Enablement Leaders: Don't confuse consumption for competence.
Watching onboarding videos, attending training sessions, and acing quizzes don't equate to better sales outcomes.
I met with a sales leadership team a few weeks ago that's really struggling with pipeline.
They have hundreds of reps. Very experienced leaders. And decent-sized enablement team.
But their reps didn't know how to make pipegen tactical.
When we dug into their enablement approach, they were using an outdated model costing them millions in pipeline.
⛔️ The old way: Consumption-based enablement model
→ Certificates, surveys, quizzes, etc. to measure sales skills
→ Enablement leads (with little sales experience) training sessions
→ Enablement efforts 100% focused on reps
✅ The new way: A competency-based model
→ Movement in sales outcomes to measure sales skills
Enablement should not be graded on how much content they have. Or how the robustness of the playbooks.
They should be measured based on the competency of reps & leaders.
And that's best measured through sales outcomes, both leading and lagging.
Prioritizing outbound pipegen right now? You should measure improvements in activity, response rates, meetings booked, etc.
If those areas aren't moving, your enablement efforts aren't working.
→ Enablement facilitates sessions spotlighting reps & leaders
I'm seeing more of a trend in this direction. Enablement needs to act as the director to get the most out of the talent (reps & sales leaders).
Example: Enablement shouldn't lead a session on cold calling if the person leading doesn't make cold calls.
They should *facilitate* a session featuring the best cold callers in the org. They should organize what the best reps do into playbooks, talk tracks, etc.
→ Enablement focuses on reps & leaders
Training is only as good as the leadership's ability to reinforce it. For everything that's taught to a rep, an equal amount of time should be dedicated to helping leaders reinforce & coach around it.
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Many enablement teams are making this shift. But the majority I see across companies big and small have not.
And the reps don't love enablement as a result (even though they work their *sses off).
The best enablement leaders I work with are great facilitators.