Sales Enablement Maturity Model

What it is

A four-stage model, crawl/walk/run/fly in spirit, that diagnoses how mature a company's sales enablement function actually is: Ad Hoc (enablement is whatever a PMM or sales leader produces reactively, with no shared library, no owner, and no measurement), Organised (a named owner exists, a content library has a single home, and new collateral follows a basic template), Optimised (content is tied to the buyer's journey and win/loss data, reps are trained and certified against it, and usage is measured), and Transformative (enablement is a continuously measured system that demonstrably moves win rate and sales cycle, tightly integrated with product, revenue operations, and customer success). It is a converged practice with no single originator, codified across sources including the Revenue Enablement Society (resociety.global, formerly the Sales Enablement Society, renamed 2023), Highspot's maturity research (highspot.com), and Pragmatic Institute's enablement curriculum (pragmaticinstitute.com). Unlike a battlecard or content map, which are point-in-time artefacts, this model classifies the function itself: "how mature is our enablement operation?" rather than "what should this one asset contain?". The Competitive Battlecard Framework and the Buyer's Journey Content Map sit alongside it in this category; this model is the diagnostic layer that tells a team whether it is ready to build and sustain those two artefacts well.

When to use it

• You are inheriting sales enablement with no clear picture of what exists. A new PMM or enablement hire needs a fast, honest diagnosis before proposing what to build next, rather than guessing from the state of the most recent deck.
• Reps say collateral is out of date or hard to find. This is almost always a symptom of a function stuck at Ad Hoc or Organised, not a content-quality problem alone.
• Leadership is asking for a business case for enablement headcount or tooling. The model gives a shared vocabulary for "where we are" and "what the next stage costs," which is more persuasive than a list of individual asset requests.
• A merger, product-line expansion, or rapid sales team growth has outpaced the existing enablement setup. What worked for ten reps producing content ad hoc rarely survives fifty reps across three segments.
• You have already built strong point-in-time artefacts (a battlecard, a content map) but they decay within a quarter. That decay is usually a stage gap, not an asset gap; the model identifies which structural piece (ownership, training, measurement) is missing.

Ownership

At a scaled company, the Head of Sales Enablement (or VP Sales Enablement, where the role exists) owns the scoring exercise and the decision on which dimension to prioritise next; VP Sales signs off on the resulting target stage, since it usually carries a headcount or tooling ask. At a solo or founding-PMM stage, the PMM owns the whole exercise outright: scoring, rep interviews, and target-setting, because no dedicated enablement role exists yet to hold it. Execution of the advancing dimension (building governance, standing up training, buying a platform) sits with whichever function owns that dimension day to day, not with whoever ran the scoring.

How to read it

Read the four stages as a ladder across four dimensions, each of which must clear a bar before a team can honestly claim the next stage. Content ownership and governance: Ad Hoc has no single home and duplicate versions circulate; Organised has one named owner and a basic template; Optimised versions and retires content on a schedule; Transformative is largely self-sustaining, with staleness alerts and a cross-functional review board. Training and certification: Ad Hoc has none; Organised has a one-time onboarding walkthrough; Optimised runs scheduled training tied to major refreshes; Transformative ties ongoing certification to deal performance, not attendance. Tooling and measurement: Ad Hoc tracks nothing beyond anecdote; Organised has a shared drive with no usage data; Optimised uses a dedicated platform tracking which assets are opened; Transformative connects usage to CRM outcomes, tying specific assets to win rate. Cross-functional integration: Ad Hoc is PMM working alone; Organised has scheduled sales input; Optimised has standing loops with sales, product, and customer success; Transformative embeds enablement in the product and revenue-operations roadmap. A team rarely sits at the same stage across all four dimensions; the model's real value is showing which dimension is the actual bottleneck.

How to apply it

1. Score each of the four dimensions honestly, separately. Resist the temptation to give one blended score; a team can be Optimised on content governance and still Ad Hoc on measurement, and averaging the two hides the real gap.
2. Interview five to eight front-line reps, not just enablement leadership. Ask what they use in a live deal, what they search for and cannot find, and what they have built themselves. Rep behaviour, not inventory count, is the real signal.
3. Identify the lowest-scoring dimension as the priority, not the lowest-scoring stage overall. A function stuck at Ad Hoc on measurement while Organised everywhere else should invest in instrumentation next, not in a fuller content library that will only compound the same measurement gap.
4. Set a target stage for the next two quarters, not "Transformative" as an immediate goal. Moving one stage on the priority dimension is a realistic two-quarter target; attempting all four dimensions at once is the most common way this model gets shelved.
5. Name an owner and a review cadence for whichever dimension you are advancing. Ownership and cadence are themselves stage-defining criteria (see "How to read it"); a plan with no named owner cannot progress past Ad Hoc on governance, regardless of how much content exists.
6. Re-score quarterly against the same four dimensions. Track movement, not just activity; a quarter of heavy content production that does not move the tooling or governance score has not actually advanced the function's stage.
7. Use the resulting stage, and the specific dimension gaps, as the business case for the next investment. A leadership request framed as "we are Organised on content but Ad Hoc on measurement, and closing that gap needs a $30,000 platform" is a stronger ask than an unscored list of desired tools.