How to Build the Ultimate Sales Enablement Program [Intro]
The ultimate goal of both sales and marketing is the same – drive revenue. While marketing and sales need to work together to generate and close more deals, at the end of the day, each department has its own tasks to worry about.
This is a 3 part series, where we will discuss what marketing and sales can do to stay synced and run a sales enablement program that drives more revenue. Stay tuned every Thursday for the next three weeks we will release another part of the series.
Part 1: Bridging the gap. 5 tips for marketing to better enable sales.
Part 2: Let sales sell. 5 observations to get your sales force selling more and marketing less.
Part 3: Pour the foundation. 8 tricks to streamline your entire marketing supply chain.
Before the first article, let’s set the plot and start sharing some ideas, suggestions and struggles.
Marketing needs to focus on marketing, not on fulfilling orders for sales
Marketing is tasked with a lot of stuff, enabling sales with the right marketing assets to promote and sell the brand is just one of them. Depending of the size of your company, your marketing catalog can contain 100’s or even thousands of print, promotional, apparel and digital assets.
Whether your sales force is composed of twenty or a thousand sales reps, marketing needs an efficient approach to manage and distribute marketing assets so they can do what you hired them to do, market.
Sales needs to focus on selling, not finding and re-designing marketing assets
Designing marketing assets it’s only half the battle, now they need to get to the sales force. But it is easier said than done; juggling numerous vendors, different production methods, inventory versus on-demand, all while enforcing corporate rules and compliance can make sales enablement a daily nightmare.
Sales reps perform better when they have the right tools to sell. Marketing materials are key tools communicating the benefits of your company, promoting the brand, or simply showing a client appreciation for their business. Sales need a fast and easy approach to find, order and personalize marketing materials so they can get back to the next sales call, meeting or demo.
If you don’t have the right system in place, gaps between marketing and sales can form.
Sales enablement is arming sales with the tools to improve sales execution and drive revenue. But when marketing and sales become disconnected, marketing assets go stale, become outdated or even get lost -leaving sales unarmed to go to war.
An IDC research study showed that 75% of marketing assets are never used by sales because they can’t be found, are in the wrong format, or are too difficult to customize.
Marketing needs to know more about sales, sales need to know more about marketing and both need to know more about your customers. Yes, they have their own tasks to worry about, but at the end of the day, marketing and sales need to stay synced in order to drive more revenue.
In this series, we will continue to discuss what marketing and sales can do to bridge gaps and run a sales enablement program that drives more revenue.
