Question: What does your sales team think about the content on your website?
Do they:
Mostly, the answer I hear is a resounding, "NO".
One of the biggest complaints from sales teams today is that they're not happy with the quality of leads they get from the marketing department. (I bet you never hear that at your company. 😀)
In fact, sales teams typically report that only 25-30% of leads they get from marketing are deemed to be "qualified".
Yikes - That is no bueno!
Would you like to learn how you can improve lead quality, and make your sales team happier?
In this article, you will learn:
Let's get started.
Sales enablement is the process of providing resources to your sales team that they can then share with prospects which will help close deals faster.
And no, this is not just some off-the-rack brochure or pitch deck.
At a high level, sales enablement will:
Sounds pretty good right? Now let's discuss the content itself.
Sales enablement content is designed to do the tedious part of your sales team's job, day in and day out. It's content that gives them more time in their day to spend with highly engaged prospects.
Sales enablement content is designed to answer all of the generic or repetitive questions from your prospects about your products and services. These are typically answers that never change, no matter the buyer.
Some repetitive question examples are:
When the marketing team creates this content, with input from sales (yes you, dear sales team) it helps answer the questions almost all prospective customers ask, and when used during the sales process this makes for a more educated buyer, which increases the quality of leads, and ease of closing more deals.
Sales teams can share this content after an initial call with a prospect to provide more insights, or they can share the content ahead of a sales call to answer any major questions before the first meeting with a prospect.
This is where obsessing over any and all questions your customers have is critical. If a customer asks you a question, it probably should become a piece of content on your website.
Here are some of the common topics that fall under sales enablement content.
These content topics can be created in multiple forms, such as:
Here are some real-world examples of sales enablement content, where the company is using the They Ask, You Answer framework
When you create sales enablement content, like those mentioned above, that is laser-focused on transparently and honestly answering your buyer's most pressing questions, your sales team can turn around and use it immediately in their sales process, and possibly use another sales tactic that we call assignment selling.
Pretty simple... it's when your sales reps literally assign a prospect homework of consuming specific content, blog posts, videos, buyers guides, etc, in advance of any upcoming meetings they have with the prospect, or in follow-up conversations, based on the needs identified during an initial sales call.
The benefit of assignment selling is that your sales reps will have prospects show up to calls more educated, allowing the time on the sales calls to be spent more wisely by discussing things that are specific to the prospects' situation, that were not necessarily answered in previously shared sales enablement content.
To recap: Instead of wasting time answering all of the mundane questions, assignment selling allows sales reps to focus on being more of a personal guide, create a better sales experience for the prospect, and in turn close more deals.
Advanced tip: Increase lead quality even more by assigning a prospect something to read, but be specific, and ask them if they can commit to reading it before your next meeting. Get confirmation by reaching out prior to the meeting and see if they have indeed read what you asked them to. If not, cancel or reschedule your call. Focus on the prospects who are truly engaged and interested in what you have to offer.
One question I always get is "How long will it take for content marketing to work?"
Well, it depends. If you are creating content only for the search engines to rank your site, it could take months. However, if you are creating content for sales to use immediately, you could get an ROI on your content just days after it's deployed.
That's no joke!
An added bonus: As you continue to create content that is sales-related/customer-focused (think bottom funnel), this will of course improve your ranking in search as well, as you become the most trusted voice in your space.
You'll begin to see more organic traffic, more pages being viewed, lower bounce rates, and most importantly, more educated buyers who trust you and are ready to buy rather than be sold.
Stay tuned: In upcoming posts, I will delve deeper into other topics that complement sales enablement content, such as:
In the meantime, I hope this article sparked some inspiration for how you can implement sales enablement content in your business.
Until next time, I'm rooting for you.
- Doc
PS: If you're a small business with a desire to become the most trusted voice in your industry and achieve radical growth, learn more about our coaching framework here >>.