What is a Sales Enablement Manager?
As companies look for new ways to maximize their sales force and retain their competitive edge in the marketplace, a new role—the Sales Enablement Manager—has emerged. This dynamic role plays an important part in driving results from the sales organization by helping to ensure that all company employees have access to the latest tools and resources necessary to succeed within their field. Sales enablement managers are responsible for operations as diverse as streamlining existing processes, managing team development initiatives, training teams on product knowledge, and increasing productivity among frontline sales reps.
The Emergence of Sales Enablement
The emergence of the sales enablement manager as a core role on many sales teams demonstrates the growing importance of driving operational excellence across the sales function. This newly created role is tasked with optimizing and deploying tools, processes, and training that empower sales teams to more effectively close new business more. Sales enablement managers are often responsible for building a sales playbook, identifying best practices, onboarding new reps, and implementing new training material. Moreover, the focus has expanded beyond just sales teams to include customer success, marketing, and other stakeholders. By combining an understanding of the sales process with the latest trends in technology and digital transformation, this unique blend of skillsets enables sales enablement managers to fulfill an important strategic role within any organization.
Responsibilities of a Sales Enablement Manager
The duties assigned to a Sales Enablement Manager depend heavily on the particular organization they work for. Generally, it is the job of a Sales Enablement Manager to ensure that colleagues have access to the resources and training needed for sales success. This may include tools, processes, and support that empower them to become more efficient in achieving their goals. The manager can also do market research, analyze sales data and trends, create action plans, and provide guidance on best practices. Moreover, they often need to collaborate with other internal teams - such as marketing and product management - to craft effective strategies that enable sales teams to reach their targets. Ultimately, the primary purpose of a Sales Enablement Manager is to bridge any gaps between strategy and execution so that everyone in the organization has an improved chance of succeeding.
What Tools Does a Sales Enablement Team Need to be Successful?
To ensure a successful sales enablement team, there are several tools that can assist in their efforts. Firstly, a Learning Management System and a Content Management Systems helps provide employees with the knowledge and sales assets they need to perform at their best while being able to track progress and performance. While a LMS and CMS are necessary, future-looking organizations are focusing on including peer-to-peer learning capabilities within their CMS and LMS to ensure that reps are learning from each other as well. Finally, one of the most beneficial investments is integrating within reps work flows like Slack or their CRM since this will help streamline all processes involved when it comes to sales, marketing, and other business initiatives. By having these meaningful resources in one place, sales enablement not only becomes easier, but one can maintain thought leadership in all facets.
How to Measure the ROI of Enablement
Measuring the return on investment (ROI) of sales enablement can be a challenge for organizations. Tracking business outcomes over time with various strategies or tools is essential to understanding how effective your enablement activities are and if there is sufficient ROI. An effective way to measure ROI is by tracking increased win rates, decreased rep ramp time, and an increased Average Sales Price. In addition, a strong enablement team can be a differentiator within the hiring process and allow companies to hire top-tier talent based on the promise that reps will receive stellar training and onboarding from the enablement team. By performing regular checks on, revenue metrics and industry trends you can give yourself the ability to keep growing your sales enablement program while determining its ROI.
Where is the Role Going?
It is quickly becoming clear that the role of Sales Enablement Manager is rapidly evolving. In today's marketplace, accountability and responsibility for sales performance have been spread out evenly throughout the organization – with each department playing a key role in delivering tangible results. The traditional Sales Enablement Manager model has therefore been complemented by a new focus on peer-to-peer enablement within organizations. By equipping their teams with the tools and processes to effectively enable their peers, organizations can ensure that they can more quickly identify and capitalize on emerging opportunities, as well as drive greater levels of collaboration across teams. As such, it is no surprise why this focused model is becoming increasingly popular in many organizations.
All in all, sales enablement management is an exciting and ever-evolving field, yet one that could lead teams and organizations toward new heights of success if done right!
