Sales Effectiveness: What It Is and How Enablement Can Help

Introduction

We are no strangers to clearing up nomenclature confusion here at The Enablement Edge Blog. 

Every time we tackle a misconception such as the one that sales enablement is sales training in fancy clothes, it leads us down a rabbit hole where we end up doing far more than just debating semantics.

We end up seeing certain aspects of sales enablement, or sales in general, from different angles we hadn’t considered before. 

This time, I decided to do an article explaining the concept of sales effectiveness, which is often wrongly confused or used interchangeably with sales efficiency and sales productivity.

Despite previous experiences, I initially thought this would be a brief 300-word blurb.

I soon realised I was wrong.

There was actually a lot to cover:

• Differentiating it clearly from sales efficiency and productivity
• Discussing its importance for a successful sales organisation
• Key metrics
• Biggest challenges
• Ways in which sales enablement can help

So, strap in as we delve into it.

Dispelling the sales effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity confusion

Before our deep dive into sales effectiveness, it is of utmost importance to clearly define what sales effectiveness, sales efficiency, and sales productivity are and how they differ. 

I actually spent a significant amount of time thinking about how to best make the distinction between the three.

After all, it is not by accident that they are sometimes used interchangeably or wrongly, even by people who might have been in the sales industry for a while. 

In the end, as is often the case in sales and sales enablement, the answer lies in the questions:

Interestingly, when I proposed these definitions, some experts rightly challenged me, noting that I didn’t consider the buyer’s perspective.

This prompted me to reframe the meaning of sales effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity from the buyer’s viewpoint:

• Sales Effectiveness: How well does the salesperson help me understand why I need to make a change, what needs to be done to achieve this change, and how they will support me throughout the process?

• Sales Efficiency: Are they assisting me promptly, or am I the one pushing for progress? Do they simplify my buying process?

• Sales Productivity: Are they focused on their internal KPIs, or are they genuinely helping me achieve my goals?

We must consider the buyer’s perspective, as many buyers prefer making purchases without engaging with a salesperson.

If we don’t adapt, our internal effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity will become irrelevant to the buying process.

However, I still believe that the answer lies in balancing focus between the seller and the buyer.

Overemphasis on the seller can disconnect us from the buyer’s process, while focusing solely on the buyer may neglect our control over the seller’s approach and behaviour, which influences the buyer.

Ultimately, adapting to the buyer’s needs while refining our internal processes ensures we remain relevant and effective in the buying process.

For simplicity’s sake, this article will primarily focus on the seller’s perspective and internal processes. However, keep in mind the importance of the buyer’s perspective as discussed above. Balancing both views is key to achieving optimal business results.

Real-life examples of sales effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity

For people who prefer concrete examples, here are a few, illustrating the three concepts with hypothetical scenarios.

Sales effectiveness example

A SaaS company launches a new feature for its HR onboarding software.

The team successfully closes deals with several medium-sized companies that were initially hesitant and easily meets its sales quota.

The ability to persuade these potential customers and meet sales targets demonstrates sales effectiveness.

Sales efficiency example

Implementing an automated CRM system reduces the time SDRs spend on administrative tasks by 40%.

This allows them to focus more on engaging with potential customers, leading to faster deal closures.

Sales productivity example 

A sales rep closes 15 deals in a single month using minimal resources, such as time and marketing spend.

This high ratio of output (deals closed) to input (resources used) is an example of sales productivity.

Mixed examples 

Perhaps an even better way to illustrate how these three are interconnected, but definitely not the same, would be a scenario where improving one aspect might negatively affect the other two. 

For instance, the sales teams decide to work more closely with customer success to better understand customer pain points.

This results in improved sales pitches.

Effectiveness is improved.

However, this intensified collaboration takes time away from direct selling activities and takes up a lot of the customer success and sales teams’ time, negatively impacting sales efficiency. 

This causes a productivity conundrum.

Do the improved sales results caused by better sales pitches outweigh the decreased efficiency? Maybe it is the other way around, and the time investment does not pay off?

The only way to solve this conundrum is to compare the data from before the new initiative with the data after the sales team started collaborating more closely with the CS team.

In the end, it is all about finding that balance that maximises productivity.

Finally, it might be useful to take a single hypothetical scenario and illustrate how boosting effectiveness and efficiency would differ.

Let’s imagine that the same GTM organisation behind that same onboarding tool is implementing a new content management system. 

