Success is the ultimate measure of any business program. If you are implementing sales enablement, then you must measure the corresponding success through sales enablement metrics so that you can figure out what is working and what is not. Moreover, the success level will also dictate the extent of sales enablement ROI you achieve.
But, before measuring the success of implementation, let us first understand what precisely sales enablement is, how it helps organizations to achieve higher sales and why sales enablement metrics are of key importance.
Why Sales Enablement Metrics are important?
Sales Enablement is a process of empowering salespeople to sell more effectively. It is a process that uses digital platforms to provide salespeople with buyer-centric content, information, and tools to help them engage the buyers in the entire buying process.
In this way, the sales rep understands the buyer; and at the same time, the buyer learns about the business’ products and services. And the understanding of both parties helps sales reps to close more leads and boost the revenue. In short, sales enablement is a revenue-boosting approach.
What drives this consistent and repeatable learning and improvement process, are sales enablement metrics around sales, behaviour, effectiveness etc.
How to Implement Sales Enablement?
Aligning several functions, such as business intelligence, sales analytics, content analytics, CRM, and other processes, sales enablement tools enable salespeople to analyze the key sales strategies and successfully close sales.
You will find many such tools available in the market. And newer options are frequently evolving. You need to choose the best among those to implement an impactful sales enablement strategy in your business.
Crescendo App is one of the best sales enablement platforms available in the market today. With all the advanced sales enablement features, it is truly a sales acceleration platform to empower your sales team to sell more. Features, such as real-time updates, security & privacy of data, ease of use, etc., make it a best-in-class platform worthy of investment.
Sales Enablement Metrics to Measure Success
Sales enablement is connected directly to the performance of the sales team. And measuring sales effectiveness after the implementation of a sales enablement program in your business is a good barometer for measuring the success level of the program. As the effectiveness of sales gets reflected with incremental revenue generation.
So, should you consider a rise in your revenue as a measure of success in your sales enablement program? The answer is negative as there are other factors as well to dictate success.
But, what specific sales enablement metrics will you consider measuring to indicate the success level of your sales enablement program? Here are some of the key metrics to measure success:
Is Your Revenue Increasing?
Compare your revenue during pre- and post-implementation of sales enablement strategy in your business. Check whether your revenue has increased post-implementation of the program.
The main advantage of implementing sales enablement is the increase in the effectiveness of your sales team to generate more sales. And that means your revenue would rise. If your top-line is exhibiting a rising trend, then regard your sales enablement program encountering success and vice-versa.
Are Your Sales Reps Attaining Sales Targets Quickly?
Salespeople often tend to forget learning during training within a short period. According to Sales Performance International, 84% of what was learned during a training session is lost within 90 days.
When they do not retain their learning, they lose effectiveness leading to longer times in closing sales apart from failure to close deals. So, check how long your sales reps take to attain their sales targets. If they take less time, you can assume that your sales enablement program is a success.
Is Your Lead-to-Customer Rate Increasing?
The objective of implementing a sales enablement program is to increase sales to bring in more revenue. Sales enablement platforms help in generating qualified leads, which are easier to be converted into customers.
Therefore, you can consider the ratio of your lead-to-customer conversion rate as an indicator of the success of your sales enablement program. The higher the ratio, the higher the success.
Are Your Sales Reps Spending More Time on Core Selling?
Implementation of sales enablement helps in freeing up sales reps from non-selling tasks, such as going through case studies, creating presentations, and other related activities. Engaging in such non-selling tasks eats away the valuable productive time of the salespeople.
So, the reduction of such wastage of time will enable them to close more leads. If you find your sales reps spending more time on actual selling, then your sales enablement program is successful.
Is Your Organization Ready for Sales Enablement?
After having learned about the metrics that dictate success, you should now ponder whether your organization is ready for implementing a sales enablement strategy. Since the ways marketing and sales are conducted differently among organizations, it is essential to figure out when exactly you need sales enablement.
You can figure out the readiness of your business for sales enablement through the following indications:
Does Your Business Need a CRM?
The usage of CRMs has been growing substantially among organizations across the world. CRMs transform how organizations do business in the digital age today. The digital tools have become extremely important for all companies due to their effectiveness in the sales functions. It is due to the efficacy that the usage of CRMs has gained strong momentum.
According to Destination, 91% of North American firms with ten or more employees have already put a CRM in place. But, why is the usage of CRMs growing day-by-day? It is due to the streamlining it imparts to the sales and marketing activities, and eases in building relationships with customers and prospects.
The main reasons for using CRM are:
- Marketing and sales workflows increase
- Marketing strategies get optimized
- Customer data analytics
- Customer relations strengthen
- Cross-selling and up-selling improve
- Smooth invoicing
- Better social media management
So, if you see your business needs a CRM to optimize your sales process, it is also an indication that the time has come to implement sales enablement in your business.
Does Your Business Need Content Management?
Content management is an in-depth and strategic process in marketing and sales workflow. But why store content? How to store content? Where to store content?
The key to effective content storage is to store it in such a way that salespeople find it easy to locate, and the marketing team can easily update it.
The importance of proper content management could be understood from a survey conducted by Salesforce. In that survey, it was found that sales reps never use 85% of the marketing content because they cannot locate it and cannot figure out which material to use when. And the fallout is that the marketing team fails to support the sales team by providing the right content at the right time.
So, whenever you find the need for proper content management in your business, you can be sure that your business is now ready for sales enablement implementation.
Conclusion
The objective of implementing sales enablement is to improve sales so that revenue can be increased. Measuring sales success is a rational way to determine the success level concerning your implementation of sales enablement.
