November 21, 2024 • 38 mins
Amanda Whiteside is a trailblazer for Enablement at Freshworks and has made significant strides in transforming the field while championing female empowerment. She highlights the importance of building credibility for enablement to secure organizational support and stresses the need to align initiatives with business outcomes. Amanda also recognizes the unique challenges of global enablement, emphasizing the importance of prioritization and tailoring content to different teams. She believes leveraging technology and AI can significantly enhance the enablement process and underscores the critical role of collaboration between marketing and enablement. For aspiring leaders, she advises focusing on understanding stakeholder pain points to drive success.
With over 15 years of experience driving transformative initiatives for Fortune 100 companies, Amanda is currently the Global Vice President of Revenue Enablement at Freshworks, the leading provider of Cloud-based Customer Engagement software. In this role, she leads high-impact teams to create customer-centric solutions that deliver measurable growth.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Norf (00:04):
Welcome to the Revenue Enablement Society's Stories
from the Trenches, whereenablement practitioners share
their real-world experiences.
Get a scoop on what's happeninginside revenue enablement teams
across the global RES community.
Each segment of Stories fromthe Trenches shares the good,
the bad and the ugly practicesof corporate revenue enablement
(00:27):
initiatives.
Learn what worked and whatdidn't work and how obstacles
were eliminated by enablementteams and go-to-market
leadership.
And join me, your host, PpaulNorford, for casual
conversations about the wide andvaried profession of revenue
(00:49):
enablement, where there's nevera one-size-fits-all solution.
Hi and welcome.
We're back after the summer of2024 with a brand new series of
the Revenue Enablement Societypodcast Stories from the
Trenches.
You'll also note a slightlydifferent voice from the one
that you may be used to.
My name is Paul Norford and manyknow me as Norf and I have the
(01:09):
distinct pleasure of being yourRES Stories from the Trenches
podcast host.
Before we get into it this week, I want to personally and
profusely thank Paul Butterfieldfor starting off the podcast.
That has become a bit of amovement in our revenue
enablement world and, as hehangs up his RES podcast
microphone, I have the pleasureof continuing the great work
started, having been a big fanand a guest on the podcast
(01:32):
myself.
As far as I know, we are theonly revenue enablement podcast
by enablers for enablers, and wesearch far and wide looking for
enablement practitionerstalking about what they're doing
, how and why they're doingthings differently and what
outcomes they're achieving asthey adapt to the constantly
changing world of sales andrevenue enablement.
(01:52):
One of my favorite things is tolearn something new with every
guest we bring on and to sharethat with you.
I am really, really excitedtoday.
I know that this is the firstRevenue Enablement Society
Stories from the Trench'spodcast that I've done, but I am
super, super excited today tohave Amanda Whiteside on.
I know you're super busy,Amanda, but I'm so pleased that
(02:13):
you managed to spend a bit oftime and you've joined me today
on the podcast.
It's good to have you here.
Amanda (02:18):
So excited to be here.
Thank you so much for having me, Paul.
Norf (02:22):
Of course, absolutely.
So first and foremost, beforewe get into the dinner question
and that will all become clear alittle bit later can you just
let me know who you are, whatyou do and how you've got into
enablement?
What's your story?
Amanda (02:37):
Yeah, of course.
So my name's Amanda Whiteside.
I am the Global Vice Presidentof Revenue Enablement at
Freshworks and I leadinitiatives to optimize revenue
generating functions acrosssales, customer success and
partner teams.
Previous to this, I was atAmazon, where I spent six years
of my time both on the retailside of the house as well as at
Amazon Web Services.
Norf (02:58):
So your role, I believe, is new right, You've just been
promoted to it.
Amanda (03:02):
Yes, I started in a very traditional sales enablement
capacity.
Freshworks had a couple ofpredecessors before me that was
doing the more traditionalversion of enablement and it was
really my role to come in andtransform it.
So I'm looking forward totelling you a little bit more
about how I did that.
Norf (03:18):
Fantastic and, of course, congratulations on your new role
.
I think it's great.
Amanda (03:23):
Thank you.
It's always nice to berecognized in the enablement
community.
We get a tough time, so I takethis as a badge of honor for the
broader community.
For sure, yes, do that for us.
