In the modern corporate vocabulary, "Sales Enablement" has become another dumpster term. We throw so much into it — onboarding, pitch decks, marketing collateral, training, and executive directives — hoping that if we provide enough "stuff," revenue growth will follow.
But without a common language, we have the same problem since The Tower of Babel. Marketing speaks "Brand," Sales speaks "Deals," and others are caught going in circles trying to build on wobbly foundations.
Let’s break sales enablement into its parts.
Sales is thought of as a function, department, team, or even just a person. It’s also a process intended to generate revenue, which is arguably the highest goal.
Enablement has to do with providing means, to make possible, to make easy, or to bestow power upon. In some cases, enabling takes on a destructive meaning — doing for others what they can and should do for themselves, which leads to codependency and “learned helplessness” for the receiver.
Within this heap of meanings, there are valuable building bricks. Though unfortunately, enablement is often done “to” someone rather than “for” someone, because they still just “don’t get it.” Throw more content at them! Some is bound to stick.
The best enablement is a process, not a singular event. As much as there’s a learning curve, there’s a forgetting curve to address also. Unless the team is made of prodigies, anything remotely complicated needs repetition, reminders, and a repository for reference.
To demystify sales enablement, avoid functional labels and consider these three buckets.
Knowledge: Does the person know what they need to?
Skills: Can the person do the task?
Tools: Are there resources available to facilitate knowing and doing?
If any one of these is neglected, the revenue tower will become a wobbly collection of unintegrated parts. Stop adding to the dumpster. Build a clear, disciplined tower that bestows power and lets your people do the work they were hired to do.