How to Master Customer-Centric Sales Enablement Strategies for B2B Revenue Growth

Integrating customer-centric approaches with sales enablement strategies is critical to achieving sustainable business growth and customer retention, as discussed in this episode of “Predictable B2B Success.” In a conversation with Vinay Koshy, guests Samantha Bergin and Clayton Blueher delve into the transformative potential of harmonizing sales and marketing efforts to prioritize customer needs.

Samantha highlights how equipping sales teams with tailored materials can guide effective conversations at each sales cycle stage, while Clayton underscores the power of continuous collaboration across teams. They reveal how listening to internal and external feedback can refine strategies and enhance overall customer experiences. From piloting Account-Based Marketing (ABM) to leveraging advanced tools like Gong, this episode offers actionable insights into building a truly customer-centric sales model.

Ready to elevate your sales enablement strategies? Dive into the details that could reshape your approach to driving customer acquisition and retention.

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About Samantha Bergin

Samantha Bergin moved from the East Coast to Seattle to pursue a career in technology. She began her professional journey at VIZIO Corporation, focusing on drawing and diagramming software as a product manager. Samantha then transitioned to Microsoft, where she continued as a product manager, working on productivity products and collaborating with Value-Added Resellers. She thoroughly enjoyed her experience at Microsoft before making another significant career move to Amazon. At Amazon, Samantha played a pivotal role as a product manager during the company’s expansion of its platform to include third-party sellers.

About Clayton Blueher

Clayton Blueher is a seasoned professional in the B2B software space, with his career closely mirroring the evolution of the expense management industry. Clayton began his journey at Concur, an experience that equipped him with extensive knowledge and insight. He later brought his expertise to SAP. For the past five and a half years, Clayton has been a key player at Center, contributing significantly from the inception of their go-to-market strategy. His tenure at Center has provided him with deep industry insights and a thorough understanding of the market dynamics.

Driving B2B Revenue Growth: Integrating Customer-Centric Approaches with Sales Enablement Strategies

Sales enablement has become critical for B2B organizations looking to drive revenue growth in today’s competitive landscape. By empowering sales teams with the right tools, content, and strategies, companies can better engage prospects, shorten sales cycles, and ultimately close more deals. However, to truly maximize the impact of sales enablement, organizations must adopt a customer-centric approach that prioritizes the needs and preferences of their target audience.

The Evolution of Sales Enablement

Sales enablement has come a long way from its early days as a basic training and content management function. Today, it encompasses various activities and technologies designed to support sales teams throughout the customer journey. According to a study by the Aberdeen Group, best-in-class companies that treat sales enablement strategically achieve a 7.5% year-over-year increase in revenue, compared to only a 3.4% increase for all other companies.

The rise of digital technologies and changing buyer behaviors have further accelerated the importance of sales enablement. As Samantha Bergin, CMO at Center, notes:

“The way we think about it or the way we sometimes talk about it is that it’s enterprise level software designed for the mid market. Right? So, really, our sweet spot is that mid market space, a 100 to a 1000 employees. That’s really who we’re serving and who we’re designing for today.”

This shift towards more sophisticated, technology-driven sales enablement strategies has created new opportunities for B2B organizations to differentiate themselves and drive growth.

The Customer-Centric Approach to Sales Enablement

At its core, a customer-centric sales enablement strategy focuses on understanding and addressing target customers’ unique needs, pain points, and preferences. This approach requires a deep understanding of the buyer’s journey and the ability to provide relevant, personalized content and support at each process stage.

Understanding the Buyer’s Journey

Organizations must first map out the typical buyer’s journey for their target audience to develop an effective customer-centric sales enablement strategy. This includes identifying key touchpoints, decision-makers, and potential obstacles. By clearly understanding how customers research, evaluate, and ultimately make purchasing decisions, sales teams can better align their efforts and resources.

Clayton Blueher, Business Development and Sales Leader at Center emphasizes the importance of this approach:

“I would say personal area of strength specific to center is that I really deeply understand the problem set that our clients face. And that is because in the very early days when I joined, we actually didn’t have a generally available product at that time. And so a lot of my role was actually spent on helping find product market fit, which for anybody who has gone through that, the right way to do it, in my opinion, and I think what we did correctly, was actually sit down with our clients, shadow their processes, see the challenges as challenges that they were going through, and then being able to take that back to the product and have the product innovate and deliver on a new way to ultimately solve the challenges that we saw in the market.”

