June 4, 2024 • 35 mins
How has the role of sales enablement transformed since its early days, and what does this mean for the future? Join me for my final episode of "Stories from the Trenches" as I sit down with Juliana Stancampiano, CEO of Oxygen and former board president of the Revenue Enablement Society (RES).
We trace Sales/Revenue Enablement's transition from traditional sales training to the more holistic approach of modern sales enablement, emphasizing the diverse backgrounds of professionals in the field. We dive into the critical role of organized processes, clear metrics, and continuous learning in driving sales performance and discuss the importance of educating senior executives about effective enablement and the impact of new technology on the field.
Be sure to subscribe and follow the Revenue Enablement Society on LinkedIn for exciting announcements about what's next for the podcast!
As this is my final episode as producer and host, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to all my guests and listeners. Thank you all for being integral to this incredible journey with "Stories from the Trenches."
Juliana Stancampiano is an author, entrepreneur, and leader helping businesses prepare their people for what happens next. For more than 15 years, she has helped leaders translate their company’s strategy into tangible achievements for their people, creating experiences that help people succeed. As CEO of Oxygen, Juliana has developed a unique perspective around the enablement, skilling and ways of educating the workforce of today. Juliana also held the Board Presidency for the Sales Enablement Society from 2019-2022.
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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
(00:24):
initiatives.
The bad and the ugly practicesof corporate revenue enablement
initiatives Learn what worked,what didn't work and how
obstacles were eliminated byenablement teams and
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 (00:47):
Hello and welcome back to another episode In fact
my final episode of the RevenueEnablement Society podcast
Stories from the Trenches.
The last four years or so, whatwe've tried to do is bring
together practitioners from allacross the globe, talk about the
common challenges that we'reall facing, the innovative ways
(01:11):
they're finding and have foundto overcome those challenges,
the things they've learned, andwe always get some really
interesting insights, and it'snot going to be any different
this time around.
We have a special guest, andwhen I say special, there's a
reason we have JulianaStancampiano here.
She is the CEO of Oxygen, but alot of you probably also know
that she was the board president, executive board president of
SES for several years, and I wasmy predecessor in that role.
(01:37):
And so if I go back four years,Juliana I think it was in March
of 20, and I remember being inthe parking garage at work
because we hadn't been sent homeyet, and talking to you on the
phone.
I think you called me on mymorning commute and you asked me
about my thoughts on takingover the podcast that you
started, and so I guess youprobably started it in late 20
(01:57):
or late 19, probably at thispoint.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Yeah, I believe so.
Yeah, yeah, in the summer, Ithink, of 19 is when, I started
doing the recordings, because Iremember actually doing some of
my recordings in France,ironically and then back in
France.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
So we're doing lots of full cycle things and so I
will not rain on anybody'sparade because there's an
announce.
Any changes come to the podcast.
There are some exciting changesin the works and you will see
all sorts of announcements fromRES about that on LinkedIn and
on the website.
But for my last episode Iinvited Juliana to join me
(02:33):
because she's the one thatstarted me on this path and it's
been a fun four-plus years and,as Scott Santucci pointed out
to me one time recently, Juliana, we're in a relatively
exclusive club.
There are not that many peoplethat have been the board.
President of SES slash RES.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
So anyway, there are not so many to date, but no, not
to date.
And not many podcast hostseither.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I would say no, that's true.
That's true For this.
Yeah, Bill Ball and I weretalking the other day and he
said that outside of theconference, this is the longest
running RAS SES program.
I hadn't thought about that.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
You know, it's super fascinating for me because we
first came up with the idea backwhen sales enablement was still
not super well known or in alot of businesses.
You know the role of salesenablement and people were just
dying to know what people weredoing.
You know how they were doing,what it was that they were doing
(03:32):
inside their organizations, andthat's really where it spawned
from was like hey, can we justhear from our peers that are
have been doing this for acouple of years?
Or you know, there were manythat had been doing it for that
long.
And that's where the idea camefrom.
And it was like how do we getstories out as quickly as we can
to our audience?
(03:53):
That's grown so fast, you know,in just a matter of a couple of
years.
At that point, I think it was2017 to 2019.
And that was the birth of thestories from the trenches and
the name.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
I was one of your guests?
I don't think I was.
I wasn't the first guest and Irecently stumbled across the old
graphic the old lion no, whatgoes on there?
Neon colors.
It was in my Google Drivesomewhere.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Luckily we've evolved .
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, before we get too deep into it, I want to give
you a chance to do the JimmyKimmel challenge.
It's a it's just a fun way forpeople to get to know you that
maybe don't already, and so it'spretty simple.
Kimmel announces his retirementand you are offered his show.
You may have anyone you want onas your first guest.
Who would you bring on and why?
(04:39):
Why them?
Speaker 3 (04:40):
This is going to be maybe kind of silly, but I think
I would bring on Dax Shepard.
And I don't know if you listento Armchair Expert.
He has a podcast that's beenvery long running and he
interviews both famous peoplebut then also authors and
scientists and researchers etc.
But he is like one of thepeople that Jimmy Kimmel calls
(05:03):
when somebody bails.
Okay, yeah, so he's been on.
Of the people that Jimmy Kimmelcalls when somebody bails Okay,
yeah, so he's been on a bunch.
Yep, he would know how to like,how to make it go Right.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
He could set you up for a really great first show,
yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
That's, that's that's a thoughtful choice.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah, okay, I like it , I like it.
So back to the conversation.
We're choice.
Yeah, okay, I like it, I likeit.
So back to the conversationwe're having.
Wow, you know, you rewind fouryears and look at the state of
sales enablement back then andwe were right on the cusp of
lockdown from the pandemic,which just changed things even
more so.
So it's been a very wildseveral years, but when you
(05:42):
think back, what really jumpsout to you that was happening in
the industry, then that hasevolved the most.
I mean, there's been a lot wecould talk about, but what's the
biggest one?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
I mean at that time it was sales enablement was
still so scrappy and not, youknow, organizations full of
people like some of our large.
You know companies that existnow have groups that are over
hundreds of sales.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Oh, I think IBM's even 200.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Exactly so that just didn't exist.
Um, you know, the groups werein for those companies.
I think they were in theirtwenties or, you know, maybe
thirties at that time andgrowing, and there were tons of
sole practitioners and there arestill a lot of sole
practitioners.
But we've also seen a lot ofmaturity happening from an
(06:32):
organizational perspective andthe growth of more roles, and I
think that attributes to thechanging of the name for the
Sales Enablement Society rightover to the Revenue Enablement
Society, because there are moreroles and more has been asked of
sales enablement to continue todo and create in order to
(06:54):
support the revenue growth forcompanies.
And I think, from my standpointat least, that's what I would
say has been one of the largestshifts over the last four years.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
I would say has been one of the largest shifts over
the last four years.
Yes, it's, and certainly as faras it becoming I don't know if
mainstream is the right word,but much more prevalent, because
I don't remember it was in myfirst enablement role.
You know, it's interesting whenthere aren't rules, and in
September 2012, there reallyweren't a lot of documented
rules for enablement.
Right, there were a few voicesout there from Gartner and
(07:25):
Forrester talking about it andstarting to firm it up a little
bit.
But yeah, you know, one of thebenefits and I think I may have
shared this with you, but I myEVP asked me to leave a sales
director role, and he createdthis new role, this thing called
sales enablement.
In fact, it was in my one onone in September 2012.
And instead of talking aboutdeals the whole time, like I
thought we would, he wrote salesenablement on his whiteboard
(07:49):
and I hadn't heard the term atthat point and he started to
tell me what his research hadshown and why he wanted me to go
and take me home for theweekend and said challenge you
to, will you take this on?
