How do you prioritize sales enablement needs across different product lines?

Question

Daniel Kuperman · Accepted Answer

You have several products with release dates next to each other and limited resources, so what do you do? Here’s how you can think of this: first, identify the releases with the highest ‘tier’ or ‘priority’ (classification of release tiers vary company by company). The highest priority feature is typically the one with the highest impact in the market and that should get more enablement focus.

Vanessa Thompson · Answer

Prioritization is always tough. Every stakeholder has a different perspective on what they are looking to achieve.

The ultimate goal of sales enablement is to make sure the sales team is equipped to sell and i’d also add they should focus on “selling what is on the truck.” To share a bit more of my mental model about the elements to consider when prioritizing:
1) Where are the biggest areas of opportunity? Are there any specific products or use cases where we are differentiated and we have a clear runway of opportunity? We should prioritize our efforts here.
2) Are there some products that are just ‘easier’ to sell? We should give our sales team the opportunity to get some quick wins in. They run on a commission basis so make them happy by giving them some easy to get opportunities closed out of the gate.
3) Are there emerging product areas, or a market that your company wants to break into and you need to generate energy and excitement around? If yes, then this should also be an element you consider.

Work with your stakeholders to balance all of these elements and come up with a weighting about where you want to direct your sales team. What falls out of this is a prioritized list of product areas to focus your energy around.

Mary Margaret · Answer

Really good question and there are many ways to address this. The best way in my opinion is to zoom out and look at it through the lens of the company's main goals (usually revenue goals). Are those areas being served well?

Also, where are there the biggest knowledge gaps? You have to be careful on this one though since while there may be a knowledge gap in one space if reps are not going to prioritize that space, it will likely be wasted effort. So alignment with the business goals and sales strategy/level of rep mindshare you will get is important.

Rajendran Nair · Answer

I am not sure I understand this question but let me try. It starts with the corporate objective - what is the revenue goal for each product. Sales Enablement will need to focus on the product by priority.

You also need to consider the lifestage of the product. For example, a new product may need additional focus as you evangelize it with the sales team.

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