The Generational Shift: Welcome to Sales Enablement 2.0
Having been a student of Sales and Marketing Technology for the past decade, I’ve witnessed a notable shift recently in the practice of Sales Enablement. This has led me to believe that we are witnessing a generational shift to Sales Enablement 2.0.
The Covid pandemic in many ways fueled the rise of traditional Sales Enablement. Reps accustomed to face-to-face interactions with buyers found themselves behind a Zoom screen. Suddenly, reps needed a way to deliver content, assess buyer intent, and engagement in a “digital first” world.
Sales leadership also needed a way to assess GTM readiness and level-up rep virtual selling and presentation skills. Conversational intelligence (CI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) came front and center as we threw technology at the problem to close the gap of in-person intimacy and better forecasting. Hence the rise of revenue intelligence tools like Gong and Clari.
Sales Enablement 1.0 was all about content, training, and governance.
Traditional Sales Enablement was sold to Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) and Chief Revenue Officers (CROs). CMOs wanted to better understand content effectivity, and CROs wanted to ramp reps faster and reduce the time reps spent searching for content. In many industries, content compliance and governance also played a significant adoption driver.
So, no surprise that Sales Enablement 1.0 focused on content, training, and governance.
Bringing Operational Systems to a Single Platform
Fast forward to today: Hybrid selling is the norm and will be for the foreseeable future. Face-to-face interaction is back in force in key industries like Manufacturing, Medical Device, Financial Services, Pharmaceuticals, and Retail. Rep productively is measured in operational and revenue efficiency.
Just like the verticalization that has swept through Platform as a Service (PaaS) vendors like AWS, Google, and Microsoft, CRM is going through an industry focused verticalization with the rise of Government, Healthcare, and Financial Services focused CRM offerings. These CRMs offer specialized functionality, security, and data protection models important to those industries.
The generational shift we are witnessing in Sales Enablement is no exception.
Industries such as Manufacturing, Medical Device, Financial Services, Pharmaceuticals, and Retail were slow to adopt traditional Sales Enablement as they have complex, multi-product, and physical product requirements that necessitate interoperability with operational systems such as: CPQ, Inventory, ERP, Pricing, and Discounting in addition to CRM.
The 1.0 era of Content Management and Sales Readiness are now table stakes.
Sales Enablement 2.0 is all about providing an integrated experience of these operational systems that enables reps to:
- Optimize Valuable Customer interaction Time. Whether your customers are doctors, wealth mangers, or a retail store manager, the value of face-to-face selling time with busy customers is everything. Reps need access to all the operational systems, such as sampling, inventory, pricing, ATP, and ERP to give them the precise information to close during precious client interactions.
- “Let Seller Sell.” Give reps back precious selling time by freeing them from mundane tasks. Simplify updating CRM, collecting post-call notes, and deciding the next best action.
Meeting Higher Stakes: Sales Enablement 2.0 for Increased Revenue
Modern Sales Enablement applications provide sellers instantaneous operational access to all sorts of systems to give them the edge during those all-important sales interactions.
Access to operational systems and the analytics that enable the sellers to make real-time decisions in one easy-to-use selling app can spell the difference between making quota and not. These end-to-end operational systems are the future of Sales Enablement.
The buying criteria of Sales Enablement 2.0 have changed, too. Previously, Sales was judged on the very subjective basis of content consumed, engagement times, and rep ramp time.
Think a rep selling potato chips has it easier than a medical device rep selling diabetes management equipment? Think again.
The snack salesperson must have access to real-time inventory, demand planning, discounting, and pricing back-end systems in addition to product placement, shelf space, spoilage, and real-time event trigger data — like that big NCAA game in town this week.
Now, Sales Enablement is more objectively judged by hard metrics like same store sales, number of calls per rep, and revenue productivity per rep. These are the unequivocal metrics of sales and operational efficiency. And they are ultimately how management, leadership, and the board are judged.
This elevates the imperative of Sales Enablement to the mission critical level of CRM, ERP, and Manufacturing systems as critical client interactions are the tip of the spear for all these vital systems.
It’s a Brave New Way to Work
The modern seller, whether selling potato chips or computer chips, always has a few things on their mind:
- How can I best prepare for every customer interaction? And be better prepared than my competition?
- How can I use technology to maximize my effective selling time?
- How can I use data to better my customer’s experience and leave them delighted?
It truly is a generational change we’re experiencing in Sales Enablement. And it’s a great time to be a seller!
Want to know more about the future of Sales Enablement 2.0? Schedule a quick chat with a Pitcher Product Specialist.
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