Boosting efficiency would be the result of salespeople being able to find the appropriate sales assets that they need for a certain stage of the sales process more quickly.

Effectiveness, on the other hand, would entail those same salespeople understanding how to modify and personalise those same assets according to the company they are selling to at that particular time, the stakeholders involved in the buying process, and their specific buying journey.

Sales effectiveness vs sales efficiency from the sales enablement standpoint 

The last example from our previous section provides the perfect intro for the examination of sales effectiveness and efficiency as sales enablement sees them. 

Namely, the aforementioned CMS example niftily illustrates the biggest difference between the two concepts from the standpoint of enablement.

Sales efficiency becomes a more immediate, tactical concept while sales effectiveness reveals itself as a more strategic, long-term investment for sales enablement.

As you might expect, this often causes a conundrum within the sales enablement team and the larger sales or GTM organisation that it serves – what to prioritise?

In many cases, the organisational requirements will emphasise the importance of efficiency. This is perfectly understandable. 

Everyone wants to see the results from the sales enablement initiatives as soon as possible.

Additionally, boosting efficiency can, in most cases at least, be tracked and measured more easily. 

Finally, sales enablement initiatives focused on efficiency are easier to “sell” to front-line personnel. Their workflow remains largely undisturbed, allowing them to sell more – assuming everything goes as planned, of course.

Conversely, sales enablement efforts aimed at effectiveness often come with delayed results and require more comprehensive support from the organisation as a whole – both in terms of resources and commitment.

Furthermore, it can be difficult to precisely correlate enablement efforts with the improvement in measurable metrics. 

It should also be pointed out that effectiveness-oriented enablement efforts tend to receive more pushback from sales personnel.

For one, they often aim to change or enhance the core opinions and approaches that salespeople may have held or performed for years. Furthermore, since short-term results are not guaranteed, sales reps and sales managers may feel that such initiatives waste their time. 

Ideally, sales enablement teams would love to have the resources and authority to improve both sales efficiency and effectiveness simultaneously.

In reality, many teams often face resource constraints and are asked to prioritise efficiency over effectiveness. This focus on efficiency can lead to better short-term outcomes but may result in suboptimal long-term results.

However, with strategic planning and resource management, it’s possible to address both aspects progressively, balancing immediate needs with future goals.

The importance of sales effectiveness

Even though sales effectiveness is a more comprehensive and long-term enablement “investment”, the returns can be truly transformational. 

• Revenue growth

• Improved seller-buyer relationships

• Improved competitive selling

• Enhanced new market penetration

We don’t need to tell you how much these will be welcomed by every organisation under the sun, regardless of the industry, the size of the company, or the target market.

Multifaceted impact on revenue growth

The ultimate goal of every sales enablement team is to have a positive effect on the organisation’s bottom line. It may require some time, but boosting effectiveness is crucial for revenue growth. 

By improving the effectiveness of the sales organisation, the win rates and quota attainment can increase dramatically. 

For instance, let’s imagine that a particular sales team (let’s stick with our imaginary onboarding software SaaS company) is struggling to run effective demos.

The team has been both efficient and effective in bringing enough potential buyers to this stage in their buyer journey.

However, a surprisingly large portion of buyers who take part in demos decide not to take further steps.

This is where efficiency reaches its limits.

This issue cannot be solved by simply having more demos. Theoretically, it might, but it would become such a strain on the resources that it would not be productive.

This is where sales effectiveness comes in.

For one, this is a situation that requires a lot of analysis as to why the demos are not as successful as they can/should be. 

Perhaps the leads themselves have not been effectively qualified earlier in the sales process?

Perhaps the sales reps are indiscriminately running the same suboptimal demo (because someone might have told them that they need to be efficient with their demos)?

Perhaps the demo script and structure are just a feature dump that gets prospects checking other tabs in their browser?

Perhaps the salespeople haven’t been trained well enough to tailor their demos in relation to the buyer’s pain points?

The main point here is that this is an effectiveness issue, not an efficiency issue. 

By unearthing and addressing the reasons behind underwhelming demos (or any other part of the sales motion), sales reps will become more effective at running demos.

This improvement can lead to dramatically better conversion rates at this stage, higher win rates, increased quota attainment, and ultimately, greater revenue.

Improved relationships with the buyers

Another major effect that greater sales effectiveness almost invariably leads to is the quality of relationships between salespeople and prospective buyers.

This is yet another area where boosting efficiency can’t really help.

