Sales Enablement 101: The Catalyst for Sales Success

Your sales team is gearing up to close the big deal. They’ve been trained and have the skills, but they’re missing critical equipment—no data, knowledge base, or case studies to move prospects through the buyer’s journey. That’s what selling looks like without sales enablement. You’ve got the talent but not the tools to close the deal.

Sales enablement provides sales teams with the right content, technology, insights, coaching, and other resources required to sell easier and faster. It goes beyond basic training. You’re ensuring your reps can access key resources, track customer data in real-time, and deliver tailored solutions at the right time to the right prospect. 

Learn what sales enablement entails, how to create sales enablement content, and actionable strategies to streamline and hasten the buying process.

Providing your sales team with knowledge and tools enhances sales productivity and efficiency, improves product understanding, and aligns their process with customer expectations. 

The following are signs your sales team could benefit from sales enablement: 

• Too many meetings: Time that should be spent selling is instead spent in meetings

• Low sales performance: Sales teams struggle to close deals or promote upsells

• Inconsistent messaging: Teams have poor alignment on offers, deals, or strategies

• Difficulty adapting to new products: Salespeople are unsure of features or functionality

• High staff turnover: Attrition rates are higher than industry or internal benchmarks

• Long sales cycle: Closing deals takes longer than expected or misses organizational targets

Sales enablement vs. sales training

Sales enablement and sales training may appear similar, but they serve different purposes.

Sales training focuses on equipping sales reps with the skills, knowledge, and techniques they need to sell effectively. Sales training is typically delivered through workshops, sales coaching sessions, or courses and covers product knowledge and negotiation.  

On the other hand, sales enablement provides the ongoing support and material required to apply those skills in real-world situations. It involves CRM systems and sales collateral like blog posts, video-based demos, case studies, presentations, research papers, and more. 

Sales enablement is typically owned by a collaborative team that includes:

• Sales leadership: Sales leaders help identify gaps in training, content, or tools and prioritize alignment with sales goals and execution. 

• Marketing: Marketers create and deliver relevant content that sales reps need to fulfill their sales objectives. 

While the sales team is the direct beneficiary of the sales enablement process, both departments play crucial roles in customer success.

Some organizations may have a dedicated sales enablement team that acts as a bridge between sales and marketing. This team helps develop and implement sales development strategies, design the sales cadence, and ensure sales enablement professionals have all the resources to generate leads and close deals. 

Here’s a detailed overview of how to create sales enablement content. 

Define your audience for a customer-centric approach 

What made 65% of customers switch to a different brand after a poor customer experience? The fact that those brands never took the time to truly understand them. 

Customers are spoiled for choice and want personalization—they expect solutions to their unique challenges. You can’t create effective sales enablement content without understanding your audience and who you’re talking to. 

And understanding your audience isn’t just about listing demographics. You need to dig deep into who they are, their pain points, and what solutions they’re searching for. 

Here’s how to do it: 

• Consider both demographic and psychographic information. Demographic information like age, gender, and location tells you who your audience is, while psychographic information tells you why they buy. For instance, demographics tell you that your target audience is women between the ages of 25 and 35, while psychographics can reveal that they prioritize sustainability, value experiences over possessions, and are active on social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter.

• Use tangible data to understand pain points. Use data from your CRM—such as customer interactions, purchase history, and support tickets—to identify patterns in issues faced and social listening tools to gather insights into your prospects’ daily challenges.

• Create detailed buyer personas. Your ideal customer persona (ICP) should go beyond surface-level information. Include what pressures they face and what sales objections they are likely to have. Use surveys, interviews, and analytics to refine these personas constantly.

Here’s an audience persona template you can use to define your audience to create tailored sales enablement content: 

Don’t assume you know your audience: Survey them, analyze customer data, and adjust your personas regularly. The more you refine, the better your sales team will be equipped to close deals with personalized content.

