Revenue Enablement Society - Stories From The Trenches: Recent Episodes
Revenue Enablement Society and Paul Butterfield
The Revenue Enablement Society's "Stories From The Trenches is where revenue enablement practitioners share their real world experiences. Get the scoop on what's happening inside revenue enablement teams across the global RES member community. Each segment of "Stories From The Trenches" share the good, the bad, and the ugly practices of corporate revenue enablement initiatives. Learn what worked, what didn't work, and how obstacles were eliminated by enablement teams and GTM leadership. Sit back, grab a cold one and join host Paul Butterfield, founder of Revenue Flywheel Group for casual conversations about the wide and varied profession of revenue enablement where there is never a one size fits all solution.
The wide and varied profession of Revnue Enablement ensures there is never a one-size-fits-all solution to be successful. Amidst constant change the journey to successful outcomes is never the same. Learn from your peers and gain insights on topics like:
-Building strategies and metrics that correlate back to revenue impact
-Gathering requirements to identify stakeholders
-Gaining buy-in and executive sponsorship
-Aligning with sales leaders
-Facilitating cross-functional collaboration
How has the role of sales enablement transformed since its early days, and what does this mean for the future? Join me for my final episode of "Stories from the Trenches" as I sit down with Juliana Stancampiano, CEO of Oxygen and former board president of the Revenue Enablement Society (RES).
We trace Sales/Revenue Enablement's transition from traditional sales training to the more holistic approach of modern sales enablement, emphasizing the diverse backgrounds of professionals in the field. We dive into the critical role of organized processes, clear metrics, and continuous learning in driving sales performance and discuss the importance of educating senior executives about effective enablement and the impact of new technology on the field.
Be sure to subscribe and follow the Revenue Enablement Society on LinkedIn for exciting announcements about what's next for the podcast!
As this is my final episode as producer and host, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to all my guests and listeners. Thank you all for being integral to this incredible journey with "Stories from the Trenches."
Juliana Stancampiano is an author, entrepreneur, and leader helping businesses prepare their people for what happens next. For more than 15 years, she has helped leaders translate their company’s strategy into tangible achievements for their people, creating experiences that help people succeed. As CEO of Oxygen, Juliana has developed a unique perspective around the enablement, skilling and ways of educating the workforce of today. Juliana also held the Board Presidency for the Sales Enablement Society from 2019-2022.
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Have you ever wondered why some sales teams consistently hit their targets while others struggle? Keenan, CEO of A Sales Growth Company and acclaimed author behind "Gap Selling," rejoins me on the podcast to unravel the secrets of enabling high-performing sales teams with his innovative S.P.E.E.D. model.
Gain insights into creating enablement impact by prioritizing actual sales performance outcomes and aligning strategies with critical business metrics sales leadership uses.
We cover integrating the three layers of training, skill development, and forecasting into your enablement framework and how to embrace the shift from traditional enablement to a results-driven approach. With the S.P.E.E.D. model, enablement teams will empower sales teams to succeed by focusing on what truly matters—the tangible impact on business metrics and organizational growth.
Keenan and I unpack:
- The details behind the S.P.E.E.D model and why it works
- The three layers of S.P.E.E.D. that align enablement to revenue success
- The critical sales metrics all Enablement teams need to internalize
- How to assess the current state, identify gaps, and make improvements
Keenan is the CEO/president and chief antagonist of A Sales Growth Company. With over 20 years of sales experience, he has long influenced, learned from, and shaped the sales world. Keenan calls it as he sees it and lets nothing and no one go unnoticed.
He is the celebrated author of Not Taught: What It Takes to be Successful in the 21st Century That Nobody’s Teaching You and Gap Selling: Getting the Customer to Yes: How Problem-Centric Selling Increases Sales by Changing Everything You Know About Relationships, Overcoming Objections, Closing and Price.
Gap Selling has been voted among the sales community as one of the best sales books ever.
Father of 3 amazing girls, PSIA Certified Level 2 ski instructor (see, more coaching), and avid Boston sports fan, Keenan keeps crazy busy when he’s not focused on A Sales Growth Company.
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None of us is as smart as all of us. Engaging with peer groups and industry networks can accelerate your career, enhance your skills, and provide invaluable professional development.
In this episode, we explore the transformative power of communities and personal networks with Stephanie White, Sr. Director of Revenue Enablement at Medallia. Stephanie highlights the tangible benefits she's gained from participating in various revenue enablement communities, fostering a sense of belonging and camraderie.
Whether you're looking to tackle complex challenges, stay ahead of industry trends, or simply connect with like minded professionals this episode is your roadmap to leveraging and growing your professional network.
Join us and hear how to unlock the potential of community-driven growth in your career!
Stephanie White is the Sr. Director, Revenue Enablement at Medallia. For Stephanie, Revenue Enablement is People Enablement, driving revenue and impact strategically to scale. With 20 years of experience in Sales, Marketing, Enablement, Operations building and scaling teams of passionate people to drive revenue is at the core of her approach.
A people focused enabler by nature, Stephanie thrives on engaging, connecting and learning with others.
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This episode features Tim Riesterer, Emblaze's Chief Research Officer, and Chris Kingman of the RES board, sharing their observations from the Emblaze conference earlier this month.
Tim and Chris delve into details about insights and practical strategies shared by speakers and panels on integrating enablement . They also discuss the undeniable impact of strategic enablement, when it aligns perfectly with company revenue objectives.
You'll hear their insights on:
- The digital transformation in Sales
- Enablement driven by intiative
- The role of AI in sales coaching
- The critical role of customer feedback
- The evolution of sales discovery
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My guest Sibusiso Msomi is a sales enablement pioneer in South Africa and in this episode we explore his career evolution and what he learned when making the strategic shift sales training to sales enablement:
- How shifting from sales training to sales enablement to provide more comprehensive solutions that integrate training, tools, and processes, enhancing overall sales effectiveness and what that looks like.
- How engagement with clients has evolved from focusing solely on skills to aligning sales strategies with broader business outcomes.
- Results, positive outcomes and improved sales metrics since moving into sales enablement.
- The introduction, reception and evolution of sales enablement in Africa.
This episode provides valuable insights into the strategic implementation of sales enablement and its growing impact on global and African markets.
Sibusiso Msomi is a dynamic and visionary entrepreneur deeply entrenched in the field of sales and business development, recognized particularly for his contributions to the sales enablement sector.
As the founder of the Sales Enablement Company, he has markedly contributed to the
enhancement of sales practices in numerous organizations, ranging from fledgling startups to established, publicly-traded companies.
Sibusiso’s approach involves a holistic review of the client's sales processes, including training methodologies, content management, and technology adoption in order to tailor a comprehensive sales enablement strategy.
Sibusiso is also the chapter leader of the Revenue Enablement Society in Africa.
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In this episode, Alex Berry, co-founder of 42AI an AI-powered company that revolutionizes customer insight discovery, joins me in discussing the transformation of go-to-market strategies. We discuss why Sales Development Reps (SDRs) must break out from the current hyper-specialization to succeed in the competitive sales environment.
Alex shares his insights on how diverse backgrounds can help SDRs connect with customers on a personal level. He maps out a path to gaining a wider business acumen lens, which is critical to sales success. This episode provides ideas for enabling and developing the essential traits that can set SDRs apart from the rest.
Alexander Berry is the cofounder & COO of 42ai, the AI Analyst for Revenue Operations and the teams they serve. Alex founded 42ai last year with Hugh Hopkins, with the aim of reducing the significant burden on teams like Revenue Operations by using AI to perform a growing number of analytical tasks on their behalf.
He has worked in Saas & Paas businesses for more than a decade, running sales, partnerships, enablement and operations teams in EMEA and the Americas.
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How do you balance the potential of AI to impact revenue generation, sort through the hype and be strategic in your deployment of AI? Join me as I sit down with Dayna Williams, and we peel back the layers of AI's role in the future of sales and delve into the intricate dance between leveraging cutting-edge tools and staying true to the timeless principles of sound business practices.
We tackle the challenges faced by sales teams and explore how they can navigate the pressures of consistent performance while adopting a disciplined approach to innovation.
