Best Sales Enablement Software

Onboarding and training sales reps are necessary for a growing business. Sales enablement software is key to helping sales reps ramp up faster and win more deals.

With the right sales enablement platform, you can train your sales team to leverage trusted information sources such as user reviews, as B2B buyers have 25% more trust in online reviews than sales reps.

In this guide, we cover what you need to know as a buyer of sales enablement software – what it is, its users, the benefits, etc. and also discuss some software similar to sales enablement tools.

What is Sales Enablement Software?

Sales enablement software is all about helping sellers sell more by giving them the tools, skills, and information they need to perform. This type of software helps organize and distribute sales-related content like case studies, brochures, presentations, etc., so your sales team can access this information. The team can then ensure they send accurate, up-to-date information to the prospects.

The software also includes features to help train new salespeople by helping them get up to speed with the company’s product, sales funnels, and other processes.

What’s more, sales enablement software comes with analytics tools that enable founders to track the effectiveness of their sales strategy. This helps them understand what works best for engaging prospects and closing deals. 

What Are the Best Sales Enablement Software Practices?

The top sales enablement platforms must be able to do everything that helps your sales team succeed. Here’s a list of the best sales enablement tools practices.

1. Educate Sellers

   A top sales enablement tool must provide continuous training and development opportunities to ensure the sales representatives have up-to-date knowledge about the product or service. 

   The goal is to keep your sales team informed and skilled in addressing customer needs, overcoming obstacles, and increasing sales.

2. Align Sales and Marketing

   Aligning your marketing and sales teams will aid you in increasing customer engagement. Any software you choose should allow the sales and marketing team to work towards a common goal and share insights, strategies, and resources. 

   When both these teams work to achieve the same results, the messaging and content you send to your potential customers are consistent. This leads to a better customer experience.

3. Establish Clear Objectives

   One of the biggest pitfalls of sales enablement is doing “random acts of enablement” without measuring the results. Therefore, it’s critical that sales enablers establish clear objectives with measurable results to know if and how sales enablement software is helping improve sales performance.

   The objectives include sales targets, customer retention rates, or successfully introducing new products to prospects. 

   Pro tip: Regularly review and adjust objectives to keep them relevant and challenging.

4. Identify Sales Reps Paint Points

   Any sales enablement solution you sign up for should assist you in understanding the challenges and obstacles that sales representatives face in their roles. 

   The platform must collect feedback from sales reps and analyze sales performance data so that you and your business can identify the obstacles. 

   Lastly, the software should help you take steps to address and solve customer pain points.

Who Are the Users of Sales Enablement Software?

Sales and marketing teams primarily use sales enablement software. These teams often have to work in tandem to achieve organizational goals, and that’s what sales enablement software is built for.

1. Sales Teams

   Sales teams leverage the software to access the latest business materials like presentations, product documentation, case studies, etc. Referring to these documents helps them during client conversations.

2. Channel Partners

   Using a sales enablement platform allows channel partners to get the same latest information and training that your own sales team has. This ensures consistency in message and approach across different channels. Consistency is key to maintaining brand integrity and effectiveness in your sales strategy.

3. Customer Success Teams

   Customer success teams can use the software to understand the customer journey better and deliver a seamless post-sales experience. If the customer success team knows customer needs and preferences, they can provide personalized customer support.

4. Marketing Teams

   Marketing teams often create content like brochures, presentations, articles, case studies, etc. Sales enablement software provides a channel for marketers to share their content relevant to sales in a place where it can be easily managed and accessed.

Where can Sales Enablement Software be Used?

No matter what sector your business is in, you must use sales enablement software to boost sales and educate your sales reps. But there are some industries where this software becomes a driver for success.

B2B Sales

B2B sales teams often require sales enablement software because of the industry’s long and complex sales cycle. From lead generation to qualification to product demonstration, it can take months even to get a lead interested in your product.

During this process, sales enablement software can help you manage:

• Detailed customer profiles
• Track communication
• Maintain a repository of tailored content

This enables the sales team to understand customer behavior better, allowing them to customize their approach for each client.

