It’s common for businesses, both small startups and large enterprises alike, to use email and other social media channels to communicate sales updates and other announcements to their teams.
However, these communication channels simply don’t cut it when it comes to providing productive, useful, and suitable content during all aspects of the selling cycle.
To keep up with customer behavior that’s evolving at break-neck speeds, sales teams need a proper sales enablement strategy to keep them up-to-date with the latest sales processes and techniques.
In this article, we’ll explore what sales enablement software is, what features to look for in these tools, and a few examples of the best sales enablement software available in 2024.
What is sales enablement software?
“An effective sales enablement process provides reps with the right content at the right time to keep buyers interested in what they’re selling” — VODIUM.
Sales enablement software is any software that enables a business to achieve this goal, whether it’s a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform, sales execution technology, or the best third-party overlays for Zoom.
Sales enablement software features to look for
Insights and analytics
“You can’t improve what you don’t measure” — Peter Drucker.
You might invest a lot of time, money, and energy into your sales processes, but do you know exactly how effective your processes are?
Tracking and measuring your marketing initiatives and sales strategies is the best way to identify inefficiencies and improve on them. Tracking Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is an excellent strategy that can allow you to uncover hidden opportunities, unlock value, and drive growth.
A good sales enablement software should be able to pool existing, historical data, couple that with current market trends, and give you detailed insights and analytics. This will give you a comprehensive report on what works, what doesn’t, what requires immediate attention, and where possible tweaks and fine-tuning could be made.
Using this information, you’ll be able to make data-driven business decisions to improve sales initiatives and prospect engagement instead of relying on estimated guesswork.
Ability to add multiple integrations
As businesses become larger, the internal processes involved become increasingly complex. As a business manager, it can be easy to lose sight of the “smaller” processes when managing your sales pipelines.
However, in business, since each process is a cog in the wheel of a much bigger system, a break at one point can cause a cascade of events that can ripple across the entire business. Hence, it’s vital to build a system that can consolidate multiple moving parts into a single workspace.
A good sales enablement software option should be able to easily integrate with other parts of your business. For example, you might want to link it to your:
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems
- Communication channels
- Calendar systems
- Content management
Employees can spend less time sifting through multiple platforms and easily find information that matters from a single location.
Project management capabilities
The adage of “failure to plan is planning to fail” holds true for project management. Without a proper plan, managers may fail to see the potential risks lurking behind the scenes and then not take the necessary steps to mitigate them.
Furthermore, without laying out the expectations and assumptions as part of the planning process, a project is more likely to fall through the cracks—leading to missed details, deadlines, and eventually deliverables.
Top-notch sales enablement software will facilitate project management and will allow managers to break down large, complex, projects into small, achievable, milestones. Projects usually involve many different teams such as leadership for strategic direction, marketing for content creation, and IT for technical implementation.
A sales enablement software with project management capabilities will lift the burden off your shoulders by streamlining your workflow by managing these multiple tiers without you having to oversee them individually.
Cross-platform capability
Mobile device usage has exploded over the past decade thanks to rapid technological advancements, meaning your customers are likely to switch between their computers to their mobile phones and back again.
In today’s cross-platform digital era, it no longer makes sense to just build for one platform. To stay ahead of the competition and reach a wider audience, you’ll have to choose tools that can cater to multiple devices.
Your team will need to write notes, respond to emails, deliver content, ideate sales pitches, and communicate with new prospects remotely. Using traditional, sales engagement platforms will slow your team down. Therefore, when selecting a sales enablement software, choose one that is optimized to work on the go.
The best sales enablement software options
Best overlay: VODIUM
In a post-pandemic world, work-from-home has become the new norm. As workplaces move into the virtual space, managers and employees have had to pick up new skills like presenting in virtual settings.
Although the employment landscape has changed, certain things have largely remained the same, and one of them is maintaining eye contact during communication. According to research, 70-93% of communication is non-verbal. Since virtual environments strip away most, if not all of the physical interactions, eye contact becomes the primary way in which a presenter can have a connection with their audience.
However, presenters often make the mistake of looking at the screen instead of the camera or looking at the video thumbnail when presenting, assuming they’re maintaining eye contact. This comes off as unnatural and can even hinder fostering strong connections with your audience.
This is where a teleprompter comes into play. VODIUM’s teleprompter overlay allows you to read a scripted presentation via its automatic scroll feature. The app has notes beneath your camera so rather than staring at multiple screens, you can deliver your speeches with confidence. It doesn’t just end there—using the transparency feature, you can see the video conference behind the app so you can maintain eye contact while having a list of key points for your speech at your fingertips.
Best CRM: Hubspot
Hubspot is a CRM platform that provides excellent value in the realms of marketing, sales, and customer service teams. If you’re a business looking to improve customer relationship management, then this piece of software is for you.
A place where Hubspot outshines its competitors is the fact that it’s a modular, scalable, solution the platform grows alongside your business. If your business is young and still finding its footing in the marketplace, then Hubspot’s got features are right for you. If you’re an experienced player in the market, then Hubspot’s got advanced features to suit your needs.
You can mix and match solutions as well as payment plans for each module, making it a truly customizable and scalable CRM system designed to bolster growth and propel your business forward. Some of the features of the Starter Growth Suite include:
- Advanced analytics dashboards
- Simple automatic task creations and notifications
- Up to 5,000 monthly marketing emails
- Access to HubSpot’s intuitive mobile app
- Ad retargeting capabilities
- Automatic conversion routing for sales and service teams
Best sales readiness platform: Mindtickle
The success of a company is heavily dependent on the employees it hires. Businesses benefit when they can continuously onboard, train, and upskill their employees to keep up with a fast-paced business environment.
However, research has found that 90% of sales training fails after 120 days. The basic problem? Sales programs create an initial burst of knowledge transfer and skills development but fall off day-over-day, week-over-week, and month-over-month.
Mindtickle has developed a sales readiness program through its software that sets performance goals, educates teams, creates a coaching culture, tracks field performance, and offers personalized sales readiness solutions that improve long-term performance. Features include:
- Sales onboarding
- Product training
- Manager-led coaching
- Account strategy and review
Kickstart your sales enablement strategy with VODIUM
Advancements in technology have changed how we work today. To survive in a competitive, global, market, businesses must equip themselves with the tools necessary to keep up with these new changes.
Compatible with all popular video conferencing software, VODIUM is the perfect sales enablement tool to help you take your presentation skills to new levels. Founded during the COVID-19 pandemic, VODIUM is dedicated to helping professionals become effective communicators in a virtual world.
Get started with the VODIUM teleprompter app with a free trial today!
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