Sales enablement is critical for driving business growth but many organizations take a disorganized approach to it. To be effective, sales enablement needs to (1) provide useful tools and training, (2) inspire and educate salespeople, and (3) keep content accessible anytime on any device to support the increasingly digital customer and sales experiences. Strong sales enablement programs at Fortune 500 companies have led to 15.3% average growth.

1. The most important digital play no one’s talking about:
It’
s SALES ENABLEMENT (yes, really)

2. Introduction
Here’s a simplified version of a business plan we see a Just take a look at the data 1:
lot of these days:
41% of salespeople say that they don’t know which
sales tools to use, how to use them, or when
Step 1: Create a relevant, quality product/ On average, salespeople spend an estimated
service/cupcake store that directly solves a 30 hours per month searching for and creating
target customer’s need. their own selling materials
Step 2: Watch the profits roll in. (“This That’s a lot of inefficient salespeople spending time away
software/fitness class/chocolate-sea salt from their primary job – generating revenue.
cupcake is amazing! It will sell itself!”)
Random acts of sales
It’s one of the most common misconceptions in business
today. In fact, nothing sells itself. We all get that
organizations need to make sales to drive revenue. But
what are you doing to equip your people with the skills
and knowledge they need to sell? If you’re honest with
support: disjointed
efforts that lead to
yourself, it’s probably not enough.
When it comes to sales enablement, most organizations
practice what Forrester Research calls “random acts
of sales support”: disjointed efforts that lead to unused
unused tools buried
somewhere on a
tools buried somewhere on a web portal.
web portal.
1
Source: IDC (International Data Corporation)
INTRODUCTION /1

3. A framework for aligning sales
As with any employee engagement, rallying sales teams
to greatness means creating experiences that follow five Principle #3: Useful
guiding principles. Helpful, generous, turning people into
willing users and participants
Principle #1: Purpose-led
Anchored in the business and brand
purpose and intent
Principle #4: Intuitively
designed
Anticipating how users will
want to interact
Principle #2: Creative and cut-through
Telling, enabling and building stories
that cut through the clutter
Principle #5: Expertly delivered
Brought to life creatively, effectively
and impactfully
A FRAMEWORK FOR ALIGNING SALES /2

4. Sales Experience Required
So how can you turn your 1. Sales tools
This may sound familiar: a new sales tool is announced to your
company into a selling machine? salesforce with great fanfare. It has attracted all sorts of attention (and
dollars), but then fizzles out shortly after its launch (or sometimes even
Sales enablement is, at its heart, about brand experiences: both the before). Why? Most likely because it simply wasn’t useful.
experience your salespeople have with your brand (through tools,
training, and messaging), and the brand experience they ultimately Sales tools need to be useful to be used. And the only people that can
deliver to customers. confidently tell you what is useful are salespeople themselves. Involve
them in every step of sales tool development – from identifying the need
It’s up to you to craft these experiences in ways that inspire to prototyping and testing – to ensure tools are relevant, intuitive
both audiences. and helpful.
Let’s take a look at how you can make three common sales
enablement touchpoints work harder for you – and your bottom line. 2. Sales training
Be honest. When’s the last time you got excited about completing a
corporate-mandated training course? Most of us see training as something
to endure, not something of value – because frequently it just doesn’t add
Four key
value to the things that are most important to getting our jobs done.. More
often than not, corporate training doesn’t capture the imagination of sales
people who’ve heard it all before.
ingredients:
Successful training has four key ingredients: inspiration, instruction,
exploration and evaluation. Most companies skip right over the
inspiration part – and those programs are doomed from the get-go.
You’ve got to inspire as well as educate, and that means ensuring that
inspiration, salespeople truly understand the value they are offering customers – not
just a list of product features.
instruction,
3. Messaging.
Salespeople need to deliver the right message to the right customer in the
right way. So, yes, the message is critically important. But repeating your
exploration
message is not the same as staying on message.
Message maps are useful tools, provided that the messages are targeted,
differentiated, and answer real customer needs. (And, of course, that
your people are trained correctly on their use). Successful messaging is as
and evaluation. much about understanding your customers and your competitors as it is
about knowing your company’s products and services.
SALES EXPERIENCE REQUIRED /3

