Buyer Enablement: A Distinct Aspect of Sales Enablement?

Sales enablement is constantly evolving. 

Due to the fact that it is still a relatively young discipline within the go-to-market ecosystem, it is, arguably, evolving more rapidly than others. 

As a result, certain trends and phrases gain some momentum every now and then and become all the rage.

It feels that, as of lately, this is happening with buyer enablement. 

To someone on the outside looking in, it may seem that buyer enablement is separate from sales enablement. 

However, this is not the case. 

Sales enablement has evolved over the last few years to be as much about the buyers as about the sales reps, particularly in more mature sales enablement functions.

In fact, in my sales enablement handbook, I pointed out that one of the primary goals of sales enablement is to align sellers’ motion with the buying process.

Moreover, when I wrote it, I mentioned that this principle is at the very core of the discipline.

In this article, I will do my best to investigate some of the questions that surround buyer enablement and how it relates to sales enablement:

• Why is there a perceived separation between buyer enablement and sales enablement?

• What is “buyer enablement”? 

• The relationship between sales enablement maturity and buyer enablement.

• How to ensure buyer enablement is an essential part of your sales enablement efforts. 

Let’s start with the perceived separation.

Buyer enablement vs sales enablement – where does the perceived separation come from?

As I mentioned, we are witnessing a situation where the distinction between sales enablement and buyer enablement is getting increasingly pronounced, almost as if someone is intentionally trying to separate the two.

Attempting to decipher these reasons is a difficult task because it is based on pure conjecture and because the reasons are interconnected, but there are some trends that make investigating them possible. 

The first and arguably the most impactful factor is the lack of a general understanding of sales enablement.

Perhaps it is the nomenclature that makes some people think sales enablement revolves around salespeople and salespeople alone (as in, there is sales in the name, so it has to be about sales).

More often, however, the issue runs deeper.

Many organisations view enablement as a set of disjointed and often misdirected initiatives – content creation, onboarding, or training – rather than a strategic function designed to drive scalable, long-term revenue growth.

Without a clear definition of what enablement truly entails, it becomes difficult to integrate it effectively into the broader business strategy.

This lack of strategic understanding often stems from how people enter the field.

For many, stepping into enablement is a lonesome road.

They take on the role because they are great salespeople or have experience onboarding and coaching other reps (as I discussed in my article on how people tend to get into sales enablement).

However, they rarely have the time, resources, or formal mentorship needed to develop a deeper, more holistic perspective on enablement.

As a result, they are often thrown into an environment where enablement is purely tactical, reactive, and guided by short-term gains.

In such situations, it becomes exceptionally difficult to see the big picture. Their efforts, valiant as they are, end up being perceived as sales-driven initiatives, neglecting the buyer’s role in the purchase process.

This is an issue that I will investigate in more detail in the next few paragraphs.

The second reason buyer enablement is often perceived as somewhat distinct from sales enablement is due to the impact of social media and major industry publications. This can also be attributed to the allure of “the shiny new thing” syndrome.

Many people who are culpable for this come from a good place. They see enablement teams that are entirely reactive and tactical, and they feel it is easier to introduce a new concept that might jolt such teams into thinking more about buyers.

Other times, however, companies are simply searching for likes, reposts, and/or search engine positions, figuring it is easier to do so using newer, flashier terminology.

Just as with the often misunderstood distinction between Agile and Scrum – where the latter is actually a framework within the former, yet frequently discussed as if in opposition – the conversation around buyer and sales enablement can similarly suffer from a “manufactured division.”

When these discussions gain momentum, they can quickly spread, leading to entrenched views that overlook the complementary nature of these concepts.

It might sound cynical, but we can’t ignore the fact that the perceived conflict between buyer and sales enablement is growing stronger, partly because there’s money to be made from it. This point closely ties to the earlier mention of increased visibility.

For example, a sales enablement consultancy might jump on the bandwagon by offering “distinct” buyer enablement consulting services, in addition to their standard enablement services, which likely already cover aspects of buyer enablement. 

