October 10, 2023 • 26 mins
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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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Sales Enablement Society Stories from
the Trenches, where enablementpractitioners share their
real-world experiences.
Get the scoop on what'shappening inside Sales
Enablement teams across theglobal SES member community.
Each segment of Stories fromthe Trenches share the good, the
bad and the ugly practices ofcorporate sales.
Enablement initiatives learnedwhat worked, what didn't work
(00:25):
and how obstacles wereeliminated by corporate teams
and leadership.
Get back, grab a cold one andjoin host Paul Butterfield for
casual conversations about thewide and varied profession of
sales enablement, where there isnever a fits all solution.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Welcome to another episode of Stories from the
Trenches.
Last week, we were all in SanDiego for the Sales Enablement
Society Experience.
The theme this year was theEnablement Evolution.
There were so many greatbreakout sessions.
Thank you to everyone whoprepared and delivered those.
We had amazing keynote speakers, and so thank you to all of you
(01:00):
as well.
The other thing that we got todo was sit down with 10
different practitioners and talkto them about points of
evolution in their career or, insome cases, how they the way
they practice sales enablementsevolved, or how they've seen the
profession itself evolve.
I took a lot away from thesestories and I really enjoyed
hearing them.
I'm confident you will too.
(01:21):
So here they are.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Hi, I'm Cheryl Busheck and I'm currently
Director of Enablement Programsat Juniper Networks.
I love talking about evolutionand specifically career
evolution and growth in all theright ways, because my own
career has been a very long andwinding road.
I'm a huge believer inunderstanding yourself and what
(01:48):
you have passion in and movingtowards what brings you joy and
passion.
My career started with a verytechnical role in IT and I
decided what I loved about thatrole and shifted into a
technical training role.
From there I moved into acouple of different directions.
(02:08):
I landed in product marketingfor a lot of years because
marketing was where all thebudget was and they seemed to
have the most fun.
I really wanted to move into arole where I had a top line
impact for the business.
I spent a lot of years inproduct marketing and before
there was a role called revenueenablement sales enablement I
(02:30):
was doing exactly that as a partof various product marketing
teams.
I felt a real connection tobeing able to work with the
field and I really focused onprograms and campaigns and
assets that helped sales besuccessful for real.
I really cared about that andthat was ultimately how I ended
(02:51):
up in enablement All of mybackground in IT product
marketing.
Technical training gave me alot of the foundational skills
that I needed to succeed inenablement.
Honestly, I've always cared somuch about people and people's
success.
It really drew me in.
Once I landed in a true labelenablement role, I knew this was
(03:16):
where I needed to be.
I've had several different jobsin several different companies.
I have grown my career.
I hit a VP level and I did makeIn evolutionary decision after
my VP role just got chopped forcost reasons.
I made a strategic decisionthat I wanted to work for a
(03:39):
certain type of company and Ididn't need to run everything to
be happy and fulfilled.
So my most recent evolution wasI decided to take a step back
and own one piece of a largerenablement team at a larger
company and I could not behappier that I did that.
So grew my career to the topand from there I had to make a
(04:03):
decision to take a step back soI would find some work-life
balance, I'd find happiness, I'dstill have fulfillment and I'd
still have a lot of challengingthings that I could do for the
company.
That again brought me back intohelping our field teams be
successful.
So my career has been a modelof evolution in various ways and
(04:25):
I think if I left you withanything, it would be try
everything when your young andcareer, try different roles, see
what you enjoy and find whatyou're passionate about and
makes you happy and fulfilled.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Hi, my name is Michelle Dieshberg and I was the
go-to-market enablementdirector at Active Campaign,
some marketing automationplatform.
My evolution into salesenablement started from product
marketing.
I started as a productmarketing associate and really
love the idea of messaging andpositioning and figuring out how
(05:03):
to talk to our customers, and Igot a job at a sales enablement
platform and as a productmarketer.
This was so exciting to mebecause they I was talking to
other product marketers who werebuying the sales enablement
platforms.
It was started more aboutcontent management.
So to me as a product marketer,that was the dream come true.
(05:25):
I tried many times in my past toconsolidate all the content for
the sales teams that I wasworking with, and it was always
hard.
Everyone was saving things ontheir desktops or in their own
Google Drive.
Nothing was centralized, and soto be able to work for a
company that was centralizingthat content and helping product
marketers and sales teams bemore efficient, find more
(05:49):
content, spend less time editingcontent, was so exciting.
That company was also the firstplace where I met someone whose
job was to be in salesenablement, and this blew my
mind.
As a product marketer, I had todo the sales enablement
functions.
I had to train the sales team onthe content that I was creating
(06:10):
and it was always,unfortunately, sort of an
afterthought.
There were lots of otherprograms and things that I had
to do, and so pushing thecontent out to the team was sort
of like pulling teeth.
I would roll out a new pitchdeck and people would roll their
eyes or still use the thingthat was saved on their desktop
because they were comfortablewith it.
(06:30):
And seeing the sales enablementpractitioner at this new job,
being able to be more of atranslator, to really speak to
the sales team and to get moreunderstanding and see their
success, was transformational.