5. ABC: Always (and Anywhere) Be Closing
Let’s face it. We communicate differently than we used to, and Not only are budgets tighter than ever, but time-to-market has
the rise of smartphones, tablets, social networking and our accelerated in nearly every industry. Your window of opportunity
always-connected culture means new opportunities for is small: Wait for the next regularly scheduled training module and
sales enablement. you may be too late to capture the opportunity.
Consider this: Salespeople need to be connected to the absolute latest information
– and their peers – at all times. In a world where more and more
82% of millenials expect to have an app that helps people work outside traditional offices, it’s imperative to give them
them gain knowledge and skills2 “anywhere access” to the knowledge they need to do their
jobs successfully.
60% to 70% of work-related learning occurs in
informal contexts 3 Instant messaging, social networks, Skype and other tools can put
the latest information and advice at their fingertips. Use them.
10% of content delivered to sales reps is currently done
so in “a useful format” 4
Training is no longer about one-and-done events or courses.
Learning needs to be continuous, easy-to-access, and
The 21st-century salesforce
immediate to be most effective. is more social, mobile, and
The days of (only) getting everyone together once a year to
review the new sales aid are behind us.
agile than ever before.
2
Source: ASTD (American Society of Training Professionals)
3
Source: ASTD (American Society of Training Professionals)
4
Source: Tinderbox
ABC: ALWAYS (AND EVERYWHERE) BE CLOSING /4

6. Tech Support
Of course, your salespeople aren’t the only ones living a more
digital life. Your customers are too. That means that sales calls
themselves are changing. There is still unparalleled value in
face-to-face interactions, of course, but are your salespeople
following their customers and prospects on Twitter? Do they
schedule Skype touch-bases and “share screens” to go over
quick updates? Send additional information that can be easily
viewed/interacted with on a mobile device? Of course, your salespeople
And how are those in-person sales calls going, anyway?
We’ve seen sales forces have great successes with digital
aren’t the only ones living
selling tools, interactive content, and tablet-based programs. a more digital life.
One caveat: we’re not advocating using technology for
technology’s sake. We are advocating for using technology
Your customers are too.
to interact more frequently, more efficiently, and more
organically with your most important audiences.
Salespeople need to be trained on how
(and when) to use technology and digital
tools to become more effective.
TECH SUPPORT /5

7. Cupcakes Anyone?
Here’s the bottom line: successful sales enablement is critical to
growth. (Don’t take our word for it: Fortune 500 companies with
strong sales enablement programs report an average
15.3% growth).
It takes a company-wide commitment to create the tools, training,
and messaging that will best help your sales force succeed. It takes Fortune 500
companies
a willingness to embrace our newly connected and digital world.
And it takes a belief in the power of your people to deliver a top-
notch brand experience.
Or you could cross your fingers and hope to discover with strong
that mythical product/service/cupcake that does indeed
sell itself. (And if you find it, please let us know.) sales enablement
Joe Panepinto, Phd is Vice President, Senior Strategist at Jack Morton.
You can reach him at programs report
strong growth.
joe_panepinto@jackmorton.com.
CUPCAKES ANYONE? /6

8. TALK TO JACK ABOUT JACK MORTON
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For information about Jack Morton, contact five continents. Our agency culture promotes breakthrough ideas about how
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LEARN MORE Morton is part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. (NYSE: IPG).
Look for Jack Morton’s forthcoming research on © Jack Morton Worldwide 2013
experience brands in March 2013. Additional research
and white papers can be found on Jack Morton’s
Slideshare channel.
FURTHER READING
Forrester Research, Sales Enablement Defined,
Scott Santucci (2010)
Jack Morton, Your People, Your Brand: Creating a brand
means looking at the experience from the inside out
(2013)
ABOUT JACK MORTON /7