This article comes from Garrett Rafols’s talk, ‘Key sales enablement trends you need to be on top of for success in 2023 & beyond’, at our 2023 New York Sales Enablement Summit, check out his full presentation here.

Feeling foggy about which revenue roads lead where in 2024? You’re not the only enablement pro struggling to predict priorities amidst economic uncertainty. 

But what if riding out unpredictability started with asking the right questions?

Even with extensive experience enabling sales teams, today’s climate of hiring freezes and economic uncertainty introduces unfamiliar variables, and predicting our function’s path in 2024 becomes challenging.

But rather than fixating on the fog ahead, how can enablement leaders proactively build flexible frameworks to smoothly handle unpredictability?

The solution lies in:

  • Focusing on ROI,
  • Communication,
  • And nurturing talent. 

Here are some of the trends I recommend that’ll help you thrive through the turbulence ahead, and truly enable long-term success. 

Let’s dive in …


1 . Redefining sales & revenue enablement

While sales enablement and revenue enablement may seem quite similar on the surface, there are some important nuances in their focus. 

As professionals in this space, we need to understand these differences clearly in order to shift our mindsets towards supporting wider revenue generation across the entire customer lifecycle.  

Up until now, many sales enablement functions have operated squarely within the domain of supporting frontline sales teams directly. I speak from experience here with my own background, coming from that sales rep perspective too. 

But in 2024, we have a crucial opportunity to expand our impact by progressing into a true revenue enablement paradigm across marketing, sales, customer success, and beyond. 

This more all-encompassing approach pays attention to the whole revenue engine, rather than just one sales team component. 

So while sales enablement focuses on equipping sellers, deal cycles, and win rates, revenue enablement also encompasses enabling awareness, retention, and lifetime value. 

We should care about metrics like cost of acquisition, churn rates, marketing contribution, and cross-departmental health to fuel growth.

Transitioning fully to this revenue-centric mentality will require enablement professionals to build closer partnerships across marketing, services, finance and essentially all departments driving the customer journey. 

It demands that we consult and communicate beyond our usual borders, and in doing so, we evolve from supporting only sales tools and customer-facing sales teams, to enabling business-wide revenue growth in a sustainable way.  

“The key to proving enablement value is AI”, Jonathan Kvarfordt
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