January 23, 2024 • 27 mins
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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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Revenue Enablement Society
Stories from the Trenches, whereenablement practitioners share
their real-world experiences.
Get the scoop on what'shappening inside revenue
enablement teams across theglobal RES community.
Each segment of stories fromthe trenches shares the good,
the bad and the ugly practicesof corporate revenue enablement
(00:23):
initiatives.
Learn what worked, what didn'twork and how obstacles were
eliminated by enablement teamsand go-to-market leadership.
Sit back, grab a cold one andjoin host Paul Butterfield,
founder of Revenue FlywheelGroup, for casual conversations
about the wide and variedprofession of revenue enablement
, where there's never aone-size-fits-all solution.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Revenue
Enablement Society Podcast,stories from the Trenches, the
podcast where we bring togetherpractitioners from all over the
world.
We talk about what they'reworking on, the innovative ways
they're doing things, and wealso talk about things that
aren't going so well, becausethere's a lot to be learned from
that also.
Today we have a special guest.
(01:10):
A couple of reasons.
Number one she's a repeat guest.
She's the only person that'sbeen on the podcast three times.
I guess you're a three-peatguest, a three-peat guest,
please welcome Gail Bann.
Gail, welcome to Stories fromthe Trenches again.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Thanks, this is so much fun.
Let's do it every week.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Every week.
All right, we've had Gail onpreviously, but in different
capacities.
She's joining us for thisepisode as the new president of
the executive board of theRevenue Enablement Society.
Congratulations on that, gail.
Before we get into some of that, you got to take the Jimmy
Kimmel challenge, because nobodygets to skip it.
(01:52):
You ready?
Yep, I'm ready.
All right, jimmy Kimmelannounces his retirement through
some unknown connection.
You are offered his show.
You can have anybody as a gueston your first episode.
Who will you invite and why?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
This is such a tough question.
I think my original go-to and Ithink I actually said the first
time I was on the podcast wasBarack Obama, so would love to
meet him.
But I've also just always beena really big fan of movies and
the entertainment world ingeneral, and so I would probably
have to look in the cinemaworld and bring in a director or
(02:30):
a storyteller that would moveme, and I think partially
because we are so moved in oursociety by the world as it's
depicted in film and televisionand I think those storytellers
are powerful, so I wouldprobably have a whole lot of
filmmakers on and enjoy workingwith them and learning from them
(02:51):
as well.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
That would be an interesting show, especially if
you had, like you said, a coupleon at the same time, so you
could also get some exchangegoing between them.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
So all right, yeah exactly Exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Well, let's get into it.
As I said a few minutes ago,you are getting your feet
planted as the new president ofRES and you've been in the
enablement game for a littlewhile.
So just your collectiveperspective what are the biggest
challenges facing theenablement profession right now?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Such a great question .
I have been in for a littlewhile.
I came from a background oftrade shows, events and
conferences and I got involvedwith the society honestly just
to volunteer on the conferencebecause I kind of missed working
on conferences.
So I really never anticipatedthat I would be invited to the
board at large and then have theopportunity to take over as
(03:42):
president.
And I think it's a reallycritical time because the
challenges facing enablementright now are big existential
challenges.
We saw historic layoffs lastyear.
I don't think anybody in theprofession didn't know someone
directly that had been laid off.
We had whole teams, you knownine, 10, 15 person teams that
(04:03):
were all laid off at the sametime and a lot of that was due
to the lack of buy-in from theC-suite on what that revenue
enablement can do for anorganization.
Part of that, I think, is thatrevenue enablement professionals
aren't always great at speakingCRO, at being able to land the
landing around outcomes ratherthan talking about program goals
(04:27):
or number of people who havebeen certified in a program.
Ultimately, our value is movingthe bottom line needle in
outcomes, and so my big focus ison this challenge of empowering
our members to showcase morevalue internally, to have these
really tough, powerfulconversations with their
executives around the power ofenablement and to show ROI not
(04:51):
just on a programmatic level buttruly as a revenue professional
on the bottom line revenue forthe entire org.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, I don't think I could agree any more strongly
that the critical nature of thatand I mean the good news is
there's a lot of people talkingabout it and have been for a
while now, and in the time thatI've been in enablement that's a
relatively recent thing.
The challenge that I've seenand would love to get your
(05:18):
reaction to is you have a lot ofpeople talking about it, but
not a lot of people have had thechance or there hasn't been
enough time.
That's passed.
They've had the chance toreally do it for any length of
time and so there's stillchallenges in navigating and
figuring that out.
Agree, disagree.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think if we looked at amaturity model for enablement
because we use maturity modelsevery day in our work there is
such a wide span of maturity,from programs that are very
immature, that are very taskdriven, to programs that are
incredibly mature and show thevalue in those outcomes.
(05:59):
And RAS is a peer to peercommunity.
That's what we're built on.
We're built on taking peoplewho are on one end of that
maturity spectrum and takingpeople who are on the other and
helping them connect and buildthat bridge to their skills
together.
We are not here to be theteachers, we're here to be the
bridge between that communityand that's why I've said it's
(06:22):
never been more important.
When we had our conference lastyear and it was a tough year for
a conference, if you canimagine we still had a great
attendance and amazingconversations about this.
These were topics that weretalked about in sessions, in
hallways, over breakfast.
We know our chapters aretalking about it.
We know that, as we partnerwith the enablement squad, these
(06:44):
are discussions in hackathons.
These are the conversations wewant to be able to continue to
bridge.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
So you said an interesting phrase learn to
speak CRO and there's got to bea few listeners, if not more,
that are wondering what does shemean?
How do you speak CRO?
So I'm not no time here toteach someone how to do that,
but maybe just go a littledeeper on that and help people
(07:10):
understand what that is.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Yeah, thank you.
