Product managers are some of the busiest employees in an organization. I recently reviewed a past annual product management and product marketing survey, and when it came to responsibilities, the list included over 35 items! From understanding market problems to building product enablement, here are the activities that were included in the survey:
Business Activities
| Technical Activities
|
Go-to-Market Activities
| Sales Readiness Activities
|
Of course, the above list does not encompass all the other activities that a product manager may be responsible for, such as mentoring junior team members, researching industry trends, or upskilling themselves.
Trying to do more with less
With so much to do and the volume of requests often faced by product managers, it is no wonder that getting their time is a difficult task. According to McKinsey and Company, only 12% of a product manager’s day is spent collaborating with other functions. In most cases, that is not enough time to fully equip customer support, sales, marketing, documentation and training teams with all the industry, customer, product and feature knowledge they need to be successful.
So, what can product managers do? One thing to consider is to invest more time in product enablement tools and activities. By equipping other teams with knowledge about customers, products, and the buying cycle, product managers are less likely to be called on for routine activities, such as demo calls.
In this blog, we will delve deeper into what falls under sales enablement and where product managers should consider allocating their time to equip other teams to close more deals and reduce the demand on their own time.
Leverage product management knowledge in sales enablement
Stats on why PMs should focus on sales enablement
Leverage product management knowledge for enablement
Product enablement is the process of equipping internal teams, particularly those in customer-facing roles such as sales, customer success, support, and marketing, with the knowledge, tools, and resources they need to effectively understand, communicate, sell, and support a product. Companies that invest in product enablement are more customer-centric as they offer the tools and information that buyers want.
Depending on the organization and how teams interact with buyers, these resources may include everything from presentations, blogs, cheat sheets, competitive analyses, product training, and sales training – essentially, anything that helps them sell your products or services more effectively to your customers.
Product professionals possess a lot of the knowledge that can help close deals. They understand use cases, customer pain points and buying patterns. Being able to transfer this knowledge to the rest of the organization helps to ensure that everyone is truly customer-focused.
Organizations with sales enablement achieve a 49% win rate on forecasted deals, compared to 42.5% for those without. (HubSpot)
Laurie Harvey, a seasoned product manager who offers her services through TopTal, recently provided her advice on where product managers can invest in sales and product enablement. We have coupled her advice with our own expertise to provide ideas on what materials product management can deliver to boost a company’s sales and product enablement resources.
For marketing effectiveness
- Customer qualification identification processes – Articulate value propositions and identify the buyer, influencers, and decision-makers.
- Sales scripts and vertical playbooks – Create key messages, tactics, strategies, value propositions and differentiable value for the product. Provide data on how the product differentiates itself from competitors and even other products within the organization. Articulate the pain points and value that will help to drive ROI (return on investment).
- Deal desk support – Create common questions and answers that can feed into bid responses, request for proposals (RFP), requests for information (RFI), FAQs and more. Don’t just think features. Include delivery, pricing, warranty and customer support.
- Resource management – Identify subject matter experts who can review messaging, verify sales documents, and deliver high-quality demos and presentations for VIP customers.
- Channel programs – Leverage the content that you have created for sales to support your channels. Remember to tailor the content and messaging for their specific markets and niches.
For customer engagement
- Customer communications – Create and update all technical documents (release documentation, bulletins, notices, support notices).
- Messaging – Document, share and teach the key and supporting messages for the product and its features. Monitor marketing content to ensure that representations are accurate, clear and on brand.
- Demo systems – Create demo environments that enable sales to reinforce key messages and provide a comprehensive view of the product’s many capabilities.
- Segments, personas and vertical market specialization – Document and train the teams on how the value proposition might vary by persona, geographic region, industry segments and vertical markets.
For sales effectiveness
- Sales onboarding – Support marketing in teaching the tools, processes, contacts, references and online resources relating to the product.
- Sales training – Support inside and outside sales training by creating training libraries which may include resources like short videos, microlearning modules on the product, frequently asked questions, and pricing.
