Latest Sales Enablement Tips to Use in 2020

What is Sales enablement?

Sales enablement includes information, content, tools, platforms or processes that help sales teams perform more efficiently and effectively, thereby increasing sales and, ultimately, revenue.  These tools help sales representatives engage better with potential customers and include analytics to help sales and marketing teams with data-driven insight into the success or failure of their processes.

The main factors of sales enablement include:

• Sales and marketing automation to streamline your processes with automatic workflows.
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology to include all of your existing and potential customer contact information and interactions with them in one location.
• Content management for all of the marketing materials available to the sales team to keep them organized and available for distribution.
• Training on the sales process, tools, analytics, and metrics so the sales teams adopt them and use them appropriately.
• Data analytics and reports to collect, analyze and view all of the pertinent information.

In order to implement your sales enablement strategies better in 2020, follow the below tips and you’ll be able to meet both your sales enablement needs and your sales goals in the coming year.

Tip #1 Data collection

In 2020, more than ever, it is going to be very important to make sure you collect the relevant data and store it in a centralized CRM so your sales teams can spend more time selling and less time collecting, locating and accessing the data.

According to Forbes, sales representatives spend less than 36% of their time actually selling.  Collecting accurate data and having it accessible to your sales reps will increase this number in 2020.

Tip #2 Collaboration, communication and feedback

In order to ensure you have the most effective sales team as possible in 2020, it is important to make sure there are plenty of lines of communication between sales, marketing and management on top of their already extensive communications with their potential customers.

With internal communications channels, sales teams should be able to provide continuous feedback and increase productivity.

Tip #3 Implement advanced tools 

2020 will bring on the rise of automation for sales and marketing processes…among many others, assuredly.  With advanced automation tools, sales teams are going to excel since some of the mundane and repetitive tasks can be done for them automatically.  Not to mention the minimization of human error with automated processes.

These tools will also help increase sales by providing reps much more time for actual sales.  And, let’s face it, no one is going to lose their jobs over automating such processes.  On the contrary, each employee will simply be able to take on bigger and more important tasks, leaving the other tasks to the bots.

Tip #4 Make sales collateral accessible

Marketing teams spend hours making eye-catching and relevant pieces of content for sales teams to use in the field.  Unfortunately, these can go unseen and lost forever in the depths of the organization’s vast files, if not cared for properly.  In 2020, making it a goal to create, store and provide sales collateral on-demand will be an important way to provide sales enablement. 

Automating marketing collateral to make them easier to design and distribute can also help sales teams considerably in 2020. 

Tip #5 Training

Finally, all of your hard work in the new year will go unappreciated if you don’t train your sales team on their sales enablement tools.  It can start with an onboarding process similar to the one you might use for new customers if you are a software development company.  Train them about all of the ins and outs of your CRM and all of its integrations and your team will be more likely to adopt it and continue using it.

Don’t just leave it there though.  You’ll need to provide continuous education and training on these tools as they are constantly evolving and improving.

In conclusion

They say hindsight is 20/20, but here’s a new saying for you: “Foresight is 2020.”  By following the tips provided here, you will have foresight into what can help you succeed in the coming year.  If you are looking for a CRM that can provide the most effective sales enablement for your team, Agile CRM has the features to do so, including sales and marketing automation, communications tools, reporting, and onboarding training.

Sales enablement might be just the thing you need to step up your sales in 2020. Your team and your organization will thrive with the right tools and the right training.  If you would like to see if Agile CRM will work for your sales and marketing teams, give it a try for free for 30 days.