Norf (03:35):
Fly that flag, fly that flag!! So, as we were preparing
for this, there was a questionthat I asked you, which is, and
if I just set the scene, you'rehaving a chef come in to prepare
dinner for you and you'repermitted three guests around
your table, can you tell me whothose guests would be and why?
Amanda (03:51):
Yes, and I love this question, and it was a very easy
one.
For those of you that may knowme, I really believe in female
empowerment, so I would love tohave a dinner with three female
powerhouses.
One would be Meryl Streep.
I don't think there's anyexplanation required, but she is
the epitome of versatility andgrace, and I think she would be
a wonderful dinner guest toshare her experience in
(04:13):
Hollywood and also add somehumor to the table.
Norf (04:16):
I concur yeah.
Amanda (04:18):
Jane Fonda.
She's unapologetic force ofnature who's done it all.
If anyone has seen anyinformation or background about
her.
She's done acting, activism andfitness.
She's done everything, so Iwould love to have her there.
And then, of course, MichelleObama the one and only she is a
symbol of strength, grace andleadership, and there's really
(04:39):
no one like her, so I think thatwould be a pretty good dinner
conversation.
Norf (04:44):
I think you're right.
I think that would be a prettygood dinner conversation.
I think you're right.
I think you would probably haveto have them back again because
I don't think they'd getthrough everything they wanted
to talk through FantasticBrilliant.
So could you just tell us alittle bit about your sales
enablement journey and I use theword sales enablement loosely
because of what we're going tobe talking about in today's
(05:04):
podcast.
So what's your sales enablementjourney?
How did you get into it?
I'm sure it wasn't you kind ofthought okay, I'm 16 years of
age, I'm going to become a salesenablement professional.
What was your journey?
Amanda (05:18):
Yeah, I am proud of the fact that I've taken on many
different job roles anddifferent job families, and I'm
very lucky to have a companylike Amazon that has allowed me
to do that.
You'll see, from my background,I've done everything from sales
to product management to broaderleadership roles and program
management, and I've reallylearned a lot about
(05:38):
understanding differentfunctions, all within the
discipline or background ofcustomer experience, and so
enablement is more of a newfunction for me.
Over the last couple of years,I had some curiosity about how I
could directly impact frontlinesellers and really impact
customer experience from thatangle, and so I don't sit here
and pretend that I have 20 yearsexperience, like more of our
(06:01):
tenured enablement professionals, but what I believe that brings
me is the ability to be moredisruptive and really think
differently about how thisfunction could continue to
evolve and be different.
And so, coming into Freshworks,I took on this sales enablement
position that really needed abit of a refresh.
It was traditionally known asreally just supporting our
(06:23):
sellers, giving them playbooks,and it was very much what was on
the shelf they would get.
Nothing was really customized,and so I like to use the term
peanut butter spread, so it wasthe same for everyone.
Norf (06:35):
I happen to like peanut butter.
Amanda (06:37):
I like it too.
So, yeah, it took us on a bitof a journey to really think
about how could we make thisfunction much more impactful.
We also struggled a little bitwith enablement just being
wildly respected across theorganization.
So I had to do a bit of a brandpick me up for this entire
organization and really givethem back the credibility and
(06:58):
recognition that they deserved.
Mm, hmm.
And so we built out somethingcalled revenue enablement that
if you look at Gartner, there'sa whole bunch of resources that
really tell you from thoughtleadership that this is the way
to go, and it can include awhole plethora of different sub
functions.
And really what I did at thetime was go and just say, ok,
(07:19):
what is going to work most forFreshworks in this state and
time?
And so we picked up a couple ofdifferent ones traditional sales
enablement as it was, butlifting it up, partner
enablement is something that webrought into my organization as
well as sales programs, which isreally the whole model of
bringing a new product launch tomarket in kind of a T90 motion,
(07:42):
so really preparing everyoneinvolved for any new product
launch so that you hit revenuefrom day one.
And then we built a wholecontent team, so we needed to
take content generationseriously and we needed to build
curriculums for specific jobfamilies, so we built a very
dedicated specialized team oflearning designers.
And then, last but not least,we built a go-to-market tooling
(08:04):
team, and so this team wasresponsible for taking all of
our tools today as we know them,across sales tech and mar tech
and really build them in a waythat was a more holistic seller
and customer experience on topof the CRM, and make sure that
they connected they weren't justpoint solutions and that has
facilitated and expedited a lotof our journey for how we build
(08:25):
a better experience for sellersgo away and figure it out to
actually an entire end-to-endsystem where you have everybody
(08:48):
involved in creating their ownelements of sales enablement,
all orchestrated and overseen byyou.
