Does your company revise your sales forcenoptimization strategy every year? What are you going to do in 2010? Your plans usually involve a long “to do” or wish list. The most common items on these lists include: Improving rep access to knowledge to sell effectively; More closely aligning sales and marketing; and Enhancing sales team communications.

- You know that doing these improvements will help your sales force, since it is ultimately up to your sales force to find relevant content, digest it, interpret it, fill in any missing gaps, and then adapt it to match customer needs.

- You know that doing these activities successfully will add more value and quality to customer interactions though better communication, sales collaboration, and access to relevant messaging

To act on their list, companies usually create multiple strategies using different teams that try the same tactics that other teams have tried in the past, but with a different spin.

- You also know that you are continually redoing your strategies year after year because they never quit seem to get you the results you wanted.

You try changing teams, changing leadership, or changing your methods, but you still don’t seem to gain any ground. In some cases, your initiatives seem to cause more problems than they fix.

- What don’t know is that one Sales Enablement strategy can address multiple items on the list and deliver results in a more cohesive way.

By approaching your wish list with a Sales Enablement initiative, your efforts will result in higher close rates, reduced operational costs, and increased revenue more efficiently and effectively.

Article: http://bit.ly/3qldZK

McKinsey says: “47% of US workers are paid up to 75% premium. Are you getting your money’s worth?”

When companies look to measure the ROI of initiatives, they tend to focus on the obvious usual suspects. But if the definition of what McKinsey is measuring across all US workers here was, “all those employees who contribute and create information, provide knowledge or expertise, and tailor or deliver this knowledge/information to gain clients, win profitable deals, and retain customers“, then in many organizations, the percentage of people who are paid up to 75% premium might as well be double the 47% McKinsey has. You have to consider all the supporting roles found within large enterprises.

However more to the point, any challenge so broadly affecting the company and potentially so tied to the top and bottom line has to be seen as strategic, especially in particular, at the large, global Enterprise. Why? The inherent challenges of a complex global organization [heavily matrixed, many regions, multiple product groups, etc. = many silos] – they sell complex solutions in a complex selling environment with complex processes in multiple markets with a complex set of competitors. (Get it? Its complex!)

For the majority of these companies their comparative advantage is how well they can leverage their expertise:

• Expertise in the client’s situation/context;
• Expertise in any aspect of the available solutions;
• Expertise in the market and competitors.

With the increased speed of all markets today, changes in the competitive landscape and unforeseen macro-events, technical disruptions and innovations can impact entire industries and regions. How quickly your organization can respond, shift and adapt will determine if you lead/win or follow/lose.

Manage the complexity of your environment (lots of data sources and business processes): When we define the term Sales Enablement portal as “the place on your intranet where employees contribute and create information, provide knowledge or expertise, and tailor or deliver this knowledge/information to gain clients, win profitable deals, and retain customers” then my advice is to make sure the technical aspects of your Sales Enablement portal fits into your landscape and you do not create some over-simplified new one (e.g. yet one more place to put and get information for each business unit or country).

Do not see the statement “We are in the information age” as just something regarding the broader world we live in, but make it an important part of your corporate culture: The lesson of web 2.0 for companies is that people=expertise. There are a lot of innovations that can streamline people’s collaboration and leverage their expertise (social networks, wikis, SharePoint like platforms, micro-blogging, instant messaging, Voice over IP, etc.). But they all are not right for every company, and you can spend more time trying to manage all of the technologies than getting any value from them. Just because they all exist doesn’t mean you have to use them.

Some tips for selecting a new collaboration technology for your large, global enterprise to help get you on your way are:

• Find the right few technologies to support your culture of collaborating. (No culture of collaborating? You better get one – fast)
• Manage your technologies: don’t let them dictate your strategies
• Focus the development and deployment of technologies to specific groups and goals
• Be iterative in the process to use success to build momentum – leverage quick wins
• Develop and understand the personas of your sellers or other end users: define their needs and any benefits gained – what’s in it for them?
• Create a Sales Enablement road map that includes all four legs of Sales Enablement (People, Technology, Processes and Content)

Best of luck circumnavigating this brave, new (collaborative and technically advanced) world.

Whatever your return to growth strategy is for 2010 (reductions in expenses or headcount, mergers/acquisitions, or a company restructuring), you can increase the speed of your economic recovery by preparing your sales force appropriately with knowledge. CSO Insights surveyed sales leaders on what their top key initiatives would be for the coming year, and at least six items listed were elements in a Sales Enablement strategy. Learn how one company gained $22 million in measurable, impactful savings from implementing a Sales Enablement strategy.

If reductions in expenses or headcount, mergers/acquisitions, or a company restructuring are driving your company’s agenda in 2010, then how you prepare your sales force to deal with your return to growth strategy matters … it matters a great deal!

As the Sales Enablement space matures, in particular within the economic context of the last 18 months, Sales and Marketing leaders are beginning to understand Sales Enablement in the larger strategic context. Its initial “motherhood and apple pie” appeal is undeniable, but as more companies implement and measure the impact, executives can see just how many ways it improves their bottom line.  Whatever your return to growth strategy is for 2010 (reductions in expenses or headcount, mergers/acquisitions, or a company restructuring) how you prepare your sales force matters, as it will impact the speed of your economic recovery. It matters a great deal!

As Sales Enablement has evolved into its own discipline, it has moved beyond the basic goal of improving sales process efficiency and into a part of the corporate strategic priority. CSO Insights recently reported in their 2008 survey of sales leaders that, within their top key initiatives, at least six were elements that could be delivered with a Sales Enablement strategy, including: #2: Improving rep access to knowledge to sell effectively; #3: More closely aligning sales and Marketing;  and #5: Enhancing sales team communications. This means real dollars and real efforts!

Download the full Case Study (PDF): http://tiny.cc/DauaR