I’m always excited when I walk into an organization that has created a sales enablement strategy and thought through the steps involved when implementing such a solution. However, I’m disheartened when a company’s sales enablement strategy does not go beyond their go-live date. It has been my experience that such companies’ value realization will start diminishing 6 – 12 months post launch.
Companies embark on a sales enablement journey when corporate initiatives fail to achieve revenue goals. To align sales execution with these corporate initiatives, companies implement a sales enablement solution to enable the field organization with the right situational content, at the right time, whether they are in the office, on the road or sitting next to a prospect. Now the question is, should the company declare mission accomplished upon launching the new solution? Is the sales team now considered enabled? Has a euphoric state been achieved and suddenly revenue initiatives are being attained?
Not quite. You’ve certainly taken the right steps to help achieve those corporate initiatives, but simply rolling out your sales enablement solution doesn’t equate to success. In fact, the sales enablement journey does not end when you launch; it’s really just the beginning in formalizing your sales enablement and readiness program, establishing your value re-assessment (continuous improvement) strategy and setting measurable goals and objectives.
A sales enablement and readiness program starts with identifying your core business challenges, objectives and/or initiatives. Once identified, what’s more important is assessing your ability to enable your organization to overcome those challenges and achieve the desired objectives. Your assessment should include reviews of sales processes, marketing content, tools and applications, and governance to ensure the appropriate framework has been institutionalized to realize the value set forth. Ideally, this should be in place when rolling out your sales enablement solution. However, what’s more important is to ensure that you don’t lose sight of this critical component of the program and to incorporate it into your plan post-launch to maximize the value sales enablement brings to your organization. With that said, let me ask you, do you have a continuous assessment program where you review your corporate initiatives (since organizational goals and go-to-market strategies change when adapting to market conditions) and align your sales readiness and execution accordingly?
Continuous improvement to your sales enablement program is crucial, but what good is it if you don’t have a way to measure it? Identifying Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and success metrics need to be established prior to implementing your sales enablement solution and worked toward after launching your new system. Identifying KPIs that tie back to the original business challenges, objectives or initiatives will ensure the solution is helping your organization drive success. By establishing this benchmark, you’re able to compare it to your end result and analyze your progress to ensure you’re keeping the right trajectory. If you realize you’re not meeting your objectives and KPIs then you need to retool and course correct.
Many of my customers have taken this process to heart. Some are realizing a great deal of benefits from it, some are planning on adopting it, while others are in tactical mode with a sole focus on going live. Turning on a system with some cool functions and features is good. Unfortunately, this is not enough and could be detrimental in the long run. Keep in mind the vision, start small, scale fast, course correct as you move forward and align to your company’s ever changing go-to-market strategy. Then establish a monthly or quarterly cadence to review your sales enablement processes, governance and tools, and assess your activities, resources and bandwidth. This, my friends, is the road to success.