CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 2

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CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 3EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In our Fifth Annual Sales Enablement Study, we findfor the second year in a row a steady trend that sales
enablement is slowly and steadily maturing rather
than continuing to grow very fast. Overall, this resultsin some positive news. More organizations followed
a formal and charter-based sales enablement
approach with significantly better business impact. In
other cases, however, it is apparent that the lack of acontent strategy, or the lack of effective collaborationand missing processes hold sales enablementback from achieving greater successes. For sales
enablement to drive business impact and become
the sales force’s key engine to drive sustainable sales
results, more formality, more strategy, and more
focus on a holistic approach is urgently required.

Sponsorship, Strategy, and Charter: Formality
and close alignment to the business strategy andspecific challenges matters. More organizations
followed a formal and charter-based approach andsaw significantly better results compared to thosewith a random or informal approach that achieved
results way below average performance.
Customer-facing professionals and their managers:
We found that the majority of organizations reported
an engaged sales force, heavily impacted by theirsales managers’ leadership style. Additionally, thebetter the seller engagement, the lower the turnoverrates.
Effective Enablement Services: To meet buyers’
expectations, an integrated approach is key tosuccess. Implementing a content strategy, focusing
on selling skills, sales methodology and processtraining services as well as a formally implemented
coaching strategy drive results.
Integrated Technology: Organizations show different
implementation levels for content, learning andcoaching solutions. Overall, considering the CRM as
anchor for all enablement technologies drives sales
productivity.

© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Using the CSO Insights Sales Enablement Clarity
Model, here are some of the key study findings:
Customer: While most organizations align selling
processes to the customer’s path, the alignment
dropped compared to last year, and only one-third
also aligned their enablement services accordingly.
© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

Formalized Collaboration and Efficient Enablement
Operations: The majority of organizations stillcollaborates in an ad hoc manner and works without
a production model that defines the sequence ofactivities to produce enablement services. The moreformal the sales enablement approach, the better
implemented these inner workings are.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Chapter 1: The State of Sales Enablement 2019. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
The Sales Enablement Clarity Model.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 12
Chapter 2: The Customer-Driven Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Chapter 3: Internal Foundations: Sponsorship, Strategy, and Charter. . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Chapter 4: Enablement Audiences and the Role of Seller Engagement. . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Sales Enablement Services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23
Chapter 5: Sales Content. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Chapter 6: Sales Training. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Chapter 7: Sales Coaching. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
The Inner Workings: Enablement Tech and Collaboration. .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 38
Chapter 8: Sales Enablement Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Chapter 9: Cross-Functional Collaboration, Enablement Operations, and Metrics. . . 42
Concluding Thoughts. .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 47
Additional Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Appendix A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

Page 4

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 5Chapter 1: The State of Sales Enablement 2019
Since sales enablement’s big breakout in 2017,it has become a stable discipline in many salesorganizations and created a tangible impact on
business results. Overall, sales enablement
continues to mature, but not all sales enablement
teams are taking advantage of enablement’s innate
performance potential yet. In this report, we will
examine what those organizations that are achieving
their desired results are doing differently than thosethat are in the early phases or in the process ofmaturing their sales enablement practice.
Sales Enablement Continues to Impact Performance
In 2017, the percentage of organizations with a sales

enablement person, initiative, or function grewfrom 32.7% to 59.2%. In this, our Fifth Annual Sales
Enablement Study, we gathered input from over 900
study participants worldwide (see the Appendix for
demographics) and found that the growth curve has
flattened. In 2019, 61.3% of organizations reported
having sales enablement, up only slightly from2018’s 61.0%.
There is a difference between initial enthusiasm
for a new concept and an ongoing commitment toexcellence. The former is necessary, but only thelatter, based on a thoughtful strategy and lots ofstaying power, will create the desired results.

Percentage of Organizations with Sales Enablement 2013-2019

59.2%

61.0%

61.3%

2018

2019

32.7%
19.3%

22.6%

2013

2014

25.5%

2015

2016

2017

© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 6In our 2019 study, enablement’s greatest impact wasseen on win rates for forecast deals. Organizations
without sales enablement reported win rates of
42.5%, 3.9 points below the study’s average of 46.4%.
Those with sales enablement reported an average
win rate of 49.0%, 2.6 points higher than the study’s
average and 6.5 points higher than those without
enablement, which is an increase of 15.3%.
In addition to win rates, we’ll also see a remarkable
impact on revenue plan and quota attainment fromdifferent facets of enablement as we dig deeper into
this chapter and the report.

Organizations with a sales force comprised ofmore than 51 sellers were also more likely toinvest in enablement. Again, this makes sense
as sales enablement can ensure the consistency,
effectiveness, and scalability of enablement services
needed as a sales force grows. The tipping point
appears to be at 26-50 sellers. This is the point
at which the percentage of organizations withenablement (64.9%) surpasses the study’s average(61.3%).
Dedicated Sales Enablement by Sales Force Size

Win Rates for Forecast Deals

73.0%

72.4%

51-250PEOPLE

251-500
PEOPLE

64.9%

77.1%

49.0%
42.5%

39.3%

UP TO 25
PEOPLE

26-50
PEOPLE>500 PEOPLE© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Without SE

With SE© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Sales Enablement Remains More Relevant inLarger Organizations, Specific Industries
More than three-quarters of the organizations
in our study with more than $250M in annual
revenues reported having a dedicated sales
enablement person, function, or initiative. This
makes sense. As an organization grows, theorchestrating role of sales enablement becomesincreasingly important.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

Sales enablement continues to be more relevantin certain industries as usual, this year especiallyin telecommunications and pharmaceuticals. On
the other end of the spectrum, only one-third oforganizations in the oil and gas industry reported
having a sales enablement function.
Enablement Addresses Customer Experience
Enablement’s goals have remained consistent withprior years and are fully aligned with the goals
sales leaders shared with us in the 2018-2019
Sales Performance Study. One potentially notabledifference from last year, however, is that customer
experience rose from sixth place to fourth place.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Top 10 Sales Enablement Goals in Addition to
Driving Revenues
1. Increase win rates for forecast deals
2. Increase new account acquisition
3. Increase existing account penetration
4. Improve customer experience/reduce customer
churn
5. Increase available selling time
6. Reduce sales cycle length
7. Decrease new person ramp-up time
8. Increase average deal size
9. Reduce sales force turnover
10. Reduce cost of sales

Page 7Slight Changes to Reporting Structure
Respondents to this year’s study told us that lessthan half of their enablement teams report into sales
leadership and a little more than one-fifth report intoanother C-level function. For the last several years,
the percentage of enablement teams reporting into
sales operations has continued to decline from
25.3% in 2015 to 17.1% this year: Many organizations
are establishing enablement as a separate disciplinefrom sales operations. The percentage of those thatreport into marketing has remained consistent.
In contrast to last year, this year’s data doesn’tshow a significant relationship between reporting
structure and sales performance. As we’ll discussin Chapters 2 and 3, the far more important
performance driver is the way sales enablement is
set up.

Enablement Reporting Lines
1.1%
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
17.1%
SALES OPERATIONS
22.6%
EXECUTIVE CORPORATEMANAGEMENT/CEO/COO/
CHIEF GROWTH OFFICER, ETC.

5.9%
MARKETING
4.3%
OTHER

49.2%
SALES LEADER/EXECUTIVESALES MANAGEMENT(VP SALES, CSO, CRO)
© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 8

Meeting Stakeholder Expectations Matters
When we asked participants with sales enablement how
well sales enablement met the expectations of theirstakeholders, the results offered both encouraging
news and challenges.

Outcomes of Enablement Initiatives Depend on Meeting Stakeholder Expectations
7.0%
NO MAJOR INITIATIVES TAKEN

9.3%
MET FEW EXPECTATIONS

24.9%
MET MAJORITY OF
EXPECTATIONS

56.2%
MET SOME EXPECTATIONS

2.6%
MET OR EXCEEDED ALL
EXPECTATIONS© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Meeting the stakeholders’ expectations
is challenging: Only a bit more than onequarter met the majority, all or evenexceeded their expectations.
Meeting Enablement Expectations vs. Quota
Attainment

Meeting stakeholders’ expectations has a positive
impact on revenue plan attainment, quota attainment,
and win rates for forecast deals. Meeting just some
expectations only led to average results, and meeting noor few expectations led to well below average results.
Meeting Enablement Expectations vs. Revenue
Plan Attainment

68.5%
60.2%

97.6%

52.6%

103.2%

Study’s average quota
attainment: 60.0%

None/Few
Expectations Met

Some Expectations
Met

Majority/All
Expectations Met© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

107.8%

Study’s average revenue
plan attainment: 102.5%

None/Few
Expectations Met

Some Expectations
Met

Majority/All
Expectations Met© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 9These data points can be extremely useful when“selling” your enablement charter (businessplan) to executive leadership. Meeting just some
expectations leading to only average results
is a strong justification for a more formal andstrategic approach. In Chapter 3, we’ll discuss how
establishing a sales enablement charter can ensurethat enablement’s scope and strategy, as well as
the stakeholders’ expectations, are aligned with thebusiness strategy and the organization’s challenges.
The percentage of those organizations that met
or exceeded the majority of all their stakeholders’expectations dropped from one-third in 2018 (34.4%)
to just above one-quarter (27.5%) this year. Also,
the group of organizations that only met a few
expectations is at 9.3%, more than four times aslarge as last year (1.7%).
One reason for these missed expectations might
be the increasing responsibilities senior executive
stakeholders assign to sales enablement without

always completely understanding the complex andinterconnected nature of sales enablement as across-functional discipline.
Another possible cause can be found at the other endof the spectrum. A small minority of respondents(7.0%) said they had a sales enablement person,
function, or discipline, but did not undertake any
major enablement initiative. While this is a small
group, it is more than twice the percentage of
respondents as last year (2.7%).
That raises the question: How can an organization
have sales enablement but not run any major
initiatives? The reason is embedded in the question
as we asked specifically for major initiatives. If
an organization is just getting started with sales
enablement or is transitioning from L&D only intoa more strategic and holistic sales enablement
discipline, they may not have had the time to roll out
a major initiative yet.

