Sales Executive Enablement Summit - From the Trenches

This week, I've been covering my learnings from the SAVO Group Summit.
You can also read my post on John Aiello's Introduction of Fluency and Scott Santucci's escalating the sales conversation.

Today, I'd like to share some insights from the trenches. The summit invited company representatives to share their experiences with sales enablement. They had interesting things to share, so here's my take:

Tom Chamberlain, Director of Sales Readiness for Aspect

Tom spoke candidly about the fact that salespeople will tell you about what they want, but to be very cognizant of the fact that they don't know how to tell you what they need. This means that initiating sales enablement requires the ability to jump into their perspective and read between the lines, helping them get to what's really important.

He also offered a few tips about things he's learned that are spot on:

1. Create a single point of truth for all channels (e.g. a sales portal). He also stated that this is best accomplished by using a standard solution with best practices, keeping content owners in charge of their content and ensuring the web pages are not static, but constantly updating with the freshest and most popular resources.


2. Start with social media tools to build collaboration. He didn't launch with the entire suite of social networking type functionality. He's still challenged by getting salespeople to share knowledge and says if he did this over, he'd launch with those tools to build participation in from the start.


3. Use the marketing trifecta. Tom lists marketing automation, CRM and the sales portal as the trifecta for sales and marketing enablement.

Pam Thomas, Director of Marketing Communications for LexisNexis

Pam started off her presentation by stating a Booz Hamilton statistic that indicates 85% of your brand is related to what your sales rep says to your buyers. That's a pretty sobering thought for marketers who spend so much time trying to position their companies in buyers' minds. But, it's also the key for helping salespeople to have conversations. If we teach them what they need to know to have meaningful conversations your buyers value, your reputation and credibility will be golden.

She also advises that companies should pay strict attention to segmentation and targeted content as applies to each sales rep, only displaying what's relevant to them. Yes, consider salespeople as marketing's buyer and act accordingly. Totally valid statement, but harder to make a reality.

Pam made the point that enablement isn't just for sales, it's also for marketing. Marketing must own the ability to push information as well as to let sales know what to expect coming down the pike. I'd add that goes both ways to be a push and pull kind of process.

Ken Powell, VP Sales Training and Performance, ADP

Ken created a technique called Salearning^SM that's about eliminating the divide between real world and training to leverage the expertise that exists everywhere.

He insists (and rightly so) that we need to eliminate the boring role plays, the dragged out fictional scenarios that don't represent reality. Instead, he suggests that companies assemble and operationalize what's going on in the field so that field resources can mentor new sales reps.

The move to using virtual, blended training models has saved ADP $3M over 3 years. That's a pretty nice return for using real-world scenarios. He also says that the mentoring program produces higher productivity due to faster on-boarding as well as reducing turnover.

Chris Ahearn, SVP, Worldwide Sales and Marketing, Oakwood Worldwide
Ken Revenaugh, VP Sales Operations, Oakwood Worldwide

First off, I have to applaud both of them for their skit on Red Hat, Blue Hat! That was a terrific way of getting down to the nitty gritty of defining your ideal prospects.

A few tips from the duo:

Engagement is the amount of effort salespeople will put out beyond the norm.

• Listening needs to go both ways between sales and marketing
• Just because your prospects look alike, doesn't mean they'll spend alike. (Great point!)
• Assign sales resources according to the way prospects like to buy (e.g. in person, virtually or over the phone)
• Pay attention to the fact that customers receive value in a variety of dimensions - economic, emotional and functional. You need to focus on all three.

Wendy Casey, Senior Marketing Communications Consultant, HealthPartners

Wendy gave a wonderful overview of how her company utilizes a sales portal. She indicated 3 areas to impact that improve the sales reps experience with the portal:

1. Taxonomy - help them find content based on words they use
2. Quick Links - get them to most used resources fast
3. Competitive Intel - highlight the new resources to keep reps up to date

She also shared that custom pages based on relevant topic areas shot up in usage right away. Her team used that indicator as a directive to display more resources in the custom page format to encourage continued use and adoption.

Tim Riesterer, CMO and SVP, Strategic Consulting, Corporate Visions
(and author of Customer Message Management)

Tim shared a story about when he asked a salesperson how many sales tools they had for a new product launch. The salesperson said 6 or 7. After listing them all out, they discovered there were actually 19 tools! A bit overwhelming, don't you think?

Companies need to define how sales will use each tool within the context of a day in the life of a sales rep and focus on the tools salespeople will use to get appointments.

Tim shared research that shows the information prospects need to make a decision doubles every 2 years. So, are you adding to the noise or helping to add value through simplifying what your prospects need to know?

He also shared some factors that impact brand choice:

• 9% of decisions are based on price
• 19% of decisions are based on product or service
• 19% of decisions are based on brand
• 53% of decisions are based on the sales conversation

To be effective in a sales conversation, the rep must be educated and empowered to share a point of view - not ask questions. I mean, let's face it, salespeople talk to a lot more people like their buyers than their buyers do. They can make a strong impact by sharing their perspective about what they're hearing on the street.

He also reminded us that methodology is driven by fuel (e.g. content)

As a wrap up on the insights from the trenches, I have just one thing to say...GAME ON!

Tomorrow, you'll get a look at the future of sales enablement, SAVO style...