That is where my evolution intosales enablement began and my
(06:54):
next role after that company wasa sales enablement role.
I started as a sales enablementmanager, senior manager and as
an individual contributor andslowly over the last three years
built a team.
We were a team of four towardsthe end of my tenure there and
(07:16):
to see the evolution fromproduct marketer to sales
enablement practitioner has beenreally fun, and I love talking
to other sales enablementpractitioners and really seeing
the growth on the sales team andsee them be more successful.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
Michael Galvin.
I'm currently the global salesenablement manager at IntelSat.
My journey, or evolution, intosales enablement began about 15
years ago.
I had carried a sales bag, aquota as a sales manager and a
sales leader for 10 or 12 yearsand decided that it wasn't quite
as fulfilling for me as I hadexpected.
(07:53):
But I didn't want to put thatexperience to the side.
I met with a career coach andwe looked at some of my
strengths and weaknesses anddetermined that leveraging my
sales experience and helpingother sellers become more
effective and efficient would bea good use of my skill set.
I began the journey from salesperson to sales enablement
(08:17):
professional.
I dabbled a little bit in theearly phases of sales enablement
.
It was more focused on salestraining and development, spent
some time there, evolved backinto some more direct selling
roles as a sales manager for twoand a half or three years, and
then I had an opportunity tobecome a part of a best practice
sales organization, more orless in sales operations, for
(08:42):
three and a half years, afterwhich I had the opportunity to
lead a sales operations group ata small startup.
That really got my foot in thedoor, as far as you know really
developing a role in a group andthen was approached by my
current organization, intelsat,to stand up their sales
(09:04):
enablement department.
So I'm currently a team of oneand looking to grow that.
But we've had some huge successand really leveraging the
networking, the opportunitiesthat are afforded us through
organizations, through LinkedIn,through just connections I've
made through my sales career,through sales operations, sales
(09:24):
training, development.
That networking has been a hugepart of my career development
and evolution and got me toreally where I am today.
Without those connections Idon't think I'd be as successful
as where I am today.
We've been able to develop asales enablement charter, again
leveraging some of thoseconnections and some of that
experience and really evolvedinto implementation, ongoing
(09:48):
strategy, as well as maintainingthe current success that we're
showing, really working ondeveloping ROI communication,
showing the worth of salesenablement that it's just not an
afterthought any longer.
It's really a vital tosucceeding as an organization
and becoming a best in classsales team to be successful in
(10:09):
our industry.
Speaker 6 (10:11):
Hey there everyone.
It's Jill Guardia here, as Paulsaid, and I am the SVP of
Revenue, enablement andOperations at a company named
Thought Industries, and my storyis actually about the role that
I'm in right now.
That role took me out ofretirement.
Some of you know I did a briefstint as a retiree about nine or
(10:33):
10 minutes long and then I tookthis role because it was, and
is, a great role to end mycareer with in terms of
full-time employment.
I came in to build out anenablement team and really
that's one of the things thatI've had some opportunities to
do throughout my entire career,but in this particular one, I
(10:57):
could use all the experiencesfrom all my other jobs and I was
reporting right to thepresident of the company, so it
gave me a lot of insight intohow the company ticks, how the
sales organization is structured, how we put together
territories just everything youcan think of.
So I jumped at this opportunity.
Shortly into it, I was giventhe operations team as well.
(11:20):
So now I am running enablementand operations, which is also
just a crazy opportunity to have, because you get to see how
things tick and as you'relooking at how those things tick
, you start to put together thepieces on the enablement side.
So it's such an interestingsandwich to be part of.
(11:41):
And then finally, in thisparticular role, they gave me
the business development team aswell, so that I have literally
no experience doing other thanserving and supporting that
organization.
And here I am now running it,and for me, the insight and the
story to be told is this is allabout enablement.
(12:02):
Every single day I get to workon enablement, putting together
the tools, process, systems,knowledge and leadership for an
amazing group of people, andsupporting, in particular, the
business development team hasgiven me really the oversight
into seeing how people buildtheir sales career in such a
(12:24):
different and exciting way.
So what's the story here?
The story is don't cut yourselfoff too short in terms of
deciding on your retirement.
Leave yourself open to options,and sometimes you get to
explore things you hadn'tplanned.
I had no thought in my mindthat I was going to be running
(12:44):
business development, and here Iam running enablement
operations and businessdevelopment and getting to see
so much about how a companyticks, how people work together
and putting success together atevery single turn.
So it's super exciting andreach out to me if you have any
questions.
Speaker 8 (13:02):
I'm Laura Meister.
I am the Senior RevenueEnablement Manager at Salesloft,
based in Ann Arbor, michigan,and my enablement evolution the
one that I think is mostinteresting is how I evolved
from an enterprise seller intoan enabler, and it really came
down to some soul searching.
There was a time as a sellerthat I found I was way more
(13:23):
excited and vigorated, inspiredby helping my teammates doing
things like building a quotegenerator.
I was a mentor to a lot of newhires.
Someone spent a lot of timewith people.
I served on our Toastmasterscommittee and I just found that
those moments, those times inhelping people get better, were
so much more exciting than evenclosing the big deals.
