What is Sales Enablement and How It Should Work | Roderick Jefferson - 1562

Sales enablement isn’t just for major corporations; it’s for businesses of all sizes. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by bestselling author and VP of Enablement of PRO Unlimited, Roderick Jefferson, to discuss how we can apply sales enablement to any organization.  Three distinct factions of sales enablement: The original enablement began when sellers sold knives and vacuums door-to-door. The second faction arrived during the .com boom of the early 2000s. Finally, the current age of sales enablement is the present day, featuring an innovative approach focused on increasing sales productivity with a systematic, personalized, and collaborative process. Whether a small organization or a large corporation, sales enablement joins the various departments and roles to unify the end goal. Get people to have conversations instead of presentations: The proper discussion isn’t just the right topic - it’s talking to the right people at the right time in their language. There’s a difference between training and enablement - training is a sprint, and enablement is a marathon.  Enablement is a change in lifestyle, including talent acquisition, role-specific onboarding, and coaching for sales leaders.  Enablement should be driven from the top-down. It cannot be something pushed out by the owner of sales enablement. There has to be collaboration and communication across all business lines. To start this lifestyle change, remember: the further you get from the sun, the colder you get. (And sales is the sun.) Understand what the objectives are and what the KPIs are - translate it to understand the goal of sales as a department. Make sure we, first and foremost, tie everything back to the prospect. How do we ensure everything we do helps the prospect or customer increase productivity or decrease pain? Roderick’s parting advice? Start a conversation with a simple three-part question: Do you want me to listen, do you want me to coach, or do you want me to fix? As leaders, we go to fix mode. But sometimes, that’s just not what’s needed. For more great content from Roderick, connect on LinkedIn or follow him on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. You can find his book, Sales Enablement 3.0, on Amazon. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn Sales Navigator. The Great Resignation has become the Great Reshuffle, meaning it can be difficult for sales professionals like you to find leads and close deals. Luckily, Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is here for you! Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is the only tool that uses real-time alerts and up-to-date insights to help you know when prospects are ready to buy. And, with over 30 advanced filters, sales professionals can quickly find genuine leads with the intent to purchase. Gain the advantage of accurate, quality lead generation data from LinkedIn Sales Navigator. You can get a 60-day free trial of Sales Navigator at www.LinkedIn.com/TSE.  This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Closers.io. Closers.io helps sales reps land their dream remote sales gig, where they can set their own hours, work from anywhere, and make six or even multi-6 figures per year. That sure sounds good to us! Committed to helping sales reps make a shift, Closers.io will place you in an available sales role that will increase your commissions and help you live the life you want. Apply for free now at go.closers.io/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com.  As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.