WITH SALESENABLEMENTWITHOUT SALESENABLEMENTWith SE, but not meeting
expectations*

Revenue plan
attainment(average: 102.5%)

103.6%

101.0%

97.6%

Quota attainment(average: 60.0%)

61.2%

59.8%

52.6%

Win rate for forecast
deals (average: 46.4%)

49.0%

42.5%

43.6%

*This group includes organizations that only met few expectations and those that didn’t take on any major enablement initiatives.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 10

Sales Enablement Improves SRP Matrix Position
The CSO Insights Sales Relationship Process
Matrix maps sales process maturity and customer
relationship levels against key sales performance
metrics. Year after year, our research has found thatthe more mature an organization’s sales processes
and the higher their customer relationship levels,the better their performance. For greater detail,download our 2018-2019 Sales Performance Study.
This year’s sales enablement study identified acorrelation between sales enablement and SRP
Matrix position, providing additional evidence for the
enablement business case.

As our research has repeatedly shown over theyears, formally implemented sales processes
provide a strong foundation for sales productivity
and performance. Dynamic sales processes that canbe easily adapted to changing buyer behaviors havean even greater positive impact.
In this study, we found that organizations with sales
enablement have more mature sales processes.
A bit more than half of organizations without sales
enablement (54.8.%) operate with informal or evenrandom sales processes, compared to only onequarter (25.4%) of those with sales enablement.
Three-quarters (74.6%) of organizations withsales enablement have formal or even dynamic
sales processes, compared to 45.2% without sales
enablement.

Organizations with sales enablement are
more likely to have formal or dynamic sales
processes.
Sales Process Maturity Levels
FORMAL/DYNAMIC 65.0%
74.6%

RANDOM/INFORMAL 35.0%
25.4%
Without SE

With SE

Our most recent 2018-2019 Sales Performance Study
found that customer relationship levels have aneven greater positive impact on performance thansales processes. For example, average win rates© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

for those considered Trusted Partners were 59.9%
versus a mere 39.5% for those who were considered
Approved Vendors.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 11That’s good news for enablement leaders, as our analysis shows that sales enablement has an even stronger
impact on customer relationship levels than it does on sales processes.
As the chart shows, the biggest difference is at the top two and the bottom two levels.
Organizations With Sales Enablement Are More Likely to Have Strategic Contributor or
Trusted Partner Customer Relationships
STRATEGIC CONTRIBUTOR/TRUSTED PARTNER 19.4%
30.6%

SOLUTIONS CONSULTANT 28.9%
29.8%

APPROVED VENDOR/PREFERRED SUPPLIER 51.7%
39.7%
Without SE

The Sales Enablement Clarity ModelIn subsequent chapters of this report, we’ll shareadditional details from our study using the Sales
Enablement Clarity Model as a framework. We
developed this framework in the form of a diamond© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

With SE© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

as a model for our clients to use to create aholistic, sustainable enablement discipline. The
study findings make an excellent business case forusing the diamond as you initiate or mature yourenablement discipline.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 12

Sales Enablement Clarity Model
In sales, definitions are important because they help
ensure everyone is on the same page regarding theconcept and approach. You may recall our definitionof sales enablement from previous reports:

The Sales Enablement Clarity Model

A strategic, collaborative discipline designed toincrease predictable sales results by providing
consistent, scalable enablement services that allow
customer-facing professionals and their managers to
add value in every customer interaction.
However, definitions only go so far. Successful sales
enablement also requires a framework to guide
enablement leaders throughout their journey. We
created our framework in the shape of a diamondbecause it evokes the challenges that so many
enablement leaders must encounter.
A Diamond in the RoughEven without a formal enablement discipline, you’ll
probably have many functions that want to help sales
succeed: marketing, product management, L&D, sales
operations, sales managers, IT, etc. These functions
provide lots of different enablement components,
such as content, tools, or training services. While
their intentions are positive, the services provided bydisparate functions are often disconnected, designed
from a functional or product-oriented perspective, andrandomly/inconsistently pushed to the sales force. As
a consequence, sellers get frustrated because these
services are confusing and of little help.
The enablement leader’s task is to transform
this rough diamond into a cut and polished sales
enablement discipline, based on the customer andthe customer’s path. The effort will still involve© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

contributions from many teams, but using the facetsof our sales enablement diamond, enablement
leaders can orchestrate their contributions to create
consistent enablement services that add value to thesales team and the customer.
Using the Diamond as Our Guide
To establish a solid foundation, we’ll start with the
top and bottom facets, looking first at developing acustomer-driven foundation and then discussing thenecessary internal foundational elements: sponsors,
strategy, and charter.
Next, we’ll discuss sales enablement’s primary
audiences and how to engage them before moving on
to sales enablement services (content, training, andcoaching) as well as enablement technologies andthe inner workings of sales enablement (formalized
cross-functional collaboration and enablement
operations and metrics).
To help you keep track of where we are, each chapter
has a facet icon next to the chapter title.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 13

CHAPTER 2: The Customer-Driven Foundation
In the age of the modern, educated buyer, enablement
efforts must be designed through the lens of thecustomer. Only then can enablement create thefoundation the sales force needs to diagnose andsolve buyer problems and to achieve their desired
results and create revenue.
Alignment Drops, but the Majority Are Still on the
Right Path
To design an enablement discipline through thecustomer’s lens, we first need to align internalselling processes to the customer’s path (orcustomer’s journey if that works better for you). Thisentails integrating the many steps and gates buyers
move through along the path to a decision into theorganization’s internal selling processes.
For example, at each stage of their buying process,customers need to commit to moving to the nextstage. No matter what your salespeople do, if buyersaren’t committed, the opportunity doesn’t move

forward. Integrating this commitment into yourselling processes helps salespeople avoid the kindsof misunderstandings (and missed forecasts) thatare a result of buyer and seller misalignment.
In our research, we define four levels of alignment.
Random alignment means that the reflection of thecustomer’s path in internal selling processes isalmost nonexistent. Informal alignment includes only
some of the steps and the documentation and formal
implementation are missing. Formal alignment
is more purposeful and complete, and dynamicalignment is when the organization also implements
mechanisms, such as sales analytics, to quickly
adapt selling processes (and ideally, marketing,sales, and services processes as well) to changes inbuyer behaviors.
A bare majority of organizations (52.1%) have either
a formal or dynamic alignment. Another 40.9% arealigned informally, and 7.0% are random.

Sales Process Related to Customer’s Path

19.0%
DYNAMIC ALIGNMENT

7.0%
CUSTOMER’S PATH NOT CONSIDERED

33.1%

40.9%

FORMAL ALIGNMENTINFORMAL ALIGNMENT© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Last year, 60.5% of organizations followed a formal
or dynamic approach to alignment, so this issomething of a drop. However, the percentage fordynamic alignment is almost the same.
While many organizations are still finding it
challenging to progress from informal to moreformal levels of enablement, the data may also
reflect a greater number of mid-size organizations
in our sample. As noted earlier, larger organizations
and those with a larger sales force are more likely
to have a mature sales enablement discipline.
Nevertheless, the sales enablement effort is worth itfor organizations of all sizes.
Dynamic Alignment Drives Dramatic Improvements
As in previous years, organizations with informal
and random alignment didn’t achieve even average
results. Win rates and quota attainment were
below the study average. Additionally, as we movefrom random/informal alignment to dynamicalignment, we see a significant rise of win rates for
quota attainment and win rates. These dramaticincreases, 17.9% for win rates and 11.8% for quota
attainment compared to the study’s averages, show
how great the potential impact of enablement on
performance is. They also emphasize, once again,that doing nothing may be better than doing sales
enablement poorly.
Alignment of Enablement Services Has a Way to Go
To serve their intended purpose, enablement
services must be aligned to the appropriate phase of
the customer’s path. For example, success stories,
case studies, and business-problem-oriented
presentations are often tailored to the awarenessphase of the customer’s path. To be effective,
they must match the buyers’ understanding of the© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

Page 14

Only 19.0% of organizations dynamicallyalign their internal processes to thecustomer’s path. But this one-fifth
achieves significantly better results.

+17.9%
19.0%

Win
Rates

Dynamically align theirsales process tocustomer’s path

+11.8%

Quota
Attainment© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

problem and its business impact and help buyers
learn more about potential approaches to achieving
their objectives. The next phase, the buying
phase, calls for services such as customer-facing
presentations and training services that are moredetailed and tailored to a specific buyer problem.
Enablement owns the responsibility for aligning
services to the customer’s path, but it requires close
collaboration with other functions such as sales
operations, marketing, and customer experience.
Unfortunately, while the majority of organizations(52.1%) align sales processes to the customer’s
path, far fewer (30.6%) align enablement services tothe customer’s path.

