With global analysts, Morgan Stanley, predicting a positive global outlook for 2020 despite global uncertainty.
A bullish market offers good opportunity to lean into sales. One clear way to increase revenues is through sales enablement.
Research by Aberdeen Group shows that giving sales teams the direction and tools they need to succeed — sales enablement — has a direct impact on the bottom line. The study by Aberdeen showed that 75% of the surveyed companies that used sales enablement tools, reported increased sales. 40% of these respondents grew sales by over 25%. Meanwhile, MarketsandMarkets recently revealed that the global sales enablement market is set to grow to US$ 2.6 billion by 2024.
Why such big investments? In an always-on, information-rich world, connected technology has increased customer sophistication and expectations. New research by Highspot shows this expressed in the marketplace through: “increasingly complex sales processes” that “are straining resources and extending sales cycles. The researchers advise that sales processes should be more tightly aligned to the buyer journey.
If you’re a vendor planning your channel or partner programme, here are the five tactics I think will sharpen sales enablement in 2020 and beyond.
1. The rise and rise of video
Video is a high-impact sales enablement tool thanks to its ubiquitous engagement and accessibility. This medium has seen significant traction over the past few years with brands taking up residence on YouTube channels, and webinars becoming a stable on LinkedIn. Video’s power lies in its versatility and immediate reach. Video can be used for marketing, training, entertainment, engagement and more and is undeniably one of the strongest mediums for educating and connecting today. Sales teams who aren’t using video as part of their kits to communicate and inform are missing out.
2. Simplify sales enablement
According to Gartner, 76% of sellers find that sales enablement is actually making their lives harder by adding complexity to sales people’s lives. In an age of complexity, humans yearn for simplicity and frictionless efficacy. We predict that this will see an increased drive to more integrated sales enablement tools that simplify processes while enabling growth.
3. Remote selling becomes the norm
Business 2 Community reports that 75% of all sales calls are now online or by phone. Despite this, most sales enablement is still made to fit a face-to-face world. Because of this, most sales teams aren’t fully prepared for what is now the most common way of selling globally. Get future fit by ensuring your teams are empowered to use webinars, Skype, Zoom and all the tools they need for remote lead generation, awareness, activation, and full-funnel selling.
4. The social sell and the omnichannel
Social selling is not just business-to-consumer (B2C), not anymore. Social media has become a profitable sales tool for the business-to-business (B2B) market because the technology that enables it has become increasingly relevant. Over the next year, the ability to thread together email, direct mail, social media and the other threads of the omnichannel into one cohesive sales strategy will be essential to building long-term brand loyalty.
5. Service enablement
Integration. The evolution of sales enablement tools means services have become integrated with technology. Technology now enables data-driven insights to enable cross-selling, renewal, referral and deeper customer engagement. This trend has already seen the rise of CRM solutions that are designed to provide holistic engagement for the business. Organisations such as Hubspot are increasingly embedding this type of solution into their offering to provide an integrated hub for marketing, sales and service. This is likely to see significant growth as more companies realise the benefits of blending CRM and sales tools in a comprehensive sales – and service – ecosystem.
Sales enablement tools are maturing and generating better ROI than ever before, particularly when these strategies and tools are aimed at reducing complexity and increasing engagement.
About the Author
Kris Wanamaker is Commercial Director at Right on the Line. Right on the Line has been supporting IT channel marketers and sales teams for almost 20 years. We devise, create, and design compelling communications and content that keep partners’ teams engaged and, ultimately, increase revenue.
Find out more: https://www.rightontheline.com
Featured image: ©IvanMollov
