Don’t Just Sell, Sell Smarter: The 90-Day Sales Enablement Challenge for B2B Marketers

The world is in content overload, and our customers are starting to tune out and disengage.

This disillusionment has manifested in various ways, especially in B2B, including increased reluctance to share personal information, major decreases in engagement across digital platforms, and concerted efforts to unsubscribe from newsletters and services to cut through the noise.

If you are experiencing the fallout in your marketing campaigns, you are not alone. So, what can be done when your campaign metrics and ad performances are slipping?

One way is to combine forces with sales. Let’s start with the 90-Day Sales Enablement Challenge — a refreshing, practical initiative designed to improve collaboration between B2B marketing and sales teams.

You can download my eBook here for a fully detailed guide and helpful ideas you can utilize, but in the meantime, here are three of the five main steps you need to take to get started.

1. Align with Sales:

Engage with key sales stakeholders to understand their needs and prioritize initiatives that align with revenue goals. This will entail having detailed conversations with sales team members across all levels of the department to gain a holistic understanding of the ways marketing can provide assistance.

Tip: Be sure to “listen between the lines” to dig into the things that are holding sales back; you offer a unique perspective, so use it to the team’s advantage.

2. Strategize and Prioritize:

Select impactful initiatives with measurable outcomes that can realistically be implemented and measured within the 90-day window; you should aim to stay within budget and (ideally) use existing marketing technologies or easily-integratable third-party solutions.

Focus on no more than two or three initiatives to start. Additionally, seek out low-hanging fruit with high-impact potential, such as providing customized content for strategic account support, targeted email outreach, etc.

Tip: Consider the sales team’s pain points as you select your initiatives to ensure the utmost commitment to success. For example, if they’re struggling with lead generation, you might suggest rolling out targeted digital campaigns or refining how leads are qualified.

3. Secure Buy-In:

Ensure the sales team is on board with the plan to secure a smooth rollout and plenty of enthusiastic support. This goes beyond alignment; you need to focus on building a genuine partnership between marketing and sales, and that requires rallying the troops behind the cause.

Choosing initiatives that are also crucial to the sales team’s success is imperative. Have an in-depth understanding of their challenges, and keep them well informed throughout the process to push momentum; this includes backing up your initiatives with solid facts and reasoning.

Tip: Create a pitch-deck to present the initiatives in a compelling way that highlights the benefits backed by factual data and reasoning. Really appeal to the sales team as you go about making your case. Focus on common goals.

Steps four and five detail how to implement and adapt your plan, as well as how to share and learn from your results. You can find those by downloading the eBook here.

If you see your campaign performance taking a dive, it’s time to re-evaluate your plan and tactics. I’ve often found that staying close to sales is one of the best ways to demonstrate the contributions of marketing to revenue impact. If sales can attest to how valuable marketing is to their success, management listens.

In that sense, sales is the best ally to marketing.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the idea of such a whirlwind turnaround in just 90 days, you should definitely get in touch with me to learn more about how to get the ball rolling. I’ve supported direct and indirect sales (channel partners and distributors) all my life. I know what makes them tick.

I’d love to chat!

Remember – change is possible, and it starts with you.