A sound sales enablement system can make the difference between blowing past goals and barely meeting projections. The ultimate goal for your company is to increase revenue and boost the bottom line. To do that, you must provide sales enablement tools that support your reps every step. From real-time competitive insight to top-notch training materials that help reduce ramp time, it all has the potential to leave an enormous impact.
That's nothing new, and you've likely heard about the importance of having a sales enablement solution many times before. But supporting your sales teams' success isn't as cut and dry as it might seem. Like all things in the business world, the quality of your enablement effort matters.
To get the best results and develop a killer sales enablement strategy, you need to avoid these common pitfalls!
1. Failing to Update Old Sales Material
Here's the thing about sales: It's constantly changing!
It doesn't matter what industry you're in or what type of product you're selling. The market changes, needs evolve, and your customers continuously look for the next best thing. The worst mistake you can make is to rest on your laurels. While you might see success with one strategy, that's not a guarantee that it'll keep working in your favor.
The same thought applies to sales enablement content. Don't make the mistake of assuming that old content is relevant today. Those old sales scripts, white papers, sales sheets, and objection handling guides? They could contain information that's outdated, irrelevant, and not useful.
If your sales reps try to use that old content, they could experience some pushback and lose lucrative deals. Perform regular content audits and make necessary updates to ensure your team always works from current materials.
2. Disorganized and Inaccessible Sales Content
Picture this:
You have a salesperson working to cultivate a sought-after lead. They've worked months working this lead through the early stage of the buying process. After finally getting them on a call, the prospect starts asking highly technical questions that your representative doesn't know offhand.
So, they turn to your enablement materials. But there's one problem: They can't find what they need. As a result, they have no choice but to fumble their way through the conversation and provide answers to questions to the best of their ability. That comes off as unprofessional and ill-prepared, so that profitable prospect hangs up and goes to your competitor!
That scenario happens more than you think!
Organization and easy access are paramount. There will be moments when reps scramble to find the correct information quickly and efficiently. That's why you need a sales enablement platform like Flockjay that prioritizes content management. It can prevent similar mishaps, ensuring that your sales force is informed, prepared, and ready for any sales experience.
3. Selecting the Wrong Sales Enablement Tools
Another big mistake many companies make is choosing the wrong enablement tool. There's no shortage of options on the market today. The term “sales enablement” is a bit of a popular buzzword these days in the business world, and more organizations are looking to harness enablement solutions to empower their sales force.
Unfortunately, not all sales enablement tools are created equal. Some have limited features, poor functionality, and a lousy user interface that no one wants to figure out.
A tool like Flockjay meets the mark. It offers easy access to enablement content, training materials, many integrations, and more.
4. Lack of Sales Rep Buy-In with Enablement Software
Sales enablement is only effective if your sales staff uses it! A lack of buy-in is a common problem many organizations face when implementing enablement programs for the first time. It's a new way of doing things, and many reps get stuck in their methods. When you throw a clunky tool and poorly designed software into the mix, it's the perfect storm of unappealing!
There are many ways to encourage your reps to buy into sales enablement software. The first thing is to choose a tool that's accessible and easy to use. The software must provide value to your reps. It should make their lives easier and support their bigger picture.
Getting the right software platform is half the battle. But once you do that, you must encourage reps to try it. Go over the features, provide real-world demonstrations, and show everyone exactly what enablement programs can do.
5. Lack of Integration Between Enablement Tools and CRM
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a big part of sales, and your company probably already uses a robust CRM platform that reps use daily. CRM helps manage communications with potential customers, making it easy to foster leads and build those all-important business relationships.
Sales enablement shouldn’t replace CRM. Instead, it should complement it. Failing to integrate enablement tools with your CRM is a big mistake that can cost your team success. CRM is a big part of the enablement equation, and the two systems shouldn’t clash. They should be seamless parts of your tech stack, combining existing collateral with new winning strategies.
Integrating enablement tools with your CRM has its perks. It can reduce the time spent on administrative tasks, help measure sales efficiency, streamline sales processes, etc. More importantly, integrations avoid confusion and let reps harness information from two valuable sources.
6. You Have Formal Enablement, But Lack Informal Enablement
Formal enablement refers to more structured, individualized learning. For example, you could classify training courses, well-designed lessons, handbooks, and other related documents as “formal.” It's all important and can do a lot to prepare reps for the hard skills involved with selling. Formal enablement is particularly useful for onboarding and leadership training.
However, it's not enough to equip your sales force with all the soft skills and complex strategies they need to see continued success. Informal enablement refers to less structured content and learning opportunities. Examples include peer learning, asynchronous coaching, manager mentoring, and more. Crowdsourced insights and the process of sharing lessons learned also fall into this “informal” category.
Informal enablement is necessary for additional development. It's about learning soft skills and mastering the art of sales beyond what you see in formal textbooks and structured lessons.
7. Your Informal Enablement Resources Are Never Formalized
This mistake often coincides with efforts to correct the latter. After noticing the lack of informal enablement solutions, companies will focus on less structured sales enablement strategies. That's wonderful and can do a lot to even things out and provide a better balance for your reps.
But if you leave those informal resources untouched, you're missing out on some valuable training content. Informal enablement often comes from more organic learning opportunities. Your reps learn from one another, sharing ideas, strategies, and insights along the way.
There's a lot to gain from turning those fleeting lessons into something more formalized. It's a way to capture winning moments and turn them into repeatable winning strategies. Your team is a wealth of knowledge and experience, so why not use them to create new sales content? If you don't, those resources could leave with your sales reps.
8. Overlooking Competitive Enablement
You can't expect to win by staying in your lane entirely. It doesn't matter what you sell. There's a good chance you have stiff competition you need to beat.
If your enablement strategies aren't working out as planned, it could be because you lack competitive enablement resources. The key to success in sales is to understand your corporate rivals. You must know what they're doing and how they fit into the current market.
With that information, you can create competitive battle cards and tell prospects exactly why your product or service is the better choice. It's about knowing your enemy, keeping them close, and always being one step ahead.
9. Marketing Teams and Sales Teams Are Out of Sync
Your sales and marketing departments play different roles in your company's big picture. But, they both work toward the same end goal: To generate sales. When developing a rock-solid sales enablement solution, frequent collaboration between these departments is a must.
Marketing and sales are responsible for creating content and relaying information to customers and prospects. Messaging should sync between these departments, and goals should align with the organization's goals. Otherwise, there's a risk of putting out conflicting information. It creates a disconnect between what's going on in sales and what prospects see in marketing materials.
10. Failing to Encourage and Incorporate Feedback from Reps
The last mistake you must avoid is failing to get feedback. Sales enablement is all about your sales rep. The entire point of enablement strategies is to support your sales force. You want to do everything you can to make their jobs easier, paving the way for success and higher profits.
Why wouldn't you want their input?
Enablement resources should evolve with the changing market and the needs of your sales reps. No program will be perfect, and your team is bound to run into issues here and there. Hear those concerns out, whether they involve big problems or requests for minor tweaks. Accept that feedback and apply it to make your enablement solution as efficient as possible.
Give Your Team a Complete Sales Enablement Solution
When you're ready to put sales enablement into action, turn to Flockjay! This comprehensive solution is a seller's dream! It has a bevy of tools to turn average salespeople into top performers. Create and share enablement content, administer impactful training, and give your team a platform to share information and learn from one another.
There's so much you can do with Flockjay. Give it a try, and it'll quickly become an indispensable tool in your tech stack!
