The document summarizes a sales enablement webinar discussing how to better support sales teams. It introduces the speakers and provides an agenda that includes a sales health check, aligning CRMs to sales processes, and five tips to be more effective. A polling question asks participants to rate their organization's seller enablement approach. The document then discusses aligning CRM deal stages to buying cycles, facilitating alignment through dashboards and data visibility, and making resources easy to find. Five tips are provided, such as asking good questions, understanding the sales perspective, prioritizing work that helps sales, and simplifying processes. The summary recaps what was covered and invites participants to future webinars on related topics.
7. SH
QUESTION 2
2. Rate the strength of the cross functional
relationships in your organization? (e.g. sales and
marketing alignment)
• Do they
understand the
sales
relationships?
• Do they
understand the
buying cycle of
your
customers?
8. SH
QUESTIONS 3 & 4
3. Do your reps have
the right sales
materials at the
right time?
4. Have you provided your
sales reps and sales
managers their own
business dashboard?
18. 2. Walk in Their Shoes
The best Sales Enablement professionals and
leaders understand selling.
•If you don’t, take a rep for lunch and ask.
•Read books – Spin Selling, Selling to Vito, Hope is Not A Strategy
CB:Note upfront Sales Enablement a broad topic. Covers many aspects and often not common definition. For purposes of this webinar we are going to focus on enabling the “seller’s specifically” and what you can do that translates to better support, faster on-boarding and ultimately what we all want, shorter sales cycles and more revenue.
CB: Moderator introduces by name, each speaker gives 1 minute background highlightAs the Director of Sales Operations, Patrick oversees operations and enablement for all sales teams. Patrick is building this new functionality for the organization, developing support and processes for CRM alignment and optimization, dashboard and reporting capabilities, forecasting, field and event enablement as well as lead management/generation. Patrick has served in a variety of sales roles including Regional Sales Manager, field sales and account management. Sarah Altman is passionate about creating environments where sales teams thrive and exceed expectations because they have superior knowledge, skills and support, and are empowered and motivated. After years over fourteen years of selling and sales leadership positions for companies such as Oracle, EMC, WebTrends and Vesta, she launched her consulting company, Sales Ready Group, five years ago to combine her passion for sales, coaching and mentoring. As a consultant, she finds that her sweet spot is helping organizations understand how to prioritize their limited time and resources to maximize their sales teams’ performance and happiness factor.
CB:In this short format we are going to go through each of the points, but draw consistently on real examples from your experiences at NWEA. Patrick, we have an audience of marketing directors, sales operations, sales effectiveness managers, but many of them do not know about NWEA. Can you give us the highlights. Patrick gives overviewCB: When did NWEA centralize it’s process?
CB:Orgs get very noisy, take a few moments to identify where you are and how you are doing and prioritize
CB: Sarah, we are staring out with your personal health check. 6 Quick question to rate yourself are you doing enough for your sellers. Please walk us through how this works and this first question here. Sarah to explain why this is important and evaluation Description of scoring so audience can evaluate themselves as we go: Scale 1-51 – haven’t quite built up5– you’re best in class
Teams that provide access to expertise, resources and support for all of the systems and toolsC: How does NWEA doe this?P: Formalizing relationships; Help teams understand what a sales enablement relationship looks like; based on buying cycles; what the buyer needs in the sales cycle
Q3: What material doesn’t fit, what has been created? What hasn’t worked?Traditional SharePoint and CRM but new technologies coming into play here. MobilePaks make it accessible but track what they are using. Sarah: Ask a few reps what materials they used for their past 3 sales calls. Where was it located, was it effective, was it easy to find?Q4: We’ll show a few examples in the next section on CRM, so we’ll hold questions for then. I imagine the advance organization will have defined metrics across sales, marketing and ops, mid-level would be consistent dashboards for the team and a beginner would be random, inconsistent and unused? We’ll get to see a few examples in the next section…
C: Describe to us what a good onboarding and training process looks like. What are reps expecting today?S: Lots of orgs have nothing to support reps, used to be formalize Lunch and Learns and webinars; having it regular and it short doses. How do I most effectively get sales over learning curve. Is it the right stuff?Those of you getting 5s must look like….example of low endExample from Patrick – trying to mature; done live – recorded an stored for access later; focus on critical knowledge to address questions they are getting around drivers, funding and fit; how do you work with other teams to make it happen, how to store?Q6: how it could have been better?Question 6 continued:Extra credit? Is it saved for easy replay, located in an easy to find location? Searchable?
