I recently met Sharon Little, Director, Global Field Communications, VMware, Inc. She writes a blog called SalesCraft. Sharon shared a post about establishing sales enablement within organizations and the challenge of creating a unique identity separate from sales operations, sales readiness and marketing programs. She notes, “It’s the internal selling that often makes the difference between success and failure.”She detailed information from a session led by Kevin Temple of Enterprise Selling Group. The following are three components she found particularly relevant to sales enablement in her blog post:
* Establish Credibility – Sales enablement is in its infancy and while great strides have been made in the last few years, many organizations have yet to “mainstream” and fully endorse and support sales enablement efforts. That means that engagement models, organizational ownership and even the basics like funding and measurement are all open for interpretation. This makes your job as a sales enablement leader much harder. One of the components of establishing credibility is identifying and delivering “quick wins”. This is incredibly important when your customer is a cynical sales organization. Create your wins, keep them coming and make sure your promote success at regular intervals.
* Coalition Building – Let’s face it – sales enablement requires some serious cross-functional skills. Keeping your head down and hiding in a silo is not an option for the sales enablement faithful. Your ability to navigate cross-functionally will directly influence your success or failure. Figure out who your constituents are and make friends early and often. The harsh truth is that sales enablement often threatens the status quo and many will be threatened by your efforts. So brush up your interpersonal skills – you’re going to need them.
* Communication – This is one that is often overlooked; the assumption is that everyone knows how to communicate and a simple email will do the trick. And with everything else on your plate, it’s easy to let this one go until the last minute, send a quick email and call it a communication plan. All of your hard work can be erased by a poor communication plan. Take the time to put a robust, thoughtful communication plan in place that incorporates pre-launch, launch and post-launch. Make sure that you use the right communication vehicles, taking advantage of both standard forms of communication (email, portal) and more unique methods like video and audio when warranted.
Stay tuned for more insights from Sharon.
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