(13:45):
And that's where I said tomyself, like, how do I get
better?
Or how do I do this, how do Iturn this into a job so I can
feel this way all the time?
And that really led to mestarting to ask some questions,
meeting some awesome people atthe organization I was at the
time.
I was fortunate thatorganization really highlighted
leverage, which is about how canyou 10X yourself across the
(14:06):
company.
So it was enablement was builtinto it, but I really identified
with that and it made me yeah,just made me happy and brought a
lot more career satisfaction attimes than closing a big deal.
Speaker 9 (14:18):
Hey everyone, amy Levine here.
I wanted to share a story aboutearly in my career, how I made
some significant changes, butalso very authentic to myself,
and how it helped my career getto the point where it is today,
where I've led and designed itto where I wanted it to be.
(14:39):
When I got out of college, Ithought that I was going to
become an interior designer.
I went to school for businessand art and I ended up in a
Fortune 50 company on a globalproductivity team of about 200
folks.
What I learned that I neededwas to not have my butt in my
(15:00):
seat and just do the work behindthe desk.
What I learned is that I neededto meet people face to face.
However, they were my customer,and so we had multiple
buildings on one long street inHopkington, massachusetts, and I
would leave regularly to meetpeople as much as I could in
person.
And I realized also that I wasmore productive if I took a
(15:23):
break and got some sunlight or along lunch and left around
three and then turned mycomputer on after dinner.
The productivity that I figuredout intentionally and with my
intuition really helped me bethe best and make the most out
of my days and I ended upironically winning an award on.
(15:47):
It was a changemaker award atthis company on how we redefined
productivity in the globalproductivity team and I think
the best thing that I was ableto do is just follow how
important it was to me to focuson what I needed to focus on
with work, meet people in personand be able to have some
(16:09):
flexibility in my schedule basedon the measurements and the
output I was giving.
That led to this companyincubating a startup.
They asked me to run enablementat their company and over time
we really built this culture ofproductivity from a way that was
most impactful for each of thepeople.
So I think the biggest learningthat I found working at this
global productivity organization, at a Fortune 50 company, is
(16:33):
that they didn't have it yet,they hadn't figured it out and
it was like a 20, 30 year oldorganization multi-billion
dollars and so really, if you'rethinking that you can do
something better, more effective, more efficient, just start
doing it and if it showsmeasurement, explain why and how
later.
Speaker 10 (16:53):
Hi, my name is Chuck Markleier.
I've been the VP of RevenueEnablement at a Frigida company
called Freight Waves and now I'mstarting a new adventure as the
founder of a sales consultingpartial revenue enablement
consulting company called SASEnable, and I guess my
evolutionary process that Iwould like to share is really
the story of taking a chance onsomething different.
(17:14):
When someone comes and asks youfor something to try something.
You probably know a lot morefrom your experiences than you
even give yourself credit for,and the story that I like to
share around that is about twoplus years ago, a former CRO of
mine, forest, reached out to meand said hey, would you like to
make some beer money?
And I said well, what do youmean beer money?
(17:36):
He says, well, I've got acompany that I think that I'm
advising that from one of theventure partners that I'm doing
that could use your help andenablement, and I go what do you
mean?
He goes you'll know it when yousee it.
So have a conversation with himand my first reaction was well,
I don't know if I could doconsulting I'm better in the
field and doing this kind ofstuff but strategic advising I
haven't done much of that and Igot on the call with Spencer,
(18:00):
the CFO of the company, andstarted to have a conversation
with them and I recognized rightoff the bat is I knew a lot of
stuff that really could helpthese people and just through
the conversation I was able toquickly diagnose some of the
problems that the leadership washaving, some of the
organizational problems thatthey were challenged with, and I
was comfortable rolling up mysleeves and helping them put
(18:21):
process in place and putcoaching for their leaders in
place and strategy andverticalization and all the
things that I had taken forgranted, that I had developed
over my years in salesenablement.
I have a 30 year career in sales, sales leadership and sales
enablement that I was able todeploy and put right into place
and it was able to.
For me, the evolutionary processwas recognizing that I do have
(18:43):
the skills and that I do haveprocesses in place that people
really can value to move fromthat transactional, tactical
kind of enablement really to thestrategic enablement and
companies these days really wantthat combination of someone who
can see the processes andadvise them and yet at the same
time get down in the trenchesand actually do it.
Sit side by side by the leaderssit with the reps in the
(19:04):
trenches and make these thingshappen, and so the advice I'd
give someone who's looking intheir career is take notes of
what you're doing but recognizethat the experiences that you
have actually do translate andhave value as you go from one
company to the other.
So my evolutionary process hasbeen to be able to go from the
head of sales enablement in thefield in companies to now taking
(19:28):
those skills, wrapping themtogether and putting it in a way
that I'm comfortable going toother companies advising them in
a fractional sales enablementway.
Speaker 11 (19:36):
I'm Sandy Robinson, senior Vice President of Revenue
Operations at POTRA.
I've been in the salesmarketing revenue operations
world in sales leadershippositions for I don't know 20
some odd years.
