How Enablement Leaders Should Prepare for the Future

Revenue Enablement — State of the Union

“Enablement in its truest form is a change agent. It instills and reinforces behaviors that will deliver the organization’s and leadership team’s goals.” - Gartner

The primary goal of revenue enablement is to boost the productivity of revenue teams, whether it’s sales, customer success, or account management. This involves developing capability building protocols (onboarding, training, coaching), maintaining relevant and personalized content and collateral, and aligning revenue teams to create a delightful buyer journey. Essentially, enablement teams are tasked with removing friction and facilitating deal flow—both in volume and quality. According to many Chief Revenue Officers we’ve spoken to, the effectiveness of revenue enablement teams is a pivotal lever in driving sales team success in 2024.

After all, it’s just closing more deals, faster, and with higher quality - easy, right?

Yet, as revenue enablement has evolved, it has focused increasingly on the tools used, buyer experience, metrics, data, and ultimately, the revenue growth of the organization. This complexity, both technical and strategic, has led to enablement leaders facing significant challenges over the years.

Only 38% of enablement leaders report that their annual planning process aligns with the sales strategy, highlighting a disconnect that could derail achieving company-wide goals.

What Enablement Leaders are Saying

I recently spoke with Devon Moon, Sr. Enablement Manager at Paro, who shared insights into the current landscape:

Identifying Pain Points in Sales Enablement

As Devon mentioned, the overwhelming variety of fragmented tools and platforms is a major challenge. Furthermore, the sales training process often lacks consistency, timeliness, and personalization. Traditional one-size-fits-all training approaches fail to meet the diverse needs of individual sales reps, which significantly impacts learning effectiveness.

To emphasize the importance of a unified approach, Vijay Gopal, Global Offering Leader from Lenovo stated:

Further supporting this, Gartner’s research indicates that 82% of sales leaders believe that sales enablement content and/or delivery must change within the next five years to meet revenue goals.

So, the question becomes, “How?” How do we better equip the enablement leaders to better serve the revenue teams of tomorrow? 

Future Outlook: The Expanding Role of AI in Sales Enablement

Aaron Clark, Revenue Enablement Manager at Aidoc summarizes this perfectly,

The future of sales enablement is all about getting smarter and more efficient, fast. This is crucial in order to meet the rapidly changing needs of the revenue organization. For companies who invest in AI-driven revenue enablement, they are better positioned to address the demands of an ever evolving, complex and competitive sales environment.  

AI ensures that every piece of training material and every customer interaction is consistently aligned with your brand’s core values. This means no matter who your customers talk to, they get the same level of quality and service.

AI brings personalization to a new level. It analyzes individual performance data to tailor coaching and learning, making sure every team member receives support that's exactly right for their unique needs and skills. This isn't just about making training better; it's about making your team more competent and confident, one personalized insight at a time.

Finally, AI is changing the game by enabling sales coaching at a scale we've never seen before. Imagine being able to provide detailed, personalized coaching to hundreds of team members simultaneously. AI tools are making this possible, ensuring that no one is left behind as your business grows and the market evolves.

Letter AI is a first-of-its-kind unified revenue enablement platform at the forefront of this AI transformation. We offer more than tools - we partner with our customers to build a more effective, efficient, and empowered salesforce. As AI continues to evolve, the potential to enhance sales enablement strategies becomes limitless, promising a smarter, more adaptive future for revenue teams everywhere.