I think we've talked a lot inenablement over the last couple
of years about metrics, metrics,metrics.
I always quote this ill-fatedarticle that's called the 36
metrics you should be measuringright now, and I hate it.
I truly hate it.
I think we as a profession gotinto the weeds on metrics for
(07:34):
the sake of metrics and how muchinformation we can share and
show without reallyunderstanding how those metrics
moved the bottom line number.
So I look at the four keydrivers for revenue as the
drivers that I want to make surethat we're mapping to.
So I look at the sales velocityequation.
I say number of opportunities.
Now revenue enablement.
(07:55):
We're not top of funnel.
We can't change what comes inthe top of funnel, but we can
change how those leads arequalified or disqualified, how
they're engaged, how we canteach our outbound sellers
social selling.
Those are all tools in ourtoolbox to affect the number of
opportunities.
I look at deal value right, andthis is where we are teaching
multithreading, where we'reteaching bundling, where we're
(08:17):
teaching lack of discounting,how to produce the amount of
discounting right.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
That is what I'm saying.
One of my favorites to measure,yeah.
So let's baseline our averagediscount percentage and then
watch it go down.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Yeah, yeah.
I look at overall win rate andfor me overall win rate is
overall sales skills.
Do our sellers have the rightskills?
Do we have the right frameworks?
Do we have the rightmethodology and the sales stages
that they can move thingsthrough effectively to get to
win rate?
And then the length of salescycle.
A lot of that is about teachingurgency and teaching efficiency
(08:51):
.
Are our systems efficient forour sellers?
All of that adds up to salesvelocity.
So when I talk to a CRO about aprogram, I say this program
will affect our deal valuebecause we are doing X, y and Z.
I'm not going to tell them thatwe're certifying on this part
of the product suite.
I'm not going to tell them that80% of our attendees finish the
(09:15):
program.
He doesn't care.
They only care that CRO onlycares that we can say hey,
here's how we've increased dealvalue To your point, here's how
we've reduced discounting.
So that's speaking CRO.
It's nailing only the numbersand getting rid of the fluff.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Couldn't agree more.
I don't know who first came upwith that phrase smiley sheets,
butts in seats and smiley sheets, because I've heard it a few
different places.
But yeah, they don't care,that's not what they're
interested in.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yeah, and really we discredit ourselves by using
vanity metrics.
When we report up that we had80% completion on a
certification, that doesn't movethe needle and it actually
disqualifies the value of whatwe're doing.
Because it's a vanity metric,they don't care.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
As a former sales leader myself, the other part of
it that I would have thought ofis it didn't move the needle
and there was an opportunitycost because my sellers were not
selling while you had themdoing this thing.
That didn't move the needle.
So it's yeah, and so, like yousay, it does erode at
(10:28):
credibility over time.
Let's talk about the conferencefor a few minutes.
As you said, it was a roughyear.
It was an interesting year forthe conference.
Maybe right now is a great timeto do another shout out to our
sponsors, because that difficultyear you just described for the
(10:50):
folks in enablement impactedour sponsors in the same way,
with enablement leaders gettinglaid off guess what they're not
buying, fill in the blank andyet they still showed up in
numbers and supported us.
So thank you.
Thank you for that everyone,but otherwise, with the
conference, in fact, there wasan individual there.
You probably met them too.
(11:11):
I won't share names because Idon't have permission, but they
were the leader and their wholeteam were let go even as we were
there in San Diego.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Yeah, yeah, it was, it was, it was rough.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
It was a tough year.
We had.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
We had made a commitment to the community that
we would support the community.
We provided discountedattendance for a lot of people.
We were able to get folks whoneeded the connection point,
needed the community, at asignificantly lower dollar value
and we want to continue to dothat this.
You know we're still riding outthe storm.
It is getting better.
(11:47):
I will say a second to thank youto the sponsors and I think our
sponsors got a lot out of it,even though it wasn't direct
buying power.
They were hearing from ourmembers, they were hearing the
difficulty that we were havingand they were giving us
suggestions on how do I get moveforward this initiative to get
(12:07):
a piece of tech stack, to gettraining when it's harder to get
budget.
I think our partners haveabsolutely risen to the ROI
challenge.
They have given us greatreasons to continue to build
forward.
I know personally, working witha couple of the partners from
the conference, how they've beenable to help me move the needle
and get adoption on programswhere the budget was limited.
(12:29):
But the ROI is huge and sowe've never been handed budget
like it's free money.
We've had to fight for everydollar always.
Now we have to fight a littleharder, but those partners are
helping us be really goodwarriors and I think for the
attendees of the conference,just being together, being in a
room of people who are fightingthe same fight, who are fighting
(12:52):
the same challenges, hearingfrom people whose programs have
not been cut or his programs aregrowing, and understanding what
they are doing to make thatpossible, was also really
powerful.
I mean, it was a rough year butit was also a great year for a
lot of people.
We got back in person afterCOVID.
We had more in-person scows, wehad more in-person trainings,
(13:14):
we had more in-person onboarding.
So it was moving us in theright direction and it was
important foundationally.
And I know that by the time weroll the conference around later
this year and I'll give you alittle preview it's going to be
real close to Halloween, sobring your Halloween costumes by
the time we roll it out thisyear.
(13:35):
I'm very confident we're goingto have a very different energy.
We're going to be back in arebuilding phase but, more
importantly, we're building moreas strategy leaders, as really
respected members of the teamsrather than just doers, as we
say in the profession.
We don't want to be the fixerof broken things, and I'm
(13:57):
hearing from more and moreleaders in enablement that
they're having more of a voice,more of a seat at the table,
more opportunity to move theneedle strategically and
ultimately, that's the bestthing for our profession.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Would you say that was the biggest takeaway from
the conference for you, or wasit something else?
