2. Align the Organization

 

Sales and Field Enablement is a cross-functional ecosystem.

So when I say "align the organization" I don't mean "do a re-org." The org structure is already in place. You may or may not have a separate Sales Enablement functional org structure.

What I mean is to align the enablement organization across the many functions that are involved: Sales Operations, Product Marketing, Sales Development / Demand Gen, the Sales Org itself, Technical Sales / Solutions Consultants, Success, Services, Support, HR, Operations, Finance and so on.

This is where 1. Communicate the Vision becomes really useful- it answers all those why questions for all these audiences.

Alignment includes deciding

  • who is meeting with whom,
  • what's being discussed,
  • how are meetings run, and
  • how often are they held.

One potential problem here is because there are multiple groups who may have to meet with every other group you potentially just added a zillion meetings to everyone's calendar. Not ideal.

One approach is to create a cross-functional Enablement Advisory Board that meets regularly and frequently, leaving individual teams to meet less frequently or even on an ad hoc basis. This approach scales well, even if you have 15 or 20 departments involved.