SALES ENABLEMENT STRATEGY KEY ELEMENTS

A post shared by Benjamin Kepner (@benjaminkepner) on Oct 2, 2015 at 6:10pm PDT

Sales Enablement Strategy Key Elements

Inbound is about creating marketing and sales that people love by providing helpful content and resources that attract people to you. 70% of a buyer’s research is done before they talk to sales. 59% of buyers prefer not to talk to sales at all. Sales Enablement is the processes, content, and technology that empower sales teams to sell efficiently at a higher velocity. 8% of sales enablement functions live inside of marketing departments.

Key Elements of a Sales Enablement Strategy

1. A Clear Goal
2. A target buyer
3. A content strategy

There’s only one way to make more sales. Maximize your time with people more likely to buy and minimize your time with others. A Goal is a metric outcome you can check off a list. A vision is a state of affairs you want to bring into being. The vision is what’s going to motivate your teams. The goals are how you’ll make sure you’re on a path that has the potential to fulfill your vision. Cost of the vision -> Goals for the team. Focus on the pipeline. What is your cost per lead? Lead Qualification questions should include what makes someone a good fit for your offering and which actions demonstrate that someone is sales-ready?

An Ideal customer profile is a checklist of the most basic attributes someone needs to have in order to be successful as your customer. What are the key traits a person or organization has to have in order to be a good fit for your offering? List them out and turn them into a checklist. Identify the actions that are most meaningful. Theory -> Action -> Outcome -> Learn. Marketing qualified lead (MQL) are leads that are both a good fit for your offering and ready to have a sales conversation.

A hand raiser- someone who explicitly asks to talk to sales. The more leads you have the higher your lead qualification standard can be. There is no separation between sales and marketing. The focus is on revenue. 69% of high-performing companies rank communicating business goals company-wide as the most important and effective way to build a high-performing team. 7% of employees know what they need to do to contribute to company-wide goals.

A Service-level agreement is an agreement between a service provider and its customer that guarantees a certain output.

1. The average conversion rate from lead to opportunity
2. The average conversion rate from the opportunity to closed sale
3. The average value of a sale
4. What is an MQL? 25% of inbound marketing efforts
5. What are sales accepted?
6. What are sales-qualified?
7. How much pipeline is from marketing?
8. How much is direct sales activity?

Sample SLA

Every month, marketing will deliver 1,000 qualified leads to sales, and sales will contact each of those leads within 24 hours of receiving it. 100 leads – 50 social media connections – 30 calls – 15 demos – 5 customers – $800 mar. Calling within 5 minutes increases chances of closing 1000x. 250 leads = 5 leads; 4 hours per blog article. How much time your marketing team is spending on the different assets they’re creating and how many leads those assets are actually generating.

Aligned to achieve book

Sales Velocity = (Number of opportunities) x (Win Rate) x (Average Deal Value)/ (Sales Cycle Length)

A Judicial branch is a small group of leaders who review every lead sales rejects. Leads are as good as the messaging that brought them there. Marketing (Sales + Marketing) meetings: a time when sales and marketing come together to discuss problems and collaborate on solutions. Workgroups have the Least amount of interdependence, based on organizational or managerial hierarchy, meet periodically to hear and share information. Teams, on the other hand, are highly interdependent, work in service of a specific project and need one another in order to get work done.

Plan a Smarketing Meeting by focusing on solving problems, finding a cadence that works well for your company, be choosy about you invite to the meeting, and ensure it is a good place for experimentation. Prepare an Agenda that includes how to Identify problems, brainstorm solutions, and make assignments. Marketing meetings need to be collaborative, creative spaces where all ideas are welcome. You want to provide psychological safety or an individual’s perception of the consequences of taking an interpersonal risk.

Reasons people don’t participate in a meeting:

1. I have nothing to contribute to the topic at hand.
2. I can’t get a word in edgewise.
3. I’m happy to just watch.
4. I don’t like what’s being said and don’t want to be a downer.
5. I know what I need to do, and it doesn’t require further discussion.