Sales Assembly’s Enablement At Work is a monthly collection of tips, trends, and tactics to help you navigate the “always in build mode” world of Sales Enablement – featuring yours truly, Foreman Jeff Rosset, CEO here at Sales Assembly.

Let’s Get To Work!

Developing Your Own Enablement Practitioners 

The “great talent shortage of 2021” doesn’t just apply to sales reps – it’s hitting all aspects of the revenue organization – enablement included.

Not only is enablement still in its infancy as a core function within organizations (read: less talent in the field), but the best practitioners are already working at other companies (read: less available talent in the market).  So as tech companies across the globe continue to scale at a crazy pace and need enablement to help support their growth, many companies are now turning to the idea of grooming their own vs. spending 9 months trying to hire externally. 

Does your organization have a CSM, AE, Sales Manager, Pre-Sales consultant, etc. who likes the “people side” of sales, enjoys learning & development, is a good project manager, can work well cross-functionally, and can get into the weeds on data and strategy?  If you do already have someone on the team who embodies these characteristics, a pivot over to enablement might be the exact right career move for them, and at the same time will help you fill that needed role…with someone who has intimate company and product knowledge from day 1 to boot!

Closing Deals – On Your Rep’s Terms

Ah, month-end is behind us.  Time to coast into 2022.  Wait, what?  We need to hit a number every month??  Let’s arm your reps with the right framework pertaining to those all-too-fun negotiations with customers at the 11th hour, and help them hit their August number (courtesy of Todd Caponi – friend of SA and huge nerd of all things sales).  

When in the negotiation, there are 4 levers your reps can “pull” to close the deal…on their terms…without giving away the farm.  

  1. Volume
  2. Timing of Cash
  3. Length of Commitment
  4. Timing of Deal

The key here is to use these different levers as price negotiators with the customer.  For example, let’s say the decision-maker wants a 10% discount in order to sign before tomorrow’s deadline.  OK cool, let them know you can offer the discount – as long as they do net 30 vs. 90 (timing of cash).  Maybe 90 doesn’t work for your CFO?  OK, well then maybe offer 5% discount if they agree to another 5 seats (volume), and another 5% if they commit from 12 to 18 month subscription (length of commitment) – getting them to their 10% discount number. 

It’s all about being transparent and laying out what’s important to YOU up front, and what it’s worth to you.  This way, you can help them get what they want (discount) while also getting something beneficial back in return – creating that elusive yet always desired win-win outcome. 

Read Todd’s article on the topic here

Heather Krueger, Director of Sales Enablement (Americas) at Cision 

Q: How do you best promote internal coaching/mentoring within the revenue organization?

A: I’m a huge believer in bringing structure to coaching and mentorship.  Without the right level of guidance to set everyone up for success, a culture of coaching is just an abstract concept.

A few ideas on what that could be:

  • Formalize your mentorship program: document the expectations, meeting cadence & topics.  Make sure it’s beneficial to both the mentor and the mentee.
  • Provide managers with scorecards and rubrics to help them objectively assess reps and make sure you train them on how to use them.  Offer group coaching sessions where you do a film review with multiple managers and ask them to come prepared to share their assessments.
  • As with everything else, get executive buy-in and ensure they’re promoting the programs.  Without the right socialization and support, many initiatives intended to support growth and keep employees engaged fall flat.

66% – Team’s ROI when they invest in coaching

We all know coaching up our reps is important, but we also know this is a strategy that can be quite difficult to build out.  Check out this article from Lessonly where they discuss 5 ways to build a coaching process that scales. 

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