Dayna shares her seasoned perspective on avoiding the pitfalls of jumping onto the latest tech trends without a game plan.
Some of the actionable insights she shares in this episode:
- What's missing from the hype and the headlines?
- Elements of a readiness plan or blueprint
- Where and how to begin
Dayna Williams is the author of "The Diligence Fix" which explores what happens when we strive for revenue growth. Her ideas come from advising sales leaders in the areas of internal communication, integrated training, change methodology and making customer feedback actionable. Dayna is also an experienced content and conference producer who lives in the Philadelphia area with her husband and five rescue dogs.
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Get ready to accelerate your revenue enablement success with insights from Forrester VP and Principal Analyst, Peter Ostrow.
Recently Peter joined me to unpack the potential of AI to transform Revenue Enablement efficiencies and results. If your Sales Enablement budget is like most the team is understaffed and underfunded while juggling competing priorities.
Listen now to hear how you can use AI tools you already own to maximize their impact on every facet of your enablement programs, from RFP analysis to tailoring pitch-perfect emails.
Peter Ostrow is currently VP, Principal Analyst at Forrester B2B Sales. Peter capitalizes on 20+ years of revenue growth leadership in sales enablement, sales talent management, and operational expertise. Prior to joining SiriusDecisions and Forrester, Peter was a VP/Research Group Director for the Aberdeen Group, where he founded and was Principal Analyst for the Sales Effectiveness Practice, as well as overseeing research in marketing, customer success, field service and human capital management disciplines. Prior to his analyst work, he was a long-time B2B sales rep, manager, and enabler.Since 2020, Peter has served on the board of directors of the Sales Enablement Society, the largest and only nonprofit organization dedicated to the sales enablement profession.
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In this episode with I discuss the critical partnership between Rev Ops and Rev Enablement with Sandy Robinson, SVP of Revenue Operations and Enablement at Patra Corporation. Sandy shares her experiences and ways to unlock the synergies between these two teams regardless of where they report. Some of the topics we covered:
- How Rev Ops and Enablement ideally partner
- Successful change management
- Systems selection and deployment
- Metrics and reporting
Sandy brings over 20 years of experience in sales, leadership, training, enablement, and revenue operations to the industry. She has a proven track record of driving revenue growth and optimizing operations through data-driven insights and innovative solutions. She has led sales teams to exceed targets, developed go-to-market strategies, and implemented scalable processes to drive growth.
Sandy's mission is to enable teams through intense focus on the complete customer buying journey related to systems, tools, training, and processes. Sandy enjoys mentoring younger women, helping them to navigate their careers, and setting an example for other women in her field.
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This episode I have the opportunity to sit down the new RES Executive Board President Gail Behun. She opens up and shares her thoughts and observations about:
- The current state of the revenue enablement profession
- Her 4 key revenue drivers for measuring the success of enablement
- Observations from the 2023 RES Experience and what's to come
- Her priorities and vision for RES in 2024 and beyond
Gail Behun is a seasoned Sales Enablement leader, currently serving as the Director of Revenue Enablement at LivePerson, a global industry leader in AI-powered solutions.
With an extensive career spanning high-growth SaaS companies, Gail has honed her expertise in sales and marketing roles, processes, methodologies, and business practices. Her approach to enablement is centered on building high-performing teams and ensuring comprehensive employee learning and development. She thrives on connecting the dots innovatively and pioneering new initiatives in enablement, learning, sales, and operations.
Gail is not only committed to advancing her organization's goals but also to the broader enablement community's growth and success.
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Have you heard of the "Tiger Seller Profile"? It's a concept and framework developed and used by Rodney Umrah during his years in sales, account management and enablement at IBM, Microsoft, NetSuite and in his current role as Head of Global Revenue, Partner and Customer Enablement.
In this episode Rodney explains how to elevate your sales team's performance as we dissect the elements that transform good sellers into great ones, and how tailored enablement programs can act as a catalyst for widespread excellence. For example:
- Identifying the skills, tactics and techniques of a Tiger Seller
- Working with HR and recruiting teams to elevate the hiring process
- Identifying skills gaps and enablement priorities based on Tiger Sellers
- Aligning sales process stages to the strengths of Tiger Sellers
Rodney Umrah has 26 years’ experience working in the global technology industry (software / cloud) at IBM, Microsoft, Oracle NetSuite, Xactly and Forcepoint. He has a wealth of experience in technical, sales, revenue, partner and customer enablement leadership roles.
Rodney’s vision is to deliver enablement services globally that accelerate revenue growth and improve customer retention and satisfaction.
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Why do sales leaders undervalue their enablement teams? With all the conversations and opinions about how to measure and demonstrate business impact are Enablement teams actually gaining credibility? Jerry Farr, founder of Sales Excellence Advisors, joined me recently and shared his unique insights on why sales leaders might still be undervaluing their enablement teams and how Enablement leaders and teams can flip that perception.
- How do sales leaders really perceive the value of Enablement?
- Do Sales leaders hesitate to include the Enablement team in C-level meetings?
- How credible are typical attempts to measure Enablement impact?
- Is there a way to measure impact that actually resonates with executives.
Jerry Pharr is a veteran sales enablement & operations leader at high-growth, tech companies. At varied companies like Outreach and Redis, he's architected and implemented a unique approach called Behavior-Centered Enablement, which is a systems-driven blueprint for delivering sales excellence at scale. He now coaches other enablement and operations orgs to improve sales performance by incorporating this framework. Jerry is one of the original founders of the Revenue Enablement Society, and is an advisor to multiple tech startups on their GTM and revenue operations strategies.
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Ever wondered how to successfully make the shift from "doing digital" to "being digital"? In this episode Paul "Norf" Norford, VP of Global Enablement at Ivanti enlightens us with his insights on this topic and discusses the usage of digital platforms like YouTube and LinkedIn for skill enhancement.
- What are the digital aspects of Enablement?
- Doing digital vs. being digital
- Using micro learning and JIT training
- Leading with stories
Paul ‘Norf’ Norford is the VP Sales Enablement and Chief Evangelist at Ivanti. He's super-passionate about helping people, partners and customers change the way they do business. Norf brings vast industry knowledge, influence, insight, creativity and passion to drive the introduction and adoption of new solutions and services to increase supply chain and I.T productivity and operational excellence.
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Do you ever wonder about the intriguing intersection of AI and sales enablement? Join us as we sit down with Jonathan Carford, aka Coach K, the new head of revenue enablement for an exciting startup, Symmetric. Unravel the mystery between predictive analytics and true AI as Jonathan shines a light on their key differences and how to unlock the full potential of each platform to streamline your work and increase efficiency.
Strolling through the futuristic world of AI application in sales, we marvel at the brilliant revolution it brings. Imagine having an interactive AI persona to practice your sales pitch or an AI assistant that researches job histories and companies for your presentations. We delve into the role of product marketing, enablement, and revops in developing customer personas and the prospect of AI generating innovative ideas. Not to mention, the potential of AI analysing 10ks for those who are not business school graduates.
Finally, we round off the conversation with Coach K's experiences with AI auto-tagging in CMS systems - a game-changer making content management a breeze. Jonathan also shares his criteria for evaluating AI platforms and shares nuggets of wisdom on trusting your instincts and embracing failure. We discuss the subtle art of LinkedIn connections, providing valuable tips to handle requests. Be sure to tune in to this enriching episode on the future of sales enablement and AI. Join us and Coach K on this journey - you won't want to miss it!
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Discover the transformative power of a life brand in this episode with Irina Soriano, Vice President of Enablement at Seismic. Join us as we explore the concept of a life brand - one that transcends self-promotion, and instead, emphasizes service to others and contributing to the community. We'll hear Irina's insights on how this unique approach to branding can significantly alter the perception of enablement professionals and leaders. She also opens up about her personal journey in enablement and the profound impact it has made on her life.
- What is a "life-brand"?
