What if your sales team could close 2x as many deals in the same amount of time they’re working right now? Sounds like a dream, right?

Guess what? If you cut the average sales cycle in half, that dream becomes a reality.

I know, I know…

“And how am I supposed to cut the sales cycle in half—just like that?”

It’s not something that you’re going to pull off overnight, but I do have a solution that can get you there over time.

It’s called sales enablement.

You may have heard the term floating around. You may have even tried to set up some form of sales enablement in your organization. In this post, I’m going to show you exactly how sales enablement can help your team get more results without working more hours.

What is sales enablement and how can it help us?

Sales enablement means providing your sales team with resources, information and tools that can help them close more deals in less time.

In sales conversations, you’re enabling them to get past common pain points, hesitations and questions without having to say the same thing over and over again.

Let’s use an example:

You’re selling email marketing software at the enterprise level.

Naturally, you’re not the only company selling email marketing software to enterprises. So when you’re talking to an enterprise prospect, you can bet your mortgage they’ll ask you “What makes you better than ABC company?”

Without any sales enablement resources, your sales team is going to have to explain all the differences, all the features that overlap, why you’re the better solution, etc.

Every. Single. Time.

...or you can set up landing pages that do the heavy lifting for you:

Since your sales team will no longer have to explain every detail to every prospect, they can instead use their conversations to answer follow-up questions and talk about the differentiators with the greatest impact.

And because they’re spending less time talking to each prospect, they now have time to connect with more prospects.

And that, my friend, is sales enablement at its finest.

But it doesn’t have to stop there. Allow me to share three of my absolute favorite sales enablement elements that you can start working on right now.

(Spoiler alert: Comparison pages are on the list.)

Sales enablement assets to get started on today

Would it be great to have hundreds of assets in your library, ready for sales reps to share when they need to?

Absolutely.

The best time to start planning and developing your own sales enablement assets is right now. At the end, I’ll share some next steps you can take to get started, but first—here are three types of sales enablement assets your sales reps are going to love:

1. Case Studies

Prospects want to know if what you’re selling is right for them (and understandably so). In their eyes, their company is like no other. Their needs aren’t going to be exactly the same as all of those other companies out there.

The truth is, while their company may be unique, their pain points may not be.

For example, a software platform for screen printing called Printavo was trying to scale their small business without increasing overhead costs.

Sound familiar?

It’s a pain point that plenty of small businesses have top of mind when they’re exploring potential software purchases. Since Printavo was able to scale using Close, we created a case study about their experience and their results.

This case study now serves as a great sales enablement asset that our sales team can share when they’re talking to SMBs with a similar pain point.

Your own case studies should explain the client’s problems and showcase how your product helped—exactly what a prospect will be interested in learning about.

2. Informational Content

Help your prospects solve some of the problems they’re facing without paying you a dime and you’ll accomplish two things:

Move them closer to saying yes

If they’ve hit a roadblock that’s keeping them from closing, you want to do everything you can to clear their path.

Create reciprocity

Reciprocity is one of Cialdini’s six principles of persuasion—when someone gives us something, we’re more likely to want to give them something in return. If you help a prospect solve one of their problems, they’ll be more likely to agree to a demo or trial of your product.

And one of the best ways to do this at scale (without your sales team spending every minute on the phone giving step-by-step walkthroughs) is with informational content—kind of like we’re doing with this blog post.

The format you use for your informational content can vary as well:

• Blog posts your sales team can link to
• Videos your sales team can share
• Exclusive content that the general public doesn’t have access to
• Premium resources that would typically cost money

As long as the content is helping prospects in some form or fashion, the medium isn’t as important. Do some research to see which type of content your best customers today prefer and start testing.

3. Comparison Pages

As promised, comparison pages are making another appearance in this post—and with good reason.

Once your prospect knows what the solution to their problem is, their natural next step is going to be researching their options. Yes—you’re one of those options, but they don’t know what makes you the best option yet.

Here’s what they’re going to do:

Open up Google, type in “ABC company vs XYZ company” and read the top ranking results.

This is your opportunity to control the narrative.

If they want to know how you stack up against the competition, you want to be the one answering that question. Leave it up to your competitors, and you know how that’s going to go.

If they’re close to making a decision, you can also take a broader approach and give them a one-stop comparison shop.

Here’s the competitor comparison table we’ve set up:

Your sales reps can share a link to this page, and even walk through it live during their sales calls. The key is having the tools they need to close deals.

Your next steps…

The easier you can make your sales team’s job, the more results they’ll be able to bring in. Think about it—if you can cut their average sales cycle in half, they can close 2x the deals without having to spend a minute longer working than they do today.

Here’s what you should do first:

Talk to your sales team and ask them what questions, hesitations and pain points they hear about the most when talking to prospects.

Your goal is to prioritize. Sure, you can plan for dozens of case studies, blog posts and landing pages over time—but you want to lead with the most important issues. Not only will this actually help your prospects the most, it’ll also make it easier to get buy-in from your sales team and get them comfortable using these resources.

To keep up with the fast-paced advancements of AI in sales enablement, make sure to check out our comprehensive article.

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