While 52.1% of organizations align sales
processes to the customer’s path, far fewer(30.6%) align enablement services to thecustomer’s path.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 15

We Effectively Align Our Enablement Services With All Phases of the Customer’s Path

37.7%

31.6%
Disagree

Neutral or Somewhat Agree

30.6%
Agree or Strongly Agree

Organizations that aligned enablement
services to the customer’s path achieved
significantly better win rates than thosethat did not.
Start Your Journey with the Right Foundation
The practices included in the customer facet of theenablement diamond set the tone for your overall
enablement approach. This facet is the lens you use
to look at all other enablement facets. If you’re notgetting alignment to the customer’s path right, every
other facet of your enablement discipline will be outof alignment as well because it won’t be focused on
the customer.
Here are three ways to get started:
1. Create a customer-focused mindset.
Work with marketing, sales, and service, as well
as senior executive sponsors to create a sharedvision of success with the customer at its core.
To do that, study the available research suchas the Buyer Preferences Study as well as firsthand feedback from your customers given either
during sales and service calls or more formal
events such as voice-of-the-customer programs
and surveys. The findings should then be
shared and discussed during sales enablementadvisory board meetings, ideally combined witha facilitated workshop on how to create a morecustomer-focused mindset. (See Chapter 9 formore on setting up an advisory board.)© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

2. Collaborate to align your internal selling
processes to the relevant customer paths.
Work with customer experience, customer
success, marketing, and real customers to map
internal selling processes to the customer’spath. This is a step that takes some time, but
to get the most out of it, work with a less ismore mindset. Focus on the customer buying
scenarios that create most of your revenue.
Map those out as customer paths, and then ask
customers to review the steps and decision gates
they go through to ensure they are reflected
accurately in your selling processes.
3. AAA your enablement services: assess, adjust,and align.
Assess all enablement services (content,
training, coaching, and tools) by mappingthem to the different phases of the customer’spath. If there is no immediate connection to a
specific phase, mark them as “to be adjusted.”
Then, assign ownership of the tailoring of these
services to the customer’s path phase to which
they should belong.
Your greatest workload is likely to be in the areaof content services, while training services,such as professional selling skills and value
messaging, are more likely to fit all phases. Just
make sure this is a conscious decision and not
simply a shortcut. Some methodologies can beclearly mapped to the earlier (prospecting) or
the later phases (opportunity management) andrequire training services that are in alignment.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 16

CHAPTER 3: Internal Foundations:
Sponsorship, Strategy, and Charter
With the customer’s path clearly in mind, we can now
move to the bottom facet of the sales enablement
diamond. In this chapter, we’ll focus on the importanceof aligning sales enablement to the business strategy
and how engaging senior executive sponsors andgaining organizational buy-in can help you overcome
significant hurdles.

Approach to Sales Enablement

Sales Enablement Approaches Still Vary
As with alignment to the customer’s path, wedefine four levels of sales enablement formality.
A random approach means sales enablement isseen as a tactical, one-off project with no formal
vision and strategy. An informal approach implies
a certain understanding of what sales enablement
should look like, but this vision is not well-definedor documented. A formal approach includes awell-documented vision and strategy, including athorough analysis of the business strategy and thecurrent state of the sales strategy implementation.
A formal + charter approach builds on the formal
approach to include a sales enablement charteror business plan where sales enablement’s vision,
goals, strategies, and road maps are clearly
defined. This charter also contains additional
details, e.g., enablement services to be provided
and for which audiences, necessary investmentsthat need to be made, actions to be taken, and how
success will be measured.

FORMAL AND CHARTER

Random or Informal Enablement Doesn’t Work
If you have ever managed a sales team, you knowthat a few percentage points difference in win rates,
quota attainment, or revenue attainment can make© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

RANDOM
16.0%
INFORMAL
30.4%
FORMAL
37.9%
15.8%© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

or break a fiscal year. Year over year, we’ve seen
more formal approaches to enablement leading
to better results. This year, the impact is evenstronger, with enablement formality dramatically
impacting win rates, quota attainment, and revenue
plan attainment.
As importantly, in our 2019 study, we found thatthe win rates for organizations with an informal
approach to enablement were 3.1 points lower
Approach to Sales Enablement and Win Rates
RANDOM

Study’s average
win rate: 46.4%

39.2%
INFORMAL
43.3%
FORMAL
48.4%
FORMAL AND CHARTER
55.1%
Win Rate© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Reportthan the average. Quota attainment in theseorganizations was also 3.6 points below the study’s
average of 60.0%.
Sales enablement initiatives run as tactical projects
with a specific objective are often disconnectedfrom the business, sales strategies, and strategic
initiatives. And, as all these metrics further
demonstrate, a random or informal approach toenablement fails to lead to even average results andmay be worse than doing nothing.
Reasons for a Random or Informal Approach
So, if random and informal approaches don’twork, why do organizations continue to approachenablement this way? The top five reasonsparticipants in the 2019 study gave us were:•

Not enough resources•

Just getting started•

Lack of senior executive buy-in•

Approach meets current needs•

Working on a more formal approach

Page 17

Finally, we have to wonder at the response “thisapproach meets our current needs” when thoseorganizations that followed a random or informal
approach couldn’t even reach average results
across the three main sales KPIs. The majorityof these organizations haven’t clearly linked
their sales enablement goals to the goals of thebusiness. For example, they may have vaguely
defined their goal for enablement as “improve
collaboration.” If you haven’t tied a goal such asthat to quantifiable results, it’s easy to define yourefforts as “good enough.”
Of course, as we’ve shown in this chapter, if “goodenough” equals random or informal, you may
inadvertently be dragging results down as opposed
to contributing. For enablement professionals,
this is a dangerous place to be. Even informal andrandom approaches need resources, e.g., budget
and contributions from other teams. If you’re notachieving demonstrably positive results, you mightfind yourself in an uncomfortable position in the next
budget cycle.

Very likely, “lack of senior executive buy-in” serves
as the root cause for other reasons such as the“lack of resources.” If buy-in is lacking, resources
frequently are too because senior leadership’s
attention is focused elsewhere as are the budgets
they manage.

Climbing Out of a Hole
Based on the strong evidence we see in the data year
after year, we want to encourage every enablement
leader, including those who are just getting started,
to work on a formal and strategic approach to sales
enablement and to develop a charter.

The second reason, “just getting started,” is also
understandable. Sales enablement often originates
as an initiative to resolve a particularly pressing
sales challenge. The data and analysis in thisreport should help provide motivation to movebeyond crisis-driven enablement into something
more strategic.

It can be challenging to move from a random or
informal approach to a more formal one, but there
are several actions you can take to promote success:© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

1. Follow a proven process to create a charter.
A charter is essentially your business plan, andas such, defines your structure as well as yourgoals and how you’ll achieve them. These details
will help you gain buy-in from all necessary
stakeholders as you mature your enablement
discipline from random/informal to formal/
dynamic.
To create your charter, begin by conducting anassessment of the current state of sales strategy
implementation to identify the real challenges
your sales force is facing right now and thendevelop a sales enablement strategy to address
those challenges. At the end of this report, we’ve
included links to additional resources that canhelp you better understand what a charter is andhow to create one.
2. Get executive buy-in and address their concerns.
Our survey tool allowed respondents to commenton their specific enablement challenges. These
responses showed that challenges often stemfrom a lack of organizational commitment. To
break free from this challenge, senior executive
buy-in is a must. But to get buy-in from the very
top, you need to create a solid business case© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

Page 18

and tailor your messaging to each executive’srole. Selling to the executive level is no different
than selling to a VIP customer buying team, so
prepare well, practice your presentation, and get
feedback on your messaging. It might be helpful
to reiterate the orchestrating role of sales
enablement as that takes away the concern thatan entirely new discipline would confuse morethan provide value. You can also strengthen yourmessage by connecting sales enablement toexisting strategic initiatives (such as customer
experience, sales effectiveness, etc.) to ensure
an integrated approach and easier internal
communications.
3. Involve your sales managers early on.
Executive buy-in is essential to getting theresources you need, but sales manager buyin is essential to implementation. In our clientinteractions, we often see enablement teams
forget to involve sales managers in strategy
development. When that happens, even themost dynamic approach won’t create the desired
results. Get sales managers involved early andfind ways to keep them engaged.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 19

CHAPTER 4: Enablement Audiences and theRole of Seller Engagement
Now that we’ve established a foundation, let’slook at the sales enablement audiences, i.e., yourenablement customers. The top five audiences you
should be thinking about include:•

Quota-carrying salespeople•

Frontline sales managers•

Higher-level sales managers•

Channel partners•

Service and customer success professionals

The first two are particularly essential. Of course,
you need to enable quota-carrying salespeople, but
unless you align enablement to the management
strategies of frontline managers and enable themwith coaching services, your overall enablement
efforts are likely to fall short. This year, we examined
how the salesperson and frontline manager
engagement impacted performance.
Most Sellers At Least Somewhat Engaged
Seller engagement is essential to a successful
enablement discipline, but it’s challenging to define.
The usual definition of employee engagement is anemotional commitment to an organization’s visionand goals. Seller engagement is a bit more complex,
as their engagement goes in two directions: solving
buyer problems and achieving the organization’s
goals at the same time.

Our Sales Force is Emotionally Committed to Both Solving Buyer Problems and Achieving Our
Organization’s Goals.

9.3%

33.0%
Disagree

57.7%
Neutral or Somewhat Agree

Agree

The majority of all study participants reported that
their sales force is either fully engaged (57.7%)
or somewhat engaged (33.0%). Interestingly, theresponse was similar across different levels of sales
leadership. As this is a new data point this year, we
performed a holistic analysis to better understandwhether or not seller engagement correlated to ameasurable business impact and which practices
drove seller engagement.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Only Full Seller Engagement Impacts Performance
Our data shows that there is a strong relationshipbetween seller engagement and sales performance,but only for the 57.7% of organizations that said theirsales forces were fully engaged. Study participantsthat answered with “neutral” or “somewhat agree”
achieved only average results across all three KPIs:
quota attainment, revenue attainment, and win rates.
These were nearly the same results as those thatreported no engagement.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 20

Seller Engagement and Revenue Plan Attainment

Seller Engagement and Turnover Rates

105.6%
97.1%

98.8%
14.4%

10.2%

14.0%

10.1%

9.0%
5.7%

Study’s averagerevenue plan
attainment: 102.5%

SELLERS ARENOT ENGAGEDSELLERS ARE
SOMEWHAT ENGAGEDSELLERS ARE
FULLY ENGAGED© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Only fully engaged sales forces achieved
better sales results—on average 8.5 points
higher revenue attainment.
Full Engagement Leads to Lower Turnover
Fully engaged sales forces also had lower
turnover rates—a big benefit as lower turnover
naturally leads to lower costs for recruiting, hiring,onboarding new salespeople. Our Talent Study showsthat organizations need 3.7 months to fill an open
position and 9.2 months to get the new hire to fullproductivity. Generally, a stable sales force is also
more effective because existing sellers don’t have to
make up sales to compensate for new hire ramp-up
time and there are fewer gaps in territory coverage.
In other words, lower turnover rates positively
impact the cost of sales, also one of the sales
enablement goals.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

SELLERS ARENOT ENGAGEDSELLERS ARE
SOMEWHAT ENGAGED

Involuntary Turnover Rate

SELLERS ARE
FULLY ENGAGED

Voluntary Turnover Rate
© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Once again, the patterns were similar with fullengagement required for a significant impact. Of
course, there are many factors that determine
turnover rates, but this pattern shows that seller
engagement has a potentially positive impact onimportant metrics beyond the core sales KPIs.

