A Sales Enablement Charter is a document that sets out your enablement goals and objectives and outlines the activities to achieve your desired outcomes.  It essentially functions as your business plan, your roadmap, and your guide for implementation of your sales enablement initiatives. 

And why do you need one?

A charter is a tool to communicate and sell enablement internally.  It aligns with the organizations goals, and gains senior management buy-in with the outlined initiatives.  It also gains buy-in from other strategically important groups beyond sales such as marketing, service, operations and customer support.

So what are some of the elements that should be included in your Sales Enablement Charter? 

Byron Matthews and Tamara Schenk, co-authors of Sales Enablement, A Master Framework to Engage, Equip and Empower A World Class Sales Force, offer the following insights to establishing a sales enablement charter.

Meet with executive leadership

Understand the goals of the organization.  Not just specific sales goals, but also vision goals for the organization.  For example, incorporate market share goals, or pursuit of new markets.  The more aligned the Enablement Charter is to the goals of the organization, the more likely the leadership will be to buy-in and fund the initiatives.

Meet with other department leaders

Look for ways to collaborate with other departments to improve processes and create more cross functional collaboration.  Align enablement initiatives with established business strategies and sales strategies.  Enlist support from other departments to gain support.

Define enablement and the scope of your enablement effort

Defining enablement, such as creating the content, tools, training and coaching to improve sales performance, creates clarity and direction.  The scope can further define the enablement focus such as utilizing technologies and systems to improve sales effectiveness and efficiency.

Create a realistic roadmap

Set priorities and timelines for specific development of needed content, tools, training and coaching for the scope of the enablement effort.  Keep the focus on the business and sales strategy and the current state of sales execution.  Following the roadmap will help support the processes that underpin the end-to-end sales cycle and will result in predictable and consistent outcomes. 

Ultimately the charter will keep you on track and enable you to report progress.  Justifying your enablement priorities in light of the customer buying journey, and your desired outcomes, will be your guiding light to improvement in your sales performance. 

What other resources are available to help with drafting your Sales Enablement Charter?

Consider becoming a member of Sales Enablement PRO at https://salesenablement.pro

Sales Enablement PRO is an online community that helps professionals elevate sales enablement within their organization by learning what others have done before them. Becoming a member unlocks incremental value like access to three annual research reports, sales enablement certification courses, live events, and the ability to private message with other members.

You can also find a Sales Enablement Maturity assessment tool at Sales Enablement PRO that can help prioritize areas of focus of your enablement efforts. You can access the free assessment at https://salesenablement.pro/sales-enablement-maturity-assessment/