Personalizing Content and Messaging

Once the buyer’s journey is mapped out, organizations can develop targeted content and messaging that addresses specific pain points and challenges at each stage. This may include:

1. Educational blog posts and whitepapers for the awareness stage
2. Product comparison guides and case studies for the consideration stage
3. ROI calculators and personalized demos for the decision stage

By tailoring content to target customers’ specific needs and preferences, sales teams can more effectively engage prospects and move them through the sales funnel.

Leveraging Technology for Personalization

Advanced sales enablement technologies, such as AI-powered content recommendation engines and predictive analytics tools, can help sales teams deliver highly personalized experiences at scale. These technologies analyze customer data, behavior patterns, and engagement history to suggest the most relevant content and messaging for each prospect.

As Samantha Bergin notes:

“We did some research earlier this year where we talked to a bunch of prospects that actually didn’t choose Centr right away. And we talked to them not because we wanted to know why they didn’t use Centr. We talked to them because we wanted to know why they took the conversation with Centr. Like, what was the trigger within their business that made them think they needed a new expense management solution?”

This type of data-driven personalization approach can significantly improve sales enablement efforts’ effectiveness and drive better outcomes.

Key Components of a Customer-Centric Sales Enablement Strategy

To successfully implement a customer-centric sales enablement strategy, organizations should focus on the following key components:

1. Sales and Marketing Alignment

Effective sales enablement requires close collaboration between sales and marketing teams. By aligning these two functions, organizations can ensure that marketing efforts directly support sales objectives and that sales teams have access to the most relevant and up-to-date content and resources.

Clayton Blueher emphasizes the importance of this alignment:

“Sales and marketing notoriously don’t see eye to eye. And I’ll just say that I think, Sam, you’re spot on with everything that you mentioned. I think something that Centra does and we’ve done uniquely that I would encourage other businesses to do is that even if you’re not always seeing eye to eye, we’re often from a sales marketing or the client team, deployment team, etcetera. We’re all in the same room very often.”

2. Continuous Training and Coaching

Sales teams must be equipped with the latest product knowledge, industry insights, and selling techniques to effectively engage with customers and address their unique needs. Implementing a robust training and coaching program that focuses on customer-centric selling approaches can help sales reps develop the skills and knowledge needed to succeed.

3. Content Creation and Management

Developing a comprehensive content library that covers all stages of the buyer’s journey is essential for supporting customer-centric sales enablement efforts. This includes creating a mix of content types, such as blog posts, whitepapers, case studies, and video tutorials, tailored to different buyer personas and stages of the sales process.

Samantha Bergin highlights the importance of effective content management:

“Creating and managing pertinent, captivating content is of utmost importance in order to bolster the marketing and sales’ team in their dealings with prospects and customers. Sales enablement’s role is to bridge the gap between marketing and the sales funnel by integrating beneficial content into a catalog that is searchable and makes pertinent, consistent content accessible precisely when the marketing and sales’ team requires it most.”

4. Technology and Tools

Implementing the right sales enablement technologies can significantly enhance the effectiveness of customer-centric strategies. Key tools to consider include:

• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems
• Content management platforms
• Sales intelligence and analytics tools
• Communication and collaboration platforms

Clayton Blueher emphasizes the importance of selecting the right tools:

“Employing suitable, sales enablement platforms, software tools and technologies is essential to optimize processes and increase efficiency. Sales enablement platforms and software, such as CRM systems and content management platforms, can provide a centralized platform and efficient tools for the creation, editing, sharing, and management of resources.”

5. Performance Measurement and Optimization

Organizations must implement robust measurement and optimization processes to ensure the ongoing success of customer-centric sales enablement efforts. This includes tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) such as:

• Sales cycle length
• Win rates
• Average deal size
• Customer satisfaction scores

Organizations can continuously refine and improve their sales enablement strategies by regularly analyzing these metrics and gathering feedback from both sales teams and customers.

Best Practices for Implementing Customer-Centric Sales Enablement

To maximize the impact of customer-centric sales enablement strategies, organizations should consider the following best practices:

1. Develop Buyer Personas

Creating detailed buyer personas that capture target customers’ unique characteristics, preferences, and pain points can help sales teams better understand and engage with prospects. These personas should be regularly updated based on new insights and market trends.

2. Implement Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Strategies

Implementing ABM strategies for B2B organizations targeting high-value accounts can help align sales and marketing efforts around specific, high-priority prospects. This approach allows for highly personalized outreach and engagement tailored to the unique needs of each target account.