Similarly, companies creating sales enablement software, like training platforms, content management systems, or coaching tools, might see an opportunity. 

Why not promote buyer enablement as something related to some new features? 

A new landing page, some engaging text, and a few visuals are all it takes. If this strategy attracts even a handful of extra accounts each month, it’s seen as worthwhile.

Finally, some are championing buyer enablement as a cause for entire go-to-market teams.

Whether it’s about appealing to team pride or shifting away from sales-heavy language, the goal is to enhance cross-departmental teamwork by reframing the conversation around buyer enablement.

But what exactly is meant by “buyer enablement”? 

The term “buyer enablement” was likely first introduced by Gartner to describe the process of providing customers with the information they need to successfully complete essential purchasing tasks.

To grasp the full meaning of this concept, we need a bit of extra context that will explain this definition further.

The modern B2B buying journey 

According to studies conducted by Gartner, 77% of B2B buyers agree that purchases have become very complex and difficult.

The difficulty buyers face in making purchase decisions often stems from the vast amount of high-quality information at their disposal.

A typical purchasing group consists of six to ten members, each consulting four to five different information sources that they need to reconcile collectively, only occasionally speaking to a sales rep.

Furthermore, 95% of purchasing groups find themselves reevaluating their decisions at least once when new information comes to light.

In an effort to develop a more detailed picture of where buying becomes hard‚ Gartner has identified six distinct buying jobs that a typical B2B buyer must complete to their satisfaction to successfully navigate a complex purchase.  

These six buying jobs include: 

• Problem identification

• Solution exploration

• Requirements building

• Supplier selection

• Validation

• Consensus creation

The initial four tasks might seem recognisable – it’s difficult to envision any B2B sales transaction succeeding without them.

However, it’s the final two tasks, involving continuous validation of new information and consensus-building among the buying team, that present a greater challenge. 

These tasks become more complex as the buying group expands to include a wider array of stakeholders and multiple sources of information.

While these six tasks are present in each interaction, the path customers take from initial interest to final purchase can be unpredictable, inconsistent, and, at times, circular. 

A more accurate representation of the B2B buying process would resemble a chaotic web rather than a straightforward series of steps (see image below).

The key takeaways

So, what does all of this mean? 

Considering customers devote a great majority of their B2B purchasing journey to gathering insights from available information, the nature of this information is crucial. It holds more significance than the capabilities of a specific supplier or any single sales discussion. 

Frankly, customers show no preference for either seller or digital channels; their primary desire is the ease of obtaining relevant information for their current needs.

Put simply, it is the information, rather than the people, that simplifies the buying process.

Sales enablement should utilise the same skills and processes employed in delivering information that simplifies selling to create and implement information that facilitates the buying process – an aspect we will explore in the next sections.

The relationship between sales enablement maturity and buyer enablement

The way a company, its sales organisation, and its sales enablement team perceive and integrate a buyer enablement strategy largely depends on their level of maturity.

I touched on this in the previous section when distinguishing between sales enablement teams that operate reactively and tactically versus those that have established themselves as strategic functions within the organisation.

I emphasise this point because many enablement teams are expected to take on massive, complex challenges without the necessary support or resources.

Jon Foreman captured this perfectly in my sales enablement challenges article:

This often involves small sales enablement teams, sometimes just a few individuals, expected to assist hundreds of sales representatives.

Additionally, they’re working with shoestring budgets, yet are still expected to support not only a vast number of sales reps but sales managers as well.

Understandably, enablement teams in these situations often can’t afford to look beyond the urgent, short-term tasks.

Their work becomes centred around meeting quarterly quotas, addressing immediate skill shortages, producing essential training content, and other critical needs.

This confines them to a supportive, reactive position, where broader or long-term planning is a luxury they simply don’t have. 

One of the side effects of such setups is the lack of a strategic approach to sales enablement which is essential for the inclusion of buyer enablement in their efforts. 