And if you come back with ananswer, yes, wink, wink.
Clearly he'd made his mind up.
I'd like to see it 30, 60, 90,high level, and so the advantage
(08:12):
to me was that there weren'trules that we didn't necessarily
know, and so we were free tomake mistakes, but we were also
free to stumble on things andfigure them out, and when I
think back on the whole conceptof revenue enablement one of the
things that I knew from leadinga sales crew at that company
was that we had far too manydeals that either didn't turn up
at all or our renewal ratewasn't all that it should be,
and a lot of it could beattributed to a very poor if any
(08:35):
handoff meaningful handoff fromsales to implementation and
customer success.
And so after we got the coresellers, we had to program some
things set up for the sellers.
It just sort of made sense tostart experimenting.
Let's bring in CSMs, let'sbring in and start onboarding
them together and building thoserelationships early, and then
(08:56):
we took them through the salesmethodology.
So I've always just beengrateful for the fact that it
was a little bit Wild West.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
And so you didn't get everything right.
Right bit wild west and so,yeah, you didn't get everything
right.
Like was right, right, rightyou?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
instead of having somebody say well, that's not
how it's done in this profession.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Yeah, yeah we're creating this profession, so
we're doing the things that wethink are just right for the
people and the organization,yeah, and I think that's a
really liberating space to be init is especially with, with the
right executive sponsorship whoessentially said you know, hey,
I'm creating this new role.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Paul's in this role.
He doesn't have any director,because I was an Army of One for
the first year, I think, beforeI got to hire somebody, and
he's like, never mind, hedoesn't have a team reporting to
him, he's still a leader onthis team.
And you know, but I knew these.
I knew these folks because we'dbeen working together for a
while.
Um, so it wasn't that hard.
But when you think about youknow was oxygen.
(09:49):
What were you working on?
You know, I would say, when.
What was your backstory ingetting into enablement?
What was going on at the time?
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Well, so I you know it's interesting because one of
the first deals I ever sold intoone of our clients was um sales
process learning.
Okay.
Right and it was revamping whatthey had in place because it
wasn't working.
That was in 2008.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Okay, oh, wow, yeah, so really digging in early, yeah
, I mean on the learning side,right.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
So I didn't get into the organizational side of sales
enablement until later as it.
But that's, I think, prettynormal from a consultancy
perspective, like you're goingto go in and do the work that
exists versus creating somethingnet new.
You know for for a companythey're going to bring somebody
in to lead that first.
So we got into theorganizational side and the
(10:38):
technology side later from aconsulting perspective.
But we've always been in thatsales learning space.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Do you remember when you first heard the term sales
enablement?
Speaker 3 (10:47):
It was definitely later and it was probably in the
like 2014, 15 space.
Okay, similarly, did work withForrester, and you know so, I
think a lot of that spawned fromthe different research firms
that were out there and thatwere doing the work in that
space, um, and I thought, okay,well, that's funny because I've
(11:09):
been doing, you know, a part, atleast a portion of that for a
while, just like you had, and Ithink they're probably, and we
we found a decent amount ofpeople were doing that already
because the sales enablementsociety when it was built, that
became the thing.
Yeah, sorry about that.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
I remember I wasn't there at that first meeting,
were you?
I don't?
I don't know the names of allthe hundred.
Okay, yeah, but Jill came backfrom it and I remember her cause
.
She and I were working onsomething at the time and she
said you should, you should jointhis, and so yeah, and, and
that was it.
That was it at the time.
That was it.
Actually, we didn't have achapter in Salt Lake City yet or
anything like that.
That came maybe a year later,but it was cool to know that
(11:48):
there were others out there.
There were other people doingthe same thing.
It's like you kind of knew that, but it was nice to meet some
of them and start to understandthere was a community growing up
and so I've always beengrateful for that.
Are there any things that,because we were going through so
many transitions back then,sales training, what people
(12:09):
considered typically salestraining where my boss put me in
the first row, it's very clearon what he saw as the difference
between sales training andsales enablement.
What was that transition likefrom your perspective?
And fast forward, do you thinkthere's still a lot of confusion
or a lot of people using thosetwo terms interchangeably sales
training and enablement of anykind?
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Yeah, it continues to happen and I think you know
it's interesting and what wetalked about earlier with where
things have gone.
The other big increase thatwe've seen, I think, is that a
lot of people started in salesenablement for the first time at
the same level that you startedat, which was not a junior
level right, you're a seniorperson.
You're a senior person on thesales leadership team is where a
(12:51):
lot of people started as wellor were brought into the sales
organization, and so there werenot a lot of young sales
enablement people, right, andthere weren't a lot of people
creating lots of differentthings from a sales enablement
perspective, necessarily becausethe department was still so
small.
And so we've seen a huge growth, as you know, in all sorts of
(13:16):
roles and levels within salesenablement, and I think that the
boom of it has been good insome ways, and I also think it's
been really hard, because wheredo you find sales enablement
people?
Right, there is no.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
You mean during the growth at any cost years.
That's right, yeah, and so you,you know.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
And then we started to see the like oh, are you
sales enablement grown out ofthe learning space or are you
sales enablement grown out ofthe product marketing space?
Because that's where likepeople were being pulled from,
based on what their strengthswere.
And then there were a number ofpeople but I don't know that
they were a majority that werelike sellers themselves.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
That moved into sales enablement.
Yeah, I'm trying to think back.
The earliest Forrester reporton enablement that I can
remember was probably from like2014, 2013 maybe.
Yeah, and I remember they werestarting to track that, where
the role reported and sales waseither in second or third place,
marketing and RevOps were wayout in front.
(14:17):
So that's the other thing Iremember is RevOps people were
or at least that's where theyhad them report to even if they
had pulled them from somewhereelse.
Yes, do you think we've gottenbetter at identifying the right
skill sets and hiring?
I mean, right now, sadly, thereis a surplus of enablement
folks on the market looking, butthat doesn't necessarily mean
(14:37):
you're going to identify and goafter the right ones.
So what do you think?
Are we getting better or not?
Speaker 3 (14:42):
I think it is still very fragmented is what I would
say.
I think people are gettingtheir arms wrapped around it.
They're understanding it morethan ever, and yet I think it is
still really difficult to thinkabout how to enable sales if
you haven't ever sold.
That's my like the empathy forsellers has to be so incredibly
(15:06):
high in my mind to be veryeffective at sales enablement.
And one of the best waysobviously to have empathy for
something is to have gonethrough it and done it yourself,
right, yeah, yeah.
And then you're like, no,that's not going to work.
And you can be very clear.
You know, it's a little bitlike being a coach on a team and
if you've never, you know, sayyou're a coach of a soccer team
(15:27):
but you played baseball, youknow you're not going to quite
be able to relate to what it isthat the players are going
through and it's hard to say, no, do it this way, not that way,
because I know right, cause II've been there and I can help
you get there, or that's a goodidea.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
That's not a good idea, so I I think that's a real
struggle, frankly.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
It's the Ted Lasso model, right.
So you know, never played neverplayed.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Never played soccer, but I'm going to coach it now.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
So he's amazing, Could be a leader, but I would
say you can lead from thatperspective, but you need to
have some really strong peoplethat understand the game, and
that's what he you know he alsohad that.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
And that's maybe what some people have done.
For me.
It was the opposite.
I understood how sellers think.
I understood the pressures, asdid you, we, we.
We live that life, and it is avery black and white world in so
many ways.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
There's no fudging if you're good at your job or not.