- Using your life brand to build confidence
- Leveraging your life-brand professionally
- Safeguarding children's life-brand
Irina Soriano is the VP, Enablement at Seismic, the leader in Enablement. During her 15-year career, Irina built several global Enablement departments across EMEA, Asia-Pacific, and the US from the ground up. She leads the NYC Wise (Women in Sales Enablement) chapter, is the author of “Generation Brand”, as well as a TEDx and keynote speaker.
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Who doesn't love a great success story?
This year the Sales Enablement Society Experience was held in San Diego and the theme was "The Enablement Evolution". For this episode I had the opportunity to sit down with 10 different Revenue Enablement pros and listen to their stories about personal and career Evolution. They shared great ideas that were new to me and I'm sure you're going to enjoy listening to them just as much as I did!
Thank you Mike Simmons, Sheryl Buscheck, Jill Guardia, Amy Levine, Chuck Marcouiller, Fiona Simpson, Michael Galvin, Michelle Dieschbourg, Sandy Robinson and Laura Meister.
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Get ready to unlock the secrets of successful SDR enablement with Brett Childs.. This episode sees us peeling back the layers of the often under-appreciated role of the Sales Development Representatives (SDRs), the true warriors at the frontline of the customer journey.
Brett pulls back the curtain on his proven approach to enabling SDR teams, one that prioritizes tracking every step of the sales process and honing individual skill sets. He walks us through his system that includes watching the conversion ratios and behaviors, and using this data to pinpoint the needed skills for each individual. If you've been looking for ways to level up your SDR enablement game, this episode is what you've been waiting for.
Brett has been called a lot of things, farmhand, video game salesperson, insurance agent, manager... but, if he had to pick his favorites, it would be teacher and coach. Nothing brings more joy to him than helping others succeed.
His wife and children are his best friends and his goal in life is to experience as much of this amazing world with them as possible.
His motto for life? "Work hard, play hard!"
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I recently sat down with the 4 newest members of the Sales Enablement Society Board of Directors to talk about the evolution of Sales Enablement and the Sales Enablement Society itself. Del Nakhi, Gail Behun, Mary Beth Hanifer, and Chris Kingman share their experiences, passions, and talk about the SES initiatives they're each leading. You'll hear Del talk about engaging members with compelling content while Gail is on a mission to strengthen our community. Mary Beth is leveraging her extensive experience in sales and enablement serving as our secretary, and Chris is working on a thrilling project with Johns Hopkins that you won't want to miss hearing about!
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For this episode my guest, Megan Davis, the Director of Sales Enablement at Hunters. shares her experiences and perspective on not just enabling sales reps, but also marketing, customer success, and sales engineering teams.
She also introduces customer certification into the mix - a bridge that fosters empathy and shared experiences between the go-to-market team and customers. Megan underlines the significance of unearthing business outcomes, objectives, and the art of effectively passing sales notes to the customer success team.
Meagan is a lifelong learner, a believer in the potential of PEOPLE, a marathoner – and a little known fact is that she was raised in Montana!
She has hands-on experience: selling the business case for, building, leading, and optimizing Sales Enablement programs. She recently wrote and published, “How to Start a Sales Enablement Program,” a book for practitioners that codifies lessons learned through experience, and from the many exemplary leaders and mentors that she has had the privilege to work with.
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Navigating sales enablement can be a labyrinth, but not when you have a strategic vision and the right metrics to guide you. In Episode 57 we dive into a discussion about what separates operational vs. strategic Enablement and how to develop a data driven strategy that has measurable impact. Learn how to:
- Differentiate between operational and strategic Enablement
- Use metrics to understand what can be measured, influenced and controlled
- Align your tech stack to support data driven strategic Enablement
- Use language to change the perceptions of Enablement
- Begin the transition from operational to strategic Enablement
Kieran Smith manages EMEA and APAC GTM Enablement & Productivity for Staffbase. As a skilled Enablement leader with over a decade of experience in sales leadership his focus is on designing and implementing sales enablement programs that increase team productivity and revenue growth. Kieran has a proven track record in developing sales strategies that are aligned with business goals and revenue outcomes. He has developed expertise in sales leadership and coaching coupled with a deep understanding of sales operations, sales methodologies, and sales technology.
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Get ready to secure your seat at the table where business decisions are made as we unravel the important role of stakeholder management in sales enablement. We're joined by the always insightful Felix Kruger, a name synonymous with sales enablement, founder of FFWD, and the voice behind the popular podcast, State of Sales Enablement. We talked about:
- The importance of stakeholder management in Enablement
- Effective strategies for building strong relationships - even difficult ones
- How to demonstrate value and impact to stakeholders to secure buy-in
- The importance of effective strategic communication
- The most common pitfalls in stakeholder management and how to avoid them
Felix has been a seller, sales enabler, and independent Sales Enablement consultant in organizations ranging from early-stage startups to billion-dollar enterprises.
He is now the Chief Enablement Officer of consulting firm FFWD.
Felix supports enablers around the world in adopting best practices with his podcast, The State of Sales Enablement, webinars, newsletters, and conference speaker assignments.
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Are you navigating the complex landscape of tech-driven sales enablement? Join me as I chat with Priya Sachdev, founder of Sprouting Shoots, who sheds light on this often overwhelming topic and how to avoid the pitfalls of "shiny object syndrome." Learn from Priya's expertise on striking the perfect balance between technology adoption and practical application, as well as understanding the driving force behind the advancements in sales management technology.
Priya's “ikigai” (purpose) is elevating the strategic importance of sales. For almost 3 decades she has partnered with business leaders, executives, and entrepreneurs in the B2B space to drive effective sales strategy through customer engagement. She's worked with more than 250 midsize to large organizations, and managed teams from 5 to 1500. Her key projects have been in the industrial, BFSI, tech services, SaaS, professional services, FMCG, automotive, healthcare, and medical equipment industries.
Priya was listed as one of the “25 most influential women in India” by CEO Magazine in 2017 and “The 10 Successful Women to Watch For in 2018” by Insights Success.
In this episode discover the power of nurturing the whole person. Learn why motivation is the cornerstone of effective coaching and how each individual's desired work experience fuels it. We also cover the importance of equality in the workplace, especially concerning gender and motherhood. Listen in as we explore how embracing the whole person, understanding motivation, and striving for equality can unleash human potential and create a more fulfilling work experience for all.
Phil Putnam is a listener, executive operator and enablement leader. In his current role as VP of Sales Enablement at Notified, his days are spent leading and optimizing the skill base and employee experience of Notified’s global Sales team.
Having come into Sales Enablement after nearly 20 years in customer-facing post-sale roles at organizations including Apple, Adobe and Sprinklr, his approach to sales skills and education is 1000% influenced by the realities of what happens after the signature, and taking ownership of how the sales experience sets a customer up for long-term success and ongoing renewal.
When he’s not lost down a PowerPoint formatting and animations rabbit hole, which he absolutely loves to be, he can most likely be found at home in New York City with his partner, watching shameless amounts of TV and annoying his dog with an overwhelming amount of cuddles.
Have you ever doubted your abilities and felt like a fraud, despite being very competent? Have you tried to help a friend dealing with feelings of inadequacy? If so you've likely experienced Imposter Syndrome which causes people to feel anxious and inadequate and affects their mental well-being. Learning to overcome it is a critical skill for sustained mental health.
For this special Mental Health Month episode professional Imposter Syndrome Coach Alli Rizacos joins us to share insights into Imposter Syndrome and techniques that anyone can use to help conquer it. Listen in and learn about:
👉 The root causes of Imposter Syndrome
👉 Authenticity vs. Attachment
👉 How to upgrade your personal "operating system"
👉 Moving from self-criticism to building your inner leader
Alli had a 15 year career in sales at companies like Salesforce before leaving the corporate world in 2021 to start her own coaching business as an Imposter Syndrome Coach. She works with revenue leaders to overcome their imposter syndrome and upgrade their mental operating system so that their minds are working for them and not against them.
How do you enable sales teams to turn average demos into compelling stories that capture their prospects' attention and keep them engaged? Can demo effectiveness be measured? If so, how should Enablement teams track and improve their demo enablement? In this episode, Brian Geery shares his proven strategy and techniques for enabling sales pros to give demos that highlight solutions to prospects' business challenges and helps them create a vision for how to solve those challenges. Listen in to learn:
- 7 steps to create a persuasive and compelling demo
- What KPIs to use to measure demo effectiveness
- How to give your demo enablement a makeover
- Demo scripts - yes or no?