Speaker 3 (14:14):
I think the key learning for me from the
conference was people reallywanted to workshop and get their
hands dirty Right, and so we'regoing to move to doing even
more hands-on demos, hands-onworkshops.
At the conference, we have theopportunity to attend virtual
webinars and read white papersall day long.
We don't have an opportunity tobe in a room with each other
(14:38):
and really workshop stuff.
And the sessions that wherepeople took out a piece of paper
and a pen and wrote things downand scribbled on sticky notes
and were doing a hackathon thosewere the most powerful sessions
at the conference.
So we want to double down onthat, because we know you can
get content anywhere.
You can read blogs all day long, but it's nowhere more powerful
(14:59):
than when you take that andbring it to life together.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
And apply it.
You just heard something, youhad thought about it that way
before and then you get to, youknow, apply it with another,
with a group rather of folks,and at least speaking for me, my
style of learning, that reallymakes a difference if I can go
and actually do something withit instead of just hearing about
it.
That's exciting to hear.
(15:24):
It be be interesting to see thenature of some of these.
You know new interactive waysof For conference attendees to
spend time together.
As you, as conference chair,you had a front row seat to the
Topics and the themes that werewere presented in the
conferences.
Did you see any, any sort ofthemes, I know?
(15:46):
I mean I know that we don'tduplicate topics per se, but
just in general, as you'reworking the speakers, any, any
themes or anything.
Interesting observations I willlaugh.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
So Two years ago we had probably 12 to 15
submissions around metrics andmeasurement.
Last year we had two and we hadover 10 submissions on building
your career, polishing yourresume, interview skills, how to
be, how to get the land, thejob.
(16:18):
So big shift, obviously Again.
I anticipate this year willcome back towards the center a
little bit more.
Measurement is always a topicthat we're talking about, but I
think people, especially thislast year and I think will as
well this year, are reallylooking more about their own
contributions to their career,not just to their job.
(16:39):
And you know if, if the masslayoffs were a wake-up call,
it's a good wake-up call.
It's a reminder that we have todo the best work of our lives
for ourselves.
It's never gonna be for acompany, it's never gonna be
even for me.
It's not just doing it for our.
Yes, I get so much value out ofthis my own personal value, and
(17:00):
I think it's it's allowed us torefocus and remind about that
and I Anticipate seeing morecontent around that as we move
forward.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
So let's talk about our yes in 2024.
With so much going on in theenablement space, with All the
priorities that the job alreadythrows at you, why is it
relevant to make the effort tobe involved with our res in 2024
?
What's what's what's in it forfor our members from your
(17:31):
perspective?
Speaker 3 (17:32):
What's in it for our members and what we you will see
us kind of blow out of thewater this year is the
peer-to-peer component.
While the conference has beenthat natural touch point, we've
worked really hard over the lastyear to massively rebuild our
chapter strategy to give you alocal network to go and hang out
with and have a drink and dosome local activities with that
(17:56):
chapter strategies reallyimportant.
You need to be able to seepeople on the regular that are
doing your job in your area,that are fighting the same
fights, and so we've got somegreat chapters around the
country that are doing amazingwork and we have a board member
that's committed to just Workingon building out those chapters
and getting them stood up in thestrongest way.
You're gonna see us bringingwebinars out on a much more
(18:18):
frequent basis, like once amonth, and once a month in
America and once a month in aMia.
Why?
Because it may, as a reallygreat growing market and needs a
lot of Support and directive,and in America we want more
touch points.
I want more opportunities tohear from this community.
I want to do fireside chatswhere we bring in people and
hear what they're fighting.
I want to do webinar workshopswhere we, you know, send a
(18:42):
survey ahead of time, and workshop workshop through things
Once a year at the conference.
It's not enough, you know, andnot everyone has the the time or
the budget to come to theconference, so we need to bring
that content out to our man andout to our community.
You're gonna see us supportingand co-opping, co-working excuse
me with the enablement squad onthe hackathons.
(19:02):
We're evolving those for nextyear.
So more cities, more content,more takeaways from the
hackathons.
And the other thing is, in fact,my point of speaking CRO, the
enablement society, ispartnering with an organization
called in blaze, starting thisyear.
You'll see a press releasecoming out shortly about it and
(19:22):
in blaze is a leadingassociation for sales leaders.
We need to bring ourcommunities closer together and
in blaze offers us theopportunity to collaborate with
them on what are our salesleaders seeing and looking for
from us and what can we do tomake sure that we're bridging
that gap.
So those are huge moves thatwe're making this year.
(19:43):
We've got additional touchpoints going out with our
enablement events that'll go outthis year and then, above all,
it'll come together at theexperience.
So it's a collaborative project.
It's a lot of work.
It's bringing togetherdifferent communities and
different people, but every timeI talk to members, every time I
talk in our community, there isso much excitement, there's so
(20:05):
much need.
People are calling up saying,okay, what's the next thing?
I got to talk to my peers, Igot to get contacts, I got to
get content and we're looking tofill that with the chapters.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
I've always felt like the chapters are the heartbeat
of RES and I mean, that's how Ioriginally even know.
I take that back.
Jill came back from Palm Beachand told me about this, but I
joined and it didn't really meana whole lot until a Salt Lake
(20:39):
City chapter fired up.
Then all of a sudden it becamereal and it's like oh, this is
right.
And so here we are severalyears later.
So yeah, I can't rememberoffhand the name of the
individual who actually took theinitiative to launch our
chapter here locally, but alwaysbeen grateful for that.
That's talking about thechapter, probably a good segue
(21:01):
into how do people get involved.
