Sales Enablement vs. Sales Operations: What’s the Difference

If you’re involved in the day-to-day of marketing and sales, the difference between sales enablement and operations might seem like common sense to you. But for those who are outside of the world of sales, it might seem like there’s a lot of overlap between these two very different areas of marketing. So what are the differences and how can you use them to your business advantage? Let’s take a closer look:

What are Sales Operations?

Sales operations have a finger on the pulse of all things sales. They keep up with the CRM and fix any issues that can drop up. They help to route leads and generally ensure that the sales team is a lean, mean, smooth operating machine. And the machine is at its finest when it comes to reports and insights that help to propel the company’s sales forward. Sales operations has all of the data to show the current situation as well as prospective updates if sales continues along its current trajectory.

What is Sales Enablement?

Sales enablement is less about the nitty gritty operation part of sales, and more about the overarching combination of technology and people to make it possible for the sales team to reach their goals. While operations is concerned with the running of the technology, sales enablement is always looking out for new advances in technology or data handling to allow the sales team to draw better, more refined insights from that data.

Unlike sales operations, sales enablement also bleeds over into marketing and can include facets like content creation and analytics. Sales enablement is always looking for ways to help both sales and marketing close more deals, attract more customers and grow those all-important KPIs.

How Can You Use Both of These Disciplines to Grow Your Business?

Both sales operations and sales enablement are necessary and, one may argue, vital parts to ensure business growth. Although they serve very different functions, both can help prime the engine of your sales machine and not only attract and acquire customers, but keep them engaged at every stage of the funnel as well.

An Example of the Difference Between Sales Enablement and Sales Operations

For example, before a new product launch, the sales enablement team may work with the actual sales department to help ensure that the team is ready to field new questions from interested prospects about the product. To that end, the sales enablement team will likely create content that helps sales not only to onboard more customers, but that can also help the customers themselves. Such content may include white papers, comparison charts, blog posts, videos and more.

In addition, if throughout the course of the product launch, the sales team members need more help walking prospects through certain stages or answering their questions, the sales enablement team can spring into action and develop content to essentially help sales and marketing get over this “hump”.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the product launch, there’s the sales operations team, which is making sure that the CRM and other elements of the company’s tech stack (as it relates to sales) is purring like a kitten. Because they’re more tactically-focused, they look for things that could slow the process, like sales bottlenecks that can ripple across and affect other areas of the company.

Getting Started with Better Sales Initiatives

Whether you need help with managing your tech stack or you need suggestions on how to approach a content creation strategy that brings in fresh leads, having a competent and action-oriented team for your sales enablement and sales operations is a smart investment that can have lasting benefits for your business, no matter what size it is.

We invite you to contact our senior advertising professionals for help in strengthening your sales operations or empowering your sales enablement (or both). With not only an impactful plan, but as well as help see it through to completion, you can concentrate your time and other resources on building up your business and further reaching your goals.

Reach out to us today and tell us more about what you need or where you feel your sales enablement or operations is weak, and let’s work on it together to formulate a strategy that will help you overcome these setbacks while avoiding the common pitfalls that face businesses as they scale.

Originally published at https://www.workdom.io on August 7, 2020.