Using Content to Enable Sales: The Challenges & Solutions

According to DemandGen Report, 95% of buyers choose a solution provider that “provided them with ample content to help navigate through each stage of the buying process.” Even still, 90% of B2B sellers don’t use sales content (Forrester).

You’re probably wondering why that is, and you should be. The fact of the matter is that sellers don’t use content because it is either irrelevant, outdated, or difficult to customize and share. If you’re in sales enablement or marketing, this should be extremely concerning to you.

To better understand why, let’s take a step back and look at who creates content for salespeople. Our friends at CSO Insights recently conducted a study and found that content used specifically for salespeople is created by:

 

 

The first thing that comes to mind when I look at these numbers is that with so many functions creating content for sales, it’s no wonder why it takes sales such a long time to find relevant content. Unless you’re fortunate enough to work in an organization where there is very tight alignment between product, sales, and marketing, there’s a good chance that these teams are working in silos and distributing content through multiple channels.

My next observation is that salespeople are creating way more content than they should be, and as a result, they are losing valuable selling time. Salespeople should only have to tailor and customize existing content. Why are salespeople creating so much content on their own? The two most obvious answers are 1) they can’t quickly and easily find the content they need, or 2) the content simply doesn’t exist.

In order to enable sales with content, sales must be able to find and share content. So how can we solve these common challenges, and how do these solutions better allow us to do what we all want to do – enable sales?

Let’s start with the fact that a lot of the content that sales needs may not yet exist. In order to address this, you should:

Conduct a content audit

The best first step to take is to determine what content exists and where it’s located. It’s likely that content is distributed across multiple repositories, so you’ll need to search through them and identify all relevant sales content.

Map content to buying stages

Once you identified all existing sales content, you’ll then want to map each piece to one of the sales stages. This exercise will not only clarify how and when each piece of content should be used, but it’s going to help you identify existing gaps. If you find that supporting content doesn’t exist for particular sales stages, it’s safe to assume that sales may be spending time filling those gaps on their own. However, before you start creating content, it’s best to engage with sales first.

Engage with sales

In order to fully address content challenges as it pertains to sales, you’ll need to engage with sales. For the content that does exist and can be mapped to a buying stage, ask sales if they use it. If not, find out why. Are they unable to find it? Is the content not what they need (e.g. not formatted correctly, not conversational enough, etc)? Answers to these questions will help inform further solutions.

Develop a strategy and build a plan

You should be equipped with enough information now to develop a strategy that addresses these challenges.

If a common response from sales is that they’re not able to find the content, you’ll need to think about how you can centralize content that’s easy for sales to find. Sales Enablement solutions like Veelo address this in a few ways.

1) Sales enablement tools should connect to all disparate repositories and centralize the content in one place. Not only does Veelo act as the single source of truth for all sales content, but it also can live within the CRM or email client so that salespeople never need to leave their workspace to find what they need.

2) Content recommendations and intelligent search utilize machine learning to proactively recommend the right piece of the content to the seller depending on each unique selling situation. Our algorithms will analyze various fields in the CRM such as sales stage, vertical and more, and recommend the best pieces of content to use. If a rep is looking for a particular piece of content, intelligent (or semantic) search simplifies the process of finding it greatly, taking only seconds to locate and share.

On the other hand, if the most common response from sales is that the content doesn’t exist, now you have a content problem and will need to work cross-functionally with the relevant teams to develop the content needed. In some cases, you may need to work with marketing, product and sales ops, depending on which parts of the sales cycle are lacking the most.

And then finally, measure measure measure!

You should be measuring content engagement and usage to better understand the type of content that is most effective and type that is least effective. Some things you’ll want to measure:

  • Content usage
  • Content sharing
  • Track content by sales stage
  • Attribute content to deals won
  • Correlate content to sales stage progression
  • Measure productivity gains

You may have tools in place that allow you to track these metrics, or you may need to consider adopting a new technology such as a sales enablement solution which is built from the ground up to support sales readiness from end to end.

Content-related challenges are some of the most common that plague sales teams. They’re known to reduce productivity, extend sales cycles and limit the effectiveness of your sellers. Take the necessary steps to address these challenges and you’re sure to be seeing productivity gains and happier reps.

If you’d like to see how Veelo uniquely addresses these challenges and enables your sales team, schedule a demo with us and let us show you.

 

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8 Surprising Sales Enablement Stats You Should Be Thinking About

2017 is proving to be a year where more and more companies are undertaking sales enablement as a significant priority. And for good reason. If you’ve recently started a sales enablement initiative, or you’re thinking about starting one, you might have seen some research to help justify your investment.

Here, we’ve compiled some compelling stats to help you get a jump on your programs.