It might be worth mentioningreminding everybody that we are
nonprofit.
Everybody, with one exception,is a volunteer, and so we need
people to get involved, but alsothere are some great reasons
for them to get involved.
You want to talk about that fora few minutes.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Yeah, we love that.
We are 100% member driven andevery time I go out in the
community and I say, hey, can Ifind a volunteer who might be
able to help us?
I get tons of hands up.
So I love that.
To get involved with yourchapters, you can come into the
RES website and you'll find yourchapter information.
You can email us at any timeand if you find out there isn't
(21:43):
an active chapter in your area,let's talk about launching one.
As I said, we've got a boardmember that's committed to doing
this, to creating chapterleader packets of information
and content that our chapterleaders can use on a regular
basis.
We know it's hard to spin up achapter we all have day jobs but
it's incredibly rewarding.
(22:03):
So we want to be part ofbuilding those chapters out.
We'd love for people not only tocome to the conference but
apply to speak Again.
100% of the speakers at theconference are in this community
.
They are practitioners.
They're doing this all day long.
So please take a chance andapply to speak at the conference
.
We had 91 applications lastyear.
(22:25):
I'd love to see double that andwe commit that at least 10%,
and usually closer to 15%, ofour speakers are first-time
speakers.
They've never spoken with usbefore.
We want to hear emerging voices.
We want to hear new ideas andthe conference is a great place
to bring those forward.
As I said, we're going to bedoing webinars.
If you have an idea for awebinar that you'd like to do,
(22:48):
reach out.
We'd love to hear it and bethat voice.
And the last thing isparticipate in our social media
campaigns on LinkedIn.
Linkedin is our only vehiclefor communication.
It's where we talk to thecommunity.
You'll start to see moreregular social media posts from
LinkedIn.
Participate in thosediscussions.
It's an easy way to get contactwith the community and then
(23:10):
from those discussion points,very often I will comment on
something on LinkedIn andsomeone else will comment and
I'll reach out to that personand say, hey, I really like your
ideas.
If you have a minute, let's geton a call.
I made a joke a few months agoon LinkedIn that I talked to two
strangers a month.
It's actually not a joke.
I probably talked to more thanthat.
I share my calendar like peopleused to share business cards,
(23:34):
but those short interactionswith literally total strangers
are the most powerful way ofbuilding my personal network, of
finding people to be involvedin RES.
I'm a big fan of the ABC.
They always be connecting JillRowley quote that I say all the
time and I'm always looking toconnect you to somebody that's
going to further your careergoals or have a good
(23:54):
conversation with you.
I had somebody reach out to meyesterday and say, hey, you like
working on Skow, right?
And I said, yes, skow's my jam.
And we brainstormed for half anhour on some sessions that she
was looking to do and it wasgreat.
I'm so excited for her and forher conference.
And if I wasn't available, Ihave 10 people I could send her
to to say, hey, I don't havebandwidth right now.
(24:15):
Reach out to and blank.
And so that's how thiscommunity continues to grow.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
I love that you've invited people to share feedback
with you directly.
Is LinkedIn your preferred wayfor people to connect with you,
or OK?
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Yeah, tag me on LinkedIn anytime.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
And I know from experience, you're easy to find.
You're very active there.
So yes.
All right.
Well, before we let you go, Iwant to give you a chance to
drop.
It might be enabling, related,we'll find out in 30 seconds,
but drop some life knowledge onus so long time.
Listeners of the podcast knowwhat's coming next.
You've been given this gift oftime travel, but you're only
(24:57):
allowed to go back and talk tosome younger version of Gail and
you're only allowed to teach orcoach yourself in one area.
What is that the biggest thingyou wish you'd understood or
knew earlier in life?
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Ah, that's such a great question.
I think when I was on the podthe first time I said I would
tell myself to slow down becauseI'm always in a hurry and I'm
still always in a hurry.
But I think I would go back andremind myself, especially in
college, just to have faith inmyself.
It really took me until I wasin my 30s, when I got my first
(25:35):
job selling, that I gained a lotof self confidence that I'll
figure it out.
There's nothing this world hassaid, has sent at me in the 52
years I've been here that Ihaven't been able to figure out.
And it was a good reminder ofthe community last year when
there were so many layoffs thatyou know what you got to have
faith in yourself, yourabilities to rise, your
(25:56):
community and just take a deepbreath.
There's a lot of drama outthere, and most of it is what I
call, say, almost fire.
It's short term drama, it's abig burst and then it fades away
, and so just have a little morefaith that things are happening
the way they're supposed to andyou'll come through the other
side.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
That's great advice, thank you.
Thank you for sharing that.
Thank you for again I knowthere's a thousand things RES
related and started a new job.
What?
Six months ago, maybe, not eventhat, quite yet three months
ago, right, yeah, so you got afew things going on right now.
So thank you for taking thetime and bringing your energy
(26:39):
and your thoughts.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
I will be excited to get this out for our listeners
and for them to enjoy it,appreciate that, and I look
forward to meeting with more ofthem and seeing them in local
events and at national eventsand bring your voice in.
Res is incredibly open to ideasand we have plenty here from
you.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
And I also want to thank all of you who have
invested half hour with us.
Again, we do this for you.
We wouldn't be here doing itwithout you, so we appreciate
that.
If you are listening for thefirst time, you can subscribe to
us on Apple, Google or Spotify.
We encourage you to do that andwatch for episodes the other
(27:19):
barring holidays the first andthird Tuesdays of every month.
So stay safe out there.
We'll see you in another twoweeks.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Thanks for joining this episode of Stories from the
Trenches.
For more revenue enablementresources, be sure to join the
Revenue Enablement Society atresocietyglobal.