Yeah, yeah, exactly You're notgoing to look at something
that's not going to help you,right?
Right.
You're just like, yeah, that'snice to have, this is what I
need.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
But what I do remember is the thing that
worried me it really did was Iknew that adult learning was a
science.
I knew that there were definitebest practices that would, and
so I did not wanting to wasteanyone's time, I mean I went out
and learned it as best I could,joined ATD and went to, did all
(16:51):
that Did all that too.
But as quickly as I could, Ialso went and hired somebody
with that background.
So it was sort of the oppositeof what you were saying.
That was a huge gap in myknowledge and I needed to fill
it to make sure that we weregetting it as right as we could.
But it's interesting what yousaid about needing a sales
(17:12):
background.
So I had that bias for a longtime.
I actually thought that youreally needed that to be
effective in enablement, exceptfor some, you know specialty
type roles and my bias has hasevolved over time.
I've I've seen examples offolks that were able to come in
and and do the leading, but Ithink to your point, there were
(17:34):
always there was always strongsales acumen somewhere on the
team that they were able to totap into.
So maybe that's the big thingyou know hire to your weaknesses
and build a team around youthat you know fills those.
None of us is experts ineverything.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
We can't be, so yeah, I do think the empathy for the
role of the seller, regardlessof somebody's background, is
imperative.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
How do you?
Speaker 3 (17:57):
develop that Well.
I mean, I don't know how manytimes I've been in meetings with
clients where I hear them justdogging on their salespeople.
And I'm thinking is it thesalespeople?
Or is there just some sort oflack of understanding both ways
about what is helpful forsomebody versus what you think
(18:20):
is helpful for somebody?
I think that is what kind ofshifts for me, as if, if the
person's really curious, youknow about how the world works
for a seller if they go andexperience what it's like.
You know.
You think about the amount ofrejection that sellers go
through and you think you know.
(18:42):
The closest I can tell peopleis think about giving a
presentation to a bunch ofpeople that you don't know on a
regular basis.
This is essentially whatsellers are doing.
It's one of the like world'slike number one fears.
Is public speaking right?
Yeah so you're every day tryingto like have conversations with
(19:04):
somebody that you don't reallyfully know, but that you've
tried to get to know as well asyou can, right, and you're
continuing to build that and inorder to have something from
their world and then somethingfrom your world, come together
so closely that there's anexchange of money.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
That's a really interesting way to put it and
that's hard.
No, it is, it is.
I heard sales selling describedI wish I could remember who to
attribute this to but describedonce as playing draw poker, but
only one side has to show theircards.
So that's true too.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
And yet sometimes, like, I agree with that and I
don't in some ways, because Idon't think that that creates a
really successful relationshipdown the road, right, and so how
do you get somebody to open upand build trust and rapport
within the structure of havingsales conversations?
(20:02):
And that is an art and ascience, you know, it's just it
is.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
And you know, you just triggered something in my
mind and that is one of thethings that I still think
sellers really don't have enoughof us.
But that way is business acumenthe business acumen to have
business conversations withtheir prospects and buyers,
which means they default tothings like jumping right into a
demo or a pitch deck and thatkind of thing.
(20:29):
And if you agree with that,how's enablement can we?
Because a great discoverymeeting is the basis of a
successful sale.
It's hard to have a, it's hardto have a successful outcome if
you don't start off with greatdiscovery.
But how do we help someone whois an AE in their 20s or 30s and
(20:49):
is never going to have 20 yearsexperience?
That the person they're talkingto does, but how do we enable
them to get the acumen to carrytheir own side of the
conversation?
Speaker 3 (20:59):
I think it's having as many at-bats for them as
possible to practice that.
So that right, so kind of whatyou described, and, and you're
right, there's like noreplacement for experience.
Right, I'm just like failing.
I remember walking out of somemeetings in my twenties where I
was like, oh cause, you're justlike, you're anxious, and all of
(21:22):
a sudden you just like say thething that you know you're not
supposed to say, or you rush themeeting along because you just,
like you know, are nervousabout it, or whatever, and then
you walk out and you're like, oh, that was so bad.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Yeah, hindsight is definitely 2020.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Totally, and the next meeting goes a little bit
better and a little bit better.
And then you know there's,there has to be a comfort level
with um having a conversationwith someone and letting it just
be the conversation.
And so I, when I talk tosellers, I'm like, hey, success
is getting the next meeting,just get the next meeting.
(22:00):
Success is getting the nextmeeting Just get the next
meeting.
Don't think about getting thedeal right, Because then you're
going to rush.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
So stop thinking about selling and focus on being
in the moment.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
That's right and think about the conversation
that you're having and what theperson's asking, and know that
this sale isn't going to happenovernight, right, that this
isn't going to, this sale isn'tgoing to happen overnight, right
.
So I think it is that liketelling somebody that the
expectations on them is not thatsales just magically appear
very fast, because that's nothow it works, unless you're, you
(22:34):
know, selling a beauty productright now at Sephora.
Yeah, okay.
Those are flying off theshelves?
Speaker 2 (22:41):
yeah, they probably are.
Um, I want to shift gears, um,and talk about something else
that I, that we, we and I havetalked about in the past, so I
want to get your take on it, andthat is the understanding of
the enablement professional orthe profession and professionals
by the senior go-to-marketexecutives that need to
(23:01):
understand, you know, sales,marketing product and do you
still see a gap?
I feel like I'm walking into atrap here.
Well, it's not a trap, no, Imean it's, so it's.
I mean back when we talkedabout changing the society name
that board was it 20, I guesslate 21?
(23:22):
.
Yeah, talked about changing thesociety name at that board was
it 20?
I guess late 21.
Um, that you know, I mean werecognize that that shift was
already starting to happen.
But when you get outside of theenablement community, I think
my, my, that there is still alot of misunderstanding or
confusion about what greatholistic enablement should look
like.
And if the executives that arefunding and hiring these teams
(23:45):
and these roles don't understandthat's going to be a problem
from the get.
So I guess what?
I'm curious do you agree it'sstill a problem?
Do you feel like we're makingprogress in that direction over
the four years ago?
What's your take?
Speaker 3 (23:58):
I think that educating executives is an
ongoing process.
For anybody, that's a supportservice in an organization, and
it's probably the number onething that is critical to doing
in your role, because without itand I'm sure you know this as
well you don't get the funding,you don't get the support, you
don't get the you know headcount, like, you don't get all the
(24:21):
things that you need to actuallycreate the things that are
going to help sellers sell,which is why enablements there
and so, I think, being able tobreak that down so that
executives can understand what'sneeded to actually produce the
things that they're asking for,because it's very easy to go
well, I just need onboarding.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Or I need another one one page.
We need another one page, oryeah?
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Yes, can we have another one pager for that?
And you're, and you know, andeverybody's just like, oh my
gosh, what are we doing, youknow.
And so, organizing, having theconversations and having a very
organized enablement, you know,part of the org, I think is
critical.
So it's like what's your intakeprocess?
How do you prioritize things?
(25:05):
Um, how do we talk about howlong it takes for somebody to
learn something?
That is a huge conversationthat I've had with executives so
many times because you won'tbelieve, you know, we all hear
like, well, they need to go sellthese products now.
And it's like, okay, great,who's selling them?
Well, nobody has.
It's a new motion.
Okay.
What are we doing to supportthem?
(25:26):
Well, you're going to createstuff, right, and it's like okay
, sure, and then what, right,and?
it's like and to get to thatlevel and what you said about,
like the younger AE that's intheir twenties or thirties, like
you need more than just anonline learning or a one pager
or you know whatever it is.
