Sales Enablement: A Master Framework to Engage, Equip, and Empower A World-Class Sales Force Hardcover – May 1, 2018

by Byron Matthews (Author), Tamara Schenk (Author)

4.4 out of 5 stars

85 ratings

Bring the buyer experience and selling tools front-and-center to increase sales

sales enablement is the definitive guide to increasing sales through better selling. An in-depth comprehensive and practical introduction to the best practices in sales enablement The book offers step-by step strategies for implementation, along with experts' guidance. To clarify the space of sales enablement and defining the practices it employs the book provides a comprehensive guideline on training content, coaching, and content by utilizing a holistic method that guarantees optimal implementation, with quantifiable outcomes. The case studies demonstrate how to use enablement effectively in real-world businesses and provide the most important actions that leaders need to adopt to reach their goals for sales outcomes.

Smarter buyers demand smarter selling, and companies that implement enablement programs achieve sales goals at greater than 8 percent higher than those that don't. This book offers a basic information on sales capability for salesperson looking to improve sales and boost revenues in the current era of increased consumer choices.

• Learn about sales enablement and how is it able to do for you and your business

• Implement enablement strategies that provide sustainable, quantifiable performance impacts

• Follow the best practices proven by simple steps from professionals

• Study case studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of implementation and impact of sales facilitation on the revenue

The consumer is smarter, more connected, and educated than they have ever been. Traditional sales tactics are fading away becoming less effective in the current economic climate. Businesses that thrive in these conditions understand how to talk to customers on their own way and sales enablement helps keep the customer at the forefront by providing salespeople with the tools buyers need. Sales enablement is a flexible framework for sales boosting that has proven results.

R. J. Dickie

5.0 out of 5 stars

The fact that we need to transform how we engage ...

Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2018

Verified Purchase

The fact that we need to transform how we engage and collaborate with customers is clear to top sales executives, how to successfully do that is not. In Sales Enablement - A Master Framework, Tamara Schenk and Byron Matthews provide field-proven insights into how sales enablement teams can optimize the performance of the sales forces they serve.

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McSusan

5.0 out of 5 stars

Actionable Guide to Best-In-Class Sales Enablement

Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2021

Verified Purchase

The authors look at the sales enablement function holistically and as services to enhance sales productivity. Practical and realistic guide.

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Kindle Customer

5.0 out of 5 stars

Great for Enablement Leaders and Practitioners

Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2018

Verified Purchase

This right now is the best sales enablement book out there. It lays out a clear foundation for building a sales enablement organization and the case for why it is so important. It also helps benchmark your existing program against best practices with a focus on outcomes. If you are familiar with CSO Insights research, a lot of what is in the book may seem repetitive however they did a nice job of tying together the research into a flow that works.

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Christian Maurer

5.0 out of 5 stars

This Book is a Cut Gem…

Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2018

.

Not only because it uses the diamond as metaphor for a very comprehensive clarity model for Sales Force Enablement. The term Sales Force Enablement by itself already provides more clarity about the target audience to be enabled than the generic term Sales Enablement. The book combines anecdotal evidence, gained from several years of field experience, developing sales enablement from a project into a discipline, with pertinent research to arrive at a very useful set of models providing a master framework for professionals interested in starting or augmenting a sales enablement discipline.

Right at the beginning, we are reminded, with the Sales Relationship/Process (SRP) Matrix, that selling is very situational and there is no single way to become a world-class sales force. Consequently, the book provides maturity models helping to adapt the Sales Force Enablement Discipline to the context in which a particular sales force operates.

The Clarity Model is a good vehicle to build a common understanding among all stakeholders involved in Sales Force Enablement. The Clarity Model comprises the following facets (aspects) to be considered for fostering a common understanding of who should be enabled by whom and how.

At its core, the model suggests an inside out view and therefore it starts with the customer in mind. This customer orientation is the guideline that all customer-facing professionals and their managers (Customer Facing Departments) need to provide a positive customer experience by fulfilling the customers’ expectations.

Anchoring the common view in the firm’s strategy and building a leader-sponsored charter gives the sales enablement professionals the needed legitimacy to orchestrate the collaboration of the various silos (e.g., Sales Operations, Marketing, Human Resources, Product Development, Learning & Development, IT) to successfully enable the Customer Facing Departments to provide a positive customer experience.

The facet of Effective Enablement Services then describes the elements to be offered to the Customer Facing Departments to enable them to provide the customer experience. While the aspects Content and Training are expected topics here, Coaching Services only come into focus when the whole sales force (salespeople and their managers and leaders) is defined as the target audience.