That's resocietyglobal.
Welcome to the Revenue Enablement Society
Stories from the Trenches, whereenablement practitioners share
their real-world experiences.
Get the scoop on what'shappening inside revenue
enablement teams across theglobal RES community.
Each segment of stories fromthe trenches shares the good,
the bad and the ugly practicesof corporate revenue enablement
(00:23):
initiatives.
Learn what worked, what didn'twork and how obstacles were
eliminated by enablement teamsand go-to-market leadership.
Sit back, grab a cold one andjoin host Paul Butterfield,
founder of Revenue FlywheelGroup, for casual conversations
about the wide and variedprofession of revenue enablement
, where there's never aone-size-fits-all solution.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Revenue
Enablement Society Podcast,stories from the Trenches, the
podcast where we bring togetherpractitioners from all over the
world.
We talk about what they'reworking on, the innovative ways
they're doing things, and wealso talk about things that
aren't going so well, becausethere's a lot to be learned from
that also.
Today we have a special guest.
(01:10):
A couple of reasons.
Number one she's a repeat guest.
She's the only person that'sbeen on the podcast three times.
I guess you're a three-peatguest, a three-peat guest,
please welcome Gail Bann.
Gail, welcome to Stories fromthe Trenches again.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Thanks, this is so much fun.
Let's do it every week.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Every week.
All right, we've had Gail onpreviously, but in different
capacities.
She's joining us for thisepisode as the new president of
the executive board of theRevenue Enablement Society.
Congratulations on that, gail.
Before we get into some of that, you got to take the Jimmy
Kimmel challenge, because nobodygets to skip it.
(01:52):
You ready?
Yep, I'm ready.
All right, jimmy Kimmelannounces his retirement through
some unknown connection.
You are offered his show.
You can have anybody as a gueston your first episode.
Who will you invite and why?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
This is such a tough question.
I think my original go-to and Ithink I actually said the first
time I was on the podcast wasBarack Obama, so would love to
meet him.
But I've also just always beena really big fan of movies and
the entertainment world ingeneral, and so I would probably
have to look in the cinemaworld and bring in a director or
(02:30):
a storyteller that would moveme, and I think partially
because we are so moved in oursociety by the world as it's
depicted in film and televisionand I think those storytellers
are powerful, so I wouldprobably have a whole lot of
filmmakers on and enjoy workingwith them and learning from them
(02:51):
as well.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
That would be an interesting show, especially if
you had, like you said, a coupleon at the same time, so you
could also get some exchangegoing between them.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
So all right, yeah exactly Exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Well, let's get into it.
As I said a few minutes ago,you are getting your feet
planted as the new president ofRES and you've been in the
enablement game for a littlewhile.
So just your collectiveperspective what are the biggest
challenges facing theenablement profession right now?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Such a great question .
I have been in for a littlewhile.
I came from a background oftrade shows, events and
conferences and I got involvedwith the society honestly just
to volunteer on the conferencebecause I kind of missed working
on conferences.
So I really never anticipatedthat I would be invited to the
board at large and then have theopportunity to take over as
(03:42):
president.
And I think it's a reallycritical time because the
challenges facing enablementright now are big existential
challenges.
We saw historic layoffs lastyear.
I don't think anybody in theprofession didn't know someone
directly that had been laid off.
We had whole teams, you knownine, 10, 15 person teams that
(04:03):
were all laid off at the sametime and a lot of that was due
to the lack of buy-in from theC-suite on what that revenue
enablement can do for anorganization.
Part of that, I think, is thatrevenue enablement professionals
aren't always great at speakingCRO, at being able to land the
landing around outcomes ratherthan talking about program goals
(04:27):
or number of people who havebeen certified in a program.
Ultimately, our value is movingthe bottom line needle in
outcomes, and so my big focus ison this challenge of empowering
our members to showcase morevalue internally, to have these
really tough, powerfulconversations with their
executives around the power ofenablement and to show ROI not
(04:51):
just on a programmatic level buttruly as a revenue professional
on the bottom line revenue forthe entire org.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, I don't think I could agree any more strongly
that the critical nature of thatand I mean the good news is
there's a lot of people talkingabout it and have been for a
while now, and in the time thatI've been in enablement that's a
relatively recent thing.
The challenge that I've seenand would love to get your
(05:18):
reaction to is you have a lot ofpeople talking about it, but
not a lot of people have had thechance or there hasn't been
enough time.
That's passed.
They've had the chance toreally do it for any length of
time and so there's stillchallenges in navigating and
figuring that out.
Agree, disagree.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think if we looked at amaturity model for enablement
because we use maturity modelsevery day in our work there is
such a wide span of maturity,from programs that are very
immature, that are very taskdriven, to programs that are
incredibly mature and show thevalue in those outcomes.
(05:59):
And RAS is a peer to peercommunity.
That's what we're built on.
We're built on taking peoplewho are on one end of that
maturity spectrum and takingpeople who are on the other and
helping them connect and buildthat bridge to their skills
together.
We are not here to be theteachers, we're here to be the
bridge between that communityand that's why I've said it's
(06:22):
never been more important.
When we had our conference lastyear and it was a tough year for
a conference, if you canimagine we still had a great
attendance and amazingconversations about this.
These were topics that weretalked about in sessions, in
hallways, over breakfast.
We know our chapters aretalking about it.
We know that, as we partnerwith the enablement squad, these
(06:44):
are discussions in hackathons.
These are the conversations wewant to be able to continue to
bridge.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
So you said an interesting phrase learn to
speak CRO and there's got to bea few listeners, if not more,
that are wondering what does shemean?
How do you speak CRO?
So I'm not no time here toteach someone how to do that,
but maybe just go a littledeeper on that and help people
(07:10):
understand what that is.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Yeah, thank you.
