It’s amazing how many emails and texts I get from sales leaders or CEOs looking for sales enablement professional referrals and tips to staffing and recruiting sales enablement people. The sales enablement profession is relatively new. It’s hard to find people with the skills and competencies to be successful sales enablement practitioners. Sometimes, the best sales enablement people are right in front of us.
While I love that sales enablement is becoming a must have role and technology, there is a lot of confusion on the skills and expertise. The reply I give to the emails and texts I get asking for referrals is, it depends. Every company is different. In my new book Enablement Master, I devote a whole chapter to profiling enablement professionals and mapping out competencies.
Let’s be open-minded and creative about finding people who could be great at doing sales enablement. Don’t just look for curriculum designers to create and deliver content. Look for people who know your people, processes and priorities to execute your plan. Credibility matters.
Here are four roles who could be great sales enablement practitioners.
SALES MANAGERS
Experience in sales management and sales coaching is a strength and perfect for companies requiring hands-on coaching and geo-expansion. Partner them with your subject matter experts and have them build and own the plans.
PRODUCT MARKETING
Companies looking to build content and coaching on products, competitors and customer stories will benefit by having product marketers become a sales enablement practitioner. Their knowledge of buyer personas and market dynamics along with their skills in presentations puts them in a good place to deliver coaching and content to their sales teams. Many product marketers also have credibility with sales too.
SALES ENGINEERS/CONSULTANTS
Experience working with products and coaching sales teams makes sales engineers great candidates for sales enablement. Experience working with sales and technical experience with a product and solution is a big plus. They are trusted by sales and they are already great listeners and coaches.
TOP SALESPEOPLE
Companies needing more 1:1 coaching will benefit from moving top performers into enablement roles. They will be great coaches and onboarding professionals. They will be great to sit down with new salespeople and struggling salespeople to review prospecting strategies, territory plans and deal strategies. They’ll be great if sales managers are spread too thin or if there are many first time sales managers.
You can see how there are many different scenarios and you can creatively find sales enablement professionals from your own company to fill these roles.
The very best people to enable our teams are the ones that lived “a day in the shoes” of the role. They will have the expertise and credibility to delivering training and coaching.
The common characteristic we see in successful sales enablement professional is the desire to help companies align their people, process and priorities to grow revenue faster. Successful sales enablement are able to connect with leaders to understand their go-to-market priorities and then translate those priorities into coaching and content to be delivered to their sales teams. This is bigger than just creating sales training and curriculum.
There are many people who could be great sales enablement practitioners. Let’s find them and enable them.
