Sellers, sales leaders, marketers, and sales enablement teams all say that their enablement programs impact sales. But many of these teams lack the processes, procedures, and data points to prove the real impact of their investment.

In times of tight budgets and increased revenue demands, being able to prove your sales enablement ROI is critical.

To show how to gain this knowledge, Allego Senior Director of Marketing Jon Carlson and Allego Senior Customer Success Manager Charlene Rubin shared their collective experience on a recent webinar, Sales Enablement ROI: How to Measure and Maximize Revenue, Engagement, and Results.

Here are the sales enablement challenges experienced by most organizations and four proven ways to overcome those challenges.

Common Challenges of Capturing Sales Enablement ROI

Rubin reports that among the clients she works with, data is generally the biggest challenge. There are so many valuable data points created throughout the sales process, but the data gets lost without a system that can track and report that information.

Data on content is another challenge for organizations. Marketing works to create relevant content that advances the sale. But unless that content is tracked and reported on, its effectiveness and value in generating revenue are unknown.

Most organizations also struggle to find effective measurement when it comes to evaluating rep competency.

“Without segmenting different learner populations based on different characteristics, it’s hard to tell what material and training processes are driving success. Putting your high and low performers in the same bucket means you don’t know what in your enablement is driving high performance versus low performance,” says Carlson.

Lastly, time is another critical challenge when it comes to generating meaningful data. Let’s say you hold training at the beginning of the quarter. Time goes on, deals get won, lost, and closed. By the end of the quarter, you want to evaluate if the training was effective, but so much time has gone by, it’s hard to know what role the training played in the outcome.

How To Capture Sales Enablement ROI

1. Analyze Accelerated Revenue

Revenue trends provide a good indication of the effectiveness of your sales enablement programs. But before you analyze your trends, it’s essential to define what you are analyzing.

For example, a one-size-fits-all program will not give you the data you need when it comes to measuring  training. The extra time and thought that goes into personalized training produces better results and the data needed to understand how training impacts the acceleration of deals.

“You want everybody to have the same knowledge, but you can experiment with how you deliver the training, ” says Carlson. ”

A similar analysis can quantify the impact of content on the sales funnel. This depends on knowing how content is being deployed, how often it’s being deployed, how often buyers access the content, and any correlation between the sharing of that content and deals won or lost.

Carlson says it’s all about creating connective tissue between the different elements of your enablement and sales processes. Linking these efforts provides a full-funnel picture from beginning to end, giving you the data needed to analyze critical sales metrics.

Allego customer Ash Brokerage was able to show the importance of this connection.

“Ash Brokerage wanted a more consistent onboarding experience for new hires and improved collaboration among wholesalers,” says Rubin. “Using Allego, the company was able to achieve these goals and increase revenue by over $300 million. Interestingly, the data showed one rep who was the most engaged in the sales enablement platform, using it for coaching, messaging, and just-in-time content. This engaged rep generated $200 million in their first year.”

2. Calculate Reduced Costs

Costs are a crucial part of the ROI metric. But reducing costs alone is not enough—organizations also need to understand the impact of these cuts on their sales enablement ROI.

Let’s start with one of the most significant expenses: in-person sales events. While there is value in having in-person sales events, there are also costly travel expenses associated with these types of events. Estimates show that the transition from in-person live events to virtual sessions can reduce travel expenses by as much as $2,000 per person.

Carlson notes, “The pandemic has taught us that virtual training is not only possible, it can also be successful. The important thing is to measure the impact of delivering virtual onboarding, training, and coaching.”

Allego customer SaaS company Clarabridge, for example, was able to demonstrate $800,000 in savings by transitioning to virtual training for onboarding. A medical device manufacturer, another Allego customer, reduced travel expenses by $190,000 for a product launch training for just 55 reps, showing how expensive it can be to host even a small group onsite.

“Transitioning to virtual sessions also means managers don’t have to spend as much extra time with a rep,” says Rubin. “Reps can access information and become onboarded more quickly; they’re in the field starting to be more effective and hit their numbers sooner.”

Making the most of the salesperson’s time is another way to reduce costs. That starts with sales content.

“Make sure you’ve got a platform where reps can easily find the relevant, useful content, ” says Carlson. “A platform like Allego can surface appropriate content at the appropriate stage of the sales cycle, so the rep is not endlessly searching for content or, even worse, creating something on their own,” says Carlson.

3. Estimate Risk Reduction

Organizations face a variety of risks—from regulatory and brand compliance to how the salesperson represents its brand or products. These risks can negatively impact how the organization is perceived in the marketplace and, ultimately, its revenue potential.

“Enablement’s goal is to get teams trained, proficient, and unified in their messaging,” says Carlson. “The better they are at achieving that goal, the lower their risk of failure in a variety of categories. The more specific you can get about how enablement reduces risk, the more likely you are to get support for your initiatives.”

Rubin highlights work done by investment firm MFS. The company conducted an annual in-person messaging initiative, and in just one year, 20% of the sales team failed in presentation and required remedial training.

The following year, using Allego’s all-in-one platform, MFS provided remote just-in-time training, sharing best practice videos of what good looks like. This year, they had a 100% pass rate, demonstrating the value of the virtual training and the investment in the sales enablement platform.

“Any enablement program that connects reps and helps them understand how pitches or messages are received in the world will have a positive impact on both performance and reduced risk,” says Carlson.

4. Drive Improved Engagement

When an employee leaves, that’s a big hit to any organization. It’s not just losing a person; you must pay for hiring costs and the cost to train and onboard a new employee. Factor in the cost of lost selling time and you can see why these losses are so expensive.

Research shows that highly engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave the company. Which means that creating an engaging place to work is a surefire way to prevent untimely resignations.

Engagement starts with the manager. If you have a platform to analyze call coaching recordings, use it to record manager to rep interactions. Start to track and improve manager performance over time to ensure they’re doing the right things to keep their team engaged and creating a positive, productive environment.

Engagement also means that teams work together to help each other.

“Peer-to-peer learning is huge because sellers trust other sellers,” says Carlson. “Have an enablement system in place that not just accommodates formal training but accommodates informal peer-to-peer learning. When reps are regularly sharing information, that is going to create a culture of connectivity, engagement, and trust among each other on the team.”

When evaluating engagement, Allego’s customers monitor key areas: increased access to the platform, increased adoption, increased community, and increased value.

“Reps will only use a sales enablement platform if it helps them be successful,” says Rubin. “That was the situation at Abbott Laboratories. The company experienced a lack of seller engagement in their training, with less than one percent voluntarily accessing the solution. After adopting Allego, engagement skyrocketed, where 900 users had over 200,000 views in the first 180 days, demonstrating the type of engagement the company was seeking.”

Learn More

Watch on-demand: Sales Enablement ROI: How to Measure and Maximize Revenue, Engagement, and Results.

For more details on the case studies mentioned in this post, visit our customer stories page.