I won't get into the details ofexactly how long, but I really
got my start, interestinglyenough, teaching martial arts.
(19:57):
I was really into karate andblame it on the movie the Karate
Kid, but it was something thatI always wanted to do and I
ended up getting my black beltand chempo and teaching and
learning and as you go throughthe ranks you learn how to teach
, and I ended up working thereand managing a school and
learning all of the skills thatare really sales skills that
(20:22):
people learn as they go into thesales world.
And so I just had that kind offoundation of training, teaching
people, and it really reallywas like an evolution to where I
am today, starting with theKarate Kid From there, running
around in PJs.
It's lots of fun, but I reallywanted to make some money and so
(20:43):
I traded in my bare feet for apair of heels, got a job and
inside sales and it was.
It was okay, but I kind of feltlike I was chained to a desk
and my boss was like you know,you really, I think, would be a
better fit for outside sales.
So I started an outside salesworld, made my way up into the
(21:03):
manager ranks and at the timeactually, I was a sales manager
for Dish Network and when wetraveled the policies several I
won't say how many years agowere like two to a room, but I
was the only female on the teamso they had to change the
company policy for me.
So it was just a little kind offunny thing there about some of
(21:27):
these early roles that I had.
But I really enjoyed theflexibility of being out in the
field.
When I was at Dish Network I wasalways training our agents on
how to sell Dish Network.
So in some format, in everysales role that I had, there was
some level of having to teach,having to enable myself create
(21:49):
materials and apply them.
So that really led to salesleadership roles.
And you know, as technologyevolved and things evolved into
sales operations, I had a greatmentor named Sharon
Schoffner-Meier who said youknow, hey, you're really great
at this sales leadership thing,you should think about the sales
(22:13):
ops thing.
And from then I don't know itwas like 2012, went into the
sales ops world doing comp plans, territories, training.
We rolled out the Challengersales method and sales
operations eventually kind ofevolved into really what I was
(22:34):
doing.
We called it sales operations,but it was really supporting the
full buying journey, which iswhat we think of revenue
operations today.
Speaker 7 (22:41):
I am Mike Simmons, the founder of Catalyst Acts,
and I help people in businessesfind clarity in the chaos so
that they can simplify executionand achieve the results they
want.
Enablement is a powerful termfor me and, from a journey
(23:03):
perspective, the mistake I madeearly on in my career is I
thought that enabling others wastelling people what to do,
showing people how to do it andbeing very prescriptive in the
approach.
And what I've realized over thelast number of years is the
importance of asking questionsas a way to guide and coach
people and have them understandwhat they want to do, how they
(23:25):
want to do it and where theywant to go.
So, from an evolutionperspective, it was important to
evolve from telling people whatto do and showing people what
to do to guiding people in adirection with the questions
that I ask.
And we, as enablementprofessionals, will get better
at serving our customers, bothour internal and our external
(23:48):
customers, when we ask betterquestions in context.
Speaker 12 (23:54):
Hi everyone.
I'm Fiona Simpson.
I am a sales enablement leaderas well as the host of the
enablement amplified podcast,and one of the evolutions I've
had in my career is learningwhat sales enablement was.
I started off in the world ofcustomer success, customer
support and one day I got pulledinto sales enablement, kind of
(24:17):
by accident.
I evolved from not just atypical account manager but into
someone who was alwaysdelivering more value to my
customers, talking about otherproducts they might not be using
.
And our sales team started toget their claws into me and say
you really need to come andteach our team on the sales side
(24:38):
what you're doing.
And as those conversationsevolved, another one of my
colleagues had moved across tothe sales team.
He was starting up a team forsales enablement and said hey, I
want you to come join me and Ihad no idea what sales
enablement was.
I wasn't sure if that meant Iwas going to be selling and how
to quota and getting commissionand all those things.
(25:02):
I didn't know if I was going tobe doing technical products
conversations.
I had no idea and so I took theleap and I joined the team and
found out that sales enablementis really my home.
I love, love, love to sink myhands into something, to become
an expert on that thing, andthen turn around and teach it to
(25:24):
other people, and one of thereasons I love that so much and
really where my career has takenoff in the way that I work with
all of my stakeholders is whenI turn around and do that
teaching.
I end up learning even more.
I end up seeing things from newperspectives.
I end up finding where I maybehad gaps in my process or what I
(25:46):
could have included to be amore complete education for
whomever that person is that I'mworking with or that team, and
so the evolution for me has beennot only discovering what sales
enablement is, but that it isreally my, my strong suit of
skills.
And then the very best part Ihave to say, especially because
(26:07):
we're here in San Diego andwe're all together, is that not
only have I found my skill set,but I found my people, and so
being a part of a community thatnot only celebrates each other
and builds off of each other,but comes together to share our
knowledge.
(26:27):
Just like we love to do withour sellers and our teams, we do
the exact same thing with eachother.
So that's been my evolution.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Thanks for joining this episode of Stories from the
Trenches.
For more sales enablementresources, be sure to join the
Sales Enablement Society atsesocietyorg.
That's s-e-s-o-c-i-e-t-y area.