Sales reps spend up to 43 hours every month searching for information (Aberdeen)

That’s a lot of time to be spending on searching for information – a full work week! If the information exists, there’s no reason why sales should be spending that much of their time searching for it. Sales enablement plays a critical role in ensuring that content is front and center for sales reps to engage with and share with prospects.

84% of reps achieve quota at companies with best-in-class sales enablement strategies (Aberdeen)

This stat speaks for itself, really. Sales enablement is proven to maximize sales performance. So much so in fact that…

32% of organizations say over the next 12 months, sales enablement will be their top marketing priority (Hubspot)

Sales enablement isn’t just a function of sales. Effective enablement requires strong alignment between marketing and sales; something that isn’t lost on marketers. Marketers play a key role in developing and centralizing effective sales content and leading the charge on product training for reps.

95% of buyers choose a solution provider that “Provided them with ample content to help navigate through each stage of the buying process (DemandGen Report)

We all know by now that prospects go through the majority of the buying process before engaging with a sales rep. That makes it difficult for sales to engage early on. By taking a consultative approach and providing prospects with the right content throughout their research process, sales can better engage and influence purchase decisions.

65% of sales reps say they can’t find content to send to prospects – the most common complaint of sales teams (Kapost)

Finding content is a huge problem for sales reps, with 65% of reps saying they can’t find content to send to prospects. Sales managers should be alarmed at this statistic because any time spent by a rep looking for content is time they could otherwise spend selling.

90% of B2B sellers don’t use sales content because it is irrelevant, outdated and difficult to customize (Forrester)

It’s not just the ability to find content that is a problem, either. Marketing needs to create effective, up-to-date content for reps to use. Sales enablement should bridge the gap between sales and marketing to better communicate the content needs of reps, and ensure that any outdated content is either removed or updated.

93% of organizations don’t track content used by sales reps (CSO Insights)

A less commonly thought of statistic but one that has huge implications is that organizations aren’t tracking what content is being used by sales reps. If you talk to a marketer, more than likely they’re going to know what content is getting the most views and shares, from a marketing perspective. When it comes to sales’ usage, however, that visibility rarely exists. Without visibility into what content is being used by reps, consumed by prospects and driving deals forward, sales organizations are missing opportunities to develop scalable, repeatable processes that work. Additionally, marketing will continue to blindly create content without insight into what’s actually being used.

Organizations utilizing sales enablement tools that track engagement have cut their sales cycles by 18% (Aberdeen)

By utilizing sales enablement tools to track engagement, organizations are seeing shorter sales cycles.

Veelo is a sales enablement solution that addresses these challenges, and more. Let us show you how we can help you maximize content utilization, reduce ramp time, demonstrate ROI and accelerate your sales performance.

 

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Convincing Sales to Adopt New Technology

Modern technology offers transformative capabilities that can increase productivity, make teams more effective, boost sales, assist in better decision making and much more. The problem? Getting your team to actually use it.

So how do you get your sales team to adopt new technology?

Start with a plan

Before you even start shopping for new technology, you need to start by defining the business pain or challenge that you’re looking to solve. If you yourself don’t know exactly why you’re purchasing new technology, it’ll be an uphill battle trying to get reps to use it. Make sure that the challenge isn’t process-related because technology will only complicate matters rather than simplify them. If you have your sales processes in place already and need assistance in scaling or improving efficiency, then technology may be worth looking into.

State your case

In order to persuade reps to use new technology, you’ll need to explain what benefits it will provide. If it’s sales enablement technology like Veelo, you might state that “this tool will reduce the amount of time you spend looking for content by centralizing all relevant content in the CRM,” as an example. Time is a salesperson’s most valuable resource, so if you can communicate, in a compelling way, that a new tool will give them back more selling time rather than consume it, you’ll be much more likely to win them over.

Consider a pilot and highlight wins

Depending on the technology (i.e. how robust the implementation is), it may be worth considering rolling it out to a select few in a pilot program. If you have reps that are more open to technology than others, use them as your early adopters to test out the benefits of using a new tool. The key from there is to draw attention to the positive impact it’s having and highlight the quick wins. Saying something like “James used this tool for intelligent content recommendations. It not only saved him 10 hours each week that he was able to spend taking more meetings, but he was able to shorten the sales cycle by 15%, earning him quicker commissions.”

Recruit champions or evangelists

Having a network of product champions or evangelists can play a major role in expediting adoption of a new technology. Your champions can influence other users by communicating the real-world value and provide some training support. If you were able to run a successful pilot program, consider asking those who participated to act as champions to help roll out the technology to the rest of the sales team.

Pick the right technology

Probably the most important thing you can do to maximize adoption is to pick the right technology in the first place. Keep the interests of your sales reps in mind as you pick a new solution and remember that user-friendliness is key to high adoption. You want a system that’s intuitive, approachable and fits within the seller’s existing workflow so that they don’t need to go out of their way to use the new technology.

