Having a solid sales enablement program in place as we continue to strategically hire top sales talent has been a priority at AvePoint for years, but as the world continues to evolve, so has our program. It’s never been more important – according to G2:
- New hires become productive 37% faster than companies without sales enablement programs
- Sales professionals spend an average of 440 hours every year finding the right content to share with prospects and customers
- 84% of sales professionals achieve their quotas when their employer has a best-in-class sales enablement strategy in place
I sat down with my colleagues in Learning & Development and Sales Operations to discuss the exciting changes in our program, what our sales professionals can expect, and what the future holds.
Our Goal for Sales Enablement at AvePoint
We strive to create a globally standardized, scalable enablement program used not only for new hires but also for AvePoint sales veterans. Our practical, outcomes-based program is designed to put all our sales professionals on the path to productivity while cutting down on high-touch program administration as much as possible.
As AvePoint continues to grow, we understand the need to provide our sales teams with ground support from day one to help them ramp up quickly – and independently – wherever they sit in our global organization. We could only do this if we created a program that scaled worldwide in a way that reduced overhead from other areas of our business traditionally involved in sales onboarding.
How Sales Enablement at AvePoint Stands Apart From Others
The sales enablement program at AvePoint doesn’t just benefit our sales teams – we’ve crafted our program in a thoughtful, inclusive way that provides a safe space for new sales professionals to perfect their craft before speaking with prospects and customers as well as leverage analytics to ensure our efforts inform and optimize other departments’ work.
For example, our program provides globally scalable training and coaching opportunities as well as enables our sellers to easily curate and share content with their prospects. We can review analytics around the type of content shared with prospects and give our marketing team insights to inform future content strategy.
Taking it a step further, our sales enablement managers at AvePoint then partner with our regional sales managers to provide support for our sales pros, using data from our sales enablement and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms to target specific coaching areas that drive further sales productivity.
AvePoint’s Investments in World-Class Sales Enablement
To truly scale, we needed an intuitive, extensible sales enablement platform enabling us to create a roadmap of coaching content covering everything from our sales tools and prospecting to discovery, solution selling, and product training. The beauty of the platform is we can easily track important analytics that inform the success or failure of our training content, pinpoint areas where sales professionals need additional support, and bring together important resources sellers need in one place.
Technology is only as good as the people we have in place to implement and manage it, which is why we’ve also invested in full-time sales enablement managers and instructional designers to ensure we can continue to optimize our use of the sales enablement platform over time.
The First 90 Days: What to Expect for Sales Enablement
Our 90-day sales onboarding program is designed to help new sellers onboard quickly. Every new seller at AvePoint receives an interactive new hire playbook that outlines what they need to do in their first 30, 60, and 90 days – all with associated key performance indicators (KPIs) so they can track their progress and managers can actively stay on top of their development.
30 Day: Lead Generation & Prospecting
We focus on building the foundation for sellers’ success with training on AvePoint’s business basics, sales fundamentals, and an overview of the tools they have at their disposal. During this time, new sellers will begin to prospect and produce an end-of-month update outlining their performance against KPIs with the sales enablement team and their direct manager. They’ll also have the chance to attend regular sessions with the sales enablement team to review the work they’ve completed, receive feedback, and connect with other new sellers.
60 Day: Qualification & Discovery
During this time, new sellers continue adding value to their pipelines and meet with the sales enablement team and their manager to discuss their performance against the KPIs set for them.
90 Day: Closing & Pipeline Management
During this time, sellers will do what they do best – start to close the opportunities they have in their pipeline and have a quarterly business review with their hiring manager.
Beyond the 90 Days: Continued Support for Sales Professionals
New hires are part of cohorts who meet monthly so they can share their experiences and learn from one another as they continue to acclimate to their roles at AvePoint. They also receive ongoing coaching to help them be more competitive in the field, including incentives to help them develop in key areas. We provide our sellers with tips and tricks on how to get the most out of their opportunities based on insights gathered from AvePoint sales veterans.
Our Success to Date & Looking Ahead
After rolling out our upgraded sales enablement program to our US and EMEA sellers, we’ve consolidated our assets and collateral into our enablement platform, making it a true one-stop enablement shop for our sales teams. We’ve added enablement programming that targets specific sales campaigns, deal spotlights, and sales hacks from our sellers.
Ultimately, we now have an outcome-based, practical enablement program that targets not just new hires but our existing sellers which we can scale to future markets, such as our APAC team, to ensure our approach is globally consistent.
Ready to come to thrive in a company that values enablement and onboarding sales professionals? Visit our website and apply today.