E-commerce

E-commerce owners can use the platform to understand customer trends and manage vast product catalogs. Apart from this, the software also helps train sales and support staff. The top sales enablement software solutions also enable cross-team communication so everyone is aligned with the latest promotions, pricing changes, and inventory levels.

Pharmaceutical Sales

It’s no secret that pharmaceutical sales require strict adherence to regulatory standards. Knowing these regulatory standards for your sales team for every medicine you manufacture is mandatory.

Hospitality and Travel Sales

Sales enablement software can act as a repository for detailed information on various travel destinations, hotel amenities, tour packages, and special offers. Sales reps can access this information quickly to provide accurate and comprehensive details to potential customers, enhancing the sales conversation.

What Are the Benefits of the Best Sales Enablement Software?

The benefits of sales enablement software extend far beyond basic functionalities, offering significant revenue growth opportunities, improving team efficiency, and enhancing market presence. The platform helps you convert every lead into a potential customer success story.

1. Improved Sales Productivity

   With sales enablement software by your side, your sales team doesn’t have to search for updated product details, tools, or customer data. They’ll have the information they need to be more productive sellers and be trained to perform at a higher level.

2. Effective Sales Analytics

   The analytics functionality offers insights into sales performance, customer engagement, content effectiveness, and other crucial KPIs. 

   These KPIs can benefit your sales team, as they can analyze the reports, and you can then double down on the strategies that work best when talking to customers.

3. Lead Scoring and Prioritization

   The software lets sales representatives focus their efforts where they will most likely pay off. Sales enablement solutions let you analyze lead data and measure KPIs like engagement levels, purchase history, demographics, etc.

4. Revenue Growth

   Sales enablement has a direct impact on revenue growth. How? By improving overall sales productivity, sales enablement software helps the sales team close deals faster, thus increasing the number of customers your team brings in.

5. Efficient Training and Onboarding

   When your company is in the growth phase, onboarding new sales reps is one of the first things you must do.

   Let’s face it: it’s easy to cut corners on onboarding and training sales reps.

   But with the right sales enablement training software, you can store and access all the training materials, product information, and sales best practices in one place. 

   With all this information, you can train your sales reps efficiently and effectively after onboarding.

6. Consistent Messaging

   Consistent messaging across the sales and marketing teams is crucial for brand integrity, and sales enablement software plays a vital role in achieving this. 

   It ensures that your sales and marketing materials are aligned and up-to-date, providing a unified message to prospects and customers. 

   This consistency builds trust and credibility in the market, enhancing your business’s reputation and contributing to a stronger, more coherent brand presence.

What are the Features of the Best Sales Enablement Software?

The best sales enablement platforms come equipped with features to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of a sales process.

1. Content Management

   The content management features allow for centralized storage, organization, and management of all the sales-related material your company produces. It could have content like pitch decks, presentations, case studies, and recorded customer interviews.

   The software should not just store this information but also ensure it’s available to your sales team quickly and easily, eliminating the need to shift through disorganized files or outdated documents.

2. Content Personalization

   Content personalization helps sales reps find the most relevant content to a prospect’s needs and tailor it to their personal needs. When you can personalize each conversation depending on needs, you connect with your customers better, leading to higher engagement rates.

   This tailored approach is especially effective in complex B2B sales, where solutions must often closely align with a prospect’s business needs.

   Content personalization also helps in building long-term relationships. By giving solutions to the exact pain point, you can build trust and credibility with your customers.

3. Content Usage Analytics

   Content usage analytics provides insights into which sales materials (like brochures, presentations, case studies, blogs, etc.) are most frequently used and which are the most effective in closing deals. 

   This understanding allows you to identify what content resonates best with the target audience and tailor future content creation accordingly.

4. Workflow Automation

   Workflow automation helps reps and enables reduce their time spent on admin tasks like data entry, lead assignment, and follow-up messages. By automating these processes, sales reps can spend more time on high-value activities like engaging with clients and closing deals, significantly boosting overall productivity.

