4 Sales Enablement Trends to Embrace Beyond 2023
In the current competitive business environment, sales enablement has transitioned from a luxury to an essential component for achieving organizational success.
Sales enablement has seen a 343 percent increase in adoption over the last five years, and it’s easy to see why. Sales enablement can lead to performance improvements, including:
- Win rates (by four points on average)
- Quota attainment (by 8 points on average)
- Customer retention (by 9 points on average)
- Employee engagement (can increase quota attainment by 30 points)
But as adoption continues to increase, organizations must innovate and evolve to stay competitive.
Sales Enablement Pro states, “As organizations navigate change, having a strong enablement function to thoroughly prepare reps to succeed will allow companies to continue to maximize revenue through difficult times.”
So how can teams continue to improve and prepare reps to succeed in an ever-changing market?
It starts with understanding what’s working and embracing new strategies and trends. Discover four must-do sales enablement trends that can benefit your organization.
Data-driven sales enablement
A data-driven approach to sales enablement is crucial for understanding customers, improvement, buy-in, and success.
First, a sales enablement team can’t function effectively without the right resources. To get buy-in from leadership and stakeholder support, enablement teams must be able to use data to prove how their efforts solve business challenges and tie back to business goals.
When enablement teams can show the ROI of their programs, they’re more likely to get the support they need to continue to grow and improve.
Measuring and analyzing performance data also helps your team make better, more-informed decisions to make changes that will drive results. You can adjust your sales process and enablement resources based on what’s working and what’s not.
“It’s crucial for sales enablement teams to invest in qualitative and quantitative data analysis,” Diana Stepanova, Operations Director, Monitask, says. “These insights will empower teams to make informed decisions and refine their strategies to maximize their impact on revenue growth.”
Collecting different data types helps teams better understand their customers and adopt strategies accordingly.
“We’re starting to see companies adopt conversational intelligence as table stakes,” says Whitney Siek, The Enablement Enthusiast. “We’re only going to continue to mature the conversational intelligence strategies when it comes to understanding the behaviors of our field.”
Personalization & specialization
We’ve already seen the shift to more customer-centric enablement, but to stay competitive in today’s market, reps must provide buyers with curated content that will resonate with their needs.
To appeal to this new type of buyer, enablement teams must be more strategic in taking a personalized one-to-one approach when talking to prospects and creating sales plays and enablement content.
“We’re focusing on prioritizing and personalizing the buyer journey,” says Seema Jain, VP of Professional Services, Mural. “With so many meetings taking place online, we’ve intentionally designed customer engagement to personalize the customer journey by differentiating the sales process and better understanding customer needs through a co-creative process. And then providing and serving up curated content based on what we learn.”
Organizations have seen a 12-point improvement in win rate when enablement effectively streamlines the process to unify the buyer experience.
This personalized approach also applies to training reps and equipping them with the necessary tools and resources to succeed.
“We’re also putting a lot of thought into curating the rep journey,” Jain says. “This includes in-depth assessments against performance results, core competencies, and skills matrices to identify gaps for each rep. From there, we’re building custom learning plans to meet the rep where they are.”
Leveraging AI
We would be remiss if we didn’t mention AI as an emerging trend in sales enablement.
Organizations are just starting to scratch the surface of what they can do with AI, but leveraging new technology can provide many benefits for sales enablement teams.
- AI for sales coaching. AI tools can act as virtual sales coaches and provide feedback for reps to improve.
- AI-guided selling. This means using AI tools to glean sales info from prospects to equip sellers for better interactions. According to the Sales Enablement Forecast 2022 survey, 10.7% of respondents believe AI-guided selling will be a big trend in 2023.
- AI for conversational intelligence. We already talked about the value of conversational intelligence. Still, AI software can help teams analyze sales calls and uncover customer insights to identify areas for improvement and develop a more customized approach.
- AI automation. Teams are trying to find ways to be more efficient and do more with less. AI tools can help to automate repetitive tasks, like responding to prospects, to free up rep’s time to focus on other areas.
“To be successful in the coming years, enablement teams must begin incorporating predictive analytics and artificial intelligence into their strategies,” Ryan Mckenzie, Co-Founder & CMO, Tru Earth, says. “By using these tools, they can identify patterns in customer behavior and anticipate their needs, positioning sales teams to address those needs proactively and create tailored sales pitches.”
Continuous learning and improvement
This strategy isn’t new, but as enablement continues to grow and evolve and the market shifts, ongoing learning and development have never been more critical.
“Enablement teams should start implementing a combination of digital tools, advanced analytics, and innovative methods to improve customer experience, create engaging, interactive content, and b
uild comprehensive, scalable training programs,” Stepanova says. “Additionally, fostering a culture of experimentation and continuous improvement enables sales professionals to evolve and stay ahead of the curve in today’s dynamic business environment.”
Organizations must promote continuous learning in their workplace culture to encourage employees to prioritize their development.
But even in the age of digital transformation, enablement teams must focus on improving the fundamentals to help reps perform consistently.
“We have to stay focused on the fundamentals,” Jain says. “Methodology, sales process, and aligning with managers, SMEs, and counterparts on your roadmap. Getting feedback, iterating, and making that available to all stakeholders and mapping that to company goals. You’ll always have to make space for emergencies because they happen. But with intentional planning, prioritization, and alignment, enablement can have a huge impact on the strategic big bets as well.”
Help your team learn, grow, and thrive with the Learning Cloud from WorkRamp. With the Learning Cloud, you can create engaging, customized training to empower reps to perform their best. Discover how the Learning Cloud can supercharge sales performance. Contact us to schedule a free, personalized demo.