Norf (08:56):
Do you think that that is a common practice in the sales
enablement world, or the revenueenablement world we should call
it now?
Amanda (09:04):
I haven't seen it, but it doesn't mean it doesn't exist
, and if there's anyone who'strying to do something similar,
I would love to hear from them,because this has really been a
bit of a quest an independentquest, along with my team and
the support of Freshworks butit's difficult.
We continue to be misunderstoodand in some places people have
a very distinct opinion of whatsales enablement is and they
(09:27):
bring that with them.
Particularly if you engage witha new sales leader that comes
into the organization, they havea very strong opinion of what
they've experienced and what hasworked for them.
So it's been a real journey tohelp the team and leadership
really understand where we'regoing, and it's an everyday job.
So, you know, it's reallyimportant to help them really
(09:49):
get a sense of what we're tryingto deliver and why.
Norf (09:52):
You hit the nail on the head beautifully.
Actually, a lot of new dare Isay seasoned sales leaders do
have a specific perspective on.
Well, in my experience, thishas been sales enablement.
All it is is you're just atraining team.
How do you respond to that?
Amanda (10:09):
Yeah, it's been a challenge, but I also empathize
with sales leaders because Ithink they need to have an
enablement person as theirright-hand person as part of
their extended team.
So the way I designed the salesenablement sub-function within
revenue enablement is that Icreated a dotted line
organization so that each of theregional sales leaders would
(10:31):
have a local enablement personin office with them.
Example UK and Ireland salesleader.
There would be a UK and Irelandenablement leader and they
would be part of their team andreally deeply understand their
(10:52):
business and what needed tohappen.
That individual then reallyworked across all of the job
families within that region andwas very deeply connected to
their business but also wasresponsible for rolling up and
rolling down all of the thingsthat my organization was
delivering.
So it helped me really get theinformation on what we were
doing out and to each of theSEALs leaders in a way that they
(11:13):
felt supported on an everydaybasis.
Now that doesn't mean we don'tdo ad hoc stuff.
The UK and Ireland SEALs leadermay decide that he or she wants
to do X type of training and weneed to accommodate for that,
but I think it gives them thedaily support that they feel
like they need, while we cancontinue to build some of this
strategic kind of process andframework.
Norf (11:35):
Love that, Just for maybe some people that are listening.
Amanda, this is great.
This sounds wonderful.
This really does sound likerevenue enablement utopia.
How long has it taken you toget to this point?
Amanda (11:48):
Yeah, I've been at Freshworks for a year just over
a year, I think, maybe 14 monthsand one of the first things I
did and I would recommend thisto any enablement leader that
was going in fresh to theirorganization is to audit the
current state of the business,as well as, obviously, from the
sales and skills gaps that arearound today, as well as the
(12:10):
current state of theorganization and its ability to
support.
So within my first 30 days, Iaudited the team and it was a
very, very, very small team.
At that time it was a few folksand really I put a huge
proposal together to say, ifyou're really serious about
enablement, this is what I wantto build and this is what I
think is going to be high impactfor Freshworks.
Now, in order to get thatbuy-in and to get that headcount
(12:33):
investment, it's important foryou to align to business
outcomes.
Otherwise, you're just buildingan organization that does
training and for the sake ofbuilding an organization in many
cases.
And so I had to be veryarticulate about what was going
to change for the business, andthat was a combination of win
rates, conversion rates, and welooked at a framework of not
(12:53):
just driving skill but also willand being able to assess those
on a monthly basis.
We looked at seller levelcompetencies, we looked at quota
attainment and we started tobuild a project level inspection
every month and every quarterabout our sellers and so that
allowed us to really track theimpact that we were making and
(13:15):
then report that to the business.
And as we continue to drivesuccess, we continue to unlock
greater investment and greatersupport from leadership greater
investment and greater supportfrom leadership.
Norf (13:30):
So what you've effectively created is you've audited
what's going on currently withthe revenue enablement team.
Let's use the new vernacularnow.
You have aligned your outcomesto the business outcomes, so
that is in perfect lockstep.
How do you then convince thestakeholders that the outcomes
will deliver what you'veenvisaged?
