As of today I am counting 43 different Sales Enablement vendors

I keep a work in progress list of Sales Enablement vendors (Marketing Asset Management, Sales Knowledge Management, Sales Content Management, Enterprise 2.0 players with a focus on improving the intranet of b2b enterprises for all employees touching accounts, etc). So far two vendors merged into one, two went out of business, and new ones keep on popping up. The current count is 42 43 vendors (last updated February 8, 2012). Please find the constantly updated list here.

In the February 2010 issue CRM Magazine singled out the relevant vendors in the Sales Enablement software market.

Prospecting and lead generation in times of Sales 2.0

On February 7, 2012, Lauren Carlson wrote 5 Social Media Strategies for B2B Sales Success. In her post Lauren presents five ways in which B2B sales professionals can leverage social media to find and win more business. E.g.:

“[...] Try searching social media sites and tools for certain signal phrases, such as “seeking vendor recommendations,” or those that mention specific pain points your company can address. Refine your searches to social media channels your target customers use, such as by relevant industry hashtags on Twitter or industry-specific groups on LinkedIn or Facebook. This method of discovery requires minimal effort and can uncover leads that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. [...]“

From my experience I would add ifttt [can be set up to search twitter etc], socialmention, and of course Google Alerts [which can be a bit slow] as free tools that allow companies to track their brand, to identify their potential customers, or as Laura writes to “track their competition. They can see what tactics their competitors are using” and when the competition is failing at something. However, Lauren also mentions “that many C-level execs aren’t chatting it up on Twitter and LinkedIn”, but that the people, who influence them or at least have access to them, could be.

Check out Lauren’s blog post for some great examples of how B2B sales professionals can get creative with social media.

Sales force automation systems 15 years later

Lauren Carlson, CRM Analyst, Software Advice, blogged on December 14, 2011. Her premise is that 15 years ago, Sales force automation (SFA) systems hit the market and had a bad rep among sales teams. Fast-forward to now and most sales organizations are singing the praises of SFA. So, what changed? Her article highlights the four innovations that she thinks transformed SFA into a sales rep’s best friend and the tide is still turning. We didn’t even hit on social media / web 2.0 she points out. For me the impact of the web 3.0 and its semantic approaches to search, summarizing and customizing content, and combining data from different silos will also be interesting to see especially in the part of SFA that is called Sales Enablement. See her full blog post here.

Job opening – Sales Enablement jobs at Compuware near Boston MA

Sales Enablement Specialist

Job ID: 2011-10523 Location: US-MA-Lexington Area of Interest: Sales – All Openings Travel Required: No

Company Message:

Compuware Corporation, the technology performance company, provides software, experts and best practices to ensure the world’s most important technologies work well and deliver value. Compuware customers include 46 of the top 50 Fortune 500 companies and 12 of the top 20 most visited U.S. web sites. The company’s ongoing success depends on our employees–a diverse team of people with a set of key, common attributes. We seek positive, assertive team players who have a strong desire to succeed in a team- and customer-oriented environment. Learn more: http://www.compuware.com.

Position Description & Responsibilities:

This position is responsible for providing sales development and enablement support to ensure the successful achievement of sales KPIs, metrics and goals.

Qualifications:

Responsible for partnering with sales managers and reps to ensure hiring best practices, onboarding programs, SFDC and all enablement resources are successfully leveraged to achieve key metrics. Maintain SAVO sales enablement platform with current programs and information related to sales process reinforcement resources. Work with Compuware Global Learning organization to leverage shared services as needed and align with corporate onboarding and skill-building programs. Partner with sales managers to ensure they are leveraging best practices for hiring and onboarding candidates. Work with Sales and Marketing leaders to coordinate quarterly programs to build skills, motivate better performance and improve individual and overall results. Utilize SFDC and Cloud9 tools to assess both individual rep and team performance. Assist with ad hoc sales operations projects as requested. Job Requirements: Strong problem-solving skills. Strong attention to detail and sense of urgency around meeting deadlines. Excellent organizational skills, including the ability to handle multiple tasks/projects at the same time. Must have high ethics, integrity, and humility and have a desire to be part of a rapidly growing sales organization. Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Technical Sales Enablement Manager

Job ID: 2011-10525 Location: US-MA-Lexington Area of Interest: Sales – All Openings Travel Required: No

Company Message:

Compuware Corporation, the technology performance company, provides software, experts and best practices to ensure the world’s most important technologies work well and deliver value. Compuware customers include 46 of the top 50 Fortune 500 companies and 12 of the top 20 most visited U.S. web sites. The company’s ongoing success depends on our employees–a diverse team of people with a set of key, common attributes. We seek positive, assertive team players who have a strong desire to succeed in a team- and customer-oriented environment. Learn more: http://www.compuware.com.

Position Description & Responsibilities:

This position is responsible for managing all activities associated with the development and enablement of the technical APM resources (FTS/pre-sales and SDG/post-sales teams) in all regions worldwide to ensure the successful achievement of their KPIs, metrics and goals.  This position requires between 30- 50% travel, including some international offices.  The position reports to Director of APM Sales Development.