Pull stats on best practices to incorporate – Sirius, ForresterSarah to develop some ranges and discussJust some helpful tipsGive examplesGo ask your sales reps how you’re doing and how you can be better?
Section Break - Moderator transition points:
Sarah Include example from NWEATangible steps for repsHate the word process, has nothing to do with selling, publish and followWant to get the most out of CRM Ok, so I broke my own rule. I used the word process. But really, if you don’t have a published sales process with questions and sales activities to align to each stage of the selling cycle – get one. Train to it, support it, have it. It doesn’t need to be complex, but it’s the blueprint that you have as a team.
CB ask PatrickPatrick to discuss different dashboards and how they use themHere are a few of the dashboards our RM’s access routinely. We’ve recently modified some of these and standardized them which has been quite a shift – all sales leaders are now looking at very similar data (and aligned to the way our Sales Exec views these data, too). The result is better adoption and alignment. We are looking into better forecasting and pipeline tools in SFDC, as well.Bullet list of dashboards that are most importantFrom 30 per team to just a handful; simplifies training up and training down; Started to shift to Productivity metrics – not just what you are selling, but how you are selling;Standardized pipeline example from Patrick – frontline manager coaching the reps (velocity & volume); Tailored content for each stage of the pipeline.Have sales rep and sales management dashboards and reports that are consistent across territories and regions, that include the top 3 metrics that drive successful sales behaviors, have a pipeline report that everyone uses so you have a common language and way to talk about deals and proactive work that is driving sales. You’ll get more bang to your buck from your CRM with this consistency and it will save time and energy focusing on the billion different ways you can display things to getting to the point – what are you going to do next with whom to move business forward. I’ve experienced way too frequently the transitory nature of a ‘new and awesome’ idea from a sales manager where they measure a new thing and get it into the CRM solution. It’s used for about a month or two, forgotten about, and then there is legacy fields in CRM that aren’t updated, used and get in the way. Don’t do this.
Keep the alignment and helps reps be more effective. Ties back into dashboard – sales cycle length and other Example of MobilePaks in salesforce
Section Break
Sales reps know what they need and what isn’t working, they just don’t believe anyone cares. Ask them – but ask them good questionsBe of service. Be an advocate. The reps are your customer.One on One trumps groupsFace it – the personality that made these guys a rep or a sales leader in the first place – is one where a few core genes are missing.Like the one to pay attention to detailOr the one to be patient and find the ‘training’ email or instruction They want individualized training and support, when they need it. I call it just in time Sales Enablement. You can’t do this just with people – leverage technology, systems, other teams’, etc. Except when… they complain about using their CRM. Remember – it’s NOT that hard! And, finally, you can’t please everyone – and that’s not the goal.
First bullet point continued: … They understand the work, the stresses and know what is being asked of the sales team and sales leaders. They know how to process an order, create a quote, find a MSA, create a lead.If they ask you for something, ask why
Chanin can speak to thisPatrick to speak about Tying to buying to sales cycle, manage, share and grade/rate the content, see how folks are using it
It’s an evolutionStory: make small continuous improvements. Know how the sales team works and challenges and make frequent small effective changesDon’t try and solve all problems with all projects. Sales Enablement is about less friction, making decisions everyday around 2 questionsTake time to look at your Opportunity page in your CRM system and evaluate if you are asking them to fill out something no one uses – then get rid of it.
It’s an evolutionStory: make small continuous improvements. Know how the sales team works and challenges and make frequent small effective changesDon’t try and solve all problems with all projects. Sales Enablement is about less friction, making decisions everyday around 2 questionsTake time to look at your Opportunity page in your CRM system and evaluate if you are asking them to fill out something no one uses – then get rid of it.
You don’t have to do it all at once Enabling your sellers: A quick health check with how you are doing Covered the basics of aligning your CRM to sales process -- and making it easier for the sellers and managers to get what they need 5 tips to be more effective today
Tip sheet as a take away – easier, better, faster.