Most small businesses try to fix a sales problem by hiring a new salesperson.
That might work — but only if you’ve given that salesperson what they need to succeed. And in my experience, most SMBs haven’t.
They have no central place for messaging, no consistent way to communicate pricing, no training on what they actually sell, and no real materials to help a prospect make a decision.
If your sales team is flying blind or building every pitch from scratch, that’s not a sales problem. That’s a sales enablement problem.
Editor’s Note:
This is the third post in our Inbound for SMBs series. If you missed the earlier ones, you can start with:
What Sales Enablement Actually Is
Sales enablement isn’t just giving someone a CRM login and a pitch deck.
It’s about giving your team the tools, training, and content they need to sell more effectively. That includes:
- Clarity on who the buyer is
- Training on how to position the offering
- Messaging that aligns with what the buyer actually cares about
- Collateral that supports key moments in the sales journey
In a modern inbound system, enablement bridges the gap between marketing and sales. It delivers relevance, builds confidence, and helps convert interest into action.
The Problem with How Most SMBs Do It
Small and mid-sized businesses often skip enablement because it feels like a luxury. But that’s a costly mistake. Without enablement:
- Salespeople invent their own messages (inconsistent and risky)
- No one knows how to respond to objections
- Pricing is handled case-by-case (which creates trust issues)
- Follow-up content is disorganized or generic
- The buyer doesn’t get what they need to move forward
Sound familiar?
Let’s Talk About Pricing Tools
Pricing is often where a sales conversation gets serious. Yet many SMBs treat it like a black box.
You don’t need to publish a public-facing rate card. But you do need to make sure your team:
- Knows how to quote with confidence
- Understands the business logic behind pricing
- Has access to an internal guide or calculator (CRM, Google Sheet, doc, etc.)
If you leave pricing up to guesswork or gut feel, you’re going to lose deals you shouldn’t. Pricing clarity is sales enablement.
Case Studies Aren’t Enough — You Need Real Social Proof
Every agency and tech company has case studies. Most of them are overly polished, vague, or downright inflated.
So how do you stand out?
You need real, credible social proof:
- Specific client outcomes (with numbers)
- Screenshots and samples of the work
- Testimonials that sound human, not scripted
- Publicly visible results (Google reviews, LinkedIn posts, etc.)
Enablement means making that proof easy to find and easy to share during the sales process. Bonus points if it maps to common objections or verticals you’re targeting.
Features and Benefits: The Most Underrated Tool in Sales
This one’s personal. I still lean on the training I got in Professional Selling Skills (PSS) to help teams connect features to benefits.
It sounds basic, but it works:
- What does your product do?
- Why does that matter to the buyer?
Most SMBs (especially marketing firms and media companies) don’t do a good job of documenting or training this. It’s not just for brochures — it’s foundational to qualifying needs and gaining agreement.
Sales enablement = giving reps the tools to sell with confidence and consistency.
Personalization at Scale
Inbound selling only works when it’s relevant. That means sales content, messaging, and outreach needs to feel tailored — even if it’s templatized under the hood.
That requires:
- Knowing the buyer persona
- Speaking directly to their role, pain, and goals
- Having access to customizable templates (emails, proposals, decks)
Too many companies skip this. They use the same 8-slide deck for every buyer, and it shows.
If you want to sell like a pro, your sales enablement strategy has to support personalization without requiring every rep to build from scratch.
Coaching, Role-Playing, and the Human Side of Enablement
Sales enablement isn’t just about tools and templates—it’s about helping people perform under pressure. That’s where coaching and role-playing come in.
Having a case study deck or an objection-handling doc is great. But can your team actually use them in a real conversation? Can they navigate tough questions without sounding scripted?
That’s what coaching and role-playing are for:
- Bridge the knowledge-to-action gap: They help reps internalize messaging so it comes out naturally.
- Sharpen discovery and objection-handling skills: Simulated conversations prepare reps for real buyer resistance.
- Create feedback loops: You’ll quickly find where your materials, messaging, or training fall short.
- Build confidence: Reps who’ve practiced are more poised in live calls or meetings.
Sales enablement doesn’t work if it stays theoretical. Coaching is what makes it stick. Role-playing turns decks and documents into actual sales conversations.
Matching Sales Enablement to the Sales Journey
Different tools support different stages of the sale. Here’s how I break it down:
1. Cold Prospecting / Awareness
- Email templates
- Social proof snapshots
- Problem/solution positioning guides
2. Lead Engagement / Qualification
- Discovery question scripts
- Objection handling frameworks
- Persona pain point cheat sheets
3. Proposal / Evaluation
- Case studies and results decks
- Pricing scenarios or calculators
- Offer comparison guides
4. Closing / Onboarding
- Implementation timelines
- ROI calculators
- Client welcome kits
If your tools aren’t mapped to the process, your reps are improvising. That might work for a while. But it doesn’t scale.
Final Thoughts
Sales enablement isn’t optional. If you want marketing and sales to work together, if you want inbound to perform, if you want salespeople to succeed, you have to support them.
That doesn’t mean giving them a brochure and wishing them luck. It means:
- Clarifying your value proposition
- Training your team to communicate it
- Equipping them with tools that align to the buyer journey
- Creating room for personalization
Sales enablement is what turns inbound interest into actual revenue. If your sales team is underperforming, start by asking: Have I actually set them up to win?
In our next post, we’ll talk about why scaling sales only works when your product positioning is clear—and what happens when it isn’t.
Stay tuned.