When the latest business trend evolves into a job title you can find among thousands of LinkedIn profiles, it's already too late. Stop playing catch-up and figure out how your enterprise is going to leverage what your competitors are already deploying. This Research Report explores why sales enablement has evolved from a nice-to-have niche into an essential tool for successful business selling.

NO LONGER A LUXURY: WHY THE BEST-IN-CLASS VIEW SALES ENABLEMENT AS A MUST-HAVE November, 2015

Peter Ostrow, VP/Research Group Director,Customer Management, Sales Effectiveness

Report Highlights

Best-in-Class sales organizations see nearly three times more reps achieve quota, versus the worst performers.

Empowering marketers with visibility into sales content utilization yields a 33% higher lead acceptance rate.

The Best-in-Class are 28% more likely than All Others to deploy a formal process that aligns content with key sales cycle stages.

Firms that apply real-time data analytics to current deal velocity report 14% stronger customer retention rates.

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The foundation for Aberdeen's research methodology is based on comparing the performance and behavior of different cohorts of real-life, business-to-business (B2B) practitioners. In the case of Sales and Marketing Kumbaya: Putting Content in Context to Seal the Deal (April 2015), 261 end-users in sales leadership and sales operations roles self-reported around a series of current and year-over-year performance metrics, and were segmented by Aberdeen into its traditional top 20%, middle 50%, and bottom 30% performer groups. Summarized in Figure 1 are the four key performance indicators (KPIs) that were used to define Best-in-Class, Industry Average, and Laggard organizations:

Figure 1: What Best-in-Class Sales Teams Achieve

It is hard to over-emphasize the measurable business value of achieving Best-in-Class sales results. There doesn't exist a single SVP of Sales who wouldn't like to deliver to their CEO dramatically better same-year quota results, either on a team-

No one wants to be "that guy" who delivers reductions in revenue attainment, or growth-killing expansions of the average sales cycle.

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wide basis or in the context of far more individual contributors hitting their number. And in terms of annualized performance change, no one wants to be "that guy" who delivers Laggard-like reductions in revenue attainment, or growth-killing expansions of the average sales cycle. Nevertheless, 80% of survey respondents failed to achieve the admirable aggregate performance results of the Best-in-Class, and it is for this audience that ongoing findings from Aberdeen’s research can prove the most beneficial.

It’s All About Line-of-Site

When we explore research findings in detail, a number of clear trends emerge that provide insight into how Best-in-Class companies achieve their numbers. One of the more striking results is the differential between top-performing and other organizations, around the extent to which survey respondents indicated that “Marketing has extensive visibility into the sales team’s utilization of content / assets.” Here, 60% of Best-in-Class companies reported a formal, current competency around this knowledge management capability, while only half that number — 31% of Industry Average and 28% of Laggard firms — were on board with this crucial tenet of sales enablement deployments. These data points reflect a delta that still exists between how marketers and sellers embrace modern analytics and software tools in order to continuously improve their crafts: while the vast majority of the former utilize marketing automation platforms to track the effectiveness of their content, only 35% of the sales audience replied affirmatively to the question above. Still, if marketers have the technology and processes in place to

Sales Enablement Defined

For the purposes of this research survey, “Sales Enablement” refers

to the development and deployment of content-oriented

selling tools – marketing collateral, assets, messaging, and events – as

well as coaching, process, and customer feedback, in support of

either internal or channel-bases Sales organizations.

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understand what happens with their messaging, why shouldn't sales teams enjoy the same visibility?

