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Introduction to Just-in-time Enablement
You’ve heard of sales enablement. You’ve heard of just-in-time learning. But what happens when you combine the two? Or, perhaps a better question: why wouldn’t you combine the two? Meet, just-in-time enablement, the strategy bringing sales rep enablement into the modern era.
What is just-in-time enablement?
Picture this. You’re at a BBQ party. Suddenly, you’re asked to make a zesty, mouthwatering salsa – but hey, you don’t have a recipe. What if, at that very moment, you receive a quick and easy recipe on your phone, perfectly timed?
This isn’t a particularly novel idea.
We’re accustomed to everything in our personal lives happening instantly, automatically, just-in-time.
Then, you enter your workplace. Here, if you have a quick question, you’re forced to dig through LMS courses, training session materials, Slack messages, and emails to find the answer.
Just-in-time enablement is a modern approach to knowledge sharing where information, resources, and coaching are delivered exactly when and where needed—no more, no less.
Think of it as Google Maps for enablement. It’s 2023. When you need to know which direction to turn while driving, are you seriously going to pull the car over and start flipping through the 1999 Rand McNally Road Atlas?
I’ll bet there are people reading this blog post who haven’t even used a physical driving map. And, why would you? Other than the sweet feeling of nostalgia. Google Maps updates every twist, turn, traffic jam, and speed trap in real-time.
Yet, nobody bats an eye when we’re handed a 56-page PDF after a training session (it happens more than you think, I’ve seen it) or when you’re required to navigate to a different location, outside of your flow of work, to access enablement resources.
Just-in-time enablement isn’t about cramming a bunch of information into your head in one go; it’s about relevant, bite-sized information nuggets at the point of need. It’s a seamless blend of lean learning principles and agile action, ensuring your sales reps are always armed with what they need to drive revenue.
The importance of just-in-time enablement for the modern workforce
In our fast-paced, rapidly-evolving world, nobody has time to wade through a sea of irrelevant information. Enter, just-in-time enablement, designed for the modern workforce to:
- Increase efficiency and productivity by delivering crucial information contextually, when sales reps need it.
- With rapid technological changes, continuous learning is critical. Just-in-time enablement ensures that learning never stops (see our post on everboarding for more info).
- Support quick decision-making. Teams can respond to changes rapidly, keeping pace with the market demand.
Remember, change is the only constant in business. And just-in-time enablement is agile enough to adjust each time a curveball is thrown at us.
Benefits of Just-in-time Enablement
Put on your thinking caps and get ready to dive into the benefits of just-in-time enablement. This isn’t just some fancy buzzword but a real-life solution for some of those pesky enablement challenges you’ve been scratching your head over!
1) Cost reduction through boosted productivity
First and foremost, just-in-time enablement is your best buddy for shaving off those extra zeroes from your expenses. Why? Time is money.
Teams are using more applications to get their work done, complete processes, and access information than ever before. The result? Employees are forced to “toggle between different apps and websites 1,200 times each day,” according to a study by Soroco.
1) By reducing context-switching and automatically surfacing the answers or resources your reps need, you can save them up to two hours per day! That’s two more hours they can spend selling, prospecting, cold calling, personalizing, and building a big-fat pipeline.
PRO TIP: Calculate what context-switching is costing your organization with our calculator here!
2) It’s a superpower that lets your reps consume exactly what’s needed when needed. Take that, unnecessary digging, hunting, reading, and waiting 💪!
2) Elimination of waste and inefficiencies
Next! Up to 90% of marketing content goes unused. Can you even calculate the expense of this unused content? We’re talking months and months of time and energy invested into creating resources that sit around and collect dust.
Why? Because if something is inaccessible, hard to find, or inconvenient, guess what? Sales reps won’t use it.
Just-in-time enablement is like the ultimate “inefficiency exterminator!”
By adopting this approach, you’re systematically banishing waste from your content creation by:
- Placing your content at the fingertips of your sales reps to increase engagement
- Helping you identify and eliminate non-value-adding content by analyzing content usage metrics
What’s the cherry on top? You now bid a sweet farewell to the clutter and chaos that traditionally make up your content management system by regularly removing content that isn’t driving results.
