The definition of sales enablement Which technologies address enablement Related terms and their respective definitions (territory management, configure price quote, learning management, gamification, sales portals, incentive compensation, sales performance management, etc.) Common reasons to invest in sales enablement- what business outcomes can you expect Online resources to help identify relevant technologies that can support your sales enablement efforts

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Concept Cheat Sheet
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ÆÆ Concept CheatSheats:
Explaining the nuances of a key concept.
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Inside a Concept CheatSheet
The Concept, Defined
Related Definitions
Related Business Outcomes
Relevant Technologies
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Sales Enablement
The Concept, Defined
Sales enablement is a methodical and
systematic approach to preparing reps
to engage customers and maximize
share of wallet at every stage of the
customer lifecycle. Sales enablement
encompasses cross-functional role
responsibilities, tasks, and technologies
that enhance the individual success of
sales reps in a systematic way. Most
organizations are guilty of opportunistic
or haphazard sales enablement that
gives sales reps just enough information
to be marginally effective. Done correctly,
a sales enablement infrastructure should
make sharing best practices across the
sales function a scalable and ongoing
process that is readily accessible
anytime and anywhere.
The nature of the term and its diverse
use among vendors and service
providers sort of makes it difficult to
narrowly define it – in part because
none of the definitions seem confusing.
They all seem to work. Perhaps that’s
okay because the requirements for
empowering sales vary widely from
organization to organization. As such,
sales enablement can be broadly
defined as:
• A role or function in a company
(also commonly referred to as sales
operations).
• A task conducted by multiple roles
(it could be argued that finance, IT,
marketing, and sales all consistently
conduct routine tasks that impact
sales success).
• A technology category (with a broad
term like Sales Enablement it’s easy
for vendors to jump on the bandwagon.
There are almost 100 vendors that
position solutions around Sales
Enablement. It really comes down
to what part of sales enablement a
solution is enabling
Sales enablement is therefore more of
a concept or discipline for maximizing
sales success. Let’s talk fat word/skinny
word for a minute – perhaps this will help
put some structure around the term.
Fat words are broadly defined
categories of terms that have generic
meanings. Skinny words narrowly define
a very specific object. For example,
transportation is a fat word. There are
lots of different types of transportation
vehicles: cars, boats, airplanes. Let’s get
a little skinnier: airplane. Airplane is still
fat, but we are narrowly defining a class
of vehicle. A McDonnell Douglas DC-10
is a very specific skinny word that could
only mean one thing – it’s a vehicle, it’s
an airplane, it’s a jet airplane, it’s a model
DC-10 built by McDonnell Douglas. Now,
let’s apply that to Sales Enablement.
That gives us three categories of sales
enablement: Sales Enablement Tasks,
Sales Enablement Roles, and Sales
Enablement Technologies.
Sales Enablement
◦◦ Sales Enablement Tasks
(conducted by many different
functions in the organization)
▪▪ A PowerPoint Deck Template for
Sales
▪▪ Developing a performance deck
showing aggregate sales results
last quarter
▪▪ An update to the global price
sheet
▪▪ An communication about a SPIF
▪▪ Create a new whitepaper
▪▪ Create a datasheet
◦◦ Sales Enablement Roles
▪▪ Sales Operations

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Concept CheatSheet: Sales Enablement 2
COMPLIMENTS OF:
▪▪ Sales Enablement
▪▪ CRM Administrator
◦◦ Sales Enablement Technologies
(a variety of different tools can
directly enable sales success)
▪▪ Configure Price Quote
▪▪ Customer Feedback
▪▪ Customer Relationship
Management
▪▪ eSignature Tools
▪▪ Incentive Compensation
Management
▪▪ Lead Management
▪▪ Lead Nurturing
▪▪ Proposal Management
▪▪ Sales Learning Management
▪▪ Sales Performance Management
▪▪ Sales Portal
▪▪ Territory Management
While the term may seem like a broad
definition, the responsibility of a
sales enablement role is to evaluate
opportunities to improve efficiency, lower
cost, and capture more revenue across
all these different skinny capabilities.
The sheer volume of opportunities
clearly underscores why we continue to
see growth in sales enablement roles.
Related Definitions
Incentive Compensation
Management (ICM): ICM tools
support the administration of sales
compensation plans, quotas, crediting,
and adjustments. These systems also
help process commissions for direct
sales and channel sales
Sales performance management
(SPM): A set of business processes
for planning and determining sales
and personnel effectiveness, setting
metrics for success in collaboration
with other corporate functions (human
resources, finance, etc.) and creating
efficiency in sales operations. As a
software application, the goal of SPM is
to develop an infrastructure to educate,
motivate, and empower salespeople to
satisfy customers and collectively meet
organizational objectives.
Territory Management: A way of
dividing a geographic area with the
goal of increasing sales in that area.
Territories can be set up to help
mitigate the unique challenges that may
exist in different geographic regions.
Likewise, unique incentive plans may
be necessary to drive performance in
each territory.
Configure Price Quote (CPQ):
Configure price quote software (CPQ) is
an industry term for products that help
companies manage pricing for complex
product portfolios. CPQ software is
sometimes written as “configure, price,
quote” to illustrate that it can help with
all three core operations for setting and
controlling prices.
Learning Management System:
A learning management system
(LMS) is a software application for
the administration, documentation,
tracking, reporting and delivery of
e-learning education courses or
training programs. LMSs range from
systems for managing training and
educational records to software for
distributing online or blended/hybrid
college courses over the Internet
with features for online collaboration.
These platforms are frequently used for
scalable sales training.
Gamification: Gamification is the use
of game thinking and game mechanics
in non-game contexts to engage
users in solving problems. In SPM,
sales gamification creates competitive
game based environments around
performance and learning management.
Reps are rewarded appropriately
for accomplishments. It’s sort of like
applying an internal FourSquare to your
sales team.
Sales Portal: A central repository for
sales teams and partner channels
to collaborate, access content, track
leads, access training, and locate
channel support.
Related Business Outcomes
• Empower sales with clear value
propositions
• Encourage sales collaboration (direct
and channel)
• Generate ongoing intelligence and
competitive insights
• Improve competitive differentiation
• Improve percentage of reps achieving
quota
• Improve the quality of leads
• Increase efficiency
• Increase revenue
• Increase the quantity of quality leads
• Increase up-sell and cross-sell
revenue
• Manage and track channel leads
• New customer acquisition
• Reduce new staff onboarding cycle time
• Reduce operational costs
Relevant Technologies
What technologies support this concept?
Check out the links below to view the
landscape of vendors (and related
Gleanster Research content).
Remember that Gleansights contain
analyst commentary and vendor

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Electronic distribution via email or by posting on a personal website is in violation of the terms of use.
Concept CheatSheet: Sales Enablement 2
COMPLIMENTS OF:
rankings (based on end-user feedback)
on all the relevant Solution Providers in
a given Topic Area.
Sales Enablement
Configure Price Quote
Customer Feedback
Customer Relationship
Management
eSignature Tools
Incentive Compensation
Management
Lead Management
Lead Nurturing
Marketing Automation
Proposal Management
Sales Learning Management
Sales Performance
Management
Sales Portal
Territory Management