Qualifications:

Responsible for partnering with FTS/SDG managers to ensure hiring best practices are being followed, SFDC processes are utilized and all enablement resources are successfully leveraged to achieve key metrics. Ensure FTS and SDG best practices are captured in the FUSE/SAVO sales enablement platform with region specific programs and information related to sales process reinforcement resources. Utilize SFDC and FUSE to track, measure, analyze, report on both individual contributor and team performance in all regions:  NA, EMEA, ROW.  Identify and implement ways to continue to broaden APM FUSE resources with new training content in a timely manner. Work with Compuware Global Learning and Detroit Sales Operations teams to leverage corporate shared services, as well as with APM BU resources, such as Strategic Services team, as needed and align with all reinforcement content and skill-building certification and enablement programs. Partner with FTS and SDG managers to ensure their teams are achieving their goals and yielding to expectation through logistics and facilitation management of Sales Development programs, including: Technical Jams, Technical Deep Dives, Performance Journey training, Product Office Hours, and ongoing events to help reinforce the Compuware APM system. As part of the APM Sales Development team, partner with Sales/Marketing leaders and Product Management to ensure successful enablement 2x year for Spring and Fall Launches and for any other additions to the Gomez platform that may occur from recent or future acquisitions. Partner with APM Field Enablement team in all regions:  NA, EMEA, ROW, to implement programs and tools that improve the effectiveness of our APM FTS/SDG managers and reps.  Assist in rolling out a new comprehensive certification program that aligns the proper skill sets on our APM FTS and SDG teams. Assist with ad hoc technical development projects as requested, such as alignment projects with the APM Proposal team and/or Strategic Services teams. Job Requirements: Strong problem-solving skills. Strong attention to detail and sense of urgency around meeting deadlines. Demonstrated ability to work independently toward defined deliverables and timelines. Excellent organizational skills, including the ability to handle multiple tasks/projects at the same time. Must have high ethics, integrity, and humility and have a desire to be part of a rapidly growing field organization. Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Highly motivated, goal oriented professional who is comfortable coordinating activities and deliverables requiring involvement from multiple internal departments. Familiarity with a sales process and Application Performance Management is a plus. Travel required, up to 50%. Experience with MS Office products and Salesforce.com highly desirable.

recent numbers to show the return on sales enablement software

On August 22, 2011, Forrester’s TJ Keitt pointed out…

“…some key differences between Enterprise 2.0 users and the rest of the workforce:

• They’re your highest paid employees. Over half of this group earns more than $60k a year, compared to just 36% of non-users.
• They’re the most educated members of the workforce. Sixty-five percent of this group has completed at least a 4 year college degree compared to 55% of the rest of the workforce.
• They’re the leaders in your office. It’s not surprising to see 49% of this group are managers are executives given management’s enthusiasm about social technologies. Just 31% of non-users are in similar positions.

On August 17, 2011, BDSolutions tweeted that its VP of Sales Enablement, Bill Golder, said:

“Alignment of sales and marketing impacts revenue growth up to 3x.”

In a post by Amanda F. Batista from August 16, 2011, IDC is quoted with the statement that…

“B2B companies’ inability to align sales and marketing teams around the right processes and technologies has cost them upwards of 10% or more of revenue per year, or $100 million for a billion-dollar company.”

open call for guest bloggers on sales enablement and related job postings

I used the time at home during hurricane tropic storm Irene to take a look at the metrics that Google Analytics and WordPress Statistics give me for this blog. Given how many monthly visitors come here by searching on Google for the keywords below, there seems to be a big need for an independent source of information on the different players in the Sales Enablement space. Full disclaimer: Amongst other companies I am currently still consulting BizSphere AG and its clients. Having said that, with my List of Sales Enablement vendors I am actually trying to provide an impartial and complete picture of all players in the market.

It would also be an interesting exercise to create a magic quadrant or SWOT analysis to show the pros and cons of the different vendors, but for the time being I will leave this to someone who does not work with any of the vendors.

In case you are an independent observer of this market, feel free to email me guest posts to be published here. My email address is info AT SalesEnablementJobs.com

Most of this blog’s visitors come here to read about the following:

• Sales enablement software / vendors
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• enterprise information overload
• using the intranet for marketing and sales
• importance of sales enablement
• develop and maintain sales materials and current product knowledge.
• bizsphere
• sales enablement technology
• sales enablement comparison

I welcome guest posts about these and similar topics to help me fill this blog with life until I figure out what to do with it. In case you are hiring for Sales Enablement positions in an enterprise, you can also email me job postings to appear here and at www.SalesEnablementJobs.com

inability to get sales and marketing teams aligned around the right processes and technologies costs upwards of 10 percent of revenue per year

On July 21, 2011, IDC hosted a webinar entitled “Setting Your Sales Enablement Strategy”. In the invite for the webinar IDC revealed a very interesting number that really helps to put the financial impact a proper Sales Enablement strategy can make into perspective:

“Is Sales Enablement a new concept? Certainly not. Marketing and some sales organizations have been attempting for decades to equip their direct and indirect sales channels with the right information, at the right time, in the right format, to assist in moving specific opportunities forward. However, companies’ inability to get their sales and marketing teams aligned around the right processes and technologies (or at least consistent ones) has cost them upwards of 10% or more of revenue per year; or $100 M for a $1B company. [...]“

The following chart (source IDG Connect) was also shared during the webinar:

Job opening – Sales Enablement Marketing Manager at EMC

Sales Enablement Marketing Manager

Company: EMC
Location: Bedford, MA 01731
Job Status/Type: Full Time Employee
Job Category: Marketing/Product
Industry: Computer Hardware
Occupations: General/Other: Marketing/Product
Career Level: Manager (Manager/Supervisor of Staff)
Education: Bachelor’s Degree
Reference Code: 65125BR

Job Description

RSA, The Security Division of EMC, is the premier provider of security solutions for business acceleration, helping the world’s leading organizations succeed by solving their most complex and sensitive security challenges. RSA’s information-centric approach to security guards the integrity and confidentiality of information throughout its lifecycle – no matter where it moves, who accesses it or how it is used.
RSA offers industry-leading solutions in identity assurance & access control, data loss prevention, encryption & key management, compliance & security information management and fraud protection. These solutions bring trust to millions of user identities, the transactions that they perform, and the data that is generated. For more information, please visit www.RSA.com and www.EMC.com

The Sales Enablement Marketing Manager is the primary liaison between Sales and Product Marketing and is responsible for leading the development and delivery of tools and assets that support sales conversations throughout the sales cycle. This position requires a mix of interpersonal, project management and communications skills in addition to an understanding of marketing principles, sales methodology, and content management. The job requires innovation in process, procedure and systems that will continuously improve sales and marketing efficiency and effectiveness.

Responsibilities:
The responsibilities of the Sales Enablement Marketing Manager include (but are not limited to) the following:
o Work with sales and various corporate functions to assess and determine the required enablement support and the necessary tools, and to identify the most effective assets. Manage roadmap for asset development.
o Architect and plan various types of cross-product/cross-solution templates to enable standardized presentations and communications (i.e. playbooks; solutions dialog, product presentations)
o Facilitate content owners to populate templates to be used in client meetings, outbound communications and sales training such as presentations, sales guides, messaging and positioning…etc
o Measure sales enablement activities to quantify impact and success of materials and programs
o Establish processes for consistent communcation with the Field in order to collect input as well as to deliver updates and share knowledge
o Track and report on ForceManagement transformation across all Marketing functions
o Assist in data collection and primary and secondary research to understand and monitor market drivers and customer needs – linking them to business objectives that can be solved by RSA
o Manage and facilitate Value Driver and Value Card updates on an ongoing basis. Work with ForceManagement to understand and implement best practices.

Expected competencies
- Outstanding project management skills
- Excellent interpersonal skills and relationship management skills
- Ability to work effectively across cross-functional organizational teams
- Ability to conduct research and extract key findings to support enablement strategies
- Strategic orientation and excellent analytical and problem-solving skills
- Excellent presentation and communication skills – written and verbal – to interact with senior level colleagues
- Leadership qualities, and the ability to act independently (self-motivated)
- Solid time management and scheduling skills, well organized and detail oriented
- Able to work under pressure, meet deadlines, and be flexible in working on multiple projects simultaneously

Experience/Educational requirements
- A Bachelors Degree – in business, marketing or communications preferred
- Proven track record of successful project management
- Knowledge and experience with marketing and sales principles and tools – social media a plus
- Comfort in a matrixed organization

Job opening – Sales Enablement Manager in Australia

Date: Jul 12, 2011
Applications closed Friday 15th July, 2011 at 5:00pm and the role seems to be filled. Posted on this blog as a record of where in the world there are Sales Enablement jobs.
Requisition #: ESAS38751
Job Title: Sales Enablement Manager
Country: Australia
State: Victoria
City: Melbourne, Mulgrave
Employment Status: Full Time
Division: ES – Asiapac

Qualifications Required (Experience, Skills, Academic):
The successful candidate will need to be highly organised with attention to detail and a ‘can do’ attitude. Demonstrated experience in business analytics and automation tools to drive and generate future business is also key to the success of this role.Experience with project management is essential, along with exposure to various PM tools and methodologies. Candidates will need to have a demonstrable history of successful project management across different areas within an organisation. We’re looking for someone with business experience in a ‘Sales Go to Market’ or ‘Sales Enablement‘  role and  5+ years working in a sales organization (ideally within a finance or technology based organisation).

Our new employee will have solid experience developing, utilising and implementing business intelligence tools paired with the  ability to work concurrently on multiple initiatives, taking direction or creating direction as required. Experience working with budgets as well as strategic operating plans would beneficial.

Tertiary qualifications in commerce or a related discipline will help to secure this outstanding opportunity.

Applications closed Friday 15th July, 2011 at 5:00pm

Education: Bachelors
Job Category: Sales
Area of Interest: Sales Support