   Automation ensures that all sales activities follow a consistent process. This consistency is key in maintaining a standardized approach to sales, which is vital for enterprises and businesses with multiple sales channels.

5. Sales Communication

   The sales communication features in software help enhance sales team communication within and with other teams.

   An in-built communication tool enables sales reps to share insights and feedback with their team members and your business’s marketing team.

   For example, a salesperson can quickly inform the team about a successful sales tactic or a new customer requirement. This rapid exchange of information can lead to more agile and informed decisions.

6. Advanced Search

Modern problems call for modern solutions. Ensure that your sales enablement software has advanced features like:

• AI-powered insights and recommendations: The tool must analyze sales data with AI and provide actionable insights. 
• Customizable dashboard and reporting: Must offer real-time insights into sales activities, content performance, and team productivity.
• Integration capabilities: Should be able to integrate with other key business systems, like CRMs, marketing automation software, customer data platforms, and more.
• AI content generation and personalization: The modern sales enablement software must be able to produce dynamic content and help you personalize existing content based on customer behavior.

How to Select the Right Sales Enablement Platform?

The right sales enablement tool will be easy to use and offer integrations to all the platforms you use in your sales process. Apart from these, some more factors go into selecting the right solution.

1. Ease of Use

   Favor the sales enablement software with intuitive and user-friendly interfaces. Ensure that your sales team can navigate the software with ease without much training.

   Remember – sometimes less is more.

   The software you choose might have multiple features, but your team can struggle to navigate the platform, leading to confusion and time wastage.

   So choose the platform with just the right number of features and, more importantly, an easily navigable tool.

2. Assess Your Needs

   Understand your sales team’s key requirements with a sales enablement solution. Maybe your team requires software for content management and analytics but doesn’t require it to save onboarding material. So, choose the tool that does just this. 

   Also, consider whether the solution can scale with your business or risk needing to “rip and replace” at a latter date. As your team grows, the sales enablement software should be fine, accommodating more users and increasing data without any performance issues.

3. Compare Available Products

   Different sales enablement platforms offer various features and benefits. By researching, you can compare these features side-by-side to determine which software provides the functionality most relevant to your sales process.

   Check how current users use and review the tool. Do they recommend buying it? Do they not?

4. Integrations

   Ensure your chosen tool seamlessly integrates with your existing tech stack, like CRM, marketing automation tools, and email platforms. It’s a plus if the software offers access to API for custom integrations, which is important for tailoring the system for your specific needs.

5. Cost and Budget

   Pricing models for sales enablement software can vary greatly. Shop around to find the one that meets your needs while providing the best value for your budget.

   This includes not only reviewing the base price but also checking any additional costs for extra features, users, or integrations.

   Moreover, evaluate the potential return on investment. To justify buying sales enablement software, your sales team must be able to either close more deals or save time.

What Are the Potential Issues with Sales Enablement Tools?

Not every sales enablement software out there is perfect. Choosing the wrong one can get you into the following issues.

1. Training and Onboarding

   If your sales enablement software is complex, onboarding your sales reps efficiently can be challenging. The reps might have a hard time navigating the tool, leading to a decreased adoption rate.

   If your sales reps aren’t adequately trained for the new software, it can hinder their ability to utilize the tool to the fullest.

   To overcome such issues, choosing a sales enablement software that’s intuitive and easy to use and onboarding and training your sales team comprehensively is essential.

2. Content Ownership

   If the tool you choose isn’t good at content management, sales reps might always be confused about who is responsible for creating, updating, and maintaining sales content within the software. 

   Without clear ownership, the content quality suffers. This leads to the sales team using materials that aren’t up to the company’s standards or misaligned with the brand’s messaging.

   Lastly, determining who has access to what content can be an issue. Without proper controls, sensitive or proprietary information might be accessible to unauthorized users.

