Sales enablement

Sales enablement is the process of arming an organization’s sales force with access to the insight, experts, and information that will ultimately increase revenue. It is a term that has gained momentum in the last decade. It is often used to describe a variety of tools, processes and methodologies that are applied to enable a sales force, both direct and indirect. The terms "sales effectiveness" and "sales readiness" are sometime used interchangeably to denote Sales Enablement as well.
Overview
To understand Sales Enablement, the term enable needs to be contrasted with support. Support generally means to prevent from failing. Enablement generally means to help succeed. The difference in a Sales Support organization and a Sales Enablement organization lies in their mission statement.
Sales Enablement is defined as providing the necessary information, tools and technologies to enable a sales force to succeed. It includes getting the most relevant information in the right format to the right person at the right time in the sales cycle for maximum revenue.
This information, tools and technology can consist of:
* Marketing-produced sales assets and collateral
* Case studies
* RFP/bid management support or proposal templates
* Market intelligence (research on a target organization, its executives, industry, initiatives and business issues)
* Competitive intelligence
* Best practices knowledge and insights gathered from the field
* Product knowledge from the minds of subject matter experts
* Collaboration tools to share information
Traditionally, Sales Enablement has worked to bridge sales and marketing departments within an organization, while reinforcing best practices and sales methodologies throughout the sales team. To truly be an enabler for sales, sales enablement organizations should be tied to the sales organization and processes with dotted line responsibility to marketing.
The practice of Sales Enablement is usually applied through a combination of people, processes, content, and technology.

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