They need practice and theyneed support and they need
(25:49):
specifically like here's theconversation you're going to
walk into.
Here's some of the things thatyou can talk about.
You know, if they say this, gohere.
If they say that, go there, andit gets really specific.
But it takes time to bothcreate that, because somebody is
going to have to be willing towork with you to create it and
it takes time to absorb it andpractice it and go out and use
(26:10):
it.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
So back to my question.
Do you think?
Speaker 3 (26:12):
as a group.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
As a group, we're getting better at communicating
those things, or is that gapstill pretty wide?
Speaker 3 (26:20):
I think that there is a portion that have done a
phenomenal job and are doing agreat job, and I think the gap
is still high.
Okay.
And I frankly my like veryundata backed.
So you can ask ForresterGardner about this.
But you know, sales enablementhas seen a lot of people let go
(26:40):
over the last couple of yearsand tech has been a huge
consumer of sales enablement hasseen a lot of people let go
over the last couple of yearsand tech has been a huge
consumer of sales enablement andthey've had the worst couple of
years where there have been somany layoffs.
And I think that unless we'reable to show the metrics and the
value and we're having thoseconversations it gets cut.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Yes, and the value and we're having those
conversations it gets cut.
Yes, and I think one of theadvantages going back to what we
were talking about a fewminutes ago of coming from a
sales background, especially adeep sales background, is you
tend to look at enablement notas its own but only as a means
to an end, and that end isincreased sales, increased
revenues, close rates, shortersales cycles, all those things,
and that's something that's justingrained in you as a seller
(27:23):
that you think you justnaturally bring to enable.
If we're not measuring, as yousaid, then we don't know.
Back when you and I were doingthis, you know, earlier in our
careers, it was very difficultto measure any meaningful
metrics.
We had leading indicators butit was tough to Do.
You think that that has gottenbetter and easier to do, and do
(27:46):
you think we're taking advantageof it again as a profession, or
is there still room forimprovement on measuring?
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Well, I think there's a lot of room for improvement
on measuring, and I say that inpart because the learning field
still doesn't have it, I thinkas well.
We're just getting to asophistication, so it takes a
lot of operational wherewithalto put that in place right, and
you have to get your baseline.
I think there's still a longway to go.
I think we're starting toscratch it and we're getting way
(28:14):
better at it and theconversations are happening and
people are trying, and that'slike the first step right To
reporting, and I know we havehad some clients that have done
the reporting.
We've been able to do some ofthat work.
We've been able to showonboarding, ramp decreased by
ramp, decreased by many months,and you know quotas going up
before they were before.
(28:35):
But you have to have thebaseline, and if you don't have
the baseline and if you don'thave the support of your
executives which I think insales of all areas of a business
, there's a lot of metrics- yeah, it is like the easiest place
to get some data.
You know, you know when peopleramp, you know like so many
things yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Just pick one you know and go with it, and it's
going to find the right mix oflagging and leading indicators.
Absolutely yes.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Because I think in the past my observation, there
was an overemphasis oncertification numbers, and you
know what I heard somebody callbutts and sheets and butts and
seats and smiley sheets.
Oh, I mean yes, it's important,because if nobody, shows up for
class, they're not going tolearn, but yeah, but how?
But what are the outcomes thatare coming from that and how do
you tie that?
Speaker 3 (29:25):
that's right you can do.
I mean, we've all been in frontof a computer doing, you know,
consuming, training or whatever.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Yeah, yeah yeah, and if you two monitors, you're
consuming that on one monitor,you're doing something else on
the other monitor, for honest.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
So that's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
The um.
Well, I want to wrap up with acouple of things first, Um, you
know, and in talking with you Iknow, that you're very bullish
on enablement as a profession.
So what, what, uh, what do yousee as the next exciting thing
in enablement that we should allbe looking forward to or
thinking about?
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Well, I think you know everybody's talking about
AI, and it's very prevalent, andwe've done some work on it with
some of our clients.
Um, what I would say, though,is we all have to learn, and,
and we're all in it together.
In fact, I just listened to anamazing woman, amy Webb, who is
(30:16):
a futurist, that spoke at Southby Southwest, and I would
recommend people going out andlistening to her talk.
Um, she talked about us allbeing in it together, about the
executives not knowing a lotmore than anybody.
It's new, and there's kind of atrifecta happening, and so we
can't pretend it's not going tohappen because it's going to
(30:39):
happen, but what we can do, andwhat I would say, in our control
, is to just go out and startlike, using it a little bit.
You know, finding a platformthat you like you know seeing
how it works, seeing how it canmake things efficient in what it
is that you like.
You know seeing how it works,seeing how it can make things
efficient in what, what it isthat you do.
I mean, we've used it fortitles of things and summary
write-ups, you know, just likesome of the more mundane parts,
(31:03):
um, of our job, or like some ofthe writing.
That happens and we feel likeit's not very good put it into
um one of these tools.
I love Grammarly Like it's notvery good to put it into one of
these tools.
I love Grammarly.
Yeah, a lot of people do so.
I think that's obviously goingto be a big component.
We are going to need people,but what the need is is going to
(31:23):
shift, and what I think isgreat for sales enablement is a
lot of people.
Some people have now started insales enablement specifically,
but we change and we flex withwhat the business needs and I
think that, um, also consumingand learning and understanding
how this is going to be used isgoing to be really important as
it comes up and a lot of youknow a lot of companies are
(31:46):
selling it into the companies inwhich you work for efficiencies
and different, you know,engineers, marketing of that.
I don't even know if it's aheadof it, but just you know stay
current, it doesn't exist anddon't like try to actually be
like oh, I've got it all becausenobody does and it's okay to
say that because it is okay tosay that.
It should always be okay to sayit, but in this case especially
(32:09):
yeah we're taking it one stepat a time right now with clients
, because you know, the reallylarge companies are actually
very thoughtful about this andthey know it's not going to be
an overnight solve it, butthey're picking away at it and
that's what I think everybodyneeds to do.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
One final question for you, and we'll wrap up, and
that is this may have nothing todo enablement, it may be a
hundred percent enablement, butyou've been given the gift of
time travel.
But a couple of things.
You can only talk to yourself.
We don't want any butterflyeffect going on right.
You can only talk to yourselfand you're only allowed to coach
yourself in one area.
So, given that, what is thething that you wish you'd
(32:47):
understood earlier in yourcareer or your life?
That that you would want toknow?
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Go teach yourself understood earlier in your
career or your life that thatyou would want to know go teach
yourself.
I think that I wish that I hadknown that there were a lot more
professions to choose from thanthe ones that we get told about
at school.
And even all the way throughcollege.
You know I'm not doing.
I did take an entrepreneurshipclass.
I will say that.
So there was some bent there.
(33:11):
But I don't think I knew whatwas possible when we graduated
from these institutions and Iwish I'd had more confidence in
myself to just explore more,versus feeling like I.
You know, I was still in that,I'm in that age group still.
That's like you needed to be,like I'm going to be at this and
or I'm going to be at that,right, and what do you want to
(33:34):
be when you grow up?
Yeah, oh man.
And you had to have the answerand I wish that I had given
myself more grace in figuringout what my passion was.
I got there, but I was like sodriven, you know, to figure that
out.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
We're in the real world now.
You got to go fast.
Yeah, no, I could havebenefited from that as well.
Definitely, definitely.
So well, juliana, thank you foryour time, thank you for
sharing all of this, thank youfor all that you have done for
the society, for the profession,for me.
I've learned a lot from youover the years.
(34:08):
Our friendship's been valuable,so appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
I appreciate that and congrats on all the podcasts.