- Specific steps for getting started
Brian Geery is a Managing Partner at SalesNv and author of How to Demonstrate Software So People Buy It. His firm transforms software demos, so they win more deals. They give your demo a makeover. Sales leaders at high growth SaaS companies use Brian’s guidance to increase demo win rates, reduce new hire demo ramp time, and enable everyone to demonstrate like a top performer.
True revenue enablement is a strategic approach that aligns sales, marketing, customer success, and product teams to improve customer experiences, drive revenue growth, and increase profitability. In this episode Matt Cohen, Sr. Sales Enablement Manager at Dotmatics and I discuss the foundational elements of creating strategic enablement that he's used successfully. Listen and catch valuable insights into:
- Determining if an organization is ready for strategic Enablement
- Defining Enablement as a critical first step
- Selecting a sales methodology
- Creating Enablement aligned to your buyers' experience
Matt Cohen has been in go-to-market roles for the past 7 years since earning his MBA, building enablement for sales tech leaders like Seismic and Clari through hyper-growth.
Throughout his career, he has leveraged his ability to strategically align resources in a way that fosters adaptability and scale. That passion for alignment is why his career is in Enablement, which he views to be the proactive identification of gaps in the buyer journey and shaping priorities to fill them through the optimization of people, process, and technology in service of revenue.
Matt co-founded the San Diego Chapter of the Sales Enablement Society, served on the Board of the Boston Chapter and is currently working on starting a new chapter in Nashville. He regularly contributes thought leadership in the form of articles, podcasts, and webinars, and was recognized this year as a 2023 Enablement Leader Making It Happen by SalesHood.
According to Forrester, direct managers have the most impact and influence on sales reps’ success and that organizations must make their enablement of sales managers as comprehensive as that of rep-level contributors. Forrester has also found that B2B sales leaders often make flawed assumptions about the ease with which new sales managers can transition from previous roles.
In our 50th episode Terry Bird, VP of Enablement at Voyage, and I explore ways in which sales enablement organizations can support revenue team managers in various stages of their career. Join the conversation as we discuss:
- How much more complex the role of sales leader has become
- Gartner's analysis of top performing sales managers
- The constant Internal vs. External struggle
- How the Voyage team is supporting leaders and enabling them for success
Terry is based in the UK and has a long history in technical sales and sales roles prior to moving into the Sales Enablement space around 15 years ago.
In 2008 Terry joined IBM and worked in a number of roles helping to drive enablement transformation, before ultimately landing as Director, Sales Enablement for IBM Global Sales, overseeing enablement programs and tools for a population of over 20,000 sellers and business partners. Terry joined Vonage in 2021 where he took up the mission of helping to establish a company-wide sales enablement function.
Terry loves the challenge of architecting cultural change alongside helping go to market teams deliver success. Away from his day job he has been a DJ for over 25 years, playing all over the world alongside legends of the house and techno scene.
Revenue enablement teams aren't the same as HR - they don’t exist to deliver corporate and regulatory training. Revenue enablement teams exist solely to optimize the performance of all customer facing teams and have a positive impact on revenue.
To fulfill that mission it's critical for revenue enablement teams to create and execute strategies and programs that correlate and align with the financial objectives of their executive team so in this episode Kunal Pandya and I discuss:
- Strategic vs. operational enablement
- The impact of current economic conditions on enablement teams
- Mitigating the risk of being labeled a cost center
- 3 key changes you can implement to become more strategic
Kunal Pandya has over 20 years experience, with various tech and high-growth SaaS companies such as SuccessFactors, SAP, Taulia, HighRadius and UserZoom, leading global revenue enablement teams. He is passionate about building and executing data-led enablement strategies to drive significant and transformative growth and impact. He can be heard at various events, webinars and podcasts, highlighting the importance of strategic enablement functions in order to deliver revenue impact.
Most business leaders would agree with former Home Depot and Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli that "people, unless coached, never reach their maximum potential," yet many teams and organizations lack a strong coaching culture.
According to Devon Anthony, Director of Sales Enablement and Learning at Morningstar, Enablement teams can really impact revenue teams' success and create a multiplier effect by building and nurturing a strong coaching culture. Listen in while she shares:
- The differences between coaching and managing
- Common misperceptions that devalue coaching
- How Enablement teams can grow the value of coaching
- Coaching "landmines" to watch for
Devon Anthony has a passion for developing sales and coaching others. She's spent her entire career in financial services and has been with Morningstar since 2019. As Director of the Sales Enablement and Learning Team, her primary focus is developing curriculum at scale while prioritizing for impact.
Devon volunteers her time as a coach and member of the board of directors for Near West Little League and as a Client Advocate for Administer Justice, a legal aid ministry. Devon enjoys concerts, yoga, and exploring all the cultures of Chicago with her husband Rob and dog Tonka Truck.
Enablement - what's in it for your sellers? No, seriously. Can you measure and quantify the benefits or impact of your Enablement programs and activities? If not, how do you know whether you're meeting the needs of the Sales, SDR, or CSM teams your team supports? For Sunil Chhabra, Vice President, Global Enablement at Conga, having these critical benchmarks and measurements in place is non-negotiable. In this episode, he talks about:
- Providing guard rails
- Identifying the right metrics and KPIs
- Short-term vs. long-term KPIs
- Generating buy-in from Sales leaders
Sunil Chhabra is the Vice President of Global Enablement at Conga. He's transitioned from Engineering to Sales (and Sales Engineering) Enablement during his career with companies like Cisco, Oracle, and Salesforce while leading teams in Product Management and Marketing for close to 20 years along the way. Sunil's interests lie in bridging technology products to customer needs and pain points - and, therefore, his passion for the Enablement function. He enjoys setting up systems that help sellers become more effective - faster—and demonstrating the measurable impact that the Enablement function can have on an organization's sales.
Harvard Business Review reported that Emotional Intelligence accounts for nearly 90% of what sets high performers apart from peers with similar technical skills and knowledge (HBR, 4/3/19). Is EQ just as critical for success in sales? Matt Cameron, CEO of SaaSy Sales Leadership says "Yes"! In this episode he shares what he's learned about applying EQ in sales and sales coaching and the framework he's developed to support it:
- How to think about Emotional Intelligence in the context of sales
- Mapping EQ to methodologies
- Assessing EQ for targeted coaching
- How to integrate Emotional Intelligence into an enablement program
Matt Cameron is the CEO of SaaSy Sales Leadership, the creators of the world’s first EQ-based go-to-market leadership development programs. A regular speaker and columnist on the topic of SaaS sales leadership, Matt started his career in traditional IT with roles at HP, EDS (HP Enterprise) and Wang. Having started with Salesforce in 2005 he is approaching 2 decades in venture-backed SaaS companies in RVP and VP roles. A New Zealander by birth, he currently lives in Las Vegas which has cut down on SKO travel by 50%.
In a 2018 survey of more than 3,000 employees from various firms and industries, less than a quarter said they regularly felt curious at work. According to Macy Tanking curiosity plays a critical role in successful revenue enablement teams. In this episode she shares the key elements of creating a culture of curiosity she’s learned and applied in her career:
- Obstacles to being curious and how to avoid them
- Ego vs. Empathy
- How to listen to understand; not to respond
- Conducting effective discovery with stakeholders
Macy has over two decades of experience coaching leaders and teams within sales teams at fortune 100 companies. She is an innovative and consultative leader, having coached executives and organizations at Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, Nordstrom and Southwest Airlines. Currently she is the Head of Sales Enablement for VidMob, the world’s leading digital advertising platform for intelligent creative.
She founded GRIT, a community for connection and compassion for girls ages 6-22 (girlswithgrit.me). Macy lives with her six year old son, Zavier in Kansas City, MO. Her life-long goal of attending every MLB park will be realized this next summer (2023).
