A few days ago, I noticed the following discussion in the LinkedIn.com group “Sales Enablement Content“:

“Sales Enablement: People, Processes and/or Technology?

How do you view sales enablement? How is it weighted across the traditional “people, processes and technology” model?”

One of the responses was:

“There are numerous sales enablement “solutions” available, each of which claims to offer some unique value. Ultimately, what I find repeatedly, is that the content for any of these solutions is an afterthought. Buying decisions for sales enablement systems are based on the capabilities the system will deliver, primarily using existing content. But the source and format of that content will continue to require improvements if the full benefit of a sales enablement program is going to be realized.

Ultimately, sales enablement systems are a version of knowledge management tools. The remaining challenge is in how to motivate target users of that knowledge to find it and use it effectively.”

Here is my answer to both the initial question and the response above:

Jeanne Hellman, who wrote a comprehensive case study on implementing a Sales Enablement system and who I worked with on this very task at Nortel Networks, always adds “Content” to “People, Processes and Technology” and then calls it “The Four-Legged Chair Analogy”.

However, the observations above are correct with regards to how Sales Enablement solutions are being sold/bought. What I can say to this is that a good Sales Enablement system will give feedback in real-time regarding which type of content works and which doesn’t (based on many metrics like views, downloads, star ratings, comments, sharing, etc…). In addition, it will also have a dashboard/report for the owner of the Sales Enablement solution to show the gaps / what is missing:

E.g. the…

• offering in the product portfolio,
• sales region / country,
• industry vertical,
• customer pain point,
• sales/buying cycle step,
• content type/format,
• etc…

…that does not have customized or fresh content.

All the quantitative feedback mentioned above together with the qualitative feedback from the social / 2.0 features will tell you where to spend your marketing dollars for content creation and where you can stop producing content, nobody uses.

Yes, we are talking about Knowledge Management tools. Yes, the biggest challenge is to motivate users to use them (instead of emailing each other) and to contribute their own knowledge back into the system (tribal knowledge). However, there are features like customized dashboards, daily newsletters or RSS feeds that show each person based on their interest or assigned lead in the CRM system what might interest them. Yes, you will have to start with existing content. However, making “Content, People, Processes, and Technology” your mantra, will make sure no area is left out and get you closer to realizing the full benefit of a Sales Enablement program.

Best regards,
Paul Krajewski
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The blog post above is a personal statement from Paul Krajewski and does not necessarily represent the point of view of BizSphere AG.