Amanda (13:50):
Yeah, this is where your systems and processes and tools
come into play, because a lotof what I believe enablement
needs to drive is input metrics.
So, if you consider your outputmetrics and often the way the
best way to think about input is, if you want to get a six pack
and that's your output, youshould do a whole bunch of sit
ups, which would be your input,so that's a nice way to remember
(14:12):
it.
So, for input metrics, I reallywanted to make sure that we had
those very well articulated andmeasured across the business.
So, for example, if you'relooking at something like
conversational intelligence andyou launch a new product so for
us it was Freddie AI we reallywanted to understand how many
times were sellers talking aboutour new co-pilot product on
(14:34):
these calls, and so that wouldbe a direct impact metric that
we would want to try to driveand improve.
And so when you can identifythose specific metrics, it gives
you an opportunity to be ableto be very tangible about your
impact.
But it takes time to make surethat you've correctly found
these metrics and that you Aknow how to measure them and
(14:54):
then B can report on them, and Idon't say that lightly.
There's parts of the job today.
That reporting is not alwaysperfect and it takes a lot of
work to try and join the dotstogether, but that is the best
way in which you can get thosereal, tangible impact metrics to
tie to the initiatives thatyou're driving and really
convince those stakeholders.
Norf (15:14):
Absolutely so.
How many cycles have you had togo through to get to where you
are at the moment?
Amanda (15:20):
Yeah, it's been a journey and you know, please,
please, you know, hear me when Isay it's not perfect.
I just very much believe in thevision and the mission and the
direction that we're going inand I think this is where we
want and we should all aspire.
At least, if it works for yourbusiness, if this resonates,
this should be a direction thatyou should at least pilot and
(15:43):
test because it, when it doesresonate, it really resonates
and I can see, even in myleadership today, them go, them
really saying, wow, this, thisis the impact that I was looking
for our training to deliver andfor our sellers to see and feel
.
And so it takes more work thanI think traditional enablement
(16:04):
teams are staffed for.
That's another challenge.
We've noticed that a lot of thework is highly programmatic.
Not all enablement functionshave kind of a program
management function or folksthat know how to do really good
program management, andsometimes data isn't always
available.
Often that's held by ourneighbors in RevOps, so you've
got to make some friends overthere to make sure that you can
(16:25):
get the right dashboards builtin the right way possible.
So it takes time.
Norf (16:44):
I wouldn't know the number of cycles, but it's definitely
a quest worth going on.
If anyone's considering it,give additional responsibilities
to your revenue enablement teamto then go off and kind of now
figure out what's next or go andfigure out what could be next.
Welcome to the Revenue Enablement Society's Stories
from the Trenches, whereenablement practitioners share
their real-world experiences.
Get a scoop on what's happeninginside revenue enablement teams
across the global RES community.
Each segment of Stories fromthe Trenches shares the good,
the bad and the ugly practicesof corporate revenue enablement
(00:27):
initiatives.
Learn what worked and whatdidn't work and how obstacles
were eliminated by enablementteams and go-to-market
leadership.
And join me, your host, PpaulNorford, for casual
conversations about the wide andvaried profession of revenue
(00:49):
enablement, where there's nevera one-size-fits-all solution.
Hi and welcome.
We're back after the summer of2024 with a brand new series of
the Revenue Enablement Societypodcast Stories from the
Trenches.
You'll also note a slightlydifferent voice from the one
that you may be used to.
My name is Paul Norford and manyknow me as Norf and I have the
(01:09):
distinct pleasure of being yourRES Stories from the Trenches
podcast host.
Before we get into it this week, I want to personally and
profusely thank Paul Butterfieldfor starting off the podcast.
That has become a bit of amovement in our revenue
enablement world and, as hehangs up his RES podcast
microphone, I have the pleasureof continuing the great work
started, having been a big fanand a guest on the podcast
(01:32):
myself.
As far as I know, we are theonly revenue enablement podcast
by enablers for enablers, and wesearch far and wide looking for
enablement practitionerstalking about what they're doing
, how and why they're doingthings differently and what
outcomes they're achieving asthey adapt to the constantly
changing world of sales andrevenue enablement.
(01:52):
One of my favorite things is tolearn something new with every
guest we bring on and to sharethat with you.
I am really, really excitedtoday.