When John Lennon sang "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans" to his son Sean he captured what so many in the revenue enablement and tech communities are feeling right now. While working through challenges and setbacks it's critical to maintain your long term vision and perspective while continuing to bring your "A" game but it can also be very difficult.
Jeff Hatchell, from American Express has worked through his share of career setbacks and disappointments. In this episode we discuss his experiences and a framework he developed to keep his vision for himself and continue to succeed despite challenging times in his life. For example:
- Ensuring your last success doesn't limit your future success.
- The importance of perceiving the best in every situation.
- Learning how to expect to receive good things.
- Not making long term decisions based on temporary situations.
Jeff Hatchell is Vice President, U.S. Field Sales Enablement and Global Leadership at American Express. Jeff is also an executive coach and motivational speaker and built a reputation as an inspirational executive with a track record of creating winning strategies that leverage the strength of teams to exceed corporate objectives.
Forrester calls First Line Sales Managers the "secret agents" of change and Revenue Enablement teams are often on the leading edge of change alongside them. In over a decade of experience as an enablement pro, Del Nakhi of MariaDB, has learned how to create and optimize those relationships for success. Listen in as she talks about:
- Why the change management relationship with Revenue Leaders is so critical.
- Where the Revenue Enablement role ends and the Sales Leadership role begins.
- How Revenue Enablement can set leaders up for success.
- Where to start in creating this critical partnership.
Del Nakhi is the founding member and global head of revenue and customer enablement at MariaDB Corporation. She has a passion for managing strategic changes to multiply the impact of her team and partnering with revenue leaders to turn strategy into a reality. As a business partner and certified change management practitioner, she's helped executives evaluate and address corporate challenges and objectives at both large public companies and smaller startups, for more than a decade. By working with and through leaders and enabling them to effectively coach their teams, Del is not only able to scale her team’s efforts, but also collaboratively achieve sustained change and business impact.
Gartner says the foundation of a sales enablement strategy is to provide sales teams with what they need to successfully engage the buyer throughout the buying process. How are you and your revenue enablement team ensuring sellers can easily find relevant customer facing assets? What about product info, research and competitive intelligence they will consume internally? In this episode Lisa Capra from Instructure shares some of the best practices she's developed over two decades including:
- Scoping and defining a knowledge management strategy.
- Who are the stakeholders outside of revenue enablement?
- How to build workflow processes with all stakeholders.
- Best practices for governance and scaling.
Lisa Capra is the Revenue Knowledge Strategy Manager on Instructure's global revenue enablement team, She brings over two decades of experience in instructional design, online learning, and content strategy. Through cross functional coordination with Instructure‘s internal stakeholders, Lisa has designed, developed, and created governance for a 700+ page revenue enablement knowledge base to support Instructure’s global sales, services, and customer experience teams.
Is it possible to enable sales reps to hit quota more consistently and keep them happy? How does a sales enablement team measure "happiness"? Can revenue enablement teams create a voice for sales teams that gives them input into corporate level decisions?
According to Sarah Fricke of RingCentral the answer to all of the above is yes! In this episode she shares with us:
- How they developed a sales happiness survey
- How it differs from engagement surveys from HR teams
- Examples of how the results of the happiness surveys were shared with other teams to help break down barriers and improve communication
This episode is a little different. We were recently in Atlanta to attend the SES Experience and the theme this year was "Take The Leap". We had the chance to sit down with 12 different Revenue Enablement practitioners from as far away as Singapore and listen to their stories about a time in their careers when they took a big leap; why they did and the outcome. These are great stories, inspiring stories. They shared great ideas that were new to us and I'm sure you're going to enjoy listening to them just as much as we did!
What are the areas of professional development that Sales Engineers are interested in but that many Sales Enablement teams miss? How can Revenue Enablement teams generate excitement and boost morale within Sales Engineering teams? What do customers say they want Sales Engineers enabled to do well?
John Care, Author and Managing Director of Mastering Technical Sales shares his insights with me in this 2 part series. In Part 2 we focus on discovering and developing professional development pathways for SEs that focus on the experiences and skills they're most interested in developing. Since 35% of SEs say they'd like to go into leadership we also cover how to help them prepare for that career goal.
During his career, John built world-class sales engineering organizations at Oracle, Sybase, Business Objects, Nortel, CA Technologies, and HP. His responsibilities have varied from an individual level up to a VP of Presales running teams of over 200 people. He also has diverse experiences as both a quota-carrying salesperson and a senior IT executive/ CIO listening to salespeople and presales engineers trying to sell him their “solutions.”
How do Sales Engineers learn differently? Is their attitude towards training different? What are the onboarding needs of an experienced vs. a novice SE? When should the handoff from the Enablement team to the SE leaders occur? What are the 3 critical legs of onboarding SEs?
John Care, Author and Managing Director of Mastering Technical Sales shares his insights with me in this 2 part series. In Part 1 we focus on defining and understanding the Enablement needs of SEs and how to design an effective onboarding experience for them.
During his career, John built world-class sales engineering organizations at Oracle, Sybase, Business Objects, Nortel, CA Technologies, and HP. His responsibilities have varied from an individual level up to a VP of Presales running teams of over 200 people. He also has diverse experiences as both a quota-carrying salesperson and a senior IT executive/ CIO listening to salespeople and presales engineers trying to sell him their “solutions.”
How do you set the correct enablement priorities when you need to make a decision but don't have a lot of information? What is the only wrong decision you can make in any situation? Is following your gut a sound strategy? How can you apply buyer types to internal selling and negotiation?
This episode features Arup Chakravarti, Director of Sales Excellence at Equifax UK and we discuss his unique insights on identifying, selling and negotiating enablement priorities and projects.
What do buyers actually need sellers for? What are the "3 Cs" of empathy in selling? How do sellers enable buyers to build internal consensus? If a seller is empathetic do they risk losing control of the opportunity progression and velocity? How does an enablement team use selling with empathy to help sellers to not be "product pushers who reek of commission breath"?
In this episode Chuck Marcouiller, VP of Revenue Enablement at Freightwave joins me to answer these questions and much more by sharing the insights he's gained over a career as a seller, a sales leader, and revenue enablement leader.
The Sales and Revenue Enablement profession continues to thrive and grow overall but we’ve all seen enablement individuals and teams negatively impacted by the recent economic challenges. The sad reality is that even high performing enablement professionals can find their careers taking an unexpected detour.
In this episode Dave Lichtman of Enablematch will offer insights in proactively managing your career to avoid redundancy but also what to do if it happens despite your best efforts.
Dave Lichtman is the founder and CEO of Enablematch, a recruitment firm specializing in Sales Enablement. Enablematch has the largest bench of enablement professionals and helps companies solve the challenge of finding and hiring proven sales enablement talent. Additionally, Dave has become a sought-after speaker and coaches on topics surrounding sales enablement careers.
Join Sales Enablement Society President Mo Schlick and I as we discuss the state of Sales Enablement, what she's learned from her experiences, and how she thinks about the future of our industry and the SES organization.
Mo brings a unique diversity of experience to the SES Presidency, drawing from an extensive background in global sales enablement along with early non-profit work outside of B2B sales. In 2010, as a senior instructional designer at ADP, she was recruited internally to join its first specialized sales enablement organization. Since then, Mo has held leadership positions in sales enablement, sales learning, sales operations, and product marketing, working for companies like One Call Care Management, YP, Bloomberg, and most recently, FIS leading global Sales Leadership Training.
Sales enablement for B2C vs. for B2B - is there a difference? If so, what are the unique challenges and needs the Sales Enablement teams that support them need to address? In this episode Kevin Jones from Filevine shares the insights he’s gained over 6 years of enabling large B2C teams. You’ll hear about:
- H2H (human 2 human) selling
- Onboarding for a product driven company
- Training in a decentralized business
- Keeping up with fast changing consumer demands
- Measuring performance in a B2C environment
Kevin Jones is an experienced sales enablement leader with a diverse background across industries and countries. His passion is helping salespeople discover a passion for selling. He loves spending time with reps to help unlock their full potential. He believes that all sales are innately #h2h, or human-2-human, before they are b2b or b2c. This perspective has given him enablement methodologies that work in a wide variety of organizations at all stages of growth.
