Sales Enablement Must Be Pipeline-First
by Mentor Group
As sales teams prepare for the final quarter of the year, many organisations are investing heavily in enablement to close performance gaps. However, new findings from Mentor Group suggests that most enablement programs are failing to deliver lasting impact. Not because of poor training, but because they’re built on unstable pipeline foundations.
Sales performance is closely tied to the quality of data, opportunity qualification, and coverage ratios. According to James Barton, Chief Solutions Officer at Mentor Group, there needs to be a framework for pipeline excellence that supports more effective coaching, forecasting, and deal progression.
Enablement without pipeline strategy is a false economy
There is a recurring challenge across sales teams: organisations invest in onboarding, coaching, and simulation tools, but struggle to see measurable improvements in conversion or forecast accuracy. The issue often lies not in the training itself, but in the pipeline environment it is deployed into.
We’ve seen teams complete high-quality training programs, only to return to pipelines that are bloated, misaligned, or missing key information. Enablement must be pipeline first. That means training sellers in the context of real opportunities, benchmarked stages, and clean, accurate data.
Three critical conditions for enablement success
Sales enablement is most effective when it’s deployed within a structured, well-managed pipeline. As our whitepaper, Clean. Healthy. Sufficient., explores, there are three foundational conditions that must be in place for training and coaching to translate into measurable outcomes.