Set clear objectives 

An athlete wouldn’t train without a clear objective, like winning a race or improving speed. Similarly, your sales enablement content should have a clear goal and purpose that directly impacts performance. 

Is it to shorten the sales cycle, increase win rates, or help reps handle objections better? 

For instance, if you sell a communication tool, your sales enablement team would need to build its content with a singular goal: making it easy for prospects to see how your tool could transform communication in their business. 

A good rule of thumb is to use the SMART framework to set your goals: 

• Specific: Avoid vague objectives like “increase sales.” Instead, set specific targets, such as “increase sales by 20% in the next quarter.”

• Measurable: Define how you will track and measure your success. This could include metrics like leads generated, conversion rates, or customer satisfaction.

• Achievable: Set goals that are challenging but realistic. Overly ambitious objectives can lead to frustration and discouragement.

• Relevant: Your objectives should be relevant to your target audience and their needs.

• Time-bound: Set deadlines for achieving your objectives to create a sense of urgency and help sales professionals stay accountable.

This means instead of setting a vague goal like “improve product knowledge,” a SMART goal will be something like: “Within the next two months, reduce the average time it takes for sales reps to close deals by 15% by providing personalized training videos and product demo guides.” 

This clarity helps everyone stay on track and create content with a specific target.

Pro tip: Balance your objectives by setting immediate and longer-term strategic goals. For example, your short-term goal could be increasing rep engagement with training content in the next 30 days, while the longer-term objective could be boosting overall revenue growth by 20% within a year.

Create different content types around customer needs 

Once you have a well-defined ICP, data-driven insights into their needs, and objectives aligned with your sales goals, the next step is creating content that speaks directly to them.

This is where you focus on creating content that resonates with your target audience at every sales pipeline stage—from awareness to decision-making.

Training material

Start with training materials like playbooks and sales onboarding guides filled with best practices. 

• Playbooks: Provide detailed strategies for handling specific customer scenarios, including upselling and closing strategies. Your playbooks should also include best practices for communication and relationship-building, helping sales reps navigate conversations with confidence and clarity. 

• Onboarding guides: Empower new hires with product knowledge and customer insights, ensuring they understand how to engage with potential clients from day one.

But don’t stop there: Create quick, personal video messaging using sales video software like Loom to avoid overwhelming your team and prospects with lengthy documents. 

Imagine a sales rep following up with a lead, not with a long email but a three-minute Loom video explaining exactly how your product solves their pain point. This adds a human touch and makes complex information easier to digest.

Product knowledge

Picture trying to build a computer with just a manual—no videos, no real-time help, just vague instructions and confusing diagrams. Frustrating, right? 

Now, think about your sales team facing the same struggle with only datasheets and feature comparison charts. Sure, they have the info, but nothing beats having someone walk them through it step-by-step, showing them exactly how to use it. That’s what your product knowledge should feel like.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t share datasheets and feature comparison charts to provide your team with detailed product knowledge. Just ensure you enhance this information by recording video demos using Loom, where team members can showcase products in real time. 

Instead of just handing over PDFs to prospects with limited context, your team can record their screens, narrate the demo, and annotate the recording for clearer insights and context. 

Objection handling

Create a content library with FAQs and objection rebuttals that address common concerns like pricing or product fit. If a prospect says, “Your product is too expensive,” your sales rep could address the concern by mentioning your product’s long-term ROI: “Customers see a 25% increase in efficiency, saving time and money within six months.” 

You can also create video-based case studies or customer testimonials—just like Loom does with its own video recorder tool—to show how real clients have successfully handled their challenges using your product. 

Collaborate with sales teams

It’s the early 1900s, and Henry Ford is about to launch the Model T. His factory workers hear feedback from dealers and customers about common issues and questions. Instead of ignoring it, he acts upon it. 

Without this direct line of communication, Ford would have struggled to improve its product and sales operations. 