Kevin is currently the Sales Enablement Manager at Filevine. Before Filevine, he led sales enablement programs at Vivint. Kevin received his MBA from the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah.
Are you and your team taking a truly customer-centric approach when developing your revenue enablement strategy and programs? How well are you using the concept of force multiplying to scale your impact? In Part 2 of my conversation with Kristen McCrae McMullan we discussed her ideas, experiences, and how she's learned to be effective in these areas:
- Taking a customer-centric approach with Innovative examples
- Using customer-centric micro KPIs to align priorities
- How to apply force multiplication for scaling
- Effectively communicating with Sales leaders
- Working with internal blockers
Kristen is currently a Global Sales Enablement Leader at Amazon Web Services [AWS], leading a team of sales enablement and readiness professionals to support the ProServe sales teams. With 11 years of sales and enablement experience, Kristen is passionate about being a woman in tech leadership and serves on the global Board of Directors for WiSE. Kristen received her undergraduate degree in journalism from Emory University, and continuing education certificates from The University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard Business School. For speaking or article requests, please reach out to Kristen on LinkedIn.
How are you measuring the revenue impact of your Enablement initiatives? How quickly are you accelerating the time to revenue impact? What about identifying when a change in the approach is needed? Kristen McCrae McMullan of Amazon Web Services has tackled these challenges successfully and come up with innovative solutions that she shared with me in this 2 part series. In Part 1 you’ll gain insights into:
- How to successfully transition from being reactive to strategic
- Quantifying your impact in a credible way
- Identifying and isolating the right micro KPIs to correlate activity to revenue
- Using a change management strategy that meets leaders where they are
- Learning from neutral and negative change
Kristen is currently a Global Sales Enablement Leader at Amazon Web Services [AWS], leading a team of sales enablement and readiness professionals to support the ProServe sales teams. With 11 years of sales and enablement experience, Kristen is passionate about being a woman in tech leadership and serves on the global Board of Directors for WiSE. Kristen received her undergraduate degree in journalism from Emory University, and continuing education certificates from The University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard Business School. For speaking or article requests, please reach out to Kristen on LinkedIn.
As companies grow and mature, they typically diversify their product offerings either organically or through acquisitions. Once this happens the need for the sales organization to quickly and successfully transition from selling a single solution to a platform sales approach becomes critical. In this episode, ZoomInfo Technologies SVP of Enterprise Sales and Account Mgt., James Roth, and I discuss the best practices organizations follow when leading this evolution. We discuss in detail:
- The importance of effective training and coaching
- Understand who, what, when, and how to coach
- Tips on how to overcome barriers
- Who coaches the coach?
- Don’t forget you are dealing with humans
James Roth is an Inspirational, results-focused executive sales leader with demonstrated success building teams and growing revenue in complex and competitive environments. He is currently the SVP of Enterprise Sales and Account Mgt at ZoomInfo. Prior to that as VP of Sales James helped steer Vonage’s transformation from a consumer, residential VOIP business to a leader in the enterprise communications platform space. He has a history of success in transforming sales organizations through a consistent approach to strategic solution selling disciplines.
Where does executive coaching fit into your Revenue Enablement strategy? What about executive coaching for the Revenue Enablement team members? Britta Lorenz joins me for this episode to share how Revenue Enablement teams can support people in gaining the clarity needed to guide them towards their goals. Hint: the key is mixing coaching and compassion by focusing on the 3 P’s – People, Purpose, and Performance. Specifically, we’ll cover:
- Understand Difference Training, Coaching, (Mentoring)
- Know The Importance of Coaching
- Understand Who, What, When, and How to coach
- Tips for the coaching process and how to overcome barriers
- Who coaches the coach? (SE Leaders)
- In the end, no matter how much data we have available at our fingertips, don’t forget you are dealing with humans
Britta Lorenz is an international speaker, businesswoman, certified executive self-leadership coach, and a mother of two. She is a partner at PDAgroup and is the founder of the DACH Chapter of Women in Sales Enablement. She is a Board Member of Trust Enablement--- with more than a decade of experience in international B2B Complex Solution Selling.
Corporate mergers and acquisitions are typically a time of stress and uncertainty for both newly acquired and existing revenue teams. Revenue Enablement teams play a key role in accelerating time to post acquisition revenue and ensuring employee retention during this pivotal period. This is the 2nd part of a 2 part series where Jamie Kanac is sharing what he’s learned through 20+ years as a revenue & growth operations leader directing strategic sales initiatives, mergers, and acquisitions for IBM and other companies. In Part 2 we’ll discuss:
- Onboarding and partnering with the Sales Engineering teams
- Identifying and connecting with the right acquired teams to facilitate the transfer of critical knowledge
- Creating the right curriculum for onboarding acquired teams
- Certifications, testing and KPIs for measuring success
- Sales Enablement as the “glue” between cultures of their company and the acquired company
Jamie Klanac is a proven revenue operations executive who has successfully executed transformations and managed operations in both public and private multinational companies. He has the unique experience of having led Revenue Operations in North America, Latin America and Asia and significant experience in leading cross-functional partnerships with Marketing, Sales, Client Success, Finance, HR, Product, C-Suite, and Investors.
Corporate mergers and acquisitions are typically a time of stress and uncertainty for both newly acquired and existing revenue teams. Revenue Enablement teams play a key role in accelerating time to post acquisition revenue and ensuring employee retention during this pivotal period. In this 2 part series Jamie Klanac will share what he’s learned through 20+ years as a revenue & growth operations leader directing strategic sales initiatives, mergers, and acquisitions for IBM and other companies.. In Part 1 we’ll discuss:
- The need for Revenue Enablement to engage early in the acquisition process
- Understanding the Go To Market and Routes To Market plans
- Mentoring newly acquired employees
- The early warning signs of acquired employees that are struggling or at risk
- Collaborating with Communications and Marketing teams
Jamie Klanac is a proven revenue operations executive who has successfully executed transformations and managed operations in both public and private multinational companies. He has the unique experience of having led Revenue Operations in North America, Latin America and Asia and significant experience in leading cross-functional partnerships with Marketing, Sales, Client Success, Finance, HR, Product, C-Suite, and Investors.
Should Digital Enablement be part of your Revenue Enablement strategy? What is “digital enablement” anyway? How is it different from other Sales Enablement programs? Download this month’s episode of “Stories From The Trenches” and learn the answers to these questions and more as Steffaney Zohrabyan from Cisco and I talk about her career and success with Digital Enablement. You’ll learn:
- The technical challenges Digital Enablement can help solve for.
- Strategies that drive adoption and usage with large and grown sales tech stacks.
- How these strategies can be more effective than traditional training methods like webinars, lunch and learns, and eLearning courses.
- How to implement a Digital Enablement program to support your sales teams.
Steffaney Zohrabyan is an award-winning strategic digital enablement expert with experience launching in-flow enablement and performance improvement programs at 6 global organizations. She currently leads in-flow enablement programs within Cisco's global sales enablement team!
Channel partners are a force multiplier for companies across a wide spectrum of industries and a critical part of their go to market strategy. Channel programs require their own enablement strategy to be effective. In this episode Ashley Butler from Appian shares her experiences in defining and building a successful partner enablement program.
- Where should partner sales enablement report?
- Taking an on-demand first approach in creation
- Enabling partner account managers
- Partner sales assets
- Launching a partner portal
Ashley Butler is a sales professional and enablement leader who currently leads the sales training and enablement strategy for Appian’s partner network as the Sr. Manager. Appian is a low-code automation platform used by the world’s leading companies. AshleyAshley self intro: She’s built a successful career in the tech industry - first as a seller, then as an enabler. She’s been with Appian ~ 6 years, and enabled the partner team for about 1.5 years.
Are you and your team successfully serving the revenue leaders and teams you support “where they are”? In this month’s episode Rusty Jensen – VP of Revenue Generation at NICE Corp. – and I talk about how to build stronger relationships with those internal customers thereby seeing increased adoption and accelerated sales effectiveness. Rusty shares his insights on:
- What sales leaders look for in a sales enablement program.
