If you google “sales enablement” likely you’ll be bombarded with various CRM and sales process vendors, metric platforms, and consumption and training software. And all those things are great things if the strategy, content, and tools being used in via these platforms is right. In this blog, we outline key components you should consider prior to picking the right software and digital platforms for your company.

Many B2B sales leaders still don’t recognize B2B purchase decisions as emotional. Even if business leaders, say they believe there’s an emotional element in the decision-making process, little importance is actually placed on marketing and sales initiatives that strive to create an emotional connection between the prospect or customer and the company brand.

From our experience, it’s not uncommon for sales leaders to emphasize the sales process template or internal organizational structure when trying to improve their sales process. But a sales process is only a framework.

We can’t count the number of times new clients have told us they have a sales process in place, only to find that each rep has their own understanding of what that actually is (and believes their way is the RIGHT way!).

Business-to-business selling is a whole different beast than selling direct to consumers. Different needs, personas, sales processes, and statements of value only scrape the surface of the variances between the two.

Everyone makes mistakes. And sometimes that’s the best way to learn. Reflecting on my own experience, I’ve made a huge oversight once with one of our clients. I’d like to take today’s blog to tell you that story, and hopefully, help you avoid making the same slip I made.

Want fast growth, higher win rates, and improved customer retention? The answer lies in tightly-aligned sales and marketing processes. Research shows it’s more important than ever that these two departments meld together – by aligning the two, organizations see an average of 32% annual revenue growth (Forrester), 38% higher win rates, and 36% greater customer retention (both stats from MarketingProfs).

The one thing many leaders fail to understand is that logical decision-making is anything but logical. That’s what makes determining and creating value so elusive, vague, and hard. Before we can explain how exactly value is derived, it’s important to understand the rather illogical decision-making process behind purchase motivation.

What Guides Our Decisions?

When looking to grow revenue, a common strategy is to increase your deal size and sell upstream. Unfortunately, without a major shift in selling methodology sales leaders find the initiative unsuccessful. Traditionally, if the average deal size is relatively small, sales reps generally are able to successfully sell the product based on features and benefits; however, when the average deal size significantly increases, prospective clients expect to hear more than that—they want to hear and receive value.

When hiring or recruiting talented sales people, hiring managers generally tend to look for someone who’s outgoing, confident, and fearless. These people are great on the phone and in meeting. They ask educated questions and get the close—if they enter a meeting with a prospect, they leave one step closer to closing a client.