Revenue Ops & Automation Blog

Companies everywhere found themselves ill-equipped to handle 2020’s barrage of  pivots, curveballs, and pitfalls. Sales enablement, the discipline of providing real-time lead intelligence, more efficient processes, and shareable content to your sales team, became a major differentiator in many industries.

Managing a team of diverse individuals with unique strengths and varying amounts of sales experience can be overwhelming to even the most seasoned sales leaders. Especially this year, as sales teams adapted to remote selling techniques, embraced new technologies, and 40% of businesses missed their revenue targets, the role of a sales manager seems more difficult than ever before. 

Hitting a sales slump is a right of passage for every salesperson and team, and this year has been especially tough across various industries due to the uncertainty of Covid-19. It’s no surprise that 57% of sales reps are expected to miss their quota this year (Salesforce). 

Knowing how to increase sales revenue when it’s not where your company needs it to be is a tricky situation for executives and sales teams alike. Finding the exact areas to improve in your sales process can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack, but it doesn’t have to. 

In the past decade, the sales playing field has changed dramatically. What may have worked for sales reps before is now insufficient.

In the recent past, a bright charisma, creativity, and improvisation drove the majority of sales. Then, authenticity ruled the day. Most recently, social proof and trust-building are essential for brands.

While all of these are still valued today, these approaches alone just don’t cut it. 

Sales enablement is a term that has recently gained a lot of traction in the business world. While sales enablement has always existed, it is only in the past five years that a universally accepted term has been put forth to describe the processes, people, and technology that reduces friction in the sales process.

Most CEOs have a vision or value proposition that is the backbone of their company and corporate strategies. Quite frequently, however, that value proposition isn’t communicated to or followed by the sales team (and other important departments).

Value proposition misalignment and confusion can wreak havoc on your growth plan as departments market to the wrong customers, work towards different goals, and use the wrong tools and messaging to sell products and services that they don’t fully understand. 

Technology is continuously improving the sales landscape, but the overload of options and information can seem daunting to even the most versatile sales leaders.

While they understand that AI-driven insights and relevant data based on machine learning can be valuable tools, top revenue executives also know that sales and CRM processes must be as simple as possible so that reps can sell quickly and easily. 

While many companies have been selling their products online with a remote sales team for years, sales managers that are new to this “COVID-19” sales model face tremendous challenges. Tasks such as keeping your sales team engaged, finding new ways to demo/sell products online, and promoting collaboration within a remote team can seem daunting to even the best sales executives. 

Creating a successful, repeatable sales process in your organization is the holy grail for sales managers. However, seasoned executives know that what works for one salesperson may not work for another. 

So, how do you create an effective, systematic playbook for a sales team with varying strengths, backgrounds, and capabilities? More importantly, how do you do this without overcomplicating everything? 

Every one of us knows a rock star salesperson. You can usually find at least one on every sales team. These top performers have found a way to build strong relationships, ask the right questions, and close more profitable deals than those around them.