Investing in sales enablement is essential to success in today’s sales climate. Creating a winning sales enablement program will strengthen your team’s skills and empower them to build more productive relationships with prospects, which will in turn improve your organization’s win rates over time. But how do you know if your sales enablement initiatives are really making a difference?
Though evaluating sales enablement should of course include qualitative “measures” like sales rep feedback, narrative clarity, and sales-marketing department alignment, it will be very helpful to keep an eye on what the numbers are saying to get a full picture of your progress and help justify requests for more resources with company leadership. Measuring sales enablement ROI will help you better assess the impact of your sales enablement practices and avoid repeating common sales enablement mistakes. While determining ROI is usually just a matter of dividing returns on an investment by the cost of said investment, enablement-related calculations can be difficult to obtain because of the complexity of cost allocation across activities and departments. You’re better off breaking things up into pieces rather than attempting a consolidated approach to measurement. Here are some key metrics to focus on as you work to determine the overall measurable impact of your sales enablement program.
Key Metrics
Onboarding effectiveness metrics
Without a solid onboarding program, your sales enablement efforts will flop. So taking a look at the effectiveness of onboarding at your company will be vital to evaluating your broader sales enablement program.
How actively are sales reps participating in the onboarding process? Take a look at attendance records for lessons, assignment completion, and performance on assessments. How long is it taking new sales reps to make quota? Unfortunately, higher engagement with the onboarding process doesn’t always translate into stronger performance during real-life sales conversations. Work with sales reps to determine the cause of performance gaps and arm them with the tools and materials they need to enhance their sales reflexes.
What is your seller retention rate? If sales reps are leaving in droves, they are likely dissatisfied with your organization’s onboarding program and team dynamics. Onboarding new reps is a costly and time-consuming endeavor, but cutting corners in the quality of your onboarding program and accompanying support system will lead to either low retention rates, ill-prepared sales reps, or both.
What is the average cost of onboarding a new hire and what does the total ramp time look like? Take a look at what factors are contributing to the cost of your onboarding program, and see whether any changes can make the process more efficient without sacrificing standards. If you want to achieve faster onboarding, try Attention. Attention records sales reps’ calls, offers them real-time coaching, and measures performance over time. Look through Attention’s intelligence trackers and click on the metric you want to follow. From specific metrics like speak share, questions asked, and positive feedback, to overall scores on performance and engagement, this solution offers sales leaders an in-depth perspective of their team’s progress on an individual and team level. The result: Attention ramps up hires in weeks rather than months, boosting your company’s conversion rates and ACVs.
Sales performance metrics
You’ll definitely want to measure the impact of your sales enablement program on staple sales performance indicators like average purchase value, lead conversation rate, quota attainment, and average sales cycle length. Additionally, take a look at what the number of deals lost to competition is to determine whether your current sales enablement strategy is giving you an edge over competitors or whether it’s time to reevaluate your approach. These figures will round out your understanding of how your sales enablement program is impacting overall sales.
Sales enablement content metrics
What does sales enablement content usage look like at your organization? Which materials are team members accessing and sharing regularly? Is sparsely used content less popular with buyers, or is there another reason certain items are receiving fewer clicks than others? Sales and marketing should work together to collect sales enablement content metrics. By studying how your team makes use of content, you can get a better impression of whether your sales enablement strategy is working, or whether content needs to be updated to better fit the needs of buyers and sellers alike.
What does use of sales content for individual reps look like over time? If sales reps stop referring to materials after the first few months on the job, not only are they missing out on the benefits of continued learning, but they are also taking the risk of bringing outdated messaging and evidence to sales calls. Sales leaders should bring attention to the enormous value of utilizing and updating content on a regular basis during team meetings.
When overall content usage is on the lower end, take a look at whether the quality of your sales enablement content is to blame, or whether it is merely a question of improving the accessibility of existing materials. If the latter point is the issue, be sure to give Attention a try. Attention employs conversation intelligence to bring up relevant sales battlecards to sellers’ screens when prompted by voice-activated cues. That way, your sales reps won’t have to fumble to find relevant content during calls with prospects anymore. Having easy access to battlecards will help junior reps sound more natural, professional, and self-assured.
Interpreting the numbers
It’s not enough to just track the metrics; analyzing and interpreting what the numbers and anecdotes mean will be crucial to determining which changes need to be made. If the overall picture is looking grim, does that mean your entire sales enablement strategy needs to be scrapped? Probably not. Having a breakdown of these metrics handy means you can pinpoint exactly which of your sales enablement initiatives need to upgraded and which ones are worth learning from. Even if your program is running smoothly, tracking sales enablement metrics will help your team determine where improvement is still possible. Work with your enablement team to formalize an impact-assessment protocol, and create communication channels to facilitate the reception of feedback from your team. Maximizing your sales enablement ROI will make a huge difference this year, so make it a point to track relevant metrics and upgrade your program as needed. You’ll thank us later!