Inundating potential buyers with meaningless messaging and incessant outreach does not foster better relationships.

In fact, it has the opposite effect.

Conversely, effectiveness is all about running more impactful sales conversations thereby building better relationships with buyers and aligning the sales motion to the buyer’s journey more closely. 

For instance, a classic effectiveness-boosting initiative would be introducing a more buyer-centric sales methodology to the sales organisation. This can be the first introduction of a methodology for the team or a switch from a more transactional methodology that the team had used previously. 

Granted, many sales methodologies are praised for being customer-centric, but in reality, some stand out more in this respect.

Some of the methodologies that come to mind as being particularly buyer-centric include SPIN selling, value-based selling, and customer-centric selling. 

By conducting comprehensive implementations of such methodologies, the salespeople will be far better attuned to their buyer’s needs, motivations, fears, and reservations.

As a result, the sales professionals can build more empathetic, meaningful relationships where they can become trusted advisors.

This can lead to a whole range of revenue-positive results, such as improved win rates, increased average deal size, and higher customer lifetime value. 

Please note that I use “comprehensive” to describe successful implementations of sales methodologies.

Namely, it’s not enough to simply claim you’re implementing, for example, SPIN Selling, conduct a one-hour introduction, set up a few checklists, and call it a day. Implementing a sales methodology successfully requires strategic planning, dedicated resources, and continuous effort, commitment, and dedication from everyone involved.

To give you a taste of what a comprehensive implementation of a sales methodology should look like, check out my guide to implementing MEDDPICC. 

With strategic and thorough implementations, the benefits for the sales organisation can be substantial, leading to long-term success and growth.

Better competitive positioning and easier market penetration

Additional areas where sales effectiveness shows its worth are competitive positioning and market penetration; two examples where simply boosting efficiency does very little, if anything.

Here is an everyday example that illustrates this. 

Imagine two stands selling the same product at a farmer’s market in Greece. Both are selling fruit of similar quality from the same area. Even the vendors are from the same town and went to school together.

Now, let’s say one vendor tries to sell more by boosting his sales efficiency.

He shouts louder and more frequently, or even pulls passers-by by their sleeves. His pitch is always the same, regardless of who the customer is.

On the other hand, the vendor at the other stand focuses on sales effectiveness.

He gets creative with his cardboard signs, engages people in conversation without being pushy, and tailors his approach based on the potential customer. He confidently gives out samples, showcasing the quality of his product.

Who do you think will have more success – the vendor focusing on efficiency or the one prioritising effectiveness?

This example is perfectly translatable to all competitive sales.

In competitive sales, efficiency is almost a non-factor.

Effectiveness is everything. 

Another reason why becoming better at competitive selling has become a holy grail in sales is the fact that the entire selling-buying landscape is changing, with more and more companies vying for attention, often through hyper-efficient automation.

One of the best ways to stand out there is, in fact, through your sales force effectiveness.

Natallia Hunik, one of the sales leaders who shared their biggest challenges with me, pointed this out as a key concern for her:

“My key challenge is carving out time to strategically plan and restructure our sales organization to not only keep pace with these changes but to thrive. “

The situation is similar when entering new markets. While efficiency can help increase the number of new leads reached, it’s by boosting sales effectiveness that you truly impact the rate at which you conquer a new market.

By providing sales personnel with market-specific sales assets, training them on buyer preferences and behaviours in the new market, and establishing a repeatable yet adaptable process, you significantly increase the chances of great sales performance. 

How to measure sales effectiveness

In some of our previous sections, we already mentioned some of the metrics that can be used in measuring sales effectiveness. In this section, we would like to give them the attention they deserve – after all, if you cannot measure it, you cannot ensure your sales team is effective.

Before we get into the individual sales effectiveness metrics, we’d like to point out that none of them are purely, 100% effectiveness-dependent.

In many cases, efficiency will also influence these metrics, as will some other factors such as the product-market fit, market fluctuations, headcount changes, and so on.  

That being said, we will focus on those which are heavily and directly influenced by the level of effectiveness of your sales organisation, and which will, in turn, help you measure sales effectiveness.

Win rate

Win rate is one of the basic sales metrics and it measures the percentage of sales opportunities successfully converted into closed deals.

It is directly affected by sales effectiveness as it indicates how proficient a sales team is at moving prospects through the sales funnel to a successful sale. 

