Are you looking to join sales enablement communities but don’t know where to start? We’ve got you covered.
You probably already know how much of a treasure-trove sales enablement communities are for sales enablement professionals like yourself. These groups are the central location where sales enablement practitioners, vendors, and industry thought leaders converge. They’re the perfect spaces to discuss strategy, exchange ideas, and ask for help with any challenges you may be facing.
Most sales enablement communities focus on sharing helpful resources virtually, while others also include opportunities to attend in-person events for enhanced networking. They could be free or require a small fee to join.
Read on to learn about the types of sales enablement communities out there and how to find the right one for your needs.
The Importance of Networking and Collaboration in Sales Enablement
Sales enablement is not a static process. Your enablement strategies and practices should change as your business expands and the consumer purchase behavior changes.
Networking and collaboration in sales enablement is crucial because it helps you keep pace with the latest trends and changes in the evolving sales landscape. This way, you can adjust your enablement approach to continue improving your sales team’s performance.
Also, collaboration and networking provide insight into industry best practices to ensure your enablement approach produces the desired results.
You learn what has worked for others at different stages of their company’s growth and can modify your approach in a way you’re sure will work. It’s the perfect way to eliminate guesswork from sales enablement.
This will ensure you make the right moves to help your salesforce hit their revenue target quarter after quarter.
Benefits of Joining a Sales Enablement Community
Sales enablement communities are valuable tools for all stakeholders in the sales industry. Joining and actively participating in these communities has several benefits, including:
Access to Expert Advice, Knowledge, and Tools
The moderators of most, if not all, sales enablement communities are experienced sales enablement leaders, coaches, and trainers. They offer feedback, guidance, and practical tips on several sales topics based on their wealth of experience in the field. You can apply this advice to improve your processes and achieve better outcomes.
You can also find tools, including ready-to-use sales enablement templates and technology recommendations, to simplify your sales enablement activities.
Continuous Learning and Skills Development
Most sales enablement forums have a library of resources you can use to develop your sales enablement skills at your own pace. These may include courses, podcasts, whitepapers, recorded webinars, or events on various sales enablement topics.They cover things like creating sales training or mapping customer journeys effectively.
Some communities provide sales enablement certification programs, which can add credibility to your professional profile.
Networking and Collaboration Opportunities
These communities are home to top industry leaders and experts. Joining them offers a chance to build meaningful relationships with like-minded individuals and expand your professional networks.
You can connect, and share insights and ideas with other sales enablement professionals in the same industry or role as you. Or, find senior professionals who can mentor and support you to succeed throughout your sales enablement journey.
Benchmarking and Optimizing Your Sales Enablement Efforts
Several members in sales enablement forums share their success stories, failures, and lessons learned, including results they’ve achieved with their processes. You can compare your process’s results, such as win rates or deal cycle times, with industry standards to gauge the performance of your sales enablement efforts.
If you notice your sales enablement practices are not working as well as they should, you can ask for ideas to improve them. Most forums have Q&A sections where you can post specific questions and get all the answers to optimize your processes.
Discovering New Opportunities
Learning from your peers, especially through the case studies they share on these platforms, can help you discover new opportunities for growing your business.
Also, the networks you build on these platforms can morph into new job opportunities since these communities also serve as talent pools. Many key industry players join these platforms looking for top sales enablement talent to work with.
Career Growth
Apart from growing your skills, sales enablement communities give you a platform to build your authority and reputation as a reliable voice in the industry. This is true if you are an active participant, creating helpful content while sharing your opinions, insights, ideas, and feedback on various discussions.
How to Find the Right Sales Enablement Community for You
Follow these steps to finding the best-fit sales enablement community to help you improve your expertise and maximize the impact of your sales enablement efforts can be simple if you follow the following steps:
1. Evaluate Your Goals or Interests
Evaluating your goals and interests is the first step to identifying the most suitable and relevant sales enablement community for you.
- What do you want to achieve or learn from the community?
- Are you looking to learn new sales enablement strategies, get helpful feedback on your practices, or improve your skills?
Understanding this information will narrow your search options. You’ll be searching for something specific, i.e., platforms to help you meet your goals instead of winging it.
2. Research
Once you have a rough idea of what you’re looking for, search to identify specific communities that align with your goals and interests. There are several options here, as we will discuss in the following section. Select a few options, say three to five, communities for comparison purposes.
3. Compare Your Options and Choose
Compare and evaluate the options you selected in step two to settle for the perfect community. At this point, you want to consider the following factors:
- The community’s size and diversity, including the number of members, level of engagement, and industries
- Format and accessibility – how simple is it to sign up and participate in discussions, how do members interact, and what are the rules or expectations?