3. Leverage AI and Predictive Analytics

Incorporating AI-powered tools and predictive analytics can help sales teams identify high-potential leads, prioritize outreach efforts, and deliver more personalized experiences at scale. These technologies can analyze vast amounts of data to uncover valuable insights and trends that inform sales enablement strategies.

4. Foster a Culture of Continuous Learning

Encouraging ongoing learning and development among sales teams can help them stay up-to-date with industry trends, customer needs, and selling techniques. This may include implementing regular training sessions, peer-to-peer learning opportunities, and access to industry events and resources.

5. Emphasize Value-Based Selling

Training sales teams to focus on communicating the unique value proposition of products or services in the context of customer needs can significantly improve engagement and conversion rates. This approach requires deeply understanding customer pain points and articulating how specific solutions address those challenges.

Measuring the Impact of Customer-Centric Sales Enablement

Organizations should track leading and lagging indicators to gauge the effectiveness of customer-centric sales enablement strategies. As Clayton Blueher notes:

“Tracking leading indicators, such as activities and pipeline creation, is essential for gauging the progress of your various sales empowerment programs and initiatives. These indicators provide an understanding of what is effective and what is not, helping you to identify areas of opportunity and optimize your various sales enablement programs and marketing efforts.”

Some key metrics to consider include:

Leading Indicators:

• Content engagement rates
• Sales activity metrics (e.g., number of calls, emails, meetings)
• Pipeline velocity
• Conversion rates at each stage of the sales funnel

Lagging Indicators:

• Revenue growth
• Win rates
• Average deal size
• Customer lifetime value
• Net Promoter Score (NPS)

By regularly analyzing these metrics and gathering feedback from both sales teams and customers, organizations can continuously refine and improve their sales enablement strategies to drive better results.

Conclusion: Driving B2B Revenue Growth Through Customer-Centric Sales Enablement

In today’s competitive B2B landscape, adopting a customer-centric approach to sales enablement is no longer optional – it’s a necessity for organizations looking to drive sustainable revenue growth. By focusing on understanding and addressing the unique needs of target customers, aligning sales and marketing efforts, leveraging advanced technologies, and continuously optimizing strategies based on data-driven insights, B2B companies can create more engaging and effective sales experiences that drive results.

As Samantha Bergin emphasizes:

“I think being really thoughtful and really disciplined around the areas that you’re gonna invest in and put resources behind, Again, it’s not something that people don’t know, but having kind of the courage to do that. And you may not get it right every time. You may make some of the wrong choices, and and that’s okay.”

By embracing this mindset and implementing the strategies and best practices outlined in this article, B2B organizations can position themselves for success in an increasingly competitive marketplace. They can drive revenue growth and build stronger, more valuable customer relationships in the process.

Citations:
[1] https://ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws.com/web/direct-files/19673223/27dc5d9e-e266-46c9-a4dc-04a47a4a0373/Sam_Bergin.txt
[2] https://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2017/32260/lsi-keywords-for-seo-what-you-need-to-know
[3] https://www.airops.com/nlp-guide/how-to-extract-keywords-from-salesloft-sales-call-transcripts-using-generative-ai
[4] https://www.hubspot.com/sales-enablement
[5] https://www.webfx.com/seo/glossary/what-are-lsi-keywords/
[6] https://revenuegrid.com/blog/sales-enablement-strategy-tips/
[7] https://www.310creative.com/blog/sales-enablement-strategyy/
https://qwilr.com/blog/sales-enablement-strategies/

Some areas we explore in this episode include:

• Sales Enablement and Feedback: Providing materials for the sales team and seeking feedback.
• Sales and Marketing Alignment: Collaboration between sales, marketing, and other teams.
• Account-Based Marketing (ABM): Integrating an ABM pilot into the sales and marketing strategy.
• Listening as a Strategy: Actively listen to stakeholders and use tools like Gong for insights.
• Continuous Improvement in Digital Marketing: Testing and refining strategies based on audience engagement.
• Customer Experience: Emphasis on exceptional customer service.
• Expense Management: Managing subscriptions and using the Center’s corporate cards for real-time reporting.
• Startup Efficiency and Focus: Being effective with resources and making informed decisions.
• Making Difficult Trade-offs: Challenges in resource allocation and the need for data-driven decisions.
• Customer-Centric Focus and Growth: Ensuring customer success and significant growth in the Center’s customer base.
• And much, much more…

Listen to the episode.

Related links and resources

Connect with Samantha Bergin and Clayton Blueher

• Samantha on LinkedIn
• Clayton on LinkedIn

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