Creating a Sales Enablement Plan for Success

Is your organization struggling to align sales and marketing? One common issue we hear a lot with new clients is their sales teams’ frustration over marketing leads, particularly those at the top-of-funnel leads, which often have lower conversion rates. On the other hand, marketing teams feel disheartened when their hard-earned leads are ignored by sales. This disconnect in lead generation and management can severely undermine both teams’ success. However, a unified team will improve efficiency and results. That’s where a sales enablement plan comes in.

A sales enablement strategy aligns sales and marketing toward a common goal. With everyone on the same page, it reduces friction and improves conversion rates. It’s important to have a sales enablement plan in place for the success of your business.

What is Sales Enablement?

Sales enablement provides sales teams with the resources, tools, and information they need to close more deals. A well-designed sales enablement plan seamlessly integrates with marketing, enabling your marketing team to create targeted collateral that supports sales throughout client interactions.

To drive success, sales and marketing must be fully aligned, working together toward both individual and organizational goals. The ultimate objective is to provide potential clients with a smooth, consistent experience—from their first marketing touchpoint to closing the deal with a sales representative.

Why a Sales Enablement Plan is Essential

A sales enablement strategy is crucial to driving business growth, increasing sales productivity and customer satisfaction. Every organization needs to develop a comprehensive sales enablement plan to set its sales team up for success.

Here are some key benefits of a strategic sales enablement plan:

• Improves Sales Productivity and Effectiveness: By providing your sales team with the right resources and tools, they can spend more time selling and less time on preparation.
• Boosts Buyer Engagement and Experience: With relevant content tailored to the buyer’s needs at every stage of the journey, a sales enablement plan ensures customers feel understood, supported, and confident about their decision to buy from you.
• Strengthens Sales Training and Ongoing Development: A sales enablement strategy includes onboarding new hires and continuous training for existing sales reps. This approach improves skills, confidence, and knowledge across the entire team.

A well-executed sales enablement plan provides your sales team with the knowledge and tools they need to close more deals, improving overall performance and driving success.

Key Elements of a Sales Enablement Plan

To build an effective sales enablement strategy, we recommend focusing on these key elements to streamline the process and ensure success.

Content Creation and Management

The marketing team plays a vital role in creating and managing content that supports the sales team during client interactions. Content should be tailored to each stage of the buyer’s journey: awareness, consideration, and decision. Essential types of content may include:

• Sales scripts
• Product sheets
• Brochures
• Case studies
• Customer testimonials
• Sales playbooks
• Email templates
• Sales presentations
• Whitepapers
• Ebooks
• Buyer personas
• FAQs or objection-handling guides
• Competitor battle cards
• Pricing guides
• ROI calculator
• Demo videos
• Industry reports

Technology and Tools

Your sales teams need access to technology and tools that enable them to work more efficiently and make data-driven decisions. The right tools will streamline workflows, improve personalization, and foster better company-wide communication. Examples of tools for your sales team include:

• CRM Platforms (Hubspot, Salesforce, etc.)
• Analytics Tools (InsightSquared, Tableau, etc.)
• File Storage Solutions (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.)
• Collaboration Platforms (Slack, Microsoft Teams, etc.)

Choosing the right tools for your team is critical. The wrong ones can create confusion and slow down processes. Consider your team’s specific needs, key features required, integration capabilities, scalability, budget, and user reviews when making a selection.

Sales Training and Onboarding

Continuous learning in product knowledge and sales techniques is the key to a successful sales organization. Regular sales training sessions with subject matter experts should cover both sales skills and specific marketing campaigns.

Don’t forget about your new hires–a strong onboarding program will help them become more confident so they can hit the ground running as quickly as possible. Provide new team members with collateral, training videos, and one-to-one meetings with key executives and subject matter experts to ensure a smooth start.

Collaboration Between Sales and Marketing

A successful sales enablement plan requires active collaboration between sales and marketing. This alignment ensures both teams work together to engage and convert prospects, ultimately leading to better business outcomes. When your sales and marketing are in sync, you’ll achieve:

• Consistent messaging across all channels
• Higher lead quality and improved conversion rates
• Data-driven insights for continuous improvement
• Enhanced personalization and targeting
• Reduced miscommunication and errors

To improve alignment between sales and marketing, create shared goals and KPIs. By uniting around a common objective, sales and marketing can work together to make the sales process more efficient and effective.

Automation

Automation can significantly streamline repetitive tasks, enabling sales teams to focus on higher-value activities. Here are some effective ways to incorporate automation into your sales enablement strategy:

• Automated Follow-Up Emails and Reminders: Schedule follow-up emails and set reminders to ensure timely outreach without manual tracking.
• CRM Interaction Logging: Automatically log interactions in your CRM, providing a complete record of customer touchpoints.
• Data Syncing Across Platforms: Ensure that data flows seamlessly between tools, reducing manual entry and minimizing errors.
• Lead Scoring: Implement automated lead scoring to prioritize prospects based on their likelihood to convert.
• Personalized Templates: Use automation to create personalized email templates and content, enhancing customer engagement.

Integrating automation into your sales workflow not only keeps everyone on the same page but also improves overall efficiency, allowing your team to spend more time on strategic tasks.

5 Steps to Build a Successful Sales Enablement Plan

So how do you build a successful sales enablement strategy? Start by following these five essential steps.

1. Access Your Current Sales Process

Are there areas causing tension between teams or bottlenecking the overall workflow? Are sales members fully informed about products and processes? Are any tools underutilized? Look for gaps in resources, training, and technology that could be limiting success.

2. Set Clear Objectives

Define key success metrics such as closing rates, sales cycle length, and customer acquisition costs. Monitor these metrics to gauge the effectiveness of your sales enablement plan and make adjustments as needed.

3. Create Buyer-Centric Content

Collaborate with the marketing team to develop content that supports the sales process, such as playbooks, case studies, scripts, and templates. Encourage sales reps to share ideas and feedback on what types of content would be most valuable in the field.

4. Implement Sales Technology

Integrate tools to improve productivity and streamline data tracking. Again, solicit feedback from the sales team to ensure buy-in of these tools to truly support their workflow and facilitate better outcomes.

5. Track and Measure Performance

Use analytics to continuously refine and improve your strategy. Regularly gather feedback and make improvements to your sales enablement plan to ensure it meets your team’s evolving needs.

Common Sales Enablement Challenges and How to Overcome Them

Of course, implementing a new sales enablement plan can present challenges, but with the right approach, you can overcome them. Here are some common challenges and ways to address them:

• Lack of Alignment Between Sales and Marketing: Overcoming this takes time and effort. Foster collaboration with regular meetings and provide a feedback loop for sales to share insights with marketing.
• Insufficient Use of Technology and Tools: Invest in user-friendly sales enablement tools and ensure your team receives thorough training on how to use them effectively.
• Resistance to Change: Involve sales reps in the decision-making process from the start. Clearly communicate the benefits of new strategies and provide ongoing support to ease the transition.
• Overwhelming Amount of Content: Too much content can overwhelm sales reps. Organize materials into easily accessible categories, and implement search functionality to help reps quickly find what they need.
• Lack of Qualified Leads: Implement a strategic and integrated approach to lead generation. Implement systems to qualify leads before passing them to sales, increasing the likelihood of conversions.

Create a Sales Enablement Plan with Rutkin Marketing

A well-executed sales enablement plan can be a game-changer for your organization. By aligning sales and marketing, you can improve efficiency and achieve your sales goals. This is no easy task – partner with Rutkin Marketing to close the gap between sales and marketing with proven strategies that get results. Explore our sales enablement services and schedule a free assessment today.