The separation of church and state was a revolutionary idea back in the 1700s when the founders introduced it. The founders (with whom I have a lot of disagreements on many things) had their reasons, however key amongst them was limiting foreign influence over the leaders of the fledgling commonwealth.

How is this relevant to sales enablement? It’s directly applicable considering that the enablement role is ‘growing up’ according to Miller Heiman CSO’s 4th annual Enablement report. Recognizing that Enablement is no longer an ancient organizational need, ‘growing up’ requires essential clarification around what the role of enablement entails. This is particularly important for the single person ‘shops’ of enablement where many practitioners are pulled in multiple directions and have many masters to support.

“Growing up” also means that instead of just reacting willy-nilly to all of the separate requests and departments, there needs to be a creation of clear responsibilities. Charters, processes, methods and expectations across departments are a good start. Nevertheless, I would suggest that this needs not only to extend to what and how the sales team should perform but also across departments about what the sales enablement role does and doesn't do.

This is specifically important as the product marketing and the sales enablement roles, in particular, can clash regularly. A little bit of competition and friction is good - too much and it can cause a breakdown.

I bring this up after having had the chance to speak and attend the inaugural Product Marketing/ Sales Enablement Summit. I was both invigorated as well as a little dismayed. I heard from multiple speakers that it is a regular part of their charter to also include “sales readiness.” I can understand how this might get lumped up under the responsibilities. I would however state that readiness is a blanket term that could be misconstrued as inclusive of enablement. Considering that the focus and intent of product marketing is different than that of sales enablement, Readiness can sometimes run afoul of undue influence on nature and outcomes from their Product Marketing efforts.

To be transparent… the two should be separated to avoid undue influence of one organization’s desires over the other. Additionally readiness is not the same as enablement, although they are in close relationship with one another.

Readiness & Enablement - doesn’t that mean the same thing?

In short. No. They are not the same.

Continuing with the church and state metaphor... Readiness is having faith that your neighbor will be kind and not steal from you because you believe in the ‘rightness’ and ‘wrongness’ of stealing.  Enablement is instead the formal structures of law that support the ultimate behavior of all citizens. Enablement creates a legal structure that says if you steal there will be consequences, and there are processes that you will be subject to. It is both a deterrent and a structure that offers strength, reciprocity and predictability to the belief that stealing is wrong.

If that metaphor isn’t enough to convince your bosses. Let’s try a more formal ‘business-like’ definition.

Readiness is the tactical tools that are at the disposal of the customer-facing teams so that they can pull upon that content or message when needed.

Enablement is the function to organize, activate and create an organization that knows where, how and when to pull on those tactical tools and apply them based upon known skills, processes and expectations around outputs. And to ensure that the process is repeatable.


So then why the separation?

That’s not to say that sales readiness isn’t an essential part of the product marketing role, I’m just saying to keep the conflict to a minimum you should create some structure to ensure that there is a clear line in the sand about when and where to work. It benefits the broader business to establish clear expectations for the functional partners.  It doesn’t make sense to have a generalist who is only somewhat good at one thing, and so-so at another.

Thankfully I’m not alone. According to Sales Enablement Pro's report, there is evidence that by formalizing enablement in organizations, it results in higher win rates as well as overall better quota attainment.

Just as marketing has had to mature over the past decade, I’m suggesting that it’s now time for the same to be said of the enablement role. Plus specialization allows you to go deep, rather than broad.

A programmatic example of church and state

It is an organizational process to go to market with a new offering, new SKU or even a new region. However, it has often fallen to product marketing to do a majority of the heavy lifting both internally and externally. In many ways, the project and creation of customer content that is developed with the customer in mind isn’t necessarily the same as the sales process and the needs at the time of the sales interaction.

As an example, teaching non-believers why and how murder is wrong isn’t an easy task. It's a big lift in and of itself. I would, however, suggest that it shouldn’t be a solo effort. Teaching people that murder is wrong is supported by the state by formalizing the expectations of the outcomes of your actions.