It was so amazing to be able tohand it off to you and you made
it so much better immediately.
And I was like oh, thankgoodness.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
And I have no doubt that there's more to come.
There's always right.
None of us is as smart as allof us.
So I mean, I'm excited to see,I'm a little sad, but I'm
excited to see what the nexthost brings to it.
So with that, I'm going to goahead and wrap up.
Thank you to all of you whohave tuned in every two weeks
for the last several years.
(34:41):
We wouldn't be doing thiswithout you.
And again, stay tuned.
Watch the RAS page.
Follow it if you're not already, because there are some big
announcements coming.
Otherwise, stay safe and we'llsee you at the conference in the
fall.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
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
(00:24):
initiatives.
The bad and the ugly practicesof corporate revenue enablement
initiatives Learn what worked,what didn't work and how
obstacles were eliminated byenablement teams and
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 (00:47):
Hello and welcome back to another episode In fact
my final episode of the RevenueEnablement Society podcast
Stories from the Trenches.
The last four years or so, whatwe've tried to do is bring
together practitioners from allacross the globe, talk about the
common challenges that we'reall facing, the innovative ways
(01:11):
they're finding and have foundto overcome those challenges,
the things they've learned, andwe always get some really
interesting insights, and it'snot going to be any different
this time around.
We have a special guest, andwhen I say special, there's a
reason we have JulianaStancampiano here.
She is the CEO of Oxygen, but alot of you probably also know
that she was the board president, executive board president of
SES for several years, and I wasmy predecessor in that role.
(01:37):
And so if I go back four years,Juliana I think it was in March
of 20, and I remember being inthe parking garage at work
because we hadn't been sent homeyet, and talking to you on the
phone.
I think you called me on mymorning commute and you asked me
about my thoughts on takingover the podcast that you
started, and so I guess youprobably started it in late 20
(01:57):
or late 19, probably at thispoint.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Yeah, I believe so.
Yeah, yeah, in the summer, Ithink, of 19 is when, I started
doing the recordings, because Iremember actually doing some of
my recordings in France,ironically and then back in
France.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
So we're doing lots of full cycle things and so I
will not rain on anybody'sparade because there's an
announce.
Any changes come to the podcast.
There are some exciting changesin the works and you will see
all sorts of announcements fromRES about that on LinkedIn and
on the website.
But for my last episode Iinvited Juliana to join me
(02:33):
because she's the one thatstarted me on this path and it's
been a fun four-plus years and,as Scott Santucci pointed out
to me one time recently, Juliana, we're in a relatively
exclusive club.
There are not that many peoplethat have been the board.
President of SES slash RES.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
So anyway, there are not so many to date, but no, not
to date.
And not many podcast hostseither.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I would say no, that's true.
That's true For this.
Yeah, Bill Ball and I weretalking the other day and he
said that outside of theconference, this is the longest
running RAS SES program.
I hadn't thought about that.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
You know, it's super fascinating for me because we
first came up with the idea backwhen sales enablement was still
not super well known or in alot of businesses.
You know the role of salesenablement and people were just
dying to know what people weredoing.
You know how they were doing,what it was that they were doing
(03:32):
inside their organizations, andthat's really where it spawned
from was like hey, can we justhear from our peers that are
have been doing this for acouple of years?
Or you know, there were manythat had been doing it for that
long.
And that's where the idea camefrom.
And it was like how do we getstories out as quickly as we can
to our audience?
(03:53):
That's grown so fast, you know,in just a matter of a couple of
years.
At that point, I think it was2017 to 2019.
And that was the birth of thestories from the trenches and
the name.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
I was one of your guests?
I don't think I was.
I wasn't the first guest and Irecently stumbled across the old
graphic the old lion no, whatgoes on there?
Neon colors.
It was in my Google Drivesomewhere.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Luckily we've evolved .
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, before we get too deep into it, I want to give
you a chance to do the JimmyKimmel challenge.
It's a it's just a fun way forpeople to get to know you that
maybe don't already, and so it'spretty simple.
Kimmel announces his retirementand you are offered his show.
You may have anyone you want onas your first guest.
Who would you bring on and why?
(04:39):
Why them?
Speaker 3 (04:40):
This is going to be maybe kind of silly, but I think
I would bring on Dax Shepard.
And I don't know if you listento Armchair Expert.
He has a podcast that's beenvery long running and he
interviews both famous peoplebut then also authors and
scientists and researchers etc.
But he is like one of thepeople that Jimmy Kimmel calls
(05:03):
when somebody bails.
Okay, yeah, so he's been on.
Of the people that Jimmy Kimmelcalls when somebody bails Okay,
yeah, so he's been on a bunch.
Yep, he would know how to like,how to make it go Right.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
He could set you up for a really great first show,
yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
That's, that's that's a thoughtful choice.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah, okay, I like it , I like it.
So back to the conversation.
We're choice.
Yeah, okay, I like it, I likeit.
So back to the conversationwe're having.
Wow, you know, you rewind fouryears and look at the state of
sales enablement back then andwe were right on the cusp of
lockdown from the pandemic,which just changed things even
more so.
So it's been a very wildseveral years, but when you
(05:42):
think back, what really jumpsout to you that was happening in
the industry, then that hasevolved the most.
I mean, there's been a lot wecould talk about, but what's the
biggest one?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
I mean at that time it was sales enablement was
still so scrappy and not, youknow, organizations full of
people like some of our large.
You know companies that existnow have groups that are over
hundreds of sales.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Oh, I think IBM's even 200.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Exactly so that just didn't exist.
Um, you know, the groups werein for those companies.
I think they were in theirtwenties or, you know, maybe
thirties at that time andgrowing, and there were tons of
sole practitioners and there arestill a lot of sole
practitioners.
But we've also seen a lot ofmaturity happening from an
(06:32):
organizational perspective andthe growth of more roles, and I
think that attributes to thechanging of the name for the
Sales Enablement Society rightover to the Revenue Enablement
Society, because there are moreroles and more has been asked of
sales enablement to continue todo and create in order to
(06:54):
support the revenue growth forcompanies.
And I think, from my standpointat least, that's what I would
say has been one of the largestshifts over the last four years.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
I would say has been one of the largest shifts over
the last four years.
Yes, it's, and certainly as faras it becoming I don't know if
mainstream is the right word,but much more prevalent, because
I don't remember it was in myfirst enablement role.
You know, it's interesting whenthere aren't rules, and in
September 2012, there reallyweren't a lot of documented
rules for enablement.
Right, there were a few voicesout there from Gartner and
(07:25):
Forrester talking about it andstarting to firm it up a little
bit.
But yeah, you know, one of thebenefits and I think I may have
shared this with you, but I myEVP asked me to leave a sales
director role, and he createdthis new role, this thing called
sales enablement.
In fact, it was in my one onone in September 2012.
And instead of talking aboutdeals the whole time, like I
thought we would, he wrote salesenablement on his whiteboard
(07:49):
and I hadn't heard the term atthat point and he started to
tell me what his research hadshown and why he wanted me to go
and take me home for theweekend and said challenge you
to, will you take this on?
And if you come back with ananswer, yes, wink, wink.
Clearly he'd made his mind up.
I'd like to see it 30, 60, 90,high level, and so the advantage
(08:12):
to me was that there weren'trules that we didn't necessarily
know, and so we were free tomake mistakes, but we were also
free to stumble on things andfigure them out, and when I
think back on the whole conceptof revenue enablement one of the
things that I knew from leadinga sales crew at that company
was that we had far too manydeals that either didn't turn up
at all or our renewal ratewasn't all that it should be,
and a lot of it could beattributed to a very poor if any
(08:35):
handoff meaningful handoff fromsales to implementation and
customer success.
