A recent SalesTO gathering in Toronto focused on the topic of getting back to the enablement side of sales. If you’re a sales organization, this isn’t something that can be overlooked. If you want to achieve hockey-stick growth, you must invest in your enablement.
Here were some takeaways from the event, which was moderated by Kenny Goldman of Sales at Helpful.
Peer-to-Peer Enablement
Elay Cohen, CEO of SalesHood, discussed how you can scale your training processes by allowing salespeople to learn from each other. So, for example, you can challenge sales reps to post pitches on an internal online portal, which means they can practice half a dozen times, while also viewing 10 other reps doing their own pitches and giving feedback. Encouraging them to share their pitches, whether online, or simply in-person with each other, ensures reps onboard faster. This will potentially build more quota and drive revenue.
The 3 Pillars of Enablement
Melissa Madian, SVP of Customer Experience Enablement at Vision Critical discussed the following key pillars:
- Recruitment: Any decent salesperson will, of course, be able to sell themselves. They will present well in an interview, they may even sound brilliant. But it isn’t enough to look for bright, hungry sales reps. You must test potential employees for the nitty-gritty aspects of your business and of your company culture. So if you are hiring for a field sales job, make sure the candidate can work independently. If they will be selling services, make sure that’s in their skill set, and that they’re not just good at selling a piece of software. Look for people that can sell your product, in your context.
- Onboarding: No sports team walks on to the field without having practiced first. Similarly, you can’t expect reps to perform well without first having them complete a solid onboarding program. Think like a good sports team and practice, practice, practice as you ramp up to the big game.
- Ongoing: Regularly provide knowledge training, maintain good enablement tools, and stick to a cadence of training. This ensures that ongoing improvement is rooted into the culture of your sales organization. Scheduled pitch sessions, coaching and team kickoffs should be held on a regular and scheduled basis.
Hockey Stick Growth
Sheetal Jaitly and David Wright, CEO and COO, respectively, of TribalScale outlined the following traits of hockey stick growth:
- The company has sales reps who are hungry for success
- They don’t let budget get in the way: If they need to get on a plane to go see a customer, they do it. They measure the value, make a plan and go for it.
- They aggressively pursue big deals with the confidence. They get smaller sales deals as well, but they don’t settle for these
- The founders and sales reps all need that ‘boss mentality,’ meaning everyone is willing to own what they do and kick the door down, when needed.
