What I learned About the Future of Sales Enablement at #Transform18 hosted by Showpad

I had the pleasure of attending Showpad’s first ever US conference – TRANSFORM18. The theme was “Reimagining Sales Enablement”. As a keynote speaker and business coach focused on strategically aligning Sales and Marketing, I attended because I wanted to see what the future of Sales Enablement looks like. I wanted to learn from industry experts and sales enablement practitioners alike to be able to share this knowledge with sales and marketing leaders that may/may not be fortunate enough to have a sales enablement role within their organization.

The roster of speakers included knowledgeable folks like: Mary Shea, Todd Caponi, Roderick Jefferson, Tim Riesterer, and many more.

Below are some of my key learnings at the conference:

We must learn to amplify and complement what the buyer is doing early on in their self-directed discovery journey. (via Mary Shea)
62% of B2B buyers say they can now develop selection criteria or finalize a vendor list – based solely on digital content. This means that we must ensure we are telling our company story via several different channels including third-party sites.
Status Quo Bias is real and it’s keeping your buyer from making a decision to buy. You must learn how to address this powerful human instinct and use it in your favor when connecting with buyers. (via Tim Riesterer)
You need different messaging when you are trying to “get” customers than when you are trying to “keep” them. Marketing can be a significant help to salespeople and account managers when connecting with customers in these two very different situations.
Buyer group stakeholders has increased by 75% (2009 – 2017) because buyers want to mitigate risk more and more before making a purchasing decision. Build deep trust with them so they all know that they are making the right decision to purchase your product/service. (via Tim Sullivan)
Buyers are not really good at determining what is truly causing their pain. We need to act like physicians/personal trainers and help them diagnose their true business issues. (via Todd Caponi)
We are not thinking machines that feel. We are feeling machines that think. This means that most buyers make initial buying decisions based on emotion then justify it with logic – even in B2B.
It is crucial for Sales and Marketing to align on metrics in order to be able to provide customers with the best customer experience (CX) (via Theresa O’Neil)
The #1 reason Sales doesn’t make quota is: inability to articulate unique value [Sirius Decisions] (via Pieterjan Bouten, CEO)
Sales Enablement practitioners are the “translators of dialects and languages” and help create synergy between sales, marketing, and product teams. (via Roderick Jefferson)