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1. How-To Guide
Starting Out with Sales Enablement
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Supporting your sales representatives with the right information,
knowledge, tools and advice to win more business seems like a ‘nobrainer’ idea. Unfortunately for many mid-sized enterprises, this ideal is
not fully realized. If you are not happy with the sales results in your
organization it might be time for a Sales Enablement initiative.
This guide will provide you with: a definition for Sales Enablement;
explain what ‘enabled’ reps can do more effectively; discuss the problems
with traditional sales enablement strategies; provide a maturity model;
give you a framework for effective sales enablement; define ‘Sales
Playbooks’; help you understand why sales playbooks are needed; and
outline an action plan for implementing a ‘best practice’ sales
enablement strategy in your organization.
WHAT IS SALES ENABLEMENT?
Sales Enablement is a new and emerging function within most
organizations today. As such, like all emerging arenas, the definition of
Sales Enablement often shifts depending on the perspective of the
company, user and implementation. Still, based on our research a
foundation definition of Sales Enablement is clear.
Demand Metric defines Sales Enablement as the processes,
practices, technologies and tools that improve the performance and
productivity of the sales organization. Sales Enablement enhances
the ability of the sales team to increase company revenue through
sales. Bottom-Line – Sales Enablement drives revenue by directly
impacting the sales teams’ ability to close more deals.
© 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

2. How-To Guide
EFFECTIVENESS OF SALES “ENABLED” REPS
“Enabled” sales reps can be more effective in the following areas:
1. Understand Buyer Needs – including industry trends, common
business problems, and the competitive options available to
buyers to solve their issues.
2. Sell New Products – get up to speed quickly on recently
launched products.
3. Deal with Objections – learn how to respond to common
objections with answers that have been proven to put the buyer at
ease and change their thinking about a key issue.
4. Pitch with Confidence – having the knowledge, information and
tools they need, inspires more sales rep confidence.
5. Equip Champions – provide internal ‘champions’ with content
that can be used to sell your solution to other key stakeholders.
PROBLEMS WITH TRADITONAL SALES ENABLEMENT
In many organizations, “Sales Enablement” has been a one-way
inclusion of marketing materials into a sales portal or intranet without
any real insight into what’s being used or is valued by the buyer.
Symptoms of a failing Sales Enablement strategy include content
repositories that contain:
 Too much content – good quality material is buried amongst
the volume of documents
 Minimal insight – Marketing has no idea what content is used
by Sales
 Organized by product – rather than by buyer profile, industry
or specific sales situation
 Out of date content – reps store files locally and use out-dated
sales documents
 Adoption issues – when not integrated with CRM, mobile
devices, reps don’t use it
© 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

3. How-To Guide
DEMAND METRIC’S SALES ENABLEMENT MATURITY
MODEL
Undefined
Stage 1






Progressive
Stage 2
No CRM or Marketing
Automation System in
place
Sales Collateral
distributed via email
New reps hit quota in 9
months.
Sales Process & Buying
Process are not defined
Success metrics are
unknown and not
tracked
Win Rate is less than
10%






CRM System in place
with reasonable rep
adoption
Sales Collateral
distributed via portal or
intranet
New reps hit quota in 6
months.
Sales Process defined
but not mapped to
buying process
Success metrics for top
performing reps are
known
Win Rate is between 1020%
Mature
World-Class
Stage 3






CRM, Marketing
Automation and Sales
Enablement systems are
in place
Sales Collateral
distributed via Sales
Enablement platform
New reps hit quota in 4
months.
Sales Process is mapped
to Buying Process
Success metrics tracked
Win Rate is 20% or
greater
Stage 4






All systems are
accessible on mobile
devices
Sales Collateral has
rating and included in
Playbook
New reps hit quota in 3
months.
Content is mapped to
buying and sales process
by persona
Success metrics are
managed closely to get
reps performing
Win Rate is 25% or
greater
DEMAND METRIC’S PATCHES FRAMEWORK FOR SALES
ENABLEMENT
P – Playbooks: build a Playbook to equip reps with the knowledge,
tools, & activities
A – Assets: put content & assets in a system that allows sales reps to
rate them
T – Training: use a methodology like SPIN Selling to standardize your
sales process
C – Commitment: get commitment from Sales to rate materials created
by Marketing
H – Hiring: sales reps with the same skills and attitudes as your current
star performers
© 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

4. How-To Guide
E – Enabling Technology: CRM, Marketing Automation & Sales
Enablement
S – Sales Process: align sales & buying processes and build content for
personas
WHAT IS A SALES PLAYBOOK?
A Sales Playbook is a collection of information, knowledge, sales tools,
and activities that have been proven to assist with closing business in a
variety of common sales situations.
You can structure your playbook like this:
 Company Overview
 Stage 2 – Discovery/Qualify
 Marketing Insights
 Stage 3 – Consideration/Demo
 Sales Opportunities
 Stage 4 – Decision/Proposal
 Stage 1 – Need/Prospecting
 Stage 5 – Review/Contract
© 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

5. How-To Guide
WHY IS THE SALES PLAYBOOK A MUST-HAVE?
The Sales Playbook is a “must-have” resource for a sales team. These
statistics prove the effectiveness of sales playbooks on the sales team’s
performance:
 51% of reps attain quota at firms using a Sales Playbook,
compared to 40% at firms who don’t have a Sales Playbook.
(Aberdeen Group)
 38% of buyers felt solution providers didn’t provide enough
content to help them navigate through each stage of the
buying process. (Demand Gen Report)
 Only 8% of B2B companies say they have tight alignment
between sales and marketing. (Forrester)
 65% of companies said sales teams use less than 50% of
marketing content as it is not accessible, low impact or
inappropriate. (Corporate Visions)
WHERE DO SALES PLAYBOOKS HELP THE MOST?
Sales Playbooks are most useful in the following situations:
 On-Boarding New Hires Faster – when new high-caliber sales
reps join your firm, they will get up to speed quicker by following
the ‘best practices’ or ‘plays’ used by top performing reps rather
than learning from their own experiences and failures.
 Improving Performance for Average Reps – by showing a
repeatable process for how your star performers achieve their
results, you can increase the performance of ‘middle-of-the-pack’
reps who are generally the ones who affect the bottom-line most.
 Radiating & Penetrating Key Accounts – in tough competitive
environments or mature industries, having key knowledge about
competitors, buyer needs, and industry-based solutions can make
the difference between growing an account or losing it.
© 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

6. How-To Guide
ACTION PLAN
1. Download our Sales Enablement Plan Methodology - for a stepby-step framework and many tools & templates to get you kickstarted on this initiative.
2. Conduct a Sales Enablement Readiness Assessment - to
determine if now is the right time for your organization to be
looking at this.
3. Audit your existing assets - with our Marketing Collateral
Management Tool to identify the condition of your existing sales
tools and content.
4. Create a Sales Playbook - that contains all of the relevant
information, tools and advice that sales reps will need to close
more business, share best practices, and understand the
productivity requirements for their position
BOTTOM LINE
If you are not happy with your sales results, take a look at your
Sales Enablement processes, systems and tools to see if you could
do a better job to prepare your sales reps to have meaningful
conversations with their prospects and customers.
© 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.