This is something I’ve observed after talking to sales enablement leaders about their top sales enablement challenges.

While a great deal of them emphasised the need to make enablement a strategic go-to-market partner within the company, there was only one person who actually mentioned the buyer enablement process as one of their challenges, and, ultimately, goals.

And this was a sales enablement leader from a company with more than 10,000 employees. 

This suggests a clear pattern: the maturity of a company’s sales enablement function directly influences its ability to incorporate buyer enablement.

Typically, when an enablement team becomes well-established, gains executive support, and earns a strategic voice within the organisation, its focus naturally shifts beyond internal sales efficiencies to include the buyer experience.

It should be pointed out that many sales enablement teams are practising this despite their limited resources, but you can rest assured that these people are working overtime as a rule and not an exception. 

Another reason why enablement often results in a tactical, less buyer-centric approach is that sales teams themselves (including sales leaders) will be spread too thin and, as such, unable to focus on anything but the most immediate sales targets.

You will agree that this is not the most conducive environment for a long-term, buyer-centric approach to sales and enablement. 

How to ensure buyer enablement is an essential part of your sales enablement efforts (and why)

Following my discussion on buyer enablement, it becomes apparent that solution providers simplifying the purchasing process are set to be frontrunners in the next phase of B2B market evolution. 

This indicates that, within the changing terrain of buyer journeys, sales enablement must embrace buyer enablement practices to maintain effectiveness. 

Therefore, it’s not a matter of sales enablement and buyer enablement being distinct entities; rather, sales enablement must now, more than ever, fully integrate the principles of buyer enablement.

In a more advanced organisational context, sales and buyer enablement converge into a unified strategy focused on enabling sales teams and empowering buyers (with sales enablement also working very closely with marketing to take a buyer-centric mindset in the distribution of information across digital channels). 

Now, let’s explore several strategies sales enablement teams can adopt to facilitate this transition. 

For the purposes of this discussion, it’s important to note that I am proceeding under the assumption that you have sufficient resources to evolve your enablement efforts into a more strategic and buyer-focused approach. 

Building buyer-based sales collaterals

All too frequently, particularly in companies with a complex array of products, a vast amount of marketing content is simply transferred into the sales collateral folder. 

This material is often left unused or, if utilised, fails to align with the buyer’s perspective. 

Consequently, the output is typically feature-focused collateral, which buyers generally find less engaging.

While such information may serve as a useful reference when evaluating different solutions, it rarely plays a significant role in the decision-making process.

Regarding sales enablement content that facilitates the buyer journey, it should primarily offer prescriptive advice, which provides clear recommendations like “do this” or “don’t do this” to help alleviate the complexities buyers face throughout the above-mentioned six jobs of the buying process (the “what”).

Additionally, part of the content should also provide practical support, including the tangible tools customers can use to act on this advice effectively (the “how”).

For example, I’ve observed companies introduce tools that allow potential customers to effortlessly create and personalise a persuasive business case for their product.

This type of interactive buyer enablement content aids buyers in presenting and advocating for the solution to other stakeholders within their organisation, significantly advancing the task of “creating consensus.” 

Similarly, some organisations have developed calculators that help buyers quickly quantify their needs (tackling “problem identification”) and facilitate the sharing of these insights with other stakeholders to “build consensus.”

Under these conditions, enablement teams can take on the lead role in developing such tools and subsequently empower sales teams to guide buyers in using them, providing support throughout the flow of their purchasing tasks.

Gartner shares that, at a minimum, buyer-centric collateral must be: 

• Relevant to the unique challenges that buyers encounter

• Easy for customers to implement promptly and with ease

• Useful in helping customers achieve their specific purchasing objectives

• Credible, supported with solid data and evidence

The best buyer enablement content will also be shareable, align with customers’ emotional needs, provide confidence, and lead back to the supplier’s unique differentiators.

Simplifying the buyer’s journey

As we’ve observed in the data from Gartner’s research, B2B buyers are overwhelmed by the purchasing decisions and the whole buyer journey.