Welcome to the Sales Enablement Society Stories from
the Trenches, where enablementpractitioners share their
real-world experiences.
Get the scoop on what'shappening inside Sales
Enablement teams across theglobal SES member community.
Each segment of Stories fromthe Trenches share the good, the
bad and the ugly practices ofcorporate sales.
Enablement initiatives learnedwhat worked, what didn't work
(00:25):
and how obstacles wereeliminated by corporate teams
and leadership.
Get back, grab a cold one andjoin host Paul Butterfield for
casual conversations about thewide and varied profession of
sales enablement, where there isnever a fits all solution.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Welcome to another episode of Stories from the
Trenches.
Last week, we were all in SanDiego for the Sales Enablement
Society Experience.
The theme this year was theEnablement Evolution.
There were so many greatbreakout sessions.
Thank you to everyone whoprepared and delivered those.
We had amazing keynote speakers, and so thank you to all of you
(01:00):
as well.
The other thing that we got todo was sit down with 10
different practitioners and talkto them about points of
evolution in their career or, insome cases, how they the way
they practice sales enablementsevolved, or how they've seen the
profession itself evolve.
I took a lot away from thesestories and I really enjoyed
hearing them.
I'm confident you will too.
(01:21):
So here they are.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Hi, I'm Cheryl Busheck and I'm currently
Director of Enablement Programsat Juniper Networks.
I love talking about evolutionand specifically career
evolution and growth in all theright ways, because my own
career has been a very long andwinding road.
I'm a huge believer inunderstanding yourself and what
(01:48):
you have passion in and movingtowards what brings you joy and
passion.
My career started with a verytechnical role in IT and I
decided what I loved about thatrole and shifted into a
technical training role.
From there I moved into acouple of different directions.
(02:08):
I landed in product marketingfor a lot of years because
marketing was where all thebudget was and they seemed to
have the most fun.
I really wanted to move into arole where I had a top line
impact for the business.
I spent a lot of years inproduct marketing and before
there was a role called revenueenablement sales enablement I
(02:30):
was doing exactly that as a partof various product marketing
teams.
I felt a real connection tobeing able to work with the
field and I really focused onprograms and campaigns and
assets that helped sales besuccessful for real.
I really cared about that andthat was ultimately how I ended
(02:51):
up in enablement All of mybackground in IT product
marketing.
Technical training gave me alot of the foundational skills
that I needed to succeed inenablement.
Honestly, I've always cared somuch about people and people's
success.
It really drew me in.
Once I landed in a true labelenablement role, I knew this was
(03:16):
where I needed to be.
I've had several different jobsin several different companies.
I have grown my career.
I hit a VP level and I did makeIn evolutionary decision after
my VP role just got chopped forcost reasons.
I made a strategic decisionthat I wanted to work for a
(03:39):
certain type of company and Ididn't need to run everything to
be happy and fulfilled.
So my most recent evolution wasI decided to take a step back
and own one piece of a largerenablement team at a larger
company and I could not behappier that I did that.
So grew my career to the topand from there I had to make a
(04:03):
decision to take a step back soI would find some work-life
balance, I'd find happiness, I'dstill have fulfillment and I'd
still have a lot of challengingthings that I could do for the
company.
That again brought me back intohelping our field teams be
successful.
So my career has been a modelof evolution in various ways and
(04:25):
I think if I left you withanything, it would be try
everything when your young andcareer, try different roles, see
what you enjoy and find whatyou're passionate about and
makes you happy and fulfilled.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Hi, my name is Michelle Dieshberg and I was the
go-to-market enablementdirector at Active Campaign,
some marketing automationplatform.
My evolution into salesenablement started from product
marketing.
I started as a productmarketing associate and really
love the idea of messaging andpositioning and figuring out how
(05:03):
to talk to our customers, and Igot a job at a sales enablement
platform and as a productmarketer.
This was so exciting to mebecause they I was talking to
other product marketers who werebuying the sales enablement
platforms.
It was started more aboutcontent management.
So to me as a product marketer,that was the dream come true.
(05:25):
I tried many times in my past toconsolidate all the content for
the sales teams that I wasworking with, and it was always
hard.
Everyone was saving things ontheir desktops or in their own
Google Drive.
Nothing was centralized, and soto be able to work for a
company that was centralizingthat content and helping product
marketers and sales teams bemore efficient, find more
(05:49):
content, spend less time editingcontent, was so exciting.
That company was also the firstplace where I met someone whose
job was to be in salesenablement, and this blew my
mind.
As a product marketer, I had todo the sales enablement
functions.
I had to train the sales team onthe content that I was creating
(06:10):
and it was always,unfortunately, sort of an
afterthought.
There were lots of otherprograms and things that I had
to do, and so pushing thecontent out to the team was sort
of like pulling teeth.
I would roll out a new pitchdeck and people would roll their
eyes or still use the thingthat was saved on their desktop
because they were comfortablewith it.
(06:30):
And seeing the sales enablementpractitioner at this new job,
being able to be more of atranslator, to really speak to
the sales team and to get moreunderstanding and see their
success, was transformational.
