The Importance of Sales Enablement

Sales enablement can be a broad topic, and a lot of people have different definitions of what sales enablement really means. Tamara Schenk, interviewed by John Golden, discusses the CSO Insights definition, based on her real-life experience, as well as research, and working with clients. “We define it is a collaborative, strategic discipline that is designed to increase sales results by providing consistent and effective enablement services for salespeople and their managers. Its purpose is to add value to every customer interaction,” said Schenk.

This expert sales interview explores sales enablement, including:

• Sales enablement services
• Goals for implementing sales enablement
• The importance of creating a solid framework
• Who creates and implements the framework

Sales Enablement Services:

These services include different things. For some people, sales enablement means sales training. For others, it’s all about content and technology. It could also indicate sales effectiveness, or excellence, or readiness. “What you see behind these different perceptions is that people usually look at sales enablement from their current functional perspective,” said Schenk. “If someone is in marketing, they think, ‘oh yeah, we’ve been doing sales enablement for years.’ If you are sales training, people say, ‘oh we’re enabling the sales force, that’s what we do all the time.’ The problem is that if many different groups provide services to the sales force, it can become very chaotic for them.” In order to reduce that chaos, it’s important to be very clear on the goal, and ensure that a proper framework is put in place.

The Goal of Enablement Services:

It’s important to make sure that enablement services cover all of the areas of training, all areas of content, and also coaching. It’s also directed at various employees in an organization. Sales enablement is not only for salespeople. The frontline sales managers should also be involved so that they can coach their sales team accordingly. Bring everyone in when creating your sales enablement plan, and ensure that the information is disseminated and understood across departments.

Creating a Sales Enablement Framework:

To be effective, sales enablement strategies must have a clear framework. Schenk calls her framework the Sales Enablement Clarity Model and explains it using the metaphor of a diamond. “Everybody wants to help sales in an organization. If people begin to understand this as an unpolished or rough diamond, you want people to ensure that they are doing something positive to help form the diamond into a cut and polished stone,” said Schenk.

The framework has a few different facets. It starts with the customer because we are living in the age of the customer. They make the buying decisions. “We can automate whatever we want, but buyers make buying decisions,” said Schenk. The goal is to equip salespeople so that they can be successful while walking along the customer’s path. The framework also includes sponsorship, strategy, coaching, technology, executive leadership, and other facets to help create a sparkling, shiny diamond. When creating your framework, be sure to include these different elements to reduce chaos and structure your planning.

Who Is In Charge?:

It is essential is to structure the framework. It is equally important to designate who is in charge of creating it. “If you’re an organization and you want to start with sales enablement, and you don’t have a formally implemented sales process, you will have a tough time achieving anything,” said Schenk. In our experience, and what I have learned through my own practitioner career, you cannot create enablement services out of nowhere.” You must have a connection to a concrete process and a methodological framework. The responsibility for creating these processes typically fall to the sales operations team. Most sales enablement teams report to executive sales management, although sometimes, especially in larger organizations, they report into sales operations.

For more information, check out the full expert sales interview!

About our Host:

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

MUST WATCH PANEL DISCUSSION[icon name=”binoculars” class=”” unprefixed_class=””]

Pipeline management is crucial for any sales company. Without a pipeline management software that is cutting edge, and offers necessary features, you will be left with a confusing, chaotic mess of data that won’t be at all useful. It’s also important to use your pipeline management system effectively and appropriately, and ensure that each team member is active in using it. Jason Jordan, Judy Frank, and Bruce Wedderburn are interviewed by John Golden to Do’s and Don’ts of Pipeline Management and help you get the most out of this vital tool.

Jason Jordan is a partner at Vantage Point, focusing exclusively on sales manager training, and is a recognized thought leader in B2B sales. Jason is also a best-selling author, and his articles have been published in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Entrepreneur, and many others.

As one of RAIN Group’s Consulting Partners, Judy provides strategic insight on sales efficiency, sales performance, strategic account management, and sales process optimization. Judy has been practicing an integrated approach to revenue generation in executive management roles for decades.

Bruce Wedderburn is the Chief Sales Officer of Integrity Solutions. He has over 20 years of global experience in the sales performance improvement industry building, coaching and directing sales teams and distribution channels to surpass growth targets.

Importance of CRM and Measuring Sales Effectiveness in Calls

No matter the discipline, you want to be effective. If what you’re doing isn’t effective, or moving you closer to your ultimate goal, there’s absolutely no reason to continue doing it. The struggle for salespeople becomes measuring sales effectiveness. It’s not as easy as counting calls or totaling revenue. It’s important to break down the process and analyze your performance at each step. John Golden interviews Anthony Stears on how to measure sales effectiveness with assistance from a CRM software.