It can be especially challenging for buyers from non-procurement departments who lack professional buying experience.

For many sales enablement teams and entire go-to-market teams, the optimisation of the sales process is approached almost exclusively from the internal, seller’s point of view. 

“How can we standardise our product demos?”

“How do we move buyers through the pipeline?”

“How do we make sure that everyone across the go-to-market teams has the insights they need from the sales process?” 

This narrow and one-sided view of sales often results in an overly complex buyer journey. In other words, the go-to-market teams “optimise” their sales process at the expense of the buyer’s experience. 

Once again, sales enablement should be the catalyst for the change.

Just because your processes have been around for a long time doesn’t necessarily mean they’re effective. 

In this regard, one of the first steps that can be taken to simplify the customer journey is to align the sales process with the buying process.

Sales enablement expert Mike Kunkle, in one of his articles, offers a practical illustration of how this alignment might be implemented.

Each stage of the process is defined by a name, objectives, necessary tasks, and exit criteria – the essential requirements that must be met before moving forward.

As shown in the image above, a well-structured buying process includes these same components:

• Stages
• Objectives
• Tasks
• Exit criteria

The key to alignment lies in ensuring that each phase of the sales process corresponds to and supports the respective phase of the buying process.

For example, in a consultative sales approach, early prospecting efforts in the sales process align with the research and comparison phases of the buyer’s journey.

Similarly, qualification and solution development in sales must correspond with how buyers identify potential solutions and evaluate options.

The negotiation and finalisation stages also mirror the buying team’s decision-making and approval process.

By structuring the sales process to reflect the natural progression of the buyer’s journey, organisations can create a seamless experience that removes friction, improves engagement, and ultimately increases conversion rates.

Buyer-centric sales training

Not every salesperson possesses the knowledge, skills, and emotional intelligence needed to guide and support buyers effectively.

Many have been trained in traditional sales methods, where buyers are seen primarily as targets to be pursued, with the goal of moving them through the sales process as quickly as possible – often with little regard for their actual needs.

Additionally, some sellers come from transactional sales environments, where the buying process requires little effort beyond initial contact and offer submission. For them, buyer enablement is an unfamiliar concept.

This is where a well-structured training programme becomes essential.

Simply layering buyer-centric messaging onto existing sales training won’t be enough.

Shifting from a transactional mindset to a consultative one requires more than just new talk tracks – it demands a fundamental change in how salespeople approach their role.

The challenge isn’t just learning new skills but embracing a new perspective: seeing buyers not as opportunities to be closed but as people navigating complex decisions who need guidance.

This transformation doesn’t happen through one-off training sessions. It requires an ongoing programme that reinforces buyer-centric principles at every stage of the sales process, equipping salespeople to act as trusted advisors rather than just deal closers.

Sales enablement plays a critical role in driving this shift, embedding buyer-centricity into both training and daily sales motions.

While there are many ways enablement can contribute to this evolution, the three areas highlighted above are foundational.

Conclusion

Addressing the question posed in the article’s title:

“No, buyer enablement isn’t separate from sales enablement; it’s an integral component of it.”

The distinction often drawn between the two is more a matter of perspective than a real divide. 

The journey towards understanding and embracing buyer enablement as part of sales enablement is not about reinventing the wheel but rather realigning the focus towards a more holistic, buyer-centric approach.

A mature, strategic approach to sales enablement inherently includes buyer enablement, not as an add-on but as a core element. 

I have already seen buyer enablement taking its place as one of the main sales enablement trends listed in one of my articles, and something more and more enablement teams are actively exploring.

Unfortunately, the challenges of being understaffed and underfunded in enablement often hinder teams from dedicating the necessary focus to potential buyers and their priorities, as they find themselves compelled to pursue immediate successes and address urgent issues. 

In an ideal scenario, every sale would reflect a deep comprehension of your buyers, and it falls upon sales enablement and the go-to-market organisation as a whole to make this ideal a reality.