Sales enablement today is no different. Just as Ford relied on the feedback loop, businesses need constant feedback from their sales teams to fine-tune their content to changing customer needs and real-world challenges.

These best practices can help you fine-tune your sales enablement process:

1. Create tailored content for buyer stages

When shopping for a new car, you browse articles about fuel efficiency and safety features. As you narrow down options, you compare models, read reviews, and watch video walkthroughs. When you’re ready to buy, you’ll consider pricing, testimonials, and maybe even taking a test drive.

Like that car-buying customer journey, potential customers in a typical sales process need different content at each stage—awareness, consideration, and decision. That’s why sharing tailored sales enablement content at the right time is essential to sales prospecting to guide your prospects toward a purchase.

Here are the main content types to create that cater to each stage:

• Awareness stage: At this stage, buyers are just starting to recognize a problem, so your content should inform and help them understand their challenges.

  • Content type: Educational resources like blog posts, infographics, and ebooks. You can record explainer videos with Loom to make your content more engaging. 

  • Pro tip: Avoid hard-selling tactics. Focus on sharing industry trends, thought leadership, and insights that help your sales team resonate with prospects’ pain points.

• Consideration stage: Here, buyers are actively researching solutions and comparing options. Your content should reflect how your product can help buyers by highlighting features and benefits that directly solve their issues and meet their preferences. 

  • Content type: Comparison guides, case studies, detailed product descriptions, and video demonstrations. 

  • Pro tip: Use real customer stories and data to build credibility. Record personalized Loom case studies to showcase your product’s benefits and unique selling propositions.

• Decision stage: In the decision stage, buyers are ready to choose a solution. Your content should help them address any final concerns or doubts to encourage them to make the final purchase decision. 

  • Content type: Product demos, video testimonials, pricing sheets, and free trial offers.

  • Pro tip: Offer trial periods or free demos, and use clear calls to action to guide potential buyers toward making a purchase.

Creating tailored content for each stage will help your sales team deliver the right content and offers to the right prospects precisely when they need them. 

2. Measure and optimize performance 

You’re leading a sales team at the height of a major economic shift. Your sales team is working hard, but something’s off—revenue isn’t matching up with effort, and you can’t pinpoint the problem. 

The solution? Measuring and optimizing performance in real-time. Otherwise, you have no way of knowing whether your sales enablement efforts are bearing fruit. 

Here are some tips to help you identify what’s working and what’s not so you can optimize to achieve your goals:

• Understand key metrics. Identify the metrics that matter most to your sales team, such as conversion rates, lead response times, or customer feedback scores. 

• Set clear goals. Once you know what to measure, set specific and achievable goals. For example, if your conversion rate is currently at 15%, aim for a 20% increase over the next quarter. 

• Schedule monthly reviews to assess progress. Hold monthly review meetings to analyze metrics and adjust strategies based on the extracted data, like tweaking messaging or targeting new customer segments. This keeps your sales approach flexible and focused on improvement.

Ultimately, don’t forget to gather customer feedback after interactions to get insights directly from the target audience. Use this feedback to optimize your sales enablement content to cater to the audience directly. 

3. Use the right tools and technology 

According to Salesforce, only 29% of sales reps claim their enablement materials are completely satisfactory. Most salespeople feel they’re trying to close deals with outdated materials or clunky sales enablement software tools. 

Sales enablement becomes easier and faster when sales reps have access to the right technology, tools, and data. 

Here’s a quick overview of the sales enablement tools you should provide your team to make the sales process easier: 

• Customer relationship management (CRM) tools: Use CRM systems like Salesforce and HubSpot to track and manage leads, sales pipelines, and customer interactions.

• Sales engagement platforms: Automate outreach, follow-ups, and scheduling meetings using tools like Outreach.

• Content management tools: Use tools like Trello, Airtable, and Seismic to organize and distribute up-to-date sales content, such as case studies and proposals.

