Revenue enablement is the function that prepares every customer-facing team, from sales to account management and customer success, to win, keep and grow revenue.
Same work, wider remit
Sales enablement serves sellers through the sale. Revenue enablement does the same work (standards, content, training and coaching) across the whole customer lifecycle, so the account manager running a renewal and the customer success manager spotting an expansion get the same support as the account executive.
The hard part is the same one sales enablement has: changing what each person does on their next live conversation. That gap between what someone learned and what they do on a call three weeks later is performance drift. The public record is thin on the other side: in our kickoff field study, of roughly 4,800 first-hand accounts of sales kickoffs, 9 describe using something from the event afterward.
Research on training finds that what happens back at work predicts whether people use what they learned more than the training itself does (Saks & Belcourt 2006; Blume et al. 2010). A wider remit means more roles to coach on more kinds of deals, with the same number of managers, so coaching on live renewals and expansions is usually where the managers run out first. The sales readiness guide covers how to set the standard each role is made ready against.
Adding a renewal standard
This example is illustrative. A software company moves its enablement team to a revenue enablement charter. Sales keeps its discovery standard. Account management gets a renewal standard: before the renewal conversation, the customer's sponsor has stated the result in their own measure.
Robin, an account manager, brings a renewal due in four months to a review on a call. The manager asks one question: "What would the sponsor say they got from this, and in whose numbers?" Robin has usage figures and a friendly sponsor, and no result the sponsor has said out loud. The next call with the sponsor opens with "If your CFO asked whether this was worth it, what would you point to?" The sponsor names fewer late invoices and promises the figure from finance.
Six weeks later enablement samples real renewal prep calls across the team. The question is the same one the manager asked Robin: does the record hold the sponsor's own words on value? A renewal without them goes back for another conversation before any price is discussed. The renewal call how-to covers the six-month check this standard feeds.
Related terms
- Sales readiness: whether each person can do the job on a live deal
- How to measure sales enablement: the metrics that apply here too
- Sales training reinforcement: the weeks after the training
FAQ
What is the difference between revenue enablement and sales enablement? Sales enablement serves the sales team through the sale. Revenue enablement serves every team that wins, keeps or grows revenue, including account management and customer success, across the whole customer lifecycle.
Who owns revenue enablement? Usually an enablement leader reporting to the CRO or the revenue operations leader. Front-line managers in each team own whether those standards show up on their people's live deals and renewals.
How do you measure revenue enablement? Measure behavior on real conversations in each role, weeks after training, and the revenue number for that role: win rate for sales, and renewal and expansion revenue for account teams.