What We Learned at Dreamforce: Sales Enablement Soiree

The Sales Enablement Soiree was one of our favorite events at Dreamforce 2019. Not only did this single-day event contain enough information for an entire week, but it also gave attendees and sponsors alike the opportunity to coverage around the idea of sales enablement to see where it has been, and what it means for the future.

The use of sales enablement strategies and tools has seen a massive amount of growth in the past few years, now more than 79 percent of organizations either have a sales enablement process in place or plan to implement one within the next year.

With this growth, the conversation around sales enablement has now shifted from why you should use it and how to implement it, to how to optimize your current tools and strategy. Ultimately, sales enablement has transformed from a nice to have, to a must-have for business success.

This year, the Sales Enablement Soiree focused on how sales enablement strategies, tools, and processes integrate and align with a company’s existing methods and applications to increase efficiency and ultimately drive revenue.

Speaker topics at this year’s Sales Enablement Soiree included analytics, the customer experience, and assisting in the customer’s decision-making process. This is indicative of how integrated sales enablement is becoming within organizations, and how it spans beyond the role of sales to encompass customer experience.

The soiree started with a keynote about how analytics help both sports teams and businesses win by Paul DePodesta, the man behind “Moneyball.” Principal Analyst Mary Shea from Forrester then spoke on how sales enablement transforms customer engagement into true customer-centricity.

Customer experience has recently become an important factor in the success of sales organizations. No longer are sales processes all about the seller. Now, companies must provide real value to their prospects and demonstrate that they can solve problems and relieve the pain points that they are experiencing. Sales enablement has become a cornerstone in this effort, as it enables reps to deliver compelling customer experiences with the right content, messaging, timing, etc. efficiently and at scale.