Sales enablement has emerged as a transformative approach to supporting high levels of sales effectiveness, yet its adoption in the Wholesale Distribution sector has been notably slower compared to some other vertical industries. Contrary to initial impressions, this delay may present a unique advantage. 

Why? Two reasons: 

1. While well-executed sales enablement has been proven to significantly impact sales performance, the quality of enablement implementations in other verticals has varied widely.  
2. Not many distributors have implemented sales enablement effectively, which means there’s still a window of opportunity to create a competitive advantage by doing so and capture market share from laggard competitors. 

Distributors now have the opportunity to learn from the successes and failures of earlier sales enablement adopters to create a more effective implementation strategy.  

The Evolution of Sales Enablement 

Sales enablement is the strategic practice of providing sales teams with the resources they need to go to market as effectively as possible to win more business and grow current customers. These resources may include training, content, technology, tools, environment, culture and whatever else is required to successfully sell their products or services.  

Historically, sales enablement evolved from basic sales training and marketing collateral provision to a sophisticated ecosystem involving advanced analytics, cross-functional collaboration, performance improvement science and technology platforms. However, early adoption has not been without its pitfalls, including widely varied definitions, misunderstood expectations, poor communication, misalignment of strategies, technology overload and insufficient training, all leading to suboptimal outcomes. It’s a bell curve, like most things, but those enablement teams on the far left and in the middle are simply not making enough of an impact. The potential, however, remains significant.  

This slide is from one of my presentations on the potential of sales enablement: 

Fortunately, I’m not alone in this – there are multiple others on my side the of bell curve. Many independent analysts have reported that enablement, when done at the formal maturity level, has a significant impact on results. These are just a few examples.  

The Distribution Sector’s Unique Position 

The Wholesale Distribution vertical is characterized by its complex supply chains, diverse product ranges and the critical role of relationship-building in sales processes. In many companies, the way they sell or manage the sales force hasn’t changed in years. Unlike sectors that rapidly embraced sales enablement, distributors have been unaware or cautious, resulting in a slower adoption rate of enablement.  

However, this hesitancy now allows distributors to analyze and integrate proven sales enablement practices, avoiding the “trial and error” phase that early adopters in other verticals endured. By learning from others, distributors can implement a more refined and effective sales enablement strategy from the outset. 

A Quick Primer for The Building Blocks of Sales Enablement 

I was fortunate to get my start in sales management in 1986 for an entrepreneur who took me under his wing. Hiring and training was part of my role, but in 1991, I joined the sales training department of a Fortune 100 company. In that role, I was given a lot of latitude on what to do, with the caveat that the leadership team wanted to know they were getting bottom-line results for their investment. I quickly learned that it was difficult to move the needle with training alone, and I began to research formal performance improvement disciplines.  

My quest continued through several companies and roles until the first iteration of The Building Blocks of Sales Enablement was formed and implemented in 2003-04. Since then, I have evolved the framework and systems, and I even published a book about it in September 2021.  

Here is a quick tour through the Building Blocks framework and systems: 

There are fifteen building blocks in all. The twelve core blocks are performance levers you can adjust to improve and support high performance. They are tied together by systems thinking and communication management, with an optional block for sales support services (when budget and resources allow).  

Buyer Acumen: Identify your buyer personas and their COIN-OP (Challenges, Opportunities, Impacts, Needs, Outcomes, Priorities). What problems are buyers trying to solve? What outcomes are they trying to achieve, and what are the metrics that matter to each? What is their typical buying process? What are their exit criteria? 

Buyer Engagement Content: Align your marketing content and lead-gen campaigns, sales content/collateral and sales messaging to identify problems, share outcomes and address buying process exit criteria.  

Sales Support Content: Develop sales support, job aids, checklists, playbooks, training reminders, calculators and other tools to support process/methodology.  

Sales Hiring: Implement a proven-effective process to hire or promote people who have the best chance of succeeding in a chosen role.  

Sales Training: Build sales onboarding and ongoing training that supports business objectives. Teach sales process and sales methodology. Develop ongoing training to close sales competency gaps. Train managers then reps. Use a sales training system: Learn, Remember, Practice, Apply and Master.  

Sales Coaching: Select a sales coaching model and implement a sales coaching framework. Remove obstacles, enable managers and engage them and their reps in an ongoing process to identify and close sales competency gaps to increase organizational sales mastery and performance.  

Sales Process: Align your sales process to the buyer’s journey. Document tasks and exit criteria for buyers and sellers.  

Sales Methodology: Select appropriate sales methodologies for prospecting, opportunity management and strategic account management. Develop sales competencies by role from a top-producer analysis whenever possible or proven best practices. Customize as needed.  

Sales Analytics/Metrics: Benchmark your sales metrics, such as conversion ratios, deal size, cross-sell, ramp-up times for onboarding, sales velocity, content sharing, KPIs – whatever is important for your business. Track results pre- and post-training. Also track your sales onboarding and learning metrics. Analyze everything. Using whatever tools you have available, analyze customers, territories, purchase patterns and more to understand your business and improve performance.  

Sales Technology & Tools: Select and implement sales technology to support your sales force, create efficiency and increase time spent selling and support effectiveness.  

Sales Compensation, Recognition & Incentives:  Design a sales compensation plan and incentives, rewards and recognition that encourage the behaviors you expect and the results you want.  

Sales Manager Enablement: Train managers to use your sales coaching model. Train them on performance analysis and coaching. Foster a coaching culture and sales competency development. Determine your sales management operating system and the management disciplines you want to instill. Then, hold managers accountable for executing your cadence.  

