If you lead a sales team, you’re familiar with Salesforce. This industry-leading customer relationship management (CRM) platform offers a comprehensive way to manage customer data and, like many CRMs, presents itself as an all-in-one solution for sales, marketing, and more. So if you have Salesforce or another CRM, you’ve got sales enablement covered – right? As it turns out, sales enablement is more than just sales data collection and distribution. Let’s see why.

Know Your Tech

There are more sales tools than ever before, which can be both a blessing and a curse. It’s easy to find the platforms needed to drive conversions, but it’s not so simple to determine which tools deliver in which areas. For example, you may find that sales automation tools save reps time on repetitive tasks. That’s valuable for productivity but won’t address analytics, content management, and most importantly, face-to-face sales. 

So while CRMs may bill themselves as sales enablement tools, that designation comes down to how they perform for your team. Do they help reps sell more? Or do they just make extra work? 

CRMs Are Great at Data Collection – Not Sales Enablement

Your sales department collects a lot of data: contact information, notes, emails, who they met with, what was shared and more. There’s no discounting this data’s value because it supports account-based record-keeping and gives leadership access to comprehensive information on current prospects and customers. Yet every detail logged in Salesforce requires time. In many cases, it’s time reps could be spending in face-to-face conversations with their best leads or the company’s most valued customers. 

Factor in all the things that a CRM can’t do, and it becomes clear that Salesforce is not a standalone sales enablement platform. Any sales enablement tool should make it easier for reps to sell in the most effective ways for your organization. That means providing access to the content that drives sales, from pulling up the latest tech specs to sharing leave-behind materials that encourage a second conversation. The platform should also make less work, not more, allowing reps to limit time spent on data entry and prep and keeping the focus on selling. 

Get Real Sales Enablement with StorySlab

Don’t ask your CRM to do a job beyond its capabilities. Instead, give your reps the sales enablement tools they ask for and actually want to use and compliment your already great CRM. StorySlab gives your team access to all the resources they need to sell more, better, and in a way that makes sense for your business. Plus, our done-for-you app is compatible with any open-API CRM. For more information, download our demo app or contact us today.