I can’t believe 2020 is almost upon us. It still feels like yesterday that people were freaking out about their computers and appliances going rogue due to the Y2K glitch… how has it already been 20 years?
The world has come a long way in these past two decades, and sales is no exception. The explosion of technology has transformed the business landscape, and the way relationships are built. In this environment, sales enablement is crucial for keeping pace. Supporting tools and solutions help modern sellers maximize their impact and scale their efforts.
CSO Insights recently released its Fifth Annual Sales Enablement Study, which comes chock-full of interesting statistics, insights, and revelations. As you seek to set your sales team up for success in the coming year — and decade — here are a few takeaways worth noting.
Sales Enablement Trends for 2020
From Rapid Growth to Steady Maturation
In 2013, less than 20% of organizations reported that they were using sales enablement. Here in 2019, more than 60% of organizations are on board. The growth chart over this seven-year span is interesting, with one big spike surrounded by relatively small jumps:
While a majority of organizations are now embracing sales enablement, the fact that more than one-third are still missing out on this competitive edge stands out as a clear opportunity, especially in light of the effectiveness indicators below. A detail worth noting here is that size matters; 77.1% of companies with a sales force exceeding 500 people have dedicated sales enablement in place, compared to 39.3% of companies with 25 or fewer.
Sales Enablement Has a Clear Impact on Results and Perception
CSO’s data shows that organizations with sales enablement achieve a 49% win rate on forecasted deals, compared to 42.5% for those without. Meanwhile, organizations with sales enablement are more likely to describe their sales process maturity level as “Formal/Dynamic,” while those without sales enablement are more likely to describe theirs as “Random/Informal.”
A more structured and formal sales process is vital in the pursuit of the foremost ideal in B2B sales: being viewed by customers as a strategic partner and trusted advisor, rather than simply a dispensable vendor. Per the report, 30.6% of organizations with sales enablement in place say they are a “Strategic Contributor/Trusted Partner,” compared to 19.4% of organizations without.
Aligning to Customer’s Path is Key
To keep pace with an increasingly buyer-controlled market, it is essential for sales to take a customer-centered approach, allowing buyer journeys to dictate how we engage them. The Sales Enablement Study shows that only a fraction of companies are successfully aligning their sales processes with the customer’s path, but they are seeing major benefits.
We wrote here recently about the trend of sales engaging buyers earlier in the purchase journey, which stands out as a key opportunity for greater impact.
Enablement Content Needs Improvement
One of the primary advantages of a refined sales enablement strategy is that it creates better communication between sales and marketing. Marketers are more likely to produce content that sellers can actually use to move deals forward.
The most prevalent need is to gain more visibility and documentation around sales content. More than a quarter of organizations in the study said they don’t know how much they spend on content for their sellers. Less than one-third of respondents have a content strategy in place; however, those companies with a formal approach or charter for sales enablement are vastly more likely to have a content strategy than those with a random approach (57.4% to 10.9%).
This is important because sales organizations with a content strategy have 27.1% higher win rates and 18.1% higher quota attainment. Simply bringing your sales enablement and marketing teams together to document a defined plan can go a long way toward identifying gaps and redundancies.
Bring Structure to Your Sales Enablement Strategy
There are plenty of other topics covered in the Fifth Annual Sales Enablement Study from CSO Insights, including sales enablement technology, cross-functional collaboration, measurement, and sales coaching. But through it all, one major takeaway comes to light: moving away from ad-hoc sales enablement, and establishing structure and centralized documentation, yields far better outcomes.
Sales enablement itself is no longer the differentiator it once was. Most businesses are using these technologies and tools in some fashion, especially at the enterprise level. Today, the biggest differentiator is becoming formal and charter-based in sales enablement processes. And while it’s important to align these processes with your internal systems and preferences, it’s even more important to align them with the customer’s path.
Thinking in these terms will have your team primed to thrive in 2020 and beyond.
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Topics: Sales enablement
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