3) Improved responsiveness to market demands
Now let’s talk about the big M – Market Demands. Keeping up with ever-changing market fluctuations can be as tricky as acrobats performing on a tightrope! But here’s the good news, just-in-time enablement is as agile, flexible, and adaptable as possible.
Traditional LMS courses and lengthy training documentation can take weeks or even months to produce. With just-in-time enablement, you’re focused on creating enablement content specifically for what a rep needs to know at that moment.
That means you’re embracing a strategy that favors bite-sized microlearning.
Easier to create, edit, and adjust as your needs and market demands fluctuate.
4) Streamline the buyer experience and increase satisfaction
And last but not least, let’s not forget the most important people – our wonderful customers! With just-in-time enablement, you aren’t just helping your prospects understand the value of your product faster – you’re winning their hearts with a streamlined and informative buying experience.
It’s simple – with an enablement approach that matches resources with sales rep and prospect/customer questions, you can respond to prospects faster with resources that are more personalized and helpful to their exact needs.
So, there you have it! The just-in-time enablement low-down. Now all we need is some action. Ready to move faster than ever before? Let’s bring on the just-in-time revolution.
Strategies for Implementing Just-in-time Enablement
Hold on to your seats because it’s time to dish out some hard-hitting strategies for embracing just-in-time enablement in your organization.
Implementing Just-in-time Enablement Software – Spekit
Onto the glimmering golden ticket – Spekit. No, it’s not that candy bar that turns your tongue blue (even though that’d be cool), but it’s something just as magical for your business.
Imagine a world where you could seamlessly integrate and automate your just-in-time enablement processes. Yes, it’s a beautiful thought, almost like sipping a mimosa on a bright Sunday morning. Spekit is that world. It’s a one-stop shop for creating engaging sales playbooks, objection-handling guides, competitive messaging, sales frameworks, and more – reinforced exactly where your team needs it. You get the point – more efficiency, increased sales, and ultimately higher revenue.
Role of Just-in-time Learning in Sales Enablement
Here’s the thing: the pace of change in the business environment is accelerating faster than a cheetah on a caffeine rush. Thanks to our buddy, technology. To keep up, sales teams need information – the right information – and they need it now! That’s where just-in-time learning comes in.
Just-in-time learning is training provided at the point of need, ensuring knowledge is fresh, relevant, and immediately applicable to your sales situation. It gears up your sales teams with the relevant information just when they need it, allowing them to pivot on the fly, outmaneuver competitors, and close deals right faster.
Creating Dynamic and Adaptable Sales Playbooks
Here’s where it gets juicy; The Sales Playbook. Imagine having a playbook that grows and evolves with your business – a flexible playbook that evolves with your sales process. Dynamism is the secret sauce to creating adaptable sales playbooks.
These playbooks aren’t your regular static strategy documents. They’re living, breathing, constantly adapting guides, taking cues from shifting customer needs, market conditions, and even feedback from sales reps. They make sure your sales force never goes into the fight unarmored.
DOWNLOAD FREE Sales Playbook Templates ->
Leveraging Just-in-time Enablement for Revenue Growth
Now, let’s talk revenue. By now, you’re probably wondering, “How does all this translate into pipeline and revenue growth?” Well, I’m glad you asked!
Remember the context-switching productivity drain we talked about? Well, when your sales reps have access to the latest information, training, and strategies right when they need it, guess what happens? They improve their interactions with prospects, navigate conversations better, address concerns more effectively, and as a result, close deals more efficiently. The faster they close, the faster the cash flows in.
Aligning Just-in-time Enablement with Sales Enablement Goals
Last, but definitely not least, is ensuring your just-in-time enablement vibes perfectly with your sales enablement goals. If the two are out of sync, it’s like trying to salsa while your partner does the tango.
Alignment means understanding your overall sales enablement goals and incorporating just-in-time enablement. Whether shortening the sales cycle, improving win rates, or boosting upsell and cross-sell opportunities, ensure your just-in-time tactics are synced with each of your sales goals to maximize effectiveness.