And so after we got the coresellers, we had to program some
things set up for the sellers.
It just sort of made sense tostart experimenting.
Let's bring in CSMs, let'sbring in and start onboarding
them together and building thoserelationships early, and then
(08:56):
we took them through the salesmethodology.
So I've always just beengrateful for the fact that it
was a little bit Wild West.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
And so you didn't get everything right.
Right bit wild west and so,yeah, you didn't get everything
right.
Like was right, right, rightyou?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
instead of having somebody say well, that's not
how it's done in this profession.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Yeah, yeah we're creating this profession, so
we're doing the things that wethink are just right for the
people and the organization,yeah, and I think that's a
really liberating space to be init is especially with, with the
right executive sponsorship whoessentially said you know, hey,
I'm creating this new role.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Paul's in this role.
He doesn't have any director,because I was an Army of One for
the first year, I think, beforeI got to hire somebody, and
he's like, never mind, hedoesn't have a team reporting to
him, he's still a leader onthis team.
And you know, but I knew these.
I knew these folks because we'dbeen working together for a
while.
Um, so it wasn't that hard.
But when you think about youknow was oxygen.
(09:49):
What were you working on?
You know, I would say, when.
What was your backstory ingetting into enablement?
What was going on at the time?
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Well, so I you know it's interesting because one of
the first deals I ever sold intoone of our clients was um sales
process learning.
Okay.
Right and it was revamping whatthey had in place because it
wasn't working.
That was in 2008.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Okay, oh, wow, yeah, so really digging in early, yeah
, I mean on the learning side,right.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
So I didn't get into the organizational side of sales
enablement until later as it.
But that's, I think, prettynormal from a consultancy
perspective, like you're goingto go in and do the work that
exists versus creating somethingnet new.
You know for for a companythey're going to bring somebody
in to lead that first.
So we got into theorganizational side and the
(10:38):
technology side later from aconsulting perspective.
But we've always been in thatsales learning space.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Do you remember when you first heard the term sales
enablement?
Speaker 3 (10:47):
It was definitely later and it was probably in the
like 2014, 15 space.
Okay, similarly, did work withForrester, and you know so, I
think a lot of that spawned fromthe different research firms
that were out there and thatwere doing the work in that
space, um, and I thought, okay,well, that's funny because I've
(11:09):
been doing, you know, a part, atleast a portion of that for a
while, just like you had, and Ithink they're probably, and we
we found a decent amount ofpeople were doing that already
because the sales enablementsociety when it was built, that
became the thing.
Yeah, sorry about that.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
I remember I wasn't there at that first meeting,
were you?
I don't?
I don't know the names of allthe hundred.
Okay, yeah, but Jill came backfrom it and I remember her cause
.
She and I were working onsomething at the time and she
said you should, you should jointhis, and so yeah, and, and
that was it.
That was it at the time.
That was it.
Actually, we didn't have achapter in Salt Lake City yet or
anything like that.
That came maybe a year later,but it was cool to know that
(11:48):
there were others out there.
There were other people doingthe same thing.
It's like you kind of knew that, but it was nice to meet some
of them and start to understandthere was a community growing up
and so I've always beengrateful for that.
Are there any things that,because we were going through so
many transitions back then,sales training, what people
(12:09):
considered typically salestraining where my boss put me in
the first row, it's very clearon what he saw as the difference
between sales training andsales enablement.
What was that transition likefrom your perspective?
And fast forward, do you thinkthere's still a lot of confusion
or a lot of people using thosetwo terms interchangeably sales
training and enablement of anykind?
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Yeah, it continues to happen and I think you know
it's interesting and what wetalked about earlier with where
things have gone.
The other big increase thatwe've seen, I think, is that a
lot of people started in salesenablement for the first time at
the same level that you startedat, which was not a junior
level right, you're a seniorperson.
You're a senior person on thesales leadership team is where a
(12:51):
lot of people started as wellor were brought into the sales
organization, and so there werenot a lot of young sales
enablement people, right, andthere weren't a lot of people
creating lots of differentthings from a sales enablement
perspective, necessarily becausethe department was still so
small.
And so we've seen a huge growth, as you know, in all sorts of
(13:16):
roles and levels within salesenablement, and I think that the
boom of it has been good insome ways, and I also think it's
been really hard, because wheredo you find sales enablement
people?
Right, there is no.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
You mean during the growth at any cost years.
That's right, yeah, and so you,you know.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
And then we started to see the like oh, are you
sales enablement grown out ofthe learning space or are you
sales enablement grown out ofthe product marketing space?
Because that's where likepeople were being pulled from,
based on what their strengthswere.
And then there were a number ofpeople but I don't know that
they were a majority that werelike sellers themselves.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
That moved into sales enablement.
Yeah, I'm trying to think back.
The earliest Forrester reporton enablement that I can
remember was probably from like2014, 2013 maybe.
Yeah, and I remember they werestarting to track that, where
the role reported and sales waseither in second or third place,
marketing and RevOps were wayout in front.
(14:17):
So that's the other thing Iremember is RevOps people were
or at least that's where theyhad them report to even if they
had pulled them from somewhereelse.
Yes, do you think we've gottenbetter at identifying the right
skill sets and hiring?
I mean, right now, sadly, thereis a surplus of enablement
folks on the market looking, butthat doesn't necessarily mean
(14:37):
you're going to identify and goafter the right ones.
So what do you think?
Are we getting better or not?
Speaker 3 (14:42):
I think it is still very fragmented is what I would
say.
I think people are gettingtheir arms wrapped around it.
They're understanding it morethan ever, and yet I think it is
still really difficult to thinkabout how to enable sales if
you haven't ever sold.
That's my like the empathy forsellers has to be so incredibly
(15:06):
high in my mind to be veryeffective at sales enablement.
And one of the best waysobviously to have empathy for
something is to have gonethrough it and done it yourself,
right, yeah, yeah.
And then you're like, no,that's not going to work.
And you can be very clear.
You know, it's a little bitlike being a coach on a team and
if you've never, you know, sayyou're a coach of a soccer team
(15:27):
but you played baseball, youknow you're not going to quite
be able to relate to what it isthat the players are going
through and it's hard to say, no, do it this way, not that way,
because I know right, cause II've been there and I can help
you get there, or that's a goodidea.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
That's not a good idea, so I I think that's a real
struggle, frankly.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
It's the Ted Lasso model, right.
So you know, never played neverplayed.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Never played soccer, but I'm going to coach it now.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
So he's amazing, Could be a leader, but I would
say you can lead from thatperspective, but you need to
have some really strong peoplethat understand the game, and
that's what he you know he alsohad that.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
And that's maybe what some people have done.
For me.
It was the opposite.
I understood how sellers think.
I understood the pressures, asdid you, we, we.
We live that life, and it is avery black and white world in so
many ways.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
There's no fudging if you're good at your job or not.
Yeah, yeah, exactly You're notgoing to look at something
that's not going to help you,right?
Right.
You're just like, yeah, that'snice to have, this is what I
need.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
But what I do remember is the thing that
worried me it really did was Iknew that adult learning was a
science.
I knew that there were definitebest practices that would, and
so I did not wanting to wasteanyone's time, I mean I went out
and learned it as best I could,joined ATD and went to, did all
(16:51):
that Did all that too.
But as quickly as I could, Ialso went and hired somebody
with that background.
So it was sort of the oppositeof what you were saying.
That was a huge gap in myknowledge and I needed to fill
it to make sure that we weregetting it as right as we could.
