Sales Enablement for Sales Teams. With Robert Wahbe [Episode 576]

Robert Wahbe, Co-Founder and CEO at Highspot, joins me on this episode.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Robert says the single biggest challenge facing sales reps today is cutting through noise, differentiating their product, and highlighting what is important to the customer. Sales leaders must enable teams with knowledge and assets. Buyer research shows they trust the salesperson more than the vendor. Robert says the rep should be on a texting basis with the customer. It takes three levels of winning make a deal: Brand, hearts and minds, and economic value.

It is challenging to know the value of sales data. Robert trusts conversion and win rates contrasted with similar competitors. If you are behind, learn best practices. Deliver customer value connected to the product. Be flexible.

Robert tells the Highspot origins. He noticed marketers had no idea what was driving deals. He saw content was published but not findable. Robert and his partners connected the cloud, user interface, mobile, and AI to content resources.

Highspot was a Sales Enablement Platform before there was a category for it. They help across the lifecycle of content assets, making recommendations, customization, combinations of assets to send, and analytics after the fact.

Robert comments on sales research about quota attainment and conversion rates. Companies with sales enablement and competent training are more effective. He lists questions you should be asking before buying technology.

Hire a sales enablement person before buying the system. Robert points to Salesforce of an example of a tool that does not solve your problems, but supports you in solving your problems — and it only helps if Reps adopt it.

Andy is looking for tools that help the customer make a decision quicker. Robert talks about references, demos, points of contact, and content to helps the customer make decisions better. Reps need access to pertinent, valuable content.

Andy cites Peter Ostrow at Aberdeen that sales teams that properly enabled sellers were 52% better at understanding what content to use, when, and with whom. The technology supports finding this content to save time.

Top performers without a sales enablement have to spend hours finding this data, and middle performers without sales enablement don’t bother to spend the time, so the prospect is underserved. The top tier struggle to find content.

Robert projects that in 10 years the $50K sale in a complex environment will still require human reps. Customers are buying a relationship with the company and the vision of where they are going. That takes a human connection.

Salespeople need to become ‘more human,’ in connecting with the prospect. There are 5,000 apps for sales stacks. Robert sees some app consolidation in the future. Customers want one integrated solution as much as possible.