This is where well-deployed sales enablement platforms enter the picture. In addition to efficiently creating, collecting, and providing sellers with situation-specific marketing content, they also help both teams track the effectiveness of assets, messaging, and collateral that are sent or presented to buyers. Indeed, when we analyze the performance of that 35% population against non-adopters, we see in Figure 2 a significant number of KPIs that reward the effort made to provide this clarity within the sales enablement initiative:

Figure 2: You Can't Measure What You Can't See

The lesson here: take the time to acquire and deploy, within your sales enablement process, a specific methodology around formally tracking what marketing content is most and least often presented by your sales reps or channel partners to their audiences. Not only will you be able to correlate such street-level, real-time intelligence with your various creative efforts, you'll also contribute to enviable sales performance improvement metrics by continuously refining the connection

If marketers have the technology and processes in place to understand what happens with their messaging, why shouldn't sales operations teams enjoy the same visibility?

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between your marketing ideas and the checks that your customers write to your company. Now, let’s take a look at three of the ways in which top-performing organizations support this approach.

How Do I Start?

When asked about the strategic actions that they take to improve their sales performance over the long-term, Best-in-Class companies’ top three selections are: “Improve differentiation in messaging to tell a better, unique story personalized for each prospect/customer” (61%); “Better align content to buyers and journey stages” (46%), and “Tightly align marketing activity to specific sales objectives” (44%). It's hard to make a better case for sales enablement, isn't it? But, what are the concrete initiatives that fulfill these mission statements? In Figure 3, we explore three process capabilities that Best-in-Class companies deploy, on average, 30% more frequently than under-performing firms.

In an era when the traditional "sales cycle" has been co-opted by a data-driven "buyer's journey," it is crucial for B2B enterprises to recognize the dramatic shift that has taken place in the balance of power between modern sellers of goods and services, and their buyers. As we learn from Customer Engagement Has Evolved. Can Your Sales Team Keep Up? (September 2014), enterprises must acknowledge the now-enormous ability of their prospects and customers to deeply understand all of the behind-the-scenes details – pricing, features, benefits, etc. – at work in purchase decisions. Otherwise, as the research

It’s not about what we create that

matters — it’s about what our internal

and external customers consume.

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shows, such unevolved enterprises fail to close more deals. When, however, marketers and sellers team up to align content with key stages of the buyer’s journey, they are more likely to win business because they have personalized their messaging for savvy buyers who no longer respond positively to generic, one-size-fits-all mass communications. After all, those who get in front of the right buyer, and stay in front of them throughout their journey, win.

Figure 3: Processes that Contribute to Success: Always Focus on the Buyer

We also know from Aberdeen's extensive sales training research that utilizing formal sales methodologies is a more impactful and organized approach toward successful, large-scale enterprise selling. At first glance, this process might seem to contradict the theme of the first item in Figure 3: is it truly wise to deploy a broad, corporate, consistent messaging strategy to all of the various individual buyers of our products or services?

Marketers and sellers who team up to align content with key stages of the buyer’s journey are more likely to win business because they have personalized their messaging for savvy buyers who no longer respond positively to generic, one-size-fits-all mass communications.

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Don't each of our markets, verticals, and target personas deserve their own unique sales pitch? Of course they do, but it is only with the help of the marketing team that the ability to develop and measure different messaging strategies can be part of a continuous improvement effort within the sales operations group. These strategies, in turn, are best deployed in a way that allows the organization to collect accurate data regarding which general themes can more or less effectively be personalized for various buyers - which, in turn, begins with an agreed-upon methodology that both departments can support and collectively deploy via content performance analytics.

Lastly, Best-in-Class companies are 30% more likely than under-performers (43% vs. 33%) to capture feedback on marketing content from all possible stakeholders. Let's face it: the days when marketers could get by with "I know that half my marketing dollars are working, just not which half” are long gone. Modern corporate marketers cannot survive without measuring, in great detail, the links between virtually all of their output, and the resulting audience reactions and eventual spend. They also benefit, as proved above, from understanding not only which messages are linked to which purchases, but also the extent to which their sales counterparts are comfortable putting such content in front of their buyers. This feedback can be collected not only with anecdotal communications, but through the formal "tribal knowledge" capability embedded in the best sales enablement platforms. These applications often include

Those who get in front of the right buyer, and

stay in front of them throughout their

journey, win.