Engaged sales forces experienced far lower
voluntary and involuntary turnover rates thanunengaged sales forces.
Engaging Managers Promote Seller Engagement
In previous years, we’ve talked quite a bit about thepositive impact of enabling frontline sales managers
to reinforce the enablement services provided tosales professionals. We found a similar phenomenon
when studying seller engagement: engaging sales
managers lead to engaged salespeople.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 21

Our Sales Managers Effectively Inspire, Motivate, and Engage Their Sales Teams to Leverage the Resources
Provided to Them.

12.9%

35.9%
Sellers Not Engaged

51.2%
Sellers Somewhat Engaged

The majority of organizations (51.2%) reported that
their sales managers effectively inspire, motivate,
and engage their sales teams to leverage theresources provided. A large majority (82.8%) of these
respondents also said they had a fully engaged sales
force. This data point is very much about the overall
leadership style that is more than sales coaching.
Inspiring, Engaging, and Motivating SalesManagers Drive Seller Engagement

Sellers Fully Engaged•

Formal sales enablement—Organizations withan engaged sales force were more likely to follow
a formal enablement approach: 62.3% compared
to 53.7% of all respondents.

•

Bettercustomer’s
pathalignment—
Organizations with a highly engaged sales
force were more likely to have aligned theirenablement services to the customer’s path:
46.6% compared to 30.6% of all respondents.

•

Higher adoption rates for sales process andmethodology—Organizations with a highly
engaged sales force had much higher sales
process adoption rates: 47.1% reported that
more than three-fourths of their sales force usedtheir defined sales processes daily, compared to34.7% of all respondents. The pattern held forsales methodology adoption.

•

Better aligned coaching services—Among thoseorganizations with highly engaged sales forces,
44.2% reported aligned coaching services,compared to only 29.6% overall.

NOT ENGAGING SALES MANAGERS
2.0%
SOMEWHAT ENGAGING SALES MANAGERS
15.2%
FULLY ENGAGING SALES MANAGERS
82.8%% of Seller Engagement© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

How your sales managers inspire, motivate,
and engage your sales teams is the single
most important practice to drive seller
engagement.
Full Engagement Requires a Proper Foundation
This year’s study data also found a correlation
between a highly engaged sales force and several
other attributes of a solid sales system and a maturesales enablement discipline.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Enablement as Change Agent
Seller engagement is very important, but it’s
impacted by a lot more than sales enablement. As
we saw, the leadership style of the sales managers
plays a huge role. So, too, do many foundational
elements: sales process and sales methodology
adoption rates, process alignment, etc. None ofthese things can be driven by sales enablement
alone; however, the collaborative nature of sales
enablement puts enablement in the position to makethings happen.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Four ways enablement can spark change:
1. Involve and educate your sponsors.
Share these findings with your senior executive
sponsors, ideally in a sales enablement advisoryboard meeting (see Chapter 9). Talk to the
HR and sales management members of youradvisory board about adding an assessment ofseller engagement to your current employee
engagement programs. Explain that theseactions will help you tailor your sales enablement
strategy to address the specific engagement
issues in your organization.
2. Assess and adjust your enablement approach.
Even if you don’t own seller engagement, you
still own your approach to sales enablement.
As we discussed in Chapter 3, your chartermust be aligned with the goals of thebusiness. This includes sales strategy and any
challenges particular to your organization.
After following the recommendations in step
#1, be sure to go back and adjust your charterto include seller engagement.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

Page 22

3. Collaborate to improve engagement.
If you don’t own the sales process and its
implementation, reach out to the team that
does. For most organizations, this is usuallysales operations with some sales management
involvement. If you’ve followed the previous
two steps, you’ve probably already shared thefindings from this report. If not, do so now.
Then, invite them to collaborate to create an
integrated approach to achieving the sharedvision of a fully engaged sales force, including
high adoption rates for sales processes and thesales methodology.
4. Involve sales managers in enablement.
If you haven’t already, begin building strong
relationships with highly effective sales
managers. Share these findings with them andask them what they would need from enablement
to be more effective in their role. This includes
both overall leadership style as well as coaching
services. (More on coaching in Chapter 7.) Often,
improving communication and involving sales
managers early on in strategy development will
help ensure consistent messaging across thesales force.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 23

Sales Enablement Services
Now, we turn to what many people think of when
they think of enablement: the services enablement
provides to the audiences it serves. You may havenoticed that this facet is the only one that’s green
in the clarity model introduced on page 3. That’s
because this facet is the only one that is visible andtangible. Everything else that we’ve discussed so
far has created the foundation for these services.
Everything we will discuss after these chapters isdesigned to help you provide effective, scalable sales
enablement services as efficiently as possible.
Enablement Services Jockey for Position
When asked what types of enablement services they
provide, respondents have placed sales training
services, followed by sales tools at the top of thelist for the last four years. Other enablement focus
areas shuffled for position this year.
Sales process improvements are back in the
top three. In Chapter 6, we will discuss sales
enablement’s role in sales process improvements
and why adoption rates of sales processes are
crucial for overall sales enablement success.
CRM and sales enablement technology management
has moved up three positions to #4. No doubt, thisis reflective of the increasing relevance of sales
enablement technology. More on that topic is found in
Chapter 8.
Sales content services dropped to #5 from #3 lastyear. We will analyze the impact of sales content on
performance in Chapter 5.
Onboarding services held onto its #6 position. This
relatively low position is interesting as in some© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

Top Sales Enablement Services
n Training Services
n Sales Tools
n Sales Process Improvements+2n CRM/Enablement Technology Mgmt

+3n Content Services-2n Onboardingn Coaching (enablement doing it)-2organizations, sales enablement is reduced toonboarding only. As the data shows year after year,
onboarding is an important part of sales enablement
and enablement should orchestrate training services
for specific onboarding initiatives.
Sales coaching services were ranked #4 last year
but only made it to #7 this year. As we will discuss in
Chapter 7, sales coaching is still not a broadly accepted
and well-implemented enablement service, despite
being shown, year after year, to be one of the best ways
to drive sustainable performance improvements.
In the next three chapters, we’ll discuss each of thecore types of enablement service in more depth:•

Sales content, including customer-facing andinternal enablement content and its impact on
performance•

Sales training, including various focus areas andformats and how to drive adoption rates for sales
processes and methodologies•

Sales coaching, including the current state ofsales coaching, its impact on performance, andhow to get started

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 24

CHAPTER 5: Sales Content
In sales enablement, content includes any piece ofcontent sellers need to create business. Content
also covers every phase of the customer’s path,not just the early phases that are usually thedomain of content marketing. When content
services are mastered and then brought to life byrelated training services and powered by the rightpiece of technology, impressive sales results canbe achieved.
Sales Content Comes in Many Forms
Content services include two distinct types ofcontent. Customer-facing content is what sellers
share with their buyers or use in direct buyerinteractions. Examples include case studies, successstories, presentations, white papers, third-party
content, proposal templates, contracts, etc. Internal
enablement content is what sellers use to prepare
for their buyer interactions. Content types in thiscategory include objection handling scripts, value
messaging guidelines, battle cards, playbooks, etc.
Additionally, specific content types (white papers,
references, case studies, battle cards, playbooks,etc.) can be segmented into various content formats(pdf, pptx, mp3, mp4, xls, docx, etc.), which are
created by or contributed to by many different
functions (not just marketing).
This complexity requires sales enablement to takean orchestrating role to ensure content services are
consistent and effective.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

Who Creates the Content Sellers Need?
38.8%

21.3%
14.9%

14.6%
6.1%

MARKETINGSELLERSSALES
PRODUCT
OPS/LEGALENABLEMENT MANAGEMENT

4.5%
OTHERS© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Where Does Content Come From?
The finding that enablement content comes frommany different sources is not new to this year’s
study, and the changes in contributing sources
are pretty slight this year. Marketing’s role as asource increased by 5.0 points to 38.8%, while sales
operations and legal decreased by 4.5 points to 6.1%.
Sellers still create about one-fifth of the content
they need on their own: 21.3% this year compared
to 20.7% last year. We specifically asked about
content creation from scratch, excluding the typicalcustomizing and tailoring of existing content
assets, as this is the most time-consuming aspectof content creation. According to our 2018-2019
Sales Performance Study, salespeople still only
spend about 32.0% of their time actually selling,so providing them with easily customizable content
assets can be a big boon to productivity.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 25

Getting a Handle on Content Investments
Content is a big investment, but with so manydifferent functions contributing to the content
pool, it’s not easy to identify and calculate the total
investment made in content types and formats
all along the customer’s path. In fact, 28.1% of
respondents said they don’t know how much they
invest in content. That percentage doesn’t changemuch when filtered by respondent role, organization
size, or industry.
Annual Spend on Content for Salespeople(per Salesperson)
17.2%
<$500

