Selling is a demanding and stressful job, especially in today’s complex and competitive environment. Sellers face many challenges and pressures, such as changing buyer behaviour, increasing sales complexity, and growing sales enablement market. These challenges and pressures can lead to seller drag and burnout, which can negatively affect seller performance, retention, and satisfaction.
Seller drag is the demotivation away from work, which manifests in avoiding or procrastinating work, boredom, and a struggle to focus. Seller burnout is the physical and emotional exhaustion from work, which manifests in fatigue, cynicism, and reduced efficacy. According to a Gartner survey, 89% of sellers report feeling burned out from work, and 54% report actively looking for a new job.
Reducing Burnout and Drag with Sales Enablement
Sales enablement is the process of providing the sales organisation with the information, content, tools, and training that help sellers sell more effectively and efficiently. Sales enablement can also help enhance the seller experience and motivation, and reduce seller drag and burnout, by addressing the root causes and providing the necessary support and resources.
Here are some ways to enhance your seller experience and motivation with sales enablement:
Provide development opportunities
One of the main causes of seller drag and burnout is the lack of development opportunities. Sellers want to learn new skills, grow their careers, and achieve their goals, but they often feel stuck, stagnant, or unchallenged in their current roles.
To address this issue, sales enablement can provide development opportunities that help sellers improve their competencies, advance their careers, and achieve their aspirations.
How to provide development opportunities:
Conduct a skills and career assessment to identify the strengths, weaknesses, and interests of each seller, as well as their short-term and long-term goals.
Create and update a development plan and define the objectives, actions, and resources for each seller, as well as the timeline, milestones, and feedback mechanisms.
Provide various learning formats and methods, such as online courses, workshops, mentoring, coaching, or shadowing, and tailor them to the needs, preferences, and styles of each seller.
Use tools like SalesPro, a sales enablement platform that helps you create and manage your sales enablement training and coaching, and track and measure their usage and effectiveness.
Foster a sense of purpose
Another cause of seller drag and burnout is the lack of a sense of purpose. Sellers want to feel that their work matters, that they are making a positive impact, and that they are part of something bigger than themselves. However, they often feel like a “cog in a machine”, that their work is meaningless, and that they are disconnected from the organisation’s vision and values.
To address this issue, you need to foster a sense of purpose that helps sellers connect their work to the organisation’s mission and culture, and to the customers’ needs and outcomes.
How to foster a sense of purpose:
Communicate and reinforce the organisation’s vision, values, and goals, and explain how each seller’s role and contribution aligns with and supports them.
Share and celebrate the success stories, testimonials, and case studies of how the organisation’s products or services have helped the customers solve their problems, achieve their goals, and improve their lives.
Encourage and facilitate collaboration and interaction among the sellers and other stakeholders, such as the marketing, product, or customer success teams, and create a sense of community and belonging.
Use digital tools, such as cloud-based collaboration platforms, to help your team communicate and collaborate continuously.
Provide clear and constructive feedback
A third cause of seller drag and burnout is the lack of clear and constructive feedback. Sellers want to know how they are performing, what they are doing well, and what they need to improve. They also want to receive recognition, appreciation, and encouragement for their efforts and achievements. However, they often receive vague, inconsistent, or negative feedback, or no feedback at all, from their managers or peers.
To address this issue, sales enablement tools can provide clear and constructive feedback that helps sellers assess their performance, identify their areas of improvement, and celebrate their successes.
How to provide clear and constructive feedback:
Establish and communicate the performance standards, expectations, and metrics for each seller, and ensure that they are aligned with the organisation’s goals and customer needs.
Conduct regular and timely performance reviews and feedback sessions, and use data and evidence to support the feedback, as well as the praise and criticism.
Provide specific, actionable, and balanced feedback, and focus on the behaviour and outcome, not the person or intention.
Use tools like Gong, a platform that records, transcribes, and analyses your sales calls and provides tips and techniques to improve your sales skills.
Reduce administrative burden
A fourth cause of seller drag and burnout is the high administrative burden. Sellers want to spend more time on selling activities, such as prospecting, presenting, or negotiating, that directly generate revenue and value. However, they often spend too much time on non-selling activities, such as seeking approvals, updating records, or creating reports, that do not add value and distract them from their core tasks.
To address this issue, sales enablement tools can reduce the administrative burden that helps sellers simplify, streamline, and automate their sales processes and workflows.
How to reduce the administrative burden:
Conduct a process audit and analysis, and identify the sources, types, and impacts of the administrative tasks that the sellers have to perform, as well as the time and resources they consume.
Eliminate, delegate, or outsource the unnecessary, redundant, or low-value tasks, and focus on the essential, unique, or high-value tasks.
Provide and integrate the tools and systems that help the sellers automate, optimise, and personalise their sales processes and activities, such as CRM, sales automation, or content management systems.
Enhancing the seller experience and motivation will help reduce seller drag and burnout, especially over the difficult winter period. By providing development opportunities, fostering a sense of purpose, providing clear and constructive feedback, and reducing administrative burden, you can help sellers sell more effectively and efficiently, and improve their performance, retention, and satisfaction.
It will also form part of an ongoing sales enablement strategy that values continuous learning and engagement, both internally and with customers, helping win more clients while creating a great place to work!