For those in the business world, Kindergarten is a distant memory - if even still a memory at all. However, there are some key lessons we all learned in Kindergarten that have been engrained in our heads, that can help us in both our personal and professional lives. Though some Kindergarten lessons should be followed every aspect of your life - not eating paste comes to mind - these 11 lessons are good reminders for those in the Sales Enablement industry. So grab your crayons, and get ready to take notes!
1. Sharing is caring
This can apply in two different perspectives for Sales Enablement. First, the sharing of tribal knowledge is one of the best ways to empower your sales team. Though disseminating that tribal knowledge isn’t always easy, uckily, there are technologies like Bigtincan that can help!
Sharing with prospects is also key to sales success. When sales people have new, relevant content available at their fingertips, they can easily share that content to clients, strengthening your relationship and moving the sales process forward.
2. The Golden Rule - treat others the way you’d like to be treated
There are also two ways to apply the Golden Rule in Sales Enablement. First, within your own organization. Think about the things that coworkers may do that make your job harder – not communicating clearly, not being reliable, etc. If you hate those things, make sure you’re not doing them to your team.
When it comes to prospects and customers, think again about what you do and don’t like in situations where you’re being sold to. Do you like impersonal conversations, that the sales person clearly didn’t put effort into? Probably not. So, empowering your sales team with both the people and content resources they need to make a distinct, personalized selling experience is key. Make the prospect feel special!
3. Hold hands and stick together
Teamwork and alignment between Sales and Marketing is a huge part of Sales Enablement. Marketing should think of themselves as a part of the sales team, and Sales should think of themselves as part of the Marketing team. We’re all working toward the same goal!
4. Clean up after yourself
It’s tough to improve processes and replicate success when there’s no data to reference, right? Make sure there are tools in place to record all of the content and conversation interactions between your team internally, and between your team and prospects. The more data you have, the more visibility you have into what’s working and what’s not. It’s even more important when utilizing an AI system – they need inputs to work well.
5. Don’t take things that aren’t yours
If sales doesn’t have the most relevant content for their selling process, their chances of closing a deal are slim. Make it impossible for people to take things that aren’t theirs by automatically delivering relevant content to them, and not giving access to content that isn’t relevant. Content overload can be a productivity and effectiveness killer.
6. Listen. Don’t interrupt. Raise your hand.
The best Sales Enablement practitioners are fantastic listeners. They take inputs from Sales, Marketing, C-suite, and others to facilitate the most effective processes to increase win rates and productivity. Once you take time to listen, you can put together a plan, raise your hand, and get everyone on the same page.
7. Color inside the lines
Sales Enablement is all about establishing processes that work. But it’s impossible to see what works if everyone is doing something different. Be sure that your sales and marketing teams are coloring inside the lines, and applying your processes completely. From there, you can revise and optimize.
8. Use your imagination
Sales Enablement is one of the few roles in an organization that is focused exclusively on growth. Everything a Sales Enablement practitioner does is meant to increase productivity, customer satisfaction, teamwork, and overall success. With such big goals, it’s important to always be on the lookout for new ideas! The Sales Enablement Society is a great place to find people to bounce ideas off of, come together to elevate the profession, and get new ideas to implement in your organization.
9. Everyone is different, and that’s great!
We talked earlier about the importance of teamwork. But let’s make sure we don’t forget that even though Marketing and Sales are working toward the same goals, and should be doing so together, they do so in different ways! Each department has capabilities and strengths the other may not, so as a Sales Enablement practitioner, it’s crucial to identify those strengths and use them to your advantage to put together a well-oiled Smarketing team.
10. Put everything in its place
Organization. An important lesson in Kindergarten, and an important lesson in Sales Enablement. Searching and surfing through content can take away valuable selling time, and lead to slower pipeline velocity, less engaged prospects, and more frustrated sales reps. Make sure you have a system in place that puts content exactly where it needs to be – in the hands of your salespeople wherever they’re working, while also minimizing content overload. Bigtincan’s Sales Enablement Automation platform displays content to users based on role, putting a halt on never-ending browsing.
11. Say please and thank you
Showing appreciation goes a long way in life and business, plain and simple. Say please and thank you!
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