3 SaaS Sales Enablement Mistakes That Hinder the Success of Your Product Launch

In sales-lead B2B SaaS, the success of a new product launch is inherently tied to the success of the sales team. If sales teams aren’t equipped to confidently sell the new product or feature, the launch will fail to reach its full potential. In other words, all the time, money, and resources that went into researching, building, and marketing the new product is wasted. This is why it’s so important to dedicate time upfront to SaaS sales enablement.

Enabling sales to confidently identify the right buyers, ask questions that uncover opportunities, and move a prospect through the sales process requires an intentional, well-planned approach. This can be especially challenging in high growth, fast moving business where capturing the attention and valuable time of your sales team can be difficult.

To set your sales team up to capitalize on your next big product launch, avoid these common mistakes when building your SaaS sales enablement program.

1. Limit training to “the what” and “the how it works”

Yes, training the sales team on what is launching and how it works is important, but consider this aspect as a starting point for SaaS sales enablement. Focusing solely on the technical ins and outs of a new product often results in sales understanding how the product works, but failing to grasp who to sell it to and how to effectively articulate the value in a way that creates urgency with prospects.

Why the product was built, who it serves, and how to sell it are just as important as explaining what the product does. This additional context is critical to ensuring sales reps can 1) identify the best prospects, 2) articulate the value of the product in the context of what problem it solves for the prospect, and 3) provide timely, relevant collateral that reinforces the value.

Do this instead: Build your sales training agenda using a problem/solution framework. For example, you could structure it like this: 1) what’s the problem faced by our customers; 2) who, specifically, is experiencing this problem; 3) how does our new product uniquely solve this problem; and 4) what resources, materials, and processes are available to help the team discover, qualify, and guide buyers through the sales process.

2. Build sales training and materials in a silo

One of the biggest mistakes product marketers or other sales enablement facilitators can make is building out product and sales training in a vacuum. When one person builds out training materials without seeking any input from product, sales, or other client-facing teams, this often results in an ineffective session that fails to capture the attention of sales; lacks the knowledge that the sales needs to be successful; and leads to a laundry list of requests for materials, FAQs, further training, etc.

Product marketers should build training for new product launches based on their own knowledge of the customer, market, and product, as well as the knowledge of others who are regularly talking to customers. By seeking input and feedback from these teams, product marketers not only create better training materials, but they can also be more effective at serving the sales team by identifying preferred training formats and materials

Do this instead: Treat your sales teams like your customers. Strive to gather feedback from sales leaders and experienced reps on content, format, and delivery of training materials ahead of the first session.

3. Follow a “one-and-done” training approach

Picture this: Your new product launch goes exactly to plan. Marketing is about to launch a campaign to build the pipeline. Sales teams are both excited and well-equipped to sell this new product. Launch day is just around the corner, and it’s already looking like a big success.

Now, fast forward six months. The launch campaign led to a few large accounts purchasing the new product and marketing is still running campaigns promoting the solution, but most of the sales team has not yet completed an end-to-end deal with this product. In the six months since the original training, they’ve forgotten much of the material and feel less confident about selling the product than they did initially.

This example illustrates a common pitfall when it comes to training sales on a new product launch: it’s one and done. This approach may leave your sales team energized and ready to sell initially, but falls short when sales reps are constantly inundated with new information and may not find an ideal prospect for the new product until weeks or months after the launch. Without continued or on-demand training available to the sales team, it’s easy (and understandable) for a sales rep’s knowledge about the ‘new’ product to atrophy over time.

Do this instead: Create an on-demand library of sales training resources so that sales reps can access product training in the moment they need it most. Also, consider establishing a regular cadence for live training so that sales can stay fresh on both new and existing products.

Get a playbook for sales enablement success

SaaS sales enablement will make or break the success of a new product launch. Building a successful program requires a deep knowledge of the customer, market, and product combined with a collaborative and ongoing approach to sharing that knowledge. Keep these tips in mind to avoid the common pitfalls of sales enablement training and ensure your sales team is set up to capitalize on your newest product launch.

If you have any questions or would like assistance in building the enablement tools and resources your sales team needs to be successful with a new product launch, don’t hesitate to reach out. Our product marketing team is ready to help you achieve your goals.