I often am asked by marketing teams how to best train their sales teams on the use of Eloqua’s sales enablement tools.  It’s no surprise that salespeople sometimes balk at having to learn yet another piece of technology.  Since Eloqua’s tools are pretty easy to use, oftentimes it’s just a matter of finding creative ways in which to drive adoption amongst sales users, some of whom are reluctant to even use a CRM system.

Sales teams are more apt to adopt new technology if you can quickly show them what’s in it for them.  We’ve put together a slide deck (attached to this post) that marketing teams can use to quickly show sales teams how they can use Eloqua to:

• Quickly understand the interests and online activity (or digital body language) of prospects and customers
• Know which prospects are hot, or sales-ready, based on their online behavior
• Help sales answer critical questions before calling a prospect:
  • Who should I call?
  • What are they interested in?
  • What do I say to them?
• Send timely, relevant emails (already written by marketing for sales) to prospects they are actively targeting

Our e-learning modules are great recorded demos that can also be used as a training tool.  Some of the teams I work with have monthly meetings with sales, and will show one of these videos at each meeting as a refresher for existing sales users and as a training tool for new sales users.

Other teams use contests as a way to incent their sales team to start using the tools available to them (think iTunes gift cards or other spiffs).  Some teams pick a few star players in sales to “pilot” the sales tools, then share their success stories with the broader team prior to roll out.  Marketing newsletters to sales are another great way to share success stories that others have had as a result of the insight they’re gaining from the tools.

Just remember that training sales is an ongoing endeavor.  You’ll want to make sure that new reps are trained, and older reps are kept apprised of the latest and greatest functionality.

Once your teams start using the tools, use Eloqua reports to monitor usage.  And get input from sales - surveying them on occasion for feedback on the value of the tools will really help to keep communications between marketing and sales strong.

Of course, nothing says “this will benefit you” to a salesperson like a closed deal.  Make sure to track how deals have progressed and closed as a result of sales being able to act quickly and efficiently based on the insight they receive into a prospect’s digital body language and behavior.

Recommended Resources

Here are a few of my favorite resources around this topic:

E-learning Modules for Sales Enablement Tools.  These videos provide a quick and easy how-to for using Eloqua’s sales tools.  These are great to show at training sessions or lunch & learns for your sales team.

Customer Blog. Here’s a blog post from one of our customers, ArcSight, on how they use Eloqua’s sales tools to provide better insight to sales and make them more efficient.

Customer Success Story #1.  Cross Telecom/Arrow uses training and executive buy-in to drive adoption with their sales team.  Note:  you must be a member of the Eloqua Insiders Group to view this document.

Customer Success Story #2.  BMC Software started by enabling their inside sales team, then moved on to their field sales team after they had proven success.

Sales Enablement Power Hour.  Eloqua’s own Melissa Madian discusses the reasons why sales enablement is so important, and the benefits you’ll see from using the Eloqua sales tools.

PowerPoint Slides for Training (attached). Use these slides to train your team on why they should use the sales tools and how it will benefit them.

Now we’d love to hear from you!  Please share with us the effective, interesting or creative things you’ve used to get your sales team up and running with Eloqua for Sales!