That is where my evolution intosales enablement began and my
(06:54):
next role after that company wasa sales enablement role.
I started as a sales enablementmanager, senior manager and as
an individual contributor andslowly over the last three years
built a team.
We were a team of four towardsthe end of my tenure there and
(07:16):
to see the evolution fromproduct marketer to sales
enablement practitioner has beenreally fun, and I love talking
to other sales enablementpractitioners and really seeing
the growth on the sales team andsee them be more successful.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
Michael Galvin.
I'm currently the global salesenablement manager at IntelSat.
My journey, or evolution, intosales enablement began about 15
years ago.
I had carried a sales bag, aquota as a sales manager and a
sales leader for 10 or 12 yearsand decided that it wasn't quite
as fulfilling for me as I hadexpected.
(07:53):
But I didn't want to put thatexperience to the side.
I met with a career coach andwe looked at some of my
strengths and weaknesses anddetermined that leveraging my
sales experience and helpingother sellers become more
effective and efficient would bea good use of my skill set.
I began the journey from salesperson to sales enablement
(08:17):
professional.
I dabbled a little bit in theearly phases of sales enablement
.
It was more focused on salestraining and development, spent
some time there, evolved backinto some more direct selling
roles as a sales manager for twoand a half or three years, and
then I had an opportunity tobecome a part of a best practice
sales organization, more orless in sales operations, for
(08:42):
three and a half years, afterwhich I had the opportunity to
lead a sales operations group ata small startup.
That really got my foot in thedoor, as far as you know really
developing a role in a group andthen was approached by my
current organization, intelsat,to stand up their sales
(09:04):
enablement department.
So I'm currently a team of oneand looking to grow that.
But we've had some huge successand really leveraging the
networking, the opportunitiesthat are afforded us through
organizations, through LinkedIn,through just connections I've
made through my sales career,through sales operations, sales
(09:24):
training, development.
That networking has been a hugepart of my career development
and evolution and got me toreally where I am today.
Without those connections Idon't think I'd be as successful
as where I am today.
We've been able to develop asales enablement charter, again
leveraging some of thoseconnections and some of that
experience and really evolvedinto implementation, ongoing
(09:48):
strategy, as well as maintainingthe current success that we're
showing, really working ondeveloping ROI communication,
showing the worth of salesenablement that it's just not an
afterthought any longer.
It's really a vital tosucceeding as an organization
and becoming a best in classsales team to be successful in
(10:09):
our industry.
Speaker 6 (10:11):
Hey there everyone.
It's Jill Guardia here, as Paulsaid, and I am the SVP of
Revenue, enablement andOperations at a company named
Thought Industries, and my storyis actually about the role that
I'm in right now.
That role took me out ofretirement.
Some of you know I did a briefstint as a retiree about nine or
(10:33):
10 minutes long and then I tookthis role because it was, and
is, a great role to end mycareer with in terms of
full-time employment.
I came in to build out anenablement team and really
that's one of the things thatI've had some opportunities to
do throughout my entire career,but in this particular one, I
(10:57):
could use all the experiencesfrom all my other jobs and I was
reporting right to thepresident of the company, so it
gave me a lot of insight intohow the company ticks, how the
sales organization is structured, how we put together
territories just everything youcan think of.
So I jumped at this opportunity.
Shortly into it, I was giventhe operations team as well.
(11:20):
So now I am running enablementand operations, which is also
just a crazy opportunity to have, because you get to see how
things tick and as you'relooking at how those things tick
, you start to put together thepieces on the enablement side.
So it's such an interestingsandwich to be part of.
(11:41):
And then finally, in thisparticular role, they gave me
the business development team aswell, so that I have literally
no experience doing other thanserving and supporting that
organization.
And here I am now running it,and for me, the insight and the
story to be told is this is allabout enablement.
(12:02):
Every single day I get to workon enablement, putting together
the tools, process, systems,knowledge and leadership for an
amazing group of people, andsupporting, in particular, the
business development team hasgiven me really the oversight
into seeing how people buildtheir sales career in such a
(12:24):
different and exciting way.
So what's the story here?
The story is don't cut yourselfoff too short in terms of
deciding on your retirement.
Leave yourself open to options,and sometimes you get to
explore things you hadn'tplanned.
I had no thought in my mindthat I was going to be running
(12:44):
business development, and here Iam running enablement
operations and businessdevelopment and getting to see
so much about how a companyticks, how people work together
and putting success together atevery single turn.
So it's super exciting andreach out to me if you have any
questions.
Speaker 8 (13:02):
I'm Laura Meister.
I am the Senior RevenueEnablement Manager at Salesloft,
based in Ann Arbor, michigan,and my enablement evolution the
one that I think is mostinteresting is how I evolved
from an enterprise seller intoan enabler, and it really came
down to some soul searching.
There was a time as a sellerthat I found I was way more
(13:23):
excited and vigorated, inspiredby helping my teammates doing
things like building a quotegenerator.
I was a mentor to a lot of newhires.
Someone spent a lot of timewith people.
I served on our Toastmasterscommittee and I just found that
those moments, those times inhelping people get better, were
so much more exciting than evenclosing the big deals.
