There’s a fine line between winning and losing. Victory can be decided in the small details others often overlook or deem unimportant. Not paying attention to those details can cost you. Big time.
Let me give you an example. 2015 was a great year for Jordan Spieth and Jason Day on the PGA Tour. Spieth’s average round of golf was an impressive 68.9; Day’s was solid, too, at 69.2. Not much difference between them score-wise — just .3 strokes per round throughout the entire season. But here’s the big difference: Spieth earned $12.6 million more than Day during that timeframe.
For these two professional golfers, the difference of three-tenths of a stroke equals $12.6 million.
What does this have to do with sales? If you’re not doing everything you can to put your sales team in a position to win, potentially you’re leaving millions of dollars on the table. No one wants to do that. To avoid it, we all need to sell smarter.
We know for certain that increasingly-sophisticated, smarter buyers want investments to pay off immediately. We need to keep up. Sales organizations are being held accountable like never before, and they are looking for ways to help them move the needle to increase efficiencies and drive results.
Smarter selling means better sales enablement
We studied more than 300 companies to understand their views on sales enablement.
A thorough study by CSO Insights, the research arm of Miller Heiman Group, showed that companies with designed, developed and operationalized sales enablement functions win more often than companies that don’t have them. The margin of success is staggering — companies with official sales enablement functions were 10.2 percent more successful when it came to revenue plan attainment.
The study indicated companies implementing a sales enablement function typically fall into three buckets: reactive, informal and formal. Twelve percent of enablement functions are reactive, meaning when leads come in, the sales organization reacts to each and every opportunity. Another 40 percent of enablement programs are informal, which means companies make training, manuals and other assets available, but it’s up to sellers to initiate use of the materials. Finally, about half of companies have formal sales enablement plans in place that measure against specific metrics important to the business.
Guess which companies perform best. The answer is companies with a formal enablement function in place. Those organizations see about 63 percent of sellers reach annual quota. Those with an informal sales function came in at 56 percent and the reactive group’s quota achievement was just 50 percent.
Sales enablement services work together for ease of execution
As you can see, there is a clear correlation between having a sales enablement function and higher performance. Companies expect an enablement function to provide these primary services:
• Sales training
• Sales process improvement
• Sales tools
• CRM/technology management
• Metrics
• Content services
• Coaching
• Sales on-boarding
• Competitive analysis
If you don’t have a sales enablement function, where do these services sit? In silos. Without sales enablement, you have a lot of activity happening with different leaders, different performance measures and different processes.
Successful organizations bring these services together into a common function to create more discipline and science in the world of selling to match the new sophistication of buying.
Investing in a formal enablement function that drives performance can help you avoid failure and speed your sales organization into victory lane.
Byron Matthews is the President and CEO of Miller Heiman Group, one of the largest sales and service training companies in the world. Built on legacy brands such as Miller Heiman, AchieveGlobal, Huthwaite, Impact Learning Systems and Channel Enablers, Miller Heiman Group is backed by more than 150 years of experience and performance. To learn more, visit MillerHeimanGroup.com
