Revenue enablement refers to a process of effectively acquiring and retaining customers, and making revenues in every stage of the customer’s journey. Revenue enablement falls within marketing, sales, and customer support. Sales enablement is a sub-category of revenue enablement.

When we talk about revenue enablement tools, we are mostly talking about sales enablement. Since revenue is a direct consequence of sales, sales enablement tools boost the overall revenue of a company by closing more deals. Before we get into the process of using a revenue enablement tool, let’s understand why it’s important in the first place.

Why is revenue enablement necessary?

Revenue enablement is primarily relevant because it helps businesses get the most from their available resources. We can also think of it as a revenue optimization strategy that focuses on deriving value from every customer. More importantly, revenue enablement is data-driven. Instead of postulating vague goals, revenue enablement helps us establish clear objectives and ways to achieve them. What is sales enablement? 

While sales enablement is a sub-category within the umbrella of revenue enablement, it is the area where you see the most tangible results. Focusing on sales enablement is the key to success in revenue enablement.

Alignment is a keyword in all discussions about revenue enablement. At its core, the goal of revenue enablement practices is to align every aspect of a business to give customers the best experience. For instance, customers would not have a great experience if the sales and customer support teams are not in alignment. The experience you deliver to them would be different from the one you pitched to them. That’s never a good thing for any business.

Why use a revenue enablement tool?

There are many reasons for you to use a revenue enablement tool, but nothing beats the tangible results it shows in your sales figures. These tools are designed to help your sales reps close more deals. It does so by extending custom financing offers to pre-qualified leads. It also allocates capital to the sales reps and sets up custom approval workflows and helps in getting paid upfront.

With so many benefits to look forward to, there are no reasons for you to stay away from a revenue enablement tool. It’s one of the best things to adopt as a business and leverage the power of tech to maximize sales. Most importantly, it makes the task of a sales rep less stressful while helping the company close more deals.

What are the components of revenue enablement?

As we already mentioned, the most important component of revenue enablement is alignment. It’s not only about alignment between different teams and departments. It also refers to the alignment between a business’s philosophy and practice. Perhaps the most important part of the alignment is interpersonal. When team members and coworkers are on the same page, selling becomes easier.

Another very important component of revenue enablement involves stats and figures. Since it’s a data-driven process, there’s very little guesswork in the process. You let the numbers do the talking and understand what they are pointing towards. It brings objectivity and balance to the process of optimizing sales.

Collaboration in the ideation and development phases is crucial to ensure collaboration later. If the processes are developed in isolated sections, collaborating on their practical use will be much tougher. But when there’s a collaboration from the early phases, maintaining the same later is much easier.

Developing sales content is yet another important component of revenue enablement. Sales content is the backbone of success in sales. When you are adopting a revenue enablement strategy, the content that sales reps use to convince customers should also be aligned to the sales enablement strategy.

As you can see, the basic components of revenue enablement are working together, being on the same page, and optimizing every aspect of the customer experience to generate more revenue.

Who needs a revenue enablement tool?

Every business that wants to grow needs a revenue or sales enablement tool. But in reality, businesses that already have a huge loyal customer base can afford to focus on certain other things. A sales enablement tool is a necessity for any small to medium enterprise.

Not only do they need the tools for revenue enablement, but they also need a sound strategy that makes it possible. A revenue enablement strategy should be tailored to the needs, strengths, and weaknesses of your sales and marketing teams. As a larger process, it should also be tailored to the overall culture of the company.

Conclusion

To conclude, we can safely assume that revenue enablement works for every business, no matter what its scale is. At the same time, it is undeniable that small businesses have a more urgent need for adopting this strategy. When implemented correctly, a revenue enablement strategy coupled with tools for the same can drastically improve a business’s performance.