If you’re sitting at your desk wondering how to increase sales for your small service biz, don’t stress. This article equips you with a sales enablement strategy to empower your sales team, shorten sales cycles, and close more deals.
Read on to learn how to use sales enablement tools and platforms to provide sales reps with the content, training, and real-time coaching they need to engage potential customers throughout the buyer journey. By leveraging digital sales strategies and making data-driven decisions, you can enable team collaboration, enhance the customer experience, and drive sales growth.
What is digital sales enablement?
Digital sales enablement means using digital tools and platforms to improve your sales strategies and processes. It involves equipping your sales team with the tools and knowledge they need to boost sales, taking action to improve sales processes, and providing relevant content, training, and data to guide sellers to close more deals.
Here are the main elements involved in successful digital sales enablement.
Equip your team with the right tools
Digital sales enablement platforms give your team a single location to access content, training, and more in real time. They can quickly find materials for each stage of the sales cycle, from reaching potential customers to closing the deal. These tools also provide analytics to gain insights into what’s working and make data-driven decisions.
Streamline your sales processes
A good digital sales enablement strategy maps your sales process from start to finish. It ensures every member of your sales team understands each step, their role, and how to move customers through the journey efficiently. This consistent approach significantly impacts your sales success and the overall customer experience.
Provide ongoing training and coaching
Even the most experienced sales reps need regular coaching and training to stay up-to-date with your products, customer needs, and changing marketplace. Digital sales enablement gives sales enablement leaders a way to continuously educate and guide your team. They can share the latest techniques, address weaknesses, and reinforce best practices.
The benefits of digital sales enablement for small businesses
Implementing a digital sales enablement strategy can be a game changer. delivering big benefits without a huge investment. It gives your sales team the resources and knowledge to sell more efficiently, while providing you with the data to make smart decisions.
Deliver useful sales content
With sales enablement platforms, you can provide your team with relevant content for each stage of the buyer’s journey. This includes things like email templates, social media posts, and case studies. Your reps will have all the materials they need to guide potential customers from discovery to purchase.
Conduct consistent training and coaching
Digital sales enablement also makes it easy to offer your team continuous training and coaching. You can create video lessons, host live online sessions, and share the latest sales strategies. This helps reps stay up-to-date with trends in your industry and learn best practices for shortening sales cycles.
Tap into data-driven insights
Many sales enablement tools provide analytics that give you data-driven insights into your sales process. You’ll see how customers are interacting with your content in real time and know what’s working to move them through the funnel. You can then make tweaks to improve conversion rates and the overall customer experience.
Key tips for successful digital sales enablement strategies
If you’re ready to implement or improve your digital sales enablement strategies, this is what you need to know.
Examine your sales strategies
The first step to implementing digital sales tools is understanding your sales strategies and processes. Map out your typical sales cycles and the steps in your sales process. Then look for places where digital sales enablement platforms and tools can support and optimize these strategies. For example, tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator can help your team identify and engage with potential customers, while a tool like Highspot equips sales teams with relevant content and training.
Choose the right tools
There are many sales enablement tools available to aid in closing deals and optimizing the buyer journey. Do research to determine which tools will work best for your business, based on factors like size of sales team, typical sales cycles, and customer experience goals. Some of the most popular tools include:
- Highspot: Content management, training, and analytics platform
- Chorus.ai: Conversation intelligence tool for data-driven insights
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Social selling tool for identifying and engaging prospects
- Outreach: Sales engagement platform for optimizing outbound sales and team collaboration
Provide ongoing training and coaching
New digital tools and strategies require training and coaching, so your sales teams use them effectively. Work with sales enablement leaders to develop training programs, and review how reps are utilizing the tools. Look for ways to further optimize usage through real-time coaching and feedback. Successful sales enablement strategies rely on ensuring your team has a complete understanding of the tools and how they benefit the overall sales process.
How to build an effective digital sales enablement process
Equipping your sales team with the right digital tools and training needs to go hand in hand with a solid sales enablement strategy. Here are tips for shortening sales cycles and closing more deals.
Analyze data to spot places for improvements
Start by analyzing how your potential customers research and buy your services. Look for patterns in the questions they ask, content they consume, and features that matter most. Use sales enablement tools to track reps’ interactions in real time and see where prospects drop off. Make data-driven decisions on how to refine your sales process and the tools/training needed.
Choose the right enablement platforms
The foundation of any effective sales enablement process is a platform that equips your sales teams with the content they need. A good platform should enhance team collaboration, centralize customer data, and provide actionable insights to boost rep productivity and the customer experience. Look for a solution that lets you create and share sales materials, buyer journey analytics, and integrated training.
Train and coach your sales reps
Even with the best tools and strategies, your sales enablement process will only be as good as your reps. As well as onboarding training to get new hires up to speed, you should offer ongoing coaching and education. Train reps on your sales strategies, tech stack, and product knowledge, alongside soft skills. Share the insights you gain from enablement tools so reps understand how to have the most effective conversations. Coaching helps reinforce best practices and gives reps the feedback they need to start closing more deals.
Implementing a digital sales enablement platform for your small business
Digital sales enablement platforms provide an all-in-one solution to manage your sales strategies, optimize your sales cycles, and improve the customer experience. Here are 4 tips for making the most of your digital sales enablement platform.
- Choose an integrated digital sales enablement platform
Platforms like vcita provide a centralized place to store all your relevant content, training, and coaching resources. An enablement platform that integrates with your other sales tools makes it easy for sales teams to access that content in real time, to move deals through the buyer journey.
- Develop a content strategy
Work with your sales enablement leaders to determine what content will be most useful for each stage of your sales cycle. This could include case studies, product demos, FAQs, and more. Once you’ve planned your content strategy, you can use your enablement platform to organize and share this content with your team.
- Provide ongoing training
Continuous training and coaching are key to any successful enablement strategy. Use your platform to provide new hire onboarding, ongoing product training, and sales methodology courses. You can also share video recordings of team meetings and coaching sessions so sales reps can learn from them on their own time.
- Promote collaboration
An enablement platform improves team collaboration by giving sales reps a single place to share knowledge and get help from managers or other reps. This collaborative environment, combined with an enablement strategy focused on relevant content and continuous learning, will empower your sales team to boost productivity and improve your customer experience.
Strong digital sales enablement brings positive sales metrics
So there you have it, small biz owners! Implementing a digital sales enablement strategy equips your sales teams with the tools, training, and relevant content they need to engage potential customers throughout the buyer journey. By leveraging enablement platforms and embracing data-driven decisions, sales reps can collaborate in real time to deliver superior customer experiences, shorten sales cycles, and close more deals. With the right sales enablement leaders guiding your sales process, strategies, and team collaboration, you’ll be well on your way to digital sales success. Now get out there, enable your sales teams, and start dominating those digital sales!
Implementing a digital sales enablement strategy
By implementing a comprehensive sales enablement strategy supported by the right digital tools, you can empower your sales reps to close more deals and enhance the customer experience. It may require an investment of time and money, but the rewards of increased sales, happier customers, and a well-trained team are well worth the effort, and set you up for success in today’s digital world.
