Today, everyone working in and around sales and marketing knows that bots are hot, in vogue and quite simply, of the moment. That’s no secret. After years of dreaming about what might just be possible, over the past 12-18 months numerous software as a service (SaaS) companies from around the globe have taken their respective bot offerings to market.

One of the exciting aspects of working in an emerging area like sales enablement is that, today, nobody knows or indeed, has all the right answers. In many respects we’re “building the plane while flying it”, as we collectively figure out what good looks like.

For the most part, sales enablement is poorly defined and often misunderstood. Across the world conversations take place, day in, day out between business leaders as they decide the part that sales enablement can, should and will play within their organisation.

I consider myself fortunate to work at HubSpot, where day in, day out, I partner with over 100 sales reps that are at the top of the game, and only want to get better. It’s a truly inspiring place to ply my trade. Unlike other parts of the business, it’s relatively uncommon for sales enablement to share learnings, best practices and successes with the outside world.

To me, there’s never been a better time to be a sales enablement professional. It’s a rapidly growing area and while there’s a lack of publicly available or indeed, widely adopted best practices and standards, this is due, largely to the fact, that many of us are figuring out exactly what sales enablement is, means and does.

At the beginning of each year I like to reflect on where I’m investing my time - this exercise helps me evaluate whether or not it’s being used in the most valuable, productive and impactful way. Indeed, over the past 12 months I’ve been very deliberate about adopting a growth mindset, and building time into my calendar dedicated to personal development.

Without doubt, one of the most exciting parts of being a marketer today is the perpetual challenge of finding new channels and tactics to leverage. Identifying opportunities that we think will create business value is not only a lot of fun, it’s key to driving future growth. For that reason, organisations need to invest in the discovery of such opportunities.

The more I think about it, the clearer it becomes - strategic communication is an integral part of successful sales enablement. Communication matters. And the success (or failure) of a sales enablement function is intertwined with its ability to influence a sales organisation and change behaviour.

The sales enablement industry has taken tremendous strides in recent years, but by most measures, it’s still a relatively immature function. While there’s a talented and growing body of practitioners that are doing sterling work to advance the industry, for the most part, there’s a distinct lack of standardised sales enablement best practices, planning models and frameworks.