Sales enablement 101
Getting new deals is only half the battle, sales enablement helps you close them
Hi friends - We’re going to close out this month by talking about sales enablement. New term for you? Don’t worry - I’ll explain it.
Next month…I plan to break down all of the most effective ways I am using AI to accelerate marketing and sales for my clients.
Maybe we’ll call it MAI instead of MAY? 😆
I’ve got a lot of strong opinions about when and how to use AI in go-to-market so you don’t lose the most important part - your humanity. But I have found some really great ways to incorporate it in authentic human ways - so of course I want to share that with you.
Ok - sales enablement - let’s go!
Sales enablement 101
Sometimes I witness founders get overly focused on ‘new’ leads or deals and forget that getting new opportunities is only half the battle…the other half is actually being well positioned to CLOSE them.
That other half is where sales enablement comes in.
We can pour all the water (new leads) we want into the top of our funnel, but if we’ve got holes in the funnel (no sales enablement), not enough water (revenue) is going to make it out the other end.
So, what is sales enablement?
When I asked Claude for a definition, it said:
Sales enablement is the strategic process of equipping sales teams with the tools, content, technology, training, and coaching they need to effectively engage with buyers and close deals more efficiently. It bridges the gap between marketing and sales departments by providing resources that help salespeople communicate value to prospects throughout the buyer's journey.
Key elements of sales enablement typically include:
Training and development for sales professionals
Content creation and management tailored to different stages of the sales process
Technology implementation to streamline workflows
Data analysis to track performance and identify improvement areas
Ongoing coaching to refine sales techniques
Effective sales enablement results in more productive conversations with prospects, shorter sales cycles, higher win rates, and better alignment between what marketing produces and what sales actually uses in the field.
And that’s 100% accurate.
But it’s a lot of words…so let’s break it down into tangible things you can do or create to achieve the two most important goals of sales enablement -
Improve your close ratio (%)
Improve your speed to close
How to “do” sales enablement
Step 1: Basic revenue operations
In order for us to have anything to analyze and to inform what we need for sales enablement, we first need some basic revenue operations.
Revenue operations gives us actionable data that informs what the sales team (or founder) needs to ‘enable’ them. It helps us determine what coaching, marketing assets, process improvement, automation etc we need to make them faster and better sellers.
Step 2: Create assets, automation, and training to improve conversion rates and deal cycle
Create assets
According to Gartner’s surveys and research, these are the MOST common assets buyers reference in B2B sales -
Some resources for ya -
The other things Gartner doesn’t list, that I’d add, are -
Automation
Automation is hard to provide generalized guidance on, it’s company and sales process specific. But some ideas to get your creative juices flowing -
Automated Slack notification when -
a new inbound lead comes in
a deal moves to proposal (late stage - alert leadership and customer success)
a deal is marked closed won (maybe notifying finance too so they can prepare an invoice)
Automated follow up email drip if a prospect is a no show to discovery call
If you are using HubSpot, you can automate all of these things using their workflows tool. If you are looking for something more advanced, Zapier might be the right tool to check out.
Training
If you are using a conversation intelligence (aka call recording) tool, there is likely some built in coaching features. Some other options -
Hire a GTM advisor or fractional GTM leader to provide coaching and training
Read this newsletter…. 🙂
Leverage HubSpot Academy or your other sales tools free learning resources
Join sales communities and attend training webinars
Ok - that was longer than normal…but FULL of tactical, actionable advice. Let me know how it goes. 🫡
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With love and gratitude -
If you want to learn more about working with me directly…
For B2B startups I serve as a Fractional GTM executive or advisor. Learn more about-
When you’re ready, let’s connect to discuss your specific growth goals and challenges.
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