How do you balance sales enablement needs that you KNOW will move the needle (persona training, objection response, pitch deck) vs sales enablement requests that are transactional (e.g. "one-sheet" on a feature or internal policy)

Here’s how we’ve tackled this: first, set the expectation that the role of marketing is one-to-many and the role of sales is one-to-one. This will shield you from requests like “can we get a one-sheet focused on X” because you can then ask/vet if it’s truly a need of “many” or if it’s originating from one client in one sales cycle. If the latter, punt. Next, put a process in place around how requests are submitted and handled. We use Monday.com, and we set up a request form through it that we’ve ...Read More

This feels like the ultimate question for this topic!! Balancing strategic vs. reactional requests coming out of sales is a tough dance. I typically stay away from promising things like a one-sheet or any request that is so specific it will not scale or have a long shelf life. My approach is to try and dig deeper into the source of these types of requests, it is usually reactionary and based on a single customer interaction which is any easy way to shed light on why it is not a good use of produ ...Read More

This is a great question. A sales enablement roadmap is very much like a product roadmap. There are many different inputs into what we prioritize over time, and how that gets decided - and although there will always be a push towards highest impact projects, the reality is those can often be labor and time intensive and therefore there needs to be a balance. Therefore we commit to a certain number of resource intensive projects (ie. 2 per quarter) and balance remaining capacity with faster paced ...Read More

Great question! This is where a tiering structure comes in handy. Despite what some folks might say, not all enablement needs are created equal and neither should their delivery formats and timing. Here is one way to think about it: Tier 1 - Live Training: time sensitive, more-complex content, highest impact, could get value from live Q&A Tier 2 - Lab Course Training: time sensitive, less-complex content, high impact, live Q&A not required Tier 3 - Async Training: not time sensitive, les ...Read More

Great question and one which I've had to tackle quite a few times over the years (and not always successfully might I add!) I think the key here is to get sales on-side by having them actively participate in the process. At one business where I owned sales enablement, we did a yearly survey of the sales teams around what assets they wanted prioritised. As expected the dominant results were around customer stories and case studies/1-sheeters. When we collated the results we went back to sales wit ...Read More

The best way to make the space for balancing larger, longer term strategic projects with reactive, transactional projects is through transparent roadmap planning. Some advice for doing this well would be: Gather inputs from your sales stakeholders as you begin planning. Especially from the leadership level. Make sure you account for that balance in your roadmap. Carve out time for small things you know will arise, but also leave room for strategic projects and trainings. Associate your roadmap i ...Read More

Simple - always say yes to the needle-movers, and only do the one-sheets and other work if you/your team has time. PMMs shouldn't spend a significant amount of time on anything that isn't used frequently or won't move the needle. If you find yourself having to say yes to one-sheets frequently, then create a repeatable template where text and images can be easily swapped out by PMM or even a sales rep, and new one-sheets don't require a designer or copy writer. Depending on the team, Sales reps c ...Read More