I always knew companies were wasting a ton of money on ineffective and disjointed sales enablement programs, and now Forrester's Scott Santucci has put a number on it in his report Uncovering The Hidden Costs Of Sales Support. His research shows that:
"Technology vendors are spending, on average, 19% of their selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) costs or $135,262 per quota-carrying salesperson in support-related activities."
Yikes. How has this gotten so out of control? Forrester found that the costs are spread around different budgets and programs across the company, from sales, to sales operations, marketing, product development, and even human resources groups.
I think this is a symptom of my point that in a B2B organization, you are either in sales or you support sales. CEOs are demanding that all parts of the company are contributing to revenue generation, but the result is disjointed, redundant efforts. Scott calls these "random acts of sales support."
So what do you do? Forrester says you should organize your sales support initiatives around four core sales activities:
- Gaining access to the right people in the buying organization
- Conducting great sales calls that make buyers want to do business with you
- Helping buyers visualize how your solution can solve their problem or deliver a desired outcome
- Enabling buyers to build a business case that leads to buying
Sounds a lot like the first of my New Rules of Sales Enablement, in which sales enablement is not about creating more collateral and throwing it into a portal, rather its all about enabling your sales people to have relevant, compelling conversations that help buyers advance through their buying process and want to buy from you.
I'd like to hear from you, where are you spending on sales enablement. Comment here.