28.1%
DO NOT KNOW

17.4%
$500-$1,500

2.7%
NOT
APPLICABLE
9.8%>$5,000
9.5%$2,501-$5,000

15.3%$1,501-$2,500© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

More than a quarter (28.1%) oforganizations don’t know how much they
spend on content for their sellers.
The most probable cause for this lack oftransparency lies in the disparate sources ofcontent already discussed. In addition, manyorganizations have no clear accountability whenit comes to who is responsible for the various
content types and formats, not to mention who is© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

responsible for managing the content throughout
its lifecycle. Truly understanding the overall
investment requires an assessment to determine
the related line items in each functional budget plus
the costs for third parties that are often involved incontent creation or localization.
In a mature sales enablement discipline, enablement
orchestrates the content process. While sales
enablement may not own the entire content
budget, this puts them in the best position toassess the current state of content services and to
calculate the investment made by each contributing
function, including third-party costs. Once content
investments are better understood, enablement
can better collaborate with all involved functions tocreate the most cost-effective content strategy and aformalized collaboration model (see Chapter 9).
Content Strategy Contributes to Sales Performance
An effective sales enablement content strategy
defines the purpose of content, the goals content
should help to achieve, and how content is to be
designed, created, and managed in support of thebusiness and selling strategies. A comprehensive
content strategy contains this level of detail for
all relevant content types and formats, across all
contributing functions.
Similar to last year, only about one-third (31.8%)of respondents reported having a content strategy
in place. Here again, a formal approach to sales
enablement makes a difference. Respondents
who followed a formal and charter-based sales
enablement approach were five times more likely tohave a content strategy than those who approachedenablement in an informal or random manner.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 26

We Have Developed and Implemented a Content Strategy

5x

FORMAL APPROACH/CHARTER
28.7%

13.9%

MORE LIKELY
to have content
strategy

57.4%

RANDOM APPROACH
28.6%

60.4%
Disagree

Neutral or Somewhat Agree

Agree

Given the complexity of content and the many
contributing functions, it’s not an easy task todevelop a strategy for content. However, year afteryear, the data from our enablement study showsthat it’s worth the time and effort. Just look at thesignificant improvements that can be achieved with
an effective content strategy.
Even more importantly, having only somewhat of acontent strategy (a partial strategy or one that is not
fully implemented) led to win rates below the study’s
average of 46.4%. An analysis of quota attainment
showed similar results.

+27.1%
Win
Rates

31.8%

Have a Content
Strategy+18.1%

Quota
Attainment© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

10.9%© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Enablement Content Needs Improvement
Once a content strategy is in place, the next step isto assess the effectiveness of content by type. This
assessment can be done by surveying sellers andtheir managers, as well as customers for customerfacing content. If an organization already works witha sales enablement content management platform,
useful analytics can also be gathered.
The greatest improvements in customer-facing
content were needed in four areas:•

Customer-facing presentations•

Case studies/success stories•

Business value/ROI justification assets•

Collateral

For internal enablement content, the top four areas
for improvement were:•

Value messaging guidelines•

Battle cards (competitive comparisons)•

Objection handling guides•

Playbooks

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Value messaging guidelines, battle cards,
client-focused presentations, and customer
case studies need the greatest improvement.
In both content areas, content that’s productoriented is considered to better meet seller needs.
The same is true for planning tools, proposals, andreferences. Other than references, the one thingthese content types have in common is that they
are internally-focused versus customer-centered. It
stands to reason that content types that are centered
on topics that are more under the control of thebusiness (such as the product portfolio) are easier tocreate than content for topics that the business can’t
control such as buyers and competitors.
Creating a Content Strategy
Here are a few actions that can help you leverage
the performance impact of a fully implemented
content strategy:
1. Determine where your content comes from.
The first step is to determine who creates all thecontent your sellers need. For best results, bethorough in your search. We’ve mentioned a few
different functions, e.g., legal, marketing, sales
operations, etc., but you may have additionalsources such as product, solution, and industry
selling teams.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

Page 27

2. Define content and assess what you have.
First, define all content types and formats
to gain clarity. Then, map all content types
to the customer’s path to see if there is agood fit. Build buckets such as “good to go,””needs adjustment,” and “to be deleted.”
Gaps in content can go into a “to be created”
bucket, and redundancies can go into a “to bedeleted” bucket.
3. Develop and implement your content strategy.
Following the definitions you set in step #2,
connect your content to the role of content you
laid out in your charter (purpose and goals) anddefine how each content type in various formats
will help you achieve these goals. To effectively
implement a content strategy, two othercomponents should be implemented as well: aformalized collaboration model and a production
process. Both components are discussed in
Chapter 9.
4. Implement content lifecycle management.
Now that all the prerequisites are in place,content lifecycle management will help ensurethat all content assets are kept up to date byautomatically reminding content owners toreview, update, or retire assets regularly.
When assigning ownership to assets in yoursales enablement content management
solution, be sure to assign it at the content
type and format level.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 28

CHAPTER 6: Sales Training
Year after year, respondents to our enablement study
tell us that sales training is their most importantenablement service. Sales training covers areas suchas skills, product, process methodologies, messaging,and customer insights. It also incorporates thevarious formats in which these services are delivered.
Analyzing the performance impact of sales training
was not a focus of our study this year; however, we
did gather some data that shows the impact is real.
Here is a quick summary:Training was usually seen as meeting or exceeding
expectations when it addressed an urgent needand provided easy ways to apply the newly learned
skills. And, the higher sales training services wereranked, the better performance results. As an
example, organizations in which sales methodology
and process training services met or exceeded
expectations saw quota attainment 4.1 points above
average. When these same services were ranked as
needing improvement or redesign, quota attainment
fell to 7.8 points below average, which equates to a
14.5% decline.
Sales Training Investments for Sellers and Managers
Overall, organizations spent slightly more on theirsalespeople and sales managers than they didlast year as visualized in the chart. The majority oforganizations (60.9%) invested between $500 and$2,500 per salesperson per year, almost the same
percentage as in 2018 (60.2%). However, almost
one-fifth of organizations (19.6%) invested more

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

than $2,500 per salesperson per year, slightly morethan last year. At the other end of the spectrum, thepercentage of organizations that only invested $500
or less slightly decreased compared to last year.
Annual Training Investments in Salespeople and in
Sales Managers per Person per Year 2019>$2,500 23.7%
19.6%$500-$2,500 52.8%60.9%<$500 14.9%
15.2%

WE DON’T
OFFER 8.6%
TRAINING
4.3%
Sales Managers

Salespeople© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

We saw similar patterns for the investments in sales
managers.
Investment Is Needed to Impact Performance
It makes sense that investing in training services canimpact performance, but how much is required todrive results?

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 29

Investments in Salespeople Matter
42.8%
Win Rate<$500 perperson per year

50.2%
Win Rate>$2,501 perperson per year

© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

This year we found that organizations that invested
between $500 and $2,500 per salesperson peryear achieved an average win rate of 46.5%, almost
exactly the study’s average win rate of 46.4%.
Investing more than $2,500 per seller per year leads
to remarkably higher win rates. At the other sideof the spectrum, investments smaller than $500
per person per year led to win rates way below the
study’s average. The data shows a similar impact onrevenue plan attainment.
When we looked at the impact of investing in sales
training for sales managers, we saw similar results,
with higher levels of investment required to achieve
above-average results. The trend continued when
we examined training’s impact on revenue plan
attainment as well.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

Increased Investment in Skills and Methodologies
As discussed in our Buyer Preferences Study,buyers expect excellent communication skills
across all channels, sellers to be well prepared,
to learn something new, and to be provided withinsights and perspectives that help them solve
their challenges in the best possible way. These
expectations require sellers to evolve their sellingskills and to better leverage defined selling
methodologies and processes.
Suggesting that many recognize these buyer
expectations, organizations ranked selling skills andsales methodology/process as the top two training
investment areas. We always look at the customer’s
path as the linchpin for all enablement efforts, andsales methodologies do a great job helping sellers
connect with their buyers along the customer’s pathin a purposeful, repeatable, and scalable way. They
ensure everyone speaks the same language and thatsellers clearly understand the steps that need to becompleted and why.
At the bottom of the list, only 30.2% of organizations
planned to invest more in social selling training.
This leads us to conclude that many sales leaders
don’t yet fully understand the role of social sellingwhen it comes to the digital transformation of theirbusinesses. Another explanation could be that once
an organization has invested in tools training, they
assume they are done. In reality, social selling is only
effective if the entire selling skill set has evolved andthe required platforms and tools are integrated into
the workflow.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 30

Planned Investment in Training Areas (Over Next 12 Months)
SELLING SKILLS TRAINING
35.3%

59.1%

5.6%

SALES METHODOLOGY/PROCESS TRAINING
37.9%

56.8%

5.4%

PRODUCT TRAINING
50.5%

42.9%

6.7%

44.8%

5.0%

45.3%

5.1%

VALUE MESSAGING TRAINING
50.2%

NEW SALESPERSON ONBOARDING TRAINING
49.5%

CRM AND OTHER SYSTEMS TRAINING
44.5%

48.1%

7.4%

ROI/BUSINESS VALUE JUSTIFICATION TRAINING
48.4%

45.3%

6.3%

CUSTOMER’S MARKETPLACE/CUSTOMER’S JOURNEY TRAINING
51.8%

40.6%

7.6%

SOCIAL SELLING TRAINING
61.3%

30.2%
Invest More

Same

Invest Less

8.5%
© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

More organizations plan to increase investments in selling skills and sales methodology/processtraining than any other area.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 31

E-Learning Is the Focus of Increased Investments
This year, we also saw some changes to the training formats organizations plan to deploy. Not surprisingly,
e-learning was singled out for increased investments by the greatest percentage of organizations (59.8%),
followed by online simulations and online instructor-led training.
It’s interesting that mobile learning is not positioned higher, but 43.1% of organizations still expect to invest
more in this area. As to be expected, onsite classroom and instructor-led training is the area in which thegreatest percentage of organizations (16.1%) plan to spend less.
Planned Investment in Training Formats (Over Next 12 Months)
E-LEARNING

35.1%

59.8%

5.1%

(ONLINE) SIMULATIONS

40.7%

51.3%

7.9%

ONLINE INSTRUCTOR-LED TRAINING, SYNCHRONOUS WEB-BASED TRAINING

44.7%

45.8%

9.5%

SHADOWING EXPERIENCED SALESPEOPLE

50.4%

43.5%

6.2%

MOBILE LEARNING

48.5%

43.1%

8.4%

ON-SITE CLASSROOM-BASED TRAINING, INSTRUCTOR-LED TRAINING

44.1%

39.8%

16.1%

GAMIFICATION-BASED TRAINING

53.3%

35.2%

11.5%

VIRTUAL REALITY (VR) BASED TRAINING

57.7%

33.7%
Invest More
Same
Invest Less

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

8.6%© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 32

Methodology and Process Training Drives Adoption
In Chapter 1, we saw that organizations withsales enablement are more likely to have moremature sales processes than those without sales
enablement. These organizations consciously invest
in sales methodology and sales process training toengage and equip salespeople to use their processes
and methodologies daily.

enablement study found that sales process and sales
methodology adoption rates above 75% resulted inabove-average gains for revenue plan attainment,
quota attainment, and win rates, with a big boost
at adoption rates bigger than 90%. This patternholds true for sales process adoption, for sales
methodology adoption, and for a combined approach(see table).