A higher win rate signifies that the team is effectively communicating the value of the product, addressing customer needs, and overcoming objections.

Another reason why it is a particularly useful metric for measuring effectiveness is that it can be applied to different phases in the sales process, in which case it is referred to as a conversion rate.

Monitoring conversion rates enables a more granular analysis of your sales team’s effectiveness and allows for better targeting with training, additional or modified sales collaterals, and other sales enablement efforts.

Quota attainment

Quota attainment measures the percentage of sales targets that individual sales representatives or teams meet or exceed within a specific time frame, usually measured monthly, quarterly, and annually. 

This metric is closely tied to sales effectiveness, as it reflects how well salespeople perform against predefined goals.

High quota attainment indicates that the sales team is effectively closing deals and generating revenue as planned.

Conversely, low sales quota attainment suggests potential issues in the sales process, strategy, or execution.

Monitoring quota attainment helps sales leaders and sales enablement to identify top performers, allocate resources efficiently, and implement targeted training to boost overall effectiveness.

Average deal size

Average deal size measures the average revenue generated from each closed sale.

It is a key indicator of sales effectiveness, as it reflects the ability of the sales team to close high-value deals.

A larger average deal size suggests that the sales team is effectively upselling, cross-selling, or negotiating higher-value contracts.

Conversely, a smaller average deal size may indicate missed opportunities for maximising revenue per sale. 

Customer lifetime value (CLV)

Customer lifetime value (CLV) measures the total revenue a business can expect from a customer over the duration of their relationship.

It is one of the key sales force effectiveness metrics since an effective sales team not only acquires customers but also ensures they derive significant long-term value from the product or service.

A high CLV indicates that the sales team is successful in securing and nurturing high-quality, loyal customers who make repeat purchases. 

Expansion revenue

Expansion revenue measures the additional revenue generated from existing customers through upselling, cross-selling, or renewals.

It relates to sales effectiveness by highlighting the sales team’s ability to maximise the value of existing customer relationships.

High expansion revenue indicates a successful approach to identifying and capitalising on opportunities within the existing customer portfolio, which contributes to sustained business growth.

It could be argued that the vast majority of other sales metrics, such as CAC, sales pipeline health, or sales cycle length, are affected by sales effectiveness, and they are; there is no doubt about that.

However, they are also significantly affected by other factors like sales efficiency.

Challenges in achieving sales effectiveness and how enablement helps you overcome them

As we already mentioned earlier, sales effectiveness is far more difficult to achieve than efficiency.

The main reason for this is that the challenges in achieving effectiveness are usually more complex and deep. One might even say systemic.

In this section, I will explore the most significant of those challenges and how sales enablement can help overcome them.

Misalignment between sales and other GTM teams

It is nearly impossible for a sales team to be effective if they are operating in isolation from other GTM teams, such as marketing and customer success. 

In my article on sales enablement challenges, Jon Foreman gave a perfect example when he talked about marketing building new marketing materials to serve as lead generation, and sales building a new process for handling those leads without communicating about those efforts.

His case also included the sales enablement team, which was informed of these isolated efforts after the fact. 

Marketing materials and sales processes built like that will never be truly aligned, except by pure coincidence.

It is far more likely that there will be a lot of discrepancy between marketing and sales outputs, making it very difficult for either team to truly deliver value. 

There can be no talk about the effective use of the new materials and processes in such a scenario.

It is up to sales enablement teams to ensure such situations do not happen and that GTM teams collaborate as closely as they can.

Sales enablement should strive to become the conduit between the various GTM departments and establish a culture where they become a single unit. 

This requires the sales enablement team to become a strategic function that works across the GTM departments, building champions for collaboration, contributing to sales strategy, providing a structured approach to working together and, to many enablers’ dismay, engaging in quite a bit of interdepartmental politics. 

That being said, tearing down those silos will result in improved sales efforts, as well as that of the other GTM teams.

In addition to this, closely-knit GTM units are also more likely to share expertise, making the entire revenue machine more productive.

Inadequate training and development

Another systemic challenge that prevents sales organisations from becoming truly effective are inadequate training and development efforts. 

But how does one recognise inadequate training and development efforts?

The biggest red flag is when they are not strategic in nature.

In other words, training, coaching, and other development activities are introduced without much planning or reasoning, usually because someone has a feeling they might help salespeople develop new skills.

This is a common practice in companies where the sales enablement function is non-existent or at low maturity. 

