What Is Sales Enablement? Definition, Jobs, and Strategy

Written by Coursera Staff • Updated on

Discover sales enablement as a business approach and career path and begin building your sales enablement strategy.

[Featured image] A sales enablement professional meets with a member of her company's sales team.

What is sales enablement?

Sales enablement is the use of training, educational content, and coaching to onboard sales representatives and improve their skills so that they can sell effectively to potential customers. Sales enablement can be used to orient new hires to a company's best sales practices and to further develop existing sales reps, who must be at the top of their game to continue closing deals in a competitive marketplace.

Sales enablement is integral to sales positions. In this article, you'll learn more about it, why it's so important, and the jobs that use it. You'll also learn how to create an enablement strategy for sales yourself and explore cost-effective, flexible courses from sales industry leaders like HubSpot that can help you do it.

What is a sales enablement strategy?

A sales enablement strategy provides sales reps with the resources they need to engage customers throughout the buying process. Resources vary across organizations and industries. Here are some general types of resources you may encounter in an enablement strategy for sales:

  • Marketing content that sales reps can use to inspire and educate customers 

  • Data from market and industry research to inform salespeople about the latest trends 

  • Training to empower salespeople with the right skills 

Some of the principles that guide sales enablement include:

  • Usability: making sure resources are easy to find and apply to sales situations 

  • Measurability: making sure that teams track meaningful metrics such as the average sales cycle length, average deal size, and total revenue

  • Customer focus: designing sales enablement resources to deliver what customers want

Why is sales enablement important? 

Along with a clear sales enablement definition, it’s important to know how having a clear sales enablement strategy can benefit your business or sales operation. 

Today's customers are more empowered and hold companies to higher standards than before. As companies increase their use of generative AI to improve customer experiences, customers value brands that offer a human touch and faster service. In fact, according to Salesforce’s 2023 survey of over 14,000 consumers, 80 percent of respondents said that companies should establish trust amidst AI's potential risks by validating AI outputs [1]. The study says consumers want consistency, efficiency, great experiences, and personalization. 

This is where sales enablement can help. Sales teams can engage customers more effectively when they have the tools they need to educate customers on a company’s products, services, and values, as well as commitments to customers' individual needs.

Industry expert Sales Enablement PRO’s 2023 State of Sales Enablement Report revealed that a consistent, data-driven sales enablement strategy can lead to higher win rates. Surveyed respondents who used sales enablement had an average win rate of 39 percent, while those without sales enablement practices had an average win rate of 30 percent [2].

Sales enablement also streamlines content so sales reps can avoid time-consuming searches for materials or creating content from scratch. It provides visibility for multiple teams within an organization, including sales, marketing, content creation, and customer service, allowing teams to coordinate their strategies and tactics around the organization’s sales goals. 

A sales enablement strategy can help companies attract top sales talent. 

Sales enablement jobs

In general, sales enablement professionals enter this field with experience in sales or sales operations, marketing, business, or human resources. They are responsible for enhancing the relationship between sales and marketing teams, training sales staff, and furnishing marketing content for sales staff. 

Educational requirements may vary from one position to another. A bachelor’s degree is a common requirement. Other credentials, such as certifications, may be preferred. Some employers may be more interested in specific skills and experience.  

While you may already have an industry or role in mind, it’s a good idea to explore the range of possibilities in sales enablement to make an informed career decision. 

A December 2023 search on LinkedIn for “sales enablement” yields over 74,000 job listings at companies such as Visa, Adobe, IBM, and Vector Solutions. Job titles include: 

 

  • Sales enablement content specialist

  • Sales enablement and skills content specialist

  • Sales enablement content designer 

  • Sales enablement specialist 

  • Sales enablement and growth marketing specialist

  • Manager, sales enablement operations

  • Head of sales enablement

  • Sales enablement manager 

  • Sales enablement lead

  • Director of sales enablement

  • CRM and sales enablement manager

LinkedIn also lists jobs that don’t include “sales enablement” in the job title but that list it in the job description as a task, responsibility, or required skill set. These jobs include: 

  • Product marketing manager

  • Sales manager

  • Principle product marketing manager, strategy & research

  • Revenue enablement specialist

  • Learning and design specialist

  • Commercial trainer

You may find that you can draw upon prior experience in areas such as business leadership, content writing, or customer support to pursue a career in sales enablement.  

