Many of us have heard and are familiar with the term CRM (Customer Relationship Management), and you likely use one at work. But are you familiar with Sales enablement? Nearly every large enterprise and about 40% of businesses with teams of 25 or less use some sort of sales enablement. But what is sales enablement and how can you use metrics generated by your CRM to track your sales performance? Let’s find out.

The two most essential tools that any sales team can have are your CRM and Sales Enablement. The CRM helps teams track, manage, and share information about your clients and leads. Sales enablement gives your sales, client services, marketing, and even management teams the tools, content (customer facing & internal), and training needed. 

Used together, sales enablement and your CRM can help your company understand where it stands, how well goals are being achieved, and what new directions need to be planned for. These two tools can help you to increase and improve:

• Lead generation: You can use your CRM and sales enablement processes to segment leads, automate nurturing, track engagement, and schedule automated follow-up calls/emails/texts.
• Lead conversion: Your sales enablement can provide the right content at the right time to convert leads into clients and create personalized messages for leads; your CRM should feature lead scoring that can show you the most promising leads.
• Sales velocity: Measuring how quickly leads move through your pipeline is sales velocity. By providing your sales and client service teams with personalized content and training on handling objections and closing deals, sales enablement can improve your sales velocity. 
• Customer satisfaction: CRMs offer all teams a “one-truth” history of every customer interaction. This results in much higher rates of client satisfaction.

According to a study by Annuitas Group, companies that nurture their leads are 47% more likely to close deals. And companies that use sales enablement software are 33% more likely to achieve their sales goals.

• Blog posts: Blog posts are especially critical for your marketing. In the planning stage of every blog post, core messaging must be considered; sales enablement guides the writing process of your blogs and every other content.  
• Content: Besides content in your blog posts, sales enablement means content for your clients as well as your sales teams, customized to each stage of the buying journey, including e-books, white papers, brochures, etc.
• Expertise in your field: By giving resources, solutions, and relevant content, you can become recognized as an expert. This can generate public awareness and help with developing new organic leads.

What are Sales Enablement Metrics?

To understand how well your sales enablement efforts are performing, you need to have clear data points, often called KPIs, to measure the impact of your sales enablement program. Metrics help your business track your goals and initiatives so you can make data-driven decisions that improve your company’s efficiency, revenue, and customer service levels. 

Your sales enablement metrics can be what is called “qualitative,” meaning that they come from personal opinions, anecdotes, observations, etc. An example of this could be customer feedback. Or they can be “Quantitative,” which are metrics based on complex data such as closing rates, sales growth, or other figures.

When judging the success of your sales enablement efforts, both metrics should be considered.

How to Identify, Benchmark, and Analyze Sales Enablement Metrics

As you begin to plan for your sales enablement implementation, it’s essential to understand which metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) you wish to collect data about and why. These metrics are also called “Key Sales Metrics,” and they need to reflect your company’s goals and objectives.

Here’s how you can identify and analyze marketing, enablement, and sales KPIs:

1. Define your objectives: Get clear goals written down, including how much change, and by when. This can include customer engagement, sales cycles, lead qualification, and other essential objectives.
2. Find your baseline: Get your current figures for your objectives and where you would like them to be. This will allow you to get the measurements you need.
3. Get your data: Use your CRM and other technology to organize your current data.
4. Seek realistic targets: Understand that while you have probably chosen great targets, it takes time to get there. Your team will feel successful if you define smaller, easier-to-achieve small goals, which you can measure more often to achieve the desired long-term goal.
5. Refine your goals: Based on performance, monitor and update your goals and objectives depending upon the level of performance.

Top Sales Enablement Metrics for Small to Medium-Sized Companies

Larger companies, most of whom have been using sales enablement for the past few decades, have extensive resources set aside for their sales enablement teams. Small to medium-sized companies can use sales enablement to level the playing field but must be more efficient and strategic. As an SMB, there are quite a few key sales enablement metrics you should be tracking:

1. Win rate: The percentage of deals won out of total sales closed.
2. Sales cycle length: The average time it takes for a deal to close.
3. Deal size: The average size of deals closed.
4. Lead response time: The time it takes for a lead to be contacted after submitting a form or making an inquiry.
5. Sales productivity: The amount of revenue generated per seller.
6. Customer engagement: The level of engagement between customers and sellers.
7. Content usage: The amount of content sellers use during the sales process.
8. Training effectiveness: The effectiveness of training programs in improving seller performance.
9. Pipeline coverage: The amount of pipeline coverage relative to quota.
10. Customer satisfaction: The level of satisfaction among customers with their experience with your company.
11. Revenue growth: The percentage increase in revenue over a given period.

How to Use CRM Metrics to Improve Sales Performance

Companies that use a CRM experience much higher “win” rates and can offer far superior customer service. Additionally, your CRM is a critical piece of software that can provide beneficial data. By using your CRM metrics to measure performance, you can improve sales performance. Here are the top metrics you should be looking at:

1. Lead conversion rate: The percentage of leads that convert into customers.
2. Sales cycle length: The average time it takes for a deal to close.
3. Deal size: The average size of deals closed.
4. Win rate: The percentage of deals won out of total deals closed.
5. Customer acquisition cost: The cost of acquiring a new customer.
6. Customer lifetime value: The total revenue a customer generates over their lifetime.

As you follow and track these metrics, you will understand and gain valuable insights about your sales and client service performance, and you can identify wins, as well as where you should improve. Prioritize the areas you need to improve first, then work to improve all areas.

Examples of a sales enablement strategy:

As you ensure you have a comprehensive sales enablement strategy that aligns with the company’s goals and objectives, be sure to follow these strategies:

Collaborate on content: Sales, client services, and marketing should work together to create content. This content can cover both outward-bound marketing as well as content for sales team members to understand their customers and be able to sell to them effectively.

Implement continued training: Sales teams need to be consistently trained with new product knowledge, new market knowledge, and techniques to become more skilled at selling.

Sales enablement charter: Similar to a business plan, a sales enablement charter is a roadmap that guides your organization when you implement sales enablement.

The wrap-up

Measuring the effectiveness of your sales team is crucial for enhancing performance. You can gain valuable insights into your sales performance and identify areas for improvement by using sales enablement and CRM metrics. It is essential to track these metrics, whether you run a small business or a large corporation, to drive success.