These investments promote the adoption rates (thepercentage of the sales force using the definedsales process or methodologies daily) that are
crucial to delivering productivity and performancegains. As in other studies we’ve done, this year’s

Only sales process and sales methodology
adoption rates above 75% resulted in aboveaverage results for revenue plan attainment,
quota attainment, and win rates.

Adoption Rates of Sales Process and Sales
Methodology and Performance Impact<25%

76%-90%>90%

Revenue plan
attainment(average: 102.5%)

97.6%

106.7%

112.5%

Quota attainment(average: 60.0%)

49.4%

64.0%

72.4%

Win rate for forecast
deals (average: 46.4%)

40.4%

54.1%

57.8%

Jump Start Sales Training Services
In this chapter, we looked deeply into the positive
impact of higher levels of investment in sales
training on win rates and revenue plan attainment.
If your enablement discipline does not yet focus onsales training, here are a few recommendations to
consider.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

1. Assess your overall sales training landscape.
As with sales content, there are also various
teams that provide sales training services,such as learning and development (L&D),
product management, or marketing, and theconsistency between services suffers. Identify
what’s provided, by whom, for which target
audiences, in what training areas, and in what
formats. Map these services to the customer’s
path to identify gaps or redundancies. GroupCSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Reportyour assessment findings into buckets suchas “good to go,” “needs adjustment,” and “nolonger relevant” and then use these buckets tocreate your action plan.
2. Pay special attention to selling skills, sales
methodology, and process training.
As this year’s study has shown, it is vital to getselling skills, sales methodology, and processtraining right. Do a deeper assessment in these
two areas to make sure your training services
are complete, compelling, and fit your businessmodel. Also, look for ways you can strengthen
these services. Offering small refresher training
modules in a digital format that can be served up
in your CRM system based on an opportunity or
account is one example.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

Page 33

3. Provide related sales coaching services forsales managers.
Prepare your sales managers to drive adoption
and reinforcement by ensuring your sales
training services have a corresponding coaching
service. As an example, if you’re implementing
a new value messaging approach, you’ll need
new content and seller training. Make sure yoursales managers are also equipped with training
services so the coaching they provide their sales
team is consistent and aligned. (More on this isprovided in the next chapter.)CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 34

CHAPTER 7: Sales Coaching
For the last five years, sales coaching has had thegreatest impact on win rates and quota attainment.
However, less than half of the study participants
leverage sales coaching effectively. As we get thisquestion frequently, let’s first differentiate between
sales training and sales coaching before going into
the details.
Sales Training and Sales Coaching Defined
Sales training covers a number of training areas
such as selling skills and techniques, sales
methodologies, sales processes, sales technology,
and the whole range of product training services.
Sales training can be delivered in various training
formats such as e-Learning, instructor-led
online and classroom sessions, hybrid formats, andmany more.
The goal of sales training is often to kick off change,e.g., as an initial step to establish new skills
and methodologies or to develop new behaviors.
However, sales training alone cannot achieve sales
enablement’s goal to engage, equip, and empowersales professionals to be valuable, relevant, anddifferentiating in every buyer interaction. To makesales training effective, it requires ongoing sales
coaching efforts.
Sales coaching is a process by which sales
managers or dedicated sales coaches use adefined approach and specific communication
skills combined with domain expertise to facilitate
structured conversations with sales professionals
to uncover improvement areas and opportunities© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

for new levels of sales success. Sales coachingbuilds on sales training efforts to drive sustainable
performance improvements. Additionally, sales
coaching should drive adoption and reinforcementof the already-implemented enablement services.
Sales coaching covers different coaching areas
such as lead and opportunity coaching, funnel
coaching, skills and behavior coaching, and accountand territory coaching.
Sales Coaching Still Too Random
As vital as sales coaching is, the majority oforganizations (62.9%) said they follow a random(coaching is left up to managers) or informal (coachingguidelines may exist, but no formal implementation)
approach. The percentage of organizations that
followed a more formal (purposeful and fully
implemented) or even dynamic (formal plus coaching
services tailored and aligned to the enablement
services for salespeople) approach to sales coaching
was only 37.1%.
Overall, more organizations followed a dynamic
coaching approach this year than last. However,more organizations are also in the random category
than last year. It’s likely that these are organizations
that have only recently added sales coaching to theirsales enablement discipline.
When we looked deeper, we found a very strong
relationship between the coaching approach and theway sales enablement is set up as a discipline. Whenthe organization took a formal approach to sales
enablement (with or without a charter), 56.9% of

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 35

Sales Coaching Approach 2018-2019

42.9%
35.9%

32.7%
24.5%

24.0%
20.0%

12.6%
7.4%

RANDOM
2018

INFORMAL
2019

the time, they also took a formal approach to sales
coaching. Conversely, only 14.0% of those with aninformal approach to enablement approach sales
coaching formally.

The more formal sales enablement, themore mature the coaching approach.
Sales Coaching Approach if Sales Enablement
Setup is Random/Informal

FORMALDYNAMIC© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

That said, we find it interesting to see that of thoseorganizations with a formal sales enablement
approach, 43.1%, still approach coaching informally.
This may be an indication that, way too often,
sales coaching is considered separate from sales
enablement and or treated as an afterthought.

Sales Coaching Approach if Sales Enablement Setup is Formal (with or without charter)
56.9%

86.0%
43.1%

14.0%

RANDOM/INFORMAL
COACHING

FORMAL/DYNAMIC
COACHING

Informal/Random Sales Enablement© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

RANDOM/INFORMAL
COACHING

FORMAL/DYNAMIC
COACHING

Formal Sales Enablement© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 36

Dynamic Coaching Drives Double-Digit Results
As in previous years, the data shows that sales
coaching has an impact on performance. And, as
might be expected, the more formal sales coachingis, the better the performance impact. If you stillneed to make a business case for sales coachingenablement in your organization, the data points
from this year’s study should be a tremendous help.

improvement of 19.0% compared to the study’s
average, and 32.1% compared to the random
approach. For quota attainment, the impact waseven stronger this year.

Dynamic sales coaching showed doubledigit improvements in sales performance on
both quota attainment (21.3%) and win rates(19.0%) over the study’s average.

Sales Coaching Approach vs. Win Rates
Study’s average
win rate: 46.4%

DYNAMIC

55.2%

FORMAL
48.9%

INFORMAL
47.8%

RANDOM
41.8%
Win Rate© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

As in previous years, leaving sales coaching up
to the managers resulted in win rates and quota
attainment rates well below the study’s average.
While you sometimes need to walk before you run,an informal approach to sales coaching should
only be considered an interim step, as only formal
and dynamic sales coaching led to significantly
better results.
Those with a dynamic approach achieved anaverage win rate of 55.2%, 13.4 points higher thanthose with a random approach and 8.8 points
higher than the study’s average win rate. In termsof actual improvements in percentages, that’s an© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

Dynamic coaching showed even stronger
improvements over the random approach: a
27.9% improvement in quota attainment and
32.1% for win rates.
Overcoming the Inertia
Despite the business case that can be made forsales coaching, many organizations have followed
an informal approach for years, and it can bechallenging to inspire a sales organization to take adifferent approach to management. As noted in theprevious section, our study shows that alignment
to enablement services (the hallmark of dynamic
coaching) can also serve to create quick wins that
can help you win support.
Here are some additional ideas for moving frominformal to dynamic sales coaching enablement:
1. Involve and engage your sales managers.
As their primary focus is sellers, sales
enablement leaders often have almost no
relationships with sales managers, evenin the 73.7% of respondents that said they
include frontline sales managers in theirenablement efforts.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Enablement only pays off when sales managers
are engaged and everyone is working toward
the same goals. The first step is to build
relationships with them. Then, involve them early
on in enablement strategy and whenever you
are about to create new enablement services,
especially for new initiatives. Listen to their
feedback, integrate their suggestions, and ask
them what they would need to make this initiative
a success. Finally, using the findings from thisstudy, explore the concept of sales coaching withthem to better understand where they are andwhat enablement services they need the most.
2. Create a business case.
Once you’ve established a relationship withyour sales managers, you can use the resultsfrom this study combined with their feedback
to create a business case. Remember to clearly
differentiate between sales training and sales
coaching to avoid confusion. Involve your sales
managers in the process and, if appropriate, letthem present the business case. It will be evenstronger and more convincing if the request
comes from sales management (as an executionfunction) instead of sales enablement as asupport function.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

Page 37

This is often the hardest step as too many still
think of sales coaching as a soft skill or one thatis not necessary. This is especially true in very
male-dominated organizational cultures andthose whose sales leaders were never coachedthemselves. Make the case on the mental level
and address the emotional level, too.
3. Run a successful pilot on sales process andmethodology.
To ensure maximum impact and an easy
starting point, begin with a sales coaching pilot
revolving around sales process and methodology
enablement. If your organization is using alicensed sales methodology, your provider may
already offer related sales coaching services thatyou can quickly leverage. If your environment isself-developed, or you and your sales managers
see the need to tailor the coaching approach, run
a pilot in one or two sales teams and measure
the impact on adoption rates and performance
as a proof of concept before rolling the services
out to a broader audience.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 38