- Relevance and quality of the content – does the content offered cover the topics you’re interested in?
- Resources and offers – how will the community help you succeed? What resources will you access?
Pick the community that ticks all the right boxes and join. Depending on the format and type of community you select, you may have to apply and wait for approval or sign up and get started immediately.
Types of Sales Enablement Communities
There are several types of sales enablement communities to join and gain all the benefits we’ve discussed above. Each group has its focus, culture, and format. Here are some of the most common types of sales enablement communities you can work with:
Online Forums and Groups
Sales enablement forums and groups are the most popular sales enablement community types. You’ll find some of these forums on several well-known platforms, like Slack, Reddit, and LinkedIn groups. Members of these groups host discussions on various sales enablement topics.
A few uplifting sales enablement online forums and groups to consider joining include:
Sales Enablement Collective
The Sales Enablement Collective (SEC) is quickly becoming the number one hub for sales enablement professionals. It boasts a large gathering of expert sales and revenue leaders, all actively working towards promoting predictable and consistent sales revenue growth.
With a slack channel of over 7,500 members, the platform covers almost everything – from sales performance and readiness to conversion optimization and skills development. It also offers several sales enablement guidance and tools in the form of:
- Real-world case studies
- Up-to-date stats and insight
- In-depth articles and tutorials
- Sales enablement tools and templates
Sales Enablement Pro
Like SEC, Sales Enablement Pro is a resource hub offering research, case studies, podcasts, videos, and other tools sales enablement professionals require to perform their tasks efficiently. The platform seeks to amplify the voices of industry luminaries and thought leaders to share their expertise so other sales enablement professionals can learn from them and prosper.
There’s a LinkedIn group and dedicated Sales Enablement Pro site you can join to access pro guides on various topics, like:
- Sales training & onboarding
- Sales kickoffs
- Advancing your career in sales
Sales Enablement Society
Sales Enablement Society (SES) is one of LinkedIn’s most preferred sales enablement communities. It’s a not-for-profit volunteer organization that allows sales enthusiasts and experts alike to meet, engage, network, and collaborate in all aspects of sales enablement.
The organization operates globally and locally. It has several smaller society groups in several countries and U.S. cities, like the Netherlands, the U.K, and Boston.
It holds an annual four-day sales enablement conference to promote networking and collaboration among members. There’s also a website dedicated to promoting peer learning and knowledge sharing among members. Joining the primary LinkedIn group, website, and other local groups is free.
Sales Enablement Leader Exchange
Another LinkedIn sales enablement community worth considering is the Sales Enablement Leader Exchange group. It focuses more on content-sharing as opposed to holding discussions. Most ideas on this platform are about sales operational excellence, team development, marketing messaging, and the effectiveness of sales technology.
Industry-Specific Communities
Some communities focus on sharing insight to foster sales enablement in specific industries, say healthcare, finance, or tech. A good example of an industry-specific sales enablement community to join is Sales Assembly.
Sales Assembly helps leading B2B Tech companies to improve their sales processes, thus scaling better, faster, and smarter.
An annual membership subscription gives you access to the training, programs, certifications, resources, tools, talent, strategy, and advisory experts, plus peer connections you need to succeed – all in one place.
Local Chapters and Meetups
Local chapters and meetups are in-person gatherings where you meet fellow sales enablement professionals face-to-face to exchange ideas and help each other grow.
Search for local sales enablement communities that host in-person meetups if you can. It can make a huge difference to meet and connect with people in real life.If you can’t find any, search online to find local chapters you can sign up for to connect with other sales enablement leaders in your locality.
Vendor-specific Communities
Some popular vendors create communities to help target customers excel at their roles. One such platform is HubSpot.
HubSpot created a sales enablement study group to help members share ideas, network, learn, and stay inspired to continue improving their sales enablement skills. It uses a Q&A format where people post their questions, and members engage to answer them in open discussion threads. Members can join various threads and share their opinions about a topic anytime.
Conclusion
Joining sales enablement communities is, without a doubt, one of the best ways to improve your skills and ensure your enablement efforts help your sales team perform optimally. Our guide should make it easy for you to find and join the most fitting community for your needs.
Remember to be active once you join a community to get the most out of it.
Also, keep in mind that self-promotion or selling isn’t allowed in nearly all sales enablement communities. Unless the group moderators allow it, try to avoid this. It may get you kicked out.
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