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Ignoring Sales Technology is Dangerous Territory

It is good news when your business is in growth mode. The challenge is to maintain your growth and scaling the organization to handle more opportunities.

While it is intuitive for company executives to automate business functions and processes such as payroll, bookkeeping, and even marketing and lead generation, sales is often left behind. Why is the sales function often the last frontier to benefit from technology? Perhaps because selling is traditionally considered a “people business” (rather than task oriented) so understandably, technology is not the first solution managers consider.

To handle growth in sales, the first tendency is to add sales reps to keep up the momentum. However, this quick-fix creates additional unintended challenges with onboarding, training and coaching tasks for an already stretched manager.

Just like with other business functions, consider increasing the productivity of the team, instead of or at least in addition to hiring more reps. Sales tools and technology can make each rep more efficient without adding greatly to his or her workload.

Read the rest of the article on the Salesforce Blog.

 

saas sales, sales enablement software

 

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4 Common Myths about Sales Onboarding

According to CSO Insights, onboarding is the top priority for B2B sales enablement professionals. However, ask sales reps about their experiences with onboarding programs and you’ll find that many of them don’t find them particularly helpful in getting them where they need to be, quicker. In fact, the time it takes for new reps to get fully ramped is steadily increasing, with 60.7 percent reporting a ramp-up time of seven months or more in 2016 compared to 40.2 percent in 2003 (CSO Insights 2016 Sales Enablement Optimization Study).

There are a few common misconceptions or myths about onboarding that may be contributing to lackluster results.

Onboarding myth #1: onboarding should be quick and short

There’s a lot of talk these days about accelerating onboarding, and for good reason. Getting new reps ramped up quickly means that reps are making the organization money quicker, rather than costing it money longer. However, a common misconception with the idea of accelerating onboarding is that it means programs should be shorter so that new reps can start contributing to quotas faster.

The problem with this approach is that by treating onboarding as a second-tier program, you’re doing the rep and the organization a disservice. Your rep may be “onboarded” in the sense that they went through a brief program, but they aren’t getting fully ramped until much later.

lackluster onboarding

Instead, onboarding should be thorough and ongoing. CSO Insights estimates onboarding programs to be anywhere from 3 months to over a year in length. When we talk about accelerating onboarding, what we really want is to shorten ramp up time for new hires, decrease the time it takes for a new rep to make that first sale and minimize turnover. This isn’t achieved by shortening onboarding programs, but rather by structured, sequenced programs, prioritization and measurement. 

Onboarding myth #2: experienced reps don’t need onboarding

Another common myth we hear is that experienced reps don’t really need onboarding. You’re paying top dollar for an experienced sales rep and you want to get them selling and earning as quickly as possible. The reality, however, is that even experienced reps need to learn the product(s), the market, the buyer personas, any new strategies and skills, etc. It’s dangerous to assume that because they’re experienced, they’ll be able to start selling your products or services right away without onboarding.

In order to get the most from your experienced reps, make sure they’re onboarded effectively and trained on all things product, buyer and market. Additionally, reinforce current skills and knowledge and conduct mock sales calls to get them comfortable in your unique selling situations.

Onboarding myth #3: onboarding starts on day one of the job

One of the most common myths is that onboarding starts on day one of the job. Rather than waiting until your new rep comes in for that first day, get them started early with little things. Give them access to the systems your organization uses so that they can begin familiarizing themselves with their tech stack; provide them with some pre-work to begin learning about the product, the buyer and market; introduce them to the team so that they feel comfortable with their peers and can ask for advice when needed.

When getting new reps started ahead of their official start date, they’ll be ready to hit the ground running on day one, further helping to reduce their ramp time.

Onboarding Myth #4: Onboarding can’t easily be measured

This is one of the most damaging and dangerous myths because without knowing what to measure, you have absolutely no idea if your onboarding efforts are working and if there’s opportunity for improvement. Measuring the effectiveness of your onboarding programs can be a little tricky. If your onboarding program is lengthy, you’re not going to be able to afford to wait until completion to determine if it’s effective.

To combat this, try defining leading indicators and lagging indicators. Lead indicators might include things like courses started, pre-work completion, assignment completion, quiz scores, etc.

Examples of lag indicators might include things like courses completed, final certification score, time until first sale, etc.

Mike Kunkle delivered an excellent presentation on this, and you can find the slides on Slideshare here. These won’t work for every business, but it should give you an idea of what to think about when defining your KPIs.onboarding metrics that matter

Just remember: you can never measure too much.

Effective sales onboarding is absolutely critical to reducing ramp time and getting reps to peak performance faster. It’s no wonder why this is a top priority for most B2B sales enablement professionals. Join us on Thursday, August 10 for a webinar on 6 keys to effective onboarding programs that stick. Register Here!

6 Keys for Developing Effective Onboarding Programs

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