I think we've talked a lot inenablement over the last couple
of years about metrics, metrics,metrics.
I always quote this ill-fatedarticle that's called the 36
metrics you should be measuringright now, and I hate it.
I truly hate it.
I think we as a profession gotinto the weeds on metrics for
(07:34):
the sake of metrics and how muchinformation we can share and
show without reallyunderstanding how those metrics
moved the bottom line number.
So I look at the four keydrivers for revenue as the
drivers that I want to make surethat we're mapping to.
So I look at the sales velocityequation.
I say number of opportunities.
Now revenue enablement.
(07:55):
We're not top of funnel.
We can't change what comes inthe top of funnel, but we can
change how those leads arequalified or disqualified, how
they're engaged, how we canteach our outbound sellers
social selling.
Those are all tools in ourtoolbox to affect the number of
opportunities.
I look at deal value right, andthis is where we are teaching
multithreading, where we'reteaching bundling, where we're
(08:17):
teaching lack of discounting,how to produce the amount of
discounting right.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
That is what I'm saying.
One of my favorites to measure,yeah.
So let's baseline our averagediscount percentage and then
watch it go down.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Yeah, yeah.
I look at overall win rate andfor me overall win rate is
overall sales skills.
Do our sellers have the rightskills?
Do we have the right frameworks?
Do we have the rightmethodology and the sales stages
that they can move thingsthrough effectively to get to
win rate?
And then the length of salescycle.
A lot of that is about teachingurgency and teaching efficiency
(08:51):
.
Are our systems efficient forour sellers?
All of that adds up to salesvelocity.
So when I talk to a CRO about aprogram, I say this program
will affect our deal valuebecause we are doing X, y and Z.
I'm not going to tell them thatwe're certifying on this part
of the product suite.
I'm not going to tell them that80% of our attendees finish the
(09:15):
program.
He doesn't care.
They only care that CRO onlycares that we can say hey,
here's how we've increased dealvalue To your point, here's how
we've reduced discounting.
So that's speaking CRO.
It's nailing only the numbersand getting rid of the fluff.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Couldn't agree more.
I don't know who first came upwith that phrase smiley sheets,
butts in seats and smiley sheets, because I've heard it a few
different places.
But yeah, they don't care,that's not what they're
interested in.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yeah, and really we discredit ourselves by using
vanity metrics.
When we report up that we had80% completion on a
certification, that doesn't movethe needle and it actually
disqualifies the value of whatwe're doing.
Because it's a vanity metric,they don't care.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
As a former sales leader myself, the other part of
it that I would have thought ofis it didn't move the needle
and there was an opportunitycost because my sellers were not
selling while you had themdoing this thing.
That didn't move the needle.
So it's yeah, and so, like yousay, it does erode at
(10:28):
credibility over time.
Let's talk about the conferencefor a few minutes.
As you said, it was a roughyear.
It was an interesting year forthe conference.
Maybe right now is a great timeto do another shout out to our
sponsors, because that difficultyear you just described for the
(10:50):
folks in enablement impactedour sponsors in the same way,
with enablement leaders gettinglaid off guess what they're not
buying, fill in the blank andyet they still showed up in
numbers and supported us.
So thank you.
Thank you for that everyone,but otherwise, with the
conference, in fact, there wasan individual there.
You probably met them too.
(11:11):
I won't share names because Idon't have permission, but they
were the leader and their wholeteam were let go even as we were
there in San Diego.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Yeah, yeah, it was, it was, it was rough.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
It was a tough year.
We had.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
We had made a commitment to the community that
we would support the community.
We provided discountedattendance for a lot of people.
We were able to get folks whoneeded the connection point,
needed the community, at asignificantly lower dollar value
and we want to continue to dothat this.
You know we're still riding outthe storm.
It is getting better.
(11:47):
I will say a second to thank youto the sponsors and I think our
sponsors got a lot out of it,even though it wasn't direct
buying power.
They were hearing from ourmembers, they were hearing the
difficulty that we were havingand they were giving us
suggestions on how do I get moveforward this initiative to get
(12:07):
a piece of tech stack, to gettraining when it's harder to get
budget.
I think our partners haveabsolutely risen to the ROI
challenge.
They have given us greatreasons to continue to build
forward.
I know personally, working witha couple of the partners from
the conference, how they've beenable to help me move the needle
and get adoption on programswhere the budget was limited.
(12:29):
But the ROI is huge and sowe've never been handed budget
like it's free money.
We've had to fight for everydollar always.
Now we have to fight a littleharder, but those partners are
helping us be really goodwarriors and I think for the
attendees of the conference,just being together, being in a
room of people who are fightingthe same fight, who are fighting
(12:52):
the same challenges, hearingfrom people whose programs have
not been cut or his programs aregrowing, and understanding what
they are doing to make thatpossible, was also really
powerful.
I mean, it was a rough year butit was also a great year for a
lot of people.
We got back in person afterCOVID.
We had more in-person scows, wehad more in-person trainings,
(13:14):
we had more in-person onboarding.
So it was moving us in theright direction and it was
important foundationally.
And I know that by the time weroll the conference around later
this year and I'll give you alittle preview it's going to be
real close to Halloween, sobring your Halloween costumes by
the time we roll it out thisyear.
(13:35):
I'm very confident we're goingto have a very different energy.
We're going to be back in arebuilding phase but, more
importantly, we're building moreas strategy leaders, as really
respected members of the teamsrather than just doers, as we
say in the profession.
We don't want to be the fixerof broken things, and I'm
(13:57):
hearing from more and moreleaders in enablement that
they're having more of a voice,more of a seat at the table,
more opportunity to move theneedle strategically and
ultimately, that's the bestthing for our profession.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Would you say that was the biggest takeaway from
the conference for you, or wasit something else?
