Make sales enablement a top priority for improved results.
As we move into the new year, sales enablement is a core priority for any business. Whether you manufacture items, provide a service or sell goods, it’s incumbent on you to use every means available to enable the best possible sales results.
Yet sales have changed and continue to change. As Gartner states, 23% of CSOs plan to shift field sales to virtual sales because of the pandemic. The nature of the sales function is transforming, underlining the role of sales digitalisation. After all, if sales has become more virtual, then the technology that companies use matters like never before. Optimising the right metrics can alter the structures, operations and methodologies your sales force uses to drive results.
Let’s consider the sales enablement metrics that will matter most in 2023:
Time to onboarding completion
The Great Resignation is far from over. According to a McKinsey survey, nearly 40% of employees are considering leaving their jobs in the next three to six months – an unchanged figure compared to 2021. With these statistics in mind, workforce retention is still a problem that organisations must solve.
We recommend that you measure how long it takes your sales team to complete the onboarding process in 2023. Regardless of your industry, it's helpful to know how long your workforce takes to reach the active sales lifecycle. Sales representatives who complete onboarding the fastest are likely to be more productive once they start closing sales.
This metric is also a good indicator of how much you should or shouldn’t worry about the Great Resignation. And if people are completing onboarding faster, it’s a positive dynamic for retention.
Content opens
According to Gartner's sales enablement research, customers are already 57% of the way to making a purchase before they engage with you.
Content marketing, even just including brochures or guides in sales outreach, can assist prospects in their buying decisions. In a world where sales and marketing are increasingly intertwined, and silos are breaking down, sales operations via content marketing will only become more important.
Ensure you track content open rates in 2023. Sales should use the content developed by marketing, but if it isn't opened, it isn't useful. Content opens are a good indicator of how engaged customers are in the buyer’s journey and how well your marketing content is performing. Both marketing and sales operations can be fine-tuned by monitoring this sales enablement metric.
Time to first sale
Distraction among staff is at an all-time high. As people struggle to recover from the pandemic, deal with economic turmoil, and navigate political uncertainty, they can't focus on needlessly complex tasks.
Your sales enablement technology should simplify sales activities, not complicate them. It might be worth considering whether your technology is truly easy to use if the average time to first sale increases over time. As the sales force becomes increasingly digital, this is a crucial metric to monitor.
Prospect-to-customer conversion rate
There is a great deal of importance on this one for 2023, when experts forecast a recession and falling stock market numbers. There are many ways in which this is a "classic" sales enablement metric, but it is vital that you track it in a recession-prone year. If you want to figure out what is going on with this ratio and account for your results, ensure your sales enablement technology is equipped with robust data analytics.
Since the pandemic, tracking prospect-to-customer conversions has become more important than ever. Today's businesses are cutting back and competing for more customer attention. In addition, consider comparing your conversion rates with those of your competitors.
These are just a few of the many metrics that businesses should be paying attention to when it comes to sales enablement in 2023. By tracking these metrics, businesses will better understand how their sales teams are performing and where they need to make improvements to drive better results. To support you in this growing sales landscape, we’ve created a complete guide that outlines the various processes and key strategies for prospecting. Download it below.