Considering the fact that training and development can provide transformational benefits to the sales team and the revenue unit as a whole, wasting time on such haphazardly conceived training efforts is ineffective and inefficient. 

All training and development efforts have to be strategically planned and developed, which includes a number of considerations:

• “Environmental” analysis – Is training really necessary at this particular point? Have we truly created an environment conducive to overall sales performance before we start throwing training at the sales force? In this regard, I love this LinkedIn post from enablement professional Nick Lawrence.

• Training need analysis – Why does a certain salespeople cohort require this particular kind of training/development? Have the competency evaluations unearthed particular skill gaps? Is the company rolling out a new feature/product/service that requires an entirely new approach to selling?

• Measurable goals and key metrics – What is this training/development programme trying to achieve? What are the measurable goals of the initiative? Which metrics will be monitored to gauge how successful the programme is?

• Timeline – What is the timeline for the initiative? When can we expect to see an improvement in the key metrics we have defined? 

• Resources – Do we have the resources for this particular training initiative? Do we have enough people who will train the salespeople? Do the salespeople have the time needed for engaged participation in training? Do we have to include outside trainers? Do we have the budget for them?

• Key stakeholders – Do we have executive support for this initiative? Are the managers on board? Do we need involvement from stakeholders from other departments, such as marketing or product? 

• Feedback loops – How can we make sure the training/development is going as planned? Do we provide enough opportunities for honest feedback to salespeople, the trainers, management, etc.? How do we act on feedback?

Analyse any unsuccessful or underwhelming sales training and development programme, and you will find out that some (in many cases, many) of those questions have not been answered beforehand. 

It is the responsibility of the sales enablement team to ask those questions and to make sure they get as many answers as possible before committing to a training initiative of any kind or promise that they will definitely improve sales effectiveness.

I wrote extensively about sales training best practices here.

Suboptimal sales processes

Suboptimal sales processes are a sizeable barrier to achieving sales effectiveness because of a number of reasons.

For one, suboptimal sales processes make it very difficult for sales professionals to predict or replicate success even if they are successful.

Moreover, new salespeople always have to go through a lengthy trial-and-error phase before they can start being effective.

Last but not least, it is extremely difficult to improve processes which are not well-defined and standardised.

I should point out that the adjective suboptimal covers a wide spectrum of sales processes that need improvement – from non-existent ones, through ones that are all over the place, to those that may require just a couple of tweaks here and there to be great.

There is also no shortage of reasons as to why some sales processes are ineffective:

• Outdated processes: Companies often continue to use sales processes that were designed years ago and haven’t evolved with changing market conditions. 

• Slapped together over time: Many sales processes are developed reactively, with new steps added to address specific issues as they arise. This can result in fragmented and convoluted processes, which no person other than the salespeople who have been there since the start can understand. 

• Lack of standardisation: Without a standardised process, different sales reps might follow different steps and take different approaches to communicating with the prospective buyers. This makes it extremely difficult to define what good looks like and how to use what the best salespeople are doing to boost the effectiveness of their peers who may not be performing as well. 

Building and introducing a consistent sales process (ideally, alongside a chosen sales methodology) that will be optimised for sales force effectiveness can be a herculean task.

Even modifying a process that is relatively okay can be excruciatingly difficult, as it brings with it the challenges of behavioural change. 

Sales enablement can be the best ally to sales operations by assuming the role of an advisor and facilitator.

This is especially true when discussing topics related to the interplay between sales process and sales methodology as well as sales qualification frameworks, engineering the conditions to support behavioural change, and engaging various stakeholders across GTM to incorporate diverse perspectives.

Implementing or enhancing existing sales processes is sensitive work, and taking a wrecking ball to the task at hand is never a good idea.

Conclusion

Once again, the simple task of introducing the concept of sales effectiveness and comparing it to concepts like sales efficiency and sales productivity has resulted in something more. 

It has led me to a more detailed examination of the question of effectiveness, its strategic importance for sales, and its role in boosting revenue in situations where improving efficiency simply won’t do. 

Moreover, it was an interesting thought exercise to really contemplate why revenue leaders and GTM organisations might have the tendency to prefer their enablement to focus on sales efficiency, but also why focusing solely on efficiency may be short-sighted. 

While making your sales teams highly efficient can bring a certain level of success, truly maximising their potential requires addressing effectiveness sooner or later. 

The good news is that sales enablement can lead to some big gains in this area, as I’ve hopefully illustrated through some clear examples.