Sales enablement: why choose a foodservice-specific solution?

What is sales enablement?

The primary goal of sales enablement is to increase sales performance and drive revenue growth. Equipping sales teams with tools, content, processes and training helps them effectively engage with prospects, customers, brokers and distributors. With the right technology, sales teams can sell more efficiently by identifying high-quality targets, leveraging data-driven messaging and providing relevant product recommendations.

For foodservice manufacturers, a successful sales enablement strategy must address the specific challenges of the foodservice industry. These include navigating complex distribution channels and management group relationships, harmonizing disparate data sets and tracking various pricing structures. But with the right tools, and close collaboration between sales and marketing, sales teams can execute successful selling strategies.

Sales enablement tools and resources

Key components of a strong sales enablement plan include training and development, content and collateral, customer relationship management (CRM) technology and market insights.

Training and development

Training might include providing detailed information about the product portfolio, data on industry trends and channel-level insights. Educating sales teams on marketing campaigns, product messaging and price promotions helps foster a consistent go-to-market approach. Developing sales skills such as negotiation, relationship building and consultative selling are also key to building successful sales teams.

Content and product catalogs

Customer-facing content includes presentations, brochures, case studies and digital content to showcase product benefits. Technical product details such as ingredients, nutritional information and packaging specifications are also extremely important in foodservice sales. Marketing collateral can include industry insights, competitor analysis and customer success stories to demonstrate product performance.

CRM technology

Customer relationship management (CRM) platforms help sales teams track customer interactions, forecast sales and manage accounts. These salesforce automation tools support standardized processes for pipeline management, sales call management and objective management. They can also use purchasing data to provide salespeople with relevant information and product recommendations.

Customer and market insights

Customer and market insights help salespeople tailor their messaging to specific buyer types like distributors, foodservice operators or group purchasing organizations (GPOs). Market data on menu trends, promotional activity and competitor positioning can help guide product selection. Sales enablement platforms provide sales teams with the ability to make customer-specific, data-driven recommendations.

Benefits of sales enablement technology

Sales enablement helps improve sales efficiency as teams spend more time selling and less time on administrative tasks. They are able to better manage complex sales processes, keep up with industry trends and support new product launches. This helps sales teams engage prospects more effectively, address their specific needs and build stronger customer relationships.

Navigate complex sales processes

The foodservice sales ecosystem is extremely complex. There are often multiple layers of distributors, different product specifications for each channel and disparate data sets to harmonize. Sales cycles can be long, and typically involve multiple decision makers.

For example, to close a deal with a national restaurant chain, a foodservice supplier may need approval from franchisees, regional managers and corporate stakeholders. Sales enablement tools help teams address the concerns and goals of different stakeholders throughout the buying process.

Reduce administrative tasks

Foodservice sales teams often manage large accounts, wide geographic territories and numerous product lines. Administrative tasks, reporting and managing orders takes valuable time away from prospecting for new business opportunities.

Sales enablement tools, such as CRM systems, automated reporting and content management platforms, increase the efficiency of sales teams. These tools free up time for sales reps to focus on engaging customers and closing deals.

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