What We Do
Sales Enablement Sherpas (SES) is focused on improving your company’s top-line performance. As a revenue performance consultancy, we examine your sales function from prospecting to delivery and its interactions with the rest of your organization. We look for friction points that are decreasing your ability to meet quota and optimize profitability, then create an Enablement Charter unique to your company which can be used as a roadmap to mitigate that friction.
As a systems integrator, we tap into our broad network of enablement vendors and professionals – the Sherpas – bringing together a unique mix of technology, processes, and services for your current and future sales needs. There is no single solution that fits every company’s situation; each company is unique, some requiring a more robust enablement function while others may need a simple adjustment or enhancement to an existing enablement program.
Our goal is to harness the people, processes, and infrastructure you already have in place. We'll build upon your core competencies, and guide you in a direction optimized for your sales situation. We’ll design programs that are scalable and sustainable, so you can use them as you continue to grow. We aim to create other Sherpas from within your organization who will be competent stewards of your future enablement efforts.
Working with Sales Enablement Sherpas
SES offers multiple paths to improving your sales. Whether you’re seeking a single tactical Enablement program to be designed and implemented (such as a Sales Leader Development program, a dynamic Sales Coaching program, a new Onboarding program, etc.), or are looking to establish or revamp a larger, strategic, and comprehensive Sales Enablement function, SES can help. Scalability is critical to implementing change and gaining adoption within your organization; utilizing an agile development philosophy, programs are designed to be implemented in stages to minimize disruption to your ongoing sales activities.
The SES Framework
SES has designed a simple, four-stage enablement framework. We'll work with you up to the level you feel is appropriate for your organization. Our goal is to make your sales function more effective by guiding you in establishing sustainable, flexible enablement programs customized to your needs, which you'll be able to manage going forward. We want you to be autonomous, not dependent upon us.
Example Elements of a World-Class Sales Enablement Function
Following are just a few of the elements which SES can design into your sales enablement initiative. You may only need or desire one or two of these elements, or you may want to have these and other elements revamped and modernized due to your changing sales environment.
Coaching
Sales Coaching is recognized as the single most effective activity for improving sales. Even so, most companies don't have a formal, standardized sales coaching program in place, leaving it up to sales leaders to coach their teams in whatever fashion they choose (if they're doing it at all). Do you want to stop leaving this critical aspect of sales to chance, and start leveraging coaching in an impactful, measurable way to improve revenue production?
Salesforce Assessments
The days of guessing are over - assess, don't guess. Do you know what motivates each of your sellers (hint: it's probably not money)? Do you know the strengths of your salesforce, and where there are competency gaps? Have you baselined your salesforce to understand which seller has the highest probability of being successful with a given buyer persona? Want to improve your chances of winning more deals by hiring the right sellers?
Communication Skills
Being able to communicate effectively is a skill in which every seller needs to be proficient. Yet, it's a major gap in many sellers' repertoire - and a skill most buyers wish sellers were better at. From basic presentation skills to more advanced storytelling and whiteboarding, engaging your clients through effective message delivery is more important today than ever before...
Messaging
Are your sellers and Marketing teams collaborating as effectively as possible to create messages which resonate with your clients? How much of the collateral your Marketing team produces is easily found by the sellers when they need it? Proper integration of Sales & Marketing is the equivalent of tuning up your car's engine so it fires on all 12 cylinders so it runs smoothly and powerfully.
Change Management
Implementing one Sales Enablement element will affect multiple other areas within the company. Understanding the impact of Enablement on the entire organization, ensuring all stakeholders are onboarded, and managing that change is the difference between the success and failure of Enablement initiatives.
Sales Technology Stack
"The Stack" is becoming hard to manage. CRM, CMS, RPA, AI, ML, SaaS, XaaS... You can't sell in today's digital economy without technology, but it's getting incredibly complex to decide what you need - because it's always changing. And at the same time, if you implement your technology incorrectly, you'll find yourself with an expensive piece of technology that's outdated three months after you put it to work...
Onboarding
Still onboarding your new sellers the same way it's been done since the 1980s - lots of people in a room, lots of data-dumping, and hoping things stick? Today, time-to-productivity is too important to leave to chance. New techniques can shorten ramp time considerably and help your sellers build their internal networks and adapt to your organization's culture.
Sales Leader Development
It's rare that the head coach of a pro sports team was ever the best player in their sport - because the skills required to play vs. lead are radically different. Yet in sales, it's usually the best sellers (individual contributors) who are promoted to sales leaders, often without any specific skill development around leading sellers. This is a significant hidden source of a performance drag and one that can and should be addressed.
Sales L&D (Training) Modernization
L&D isn't just about putting information into a seller's head - it's about getting information out of a seller's and ensuring they use it. A solid, modern L&D program will produce measurable behavioral change which moves needles. SES will show you how to revamp your existing sales L&D program so it meets the current and future needs of both the organization and the seller.
Next Steps...
Let's explore the possibilities within your organization to improve top-line performance. Reach out to us today...