The Inner Workings: Enablement Tech and Collaboration
Our last three facets cover the inner workings ofenablement. The first facet we’ll cover is Integrated
Enablement Technology, including the current stateof investments, implementation progress, and theimpact of technology on performance. We’ll also
look at the level of technology integration and therole of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in enablement.
Next, we’ll cover the Formalized Collaboration facet.
By now, it should be crystal clear that while sales
enablement plays an orchestrating role, enablement
is a cross-functional, highly collaborative discipline.
A formal cross-functional collaboration model
provides clarity on roles and responsibilities for© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

each enablement service your team provides. In
this chapter, we will discuss what the study results
have to say about the current state of enablement
collaboration as well as the key issues facing
enablement organizations.
The third and final facet is Efficient Enablement
Operations. This facet covers the enablement
governance model (ideally supported by an advisoryboard) and the enablement production processes
that ensure the quality, effectiveness, and scalabilityof your enablement services. Last but not least, it
covers enablement metrics, i.e., how to measuresales enablement success.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 39

CHAPTER 8: Sales Enablement Technology
Sales technology’s role in sales enablement increases
every year. The better these technologies become,the more they enable the success and scalabilityof sales enablement. In this chapter, we look at
the investments being made in sales enablement
content management (SECM), training/learning, andcoaching technologies as well as the impact theseinvestments have on results.
Majority of Enablement Functions Invest inTechnology
First, we wanted to know which enablement
technologies organizations are implementing. While
there are dozens of different types of enablement
technologies, we clustered our results into threehigh-level categories: sales enablement content
management (SECM), sales training and learning,and sales coaching solutions. To make this data
more meaningful, we also separated the responses
of organizations that have sales enablement fromthose that do not.
The majority of organizations with sales enablement
already had technology implemented across all
three categories, with sales training and learningtechnologies being the most common (70.3%). This
comes as no surprise for two reasons. First, as we
mentioned earlier, sales training has been the mostcommon enablement service for the last five years.
Second, existing L&D solutions and LMS platforms
are often used for sales enablement, especially asorganizations evolve from an L&D focus to morecomprehensive sales enablement.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

Do You Have a Sales Enablement Content
Management Solution in Place?
56.9%

30.5%

12.7%

YES

NO

PLANNED FOR
NEXT 12 MONTHS© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Do You Have a Training and Learning Technology
Solution in Place?
70.3%

19.7%
10.0%
YES

NO

PLANNED FOR
NEXT 12 MONTHS© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 40

Do You Have a Coaching Technology Solution forYour Sales Managers in Place?
57.6%

When enablement technologies were
integrated into CRM, quota attainment rates
were 6.8% higher than the average.

30.5%

+6.8%

Quota
Attainment
11.9%

YES

NO

PLANNED FOR
NEXT 12 MONTHS

42.5%

Have CRM
as the Anchor+4.1%© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Unfortunately, almost half of the organizations(43.0%) still share content with their sales teams
via email or store it in multiple repositories. This isalmost the same percentage as last year (47.5%).
Every function wants to help sales so they provide
their services via shared drives, portals, or intranet
pages they set up independently. However, multiple
sources of content frustrate sellers and make itless likely that they’ll use what is created. It also
makes it almost impossible for content managers to
implement a content strategy and effectively manage
the content lifecycle.
CRM Must Be the Anchor
Finally, we turn our attention to how theseenablement technologies are used within the
broader sales technology landscape. It’s encouraging
that 42.5% of organizations consider CRM as theanchor for all enablement technologies. However,almost one-third (29.2%) rely on point solutions,and another 28.3% try to connect existing point
solutions into the sales workflow. These findings are
consistent with last year’s data.
© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

Win
Rates

© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Integration of sales enablement technologies isworth the effort. We saw similar results for revenue
plan attainment and for win rates.
AI Is Becoming More Important
As sales technologies get more sophisticated, we
wanted to understand how sales organizations areleveraging AI. The majority (60.2%) reported thatthey weren’t using any AI-based technology rightnow. Nearly one-quarter (24.5%) said they use AIbased technologies in some enablement areas, suchas content, and a small minority (4.1%) said theyused AI-based technologies in all enablement areas.
Interestingly, 11.3% were not sure whether theirtechnologies were based on AI or not. That’s
understandable as there is some confusion about
concepts like AI and Machine Learning, and technology
vendors don’t always use the same language.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

A Strategic Approach to Enablement Technologies
Regardless of where you are in your sales
enablement journey, you should always take astrategic approach to enablement technology.
And, remember, no matter what is implemented,
it will have a huge impact on the sales force’s daily
workflow. You will need to plan carefully to lead andguide this change effectively.

Page 41sure that all decisions are connected to orderived from your sales enablement charter(see Chapter 3). To keep budget requests undercontrol, check out commercially available
solutions before recommending an internal
development project. With an abundance ofavailable options in all value/price ranges,
internal development is rarely, if ever, called forthese days.

Here are a few recommendations to consider:
3. Leverage change management best practices.
1. Assess your current sales technology.
As with other types of enablement services, it’s
critical that you have a clear picture of what’s
being used along the entire customer’s path.
It’s also vital to understand what’s implemented
and NOT being used. Collaborate with sales
operations and your sales managers to complete
this assessment, and remember to look beyond
CRM to identify all the different systems andshared drives/portals your sellers use toaccess tools and services. Once you have acomprehensive inventory, identify redundancies,
gaps, areas that need improvement (e.g., better
functionality or integration), and technologies orshared drives/portals that are no longer relevant
and should be eliminated.
2. Create a business case for investment.
Make a business case for filling the gaps
identified in your assessment based on thebusiness problems you want to solve and thegoals you want to achieve. Remember to make© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

As mentioned, no matter what technology you
add or integrate into your existing infrastructure,
it will change the way your salespeople performtheir jobs. Ensuring a successful implementationand high levels of adoption requires an equal
focus on change management. We don’t
have room to go into the details of change
management in this report, but there are many
good sources of information available. Just
remember to always get executive buy-in,
involve your sales managers early on, and equipthem with coaching services in support of yourenablement efforts, the sales strategy, and thebusiness goals.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 42

CHAPTER 9: Cross-Functional Collaboration, Enablement
Operations, and Metrics
While the collaboration and operations/metrics
facets don’t result in deliverables that are visible
to your target enablement audiences, they are theinner workings of enablement that allow you tocreate these tangible enablement services. The
purpose of these facets can be summed up in threevery important words: governance, productivity,and scalability.
Governance is a term nobody wants to focus on,
but when difficult decisions need to be made, agovernance model pays off.
Productivity: When the inner workings of enablement
are set up correctly, there are almost no surprises
as everyone follows the same plan and knows well inadvance what needs to be done and by when.

Scalability: In fast-growing organizations, there is a
lot of pressure on sales enablement to reduce theramp-up time for new hires or salespeople whocome aboard through an acquisition or merger.
This can only happen when the inner workings ofenablement are running smoothly.
One-Quarter Operates With an Advisory Board
Many enablement decisions are cross-functional innature and involve a number of senior executives.
An advisory board allows enablement leaders to
get in front of these executives regularly to present
progress and results, discuss challenges, and makestrategic decisions. In this year’s study, one-quarterof respondents agreed that they effectively use anadvisory board to keep senior executives involved
and engaged and to make strategic decisions.

We Effectively Use a Sales Enablement Advisory Board to Keep Our Senior Executives Involved andEngaged and to Make Strategic Decisions.

27.5%

47.6%
Disagree

Neutral or Somewhat Agree

Agree or Strongly Agree

Organizations that run sales enablement
formally with or without charter are almost
twice as likely to have an advisory board.
Enablement Approach Impacts Collaboration
Collaboration has been a common theme throughout
this report, and many enablement leaders have told
us that they end up needing to collaborate with many
more functions than initially expected.
© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

24.9%© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Some sales and marketing experts refer toenablement collaboration as a sales and marketingalignment issue, but it’s much more than that. Sales
and marketing are both contributors to enablement,
but when enablement is done right, they do not own
it. In a mature enablement discipline, enablement
professionals orchestrate collaboration across manygroups, including marketing, product management,
sales operations, sales management, IT, L&D, andCSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

more. Given the huge collaboration effort required,it’s surprising that 76.5% of the respondents to thisyear’s study said they collaborate in an ad hoc or
informal manner only.
Before getting into the details, let’s define ourterms. Ad hoc collaboration means there is no
explicit agreement to collaborate—and very little
collaboration actually happens. Informal meansthat different functions know, at a high level,
what they are expected to contribute, but there is
no documented collaboration model. In a formal
collaboration model, roles and responsibilities are
assigned—and documented—for each enablement
service.
Many organizations find the RACI model(Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed)
particularly useful. This collaboration model
defines the accountable, responsible roles, as wellas the roles to be informed and to be consulted.
At a minimum, these roles should be agreed uponby content type. As we’ll discuss in a moment, aformal collaboration model that’s also connectedto the production model is still a rare phenomenon,
but well worth the extra effort.
We filtered responses by the participants’ sales
enablement approach and found a clear link between
sales enablement approach and collaboration.
The majority of organizations that followed arandom or informal approach to sales enablement
also followed a random or informal approach tocollaboration. On the flip side, those organizations
that followed a formal and charter-based sales
enablement approach almost always followed aformal collaboration model as well.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

Page 43

Next, we wanted to know why so many organizations
collaborate in an ad hoc or informal manner. The
majority of organizations (64.8%) told us that silothinking is the main hurdle, followed by conflicting
goals, budget restrictions, lack of experience, lackof leadership support, and competitive company
culture. Most of these issues cannot be solved bysales enablement. Instead, those issues require theinvolvement of the organization’s leadership team inorder to be solved.
Enablement Production: Collaboration in Action
Formalizing your collaboration model is only the firststep. Next comes your production model, i.e., thesequence of activities followed to create and deliver
enablement services. Overall, 23.0% of organizations
reported having a production model in place, 34.8%
were not sure or only somewhat agreed, and 42.2%
disagreed.
As with the collaboration model, the sales
enablement approach plays a role, as you can see
here. When sales enablement is formal and charterbased, it’s more than four times as likely that theenablement team has also implemented theirproduction model.

