Hey sales leaders: What do you think is the purpose of enablement? Allow me to confound that expectation.
Your answer probably includes sales onboarding — ramping new hires quickly.
It may include keeping reps abreast of all the changes — new releases, new campaigns, new processes, etc.
And some of you may include doing periodic training on your unique skills, tools, and processes.
But I’ll bet a nickel you haven’t thought about enablement in terms of performance improvement.
I mean identifying behaviors that are contributing to performance gaps, and creating an intervention to measurably change those behaviors — thereby reducing the performance gaps.
Example: you’re hearing that reps are discounting too heavily, and you get support for this in reporting on avg discount rates.
A performance improvement approach says:
–What are the behaviors contributing to the performance gap?
–What do we want the behaviors to be?
–How can we empirically measure if the behavior has changed?
–What’s the best way to achieve the desired behavior change?
–Fast forward: did we move the needle on those empirical metrics?
PROBLEMATIC BEHAVIORS: Maybe the behaviors contributing to the high discount rates include reps not selling value — not uncovering the business impact of the status quo, not articulating the positive business outcomes of your solution. And maybe they’re also not engaging the right personas throughout the sales cycle.
DESIRED BEHAVIORS: Maybe you have a sales methodology that calls for reps uncovering & articulating business value — so you want them to apply that methodology more rigorously in calls & emails. Maybe your deals usually start with mid-level managers, but later reps need to engage the VPs of 2 departments — so you want them to apply that kind of persona multithreading in their deals.
HOW TO MEASURE: For value messaging, leverage Gong/Chorus to measure the % of calls that mention specific words/phrases. For multithreading, measure avg # of personas on opps, & when they’re added. Other interesting metrics: Avg # decreases in TCV of an opp, and avg push count.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE INTERVENTION: Training is ok, documentation is great, but ongoing coaching is the best way to achieve sustained behavior change. Ideally led by the frontline manager, but okay if led by the enablement team.
REVIEWING METRICS: When you clearly define the desired behavior change, the empirical metrics, and the intervention, it’s very easy to show whether you made a difference. And it’s very easy to argue that it was the enablement initiative is to thank.
As a veteran enablement leader, I firmly believe that this kind of “purpose” (and approach) is sorely missing in enablement orgs.
And IMO if more enablement orgs approached their work this way, more sales leaders would consider their enablement leaders to be strategic partners in growing the business.
Happy selling.
Great article! I really appreciate the clear and detailed insights you’ve provided on this topic. It’s always refreshing to read content that breaks things down so well, making it easy for readers to grasp even complex ideas. I also found the practical tips you’ve shared to be very helpful. Looking forward to more informative posts like this! Keep up the good work!