How can sales enablement improve your Go-to-Market strategy?

Sales enablement is a relatively new function in B2B businesses.

Often associated with onboarding, multifaceted sales enablement teams also support sales kick-offs, content creation and cross-functional collaboration. SE is also focused on supporting the sales teams by equipping them with all the necessary resources and processes to better engage with customers and buyers throughout their unique journey.

Since your GTM plans depend on a cross-collaborative team, it’s no wonder why SE holds a lot of potential for your Go-to-Market strategy. In fact, with an SE team, you can:

Improve the customer journey.
Refine your sales strategy.
Upskill your sales reps.

Let's explore each topic in more detail and see why and how enablement teams can really help your GTM growth and performance.

Improve the customer journey

The customer journey starts much earlier than you think, so consistency is really important.

From the first time your customers encounter your product, their unique journey with your brand has begun. And you want that journey to be delivered consistently and reliably throughout. Your sales enablement teams, for example, can help you at every point of your strategy:

By training sales reps on the product, positioning, and messaging strategies that have been going on in the lead up to their role with the customer. Reps can then deliver a sales strategy consistent with what’s gone before, pushing customers further down the sales funnel.
By fine-tuning your marketing and sales strategies, which should communicate a strong and concise message that leaves your customer feeling like they understand your brand. If you send mixed messages, customers may be unsure about what you’re offering and if you’ll actually deliver on what you’re offering. Build trust with your customers through clear and consistent messaging.
Sales enablement can similarly build processes into the sales strategy to pass information gained during the sales stage onto customer success. Your CS team will then be able to deliver a unique onboarding strategy for your customers which addresses pain points or concerns they raised at the sales stage.

It’s important to remember that knowledge is power. Every frontline team is positioned to collect more knowledge about your customer, and you can use that information to improve brand experience.

The better your customer’s experience is, the more likely they are to continue buying your products and advocate your brand to others.

Refine your sales strategy

Sales enablement takes the guesswork out of building a successful sales strategy.

Your SE team tracks and measures key sales metrics to identify where your sales strategy is working and where you’re missing opportunities. Some of the metrics SE keeps an eye on are:

Conversion rate

Your conversion rate is the percentage of leads that convert to sales, which can be measured at every stage in your sales process.

Take for example, how if at stage one in the sales journey you’re converting 60% of leads but at stage three you’re only converting 15%, there’s likely something going wrong at the third stage.

Sales enablement experts can identify where in the sales process you're losing out and make adjustments to get your conversion rates as high as possible.

Time to productivity

Time to productivity is how long it takes to train reps and get them to total productivity. The faster you get sales reps trained up and out there selling, the sooner they’ll start bringing in revenue and hitting targets.

The more efficiently you train reps, the more revenue you make. Plus, this has the added bonus of improving job satisfaction, reducing employee turnover, and getting better performance out of reps.

If you train new reps properly, and they can feel enabled and supported to do their job, they’re more likely to continue working for you. This saves you the cost of acquiring and training new reps every sales cycle.

Content usage and customization

Sales enablement creates content for reps to use when they’re on sales calls and interacting with customers. But there’s a gap between creating tools (like battlecards and whitepapers) and reps actually making productive use of those tools.

If you want your sales strategy to work and make a difference, your sales reps need to be able to use and understand the content you provide. This way, your SE team can track whether or not a sales strategy is being implemented and make sure you don’t have any missing links that might be letting potential sales slip through their fingers.

Sales enablement teams use many metrics, but these three are great for identifying the value SE adds to your Go-to-Market strategy. By actively addressing weak spots in your sales strategy, your sales enablement team can make sure you’re maximizing your selling potential.

Upskill your sales reps

Sales enablement’s primary responsibility is upskilling sales reps and making them the best sellers they can be. If you want your new product to succeed you need it to sell (and well), so arming your sales reps the best you can is definitely worth the time and effort.

As we mentioned above, properly onboarded reps can feel confident in the work they do. Knowledge of the products they’re selling won’t just improve how your rep delivers sales pitches to customers; it’ll also make a far better impression on your prospective customers.

The reason? Customers are going to be able to tell if your sales rep isn’t 100% sure about a product or how it works. And remember you always want to inspire confidence and trust in a buyer.

Your product and marketing teams have done a lot of work building a product to solve customer pain points and effectively position it. Those are powerful tools that have got your customer as far as speaking to a sales rep.

Don’t throw that away at this hurdle. Sales enablement can arm your sales reps with this information and make them a strong link in the Go-to-Market chain.

To sum up

Sales enablement is incredibly beneficial for your Go-to-Market strategy. It links up your internal and external teams, ensuring that knowledge isn’t lost and strategies are carried out to their full potential.

With sales enablement, you can refine your sales strategy, get the most out of your sales reps and ensure a consistent and seamless journey for your customers.

Learn the fundamentals of GTM

Enjoyed this article, but still feel like you have a slight way to go in your GTM strategy, or need a refresh?

The Go-to-Market Blueprint is your go-to for learning all the ins and outs of GTM.

Packed with practical case studies, proven methodologies, actionable insights, and cohort-based learning, this resource offers all the essential tools for developing, implementing, refining, and enhancing your GTM tactics and strategies.

Get GTM Certified