Sales enablement is the process of providing your sales team with the resources they need to close more deals. While it may sound simple, many variables must come together for sales enablement to be successful. Let’s take a closer look at how a Fractional CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) can help your organization optimize its sales enablement.
Asking and Answering Difficult Questions
From a Fractional CMO point of view, sales enablement requires taking a supportive role and asking questions such as
- What tools does the sales team need to replicate success?
- What do your current and potential customers value?
- How can the Fractional CMO shape the external conversation in a way that brings value to the sales team?
- What processes can be optimized to increase the speed at which the sales team can convert prospects?
- How can the Fractional CMO reduce the workload of your sales teams while increasing productivity?
The Fractional CMO identifies the answers to these questions through in-depth analysis of your organization. This is how your business can improve its marketing and find better-qualified leads with higher chances of conversion.
Align Your Communication to Maximize Opportunities
A CMO works to ensure that the sales and marketing departments are aligned with each other and spends time with each department to improve their communication so that proper messaging is crafted. This is done by sharing best practices across all departments while creating engaging conversations and publishing them on various external channels.
To maximize the opportunities that result from aligning sales and marketing teams, you need to focus on building mutual support within your company through processes like regular cross-departmental meetings where people have the ability to air their thoughts and ideas about issues without fear of consequence. The transparency and trust that are built through these activities make your organization more agile and creative when generating leads.
Collaborate for a Win-Win
Collaborating with sales teams is essential to maximizing the success of marketing because sales teams have direct relationships with customers and play a key role in the effectiveness of marketing.
When this collaboration happens, it means your sales enablement functions are a win-win for you and your prospects because marketers now have access to the specialized knowledge held by your sales teams. The CMO is able to capitalize on this knowledge by incorporating it into external communications and helping to increase the Return On Investment (ROI) of your marketing investments.
It’s worth remembering that the goal of sales enablement is to connect and collaborate. A CMO works with you to optimize your relationships by providing tangible assets and applying the lessons learned from collaboration to your leads, current customers, and within your business.
Final Thoughts
In closing, sales enablement is the process of providing your sales team with the resources they need to attract and convert more leads. This may include tools, information, or support that allows sales reps to be more successful in their roles. A CMO plays a supportive role in sales enablement by creating content and messaging that aligns with what sales teams are saying to customers. When departments collaborate effectively, both sales and marketing have access to specialized knowledge which can be used to improve relationships with leads and customers.
Sales enablement does not need to feel like trying to find success without a map. If you are not certain about where to start or what comes next in your organization’s sales enablement, schedule a free consultation with us!
