing the sales team adequate resources like technology, content, and software. Automated prospecting and practical follow-up tips enable sales representatives to convert leads.  

eLearning Develpment Best Practices, Employee-Training, Gamification, Sales, sales enablement

How to drive more engagement out of your sales training in 2021

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Engagement is one of the most important metrics to analyze the effectiveness of a training program. Engaged users are motivated, inspired and have a high willingness towards performing well. While developing a sales training course for your workforce in 2021, you must keep in mind that getting higher levels of engagement can be tricky because of various constraints. In this article, I will be highlighting a few, very interesting ways by which you can address the above issue and encourage a fun environment during the sales training. 

Storytelling:

An artform which is a two-way interaction between a storyteller and the learner. The interactive nature of storytelling partially accounts for its immediacy and impact. At its best, storytelling can directly and tightly connect the teller and audience. Relatable characters help the learners immerse themselves into the situation of the protagonist as their personality resonates with that of the character. Elements like story structure, emotional connectivity, real life challenges, use of multimedia components make sure that the learner is kept engaged throughout and can achieve the set goals. 

Personalization of training:

Personalization of training is the customization of training so that it is aligned to meet a specific learner’s needs. A highly learner-centric approach, personalized learning makes the training sessions highly relevant to the learners leading to high engagement. As trainers you must let your learners be flexible with your course, they should be able to choose their own device, their learning path, manage their timelines, learn at their own pace, and set their own milestones. 

Gamification elements:

Leaderboards are a great way to introduce healthy competition amongst the learners. This element of challenge encourages learners to do better than others thus improve the level of engagement throughout the batch. Rewards and recognition promote good work ethic and a sense of socialization within the company. Every learner wants to show off their achievement and share their accomplishments with others. This creates an environment where everyone wants to do well and demonstrate how skilled they are. 

Application of learning on the job: 

Provide job aids in your training program which could be used by the learner in the most practical sense. Your sales workforce is on their feet, the whole day interacting with different stakeholders. The training course should be designed in a way that salesperson could refer to the job aids to complete an important task during his/her day. This creates value of the training course in the minds of the learner and will improve motivation and engagement. 

Learner Feedback:

Learners should be encouraged to provide their feedback on different aspects of the sales training regularly. This will not just help in improving the course and fill the loopholes but also reassure the learners that their inputs are valuable and that they are a part of the process itself. This feedback needs to be used to upgrade the system and build on the research that was initially done on the learner profiles.  

There are various strategies which could be used to achieve higher levels of engagement and high immersive experiences. As the marketplace is evolving, the trainer needs to step up with their sales training programs which require effective strategies to drive readiness for the sales teams they support. Take into account the characteristics and personalities of your learner, conduct a discovery process, build and improve at each step of the learner journey. The elements mentioned in this article could be a solution to the challenges involved in engaging a learner during the sales training process by turning routine tasks into fun activities that give your learner a sense of confidence

Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Sales, sales enablement

7 Best Marketing Automation Tools for Sales Enablement

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We belong to an era where everything is getting digital very quickly. Especially during this pandemic, the world has faced the dire need for digitization even more. And as we progress towards automation, we focus on simplicity. From the simplest commands on Google or Siri to manless Tesla cars, where can you not find an example?

Digital marketing is no exception in this case. The introduction of AI in digital marketing has only made advertisements and promotions easier and smoother. It also saves you a lot of money. How? According to the Salesforce’s State of Sales report, sales personnel only spend 34% of their time selling their products.

The same report also says that sales personnel spend a lot more time doing other things like writing emails, follow-ups, data entry, scheduling meetings, etc. Now, all these tasks can be easily achieved by using Marketing Automation tools. So, here are our choice of 7 best marketing automation tools for sales enablement.

Best Marketing Automation Tools

1.   Sendinblue

Top on our list we place Sendinblue, an excellent marketing automation tool. Sendinblue has various features for email marketing, SMS marketing, chat, CRM, etc. This marketing automation tool can learn to message and email that you can customize and design.

Sendinblue is also helpful in campaigns. Here you can design effective landing pages. It has additional features like Facebook ad targeting, custom-signup form integration, retargeting, etc. 

2.   MailShake

MailShake is an inevitable marketing automation tool for email marketing. This automation tool excels at finding the most engaged leads. That way, you can focus more on qualified prospects who can be converted into customers.

MailShake also includes various outreach features. It has a very simple dashboard for prospect follow-up. MailShake engages your prospect on whichever platform they are active online. But above all, its built-in phone dialer lets you contact your leads in real-time.

3.   HubSpot

Hubspot is a very popular marketing automation tool available in over 90 countries worldwide. It is the most famous platform for inbound marketing and sales. Hubspot has various tools for social media marketing, landing page designing, SEO, web analytics, etc., made for small to medium-sized businesses.

Hubspot is also popular when it comes to email marketing. It has automated content and attractive templates for each recipient. It also has additional features like document management and tracking, contact management, customer profile, email tracking, etc.

4.   Pipedrive

Taking note of each of your prospects can be troublesome for any salesperson. Plus, it consumes a lot of time. But Pipedrive keeps everyone on the same page. It effectively collects customer data like age, demographics, gender, etc., and sorts it accordingly. Thus, you can understand a qualified lead better before handing them over to the sales consultant.

5.   Automate.io

If you are looking for a complete business automation solution, Automate.io can be the one. This marketing automation tool is an outstanding business workflow manager. It can offer you a completely secured workflow.

Furthermore, it can easily automate and manage business requirements like marketing, payment, and sales. Automate.io supports various major platforms like CRM apps, helpdesk, eCommerce and payment forms, etc.

6.   EngageBay

Small business owners know the pain of managing multiple CRMs and marketing automation tools. Sometimes, it is not even possible for them to align everything as per the budget. EngageBay is a platform where you can do multiple tasks together.

You can sync all your contacts here, and it will nurture those leads automatically. You can also schedule sales calls. Thus, you can focus on one thing instead of many.

7.   Highspot

With Highspot, you can easily fulfill your revenue goal with its expert guidance. Highspot features outstanding integrations like AI-powered search, in-context training, guided selling, customer engagement, and actionable analytics, etc. It has enterprise-ready sales enablement with all the eye-catching modern designs, which can be a breakthrough in your campaign.

Conclusion

Marketing Automation tools are becoming the new future of the digital marketing industry. And the reason behind this is quite clear. They help you create efficient campaigns with a lot less human power. It means that you save more while getting more efficient. We hope that these 7 best marketing automation tools for sales enablement will change your marketing scenario.