Case Studies and Success Stories
Now, let’s dive into some real-life examples to show the incredible potential of just-in-time enablement. It’s one thing to spin theories and expectations around something, but you can learn more from those who are actually implementing this strategy day in and day out.
Example 1: How Sendlane Grew Its Sales Team 10x and Generated $3.7 Million in Pipeline in Just 6 Months with Just-in-Time Enablement
“With Spekit, we were able to grow our sales team from 2 to 20, generate $3.7 million in pipeline, and have already closed three-quarters of a million in just 6 months.” - KEEGAN OTTER
Sendlane is a fast-growing email & SMS marketing automation platform for eCommerce brands. Now, picture this: Q1 2022 rolls around, and Sendlane brings the powerhouse, Keegan Otter, as their Director of Sales and Rev Ops. He was on a mission to crank up the growth strategy and turbocharge the revenue teams. But here’s the kicker – when Keegan stepped in, Sendlane only had two account executives, zero BDRs, and a non-existent sales enablement process.
They were aiming to 10x their team, and Keegan needed to figure out how to get everyone on the same page, and fast. That’s where the magic of just-in-time enablement happened.
Keegan has seen a thing or two in the sales world. He’d used Guru, a knowledge management system (KMS), in previous roles but once he demoed Spekit’s just-in-time enablement platform, he was blown away by the ability to embed enablement content directly into applications reps use most for what he calls “proactive enablement.”
There was no need to send his new sellers on a wild goose chase to another platform for training materials – he’d drop the knowledge right in their workflow with Spekit. The result? Boosted productivity, shortened ramp time, and a team ready to take on the world.
In six months, he was able to:
- Cut BDR ramp time from 90-120 days to just 65
- Sustained an 88% BDR retention rate
- Save sales reps 2 hours a day searching for answers and process information
Talking about an efficiency revolution, right?!
Read the full case study here ->
Example 2: How Vortexa Effectively Reinforces Sales Playbooks Without a Dedicated Enablement Team Using Spekit
Vortexa provides market-leading real-time data and advanced analytics for energy and shipping markets. Sam Choi, who was leading the charge as head of revenue operations at Vortexa, had a mission straight from his CRO. He was tasked with building out the sales enablement program. But he was up against it. Sam was juggling bandwidth issues, budget constraints, and the need for serious scalability.
At the time, enablement at Vortexa was like a rollercoaster. We’re talking Google Docs, Notion, GitHub, LMS courses, and endless meetings with different teams. New sales reps had to sit through 30-40 hours of training meetings during their onboarding.
And Sam? His calendar was a hot mess, always tied up in teaching and updating teams on the latest processes.
But as Vortexa kept growing, the processes kept evolving, and Sam knew he had to make a move. He had a choice – dig into his RevOps budget to build a whole enablement team or find a software solution that could scale like a beast. That’s when Spekit stepped in.
Spekit made it easy, cost-effective, and lightning-fast to document, organize, and surface crucial sales playbook coaching and guidance with just-in-time enablement. No more pulling from Sam’s budget. He could focus on what he did best without the headaches and bottlenecks.
“Spekit’s true power is being able to deliver snippets of playbooks in context. If I train my head of sales to qualify, it makes more sense for him to see the process when he’s about to qualify someone. It doesn’t make a lot of sense if I have to run it through every week in a random meeting. Contextual enablement is definitely the future.” - SAM CHOI
Read the full case study here ->
Conclusion
Just-in-time enablement may sound like jargon from a techy’s dictionary, but at its heart, it’s all about staying nimble, tossing out the outdated “maps,” and aligning your enablement strategy with how sales reps actually learn – in the moment.
Casting an eye to the future, expect to see just-in-time enablement catching the wave in sales enablement—more B2B companies are jumping on board to close deals quicker and boost revenue. And why shouldn’t they? The perfect combination of just-in-time learning, sales enablement, and revenue plays will create a force to reckon with.
Ready to explore and implement just-in-time enablement?
Like any good expedition, it begins with a simple step—realize that it’s not just a buzzword but an approach, a mindset even, tailor-made for how employees learn in today’s workplace.
Reach out to veteran practitioners, chat with Spekit customers, roll up your sleeves, and connect with our in-house enablement experts today to get started.
