10 Sales Enablement Terms You Need to Know

Sales enablement is an important role in any organization - ensuring that sales has the skills and tools to win in their market. Most industries change rapidly, with competitors regularly launching campaigns and products or new competitors breaking into the market. Maybe you’re new to sales enablement, or perhaps you need a refresher of key terms. No matter your current sales enablement knowledge status, we’ve put together a helpful sales enablement glossary that you can keep in your back pocket, to ensure that you’re setting up your sales team for success.

Sales Enablement

Let’s start with the most basic term here, sales enablement. Sales enablement is the process of providing your sales team with helpful tools, resources, and information that they need to do their job more efficiently and to win more deals. Sales enablement materials can include coaching tools, training resources, collateral to reference on sales calls, and follow up materials.

Competitive Intelligence

Competitive intelligence is the process of gathering and understanding key information about your competitors so that you can stay one step ahead and develop new strategies for your own business. A main use of competitive intelligence data is for sales enablement. Since sales enablement materials need to be up-to-date, fueling your sales enablement tools with competitive intelligence ensures that your materials always have up-to-date information.

Sales Readiness

Sales readiness is the measure of whether or not a sales rep is prepared to do well at their job. The process of making sure that your sales reps are ready to sell can come in the form of simple onboarding activities and training, or it can be activities such as online certifications, or shadowing more seasoned members of the sales organization.

Battlecard

A battlecard, sometimes referred to as a competitor profile or kill sheet, is one sales enablement tool that all teams should have ready. A battlecard is a document with competitor intel such as product information, pricing, and talking points that will help a sales rep win a competitive deal. These documents dig into critical pieces of data that allow your team to position themselves as the best solution for prospects.

Battlecard Bias

Battlecard bias is an unfortunate side effect of creating battlecards in many organizations. When a battlecard is loaded with information generated from word of mouth or hearsay information, there’s no way to know if it’s up-to-date, or even true. To avoid battlecard bias, leverage direct competitor sources where possible and validate intel surfaced by your team before sharing the battlecards with your organization.

Competitor Profile

A competitor profile includes information about the company, such as their prices, mission statements, marketing strategies, and team members. A competitor profile is a term that is sometimes used synonymously with battlecard. However, a competitor profile is typically a small piece of a battlecard that can also be used as a resource for other initiatives such as new hire training, marketing campaigns, or revamping your corporate strategy.

Competitive Matrix

A competitive matrix is a great way to map out your competitive landscape. You can compare your solution to your competitors’ by plotting the solutions in a matrix. Competitive matrices allow you to see where you fit within your competitive landscape, and where your strengths and weaknesses lie.

Win/Loss Rate

Your win/loss rate is the percentage of sales deals that are successfully won. You can calculate your win/loss rate through a win/loss analysis, which is the process of gathering, measuring, and evaluating how many sales opportunities you win or lose, and why the deals have those outcomes. Knowing your win/loss rate is critical for sales enablement because the data can teach your sales reps where they succeed and where they can improve, and teach your marketing team where the sales team needs more support.

Sales Collateral

Sales collateral is a collection of sales support materials such as brochures, one-pagers, case studies, or sell sheets. Sales collateral is content created by the sales enablement team to support the sales team when they are trying to close a deal. These pieces of collateral can assist the sales representatives at different points throughout the sales process.

Sales Productivity

Sales productivity is a key metric used to measure the success of a sales professional. Sales productivity is a measure of a sales rep’s achievement of revenue goals in a specified period of time. This can be measured on a per rep basis or by looking at average sales productivity metrics across a sales team.

Now that you’re familiar with these key sales enablement terms, you and your sales enablement team are ready to take your sales team to the next level.