• Video messaging tools: Leverage video recorder tools like Loom to record and share personalized video pitches and demo walkthroughs to engage leads visually. You can also store your content in Loom’s video libraries, allowing your sales team and prospects to access them whenever they want.

• Data and analytics tools: Use tools like ZoomInfo to track sales performance, analyze customer behavior, and identify trends.

• Sales training and coaching tools: Provide for ongoing rep development and performance monitoring through real-time feedback and practice using tools like Gong or Seismic Learning.

Pro tip: Ensure your sales enablement content is accessible via both mobile devices and desktops. 

You’re a salesperson at a busy conference, surrounded by hundreds of competitors vying for the same prospects. Standing out amongst the crowd feels impossible. Now, picture yourself with a megaphone that not only amplifies your voice but tailors your message to each prospect’s unique needs as they walk by your booth.

AI-powered sales enablement tools are that megaphone. They help you cut through the noise, predict deal outcomes, and deliver personalized, data-driven experiences to prospects.

In this guide, explore how AI improves sales enablement and discover the top tools for improving prospect engagement and closing more deals. 

How AI improves sales enablement

When surrounded by fierce competition and countless tools, platforms, and distractions, getting your message heard becomes increasingly difficult. Amid this chaos, AI works as noise-canceling headphones. 

Here’s an overview of how AI can improve sales enablement—and why it’s not just the future but also the present for sales professionals. 

• Helps craft personalized sales prospecting messages: AI can analyze customer data to personalize outreach, helping sales reps craft emails, offers, and pitches tailored for individual buyers. Companies like Netflix leverage AI to recommend sales content based on past behavior. Sales teams can do the same—AI can sift through buyer data to recommend specific products or tailor messaging based on a prospect’s interests, needs, or pain points.

• Provides faster and more accurate sales forecasting: In the past, sales forecasting came from guesswork and gut feeling, which was a hit-and-miss experience. AI can analyze historical data, current market trends, and pipeline activity to predict future sales more precisely.

• Automates time-consuming tasks: Reps spend less than 30% of their time selling—and the rest on tasks like logging data, updating CRMs, and writing follow-up emails. AI can handle repetitive tasks like scheduling, email follow-ups, or lead scoring, allowing salespeople to do what they do best.

• Contributes to sales team training and coaching: Sales enablement isn’t just about sales tools—it’s about improving your team’s sales performance. AI can capture and analyze calls, emails, and meetings and give sales leaders the data they need to coach their teams. It identifies what’s working, common objections, and where deals are stalling to help teams learn from every conversation.

• Enhances communication and engagement: AI transforms how sales teams communicate with prospects, particularly in remote or hybrid environments where face-to-face meetings are less frequent. Video training software and screen recorders like Loom combines video, screen-sharing, and AI-driven features to create engaging, personalized sales prospecting content. Sales reps can record themselves walking through a product demo, explaining features, or answering questions, all without needing a live call.

Sales teams harnessing the right tools can analyze massive amounts of data to predict which prospects are most likely to convert, identify at-risk deals, and suggest the next best actions based on real-time analytics. They can cut through the noise and direct their attention in the right direction, improving customer experiences and sales processes.  

Sales enablement does more than just inform your sales team. It also empowers them with the right resources, tailored content, and tools to confidently negotiate complex deals. 

Building a successful sales enablement strategy involves arming your sales team with audience-centric and easily digestible content. 

This is where the Loom comes in. 

Loom lets your team deliver personalized video messaging that feels like real conversations—where the sales rep greets the prospect with a warm smile, shares a quick story about how a similar client overcame challenges, and visually demonstrates how your product can solve their pain points. 

The prospect can follow the demonstration and see the passion in the sales rep’s gestures as they emphasize key points, bringing your product message to life. 

With Loom as part of your sales enablement tool kit, you’re doing more than just sharing information: you’re creating a human and relatable experience that drives results. Start now to enhance your sales training with Loom.