How do you segment and prioritize your sales enablement audience based on their needs and preferences?

In my experience cross functional learning can always be a better approach to enablement. At the same time we can also have a fit to purpose approach while focussing on individual development plan. As its always said if we have right ears to listen then the value and impact can be measured more accurately to have successful sessions. Additionally, determining the needs of each segment, it is important to understand how the segments interact with each other during the sales lifecycle.

One of the big challenges in sales enablement is managing the many stakeholders that exist in your organization. In many ways enablement is the gateway to the field for the rest of the organization. • Never over-customize for a sub-group, always make sure everyone feels like part of the same larger team • Address the uniqueness of the group by focusing on requirements that don’t apply to the whole team • Work in alignement with the leadership to remain focused. Sales enablement is hard. An audience orientation will increase adoption, reduce conflict and maintain focus on outcomes. Grab that golden ticket.

From my experience, in sales enablement - I always ensure: 1. Clearly "Defining My Segments": example - sales roles (AE, BDRs, inside sales vs field sales); sales stages - prospecting vs qualifying vs closing; performance - top or low performers or new reps; territory/ industry. 2. Once I have clearly defined segmentation the next important aspect is the "Access Needs & Preferences" of what my audience require be it AEs, BDRs, New Reps, Struggling Reps. 3. After accessing the needs and preferences now I need to "Prioritise Segments" which means Focus on enablement programs for AEs or reps selling high-value products, prioritize new hires or struggling reps. This is a continuous process, hence need to be regularly followed & refined.

Define your sales enablement audience segments as if you were sorting your laundry—you wouldn’t wash your bright red socks with your pristine white shirts unless you’re aiming for a wardrobe of pink. Likewise, lumping all your sales reps into one group is a recipe for mismatched training and resources. Start by categorizing them by role, experience, or territory. Tip: Use your CRM data to identify patterns in your sales team's behavior and success rates, then segment accordingly. It’s like matchmaking; only you’re pairing reps with the training they actually need.

Segmentation is key! Segment your reps by experience, role, or industry to deliver the right content at the right time. Empowering your sales force requires targeted enablement. Here's how to segment and prioritize your audience: A. Segmentation: Experience, Role, Industry B. Prioritisation: Needs, Impact, Resource Constraints.

I'm a firm believer in design thinking as a powerful tool for sales enablement. To make your enablement strategy truly effective, always take a rep-centric approach: → Think Beyond Surveys: Opt for day-in-the-life with your reps. You'll get a nuanced picture of their real challenges and friction points. → Real-Time Feedback: Use analytics as a feedback loop. Small iterative changes that are measurable brings big improvements. → Empathy Maps: This takes your research and turns it into actionable insights. Knowing what your reps see, feel, and experience daily lets you create highly tailored enablement tools. The bottom line? Putting your reps at the center, makes your strategies more human, relevant, and effective.

In my experience with a diverse collection of sales resources, I agree that segment needs can differ dramatically. I addition to determining the needs of each segment, it is important to understand how the segments interact with each other during the sales lifecycle.

From my experience it is critical to gain a baseline understanding of the skills that are present on the team. Do those skills align with the "skills competency map" for each role? You have to have well-defined sills and competencies before you can make any other decision, and know what to assess. Once you have that, develop and deliver a baseline assessment that focuses on the top 5 skills for each role. Top 5 skills: The ones that have the biggest impact on closing deals.

Use surveys, customer and cross-functional team interview as an assesment to see what are the needs of each segment. Develop the Sales Enablement resources based on data.

When we begin to create a training/training program, it's necessary to understand which business results it helps improve, which behaviors should be different after the training, how participants will receive support (whether from management or coaching), and how the results will be measured. Once all these points are defined and the content created (concepts/tools, activities), a very valuable step is to understand the audience's level of experience in order to further customize the learning experience. I usually research who the people are, their backgrounds or alternatively, use a pre-training survey wh participants to understand their level of expertise on the subject. With these steps, effectiveness increases considerably.