Speaker 3 (14:14):
I think the key learning for me from the
conference was people reallywanted to workshop and get their
hands dirty Right, and so we'regoing to move to doing even
more hands-on demos, hands-onworkshops.
At the conference, we have theopportunity to attend virtual
webinars and read white papersall day long.
We don't have an opportunity tobe in a room with each other
(14:38):
and really workshop stuff.
And the sessions that wherepeople took out a piece of paper
and a pen and wrote things downand scribbled on sticky notes
and were doing a hackathon thosewere the most powerful sessions
at the conference.
So we want to double down onthat, because we know you can
get content anywhere.
You can read blogs all day long, but it's nowhere more powerful
(14:59):
than when you take that andbring it to life together.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
And apply it.
You just heard something, youhad thought about it that way
before and then you get to, youknow, apply it with another,
with a group rather of folks,and at least speaking for me, my
style of learning, that reallymakes a difference if I can go
and actually do something withit instead of just hearing about
it.
That's exciting to hear.
(15:24):
It be be interesting to see thenature of some of these.
You know new interactive waysof For conference attendees to
spend time together.
As you, as conference chair,you had a front row seat to the
Topics and the themes that werewere presented in the
conferences.
Did you see any, any sort ofthemes, I know?
(15:46):
I mean I know that we don'tduplicate topics per se, but
just in general, as you'reworking the speakers, any, any
themes or anything.
Interesting observations I willlaugh.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
So Two years ago we had probably 12 to 15
submissions around metrics andmeasurement.
Last year we had two and we hadover 10 submissions on building
your career, polishing yourresume, interview skills, how to
be, how to get the land, thejob.
(16:18):
So big shift, obviously Again.
I anticipate this year willcome back towards the center a
little bit more.
Measurement is always a topicthat we're talking about, but I
think people, especially thislast year and I think will as
well this year, are reallylooking more about their own
contributions to their career,not just to their job.
(16:39):
And you know if, if the masslayoffs were a wake-up call,
it's a good wake-up call.
It's a reminder that we have todo the best work of our lives
for ourselves.
It's never gonna be for acompany, it's never gonna be
even for me.
It's not just doing it for our.
Yes, I get so much value out ofthis my own personal value, and
(17:00):
I think it's it's allowed us torefocus and remind about that
and I Anticipate seeing morecontent around that as we move
forward.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
So let's talk about our yes in 2024.
With so much going on in theenablement space, with All the
priorities that the job alreadythrows at you, why is it
relevant to make the effort tobe involved with our res in 2024
?
What's what's what's in it forfor our members from your
(17:31):
perspective?
Speaker 3 (17:32):
What's in it for our members and what we you will see
us kind of blow out of thewater this year is the
peer-to-peer component.
While the conference has beenthat natural touch point, we've
worked really hard over the lastyear to massively rebuild our
chapter strategy to give you alocal network to go and hang out
with and have a drink and dosome local activities with that
(17:56):
chapter strategies reallyimportant.
You need to be able to seepeople on the regular that are
doing your job in your area,that are fighting the same
fights, and so we've got somegreat chapters around the
country that are doing amazingwork and we have a board member
that's committed to just Workingon building out those chapters
and getting them stood up in thestrongest way.
You're gonna see us bringingwebinars out on a much more
(18:18):
frequent basis, like once amonth, and once a month in
America and once a month in aMia.
Why?
Because it may, as a reallygreat growing market and needs a
lot of Support and directive,and in America we want more
touch points.
I want more opportunities tohear from this community.
I want to do fireside chatswhere we bring in people and
hear what they're fighting.
I want to do webinar workshopswhere we, you know, send a
(18:42):
survey ahead of time, and workshop workshop through things
Once a year at the conference.
It's not enough, you know, andnot everyone has the the time or
the budget to come to theconference, so we need to bring
that content out to our man andout to our community.
You're gonna see us supportingand co-opping, co-working excuse
me with the enablement squad onthe hackathons.
(19:02):
We're evolving those for nextyear.
So more cities, more content,more takeaways from the
hackathons.
And the other thing is, in fact,my point of speaking CRO, the
enablement society, ispartnering with an organization
called in blaze, starting thisyear.
You'll see a press releasecoming out shortly about it and
(19:22):
in blaze is a leadingassociation for sales leaders.
We need to bring ourcommunities closer together and
in blaze offers us theopportunity to collaborate with
them on what are our salesleaders seeing and looking for
from us and what can we do tomake sure that we're bridging
that gap.
So those are huge moves thatwe're making this year.
(19:43):
We've got additional touchpoints going out with our
enablement events that'll go outthis year and then, above all,
it'll come together at theexperience.
So it's a collaborative project.
It's a lot of work.
It's bringing togetherdifferent communities and
different people, but every timeI talk to members, every time I
talk in our community, there isso much excitement, there's so
(20:05):
much need.
People are calling up saying,okay, what's the next thing?
I got to talk to my peers, Igot to get contacts, I got to
get content and we're looking tofill that with the chapters.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
I've always felt like the chapters are the heartbeat
of RES and I mean, that's how Ioriginally even know.
I take that back.
Jill came back from Palm Beachand told me about this, but I
joined and it didn't really meana whole lot until a Salt Lake
(20:39):
City chapter fired up.
Then all of a sudden it becamereal and it's like oh, this is
right.
And so here we are severalyears later.
So yeah, I can't rememberoffhand the name of the
individual who actually took theinitiative to launch our
chapter here locally, but alwaysbeen grateful for that.
That's talking about thechapter, probably a good segue
(21:01):
into how do people get involved.