I know that this is the firstRevenue Enablement Society
Stories from the Trench'spodcast that I've done, but I am
super, super excited today tohave Amanda Whiteside on.
I know you're super busy,Amanda, but I'm so pleased that
(02:13):
you managed to spend a bit oftime and you've joined me today
on the podcast.
It's good to have you here.
Amanda (02:18):
So excited to be here.
Thank you so much for having me, Paul.
Norf (02:22):
Of course, absolutely.
So first and foremost, beforewe get into the dinner question
and that will all become clear alittle bit later can you just
let me know who you are, whatyou do and how you've got into
enablement?
What's your story?
Amanda (02:37):
Yeah, of course.
So my name's Amanda Whiteside.
I am the Global Vice Presidentof Revenue Enablement at
Freshworks and I leadinitiatives to optimize revenue
generating functions acrosssales, customer success and
partner teams.
Previous to this, I was atAmazon, where I spent six years
of my time both on the retailside of the house as well as at
Amazon Web Services.
Norf (02:58):
So your role, I believe, is new right, You've just been
promoted to it.
Amanda (03:02):
Yes, I started in a very traditional sales enablement
capacity.
Freshworks had a couple ofpredecessors before me that was
doing the more traditionalversion of enablement and it was
really my role to come in andtransform it.
So I'm looking forward totelling you a little bit more
about how I did that.
Norf (03:18):
Fantastic and, of course, congratulations on your new role
.
I think it's great.
Amanda (03:23):
Thank you.
It's always nice to berecognized in the enablement
community.
We get a tough time, so I takethis as a badge of honor for the
broader community.
For sure, yes, do that for us.
Norf (03:35):
Fly that flag, fly that flag!! So, as we were preparing
for this, there was a questionthat I asked you, which is, and
if I just set the scene, you'rehaving a chef come in to prepare
dinner for you and you'repermitted three guests around
your table, can you tell me whothose guests would be and why?
Amanda (03:51):
Yes, and I love this question, and it was a very easy
one.
For those of you that may knowme, I really believe in female
empowerment, so I would love tohave a dinner with three female
powerhouses.
One would be Meryl Streep.
I don't think there's anyexplanation required, but she is
the epitome of versatility andgrace, and I think she would be
a wonderful dinner guest toshare her experience in
(04:13):
Hollywood and also add somehumor to the table.
Norf (04:16):
I concur yeah.
Amanda (04:18):
Jane Fonda.
She's unapologetic force ofnature who's done it all.
If anyone has seen anyinformation or background about
her.
She's done acting, activism andfitness.
She's done everything, so Iwould love to have her there.
And then, of course, MichelleObama the one and only she is a
symbol of strength, grace andleadership, and there's really
(04:39):
no one like her, so I think thatwould be a pretty good dinner
conversation.
Norf (04:44):
I think you're right.
I think that would be a prettygood dinner conversation.
I think you're right.
I think you would probably haveto have them back again because
I don't think they'd getthrough everything they wanted
to talk through FantasticBrilliant.
So could you just tell us alittle bit about your sales
enablement journey and I use theword sales enablement loosely
because of what we're going tobe talking about in today's
(05:04):
podcast.
So what's your sales enablementjourney?
How did you get into it?
I'm sure it wasn't you kind ofthought okay, I'm 16 years of
age, I'm going to become a salesenablement professional.
What was your journey?
Amanda (05:18):
Yeah, I am proud of the fact that I've taken on many
different job roles anddifferent job families, and I'm
very lucky to have a companylike Amazon that has allowed me
to do that.
You'll see, from my background,I've done everything from sales
to product management to broaderleadership roles and program
management, and I've reallylearned a lot about
(05:38):
understanding differentfunctions, all within the
discipline or background ofcustomer experience, and so
enablement is more of a newfunction for me.
Over the last couple of years,I had some curiosity about how I
could directly impact frontlinesellers and really impact
customer experience from thatangle, and so I don't sit here
and pretend that I have 20 yearsexperience, like more of our
(06:01):
tenured enablement professionals, but what I believe that brings
me is the ability to be moredisruptive and really think
differently about how thisfunction could continue to
evolve and be different.
And so, coming into Freshworks,I took on this sales enablement
position that really needed abit of a refresh.
It was traditionally known asreally just supporting our
(06:23):
sellers, giving them playbooks,and it was very much what was on
the shelf they would get.