Stats on why PMs should focus on enablement
Product management is often tasked with helping the organization maximize sales revenues, increase market share, and enhance profit margins. Here are some interesting sales and product enablement trends that drive home the value of investing in this area.
- Sales enablement’s presence correlates with a 31 percent improvement in supporting changes in sales messaging and a 15 percent increase in improving low-performing salespeople (G2)
- Organizations with sales enablement achieve a 49 percent win rate on forecasted deals, compared to 42.5 percent for those without. (HubSpot)
- 76 percent of organizations see an increase in sales between 6 to 20 percent as a result of sales enablement. (G2)
- Over 75 percent of companies using sales enablement tools indicated that sales increased over the past 12 months, with nearly 40 percent reporting growth of more than 25 percent. (manobyte.com)
- Companies with a sales enablement team are 52 percent more likely to have a sales process that’s tightly aligned with the buyer’s journey. (G2)
- Over 75 percent of companies using sales enablement tools saw an increase in sales in the first year. (visualizeroi.com)
FAQs
What is product enablement?
Product enablement is the process of equipping internal teams—especially sales, customer success, marketing, and support—with the knowledge, tools, and training they need to effectively understand, position, sell, and support a product. It’s about ensuring that everyone who interacts with customers knows what the product does, how it solves problems, and how to communicate its value.
What does problem enablement mean in business?
Product enablement means investing in the following;
- Training & onboarding – Teaching teams about product features, use cases, ideal customer profiles, and messaging.
- Sales enablement materials – Playbooks, pitch decks, battlecards, objection handling guides, and competitive intel.
- Internal documentation – Product FAQs, release notes, internal wikis, and knowledge bases.
- Product demos & roleplay – Hands-on sessions to practice demoing and explaining the product to customers.
- Feedback loops – Getting insights from sales and support teams to improve product positioning or training.
- Ongoing updates – Ensuring teams are updated on new features, changes, and customer stories with regular training or announcements.
Why product enablement matters?
Product enablement helps to improve customer knowledge of the product, reduce ramp time for new hires, align teams across departments with consistent product messaging and enhance customer experience and support accuracy.
What is the difference between product training and product enablement?
Product training focuses on how to use the product, while product enablement encompasses how to sell, support, and effectively advocate for the product.
Product Training targets employees, the support team, customers, and partners to help them use the product effectively. Typical content includes How-to tutorials, user guides, feature walkthroughs, onboarding videos and role-based training (e.g., admin vs. end-user)
Product Enablement primarily targets internal teams, including sales, customer success, marketing, and implementation teams, so they have the necessary tools, messaging, and context to confidently position, sell, and support the product. Typical content includes competitive positioning, objection handling, use case cheat sheets, product value frameworks, and release readiness and battlecards. An understanding of how to use the product is essential for effective product enablement.
How LEAi supports product management
Over 65% of product professionals have integrated AI into their roles, enabling them to innovate in product enablement and other functions.
At LearnExperts, we have developed an AI-powered tool called LEAi, which enables marketing, documentation, training, and other teams to transform existing documents, presentations, and wikis created by product managers into content for knowledge sharing, training, and sales enablement.
The content created by LEAi can be utilized for various applications and resources, including internal training sessions, step-by-step guides for customers, e-learning materials, knowledge base articles, presentations, webinars, videos, and more.
LEAi can be utilized at every stage of the product development cycle. If you are about to launch a new product, LEAi can be used to help create product documentation and training. If you are updating or releasing new features, LEAi can help update your existing training and documentation to ensure consistency, wherever the content is used.
Features our clients love include:
- Document import tool: Takes presentations, webinar recordings and documents and lets LEAi transform them into training content.
- LearnAdvisor: Continuously monitors the learning content being created and suggests improvements so it follows best practices.
- One-click microlearning: Breaks large sections of learning content into smaller, more manageable pieces for easier delivery and learning.
- LEAi’s intelligent update: Ensures that training updates due to product changes are applied to all sections and courses that utilize that material.
If you’re an overworked product manager or product marketer seeking a tool to enhance your product enablement content, enabling you to maximize sales revenue, increase market share, and boost profit margins for your products, please drop us a note!
