Aleksandra Mitroshkina

To second Morgan (Molnar) Lehmann, I find Sales Confidence/Enablement surveys essential for measuring whether Sales are properly enabled and where the gaps are in the sales process that you can close with enablement. While running a survey may seem easy, it requires several crucial activities beyond downloading a template. These include collecting responses, creating insights, presenting them to stakeholders, devising an action plan based on findings, and implementing it. Here is my take on the process of measuring Sales Confidence / Enablement: Step 1 — Define Your Survey Goals * Instead of jumping straight to the survey template, I recommend defining your goals and expected outcomes of the survey. The goals will vary based on whether your organization has conducted similar surveys before. You may be the first to run the survey at your current company or already have benchmark data from past surveys. Step 2 — Create the Sales Confidence Survey * There are multiple Sales Confidence Survey templates available online. However, most of them are focused on a particular aspect of Sales Enablement, not approaching this holistically. When I was working on my first survey, I had to mix and match all the surveys out there to make the survey that assesses all the aspects of Sales Enablement. You can access my holistic template in Google Forms. Step 3 — Launch The Survey And Get Answers * Once you’ve built the survey, it is time to get the answers from your front-facing teams. It is a best practice to run a sales confidence survey at the beginning of the new sales cycle, as running it any other time may conflict with the teams’ goals to close the quarter, and they may give your survey less attention than it deserves. This part of the process may be the most challenging. In the complete guide via the link below, I share the list of vetted and validated strategies that can help get a 95% fill rate for this survey. Step 4 — Follow up with the attendees to get deeper insights * After receiving all the answers from respondents of your Sales Confidence Survey, I recommend scheduling a 40-minute call with different personas in your sales department. The reason for this step is that different sales “personas” have different needs, and it is not always possible to capture them via the survey. In the complete guide via the link below, I share the questions you can ask during these follow-up calls. Step 5 — Write a survey report * Now, you need to compile a survey report based on the data you’ve collected in the previous steps. I like to keep a Sales Confidence Survey report as short and actionable as possible. The report can easily become your Sales Enablement strategy for the next enablement cycle. The report is very easy to put together, as it consists of three parts: * Executive Summary - The executive summary should include the goal of your survey, the key takeaway that should preferably be aligned with your company goals, and the action plan outlined based on the survey results and your follow-up calls with the team. * Survey results in detail * Overview of the team’s experience — department, team’s experience, prior industry knowledge, and team’s confidence level in different sales areas. * Sales Collateral — the answers to the four benchmark questions and insights from the follow-up calls. * Products and Services — showcase the insights regarding the confidence in pitching products or services that your company provides. * Competitive Intelligence — assess the team’s confidence to beat the competition. * Action Plan — in this section, you will need to convert the results from above to your action plan. Step 6 — Start acting on the plan * In the previous step, the Action Plan section, you have identified the next steps in your Sales Enablement strategy. Now, you need to start working on a detailed plan, organize the project timeline, and start implementing new initiatives. Here is my extensive guide on measuring sales confidence: https://medium.com/@sashajjang/an-ultimate-guide-to-sales-confidence-survey-73a941ceb1f4

I'd start with an initial Sales Confidence survey to see how confident your current team is with selling whatever you are selling. The survey will provide you with the necessary insights to draft your first Sales Enablement strategy. Ultimately, the Sales Confidence Survey is an outlet for the Sales team to share their struggles and challenges with you, and for you - to act on these insights strategically. When I joined my current company a few years ago, sales enablement was something referred to as "creating beautiful presentations" and "producing datasheets". But Sales Enablement is much more than that. When I first measured the confidence of the team to pitch and sell our products, I identified the gap in technical knowledge as a whole and set out to solve this with the educational program. The lack of communication about current and upcoming product changes was another area to amplify, and my team and I launched several projects like Sales Newsletter and Monthly calls for Sales to keep them informed and therefore confident, enabled, and prepared for conversations with the prospects. I started doing Sales Confidence surveys a few years ago and found this to be a valuable resource for crafting the Sales Enablement strategy. To this day, I continue running this survey on a regular basis. Here is my tried and tested, simple process for measuring Sales Confidence: * Step 1 — Define Your Survey Goals * Step 2 — Create the Sales Confidence Survey * Step 3 — Launch The Survey And Get Answers * Step 4— Follow up with the attendees to get deeper insights * Step 5— Write a survey report * Step 6— Start acting on the plan You can find the explanation, templates, and pro tips for each of these steps in my Ultimate Guide to Sales Confidence Survey on Medium: https://medium.com/@sashajjang/an-ultimate-guide-to-sales-confidence-survey-73a941ceb1f4