2023 Will Be The Year Of Business Enablement For B2B Sales

 

With 2022 in the rearview mirror, now is a perfect time to step back and assess what it taught us about the state of B2B sales. Virtual selling to digital-centric customers continued to gain momentum; linear sales models are becoming obsolete; and evolving buyer preferences, such as the desire for more rep-free experiences and self-guided purchasing, are rendering traditional enablement tactics ineffective. Above all, creating alignment across sales, marketing and customer success departments is now nonnegotiable for exceeding quotas and meeting business objectives.

These trends all point to an overarching theme. The shifting dynamics of B2B sales and current economic conditions have heightened the importance of sales enablement innovation. Organizations are learning that a sole focus on enabling the individual seller no longer drives pipeline growth. Instead, it’s about unifying customer touchpoint data with automated feedback loops that provide end-to-end visibility.

Over the next year, I believe B2B sales leaders will build on this momentum. With a potential recession looming, the winners of 2023 will be the companies that embrace the value of business enablement—a more holistic and ROI-centric model that drives top and bottom lines simultaneously.

3 Pillars Of The Business Enablement Framework

As opposed to revenue enablement’s “growth at any cost” approach, business enablement is focused on driving efficient growth at scale. It leaves organizations better positioned to weather economic downturns because every function of the revenue engine is constructed to maximize ROI. By leveraging strategies like sales learning, content and engagement automation tools, business enablement provides data-driven guidance that empowers businesses to succeed.

1. Building Sales Readiness Across Customer-Facing Teams

Customer-facing teams are the wheels that make the revenue engine go, so they must be positioned to maximize productivity. That’s why a well-facilitated approach to professional development is critical. Legacy practices like one-size-fits-all onboarding and ad hoc training lack the personalization today’s sales reps need to become buyer ready. Instead, organizations must integrate personalized training and coaching into their enablement framework.

For dynamic learning, one useful method is the integrated adoption of sales enablement automation. These technologies empower customer-facing teams to master skill development and knowledge retention at scale. Team members can learn at their own pace in a style that works best for them, whether it’s just-in-time training, curated learning courses, continuous everboarding or AI-guided adapted learning paths tailored to their role, skill level and gaps. No matter their preferred approach, allowing sellers to determine when and how they learn helps foster a companywide culture of empowerment that drives efficiency and performance.

Outside of technology, organizational alignment at the management level is another piece of the personalization puzzle. Since sales managers serve as the bridge that links automated insights to the human rep, it’s important to position them with the right guidance and resources for effective peer-to-peer engagement. Are they strong communicators and active listeners? Can they tailor their coaching approach to different learning styles? Do they have enough bandwidth to provide the personalized attention each rep deserves? These questions must be top of mind.

2. Leading Prospects To Smart Purchasing Decisions

Empowering B2B prospects to make the right purchases at the right times fosters efficient revenue growth by building trust. According to Gartner’s Future of Sales report, B2B customers spend less than a quarter of their buyer journeys interacting with sales reps. Since the average deal involves multiple suppliers, an individual sales rep will only receive roughly 5%-10% of that customer’s time. Thus, it’s imperative to maximize the value and relevance of every buyer interaction.

It’s vital that reps understand how to deliver impactful sales content and messaging that speaks directly to the specific needs of the B2B buyer’s company and industry. Customer-facing assets should articulate a product’s value proposition in a way that alleviates the complexity of purchasing decisions. It should clearly outline how the product or service addresses the prospect’s primary pain points. This is why it’s important for reps to understand which assets resonate with prospects so they can properly leverage them.

3. Educating Channel Partners For Organizational Alignment

Strong third-party relationships are a fundamental driver of efficient revenue growth, so it’s critical that channel partners are positioned to effectively represent an organization. By establishing alignment across partnerships, organizations can ensure every function of their revenue engine has consistent messaging and engagement tactics.

Channel partners should have ample access to the same tools internal sales reps are using. It gives them a deeper and more intuitive understanding of the product, so when it’s time to engage prospects, they know how to demonstrate its features in a manner that educates and sparks interest. For example, a channel partner’s employees could interact with automation tools like immersive, VR-based product displays. For companies without sales enablement automation in their tech stack, establishing an open line of communication with channel partners is critical.

Approaching revenue operations with a holistic, efficiency-first mindset will support 2023’s winners across B2B sales. With the right business enablement framework in place, organizations can forge sustainable pathways to profitability amid volatile times.

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This article is written by Forbes and originally published here.

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