How to Manage Your Sales Asset Management Solution

From the KonMari method to meal prep, simplicity and hyper-efficiency are undeniable in both our personal and professional lives. Despite our infatuation with all things organized, one business-critical space is still struggling to tidy up — sales content.

Even with the rapid growth in solution offerings, many sales professionals are challenged with how to effectively organize and manage their assets. Why? Teams (content marketing, product marketing, and sales) who have invested in content management solutions lack the internal processes necessary to maximize their value.

As with any technology, simply purchasing software — in this case, a sales enablement platform — is not enough. Enablement and marketing teams need clear guidance on accountability, metrics, and processes in order to properly utilize a sales asset management system.These competencies include determining:

Who has accountability for customer-facing assets?
Who has accountability for internal training assets?
Who is responsible for measuring asset performance?

To answer these questions, we can take a look at best practices developed by high-performing sales organizations, as discovered by SiriusDecisions.

WHO HAS ACCOUNTABILITY FOR CUSTOMER-FACING ASSETS?

Ownership of customer-facing assets is critical for solution success. After all, this content will formulate the bulk of what is managed within and shared out from your platform.

Historically, this has fallen into marketing’s wheelhouse leaving others, such as sales teams, to have separate content repositories. But a recent case study by SiriusDecision uncovered that high-performing organizations are 33% more likely to shift responsibility for customer-facing assets to sales enablement. Within these organizations, enablement teams are leading the charge on which assets get created and when, in addition to managing asset guidance, organization, and delivery.

The fact that enablement leaders are increasingly recruited from sales roles and their proximity to end-users — your salespeople — are clear drivers of this change. Thus, while marketing should own the operational aspects (such as copy and design), you can boost sales reps’ consumption when overall asset management is orchestrated by those who are already deeply familiar with sales processes and use cases — your sales enablement team members.

WHO HAS ACCOUNTABILITY FOR INTERNAL TRAINING ASSETS?

Asset management doesn’t stop with external content. Internal assets — such as training, methodology, and readiness — must also be appropriately managed. Given the subject matter, it’s no surprise that sales enablement teams should be the primary owners of these assets.

Enablement teams should focus on the content taxonomy and organization of internal assets. When done right, effective organization of sales assets ensures that mission-critical content like just-in-time training is on hand and available within a rep’s natural sales and customer relationship management (CRM) workflow. Winning here should be a top priority for every sales enablement team.

With this focus in mind, enablement teams should once again partner with the marketing department to deliver the operational aspects of content creation.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR MEASURING ASSET PERFORMANCE?

With sales asset management software in place, you have the power to uncover deep insights into asset metrics and performance in real-time, including seller use and content efficacy.

While it may be useful for marketing to explore solution analytics, high-performing businesses typically lean on sales enablement to track and measure content and messaging impact. In fact, SiriusDecisions found that sales enablement functions of high-performing teams are 28% more likely to inform buyer-facing content decisions using solution analytics and 19% more likely to leverage that data to optimize internal assets.

This is because enablement teams, now the primary owners for both customer-facing and internal assets, are increasingly seeking end-to-end visibility for an asset’s lifespan. With a system of routine audits, enablement teams can partner with marketing, as content creators, to continually deliver relevant content, identify and update out-of-date content, and drive other asset optimization efforts.

MAXIMIZING ROI WITH EFFECTIVE SOLUTION MANAGEMENT

Clear distinctions of roles and responsibilities are essential to maximizing the value of your sales asset management solution. By following these steps, you can turn a labyrinthian content management system into a strategic investment that delivers ROI, year after year.

Looking to go deeper? Explore SiriusDecisions’ full guide to sales asset management best practices.