But it's interesting what yousaid about needing a sales
(17:12):
background.
So I had that bias for a longtime.
I actually thought that youreally needed that to be
effective in enablement, exceptfor some, you know specialty
type roles and my bias has hasevolved over time.
I've I've seen examples offolks that were able to come in
and and do the leading, but Ithink to your point, there were
(17:34):
always there was always strongsales acumen somewhere on the
team that they were able to totap into.
So maybe that's the big thingyou know hire to your weaknesses
and build a team around youthat you know fills those.
None of us is experts ineverything.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
We can't be, so yeah, I do think the empathy for the
role of the seller, regardlessof somebody's background, is
imperative.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
How do you?
Speaker 3 (17:57):
develop that Well.
I mean, I don't know how manytimes I've been in meetings with
clients where I hear them justdogging on their salespeople.
And I'm thinking is it thesalespeople?
Or is there just some sort oflack of understanding both ways
about what is helpful forsomebody versus what you think
(18:20):
is helpful for somebody?
I think that is what kind ofshifts for me, as if, if the
person's really curious, youknow about how the world works
for a seller if they go andexperience what it's like.
You know.
You think about the amount ofrejection that sellers go
through and you think you know.
(18:42):
The closest I can tell peopleis think about giving a
presentation to a bunch ofpeople that you don't know on a
regular basis.
This is essentially whatsellers are doing.
It's one of the like world'slike number one fears.
Is public speaking right?
Yeah so you're every day tryingto like have conversations with
(19:04):
somebody that you don't reallyfully know, but that you've
tried to get to know as well asyou can, right, and you're
continuing to build that and inorder to have something from
their world and then somethingfrom your world, come together
so closely that there's anexchange of money.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
That's a really interesting way to put it and
that's hard.
No, it is, it is.
I heard sales selling describedI wish I could remember who to
attribute this to but describedonce as playing draw poker, but
only one side has to show theircards.
So that's true too.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
And yet sometimes, like, I agree with that and I
don't in some ways, because Idon't think that that creates a
really successful relationshipdown the road, right, and so how
do you get somebody to open upand build trust and rapport
within the structure of havingsales conversations?
(20:02):
And that is an art and ascience, you know, it's just it
is.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
And you know, you just triggered something in my
mind and that is one of thethings that I still think
sellers really don't have enoughof us.
But that way is business acumenthe business acumen to have
business conversations withtheir prospects and buyers,
which means they default tothings like jumping right into a
demo or a pitch deck and thatkind of thing.
(20:29):
And if you agree with that,how's enablement can we?
Because a great discoverymeeting is the basis of a
successful sale.
It's hard to have a, it's hardto have a successful outcome if
you don't start off with greatdiscovery.
But how do we help someone whois an AE in their 20s or 30s and
(20:49):
is never going to have 20 yearsexperience?
That the person they're talkingto does, but how do we enable
them to get the acumen to carrytheir own side of the
conversation?
Speaker 3 (20:59):
I think it's having as many at-bats for them as
possible to practice that.
So that right, so kind of whatyou described, and, and you're
right, there's like noreplacement for experience.
Right, I'm just like failing.
I remember walking out of somemeetings in my twenties where I
was like, oh cause, you're justlike, you're anxious, and all of
(21:22):
a sudden you just like say thething that you know you're not
supposed to say, or you rush themeeting along because you just,
like you know, are nervousabout it, or whatever, and then
you walk out and you're like, oh, that was so bad.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Yeah, hindsight is definitely 2020.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Totally, and the next meeting goes a little bit
better and a little bit better.
And then you know there's,there has to be a comfort level
with um having a conversationwith someone and letting it just
be the conversation.
And so I, when I talk tosellers, I'm like, hey, success
is getting the next meeting,just get the next meeting.
(22:00):
Success is getting the nextmeeting Just get the next
meeting.
Don't think about getting thedeal right, Because then you're
going to rush.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
So stop thinking about selling and focus on being
in the moment.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
That's right and think about the conversation
that you're having and what theperson's asking, and know that
this sale isn't going to happenovernight, right, that this
isn't going to, this sale isn'tgoing to happen overnight, right
.
So I think it is that liketelling somebody that the
expectations on them is not thatsales just magically appear
very fast, because that's nothow it works, unless you're, you
(22:34):
know, selling a beauty productright now at Sephora.
Yeah, okay.
Those are flying off theshelves?
Speaker 2 (22:41):
yeah, they probably are.
Um, I want to shift gears, um,and talk about something else
that I, that we, we and I havetalked about in the past, so I
want to get your take on it, andthat is the understanding of
the enablement professional orthe profession and professionals
by the senior go-to-marketexecutives that need to
(23:01):
understand, you know, sales,marketing product and do you
still see a gap?
I feel like I'm walking into atrap here.
Well, it's not a trap, no, Imean it's, so it's.
I mean back when we talkedabout changing the society name
that board was it 20, I guesslate 21?
(23:22):
.
Yeah, talked about changing thesociety name at that board was
it 20?
I guess late 21.
Um, that you know, I mean werecognize that that shift was
already starting to happen.
But when you get outside of theenablement community, I think
my, my, that there is still alot of misunderstanding or
confusion about what greatholistic enablement should look
like.
And if the executives that arefunding and hiring these teams
(23:45):
and these roles don't understandthat's going to be a problem
from the get.
So I guess what?
I'm curious do you agree it'sstill a problem?
Do you feel like we're makingprogress in that direction over
the four years ago?
What's your take?
Speaker 3 (23:58):
I think that educating executives is an
ongoing process.
For anybody, that's a supportservice in an organization, and
it's probably the number onething that is critical to doing
in your role, because without itand I'm sure you know this as
well you don't get the funding,you don't get the support, you
don't get the you know headcount, like, you don't get all the
(24:21):
things that you need to actuallycreate the things that are
going to help sellers sell,which is why enablements there
and so, I think, being able tobreak that down so that
executives can understand what'sneeded to actually produce the
things that they're asking for,because it's very easy to go
well, I just need onboarding.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Or I need another one one page.
We need another one page, oryeah?
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Yes, can we have another one pager for that?
And you're, and you know, andeverybody's just like, oh my
gosh, what are we doing, youknow.
And so, organizing, having theconversations and having a very
organized enablement, you know,part of the org, I think is
critical.
So it's like what's your intakeprocess?
How do you prioritize things?
(25:05):
Um, how do we talk about howlong it takes for somebody to
learn something?
That is a huge conversationthat I've had with executives so
many times because you won'tbelieve, you know, we all hear
like, well, they need to go sellthese products now.
And it's like, okay, great,who's selling them?
Well, nobody has.
It's a new motion.
Okay.
What are we doing to supportthem?
(25:26):
Well, you're going to createstuff, right, and it's like okay
, sure, and then what, right,and?
it's like and to get to thatlevel and what you said about,
like the younger AE that's intheir twenties or thirties, like
you need more than just anonline learning or a one pager
or you know whatever it is.
They need practice and theyneed support and they need
(25:49):
specifically like here's theconversation you're going to
walk into.
Here's some of the things thatyou can talk about.
You know, if they say this, gohere.
If they say that, go there, andit gets really specific.
But it takes time to bothcreate that, because somebody is
going to have to be willing towork with you to create it and
it takes time to absorb it andpractice it and go out and use
(26:10):
it.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
So back to my question.
Do you think?
Speaker 3 (26:12):
as a group.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
As a group, we're getting better at communicating
those things, or is that gapstill pretty wide?
Speaker 3 (26:20):
I think that there is a portion that have done a
phenomenal job and are doing agreat job, and I think the gap
is still high.