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an element of enterprise social collaboration that efficiently gathers user-generated ratings and comments into clear indications around how the marketing team’s many stakeholders react to their different creations. It’s not about what we create that matters – it’s about what our internal and external customers consume.

Libraries, Playbooks, and References, Oh My!

The business processes defined above help set the tone for how Best-in-Class enterprises wrapped their arms around how to maximize the efficiency of their sales / marketing alignment initiatives. In Figure 4, we now look at specific competencies that these top performers embrace far more often than Industry Average and Laggard firms.

Figure 4: Managing Tribal Knowledge is Not a Nice-to-Have

In Sales Playbooks: Taking the Guesswork out of Sales Enablement (July 2015), we learned that users of these platforms achieve better results than non-adopters around team attainment of sales quota, percentage of reps achieving quota, customer retention, and lead conversion rates. While all of these metrics are noteworthy, the 6.5% advantage of the last one (33%

The lesson here: take the time to acquire and deploy, within your sales enablement process, a specific methodology around formally tracking what marketing content is most and least often presented by your sales reps or channel partners to their audiences.

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vs. 31%) speaks most boldly to the value of sales playbook deployments. Any business development professional, whether serving any marketing, selling, or servicing role, understands the enormous ramifications of improving the efficiency of the customer acquisition funnel. Best-in-Class marketers are more than twice as likely as All Others to achieve this by helping their sales reps and channel partners personalize their market-facing messaging, using playbooks to provide "content in context." To do so, they often utilize mapping and recommendation technologies to unify how every team member can search and locate just the right piece of content they need, for the right buyer, at the right time.

For example, a B2B sales rep for an industrial manufacturing organization should not provide a customer case study from, let's say, an animal feed company, if they are hoping to close a deal with a microchip producer. A savvy sales enablement function supporting this rep will pre-position endorsement content that is specific to all of the industries, geographies, or buying personas that the seller is likely to face, and provide them with a guided-selling, playbook process that can walk the field rep through various conversation scenarios, or a “smart feed,” to which they are statistically most often going to be exposed. Another sales enablement application win is associated with organizations that identify subject matter experts (SMEs) who can proactively, or on-demand, answer frequently asked questions or challenges posed to sellers by their prospects and customers. All of the Figure 4 items can be incorporated into this sales enablement best practice; with Best-in-Class companies averaging a 54% higher adoption rate around these tribal

Best-in-Class marketers are more

than twice as likely as All Others to help their sales reps and channel

partners personalize their market-facing

messaging, using playbooks to provide

“content in context.”

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knowledge must-haves than under-performing sales teams. It would be unwise not to follow their lead.

Are Your Sales Reps Strong Micro-Marketers? Should They Be?

Another sales enablement trend that Aberdeen has associated with Best-in-Class business results is that marketing and selling personnel are no longer tasked with completely disparate responsibilities. Much as modern B2B marketers are increasingly held responsible for the sales results they generate, so too are quota-carrying reps and channel partners charged with the ability to function as “micro-marketers.” Less than fulfilling some sort of latent desire to design or write great advertisements, this trend is market-driven, given the need for personalization that accrues to an enterprise seller faced with a highly enlightened and connected buyer. Hence, a successful sales enablement platform is not a one-way deployment, in which marketers throw all sorts of content onto a shared drive, waiting for their sales counterparts to cherry-pick what their gut tells them they should put in front of their buyers. Rather, Best-in-Class companies strive to make it easy and intuitive for their front-line sellers to access, personalize, and share both content and best practices, in an ever-growing enterprise knowledge bank of excellence. They deploy all of the elements in Figure 5 more aggressively than under-performing firms; so too do the segmented end-users from Figure 2 above. These best practices form the heart of successful, content-driven selling:

No matter what lessons you learn from this Research Report, do not pursue any sales enablement initiative that is not fully mobilized. Web-based libraries of all sales enablement assets, documentation, and best practices contribute to Best-in-Class mobile sales enablement results, ensuring that

No longer are marketing and selling personnel tasked with completely disparate responsibilities.

