This blog has been updated with new data to reflect AI and the latest best practices in sales enablement.
TLDR: Many salespeople struggle to find the time to sell. They spend time doing research, office tasks, pulling information, or worse. Sales enablement and AI-supported tools provide a direct solution to these challenges, so sales can spend more time on selling and selling better. Your sales reps probably don’t spend enough time selling.
According to a recent study, salespeople spend, on average, about 33% of their work time selling. According to experts, your goal should be to have your sales team actively selling or prospecting for 60% to 70% of their time. What are they doing with the remainder of their time? They’re completing administrative tasks, searching for selling tools, and creating their own content. In other words, they lack easy access to important resources, and it’s costing them that all-important “face time” with customers.
Many sales teams report that they are spending more time servicing customers or doing non-revenue-generating activities than they are finding or working with prospects.
But to drive real revenue increases, reps don’t just need to make more calls, they need to make better calls. To convert conversations into closings, sales reps need to demonstrate thought leadership and industry expertise — proving value to the prospect at each step in the buyer’s journey. Many companies are leveraging AI to enhance their sales efforts. According to a recent report from HubSpot, 43% of salespeople are now using AI to support sales. However, an LLM can handle many routine tasks, but that's only one part of the solution.
How do you give your sales team the technology, training and content they need to excel? Sales enablement is a strategy that provides the solution to all these problems and more.
How to improve sales with sales enablement
Sales enablement is a strategy for equipping your sales team to sell more effectively.
It’s proactively giving them the targeted technology, training, content and more they need to increase sales. Implementing effective sales enablement requires dedicated planning and expertise — so your company sees the incredible potential benefits that ensure adoption.
With sales enablement, every customer point of contact can be more efficient and move toward closing faster. Here are some ways it can provide a significant boost to your bottom line:
- AI is a powerful tool for analysis and personalization. Use it!
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a powerful sales enablement tool for both buyers and sellers. For buyers, AI can empower them to conduct their own research, so they are more informed when they reach out to a salesperson. For the seller, AI allows them to pull better insights from large data sets so they can better understand their prospects. AI tools also allow your sales team to personalize every customer interaction better.
AI is not a panacea, and it's not a perfect tool. You'll want to use it carefully, and provide your sales team training and a structure on when, where and how it can be used. But, if you set up a system and provide that training, it will empower your salespeople to sell more.
- Sales enablement improves your win rate with better content.
Sales enablement ensures that each rep has the most up-to-date information on your brand, your products, and the needs of your target markets. They make more sales by delivering high-quality content at the ideal time in the sales cycle.
Instead of starting from the beginning on each call, they can warm leads with a targeted blog, infographic or white paper. Instead of repeating information the prospect has already researched, they can provide value-added information about the purchasing decision and move the conversation forward.
- It shortens your sales cycle with better access.
Sales enablement tools significantly increase sales efficiency with improved access to crucial content and collateral. The sales cycle becomes shorter because sales teams spend less time creating and searching for content. Sales enablement tools, like online asset management, put the latest data at their fingertips with real-time access to selling materials.
Instead of spending time crafting individual emails, they have access to a customizable template. Instead of creating ad hoc presentations for each prospect, they use a presentation builder to generate quick, easy, on-brand content.
- It gives your reps an edge over the competition with training and coaching.
Along with in-depth product knowledge, sales reps need to learn how to present the right products to the right prospects, and how to relay as much value as possible. They need to be trained on the value and usage of new sales enablement tools to maximize their adoption.
Providing high-quality sales training will help your team take their sales efforts to the next level. This could include coaching, active learning activities or interactive lessons. Whatever the format, the training should be held on a regular basis and always include follow-up to ensure the team is applying their new skills.
A final word on sales enablement
With proper implementation, sales enablement strategies make a significant positive impact on your sales team: one of the most important revenue-generating parts of your business.
The sales enablement specialists at GO2 Partners can help with any part of your selling strategy, from innovative presentation tools to proven sales training. Contact us today to start seeing the bottom-line benefits of our sales enablement expertise.
