Acquiring a Sales Enablement software that proves effective in improving sales is not an easy task for management, and it is important to have a plan for choosing the best option.
Beyond finding an effective solution, you must find the one that best aligns with the specific needs of the company at that moment. And, of course, make sure that it is not an investment in vain and that it will really be used.
What is a Sales Enablement solution?
The first thing is to understand what a Sales Enablement solution is and what it involves.
The Sales Enablement, in its translation “sales training” it consists of a process that focuses on improving salespeople to maximise the company's profits.
This improvement can be through information and valuable content, training the skills and knowledge of professionals, or applying effective sales tools.
A tool for Sales Enablement is one that allows salespeople to offer a better customer experience in order, ultimately, to improve sales results. This type of solution is booming; for example, according to a recent study by McKinsey, nowadays 71% of buyers expect a personalised shopping experience.
A Sales Enablement tool, more than a purchase, is an investment. It is investing in the improvement of your sales team, trusting in their abilities to increase sales.
Therefore, it is essential to study all the options and choose the most suitable tool for your sales team.
What functionalities do you need in a Sales Enablement solution?
For this choice, you must consider what specific features your company needs right now. Therefore, we present 10 functionalities of Sales Enablement tools, to see if they fit with your company's needs, and to help you in the decision-making process.
Commercial content manager
Content is now much more important than ever. A digital content portal allows you to centralise and organise all commercial content in a single place. It also provides consistency and alignment of the commercial and corporate message.
In addition, it is interesting to look for a content portal that can be integrated with the main ERPs, to enhance personalisation.
Interactive catalogue
Providing salespeople with an app with an interactive catalogue allows you to improve the customer experience and increase engagement, as a more personalised and attractive presentation is offered. It improves the image of your brand / company while facilitating interaction with customers and, therefore, productive time is optimised to increase sales. It is also interesting that they can be sent to the customer and the customer is allowed to consult them on their own after the sales visit.
Mobile order manager
Having SFA (Sales Force Automation) functionalities, which can be used on mobile, is a key way to start improving your sales, for B2B companies that want to optimise order taking remotely.
What benefits does it have? It increases sales, productivity and efficiency of the sales team, improves mobile and remote selling, facilitates the management of prices and differentiated rates, as well as facilitating the recording and consultation of order and sales histories.
Mobile CRM
Having CRM functionalities that can be used on mobile means being able to better manage the customer portfolio and visits, to improve planning and sales effectiveness. A good Sales Enablement tool allows you to obtain visit and activity reports, to better monitor the activity of the entire sales team.
AI & Machine Learning
If, in addition, the sales software has advanced functionalities with Artificial Intelligence technology, it can be a great advantage for your company. Are you wondering how AI can help sell? For example, with recommendations of content to show, an assistant in the creation of catalogues or portfolios, visit recommendations, etc., learning from best practices.
Onboarding and Training
A well-organised Sales Enablement platform directly facilitates the onboarding of new salespeople. If it also has onboarding functionalities and modules, sales training and notification of news, it is very useful for keeping the sales team up to date and maintaining the alignment of the commercial message.
24/7 Selling
An integrated B2B e-commerce portal can be a perfect complement to a Sales Enablement platform. It ensures that customers can buy 24/7, a feature of today's sales that is increasingly important to the customer.
This type of solution is gaining popularity today, especially among manufacturers and wholesalers, as it is an interesting solution for traditionally B2B environments that want to create a direct-to-consumer sales channel.
Data integration
It is important that the Sales Enablement platform is integrated and connected with the rest of the company's software.
There are many types of connectors that can optimise your sales depending on your needs. For example, integration with business management tools (ERP), customer management tools (CRM) or with the main e-commerce platforms on the market.
In addition, the integration of data and tools allows you to work in an optimised way, with greater control.
KPIs and Analytics
Just as no one considers having a website without Google Analytics, in B2B no company should work with sales software without analytics data. Make sure that the Sales Enablement tool you choose has an analytics panel, with valuable information for consulting and analysing results, and a KPI dashboard so that salespeople can analyse their own portfolio.
Easy adoption
And lastly, but surely one of the most important points, choose a platform that has the capacity to accompany the team in the adoption process. Salespeople themselves prefer easy-to-use and intuitive tools over long training sessions. This means that sales teams want quick and effective solutions that allow them to carry out their activity with a certain autonomy. They want more freedom to make decisions, but in a well-founded way, with all the necessary information at hand.
