The Seven Deadly Sins of Sales Enablement

Approximately 60-75% of B2B sellers don’t hit quota. Are two thirds of sellers’ incapable or incompetent? Or is it that they just don’t get the support they need? Sales enablement matters because it materially impacts seller performance and drives revenue growth. However, many sales organizations still struggle to get their salespeople up-to-speed and effective as a matter of routine. Why is this?

The following list outlines the top 7 root causes of ineffectual sales enablement:

1. Insufficient time and resources allocated for sales enablement

It’s easy to say, but that doesn’t make it wrong. Many sales enablement teams or initiatives are seriously underfunded and understaffed. Moving the hearts and minds of sellers takes a concerted and consistent approach over an extended period and that costs. It costs in terms of budgets and in terms of bodies. Glib generalizations like “Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach.” aren’t helpful or accurate. Great sellers don’t necessarily make great coaches and/or mentors. Inappropriate resourcing and difficulties attracting “good” candidates are commonplace.

Sales enablement is still a relatively young discipline, and some sales leaders are skeptical of the value it brings. Consequently, funding is sometimes constrained. Limiting sales enablement scope constrains the impact it can have. This is very much a chicken and egg or catch-22 situation.

Wrath: Don’t get angry. Get a budget! Ranting and raving about a lack of capacity or capability rarely resonates well with senior decision makers.

Demonstrating the contribution that sales enablement makes towards the bottom line is ideal. In the absence of such cold hard correlations, being able to show how seller behaviors have been modified is a compelling alternative. Demonstrating changes in the volume, and nature, of customer contact initiated by the sales team shows sales leaders that the investment is worthwhile.

2. Lack of Sales Management sponsorship and active involvement

Sales leaders often fail to recognize the importance of sales enablement and their teams invariably mirror this approach and attitude . Common signs of leadership absenteeism and an abdication of responsibility include a lack of direct involvement and the absolute delegation of the task to the sales enablement team.

Sales leaders and front-line sales management have to be actively involved in enablement if it’s to work. Enabling sales managers to enable their sellers effectively is often overlooked. All too often enablement sessions are “hijacked” to disseminate policy and announce procedural changes.

Envy: Tired of always being the bridesmaid but never the bride? Show the world how Sales Enablement can have a material impact on sales performance.

Many former sellers who are now sales leaders struggle to appreciate the value of sales enablement because they have never personally experienced or seen what ‘good’ looks like.

3. The sales enablement curriculum fails to cover the required bases

Many organizations don’t have a defined content plan for sales enablement. Of those that do, the content often fails to give sellers the information they need in the field. Over focus on product capabilities is common. A myopic focus on internal processes and systems is equally prevalent. Abstract macro level trends and high level academic market insight don’t help sellers to sell.

Conversation starters and icebreakers help sellers to engage. Discovery checklists and opportunity assessment tools help sellers to qualify better. Guidance on how to translate and contextualize the value story is essential. Educating sellers on how to use the content assets available is always beneficial. Content related to pricing models and how to explain or defend them is also often lacking.

Greed: More is not always better. Less is often more. Rationalizing your sales enablement curriculum and focusing it on the things that truly help to ‘move the needle’ for sellers is what counts.

Every second of seller focus and attention you can access is precious. If you can fill that time with stuff that’s relevant to the individual and the challenges they’re facing, then you’re dangerously close to adding personal value. Never ask for more of their time than you need.

4. Passive content provision predominates

Getting seller attention and keeping it is tricky. Providing masses of static content for sellers to absorb doesn’t work. Sellers won’t acquire knowledge if they aren't aware of it, irrespective of how swanky the content repository. If you build it, there's still a really good chance that they won't come. Even if they find it, it doesn’t mean they’ll engage with it, let alone take it onboard.

Practical or interactive exercises that contextualize the guidance are essential. Making actionable insights accessible to sellers via an on-demand just-in-time consumption model that’s channel agnostic is what really makes the difference.

Expecting sellers to learn what they need to know via some form of corporate osmosis doesn’t work either. Remote working has made it even harder. Historically, sellers would catch snippets of conversations and phrases they liked across the cubicle wall. This is no longer an option.