(13:45):
And that's where I said tomyself, like, how do I get
better?
Or how do I do this, how do Iturn this into a job so I can
feel this way all the time?
And that really led to mestarting to ask some questions,
meeting some awesome people atthe organization I was at the
time.
I was fortunate thatorganization really highlighted
leverage, which is about how canyou 10X yourself across the
(14:06):
company.
So it was enablement was builtinto it, but I really identified
with that and it made me yeah,just made me happy and brought a
lot more career satisfaction attimes than closing a big deal.
Speaker 9 (14:18):
Hey everyone, amy Levine here.
I wanted to share a story aboutearly in my career, how I made
some significant changes, butalso very authentic to myself,
and how it helped my career getto the point where it is today,
where I've led and designed itto where I wanted it to be.
(14:39):
When I got out of college, Ithought that I was going to
become an interior designer.
I went to school for businessand art and I ended up in a
Fortune 50 company on a globalproductivity team of about 200
folks.
What I learned that I neededwas to not have my butt in my
(15:00):
seat and just do the work behindthe desk.
What I learned is that I neededto meet people face to face.
However, they were my customer,and so we had multiple
buildings on one long street inHopkington, massachusetts, and I
would leave regularly to meetpeople as much as I could in
person.
And I realized also that I wasmore productive if I took a
(15:23):
break and got some sunlight or along lunch and left around
three and then turned mycomputer on after dinner.
The productivity that I figuredout intentionally and with my
intuition really helped me bethe best and make the most out
of my days and I ended upironically winning an award on.
(15:47):
It was a changemaker award atthis company on how we redefined
productivity in the globalproductivity team and I think
the best thing that I was ableto do is just follow how
important it was to me to focuson what I needed to focus on
with work, meet people in personand be able to have some
(16:09):
flexibility in my schedule basedon the measurements and the
output I was giving.
That led to this companyincubating a startup.
They asked me to run enablementat their company and over time
we really built this culture ofproductivity from a way that was
most impactful for each of thepeople.
So I think the biggest learningthat I found working at this
global productivity organization, at a Fortune 50 company, is
(16:33):
that they didn't have it yet,they hadn't figured it out and
it was like a 20, 30 year oldorganization multi-billion
dollars and so really, if you'rethinking that you can do
something better, more effective, more efficient, just start
doing it and if it showsmeasurement, explain why and how
later.
Speaker 10 (16:53):
Hi, my name is Chuck Markleier.
I've been the VP of RevenueEnablement at a Frigida company
called Freight Waves and now I'mstarting a new adventure as the
founder of a sales consultingpartial revenue enablement
consulting company called SASEnable, and I guess my
evolutionary process that Iwould like to share is really
the story of taking a chance onsomething different.
(17:14):
When someone comes and asks youfor something to try something.
You probably know a lot morefrom your experiences than you
even give yourself credit for,and the story that I like to
share around that is about twoplus years ago, a former CRO of
mine, forest, reached out to meand said hey, would you like to
make some beer money?
And I said well, what do youmean beer money?
(17:36):
He says, well, I've got acompany that I think that I'm
advising that from one of theventure partners that I'm doing
that could use your help andenablement, and I go what do you
mean?
He goes you'll know it when yousee it.
So have a conversation with himand my first reaction was well,
I don't know if I could doconsulting I'm better in the
field and doing this kind ofstuff but strategic advising I
haven't done much of that and Igot on the call with Spencer,
(18:00):
the CFO of the company, andstarted to have a conversation
with them and I recognized rightoff the bat is I knew a lot of
stuff that really could helpthese people and just through
the conversation I was able toquickly diagnose some of the
problems that the leadership washaving, some of the
organizational problems thatthey were challenged with, and I
was comfortable rolling up mysleeves and helping them put
(18:21):
process in place and putcoaching for their leaders in
place and strategy andverticalization and all the
things that I had taken forgranted, that I had developed
over my years in salesenablement.
I have a 30 year career in sales, sales leadership and sales
enablement that I was able todeploy and put right into place
and it was able to.
For me, the evolutionary processwas recognizing that I do have
(18:43):
the skills and that I do haveprocesses in place that people
really can value to move fromthat transactional, tactical
kind of enablement really to thestrategic enablement and
companies these days really wantthat combination of someone who
can see the processes andadvise them and yet at the same
time get down in the trenchesand actually do it.
Sit side by side by the leaderssit with the reps in the
(19:04):
trenches and make these thingshappen, and so the advice I'd
give someone who's looking intheir career is take notes of
what you're doing but recognizethat the experiences that you
have actually do translate andhave value as you go from one
company to the other.
So my evolutionary process hasbeen to be able to go from the
head of sales enablement in thefield in companies to now taking
(19:28):
those skills, wrapping themtogether and putting it in a way
that I'm comfortable going toother companies advising them in
a fractional sales enablementway.
Speaker 11 (19:36):
I'm Sandy Robinson, senior Vice President of Revenue
Operations at POTRA.
I've been in the salesmarketing revenue operations
world in sales leadershippositions for I don't know 20
some odd years.