- Building sales enablement at scale.
- How to meet sales teams “where they are”.
- Driving stronger adoption of new methodologies, tools and processes
- Sales leadership’s co-ownership of successful sales enablement.
Rusty is the Vice President of Revenue Generation at NICE and is responsible for all pipeline creation for direct and indirect channels for sales at NICE. Over the past 12 years (and in 7 different roles) Rusty has worked to help build NICE, serve its customers, and train and develop the skills and careers of his employees. A serial entrepreneur, Rusty built several companies from the ground up prior to coming to NICE. That same energy and passion is applied at NICE to design innovative and cutting-edge strategies for NICE and its partners to spur growth and stay ahead of the competition. Strong Leadership, high output, and passion best define him.
With so much competition for sales and SDR candidates has your company started identifying and recruiting candidates that may not have traditional sales backgrounds? How can Sales Enablement support HR in expanding their search? What about B2C vs. B2B sellers? Join us for this episode with Shelley Mesh and hear her discuss the success she’s had in these areas and what she’s learned.
- Should Sales Enablement be involved in creating Sales and SDR job descriptions?
- Is Sales Enablement for B2C sellers different than for B2B?
- Identifying success profiles for candidates without direct sales experience.
- Is “selling” actually “sharing”?
- Setting new sellers up to have “hero moments”.
Shelley Mesh has been in the B2C sales enablement and training world since 2003, starting out in customer service, moving into sales and enablement, and segueing into recruitment and training. Most recently, she worked at an au pair agency, onboarding new reps responsible for both customer service and sales. She strongly believes that successful sales enablement starts with partnering with Human Resources to find the right people, including the non-traditional candidate. In the search for the unicorn, don’t overlook the grey duck; they may have everything you need without the typical education or career path.
Shelley is presently consulting with a digital ad agency on the redesign of their onboarding program. She lives in Arvada, CO with her husband and 2 children.
Have you considered recruiting sales people or SEs to fill the next opening on your team? With the demand for Sales Enablement pros at an all time high it often makes sense. Successful sellers like to solve problems and help people which can be a solid foundation for success in our profession. Listen in as Malvina EL-Sayegh from Reachdesk and host Paul Butterfield discuss why successful sellers often become great enablement professionals.
- How sales skills align to Sales Enablement
- Recruiting quota carriers from inside and outside your org
- Identifying and bridging skill gaps
- Successful onboarding tips for quota carriers making the transition
Malvina EL-Sayegh is a sales enablement leader, with a 10-year history of working in the Financial Services Industry. She is currently a sales enablement leader at Reachdesk and also a host of the #stayhuman podcast which focuses on demystifying sales.
There's been a lot of focus on using data and metrics to determine the effectiveness of Sales Enablement initiatives and rightfully so. What about using metrics to identify and prioritize which enablement projects the team focuses on? In this episode Lisa Hammack of Cornerstone OnDemand and host Paul Butterfield discuss how she and her team are doing just that by:
- Working with other teams in the org to gather and analyze the data
- Using both quantitative and qualitative data to analyze sale reps' performance
- Using a scorecard information to drive programs
- Overcoming challenges to implementing a scorecard approach
Lisa Hammack is a 20+ year veteran in the world of high tech and SaaS sales, with over 15 years spent in sales enablement. Her passion is building sales enablement teams from the ground up, pivoting training solutions to enable business continuity under changing market conditions, driving strategic shifts in sales methodologies and building alignment with evolving business needs and to grow market share across multiple sectors, when not thinking about SaaS Software and Sales you can find her going to concerts with her two daughters, on her Peloton or running a 5K!
Petek Hawkins, Head of Global Learning Enablement Development at Fivetran and Paul Butterfield, Instructure Revenue Enablement VP recently discussed Sales Enablement’s role in the selection, customization and successful implementation of sales methodologies and share their experiences with several of the leading methodologies. Why is a sales methodology so critical?
- Is a sales methodology different from the sales process? How?
- What to look for in evaluating and selecting a sales methodology
- Customized or off the shelf?
- The 5 steps to follow that ensure a successful implementation
Petek Hawkins combines strategy, plan, and process to design programs for the sustainable growth of multi-million global SaaS companies such as Zoom Video Communications and Fivetran. She is adept at driving individuals to full productivity by aligning the core competencies of any role to intelligently designed data-driven programs that meet the learners where they are. She leads companies to quickly grow revenue engines with scalable enablement, learning, and development. Her motto is: Simplify, standardize and scale!
Jay Zandstra, Sales Enablement Mgr. at UpKeep joins Paul Butterfield, Instructure Revenue Enablement VP to discuss several topics many Sales Enablement teams face and how he and the team are solving for them.
- How to successfully request help from other departments that are also overstretched
- The biggest challenges of building a new sales playbook and first steps
- Reinforcing and developing sales team skills using the playbook
- Driving adoption of the playbook by sales teams
Bio:
Jay enjoys the challenge of diagnosing a problem and researching the best ways to solve it, His view of Sales Enablement is that “It's hard, it's challenging and it's incredibly rewarding when you see the light bulbs turn on with the sales teams, and see them succeed”.
Away from work he spends his time doing home improvements and working on cars. He and his wife recently moved to southern California after living in Indiana for the past 5 years.
UpKeep is a cloud-based CMMS (computerized maintenance management system) designed to be used on mobile devices, and suitable for a range of industries including manufacturing, construction, distribution, warehousing, utilities, hotels, restaurants, food processing, churches, and education.
Gail Behun, Sr. Director, Sales Effectiveness, Enablement & Productivity at PandaDoc and Paul Butterfield, Instructure Revenue Enablement VP share a wide-ranging discussion about the challenges of tracking Sales Enablement success and her LinkedIn campaign to #ProveIt using metrics and goals to setup up sales reps for success. Join us to hear about Gail’s experiences in:
- Creating a culture where metrics and goals align
- Providing ways for reps to achieve little wins as they ramp to big wins
- Determining the metrics that will define success and backing them into a project
- Successfully pivoting when you “don’t know what you don’t know”
Executive Bio:
Gail is experienced in leading global teams in increasing productivity, profitability and stakeholder value. She thrives on achieving results that seem beyond reach and excels at pioneering new enablement, learning, sales and operational initiatives within the SaaS space. As the new Senior Director of Sales Enablement at PandaDoc, Gail is focused on providing structure and cutting through the clutter for a company in rocket ship growth mode. In charge of onboarding and development for a global team of reps, her focus is to empower each rep to crush their quota and see a bright and long future within the team.
Over 20,000 customers use PandaDoc’s all-in-one document automation software and workflow capabilities to provide customers with a more professional and engaging experience. PandaDoc helps simplify processes and increase efficiency across an entire organization and integrates with existing CRM, payment, and file storage apps into a unified workflow.
Adriana Romero, Director Enablement Solutions for LevelJump.io joined Paul Butterfield, Instructure Revenue Enablement VP to talk about a topic that doesn’t get a lot of coverage. We spend a lot of time planning for new Sales hires but what about the critical onboarding and ramping phases for new Sales Enablement employees? Adriana shares her experiences and insights into:
● Managing your own ramping as the first Sales Enablement hire
● Setting the mission and boundaries for Sales Enablement while ramping
● What are the critical components of a successful ramping for Sales Enablement employees?
● Professional development for Sales Enablers and succession planning
Executive Bio:
Adriana is a maven. She lives for connecting, helping and facilitating information. An Engineer turned Sales Pro turned Sales Coach, she spends her days figuring out how to better enable a sales team while building a business that helps immigrant women alongside her best friend. A mother of one girl and one furry boy, she loves being married to a sales star that loves planes and travel as much as she does.
LevelJump is the Outcome-Based Enablement solution that proves revenue impact. Built 100% on Salesforce, LevelJump’s solution gives you the power to tie sales performance to your coaching, training, and go-to-market readiness programs.