Sloth: Seller apathy and inertia are real. Winning the hearts and minds of sellers requires you to engage them with enthusiasm and provide tangible value that they believe will help them to succeed.

Persistence, pragmatism, and patience are needed to drive the seller behavior changes you want. Corralling, cajoling, and coaching the 'herd of cats' that is your sales force is essential.

5. Infrequent drinking from the sales enablement fire hose

Periodic soakings, like the obligatory 'deep dive' session during the annual sales kick-off, are largely counterproductive. A continuous drip feed of relevant and readily consumable content is always much more effective. Knowledge half-life is real. People forget. Sellers forget. They’re people too. A lack of systematic follow-up, comprehension assessments and routine retention testing make many sales enablement investments pointless. Repetition, regurgitation and regular reinforcement helps stuff stick.

Refresher training and rehearsals are essential. Ensuring salespeople actually use the content and skills in the real world helps with retention and recall.

Gluttony: Force feeding your sellers with content simply doesn’t work. Expecting them to be able to consume vast amounts of information in a condensed timeline is delusional.

Providing a smorgasbord of tempting enablement material doesn’t mean that they’re going to use it. Contextualizing the content and aligning it with real-world sales scenarios makes it more accessible and therefore more likely to be accessed.

6. Enablement content quality isn’t good enough

Content quality is critical. No. It’s more important than that. Instilling confidence and inciting action requires your sellers to be comfortable with the content they’re consuming. A lot of enablement content is awful. Investing effort in content creation is rarely wasted. Over focusing on enablement solutions or platforms to the detriment of the stuff that populates it is utter madness. Tooling is only part of the solution. Content is what makes it come alive. There’s also no point providing content if you’re not going to explain how to use it in the field.

Style over substance is equally dangerous. Slick visuals rarely compensate for a lack of ‘meat’. There needs to be plenty of actionable stuff for the sellers to get their teeth into if they’re to be sated and satisfied.

Pride: A lot of enablement content feels overly academic and less than professional. Hypothetical help isn’t helpful.

Production values are important, but it is the quality and relevance of the content that matters most. If your sellers don’t believe it’s credible and useful they won’t engage with it, let alone use it. You must ‘sell’ the value of enablement to the ‘sellers’ if they’re to take it to heart and put it into practice out in the real world.

7. Insufficient measurement of impact and value

Measuring the impact of enablement activity on seller behaviors and sales performance is essential. Failing to embed or connect enablement metrics with sales operations dashboards and management processes is ridiculous. The sales enablement function’s targets should be closely aligned with, and supportive of, the wider sales team’s tactical and strategic objectives.

Enablement is about ensuring sellers know what needs to be done, how they need to do it, they have content and tools they need, and they know how and when to use those enablers. Tracking consumption and comprehension matters. Monitoring the resultant behavior changes and activity levels helps to determine the effectiveness of sales enablement initiatives. Correlating usage profiles against sales performance matters even more.

Lust: Hunger for commercial success focuses a seller’s mind. Sellers that desperately want to win are avid and eager consumers of good enablement content.

Demonstrating the impact of sales enablement via internal case studies and success stories creates aspirational role models that sellers want to emulate. Success breeds success. Sellers with a powerful desire to succeed are truly formidable in the field.

Seller enablement is an integral part of any effective sales organization. Sales enablement approaches and capabilities vary considerably. To say there are defined best practices for the discipline would be a premature overstatement. Avoiding the common mistakes described above would be a good place to start. Balancing your curriculum design to focus on things that make a real difference is key. Getting sales management to actively promote and participate within the program helps everyone to see seller enablement as a priority.

Sellers want to be successful. Help them, to help you!

Want to read more about how to enable your sellers to engage your customers and prospects more purposefully?

Why not take a look at GlobalData’s new?“Sales & Marketing Maturity Model” ?to see which B2B sales approaches do and don’t work in 2023. You’ll also be able to determine where you sit on the continuum of sales enablement excellence and use it to prioritize areas where you need to focus or improveI

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