Three further facets: Formalized Collaboration, Integrated Enablement Technology and Efficient Enablement Operations describe the Inner Workings of Enablement; helping sales enablement professionals to understand with which other constituencies and how they will have to interact to provide valuable offerings.

The Customer’s Path provides an extensive view of how customers buy. It comprises 3 phases (Awareness, Buying, Implementation & Adoption). This model is the foundation for the Sales Enablement Services Framework, which is developed during the detailed discussion of the Enablement Services. The mapping of these services to the customer’s path enforces the outside-in view.

An important part of the book is dedicated to building a Charter. A first chapter is dedicated to giving an overview about the topics to be covered and how to cover them. The detailed discussion of the services, collaboration, technology and operations then allows the authors to define a required overall maturity model for a specific context in which a particular sales force is operating. How to arrive at quantitative targets to be included in the Charter is covered in a separate chapter. For people who learn better from examples, a sample Charter is provided in the appendix of the book.

The strong emphasis on the Charter seems merited, considering that building and operating a Sales Enablement Discipline has important transformational aspects. For a transformation to be successful, an alignment of the mental models of the constituencies involved or concerned is needed. The Charter is the vehicle to arrive at and ensure this alignment.

Throughout the book, research data is provided to underline the pertinence of the topics discussed by showing the positive correlations on performance indicators that could be found in various recent studies. Sales Enablement Professionals are thus also well equipped to underpin the relevance of the topics addressed in the Charter for business outcomes.

Finally, the book also provides insights about the attitude needed by an individual for having a successful career as Sales Enablement Professional. One must be aware and willing, not wanting to do everything him/herself but rather to convince others to contribute their efforts and sometimes even their budgets to achieve the desired outcomes. This is no easy task, as some constituencies will claim to already be “enabling” sales and might consider the Sales Enablement Discipline as an intrusion into their domain.

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Thomas J. Williams

5.0 out of 5 stars

The Definitive Roadmap to Sales Enablement!

Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2018

This book could not be timelier. Sales Enablement is a fast-growing discipline as evidenced by the rapid proliferation of the Sales Enablement Society. This book provides a roadmap for building a sales enablement organization.

Tamara is one of the top 50 sales bloggers in the world. She has been highly regarded as a speaker and writer for years. She along with Bryon Matthews, the CEO of the Miller Heiman Group, have provided a Sales Enablement Framework that takes the reader through a pathway to improving sales performance. The authors provide data and insights from empirical research conducted by CSO Insights along with real-life data from clients to illustrate and prove their recommendations. Readers can use the data and insights to benchmark their organizations against best practices.

The book is divided into five parts.

• Part One: Lays the foundation by defining what enablement is and how it helps to improve performance.

• Part Two: Introduces the Enablement Clarity Model, a framework that can help guide your efforts to

Kindle Customer

5.0 out of 5 stars

Great for Enablement Leaders and Practitioners

Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2018

Verified Purchase

This right now is the best sales enablement book out there. It lays out a clear foundation for building a sales enablement organization and the case for why it is so important. It also helps benchmark your existing program against best practices with a focus on outcomes. If you are familiar with CSO Insights research, a lot of what is in the book may seem repetitive however they did a nice job of tying together the research into a flow that works.

Helpful

Report abuse

Christian Maurer

5.0 out of 5 stars

This Book is a Cut Gem…

Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2018

.

Not only because it uses the diamond as metaphor for a very comprehensive clarity model for Sales Force Enablement. The term Sales Force Enablement by itself already provides more clarity about the target audience to be enabled than the generic term Sales Enablement. The book combines anecdotal evidence, gained from several years of field experience, developing sales enablement from a project into a discipline, with pertinent research to arrive at a very useful set of models providing a master framework for professionals interested in starting or augmenting a sales enablement discipline.

Right at the beginning, we are reminded, with the Sales Relationship/Process (SRP) Matrix, that selling is very situational and there is no single way to become a world-class sales force. Consequently, the book provides maturity models helping to adapt the Sales Force Enablement Discipline to the context in which a particular sales force operates.

The Clarity Model is a good vehicle to build a common understanding among all stakeholders involved in Sales Force Enablement. The Clarity Model comprises the following facets (aspects) to be considered for fostering a common understanding of who should be enabled by whom and how.

At its core, the model suggests an inside out view and therefore it starts with the customer in mind. This customer orientation is the guideline that all customer-facing professionals and their managers (Customer Facing Departments) need to provide a positive customer experience by fulfilling the customers’ expectations.

Anchoring the common view in the firm’s strategy and building a leader-sponsored charter gives the sales enablement professionals the needed legitimacy to orchestrate the collaboration of the various silos (e.g., Sales Operations, Marketing, Human Resources, Product Development, Learning & Development, IT) to successfully enable the Customer Facing Departments to provide a positive customer experience.

