The Key to Improving Your Reps’ Productivity

Sales executives know that their reps need to deliver compelling commercial insights to differentiate themselves in today’s complex selling environment. And with all these shiny new commercial insights comes lots of new sales collateral. For it to be useful though, sales reps need this collateral to be well organized and easily searchable.

Over the last few months, we spoke with several member executives that have purchased a sales enablement tool, and every one of these members said they are using their tools to better manage and deliver collateral to sales reps. But that’s not all! Member organizations are now using sales enablement tools to manage other aspects of the sales process as well.

Of the members we spoke with, all but one are using their sales enablement tools to support multiple aspects of the sales process. Tellingly, the one organization that used the sales enablement tool solely for collateral management has moved on, saying the tool is too costly when only used for this single purpose.

Purchasing a sales enablement tool is an expensive proposition, and any organization should put considerable thought into why they are purchasing the tool, what they will use it for, and how to prepare reps to get the most out of it.

So, how can organizations ensure they are getting the most out of a sales enablement tool? In our conversations with members, communication and training were recurring themes, and a few of the tactics member organizations used included:

Establishing designated points of contact (e.g., sales enablement managers) for all questions related to the sales enablement tool
Announcing the launch of the sales enablement tool and providing the necessary training to sales reps at regional sales meetings
Employing a dedicated sales tools trainer to provide training to salespeople via group training events and one-on-one sessions

CEB Sales members, read the full brief on Implementing a Sales Enablement Tool to learn which tools the companies we spoke with purchased, and how they are using them to streamline the sales process. To learn more about creating commercial insights, visit our topic center on Commercial Teaching.