Nothing was really customized,and so I like to use the term
peanut butter spread, so it wasthe same for everyone.
Norf (06:35):
I happen to like peanut butter.
Amanda (06:37):
I like it too.
So, yeah, it took us on a bitof a journey to really think
about how could we make thisfunction much more impactful.
We also struggled a little bitwith enablement just being
wildly respected across theorganization.
So I had to do a bit of a brandpick me up for this entire
organization and really givethem back the credibility and
(06:58):
recognition that they deserved.
Mm, hmm.
And so we built out somethingcalled revenue enablement that
if you look at Gartner, there'sa whole bunch of resources that
really tell you from thoughtleadership that this is the way
to go, and it can include awhole plethora of different sub
functions.
And really what I did at thetime was go and just say, ok,
(07:19):
what is going to work most forFreshworks in this state and
time?
And so we picked up a couple ofdifferent ones traditional sales
enablement as it was, butlifting it up, partner
enablement is something that webrought into my organization as
well as sales programs, which isreally the whole model of
bringing a new product launch tomarket in kind of a T90 motion,
(07:42):
so really preparing everyoneinvolved for any new product
launch so that you hit revenuefrom day one.
And then we built a wholecontent team, so we needed to
take content generationseriously and we needed to build
curriculums for specific jobfamilies, so we built a very
dedicated specialized team oflearning designers.
And then, last but not least,we built a go-to-market tooling
(08:04):
team, and so this team wasresponsible for taking all of
our tools today as we know them,across sales tech and mar tech
and really build them in a waythat was a more holistic seller
and customer experience on topof the CRM, and make sure that
they connected they weren't justpoint solutions and that has
facilitated and expedited a lotof our journey for how we build
(08:25):
a better experience for sellersgo away and figure it out to
actually an entire end-to-endsystem where you have everybody
(08:48):
involved in creating their ownelements of sales enablement,
all orchestrated and overseen byyou.
Norf (08:56):
Do you think that that is a common practice in the sales
enablement world, or the revenueenablement world we should call
it now?
Amanda (09:04):
I haven't seen it, but it doesn't mean it doesn't exist
, and if there's anyone who'strying to do something similar,
I would love to hear from them,because this has really been a
bit of a quest an independentquest, along with my team and
the support of Freshworks butit's difficult.
We continue to be misunderstoodand in some places people have
a very distinct opinion of whatsales enablement is and they
(09:27):
bring that with them.
Particularly if you engage witha new sales leader that comes
into the organization, they havea very strong opinion of what
they've experienced and what hasworked for them.
So it's been a real journey tohelp the team and leadership
really understand where we'regoing, and it's an everyday job.
So, you know, it's reallyimportant to help them really
(09:49):
get a sense of what we're tryingto deliver and why.
Norf (09:52):
You hit the nail on the head beautifully.
Actually, a lot of new dare Isay seasoned sales leaders do
have a specific perspective on.
Well, in my experience, thishas been sales enablement.
All it is is you're just atraining team.
How do you respond to that?
Amanda (10:09):
Yeah, it's been a challenge, but I also empathize
with sales leaders because Ithink they need to have an
enablement person as theirright-hand person as part of
their extended team.
So the way I designed the salesenablement sub-function within
revenue enablement is that Icreated a dotted line
organization so that each of theregional sales leaders would
(10:31):
have a local enablement personin office with them.
Example UK and Ireland salesleader.
There would be a UK and Irelandenablement leader and they
would be part of their team andreally deeply understand their
(10:52):
business and what needed tohappen.
That individual then reallyworked across all of the job
families within that region andwas very deeply connected to
their business but also wasresponsible for rolling up and
rolling down all of the thingsthat my organization was
delivering.
So it helped me really get theinformation on what we were
doing out and to each of theSEALs leaders in a way that they
(11:13):
felt supported on an everydaybasis.
Now that doesn't mean we don'tdo ad hoc stuff.
The UK and Ireland SEALs leadermay decide that he or she wants
to do X type of training and weneed to accommodate for that,
but I think it gives them thedaily support that they feel
like they need, while we cancontinue to build some of this
strategic kind of process andframework.
Norf (11:35):
Love that, Just for maybe some people that are listening.
Amanda, this is great.
This sounds wonderful.
This really does sound likerevenue enablement utopia.