I won't get into the details ofexactly how long, but I really
got my start, interestinglyenough, teaching martial arts.
(19:57):
I was really into karate andblame it on the movie the Karate
Kid, but it was something thatI always wanted to do and I
ended up getting my black beltand chempo and teaching and
learning and as you go throughthe ranks you learn how to teach
, and I ended up working thereand managing a school and
learning all of the skills thatare really sales skills that
(20:22):
people learn as they go into thesales world.
And so I just had that kind offoundation of training, teaching
people, and it really reallywas like an evolution to where I
am today, starting with theKarate Kid From there, running
around in PJs.
It's lots of fun, but I reallywanted to make some money and so
(20:43):
I traded in my bare feet for apair of heels, got a job and
inside sales and it was.
It was okay, but I kind of feltlike I was chained to a desk
and my boss was like you know,you really, I think, would be a
better fit for outside sales.
So I started an outside salesworld, made my way up into the
(21:03):
manager ranks and at the timeactually, I was a sales manager
for Dish Network and when wetraveled the policies several I
won't say how many years agowere like two to a room, but I
was the only female on the teamso they had to change the
company policy for me.
So it was just a little kind offunny thing there about some of
(21:27):
these early roles that I had.
But I really enjoyed theflexibility of being out in the
field.
When I was at Dish Network I wasalways training our agents on
how to sell Dish Network.
So in some format, in everysales role that I had, there was
some level of having to teach,having to enable myself create
(21:49):
materials and apply them.
So that really led to salesleadership roles.
And you know, as technologyevolved and things evolved into
sales operations, I had a greatmentor named Sharon
Schoffner-Meier who said youknow, hey, you're really great
at this sales leadership thing,you should think about the sales
(22:13):
ops thing.
And from then I don't know itwas like 2012, went into the
sales ops world doing comp plans, territories, training.
We rolled out the Challengersales method and sales
operations eventually kind ofevolved into really what I was
(22:34):
doing.
We called it sales operations,but it was really supporting the
full buying journey, which iswhat we think of revenue
operations today.
Speaker 7 (22:41):
I am Mike Simmons, the founder of Catalyst Acts,
and I help people in businessesfind clarity in the chaos so
that they can simplify executionand achieve the results they
want.
Enablement is a powerful termfor me and, from a journey
(23:03):
perspective, the mistake I madeearly on in my career is I
thought that enabling others wastelling people what to do,
showing people how to do it andbeing very prescriptive in the
approach.
And what I've realized over thelast number of years is the
importance of asking questionsas a way to guide and coach
people and have them understandwhat they want to do, how they
(23:25):
want to do it and where theywant to go.
So, from an evolutionperspective, it was important to
evolve from telling people whatto do and showing people what
to do to guiding people in adirection with the questions
that I ask.
And we, as enablementprofessionals, will get better
at serving our customers, bothour internal and our external
(23:48):
customers, when we ask betterquestions in context.
Speaker 12 (23:54):
Hi everyone.
I'm Fiona Simpson.
I am a sales enablement leaderas well as the host of the
enablement amplified podcast,and one of the evolutions I've
had in my career is learningwhat sales enablement was.
I started off in the world ofcustomer success, customer
support and one day I got pulledinto sales enablement, kind of
(24:17):
by accident.
I evolved from not just atypical account manager but into
someone who was alwaysdelivering more value to my
customers, talking about otherproducts they might not be using
.
And our sales team started toget their claws into me and say
you really need to come andteach our team on the sales side
(24:38):
what you're doing.
And as those conversationsevolved, another one of my
colleagues had moved across tothe sales team.
He was starting up a team forsales enablement and said hey, I
want you to come join me and Ihad no idea what sales
enablement was.
I wasn't sure if that meant Iwas going to be selling and how
to quota and getting commissionand all those things.
(25:02):
I didn't know if I was going tobe doing technical products
conversations.
I had no idea and so I took theleap and I joined the team and
found out that sales enablementis really my home.
I love, love, love to sink myhands into something, to become
an expert on that thing, andthen turn around and teach it to
(25:24):
other people, and one of thereasons I love that so much and
really where my career has takenoff in the way that I work with
all of my stakeholders is whenI turn around and do that
teaching.
I end up learning even more.
I end up seeing things from newperspectives.
I end up finding where I maybehad gaps in my process or what I
(25:46):
could have included to be amore complete education for
whomever that person is that I'mworking with or that team, and
so the evolution for me has beennot only discovering what sales
enablement is, but that it isreally my, my strong suit of
skills.
And then the very best part Ihave to say, especially because
(26:07):
we're here in San Diego andwe're all together, is that not
only have I found my skill set,but I found my people, and so
being a part of a community thatnot only celebrates each other
and builds off of each other,but comes together to share our
knowledge.
(26:27):
Just like we love to do withour sellers and our teams, we do
the exact same thing with eachother.
So that's been my evolution.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Thanks for joining this episode of Stories from the
Trenches.
For more sales enablementresources, be sure to join the
Sales Enablement Society atsesocietyorg.
That's s-e-s-o-c-i-e-t-y area.
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