This expert sales interview explores aspects of measuring sales effectiveness, such as:

• How to make calls that actually count
• Using a point system to divide the selling process
• The importance of using a process
• How CRM can help you be successful

Don’t count your calls. Make calls that count.

There should be value in every call, and you should consistently be moving people forward through your sales cycle. Most people measure three main things: the number of calls they make, the number of appointments that are set from these calls, and the number of deals that are closed. While these are all good things to measure, the logic used is that if you made 50 calls yesterday and set two appointments, making 100 calls today will lead to four meetings. This doesn’t always work. Closing deals don’t always correlate to how many calls that are made. Instead, it’s the quality of the call that moves people through the sales cycle. Therefore, measuring sales effectiveness is not as easy as counting the number of calls you make.

A Point in the Right Direction

To ensure that you make quality calls, Stears recommends developing a system and assigning a point to each part of the system. “Assign each thing in the sales cycle a point value. This helps you do things in order and keeps you from skipping to the end too quickly. Plus, you have a plan and know where you’re going next.” Stears explains how to score your first ten points in the expert sales interview, describing how to get from initial contact, all the way through closing a sale.

Process Driven Effectiveness

Some salespeople have resisted the idea of following a process and being process driven. But, the buyers have a process, and it’s important to align your selling process with how consumers buy things. If you’re not in line with them about how they make purchases, it will be difficult to close the sale. Additionally, having a system means that you know what is coming next. You can plant the seeds of the next step for the potential buyer. It’s not a surprise when you approach them, and they are prepared because they’ve already been thinking about it.

Using CRM to Track the Process

To keep track of your process, it’s crucial to use a quality CRM system to manage your pipeline. Pipeliner CRM is one such software that can do everything Stears recommends. One feature is that when you look at the archive of potential sales in your pipeline, you can see precisely at what stage you lost the deal. You can also look at each rep on the sales team individually, and differentiate weak spots that need to be improved for each person. Additionally, you can create a step by step activity. This prevents you from moving onto the next stage in the sales cycle without completing the previous one. This would be an excellent opportunity to assign points to each step so that you can replicate Stears’ point process.

For a top of the line CRM system, check out Pipeliner CRM. If you’re interested in learning more from Anthony Stears, watch his first expert sales interview, Getting to Know the Telephone Assassin.

About our Host:

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Creating and Implementing Core Values in a Digital World

If you ask most people about the core values of the company that they currently work for, they either don’t know the core values. Or, if they do know them, they aren’t integrated succinctly into the company culture and aren’t taken seriously. The digital world has had a significant influence on the way that company culture and core values are adopted, or not adopted. Eve Mayer talks culture in a digital world with John Golden.

This expert sales interview on core values and company culture explores:

• What core values are
• The difficulties created by the digital era
• Millennial influence on company culture
• How to establish core values
• How to implement core values

A Company’s Core Values

Core values are the intersection of culture and marketing. Core values start with the employee, and the story is what you should use to tell your companies story. It’s not just about the product or features of your product. People want to know the story of the company, that’s what makes people want to work with you.

Digital Difficulties

As an organization, even if you have core values that are important and you believe in, it can be challenging to translate that to staff members. Especially if a company has mostly remote, digital workers, getting employees to adopt and embrace the company culture really can be a challenge. “When you don’t get to be together in person, it’s a challenge for people to build that culture. Core values should be a steak in the ground for developing that culture, so you can set behaviors that come from that,” said Mayer.

Millennial Culture

With more of the millennial generation entering the workforce, many of them are hoping for a career that has a standard of, ‘we’re here to make money.’ “Hopefully more than just millennial want that, I think most people want that,” said Mayer. “There was a time where you signed on to a job for 30 years and got a gold watch at the end of it. You didn’t care about the higher purpose. You just wanted a job.” But things are changing now. People don’t just want to work to work. They want to be a part of something. A company that doesn’t have core values and is just centered around profits isn’t keeping up with what people want from their jobs. This further emphasizes the importance of creating and maintaining company culture. But how do you make that happen?

Creating Core Values in a Digital World

The importance of core values is obvious. But, the question becomes, how do you create and implement these core values to help employees buy into the company culture, especially in an increasingly digital world? “If you’re lucky enough to have a company create core values, and communicate them to the staff clearly, you’re ahead of the game. A lot of companies don’t do that,” said Mayer. But, if they haven’t already been created, that is the obvious start. A group of people who are not just top executives, but rather a cross-section of the staff from all levels, should bring their input. They should explore what the company believes and what the company is about to create several different core values. Then, the entire company should select the ultimate core value from these options.

