How to Build a Sales Enablement Plan

How to Build a Sales Enablement Plan

By
Amy Vidor
Learning and Development Evangelist at Synthesia

Nearly all sales teams have their sales process documented, but only 36% of reps consistently follow it. This enablement execution gap is one of the biggest variables in sales performance.

The good news is that you can close this gap. What it takes is an effective sales enablement plan, a strategy that guides your roadmap, and leadership reinforcement along the way. (So easy, right?)

What is sales enablement?

Sales (or revenue) enablement is a dynamic organizational capability. It’s the ability to anticipate what reps need, and to get that support to them in a way that sticks. And it has to continuously adapt as the industry changes (that’s why it's a dynamic capability).

Training vs. enablement

Training is the transfer of knowledge, skills, or expertise. If training teaches you what to do and how to do it, enablement is about making it possible to apply that training through coaching, feedback, and resources.

Training is time-bound: whether one session or a series, it has a start and end. Enablement is ongoing.

The three layers of effective sales enablement

Effective sales enablement requires three things working together: diagnostics, operations, and development. First, you need to diagnose what’s happening in the field: what’s working and what isn’t. Then, you need a system to take those insights and do something with them. Reps need support in the flow of work. Finally, you need a way to give feedback to reps, whether that’s through coaching or practice opportunities, so they can change their behavior.

Why you need a sales enablement plan

A sales enablement plan is a strategy that defines what you’re building toward and a roadmap that sequences how you get there .

A strategy is a vision for bringing together the three layers of sales enablement, your top priorities, and how you'll measure success. Your vision should be aspirational, but achievable. For example, "All sales reps consistently follow the sales process.” That’s something you can build a roadmap around, and importantly, it’s something you can measure.

How to build a roadmap

The scope of your roadmap will depend on the maturity of your sales organization. If you're at a company that's quickly scaling, you might build a roadmap one quarter at a time. If your company is well-established, you can likely build a roadmap for the fiscal year.

Step 1: Assess

When I'm building a roadmap, I find it helpful to think through a series of questions. That starts with:

What problem are we really solving?

At this point you likely have two lists: one of support requested by stakeholders, and one of support you think is needed based on your strategy. Your goal is to pressure-test both of these against the data you have access to, such as:

Step 2: Prioritize

Hopefully you now have a short er list of priorities. It's time to decide:

What are we committing to this cycle, and what are we not doing?

By cycle, I mean the length of time your roadmap covers: a quarter, half a year, the fiscal year.

Step 3: Plan

Once you have a better understanding of what you're committing to, it's time to plan the work. Every stakeholder conversation eventually lands on the same question:

Why are you doing this work now?
Your roadmap is your answer.

Step 4: Share

When you have a working draft of the roadmap, it's time to get feedback from your stakeholders. You're asking:

Are we aligned on what this means?

Step 5: Iterate

Throughout the year, something will shift. Maybe managers are inconsistently reviewing call transcripts, so only some team members are getting feedback. In that case, you'll need to figure out:

What do we change based on what we're seeing?

What’s next?

AI is transforming every layer of sales enablement, from how you surface behavioral gaps to how you can scale coaching without managers using AI sales roleplay tools. Before you finalize your sales enablement plan, consider how you can leverage your existing tech stack to reduce administrative overhead and free up your team to focus on strategic work.