Lindsay Morga, Manager, Sales Enablement at Tanium joined Paul Butterfield, Instructure Revenue Enablement VP to talk about the tenets that she and the Tanium team used to create and lead 14 cohorts through remote onboarding and ramping this year. She addresses how they addressed the challenges of onboarding international teams and helped new employees feel a part of Tanium’s culture.
● Communication creates connection
● Executive engagement and participation
● How to embed Culture for ramping employees
● Effective global onboarding
Lindsay Morga is a Sales Enablement Manager at Tanium. She brings her experiences in sales and solution-based pre-sales to continually evolve a world-class onboarding program for new go-to-market employees. Combining her passion for story-telling with the structure of her military and engineering background, she creates immersive sales coaching and training experiences.
For this episode Paul Butterfield invited veteran sales pros Ryan Simpson, Tyler Smith and Taylor Baranowski to discuss their holiday “wish list” of what they hope Sales Enablement teams are thinking about for 2021. With over 30 years of collective experience in direct and channel sales they bring real world insights into:
● How sales enablement needs differ between direct and channel sales teams
● How should sales enablement think about sales leadership development
● Best practices and gaps they’ve seen in sales enablement programs
Ryan Simpson is currently the EVP of Sales for RedAway Medical Waste Disposal and is building the sales organization needed for a rapid growth strategy. Ryan has also led sales teams at Vonage, Stamps.com and Cbeyond. He earned his B.S. in Business from San Diego State University and is a U.S. Navy veteran.
Tyler recently joined AppDynamics to lead their Mountain States enterprise sales team. Tyler previously worked with leading customer experience companies NICEinContact, RingCentral and TalkDesk. He received his MBA from Westminster College and when he’s not closing business, you’ll likely find him with his family on the soccer pitch or flying down a mountain.
Taylor is a Regional Channel Manager with Dialpad, an industry leader in the UCaaS and CCaaS space. He’s built a successful career in the UCaaS/CCaaS sector with success in both channel and direct sales at Vonage and Broadvoice. Taylor is an avid hockey player – he played at the University of Arkansas and has been a volunteer Varsity/JV coach.
Misha McPherson, Head of Global Revenue Enablement at Coursera joined Paul Butterfield, Instructure Revenue Enablement VP for a conversation about setting a Sales Enablement strategy and priorities whether an army of one in a startup/scaleup or leading a team that supports hundreds of sellers.
● How to create an effective strategy for scaling
● Setting up for success by gaining executive sponsorship
● Providing effective sales enablement to a global sales team
Misha McPherson is a 20+ year veteran in the world of tech and SaaS sales, with 13+ years spent in training and enablement. Her passion is in scaling sales organizations to create experiences that benefit the customer, company and the people who make up the revenue team. Misha is currently the global head of enablement for Coursera. Misha is also the developer and facilitator of the first sales enablement workshop for SaaS Sales Leadership. When not thinking about sales and sales enablement, Misha can be found on a trail, open water swimming, or with her mini zoo.
Join Melissa Regan, Sr. Manager, Global Sales Enablement. & Onboarding at RingCentral and Paul Butterfield, Instructure VP of Revenue as they discuss how she is creating sticky onboarding and ongoing enablement that makes the sales grind easier and faster. She’ll share innovative ways she’s found to:
● Engage all the senses to create memorable learning experiences
● Create agile, role-based onboarding programs – even in the post CV19 world
● Integrate some very unusual props into her onboarding sessions
RingCentral (RNG) is a global provider of cloud enterprise unified communications and collaboration solutions.
Mark Fellowes, Head of Sales Operations at Scandit and Paul Butterfield, Instructure Revenue Enablement VP explore the unique roles Sales Enablement and Sales Operations play and how they can forge the strong partnership that is critical to a sales organization’s success. Mark will share his insights into:
● Is Sales Enablement part of Sale Operations?
● What are the pillars for a successful relationship between the 2 groups?
● What are the differences between a sales process and a sales methodology?
Scandit is the leading technology platform for mobile computer vision and augmented reality (AR) solutions for enterprises. Scandit software brings unrivaled scanning performance to any app on any camera-equipped smart device to read barcodes, recognize text and objects, and display real-time information as AR overlays.
Cynthia Barnes, CEO of NAWSP and Paul Butterfield, Instructure Revenue Enablement VP talk about the ways men and women sell differently and how Sales Enablement teams can be more effective through incorporating those different approaches into their programs.
● How Sales Enablement can help nurture a culture of sales diversity
● Some of the key differences in how women and men approach selling
● Her biggest challenge with the work she is doing and how she’s overcoming it
Cynthia and NAWSP are on the front line of helping others to feel confident, empowered, and brave. Her insights and unique understanding of what it takes for women sales professionals to excel have made her a sought-after expert, having appeared in over 250 major media outlets around the nation – including appearances in the Wall Street Journal.
Erica Newell, Sr. Strategic Customer Success Manager at Bridge and Paul Butterfield, Instructure Sales Enablement VP talk about an area of Sales Enablement that is often overlooked - Sales Enablement for Customer Success teams. The fact is many customer success organizations drive a significant amount of revenue but have different enablement expectations and needs. Erica shares insights into:
- How is Customer Success different from Sales? How are they similar?
- What questions to ask your CSM teams to better identify their needs
- Suggested areas of enablement to develop for CSMs
Erica and the Bridge Customer Success team support 700+ customers worldwide. Bridge is a fast growing employee development platform that combines learning management, performance management, career development, and engagement measurement into one unified experience. G2 recently named Bridge a Leader in the corporate LMS category.
Sales enablement thought leader Roderick Jefferson and Paul Butterfield, Instructure Sales Enablement VP explore the role that sales enablement teams should play in driving a diverse and inclusive corporate culture. As Roderick put it “Diversity means you’re invited to the table. Inclusion means you have access to the menu along with the opportunity and ability to order from it.”
- How sales enablement teams can help ensure a diversity of job candidates
- What ways can we create sales assets, training materials and courses that are inclusive
- The critical role onboarding and ramping have in helping new diverse employees feel welcome and included
Prior to Roderick Jefferson & Associates, he held a variety of executive leadership, sales, sales enablement, operations and customer experience roles for Marketo, Oracle Marketing Cloud, Salesforce.com, 3PAR, Business Objects, NetApp, PayPal, Siebel Systems, & AT&T.
Chris Sargent, Sr, Director of Global Sales Enablement at NICEinContact and Paul Butterfield, Instructure Sales Enablement VP discuss why a global sales methodology is critical and the best practices that he has developed while heading up sales enablement at multiple SaaS companies. The conversation then pivots to how the NICEinContact team has successfully adapted what’s worked in the past for the post COVID-19 enablement delivery environment.
- Why implement a global sales methodology and process
- How to teach the corporate sales methodology to new remote sales reps
- Providing reinforcement and measuring adoption remotely
Chris and the sales enablement team support ~300 quota carriers in 10 countries. NICE inContact helps contact centers around the world create profitable customer experiences through our powerful portfolio of cloud-based call center ACD, call routing, self-service IVR, and agent optimization solutions.
Lish Gates, Head of Global Revenue Enablement at Algolia and Paul Butterfield, Instructure Sales Enablement VP have a wide ranging discussion about how she and the Algolia team are delivering impactful onboarding and coaching to the global Algolia sales teams even during the COVID-19 lockdown.
- Establishing digital routines for successful reps and new hires
- Help new hires learn company culture while socially distanced
- Ideas and tools to avoid “death by virtual classrooms”
Algolia is a fast-growing SaaS startup that helps clients deliver tailored, quick and scalable search and discovery. The Algolia Enablement team currently supports 160 reps across six offices and consistently deploys strategic, measureable and innovative ways to enable the team and impact revenue.
Bruce Graham founder of Perfect Performance Training Ltd. and Paul Butterfield, Instructure Sales Enablement VP explore what makes up an engaging and effective remote learning program. Bruce will also share the best practices he's developed while creating online learning programs for Oracle, PepsiCo, Hewlett Packard, McDonalds and Vonage. He'll share insights on launching a remote learning program as well as taking an existing program to the next level. Best practices for content creation/format/delivery How to address the learning needs of a multi-generational workforce and different learning styles Making content relevant for a global audience