Implementing Core Values

The way you ensure that the behaviors your staff adopts these values is multi-faceted. First, set up a system to communicate and remind employees of the core values. Make sure that they are disseminated to every person in the company. Then, reward and recognize based on their adoption of the values. Have other staff notice when a peer acts on the core values, and reward their efforts. They should also be integrated into managerial reviews. This assesses if each employee measures up to, and is upholding the values of the company. It also gives an opportunity for the manager to provide techniques to their employees improve if they fall short.

Watch the interview to learn more about core values in a digital world, and check out Eve Mayer’s first expert sales interview on social selling.

About Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

[icon name=”microphone” class=”” unprefixed_class=””]Every aspect of our lives are being constantly shaped by technology, and the tools that continue to evolve and appear. This absolutely includes social media platforms. Initially designed in order to help friends and family keep in touch, social media rapidly became a revolutionary way to market to others, network with colleagues, and ultimately make more money. European-based experts Lena Doppel, Edward van der Kleijn, and Mic Adam debated the power of social selling in this panel discussion hosted by John Golden.

The lively back and forth provided an update on the state of social selling today, some tips on how to do it effectively and even some predictions for the future.

[icon name=”users” class=”” unprefixed_class=””]THE PANEL

Mic Adam helps clients bridge the gap between Social Media and Business through his B2B and B2C sales, marketing, and general management experience. He is an online & offline networker, marketeer, and social selling professional. Mic thrives on the passion to drive sales and profits up for clients by communicating and promoting their unique selling propositions for products and services through social media and traditional channels.

Edward van der Kleijn 3D | Dutch | Direct | Delivers. High-Energy, High-Intensity Sales & Marketing Activation Specialist Using Proven Methods to Generate 7 Figure Sales Results. Find New Customers and Get Your Customers to Spend More, Spend More Often and Stop Them Buying from the Competition.

Lena Doppel is an Author, Digital Strategist, IT-Consultant, New-Media Trainer, Digital Couch, Promotion Project Manager, Renaissance Person, Girl Geek and Lifelong Learner with Passion.

How Salespeople Can Stay Relevant In the Digital Age

Technological advances in the sales world have been mostly positive thus far, but many salespeople fear their ability to stay relevant in the digital age.  The dystopian fears of technology replacing salespeople are far from accurate, though. Technology won’t replace salespeople, but they do need to remake themselves to succeed in a technology-driven future. John Barrows, interviewed by John Golden, gives critical insights into how salespeople can excel in this technological revolution.

In this sales expert interview, John Barrows discusses:

• Why the average salesperson will become irrelevant
• The importance of creating context, not just content
• How to prepare to stay relevant in the digital age

Don’t be average

“Before I was educated, I was convinced we were all getting replaced,” said Barrows. “But, now that I’m educated on it, I think good sales reps will become great, great sales reps will become incredible, and average sales reps will become irrelevant.”

Content vs. Context

Barrows has some key strategies for how to avoid being an average, soon to be irrelevant, salesperson. Part of the strategy involves understanding content versus context. “If content is King, then context is God,” said Barrows. “Marketing is content; sales is context. If we as salespeople aren’t putting quality context around our content, then we’re no different than marketing.”

Altering social media is a specific change that salespeople can make to stay relevant in the digital age. If a salesperson is retweeting other people, and re-sharing the same content, with no context, it becomes irrelevant. Instead, Barrows suggests adding your own opinion before sharing to add context to the content. Read the article, understand the specific points that are relevant to you and your consumers, and then add your insight before sending it out to your followers. Retweeting and sharing content is something that technology an automate. Creating mindful context, though? Not so much. In the video, Barrows shares two other vital tips for how to stay relevant in the digital age using context.

Educate yourself

The thought of creating context might seem daunting. After all, salespeople have a plethora of other tasks and duties to do on a daily basis. However, if you look at the task as a means of educating yourself, it can change your perspective on things. Many people spend their mornings reading the newspaper or browsing social media. Barrows, on the other hand, advocates that salespeople spend that time educating themselves on the things that are relevant to their field and what puts bread on their table. Utilizing tools like Feedly, Owler, and Sales Navigator, you can educate yourself on information about your industry, your contacts, and your personas. After finding something that is relevant and stands out as significant, add your opinion to the content, and then share it with your added context.