When sales enablement is formal andcharter-based, it’s more than four times as
likely that the enablement team has also
implemented their production model.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 44

Cross-Functional Collaboration With Random andInformal Sales Enablement Approach

Cross-Functional Collaboration With Formal
Charter-Based Sales Enablement Approach
57.7%

55.4%

36.8%
29.3%

13.0%
7.8%

AD-HOC/RANDOM

INFORMAL

AD-HOC/RANDOM

FORMALCOLLABORATION
MODEL© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

INFORMAL

FORMALCOLLABORATION
MODEL© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

We Effectively Produce and Manage Our Enablement Services Based on a Production Model That Covers
All Phases from Design to Delivery.

4.5x

FORMAL APPROACH/CHARTER
38.1%

25.8%

36.1%

MORE LIKELY
to have a
production
model

RANDOM/INFORMAL APPROACH
30.8%

61.2%
Disagree

Neutral or Somewhat Agree

Agree

The next question is whether or not getting theinner workings right impacts productivity andperformance. And yes, it matters. When both thecollaboration model and the related production
model are implemented correctly, enablement
teams set themselves up for greater success. They
are not only more efficient, but also more effective,
as their energy can go directly into what they create
rather than dealing with dysfunctional collaboration
with all its resulting delays and missteps. Finally,© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

8.0%© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

scalability is impossible when collaboration is ad hoc
and defined production processes don’t exist.
When both the collaboration and production models
are formalized and implemented, quota attainment
was 13.1 points higher. Win rates showed asimilar impact. So, it makes sense to get the innerworkings right.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 45

Measuring Enablement Metrics
WE CONSISTENTLY MEASURE THE IMPACT OF OUR ENABLEMENT INITIATIVES WITH A SET OF TAILORED METRICS THAT ALLOWSUS TO DETERMINE THE ROI OF OUR ENABLEMENT INVESTMENTS.
32.3%

43.7%

24.0%

WE CONSISTENTLY MEASURE THE IMPACT OF OUR ENABLEMENT INITIATIVES WITH MILESTONES AND PRODUCTIVITY METRICS.
29.8%

41.1%

29.0%

WE CONSISTENTLY MEASURE THE IMPACT OF OUR ENABLEMENT INITIATIVES USING BOTH LEADING AND LAGGING INDICATORS.
32.5%

41.8%
Disagree

Neutral or Somewhat Agree

Agree

Measuring Sales Enablement Success
The metrics you use to measure sales enablement
success is another important element of Efficient
Enablement Operations. Your enablement chartershould already list those metrics. If you don’t yet
have a formal charter, you may want to revisit
Chapter 4. Our book Sales Enablement: A Framework
to Engage, Equip, and Empower A World-Class Sales
Force also includes a significant amount of guidanceon how to create a charter, including an example in
the appendix.
Overall, nearly one-quarter of organizations
consistently measure the impact of their enablement
efforts with either productivity metrics, milestones,or leading and lagging indicators. However,organizations that follow a formal or even charterbased approach to sales enablement are also
more likely to implement a tailored approach toenablement metrics.
Almost one-third (29.0%) said they work withmilestones and productivity metrics. These are© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

25.7%© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

usually the easiest metrics to implement andcan be especially useful when just launching
your enablement discipline. One-quarter (25.7%)of organizations use both leading and lagging
indicators, and 24.0% leverage a whole dashboard of
tailored metrics to determine the ROI of their sales
enablement investments.
Formalizing Enablement’s Inner Workings
If you’re just launching your enablement discipline,
you may be surprised at how much behind-thescenes work needs to be done. Here are a few steps
you can take to get started:
1. Formalize your collaboration model first.
You need to focus on your collaboration
model first because it is a prerequisite for the
production model. Begin by approaching all
involved functions to explain the challengesof creating enablement services without acollaboration model, e.g., when there is a lack ofrole clarity and accountability, tasks get moved
around until it becomes an emergency, andCSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

everything needs to be done at the last minute.
Then lay out the vision: designing consistentenablement services along the customer’s pathwith various functions seamlessly and efficiently.
2. Assess enablement services and assign roles
collaboratively.
Follow the steps in Chapter 7 to assess yourexisting enablement services and create acontent strategy. Once this is done, set up a few
workshops for those functions you identified inyour collaboration model to go through content
or training type and define roles according to the
RACI or another agreed-upon model.
3. Test the collaboration model in a pilot project.
Now that the foundational work is done, it’stime to bring your plan to life. Choose a pilot
project such as a new playbook, value messaging
approach, set of white papers, onboarding
program, or sales process or sales methodology
training program. Learn from experience andadjust your collaboration model as you discoverways to be even more effective. Establish regularcollaboration meetings with all involved roles todiscuss the model and learn as a team.
4. Define a production process connected to thecollaboration model.
A sales enablement production process doesn’t
have to be complicated. In fact, there are only
four to five steps that need to be defined: define
and design, create and localize, provide andpublish, measure and track. Your defined steps
may vary, but it’s vital to ensure you include every
step from design to delivery in your production
process. Also, remember that your production© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

Page 46

model must be in sync with your collaboration
model.
As with the collaboration model, run a workshop
to make sure that everyone involved has clarity
on their role in the production process and thetiming of each step. A pilot project can, once
again, help you work through any challenges.
5. Choose your success metrics (and make surethey’re in your charter as well).
To measure your success effectively, you needto choose metrics based on where you are inyour enablement journey. If you are in the earlyphases and about to implement an initiativewith specific goals, define metrics just for that
initiative. Very likely, these will be milestone andproductivity metrics such as available sellingtime, search time for content and training,
content customization time, etc.
If your enablement discipline is more mature,
your initiatives will be more directly connected toyour pipeline, e.g., a new prospecting approach,a new value messaging initiative, or a new sales
methodology. In this case, in addition to lagging
indicators, e.g., win rates, you may want toinclude leading indicators, e.g., conversion rate
improvements, to provide feedback on whether
you’re having the desired impact early in thesales process.
Finally, these metrics should also be included inyour enablement charter. If you have a charter
already, make sure the metrics defined there
match the metrics you are actually using. If
you don’t have a charter, refer to the resources
included at the end of this report and startcreating one.

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2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 47

Concluding Thoughts
Following this Fifth Annual Sales Enablement Study,
we saw that how sales enablement is approachedplays a huge role that should not be underestimated.
It begins with a customer-focused mindset thatlooks at sales enablement through the lens of thecustomer’s path. And it continues with the internal
approach to sales enablement. That formality
matters is not new, and that the strategic alignment
to the business strategy and the particularchallenges of the sales force play a key role is also
not entirely new.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

However, what is new, is that these two foundationalpillars impact almost all other areas of sales
enablement in a significant way. These foundationalpillars need to be a top priority for all sales
enablement leaders who want to become the engine
to drive sustainable sales enablement results. Our
recommendation is to focus on the next steps we
described in Chapters 2 and 3 first before focusing
on a specific sales enablement service only. If you
are interested in more details, in the specific “whatto do next,” please get in touch with your CSO
Insights analyst. We are happy to help you evolve
your sales enablement practice.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Additional Resources
Chapter 1:
Sales Enablement Clarity Step 1: Establishing a Common Understanding
Sales Enablement Clarity Step 2: The Clarity Model
Chapter 2:
Why Alignment to the Customer’s Path is Key to Sales Performance
Why The Customer’s Path Should Be At The Core Of Your Enablement Approach
Chapter 3:
Why you need a sales enablement charter and how to get there: Part 1
Why you need a sales enablement charter and how to get there: Part 2
Chapter 4:
Why Sales Force Enablement Requires a Two-Step Approach“Making sales enablement simple” – what “simple” actually means for the enablement team
Chapters 5 and 6:
Why you need a sales enablement content strategy
Enablement builds it, but do salespeople use it?
Why consistency matters to achieve sales force enablement results
Chapter 7:
Sales Coaching: Four Ideas To Improve Sales Coaching EffectivenessFive Ways to Get Started With Sales Coaching
Chapters 8 and 9:
How to Make Enablement Teams Productive and Scalable: Invest in Efficient Enablement Operations
Sales Enablement Governance: Why You Need an Advisory Board
Measuring Enablement Success Part 1: It’s Not All About Revenue
Measuring Enablement Success Part 2: The Metrics You Need

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

Page 48

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 49

APPENDIX A
Data collection for the 2019 Sales Enablement Study took place during May and June of 2019. Respondents
included sales executives, sales enablement leaders, sales operations leaders, sales managers, and sales
professionals from 918 study participants. The study also represents perspectives from many regions andindustries and covers a wide range of roles and company sizes.
Study Participants by Industry

17.8%
OTHER

27.9%
SERVICE

54.4%
MANUFACTURING© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Study Participants by Region

24.4%
APAC

3.2%
LATAM

26.6%

46.0%

EMEA

NA

© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

Page 50

Study Participants by Role
7.0%
OTHER

26.4%
SENIOR SALES MANAGEMENT

7.5%
SALES OPERATIONS
10.5%
SALES PROFESSIONAL
11.4%
FRONTLINE SALES MANAGER

19.2%
SALES ENABLEMENT/EFFECTIVENESS

18.1%
EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Study Participants by Company Revenue

25.6%
>$1B

13.8%
$2M-$10M

17.1%$11M-$50M
18.7%$251M-$1B

24.9%$51M-$250M© 2019 MILLER HEIMAN GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.

CSO Insights
2019 Sales Enablement Report

CSO Insights
2018 Sales Operations Optimization Study

Page 51

About CSO Insights
CSO Insights is the independent research arm within Miller Heiman GroupTM, dedicated to improving theperformance and productivity of complex B2B sales. The CSO Insights team of respected analysts provides
sales leaders with the research, data, expertise, and best practices required to build sustainable strategies forsales performance improvement. CSO Insights’ annual sales effectiveness studies, along with its benchmarking
capabilities, are industry standards for sales leaders seeking operational and behavioral insights into how to
improve their sales performance and to gain holistic assessments of their selling and sales management efficacy.
Annual research studies address sales and service best practices, sales enablement and sales performance
optimization.
© 2019 Miller Heiman Group. All rights reserved.