Systems Thinking: Apply systems thinking to create an environment that supports high performance. Implement a Sales Hiring System, a Sales Readiness System supported by a Sales Training System and a Sales Management System (including a Sales Coaching System) to perpetuate the above building blocks and pull everything together.  

Communication Management: Sales Force & Cross-Functional Collaboration: Become the single point of communication for the sales force, with a regular cadence/format. Establish a cadence of communication with cross-functional collaboration partners to review collaboration efforts, progress, results and revise the plans or charter as needed.  

Sales Support Services: Provide sales support via SLA for needed services including creating presentations, research, preparation, RFP support, deal desk and coaching support. 

• To learn more, read: The Building Blocks of Sales Enablement Book (Amazon) 

Building a Strategic Sales Enablement Plan: A Step-by-Step Guide 

Prerequisites 

Before diving into the development of a Sales Enablement plan, it’s essential to have a solid understanding of the foundational frameworks, models and concepts of sales enablement. In my case, that’s my Building Blocks of Sales Enablement framework and supporting sales systems. With that foundation, let’s build a logical plan to adapt the framework for your situation, to get started.  

The Process 

Build a Cross-Functional Sales Enablement Charter 

• Inputs:  Gather advice from leadership and understand the functions within your company. 
• Who:  All stakeholders and cross-functional collaborators. 
• Why:  To reduce organizational friction and align on supporting sales effectiveness. 
• How:  Conduct stakeholder analysis, hold alignment meetings and collaboratively build the charter. 
• Outputs:  An aligned and signed-off charter that clearly defines ownership and support roles. 

Conduct a Situation Assessment for Your Sales Force 

The Situation Assessment framework is a crucial tool to define and address the gaps between the current and desired future state of your sales force. While typically used in consulting, I’ve successfully applied this framework in both sales discovery and sales enablement work.

• Inputs: Start by reviewing your current strategic and tactical plans, conducting a SWOT analysis and considering the goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) of your sales force. 
• Who: Your sales enablement team and cross-functional collaborators, with final approval from sales leaders and stakeholders. 
• Why: To grasp the priorities of both the executive team and the sales force, establish a business case for Sales Enablement and secure the necessary budget and resources. 
• How: Document the current state of sales performance compared to the desired future state using the COIN-OP framework (Challenges, Opportunities, Impacts, Needs, Outcomes, Priorities) and conduct a thorough gap and impact analysis. 
• Outputs: The outcome of this assessment should include clear goals and objectives for the sales force, as well as a comprehensive gap and impact analysis. This information will culminate in a compelling Sales Enablement business case. 

Conduct a Building Blocks Gap Analysis 

After completing the Situation Assessment, it’s time to conduct a gap analysis of the building blocks. This analysis will help you understand what currently exists, how effective it is and what is needed to transition from the current state to your desired future state. This process is essential for reducing overwhelm and prioritizing actions based on the blocks that will best support your sales force’s plans and objectives. 

• Inputs:  Use data or insights about the current state of each building block, gathered from Sales Enablement and cross-functional partners. 
• Who: The Sales Enablement team and cross-functional collaborators, with approval from sales leaders. 
• Why: To identify existing gaps and determine the necessary changes to align with desired outcomes. 
• How: Document the current and desired future states of each building block, conduct detailed gap analyses and relate these findings to the outcomes and priorities identified in the Situation Assessment. 
• Outputs: The result of this analysis will be a gap analysis for each building block, providing insights into how the organization currently supports sales. It will also offer recommendations for improvement and prioritize actions for each building block. 

Conduct a Force Field Analysis to Build Your Enablement Plan 

Using the insights from the Situation Assessment and the prioritized building blocks, you can now conduct a Force Field Analysis. This analysis will help you understand the driving forces helping your sales team move toward your desired future state and the restraining forces holding them back. This allows you to create a plan that will reduce or eliminate restraining forces and add or strengthen driving forces, all of which aligns your actions with your strategic objectives, the go-to-market plan, your leaders’ desired outcomes and the overall revenue plan. 

• Inputs:  Use the findings from the Situation Assessment and Building Blocks Gap Analysis. 
• Who:  Sales Enablement and cross-functional collaborators, with sign-off from sales leaders and executives. 
• Why:  To build a Sales Enablement plan that supports strategic objectives, the go-to-market (GTM) plan, desired outcomes and the overall revenue plan. 
• How:  Assess the driving and restraining forces relative to moving toward the future state and develop a plan to address them. 
• Outputs: The result will be a comprehensive Sales Enablement Plan, likely consisting of multiple phases for continuous improvement of the building blocks. This plan will support the achievement of sales objectives by addressing key forces affecting sales effectiveness. 

Closing Thoughts 

The journey of sales enablement in wholesale distribution may have started slower than in other industries, but this delay presents a unique opportunity for distributors. By observing the successes and failures of early adopters, distributors can refine their sales enablement strategies and create a competitive advantage in the market. 

The Building Blocks of Sales Enablement provide a comprehensive framework for distributors to enhance their sales effectiveness. From understanding buyer personas to implementing sales coaching and analytics, each block plays a crucial role in building a successful sales enablement strategy. 

As distributors embark on their sales enablement journey, it’s essential to remember that sales enablement is not a one-time project but an ongoing process of improvement. By continuously evaluating and adapting their strategies, distributors can stay ahead of the curve and drive sustainable growth in an ever-evolving market landscape. 

In conclusion, while the road to sales enablement maturity may be challenging, the rewards are well worth the effort. By embracing sales enablement and leveraging its principles, wholesale distributors can unlock their full potential and achieve lasting success in the competitive marketplace.