How long has it taken you toget to this point?
Amanda (11:48):
Yeah, I've been at Freshworks for a year just over
a year, I think, maybe 14 monthsand one of the first things I
did and I would recommend thisto any enablement leader that
was going in fresh to theirorganization is to audit the
current state of the business,as well as, obviously, from the
sales and skills gaps that arearound today, as well as the
(12:10):
current state of theorganization and its ability to
support.
So within my first 30 days, Iaudited the team and it was a
very, very, very small team.
At that time it was a few folksand really I put a huge
proposal together to say, ifyou're really serious about
enablement, this is what I wantto build and this is what I
think is going to be high impactfor Freshworks.
Now, in order to get thatbuy-in and to get that headcount
(12:33):
investment, it's important foryou to align to business
outcomes.
Otherwise, you're just buildingan organization that does
training and for the sake ofbuilding an organization in many
cases.
And so I had to be veryarticulate about what was going
to change for the business, andthat was a combination of win
rates, conversion rates, and welooked at a framework of not
(12:53):
just driving skill but also willand being able to assess those
on a monthly basis.
We looked at seller levelcompetencies, we looked at quota
attainment and we started tobuild a project level inspection
every month and every quarterabout our sellers and so that
allowed us to really track theimpact that we were making and
(13:15):
then report that to the business.
And as we continue to drivesuccess, we continue to unlock
greater investment and greatersupport from leadership greater
investment and greater supportfrom leadership.
Norf (13:30):
So what you've effectively created is you've audited
what's going on currently withthe revenue enablement team.
Let's use the new vernacularnow.
You have aligned your outcomesto the business outcomes, so
that is in perfect lockstep.
How do you then convince thestakeholders that the outcomes
will deliver what you'veenvisaged?
Amanda (13:50):
Yeah, this is where your systems and processes and tools
come into play, because a lotof what I believe enablement
needs to drive is input metrics.
So, if you consider your outputmetrics and often the way the
best way to think about input is, if you want to get a six pack
and that's your output, youshould do a whole bunch of sit
ups, which would be your input,so that's a nice way to remember
(14:12):
it.
So, for input metrics, I reallywanted to make sure that we had
those very well articulated andmeasured across the business.
So, for example, if you'relooking at something like
conversational intelligence andyou launch a new product so for
us it was Freddie AI we reallywanted to understand how many
times were sellers talking aboutour new co-pilot product on
(14:34):
these calls, and so that wouldbe a direct impact metric that
we would want to try to driveand improve.
And so when you can identifythose specific metrics, it gives
you an opportunity to be ableto be very tangible about your
impact.
But it takes time to make surethat you've correctly found
these metrics and that you Aknow how to measure them and
(14:54):
then B can report on them, and Idon't say that lightly.
There's parts of the job today.
That reporting is not alwaysperfect and it takes a lot of
work to try and join the dotstogether, but that is the best
way in which you can get thosereal, tangible impact metrics to
tie to the initiatives thatyou're driving and really
convince those stakeholders.
Norf (15:14):
Absolutely so.
How many cycles have you had togo through to get to where you
are at the moment?
Amanda (15:20):
Yeah, it's been a journey and you know, please,
please, you know, hear me when Isay it's not perfect.
I just very much believe in thevision and the mission and the
direction that we're going inand I think this is where we
want and we should all aspire.
At least, if it works for yourbusiness, if this resonates,
this should be a direction thatyou should at least pilot and
(15:43):
test because it, when it doesresonate, it really resonates
and I can see, even in myleadership today, them go, them
really saying, wow, this, thisis the impact that I was looking
for our training to deliver andfor our sellers to see and feel
.
And so it takes more work thanI think traditional enablement
(16:04):
teams are staffed for.
That's another challenge.
We've noticed that a lot of thework is highly programmatic.
Not all enablement functionshave kind of a program
management function or folksthat know how to do really good
program management, andsometimes data isn't always
available.
Often that's held by ourneighbors in RevOps, so you've
got to make some friends overthere to make sure that you can
(16:25):
get the right dashboards builtin the right way possible.
So it takes time.
Norf (16:44):
I wouldn't know the number of cycles, but it's definitely
a quest worth going on.
If anyone's considering it,give additional responsibilities
to your revenue enablement teamto then go off and kind of now
figure out what's next or go andfigure out what could be next.
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