As you review job openings in sales enablement, highlight roles that align with your career goals. Then, search for general career information on these roles, including the average salary, common tasks, and the skills and qualifications required, and compare them with job listings.   

Below, we’ve put together two examples of jobs in the field, using information from Glassdoor, which you can use to guide your research process. 

Sales enablement manager

  • The average total annual salary for a sales enablement manager in the US is $105,295 [3]. 

  • Professionals in this role recruit, train, and lead sales teams, help drive sales targets, provide sales forecasts, and manage team performance.  

  • Skills and qualifications for this role include sales experience; a bachelor’s degree in business, marketing, communications, or related field; an understanding of CRM systems; oral and written communication skills

Sales trainer

  • The average total annual salary for sales trainers in the US is $92,170 [4].

  • Professionals in this role develop sales training programs based on an organization’s key performance indicators (KPIs) and goals; create educational content to support the sales training program; and build relationships with customers, stakeholders, and other teams. 

  • Skills and qualifications for this role include a bachelor’s degree, sales background, experience creating educational material, and leadership and communication skills. 

Steps to build your sales enablement strategy

Devising a sales enablement strategy is a good practice and an important skill for anyone in sales, whether you’re a business owner looking to empower your team or a job seeker looking for a sales position. Use the steps below to build a sales enablement strategy. 

1. Gather feedback from your sales team. 

Gathering feedback is an important step for your sales enablement strategy. Doing so empowers your sales team to reflect on their firsthand interactions with customers and share important insights that can guide the strategy. What do sales reps experience? What challenges do they face? What resources would help them engage customers more effectively?  

2. Set enablement goals. 

Ground your strategy in clear, data-driven goals. Work with your team to establish what to accomplish in a specific time period. Here are two examples: 

  • Close 25 percent more sales every month.

  • Acquire 30 percent more new accounts In Q3 than in Q2.  

3. Define enablement for all roles. 

Your next step is to list all the roles that comprise your sales team, such as sales enablement manager, inside sales representative, sales associate, and sales development representative, and define what sales looks like for each role. What is each role responsible for? What resources, skills, and training does each need to succeed? 

For example, a sales representative on your team may benefit from buyer persona profiles, effective selling courses, and resources for selling on different social media platforms. 

4. Update your sales playbook. 

A sales playbook is a written document, often a combination of text and graphics, that an organization’s sales team uses to outline its unique sales approaches. A good sales playbook will determine what team members should do in different situations.  

Compose an updated version of your sales playbook using the feedback you’ve gathered, the goals you’ve identified, and the description of what sales enablement looks like for each team member. Distribute to everyone on the team. 

5. Choose sales enablement software.

The right software can help to streamline processes, including managing a library of marketing content, guiding reps through new strategies, and analyzing sales performance. 

Here are two sales enablement tools to investigate:

 

6. Measure results and customer impact. 

Measuring enablement efforts regularly helps keep your sales playbook updated and ensures your sales team is meeting goals. 

Use your sales enablement software to track such results as:

  • Content that best engages customers

  • Specific tactics reps are using to close sales

  • Biggest revenue drivers 

To learn more about developing a sales enablement strategy, watch this video from the HubSpot Strategic Customer Relationship Management & Sales Technique Specialization.

Best practices and key takeaways 

Remember: Benefits of a robust sales enablement strategy include streamlined content, skilled and prepared sales teams, and effective buyer engagement.  

Follow these best practices to get the most out of your sales development strategy: 

  • Tailor sales processes to the buyer’s journey. 

  • Create different content for different stages of the buyer’s journey.

  • House all resources in a central location for easy access. 

  • Design your sales strategy with the end goals in mind.  

Build sales skills with Coursera

Online courses can be a great way to learn more about sales techniques and career opportunities.

Explore sales enablement, lead generation, sales reporting, and more in Hubspot Academy's Strategic Customer Relationship Management & Sales Technique Specialization. There, you'll learn how to develop a market-driven sales enablement strategy, generate and manage leads with the Sales Hub tools, and organize, visualize, and report on sales data with HubSpot’s CRM.

Article sources

1

Salesforce. “State of the Connected Customer: Sixth Edition, https://www.salesforce.com/content/dam/web/en_us/www/documents/research/State-of-the-Connected-Customer.pdf.” Accessed December 19, 2023. 

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