I’ve been cleaning up / refreshing my work in progress list of Sales Enablement apps/tools/solutions/services. Latest addition on May 20, 2015: salesbean.com
On April 1, 2015, I was honored to find myself on this list of 30+ Top Sales Enablement Thought Leaders.
I noticed that vbprofiles.com/search?q=Sales+Enablement is an extensive list of experts too.
Should Your Agency Get Into the Sales Enablement Game?, Jami Oetting, March 26, 2015.
Sales Enablement Tools: Keys To Building Trust To Win Sales, 4/21/15:
“Your Marketing team has likely already compiled a number of blogs, videos, and/or ebooks, tailored to different phases in the Buyer’s Journey. However, this doesn’t mean that only Marketing can use them. If, during their ongoing communication with their leads, your Sales reps notice a particular question is being asked again and again by a number of different leads, they can leverage Marketing’s content and pass it along. Again, showing that your company already knows about their concerns and is ready to answer their questions will build trust with your leads. […] By getting to know your leads through tools like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Buyer Personas, as well through conversations, and by showing that they care by delivering relevant and valuable information, your Sales reps can build a relationship with these leads. These relationships can speed up the process of closing leads into full-fledged customers.”
Will sales enablement software replace content marketing? by Alp Mimaroglu, 6/04/2015 with this graphic:
Alp Mimaroglu also writes:
“[…] Sales Enablement […] cannot work without a backbone of data-driven content marketing. And the most efficient way for salespeople to get the right information these days is to look at the data behind marketing that works using marketing automation software. Both sales and marketing need to share the data their teams are producing. The problem is that this just doesn’t happen in most companies (as shown by commonplace disagreements on lead responsibilities). […]”
A bit older: Content in crisis: Content marketing vs. sales enablement John Koetsier, Nov. 5, 2014 with this graphic:
Image Credit: Content Marketing Institute
New Study Shows Rapid Onboarding Increases Sales Growth Rates by 10%, Eyal Orgil, May 11, 2015:
“PUT ALL YOUR SUPPORTING MATERIALS IN ONE PLACE – Forcing new reps to hunt around for information that they hope exists somewhere is no way to speed the onboarding process. When all your sales enablement documents – data sheets, presentations, case studies, etc. – are collected and stored in a central repository, new hires can quickly do their homework on any offering. More importantly, they know exactly where to find the value added materials they need to create a more compelling proposal. You can even take this one step further and integrate document management right into your sales quoting solution and automate the entire proposal process.”
Three Big Myths Debunked at SiriusDecisions Summit, Tom Pisello, May 19, 2015:
“B2B marketing is not replacing B2B sales, so more B2B marketing doesn’t equate to more effectiveness. Sales reps are still VERY relevant, however we do need to recognize that buyer’s have changed, and Frugalnomics is in full effect. As a result, you need to enable sales reps to engage effectively throughout the buyer’s journey, especially at the critical early stages of influence. The ability for sales reps to help buyers navigate the journey, gain consensus from committee decisions, and articulate your unique value – all critical for continued relevance and competitive sales success. […] Content is King? Although large amounts are spent every year to develop and deliver content, and these investments are growing YoY, SiriusDecisions reports that almost 2/3rds of the content marketing investment is wasted! In a survey of almost 300 firms, 65% of content spending was wasted. Half of the waste was attributable to sales reps not being able to find the content. While the other half saying the content wasn’t good or useful. More is not more when it comes to content. Prospects and sales reps are all to easily lost in a sea of content.”
Mobile Strategy For Sales Enablement, Shankar Ganapathy, April 30, 2015:
“Sales people are not chained to their desk anymore but they are attached to their smartphones, so it makes sense for them to have everything they need available on their phone. Rather than searching through hundreds of emails, wiki links or dropbox files to find the particular product update memo, a mobile sales enablement app can make updates easy to find in a fraction of the time. With Millenials estimated to make up 75 percent of the global workforce by 2025, you can also make your employees more productive by meeting their preference to consume content on the go. While the majority of companies understand the need for sales enablement, according to research by Adobe less than 30% are actually implementing sales enablement solutions because it can be complex and time consuming to execute. However, mobile sales enablement can be implemented quickly and cost-effectively. This means implementing a mobile sales enablement strategy now could give you a competitive advantage. While other companies grapple with how to keep their sales teams up to date, and their reps spend precious time searching their email box, reading through volumes of wiki pages or searching through files in cloud storage, yours can be having impactful and engaging conversations with customers. When I talk about mobile sales enablement, I don’t just mean replicating your CRM on a mobile app, but rather achieving true sales enablement for both your sales reps and managers. Think about how Whatsapp has replaced email, making communication and sharing photos instant, quick and easy without needing to log-on. Mobile sales enablement can have a similar impact on your sales teams.”
Tagged: b2b, Content Landscape, context, Sales 2.0, sales cycle, sales enablement, sales20, salesenablement, social selling
