Why Sales Enablement Strategy Fits Best in Marketing

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Who is best equipped to carry out an effective Sales Enablement Strategy? Sales? Marketing? Maybe another department?

Bernie’s guest on this episode of Modern Marketing Engine is Genefa Murphy PhD, SVP and CMO at Micro Focus, one of the world’s largest digital transformation solutions providers. Genefa believes that Marketing should own Sales Enablement and the goal of this podcast episode is to understand why. We'll also get a peek into how it’s being carried out at Micro Focus. 

You’ll learn how Genefa’s team organizes “Sales Councils” to inform and empower Sales Enablement, how they go about repurposing and creating the right content for Sales, and how she evaluates Sales Enablement efforts both qualitatively and quantitatively. Be sure you listen to the entire podcast episode!

This episode is sponsored by XANT, the enterprise leader in sales engagement. Xant has authored the Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence. Get your copy at www.SalesCadenceGuide.com

Is There A Compelling Reason For Sales Enablement To Belong In Marketing?

Genefa believes that the buyer’s journey is influenced by both marketing and sales. Marketing delivers messaging to the marketplace, which establishes brand identity and reputation, while sales delivers the message first-hand to potential customers. She says it’s crucial that identical messaging is happening in both of those scenarios and that Marketing is best equipped to ensure that happens.

But, the insular perspective of a marketer could come up short when it comes to real-life scenarios that sellers face. Additionally, the buyer’s journey is not linear, so there must be a continuous feedback loop that allows for iteration and improvement of resources, training, and Sales Enablement methodology. In Genefa’s words, having Sales Enablement under the Marketing banner “enables marketing and sales to be singing from the same sheet of music.”

However, contrary to what you might think the relationship between Marketing and Sales isn’t always completely harmonious. In her words, there needs to be a “healthy tension” between them so there is a kind of push-back that allows for mutual growth and accountability between the two teams.

How Content Fits Into An Effective Sales Enablement Strategy

One of the clear areas of need that Sales Enablement must meet is that of creating effective tools and resources that can be delivered to team members in all roles within the sales organization. With that goal in mind, Genefa’s Sales Enablement team has developed a robust content repository that enables them to get the right content into the hands of the right team members, and in the timing that matches each stage of the buying journey. They’ve developed:

• Case studies
• Competitive battle cards
• Buyer profiles and personas
• Competitive intel
• Sales flows
• Objective handling resources
• Door openers
• and MORE

This wealth of content enables sellers to reinforce company messaging more effectively, avoid duplication of effort, increase consistency, avoid fragmented customer experiences, and leverage the knowledge and expertise of the individuals on her team who have in-the-trenches sales experience.

Making Contracts Between Sales And Sales Enablement Through A Sales Council

A great example of applying a Sales Enablement Strategy to great effect can be seen in the way Micro Focus rolled out its new sales methodology. In order to get buy-in from everyone company-wide and to facilitate consistency, the Sales Enablement team created a “Sales Council” in collaboration with Sales Leadership. It’s a team made up of individuals from all roles within the Sales organization who serve as a sounding-board for Sales Enablement.

Genefa says this step was vital because it enabled the Sales Enablement team — those responsible for building the methodology into practical tools — to create something relevant and useful for the Sales team, those who consume and use the content.

An additional benefit is that the members of these Sales Councils became vested in the process personally and thus became advocates within their departments for the Sales Enablement strategy behind the new Sales Methodology. Adoption was effective as a result.

How Genefa Measures Micro Focus’ Sales Enablement Strategy

Genefa confesses that she enjoys data and the insights that come from it. But she also realizes that the data may not tell the whole story. There are ways to measure the effectiveness of their Sales Enablement strategy that are not strictly tied to the metrics, but also give them viable insight into the impact of the strategy.

To that end, Genefa pays close attention to what’s happening during the day to day interactions with the sales team. Are Sales professionals reaching out to the Sales Enablement team with questions or for help? If yes, that means the tools being created by Sales Enablement are being used. During sales meetings, are sales reps referring to the tools Sales Enablement has provided pertaining to their selling activities? If so, it’s a great indication that the right tools have been created.

But that’s purely a qualitative analysis, what about the quantitative markers that metrics provide? Genefa looks at the data to discover whether the Sales team is becoming certified in the new methodologies in greater numbers, if there is evidence of greater pipeline productivity, if they are closing more deals or closing them faster, and if they are increasing the value of opportunities. All of these metrics indicate that the tools created by Sales Enablement are being used and are proving to be effective in the sales organization.

Listen to hear more details of Genefa’s Sales Enablement Strategy at one of the largest digital transformation companies in the world - Micro Focus. It’s on this episode of Modern Marketing Engine.

Featured on This Episode

• Genefa Murphy on LinkedIn
• Follow Genefa on Twitter: @GenefaMurphy
• Micro Focus - where Genefa serves as Chief Marketing Officer

Outline of This Episode

• [1:54] Genefa’s role at MicroFocus and how her career path led her to it
• [3:51] The definition of “Sales Enablement” from Genefa’s perspective
• [5:23] Making the case for Sales Enablement being part of Marketing
• [7:18] Threading the pieces together: the MicroFocus approach
• [10:22] Putting together “sales councils” within the company
• [14:27] The ongoing challenge of delivering Sales Enablement to a massive sales team
• [20:10] Measuring success of Sales Enablement efforts
• [22:47] What’s next for the MicroFocus Sales Enablement team?

Resources & People Mentioned

This episode is sponsored by XANT, the enterprise leader in sales engagement. Xant has authored the Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence. Get your copy at www.SalesCadenceGuide.com

• The Challenger Sales Methodology
• The Modern Selling Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr

Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine

• https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/
• https://twitter.com/bernieborges
• https://instagram.com/bernieborges
• https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast

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