The facet of Effective Enablement Services then describes the elements to be offered to the Customer Facing Departments to enable them to provide the customer experience. While the aspects Content and Training are expected topics here, Coaching Services only come into focus when the whole sales force (salespeople and their managers and leaders) is defined as the target audience.

Three further facets: Formalized Collaboration, Integrated Enablement Technology and Efficient Enablement Operations describe the Inner Workings of Enablement; helping sales enablement professionals to understand with which other constituencies and how they will have to interact to provide valuable offerings.

The Customer’s Path provides an extensive view of how customers buy. It comprises 3 phases (Awareness, Buying, Implementation & Adoption). This model is the foundation for the Sales Enablement Services Framework, which is developed during the detailed discussion of the Enablement Services. The mapping of these services to the customer’s path enforces the outside-in view.

An important part of the book is dedicated to building a Charter. A first chapter is dedicated to giving an overview about the topics to be covered and how to cover them. The detailed discussion of the services, collaboration, technology and operations then allows the authors to define a required overall maturity model for a specific context in which a particular sales force is operating. How to arrive at quantitative targets to be included in the Charter is covered in a separate chapter. For people who learn better from examples, a sample Charter is provided in the appendix of the book.

The strong emphasis on the Charter seems merited, considering that building and operating a Sales Enablement Discipline has important transformational aspects. For a transformation to be successful, an alignment of the mental models of the constituencies involved or concerned is needed. The Charter is the vehicle to arrive at and ensure this alignment.

Throughout the book, research data is provided to underline the pertinence of the topics discussed by showing the positive correlations on performance indicators that could be found in various recent studies. Sales Enablement Professionals are thus also well equipped to underpin the relevance of the topics addressed in the Charter for business outcomes.

Finally, the book also provides insights about the attitude needed by an individual for having a successful career as Sales Enablement Professional. One must be aware and willing, not wanting to do everything him/herself but rather to convince others to contribute their efforts and sometimes even their budgets to achieve the desired outcomes. This is no easy task, as some constituencies will claim to already be “enabling” sales and might consider the Sales Enablement Discipline as an intrusion into their domain.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Report abuse

Thomas J. Williams

5.0 out of 5 stars

The Definitive Roadmap to Sales Enablement!

Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2018

This book could not be timelier. Sales Enablement is a fast-growing discipline as evidenced by the rapid proliferation of the Sales Enablement Society. This book provides a roadmap for building a sales enablement organization.

Tamara is one of the top 50 sales bloggers in the world. She has been highly regarded as a speaker and writer for years. She along with Bryon Matthews, the CEO of the Miller Heiman Group, have provided a Sales Enablement Framework that takes the reader through a pathway to improving sales performance. The authors provide data and insights from empirical research conducted by CSO Insights along with real-life data from clients to illustrate and prove their recommendations. Readers can use the data and insights to benchmark their organizations against best practices.

The book is divided into five parts.

• Part One: Lays the foundation by defining what enablement is and how it helps to improve performance.

• Part Two: Introduces the Enablement Clarity Model, a framework that can help guide your efforts to create a scalable, adaptive discipline.

• Part Three: Goes deeper into the scope of services that enablement offers and how they must be aligned to be effective.

• Part Four: Focuses on how to create and deliver these services using a formalized, collaborative process. The authors also examine the role of technology and how to measure results.

• Part Five: provides a look at where the profession of sales is headed and how a formal sales force enablement discipline will be a must-have for future sales success.

This is a must read for every sales enablement professional, Chief Revenue Officer and President/CEO that wants to understand the keys to growing sales performance. Order your copy today; you won’t be disappointed!

3 people found this helpful

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David A. Brock

5.0 out of 5 stars

An Enablement booke for Sales Enablement Professionals.

Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2018

Sales Enablement seems to be a "hot topic," in sales circles these days. But few have looked at it in the comprehensive, systematic manner that Tamara and Byron have done in Sales Enablement.

This is an outstanding guide, both about the different components of a Sales Enablement Framework, but also on how to put them together and execute them in a way that drives sales performance.

This is a must read for every sales enablement professional. Every CRO or top sales exec should read this to help them assess the plans of their own sales enablement teams.

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George Brontén

5.0 out of 5 stars

A must read for everyone involved in professional B2B selling!

Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2018

I've followed Tamara's great work for years and this book lived up to my high expectations of it! The authors promote a holistic approach to sales enablement, free of quick-fix schemes and point solutions, provide hands-on advice and back up claims with data and insights from the field. A must read for everyone involved in professional B2B selling!