It might be worth mentioningreminding everybody that we are
nonprofit.
Everybody, with one exception,is a volunteer, and so we need
people to get involved, but alsothere are some great reasons
for them to get involved.
You want to talk about that fora few minutes.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Yeah, we love that.
We are 100% member driven andevery time I go out in the
community and I say, hey, can Ifind a volunteer who might be
able to help us?
I get tons of hands up.
So I love that.
To get involved with yourchapters, you can come into the
RES website and you'll find yourchapter information.
You can email us at any timeand if you find out there isn't
(21:43):
an active chapter in your area,let's talk about launching one.
As I said, we've got a boardmember that's committed to doing
this, to creating chapterleader packets of information
and content that our chapterleaders can use on a regular
basis.
We know it's hard to spin up achapter we all have day jobs but
it's incredibly rewarding.
(22:03):
So we want to be part ofbuilding those chapters out.
We'd love for people not only tocome to the conference but
apply to speak Again.
100% of the speakers at theconference are in this community
.
They are practitioners.
They're doing this all day long.
So please take a chance andapply to speak at the conference
.
We had 91 applications lastyear.
(22:25):
I'd love to see double that andwe commit that at least 10%,
and usually closer to 15%, ofour speakers are first-time
speakers.
They've never spoken with usbefore.
We want to hear emerging voices.
We want to hear new ideas andthe conference is a great place
to bring those forward.
As I said, we're going to bedoing webinars.
If you have an idea for awebinar that you'd like to do,
(22:48):
reach out.
We'd love to hear it and bethat voice.
And the last thing isparticipate in our social media
campaigns on LinkedIn.
Linkedin is our only vehiclefor communication.
It's where we talk to thecommunity.
You'll start to see moreregular social media posts from
LinkedIn.
Participate in thosediscussions.
It's an easy way to get contactwith the community and then
(23:10):
from those discussion points,very often I will comment on
something on LinkedIn andsomeone else will comment and
I'll reach out to that personand say, hey, I really like your
ideas.
If you have a minute, let's geton a call.
I made a joke a few months agoon LinkedIn that I talked to two
strangers a month.
It's actually not a joke.
I probably talked to more thanthat.
I share my calendar like peopleused to share business cards,
(23:34):
but those short interactionswith literally total strangers
are the most powerful way ofbuilding my personal network, of
finding people to be involvedin RES.
I'm a big fan of the ABC.
They always be connecting JillRowley quote that I say all the
time and I'm always looking toconnect you to somebody that's
going to further your careergoals or have a good
(23:54):
conversation with you.
I had somebody reach out to meyesterday and say, hey, you like
working on Skow, right?
And I said, yes, skow's my jam.
And we brainstormed for half anhour on some sessions that she
was looking to do and it wasgreat.
I'm so excited for her and forher conference.
And if I wasn't available, Ihave 10 people I could send her
to to say, hey, I don't havebandwidth right now.
(24:15):
Reach out to and blank.
And so that's how thiscommunity continues to grow.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
I love that you've invited people to share feedback
with you directly.
Is LinkedIn your preferred wayfor people to connect with you,
or OK?
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Yeah, tag me on LinkedIn anytime.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
And I know from experience, you're easy to find.
You're very active there.
So yes.
All right.
Well, before we let you go, Iwant to give you a chance to
drop.
It might be enabling, related,we'll find out in 30 seconds,
but drop some life knowledge onus so long time.
Listeners of the podcast knowwhat's coming next.
You've been given this gift oftime travel, but you're only
(24:57):
allowed to go back and talk tosome younger version of Gail and
you're only allowed to teach orcoach yourself in one area.
What is that the biggest thingyou wish you'd understood or
knew earlier in life?
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Ah, that's such a great question.
I think when I was on the podthe first time I said I would
tell myself to slow down becauseI'm always in a hurry and I'm
still always in a hurry.
But I think I would go back andremind myself, especially in
college, just to have faith inmyself.
It really took me until I wasin my 30s, when I got my first
(25:35):
job selling, that I gained a lotof self confidence that I'll
figure it out.
There's nothing this world hassaid, has sent at me in the 52
years I've been here that Ihaven't been able to figure out.
And it was a good reminder ofthe community last year when
there were so many layoffs thatyou know what you got to have
faith in yourself, yourabilities to rise, your
(25:56):
community and just take a deepbreath.
There's a lot of drama outthere, and most of it is what I
call, say, almost fire.
It's short term drama, it's abig burst and then it fades away
, and so just have a little morefaith that things are happening
the way they're supposed to andyou'll come through the other
side.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
That's great advice, thank you.
Thank you for sharing that.
Thank you for again I knowthere's a thousand things RES
related and started a new job.
What?
Six months ago, maybe, not eventhat, quite yet three months
ago, right, yeah, so you got afew things going on right now.
So thank you for taking thetime and bringing your energy
(26:39):
and your thoughts.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
I will be excited to get this out for our listeners
and for them to enjoy it,appreciate that, and I look
forward to meeting with more ofthem and seeing them in local
events and at national eventsand bring your voice in.
Res is incredibly open to ideasand we have plenty here from
you.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
And I also want to thank all of you who have
invested half hour with us.
Again, we do this for you.
We wouldn't be here doing itwithout you, so we appreciate
that.
If you are listening for thefirst time, you can subscribe to
us on Apple, Google or Spotify.
We encourage you to do that andwatch for episodes the other
(27:19):
barring holidays the first andthird Tuesdays of every month.
So stay safe out there.
We'll see you in another twoweeks.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Thanks for joining this episode of Stories from the
Trenches.
For more revenue enablementresources, be sure to join the
Revenue Enablement Society atresocietyglobal.
That's resocietyglobal.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!