The same is said of GTM processes. I would offer that there is a parallel process or Go-To-Market Motion, which is different from GTM alone. Both are strategic and both are parallel. However, one is focused on the external, the other internal.

The intention of a GTM plan is to create an initial engagement to the customer; Piquing their interests, challenging their status quo, engaging their needs and ultimately providing a solution.

The parallel aspect of GTM Motion is to establish the needs and information required for internal readiness. Put more plainly, this is the internally facing work that ensures all customer-facing employees can not only understand but also handle and execute on the value, messages, process and new expectations that this new GTM release or process entails.

Mind you this is not the same as a feature dump, or a single deck released a day or so before go-live. Just like product marketing has taken a playbook from process improvement theories like agile, project management and more - so too does sales enablement. To ask a product marketer whose specialization is specific to market insights, product placement, and pricing, to also take on the aspect of adult education, behavioral change, as well as sales motions, is more than a little unrealistic.

A programmatic example of church and state

It is an organizational process to go to market with a new offering, new SKU or even a new region. However, it has often fallen to product marketing to do a majority of the heavy lifting both internally and externally. In many ways, the project and creation of customer content that is developed with the customer in mind isn’t necessarily the same as the sales process and the needs at the time of the sales interaction.

As an example, teaching non-believers why and how murder is wrong isn’t an easy task. It's a big lift in and of itself. I would, however, suggest that it shouldn’t be a solo effort. Teaching people that murder is wrong is supported by the state by formalizing the expectations of the outcomes of your actions.

The same is said of GTM processes. I would offer that there is a parallel process or Go-To-Market Motion, which is different from GTM alone. Both are strategic and both are parallel. However, one is focused on the external, the other internal.

The intention of a GTM plan is to create an initial engagement to the customer; Piquing their interests, challenging their status quo, engaging their needs and ultimately providing a solution.

The parallel aspect of GTM Motion is to establish the needs and information required for internal readiness. Put more plainly, this is the internally facing work that ensures all customer-facing employees can not only understand but also handle and execute on the value, messages, process and new expectations that this new GTM release or process entails.

Mind you this is not the same as a feature dump, or a single deck released a day or so before go-live. Just like product marketing has taken a playbook from process improvement theories like agile, project management and more - so too does sales enablement. To ask a product marketer whose specialization is specific to market insights, product placement, and pricing, to also take on the aspect of adult education, behavioral change, as well as sales motions, is more than a little unrealistic.

I still don’t see the difference between readiness and enablement.

Ultimately the point of the enablement team is to activate the PMM’s customer-facing content. Customers need to be challenged, educated and informed. That is a unique journey all of its own. The education and support that the customers need are different from the requirements and expectations of the internal revenue functions within your organization.

The sales team’s focus and activities are going to be different. They will need to clarify, probe and enumerate on the specific corner cases, hesitation, and infrequent issues that the customer would encounter during the sale. You cannot anticipate these kinds of questions when drafting a GTM plan. Additionally these corner cases won’t often present themselves until AFTER the GTM plan is in full motion and encountering real customers.

However, these are the things that salespeople can excel at in the moment, but cannot always be written out. There is always the possibility that the product marketer may have deliberately chosen to keep those specific edge cases quiet as there were nuance and complexity that couldn’t be sussed out in any digital format. The quality of the conversation can be more specific, what can and cannot be done when, where, how and why.

It takes the broader inspirational messages that belief creates. Messages, values, and parables (or stories)  lay the groundwork for bringing strangers into the fold. Whereas unlike readiness, Enablement and makes the belief, realistic and actionable. By formalizing expectations from the foundation that readiness lays out, Enablement makes explicit what should and should not happen and when, how, and to what extent.

It’s unrealistic to think that the PMM should shoulder the burden in creating a belief in their product, company or vision and to do it alone. The venture of crafting and guiding both customer’s perception as well as managing the internal processes and company outputs is an ineffectual use of time and energy.

To put it plainly, it’s not enough to have written out the belief and to preach it from the pulpit. Sometimes you do need to have the formalized structure in place to support and reinforce that belief and create specific actionable guidance on what to do and what not to do to make sure that the belief becomes more.