What are the features of a sales enablement platform?

The three core features of a sales enablement platform are as follows:

1. Creating and presenting product demos. Sales reps can use demos built on the platform to demonstrate products to prospective customers. A modern sales enablement platform will also allow you to centrally manage your demos, gain insights on usage and popularity, and assist with demo invitations and follow-ups. Such advanced solutions will empower you to carry out sales enablement best practices by producing a range of demos targeting different audience segments, keeping your demos up to date, and enhancing them using insights gained from analytics.
2. Sales proof of concept (POC) environments. A POC can be seen as a sort of advanced, in-depth product demo focusing on a real-world scenario. They’re used to “prove” that a new product or service (the “concept”) is viable for a proposed application and/or market. Virtual POCs are often useful for finding solutions to technical issues, evaluating product effectiveness and demand, and measuring return on investment (ROI). As with product demos, today’s more advanced sales analytics platforms will also offer deep analytics to provide insights on engagement, usage, and more.
3. Providing and managing product trials. If you wish to give prospects the chance to “try before they buy,” a sales enablement platform will enable you to offer product trials. The platform should enable you to control who is using the trial and how long it lasts. A market-leading sales enablement solution will even allow customization of the trial, tailored for a prospect’s needs, industry, or other factors.

Those are the central areas of functionality that you should expect to find. However, there are also other features of a sales enablement platform that can prove extremely useful or even vital to a business:

Sales enablement training. As well as demonstrating products to prospects and illustrating/promoting their functionality and benefits, some sales enablement platforms also help you to train your sales personnel. Sales enablement training capabilities include giving your team the chance to try out the product themselves with guided instruction and explanation.

Cloud-based, cross-platform capabilities. The most sophisticated sales enablement solutions will allow you to deliver your demos and POCs on public cloud services such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). For many of today’s complex IT solutions, the ability to simulate real-world customer infrastructures, on the cloud platforms they use, can be crucial.

The cloud enablement platform features described here should all be high on your list when choosing a solution. It’s also a good idea to follow this general rule: the smarter, the better. The more sophisticated the platform’s analytics capabilities, and the more flexibility and versatility it offers you, the better it will serve your sales enablement needs now and in the future.