There are many discussions about the sales talent that’s required in the digital age of the customer. But there is almost no discussion about the necessary talent in the role of a sales enablement leader. The challenge with sales enablement: only a minority moves the needle Only about one-quarter to one-third of sales enablement teams… Read More
The Trouble with Bad Lead Management Behaviors
What was your last bad experience as a prospect – just a short time after you downloaded something from a website? Maybe this example sounds familiar for you, too. I was interested in a report that had been published on a vendor’s blog. I downloaded the document. Less than an hour later, I got a… Read More
Value Messaging Goes Dynamic And Requires A Dynamic Framework
Experienced chefs don’t need a separate recipe for each menu variation they create. For example, once they have learned to cook a risotto, they can create lots of different variations with ingredients such as mushrooms, pumpkins, zucchini or spinach. They simply adapt the basic principles. Sales enablement leaders must define the principles of how to… Read More
What if efficiency is not your problem? How frontline sales managers drive sales effectiveness and productivity
Training sessions that make sense for marathon runners are clearly not appropriate for sprinters, even if both want to win an Olympic gold medal. The disciplines are different. The athletes’ objectives determine their activities. That’s the same in professional B2B selling. The business results and sales objectives determine the appropriateness of various sales activities. World-class… Read More
What Sales Enablement Content Analytics Really Mean
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” Albert Einstein Einstein’s observation holds true for sales enablement content-related analytics. Imagine the launch of a shiny, new enablement and collaboration platform. Many different roles in sales, marketing and product management are looking forward to the content analytics that the… Read More
What Triangles Have To Do With Frontline Sales Managers
“It is indeed wonderful that so simple a figure as the triangle is so inexhaustible in its properties.” — A. L. Crelle When I was in school, I questioned the value of studying geometry. But today, it makes a lot of sense to me. In fact, an equilateral triangle mirrors many of the daily challenges… Read More
Where Is Sales Enablement Heading? Highlights from the Forrester Conference
Back from the Forrester Sales Enablement Forum in sunny Scottsdale, AZ, March 4-5: What are the highlights apart from a beautiful location, sharing, learning and networking? A few years ago, the term “sales enablement” was positioned above sales training portals and technology. The discipline’s maturity grew up from activity to discipline, from program to function,… Read More
Who Are Your Customers And How Well Do You Know Them?
“What a question” I hear you, “of course, I know who my customers are and I know them pretty well” Wait a minute and let’s have a look at the variety of answers you can get asking this question across the organization. “My customers are the VPs for Network Operations”, “I’m calling on the directors and… Read More
Why Bad Messaging Disables Sales And Ruins The Brand
What’s the impact of a prospecting email that has nothing to do with you, the recipient? It’s precisely zero. Even worse, bad messaging hurts the brand that sends it. Why is this still happening, over and over again? It’s the era of social selling, isn’t it? Why are the easiest tools and approaches still not… Read More
Why Being a B2B Buyer Is Different – Consumerization Is A Poor Comparison
When buying a personal laptop, you know what you want, your budget, and your brand preferences. Then you make your online research to come up with a short list. Your best options get compared and you make a decision, placing the order online. That’s consumerization in the IT space. Reflect how you bought your first… Read More
Why GoToCustomer Makes a Huge Difference or Why GoToCustomer Means Simplicity
I have written a lot about the GoToCustomer idea. GoToCustomer is first and foremost a consequent way of thinking and designing your sales system backwards from the customer’s journey. GoToCustomer means to work consequently from the outside to the inside. Outside-in thinking is the most important prerequisite, before you even start to design any kind… Read More
Why Selling Internally Is Key To Success For Sales Enablement Professionals
Selling internally is often harder than selling externally. First, that’s when sellers complain about processes, templates, specific questions they have to answer to get delivery commitments, resources, etc. Second, selling internally is – especially in complex sales – equipping the relevant stakeholders within the customer’s organization with a shared vision of success, to help them… Read More
Why Strategic Sales Enablement Follows A Two-Step Approach
What’s your focus when designing and creating sales enablement services? What are the sales enablement frameworks you work with? And what do they look like? I’m constantly amazed at how often the customers are not even mentioned, nor included in sales enablement frameworks and approaches that are applied. “But sales enablement is about sales!” I… Read More
Why Value Messaging Is Key to Sales Enablement Success
Imagine this much too common scenario: Your marketing team has created new value messages for a product launch or update to support marketing’s online content and demand-and-lead-generation campaigns. Marketing will incorporate the new value messages in all customer-facing content assets they are creating for the sales force. In parallel, the product management team prepares product-training… Read More
Why World Class Sales Performers Are Always Keen To Learn
It rarely happens that I’m impressed by motivational speakers. Too often, they cannot build a bridge that enables people to tap into their wisdom, right after the conference. Steve Backley, British javelin athlete and three-time Olympic medalist, offered a very different experience at our Miller Heiman Sales Performance Summit in London in November, based on… Read More
World-Class Performers Have Clarity of Vision and Purpose
“It is the skill of having a clear and decisive vision for the future whilst staying focused on the present that makes the real difference when it comes to performing under pressure.” –Steve Backley Keeping the balance between staying in the present and having a clear vision for the future is not only a challenge… Read More