Ben Cotton

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 sales enablement best practices, planning models and frameworks available. This can, must and will change.

Over the past 12 months I’ve invested considerable time thinking about, experimenting with and optimising my daily routine. I relish the challenge of figuring out new ways to become more efficient and better at my work. 

In my sales enablement role at HubSpot I'm truly privileged to partner with over 100 sales professionals that are at the top of their game and only want to get better. Unlike other parts of the business, it’s relatively uncommon for sales enablement to reveal how they work with the sales organisation to hit quota and help the company to grow.

I’m privileged to lead sales enablement for HubSpot in Dublin, Ireland. Working with over 100 sales professionals is challenging, rewarding and lots of fun. No two days are the same and at any given moment I play the role of coach, advocate and advisor.

In today’s world of data-driven marketing, it’s easy to get fixated on what’s measurable. While leveraging data is both important and smart, I increasingly find myself wondering if we, as marketers are overlooking the human dimension of marketing in favour of what’s easy to track, analyse and optimise.

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.

I lead sales enablement for HubSpot out of Dublin, Ireland and my role encompasses sales content, sales training, deal support and sales productivity. While my attention is laser focussed on helping our sales organisation hit quota, lately I’ve been thinking about how HubSpot’s partner marketing and sales agencies, of which there are more than 3,400 can sell sales enablement as a monthly recurring service.

Sales enablement is a rapidly emerging, but immature function. Many companies are investing in the creation of sales enablement teams, but as they’re so new, there’s a distinct lack of thought leadership, standardised measurement and best practices available. Subsequently, people often (and understandably) struggle to fully grasp the function.

I’m fascinated by the software as a service (SaaS) business model and how it’s enabling a new breed of company to build innovative products, create categories, rewrite go-to-market playbooks, and change the world. While building and launching a product is one thing, continually iterating on it and providing services that people want to use year after year is quite another.