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modern sellers are provided with an "anywhere, anytime, any device" support system. After all, 62% of Best-in-Class companies indicate Aberdeen that they are very or extremely mobilized, compared with 40% of Industry Average and 32% among Laggard firms. Whose sales effectiveness results would you prefer to mimic?

Figure 5: Content Management Capabilities for Winners

The title of Aberdeen’s Engage, Personalize, Analyze, Win…Repeat. (June 2015) speaks directly to the second element of Figure 5: the ability to not only create situation-specific marketing content that sellers can deploy in the field, but to use technology platforms to scale this ability, represents a hallmark of top-performing organizations. Indeed, organizations that provide sellers with content that is initially prepared for various sales conversations — ensuring that brand integrity is maintained and the "local police" are

Best-in-Class companies strive to make it easy and intuitive for their front-line sellers to access,

personalize, and share both content and best practices, in

an ever-growing enterprise knowledge bank of excellence.

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happy — but can also be personalized down to the individual buyer or company, and out-perform their contemporaries who don't bother to do so. Adopters report a 21% stronger lead acceptance rate (40% vs. 33%) and a 36% higher lead conversion average (50% vs. 11%), lending strong credence to the value of investing in systems to getting the right content in front of the right buyer at the right time.

Add to these competencies the platform integration lessons of CRM + Sales Technologies: Integrating Your Way Toward President's Club (February 2015) and the mobility best practices referenced above, and you no doubt will be adopting Best-in-Class knowledge management capabilities that will directly result in stronger sales performance for your team.

What Happens When All of This is Deployed?

All of the competencies above represent a significant investment of time and energy that, once deployed in the field, need to be tracked and measured so that the dollars and job security-related to such initiatives can be confirmed by the enterprise and reported to senior company management. Aberdeen’s significant coverage of sales analytics technologies and best practices speaks to the real-world necessities of ensuring that sales enablement deployments pay off. One of the most crucial KPIs that we study is the concept of improving "deal velocity" – striving to constantly reduce the friction that inevitably takes place in B2B selling, due to both internal and external factors – and delivering research-based guidance on how Best-in-Class companies address this perennial problem. Considering that, among all survey respondents, 24% of "sure thing" deals (formal opportunities assigned a likely-to-close percentage of 80% or higher in the current selling period) eventually leak out into subsequent sales cycles, there is great value in achieving even a

No matter what lessons you learn from this Research Report, do not pursue any sales enablement initiative that is not fully mobilized.

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few percentage points of improving deal velocity. The research featured in Sheldon Cooper, Sales Whisperer: Applying the Science of Data to the Art of Selling (September 2014) teaches us that the predictive analytics capabilities of modern, business intelligence-type tools that are customized for the sales function, can have significant impact on understanding how both marketing and sales teams can continuously apply historical cause-and-effect data to current and even future sales conversations. Too often, sales professionals stop interacting with their marketing counterparts once a lead has been developed and tossed over the wall for them to nurture and close.

Figure 6: Getting Our Nerd On: Applying the Science of Selling

And yet, the marketing team typically has more access to productive intelligence around what messages are most likely to influence buyer behavior, especially when compared to the gut-driven traditions of sales reps who take an "I've got this" attitude

Considering that among all survey respondents, 24% of

"sure thing" deals (formal opportunities assigned a likely-

to-close percentage of 80% or higher in the current selling

period) eventually leak out into subsequent sales cycles, there is

great value in achieving even a few percentage points of

improvement around improving deal velocity.