3. Misalignment Between Departments

There are multiple reasons why sales enablement software can cause misalignment between departments:

• Inadequate communication features: The software doesn’t facilitate communication between departments, contributing to a lack of coordination. Sales enablement needs to bridge the divide between Marketing, Partnerships, and Sales, so clear communication across departments is essential.
• Data visibility and analysis issues: The platform doesn't provide adequate visibility or access to data across departments, leading to information silos.
• Lack of integration: This might lead to disjoint workflows, making it difficult for the departments to work together.
• Uncoordinated content strategy and management: If the software doesn’t help you build a unified content strategy, your marketing and sales team can’t work in tandem. The marketing team will create content without understanding your sales team's needs.

Latest Market Trends in Sales Enablement Software

Sales enablement software is a rapidly growing market, with a projected CAGR of 16.17% from 2024 to 2028. This growth is being driven by a number of factors, including the increasing complexity of the sales cycle, the need for more effective sales training, and the rise of new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).

1. AI-Powered Sales Coaching and Training

   Sales enablement software companies are now integrating AI and ML into their software to develop more personalized and effective sales coaching and training programs.

   AI-powered coaches can look at sales numbers, find out where each salesperson can get better, and then give them the right training to improve in those areas.

   For example, Gong uses AI to analyze sales calls and provide performance feedback to salespeople. This use of AI helps sales enablers and managers give their reps personalized recommendations based on what they say on calls.

2. Adaptive Content and Messaging

   Sales management solutions now use AI to deliver content and messaging that is tailored to the specific needs and interests of each customer. This can help to improve customer engagement and conversion rates. 

   Seismic, for example, uses AI to create personalized sales presentations for each customer. The software analyzes the customer's industry, company size, and buying stage to create a presentation that is relevant to their needs.

3. Sales Performance Management (SPM) Integration

   Sales enablement software is now being integrated with sales performance management systems to provide a holistic view of sales performance. This can help sales managers identify and address trends that impact sales performance.

4. Mobile-First Sales Enablement

   Salespeople are increasingly using mobile devices to work, so there is a growing demand for mobile-first sales enablement platforms. These platforms give sales reps the information and tools they need to sell well, even when they are on the move.

What are the Related Software to Sales Enablement Software?

Here are the four software that go in tandem with sales enablement software:

1. Sales Engagement Software

   This software focuses on optimizing conversations with potential customers. It helps the sales team manage, track, and automate customer interactions for all the channels. Sales engagement software helps improve the sales process by engaging more prospects in less time.

2. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software

   CRMs let you manage customer data and interactions by storing customer information, tracking sales interactions, and automating sales processes. CRM software aims to build long-term customer relationships and assist in sales growth.

3. Marketing Automation Software

   Marketing automation software is to Marketers what sales engagement software is to sellers: a better way to engage prospects. Its core function is to automate email marketing, but it can also be used to store contacts,  score leads, and alert sales when a prospect engages with marketing content. Most companies will first invest in a CRM system and then add on and integrate a marketing automation platform.

4. Business Intelligence (BI) Software

   BI tools are used to combine business data from different sources, analyze it, and visually display it for sales and other departments to make data-driven decisions. The data can provide insight into how the business and certain teams within are performing, as well as forecast how they’ll look ahead. BI software can complement sales enablement software by showing the sales team the data and trends on their performance results.

What is the Cost of the Sales Enablement Software?

Company size, number of users, and features are the major factors that go into the cost of sales enablement software. You can expect to pay anywhere from $8 to $200 per month. The cost keeps increasing depending on the number of users you onboard. Another cost associated with sales enablement software is implementation and training. You can expect to pay ~$5,000-20,000 for it.

Conclusion

Let’s face it; if you want your sales team to succeed and hit the goals you aim for, investing in sales enablement software is a must. Be it B2B, e-commerce, or the pharmaceutical industry, every company needs sales.

Sales enablement software doesn’t just help increase sales, but it also helps train and onboard sales reps, provide sales analytics, automate workflows, and much more.

But remember, when selecting software, try to choose the one that’s easy to use, has all the features you need, and integrates seamlessly with third-party tools.