The document discusses the role of learning and development (L&D) professionals in sales enablement. It defines sales enablement as coordinating across functions like sales, marketing, and product development to provide resources and information to help the sales team generate revenue. For L&D professionals to truly support sales enablement, they must break down silos by facilitating collaboration across functions, and focus on improving sales performance rather than just training programs. By adopting this approach, organizations can increase sales productivity, speed time to productivity for new hires, and positively impact the customer experience.

1. L&D’s Role in Sales Enablement
What Every Learning Professional Needs
to Know Today to Impact Sales Results Tomorrow
“To be successful with sales enablement, you need to break
down the walls between organizational silos to get customers
the information they need.”
—Forrester Research
Point-of-View
First published on:
TrainingMag.com
March 2016

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Point-of-View
f you are a learning and development professional who supports a sales
organization, chances are high that your title and/or team name have changed
recently. In the past few years, more and more companies have started to es-
tablish sales enablement functions—and the talent at the core of those func-
tions is often the sales training team.
So what exactly is sales enablement, why does it matter, and what does it mean
if you are an L&D professional whose title is now “Sales Enablement”?
What is Sales Enablement?
Recently, Forrester Research defined sales enablement as “a strategic, ongoing
process that equips all client-facing employees with the ability to consistently
and systematically have a valuable conversation with the right set of customer
stakeholders at each stage of the customer’s problem-solving life cycle to opti-
mize the return of investment of the selling system.”
In other words:
Sales enablement is an approach that bridges the gap between the sales strat-
egy and execution and provides the salesforce with all the information and re-
sources they need to generate revenue.
Why Does Sales Enablement Matter?
The emphasis on sales enablement grew out of pain. Sales executives across
industries report that one of the biggest challenges their people face is infor-
mation overload. Sales executives say things like:
• “Our internal functions are competing for our salespeople’s time.”
• “Our salespeople receive conflicting messages from different sources
within our own company.”
• “I see time being wasted in training that isn’t relevant to my team.”
• “We struggle to make sense of it all and our salespeople are wasting
precious selling time.”
As companies sought solutions to this problem, people started to use the term
“sales enablement” to refer to an approach in which all parts of a company
work together to drive better sales results. Of course, it’s one thing to call a
person or team “sales enablement”—it’s another to actually have a positive
impact on sales performance.
“The emphasis on sales
enablement grew out of
pain. Sales executives across
industries report that one
of the biggest challenges
their people face is
information overload.”
I

3. Point-of-View
Wilson Learning Worldwide Inc. All rights reserved. 3
Point-of-View
My Title Is Sales Enablement—Now What?
It may be tempting to assume that L&D fits into sales enablement because L&D
owns anything that has to do with sales training. This interpretation limits the
potential for L&D to make a significant impact.
Based on Wilson Learning’s ongoing work in the arena of sales effectiveness, we
have identified four elements that must be aligned with a company’s go-to-mar-
ket strategy and integrated with one another in order for any sales enablement
approach to be fully effective:
1. Sales Processes and Systems
2. Information and Resources
3. Learning Strategy
4. Leadership Practices
Integrating these elements requires dialogue, shared commitments, agree-
ments, and accountability among multiple functions. That’s where we as L&D
professionals come in. Rather than just reorganizing or renaming sales training,
genuine sales enablement requires us to reframe our role and rethink our work.
1. Reframing the Role: Breaking Down Silos
According to a Forrester report, “. . . you need to develop a team to work across
traditional organizational boundaries and reporting levels within your com-
pany—and that’s a big challenge. But eventually, to be successful with sales
enablement, you will need to break down the walls between organizational
silos to get customers the information they need.”
“Rather than just reorganizing
or renaming sales training,
genuine sales enablement
requires us to reframe our
role and rethink our work.”
Point-Of-View
+ +
Sales
Processes
& Systems
Learning
Strategy
Leadership
Practices
Go To Market Strategy
Sales Enablement
+Information
& Resources
Desired Customer Experience