Okay.
And I frankly my like veryundata backed.
So you can ask ForresterGardner about this.
But you know, sales enablementhas seen a lot of people let go
(26:40):
over the last couple of yearsand tech has been a huge
consumer of sales enablement hasseen a lot of people let go
over the last couple of yearsand tech has been a huge
consumer of sales enablement andthey've had the worst couple of
years where there have been somany layoffs.
And I think that unless we'reable to show the metrics and the
value and we're having thoseconversations it gets cut.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Yes, and the value and we're having those
conversations it gets cut.
Yes, and I think one of theadvantages going back to what we
were talking about a fewminutes ago of coming from a
sales background, especially adeep sales background, is you
tend to look at enablement notas its own but only as a means
to an end, and that end isincreased sales, increased
revenues, close rates, shortersales cycles, all those things,
and that's something that's justingrained in you as a seller
(27:23):
that you think you justnaturally bring to enable.
If we're not measuring, as yousaid, then we don't know.
Back when you and I were doingthis, you know, earlier in our
careers, it was very difficultto measure any meaningful
metrics.
We had leading indicators butit was tough to Do.
You think that that has gottenbetter and easier to do, and do
(27:46):
you think we're taking advantageof it again as a profession, or
is there still room forimprovement on measuring?
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Well, I think there's a lot of room for improvement
on measuring, and I say that inpart because the learning field
still doesn't have it, I thinkas well.
We're just getting to asophistication, so it takes a
lot of operational wherewithalto put that in place right, and
you have to get your baseline.
I think there's still a longway to go.
I think we're starting toscratch it and we're getting way
(28:14):
better at it and theconversations are happening and
people are trying, and that'slike the first step right To
reporting, and I know we havehad some clients that have done
the reporting.
We've been able to do some ofthat work.
We've been able to showonboarding, ramp decreased by
ramp, decreased by many months,and you know quotas going up
before they were before.
(28:35):
But you have to have thebaseline, and if you don't have
the baseline and if you don'thave the support of your
executives which I think insales of all areas of a business
, there's a lot of metrics- yeah, it is like the easiest place
to get some data.
You know, you know when peopleramp, you know like so many
things yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Just pick one you know and go with it, and it's
going to find the right mix oflagging and leading indicators.
Absolutely yes.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Because I think in the past my observation, there
was an overemphasis oncertification numbers, and you
know what I heard somebody callbutts and sheets and butts and
seats and smiley sheets.
Oh, I mean yes, it's important,because if nobody, shows up for
class, they're not going tolearn, but yeah, but how?
But what are the outcomes thatare coming from that and how do
you tie that?
Speaker 3 (29:25):
that's right you can do.
I mean, we've all been in frontof a computer doing, you know,
consuming, training or whatever.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Yeah, yeah yeah, and if you two monitors, you're
consuming that on one monitor,you're doing something else on
the other monitor, for honest.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
So that's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
The um.
Well, I want to wrap up with acouple of things first, Um, you
know, and in talking with you Iknow, that you're very bullish
on enablement as a profession.
So what, what, uh, what do yousee as the next exciting thing
in enablement that we should allbe looking forward to or
thinking about?
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Well, I think you know everybody's talking about
AI, and it's very prevalent, andwe've done some work on it with
some of our clients.
Um, what I would say, though,is we all have to learn, and,
and we're all in it together.
In fact, I just listened to anamazing woman, amy Webb, who is
(30:16):
a futurist, that spoke at Southby Southwest, and I would
recommend people going out andlistening to her talk.
Um, she talked about us allbeing in it together, about the
executives not knowing a lotmore than anybody.
It's new, and there's kind of atrifecta happening, and so we
can't pretend it's not going tohappen because it's going to
(30:39):
happen, but what we can do, andwhat I would say, in our control
, is to just go out and startlike, using it a little bit.
You know, finding a platformthat you like you know seeing
how it works, seeing how it canmake things efficient in what it
is that you like.
You know seeing how it works,seeing how it can make things
efficient in what, what it isthat you do.
I mean, we've used it fortitles of things and summary
write-ups, you know, just likesome of the more mundane parts,
(31:03):
um, of our job, or like some ofthe writing.
That happens and we feel likeit's not very good put it into
um one of these tools.
I love Grammarly Like it's notvery good to put it into one of
these tools.
I love Grammarly.
Yeah, a lot of people do so.
I think that's obviously goingto be a big component.
We are going to need people,but what the need is is going to
(31:23):
shift, and what I think isgreat for sales enablement is a
lot of people.
Some people have now started insales enablement specifically,
but we change and we flex withwhat the business needs and I
think that, um, also consumingand learning and understanding
how this is going to be used isgoing to be really important as
it comes up and a lot of youknow a lot of companies are
(31:46):
selling it into the companies inwhich you work for efficiencies
and different, you know,engineers, marketing of that.
I don't even know if it's aheadof it, but just you know stay
current, it doesn't exist anddon't like try to actually be
like oh, I've got it all becausenobody does and it's okay to
say that because it is okay tosay that.
It should always be okay to sayit, but in this case especially
(32:09):
yeah we're taking it one stepat a time right now with clients
, because you know, the reallylarge companies are actually
very thoughtful about this andthey know it's not going to be
an overnight solve it, butthey're picking away at it and
that's what I think everybodyneeds to do.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
One final question for you, and we'll wrap up, and
that is this may have nothing todo enablement, it may be a
hundred percent enablement, butyou've been given the gift of
time travel.
But a couple of things.
You can only talk to yourself.
We don't want any butterflyeffect going on right.
You can only talk to yourselfand you're only allowed to coach
yourself in one area.
So, given that, what is thething that you wish you'd
(32:47):
understood earlier in yourcareer or your life?
That that you would want toknow?
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Go teach yourself understood earlier in your
career or your life that thatyou would want to know go teach
yourself.
I think that I wish that I hadknown that there were a lot more
professions to choose from thanthe ones that we get told about
at school.
And even all the way throughcollege.
You know I'm not doing.
I did take an entrepreneurshipclass.
I will say that.
So there was some bent there.
(33:11):
But I don't think I knew whatwas possible when we graduated
from these institutions and Iwish I'd had more confidence in
myself to just explore more,versus feeling like I.
You know, I was still in that,I'm in that age group still.
That's like you needed to be,like I'm going to be at this and
or I'm going to be at that,right, and what do you want to
(33:34):
be when you grow up?
Yeah, oh man.
And you had to have the answerand I wish that I had given
myself more grace in figuringout what my passion was.
I got there, but I was like sodriven, you know, to figure that
out.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
We're in the real world now.
You got to go fast.
Yeah, no, I could havebenefited from that as well.
Definitely, definitely.
So well, juliana, thank you foryour time, thank you for
sharing all of this, thank youfor all that you have done for
the society, for the profession,for me.
I've learned a lot from youover the years.
(34:08):
Our friendship's been valuable,so appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
I appreciate that and congrats on all the podcasts.
It was so amazing to be able tohand it off to you and you made
it so much better immediately.
And I was like oh, thankgoodness.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
And I have no doubt that there's more to come.
There's always right.
None of us is as smart as allof us.
So I mean, I'm excited to see,I'm a little sad, but I'm
excited to see what the nexthost brings to it.
So with that, I'm going to goahead and wrap up.
Thank you to all of you whohave tuned in every two weeks
for the last several years.
(34:41):
We wouldn't be doing thiswithout you.
And again, stay tuned.
Watch the RAS page.
Follow it if you're not already, because there are some big
announcements coming.
Otherwise, stay safe and we'llsee you at the conference in the
fall.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
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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