This works if you prioritize audience segments as an ongoing dialogue rather than a static matrix. Adding in a dynamic triage approach for training requests with a priority score can help with resourcing. For example, does this map to a big rock or company OKR? Which segments will it materially impact? Will it improve speed to market for a product or feature? Then, implement quick, week-long sprints aimed at solving the most high-impact issues. Iterate based on feedback before moving onto lower urgency segments. This another design thinking approach that ensures you're not just prioritizing segments, but continuously adapting your strategy to serve your reps and the company better.

This whole article is quite an interesting one! If you have an effective model for ROI from projects that includes: 🎯 Weighting in terms of audience impact size 💸 Revenue Impact ⏱️ Speed of Impact - for example, does it immediately reduce sales drag or is it a long-term pipeline initiative? 📊 Which segments it impacts and weighting those - for example, if it impacts a Revenue function, this is clearer to model/ROI than a post-sales or renewal-based team (such as Pro Serve). And much more...if you have these defined... This approach can provide a more comprehensive understanding of the ROI from various projects. This makes prioritisation quantitative rather than qualitative which is an easier sell to your stakeholders

Driving adoption from front-line sales leaders is critical and these resources need to be educated on a given program prior to implementation. A coaching job aid will also help to reinforce the key principles. Finally, measuring success at the segment level is vital in making a transformational shift with predefined KPIs.

In my experience the difference of having an LMS or learning experience platform LXP will heavily impact the ability to craft personalised learning. The latter is designed to be a lot more learner centric, and truly wrap the content needed to reskill or upskill sales people.

Meet your reps where they are. Tools like an LMS, e-learning platforms, and CMS are the enablers, but the magic happens when we orient these tools around a rep-centric approach to sales enablement. Kick-off by involving your reps and stakeholders. Listen to their unique preferences, pressures, and goals, then define the "Jobs To Be Done." Prototype resources like bite-sized content or test coaching ideas, and run them past your teams for quick feedback. I love to involve reps in a 'beta' version to gauge a program's impact and allow time to iterate. Remember to keep regular touchpoints and feedback loops to ensure that your personalization isn't a one-time effort but a continuous improvement process.

The customization of the learning experience is increasingly important to ensure that sales teams can develop and strengthen the skills that will help them improve their results. It no longer makes sense to offer everything to everyone, as each individual's gaps are different. To personalize training actions, it's important to understand the audience beforehand and tailor examples and stories according to their roles (account manager, SDR, solution engineer, etc.). In addition to my own stories and examples, I also share the stories and examples that participants contribute during training sessions. This way, in addition to concepts, tools, and situational simulations, the stories illustrate the application of the content covered.

Creating and implementing individualized learning paths can be time consuming. Especially if you’re a team of one. Your best bet is to understand how individual learning plans will skill your overall team faster. Allow team members to “test out” of training by showing their skills in assessments. Use a high-quality LMS system to make individual learning easier and more accessible for the team. Enlist the support of frontline managers to help identify gap areas whenever possible.

Keep it simple. Too often sales enablement tries to deliver too many messages. Today's sales leaders and individual contributors are inundated with massive "clutter" on their calendars. Determining whether a particular sales enablement is worthwhile or not from the receivers perspective often comes down to how easy the enablement is to consume. The rule of 3 should always be exercised if the goal of the enablement is to increase awareness, productivity, build a new skillset, etc. It's never about the volume of the message, but about the impact.

"Cut the Crap" Program was one of the best pieces of advice I was given. We had a program that looked 'pretty' and was positionable but the ROI for said program was not worth the hours invested every single month. Therefore as painful as it is- Cut it, sometimes Enablement can carry the bag too long because you want to justify the 100's of hours invested. Bit like Sales though, you are only as good as your next Q and therefore, be a bit brutal with projects.