Sales enablement aligns people, content, and priorities to guide revenue teams on how best to engage customers and prospects to achieve revenue outcomes faster.
Just because sales enablement exists within an organization doesn’t mean it works well. In efforts to boost sales effectiveness, many companies launch programs and tools only to be disappointed.
Some think that sales enablement is just a fancy version of sales training—forcing salespeople to watch a video or take a quiz. This hands-off approach is not high-impact, and organizations can do much better for their salespeople—and their bottom line.
Peer-to-Peer as the Most Effective Way to Share Knowledge
The power of learning from one’s peers is the foundation of building a winning sales culture. In fact, the secret to sales enablement excellence is the rapid development of competence and confidence through peer-to-peer coaching and knowledge sharing.As a powerful development tool, peer-to-peer learning breaks through some common barriers to skill-building. Rather than take a course built by outside experts they’ve never met or who have no idea about the daily challenges of selling their company’s products and services, revenue teams are more successful when they learn from and share best practices with each other.
For example, team members can record themselves and then have each other listen or watch their audio or video recordings. They can then practice and get feedback from each other, see how they are selling and what content they’re sharing, and reuse each other’s content and sales strategies to close deals.
At SalesHood, our customers are seeing a strong, positive correlation between peer-to-peer enablement activity data and higher sales performance. Teams who learn together and regularly share knowledge ramp faster, build a higher quality pipeline, and win more deals.
Cory Ayres at ActivTrak recently rolled out peer-to-peer programs focusing on pitch practice, use case storytelling, and skills coaching, resulting in a 25 percent increase in sales efficiency within ninety days.
Structured, peer-to-peer learning and collaboration is a great way to improve sales performance for both new and experienced salespeople. Salespeople learn in a non-threatening way and are more likely to try something new if it’s recommended by a peer.
Further, peer-to-peer learning introduces accountability into the sales organization. A form of positive peer pressure, peer-to-peer learning done right ensures that all of your sales training—whether conducted virtually or in a classroom—provides a safe space for salespeople to learn, offer feedback to each other, and engage in meaningful ways that challenge common assumptions and push their critical thinking.
Six Ways to Implement Peer-to-Peer Processes
To accelerate your sales enablement impact, here are six proven ways to introduce structured and repeatable peer-to-peer processes to your revenue teams.1. Practice pitching. Have teams practice your latest messaging with video role plays. Make it easy and fun for your teams to watch and learn from your optimal presentation. Track engagement and collect feedback.
2. Activate sales plays. Sharing content assets from actual deals that closed is a great way to drive peer-to-peer. When team members can reuse what’s worked, they are naturally more engaged, boosting win rates and deal progress.
3. Coach calls. Create a framework where reps are asked to listen to or watch calls and then share feedback on a number of peer calls every week.
4. Coach deals. Create a process where teams conduct deal coaching asynchronously. Have your team record their deal review based on your methodology. Then have peers review and provide feedback.
5. Share win stories. Create a process where your teams are recording deal wins and customer success stories consistently and in a structured manner. These stories become extremely valuable for your teams and future new hires since they can be used as support materials or reference for what’s worked. Track access and consumption of this content to assess knowledge and retention of this user-generated content.
6. Review losses. Learning from losses is still key to learning. Peer-to-peer processes can also be incorporated into loss reviews. Open, collaborative, and constructive conversations teach teams how to avoid losing and surface new strategies for the sales playbook, too.
If your organization wants to increase sales effectiveness and foster a stronger sales culture, it is imperative to implement and prioritize peer-to-peer in your revenue initiatives. Whenever possible, ask your teams, “What can we do to drive more peer-to-peer knowledge sharing that’s repeatable and measurable?” Map peer-to-peer activities to revenue outcomes for higher-performing teams and a higher-performing organization.