The Importance of Preparation

If you look at a salespersons calendar, you’ll probably see a pretty full schedule of meetings. But what you’re not likely to see is the prep time that is required for each meeting. Barrows stresses the importance of doing homework and prep work to prepare. Another piece of tactical advice that he has is to create a checklist to prepare quickly. Include your agenda and goals for the call, the companies website, the people that will be on the call, and a few nuggets that are useful for striking up a conversation. With this little bit of prep work, you’ll sound ready and knowledgeable. Additionally, you will communicate that you’ve researched the company. And most importantly, it gives you the ability to focus and be present during the call.

For more tips on how to stay relevant in the digital age, watch the video!

About Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

How To Become An Expert Salesperson

Being an expert salesperson is a choice. You must position yourself as an expert salesperson, and be intentional about making decisions that will help you rise to the top. However, not many people go after this top level of competition. If you intend to excel to the top of your field, Douglas Kruger has insider advice to share with you. Kruger discusses how to become an expert salesperson in this expert sales interview hosted by John Golden. 

Learn these tips and more on how to be an expert salesperson in this expert sales interview:

• How to be an expert salesperson
• Presenting your personality to achieve expert status
• Why giving away your best ideas for free is beneficial

How to be an expert:

Expert positioning is a combination of teaching, learning, portraying your personality, and being in the public eye. One of the ways to be an expert is to become synonymous with an idea, almost to the point where you can’t speak about an industry without your name coming up. Kruger gives the example of Arnold Schwarzenegger. His name is synonymous with bodybuilding, despite not being the highest ranking bodybuilder in the world. “There’s a lot that we can learn from this example,” said Kruger. You don’t necessarily have to be the very, very top to be an expert. Part of it is how you present yourself and your personality.

Present your Personality:

Kruger stresses that putting yourself and your personality out there doesn’t necessarily mean doing speaking engagements in front of large groups of people. Rather, you can accomplish the same thing on a smaller scale by creating YouTube videos. Share your top 10 tips on how to do something or three ideas on a subject you’re knowledgeable about. This will give you more exposure and get your name out there while providing genuine value to others for free. “Give away your best ideas for free, and let them come to you for implementation. Don’t hold anything back,” said Kruger.  

Expert Sales Ideas for Free:

It may seem counterintuitive to give away your ideas for free, but in reality, it can actually be a lucrative venture to do so. “There’s always this nagging doubt in the back of our minds that if we give too much, we have furnished the solution for free,” said Kruger. “But, I believe that if we are very generous with what we know, people will learn the tools from you, yet still come to you for the implementation.”  By doing this, you are helping people become what they want to become. Yet, you still earn profits for yourself. The more that you give, the more you help people. In turn, they will want to come back to you for your services.

To learn more about how to become an expert salesperson, watch the full expert sales interview!

About Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Putting More Women In Sales Management

“We have enough boy’s clubs. It’s time to have a girl’s club.” Despite being 51% of the population, women only make up 39% of the sales industry. Lauren Bailey, interviewed by John Golden, explores why there aren’t more women in sales management roles, and how to change things.

In this expert sales interview, Lauren Bailey discusses:

• The importance of having women as part of the sales force
• How risk plays a part
• Ways to integrate more women into managerial positions

Girls Club

“I was sick to death of people talking about how things needed to change, about how women need to be more involved, and then not doing anything about it,” said Bailey. “Growing up, I didn’t see any other women leading sales groups. I didn’t have any role models. Once I started realized this, I thought, ‘wow, there’s something wrong with that.’” She made it her mission to solve this problem with her own girl’s club.

Women Risk Takers

Part of creating a solution to the gender imbalance involves understanding the problem. As Bailey set out to explore this trend of fewer women in sales management jobs, she discovered that risk and risk-taking plays a significant part. A study by HP found that if there is a job that’s posted with a 10-item list of criteria, a man will apply when he can do six things. Women, however, will only apply when she can do all of the things on the list. “Little boys are raised as adventures and risk takers. And little girls are raised as perfectionists. And, if that’s the case, the HP study really does demonstrate that. We don’t raise our hand until we know it’s a sure thing,” said Bailey.

How to Help Women to Break Through

Bailey’s program has several parts to help establish more women in sales management. When the girl’s club first started, the plan was to focus only on training. It’s still an essential part of what Bailey provides, but with some new add-ons. However, it has since expanded. A mentor is provided for everyone in the group. Because there are limited options for role models, each group member is connected with a more experienced woman in sales management that can serve as a mentor. These women share their stories of failures, continued growth, how they’ve taken risks, and how they have conquered the sales management role. In addition to being role models for their assigned girl’s club members, Each of these mentors filmed short clip for a series called Rise Up on Record. These videos create an authentic description of what it’s like to be a woman in the sales workforce.

About our Host:
John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.