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toward their own ability to seal the deal. The research proves, however, that Best-in-Class companies are more likely to allow their marketers to influence in-process sales opportunities around these data, and we see in Figure 6 that organizations adopting this approach out-perform those who are still more likely to go with their gut. Most of the top sales enablement platforms provide this data science capability: realistically figuring out, based on the past, what is most likely to happen in the future, and informing more enlightened sales reps and channel partners who are willing to change their tune for the sake of better end results.

Conclusion: Am I Ready to Ask for Budget?

By now you are probably quite convinced and eager to buy into a sales enablement platform. Plenty of data has introduced and confirmed the value of managing our people, knowledge, and messages within a collaborative application that serves not only the disparate needs of Marketing and Sales, but also their mutual goals. Before submitting a request for funding, however, one Best-in-Class competency remains as a must-have adoption for sales enablement personnel anxious to get started on their quota-busting path: delivering a slam-dunk return on investment (ROI). While only 29% of survey respondents indicated that they currently have “defined metrics for analyzing the sales productivity impact of changes in our sales cycle,” we strongly encourage all end-users to do so. Consider the performance of this 29% segment, compared with non-adopters, in Figure 7:

Nothing helps the VP of Sales and the sales operations team more, long- term, than shortening their selling cycle.

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Figure 7: Why You Should be Measuring How Your Efforts Impact the Sales Cycle

Noting the research that proves it costs over $29,000 and takes 7.3 months to replace the typical B2B sales rep, would you rather reduce sales turnover by 5.6% annually, or only 1.3%? How about improving or worsening the lead acceptance rate metric that points to a successful marketing / sales alignment? In an ever more data-driven business environment, the need to pre-emptively value and justify any expense is essential. And, considering the rapidly changing landscape around how sales leaders are judged — just see A Tale of Two “C’s”: Serving up Value to the CFO and CRO (September 2015) if in any doubt – nothing helps the VP of Sales and the sale operations team more, long-term, than shortening their selling cycle. Those who can are able to speed up deal closures by connecting content with conversations, track content engagement, create

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actionable business development insights, and continuously fine-tune their messaging to achieve Best-in-Class results. As for those who can’t, the cost of doing nothing may end up being their cross to bear.

For more information on this or other research topics, please visit www.aberdeen.com.

Related Research Why Analytics? Nine Must-Have B2B Sales Forecasting Competencies ; August 2015 "The Price is Right"…and Other TV Classics that Teach Us Smarter Selling ; July 2015 Making Sales Playbooks Count: Steal These Marketing Secrets from Your Competitors!; July 2015 What Do You Mean, "There's a Debit on My Commission Check"? ; July 2015 Could Jordan Belfort Have Been Right?...And Other Uncomfortable Sales Management Realities ; June 2015

Once is Not Enough: Why Sales Training Reinforcement is a Must-Have ; May 2015 Taming the Sales Quote Beast: How the Best-in-Class Streamline Sealing the Deal ; December 2014 Flash Forward: Remember When we Called it "Predictive" Analytics?; April 2015 Six Ways to Guarantee You're a Social Selling Failure ; April 2015 Making Sales Enablement Work: Nine Must-Haves for the Modern Sales Ops Leader ; March 2015

Author: Peter Ostrow, VP/Research Group Director; Customer Management, Sales Effectiveness (peter.ostrow@aberdeen.com)

About Aberdeen Group Since 1988, Aberdeen Group has published research that helps businesses worldwide improve their performance. Our analysts derive fact-based, vendor-agnostic insights from a proprietary analytical framework, which identifies Best-in-Class organizations from primary research conducted with industry practitioners. The resulting research content is used by hundreds of thousands of business professionals to drive smarter decision-making and improve business strategy. Aberdeen Group is headquartered in Boston, MA.

This document is the result of primary research performed by Aberdeen Group and represents the best analysis available at the time of publication. Unless otherwise noted, the entire contents of this publication are copyrighted by Aberdeen Group and may not be reproduced, distributed, archived, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent by Aberdeen Group.