4. 4 Wilson Learning Worldwide Inc. All rights reserved.
Point-of-View
Improving the alignment of the core functional elements, the go-to-market
strategy, and the customer experience is the ultimate objective of sales en-
ablement. Accomplishing this triple alignment requires coordination across
multiple functions, including:
• Learning and Development
• Sales Leadership and Management
• Sales Operations
• Marketing
• Product Development/R&D
• Legal/Finance/IT
Fortunately, the ability to facilitate is right within our wheelhouse as L&D pro-
fessionals. By stepping up and facilitating cross-functional collaboration, we can
help our organizations:
• Identify barriers and supports to sales effectiveness
• Break down organizational silos
• Achieve alignment around the goals of the sales enablement function
or team
• Build buy-in and commitment to an agreed-upon approach and work
processes
• Identify and agree on short- and long-term priorities and action plans
• Implement action plans and evaluate effectiveness
As L&D professionals, we do not need to be experts in marketing and technol-
ogy. However, it is critical that we partner with sales leadership to drive and
facilitate alignment and coordination across all of the functions and people who
support sales.
For example, an L&D leader in the tech industry offered to be the point person
for a cross-functional sales enablement team. As the team looked at the prob-
lem of information overload and field confusion, they committed to coordi-
nating efforts so that multiple initiatives weren’t launched to the field at once.
This particular team also agreed to allow individual functions to create their
own sales tools and resources, yet they were required to follow templates and
guides to ensure effectiveness and consistency.
“If you ask top executives and
sales leaders what they need
from training, you are more
likely to hear, ‘help equipping
our people to drive sales.’”

5. Point-of-View
Wilson Learning Worldwide Inc. All rights reserved. 5
Point-of-View
2. Rethinking the Work: It’s About Performance, Not Programs
If you ask a roomful of learning and development professionals what the busi-
ness needs from them, many will say things like “sales training programs” or
“human performance improvement.” If you ask top executives and sales lead-
ers what they need from training, you are more likely to hear, “help equipping
our people to drive sales.” Truly equipping people to drive sales involves not
only designing and delivering training programs, but stepping into the shoes of
salespeople and sales leaders and adopting a problem-solving mindset. What
is it like to be a salesperson in your organization? What gets in the way? What
do I need to be effective—more skills, more tools, more clarity? All of these are
areas that we can influence, if not control.
In order to support sales enablement, L&D needs to:
1. Develop a learning strategy that is aligned both with
the organization’s go-to-market strategy and with
the vision for the desired customer experience
2. Partner with sales leadership to define the behaviors
and mindsets necessary to execute on the organiza-
tion’s specific objectives and go-to-market strategy
3. Equip sales with the knowledge and skills to engage
prospects and customers and drive sales forward
4. Ensure sales leaders are equipped to coach salespeo-
ple toward higher levels of performance
5. Act as performance consultants, helping to identify barriers to success-
ful sales performance and drive solutions that go beyond training and
development
6. Provide learning and performance support tools in addition to instruc-
tor-led training
7. Play the role of content managers, ensuring information is available in
bite-size chunks when the sales team needs it, and in a format that is
easy accessible
When these steps are employed, the results can be significant. For example,
one organization adopted a new sales enablement-focused learning strategy
and was able to increase sales productivity by 15%. They achieved this by re-
ducing time out of the field, increasing available selling time, reducing travel
costs, and providing enhanced technology that made it easier for sales repre-
sentatives to find and share resources based on individual buyer needs.
“One organization adopted
a new sales enablement-
focused learning strategy and
was able to increase sales
productivity by 15%.”
Point-Of-View

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Point-of-View
Enhanced Impact and Business Value
The growing emphasis on sales enablement provides an exciting opportunity
for training leaders. By driving and demonstrating a collaborative, cross-func-
tional approach, L&D professionals can help their organizations:
• Speed time to productivity for new hires
• Minimize disruption of both sales and sales support functions
• Reduce time out of the field
• Ensure consistent messages to the market, regardless of channel
• Positively impact customers’ perception of their experience
Delivering business outcomes like these will ultimately elevate the role of learn-
ing and development and increase sales.
About the Author
Wendy Mack is Director of Consulting Services for Wilson Learning Corpora-
tion. Wendy leads the team that is responsible for diagnosing client needs and
designing comprehensive solutions that result in sustained behavior change
and performance improvement. Wendy’s work blends her expertise in learning
and development with her extensive knowledge of human performance tech-
nology, change management, and communication. She has more than 20 years
of experience in the individual and organizational development arenas and
has coauthored three books on the topics of learning, leadership, and change.
Wendy is a popular speaker at national conferences and client events.
L&D’s Role in Sales Enablement:
What Every Learning Profes-
sional Needs to Know Today to
Impact Sales Results Tomorrow
To learn more about creating successful sales enablement, please contact
Wilson Learning at 800.328.7937 or visit www.WilsonLearning.com.
WILSON LEARNING CORPORATION
8000 W. 78th St., Suite 200, Edina, MN 55439
© Wilson Learning Worldwide Inc.
All Rights Reserved