Ep. 210 - Justin Enns (Sales Enablement Manager @ Resolver)

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of
Your Intention Matters thePodcast.
My name, of course, is stillPaul Madott.
Thank you very much for being onthis episode.
Today we have Justin Enns.
He is Sales Enablement Managercoming to us from Resolver in
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.
Justin, good to see you, man.
How have you been?

SPEAKER_01 (00:18):
Hey, Paul, good to see you again as well.
It's been a while.

SPEAKER_00 (00:22):
You know, I'm out of curiosity.
I was gonna say you're from theKW.
Now, is the KW a stupid Torontoterm, or do you actually say
that in Kitchener Waterloo?

SPEAKER_01 (00:32):
I say it outside of Kitchener Waterloo so people
know it because that's whatoutside people tend to know.
Um, but internally you wouldrefer to you're either in
Kitchener or you're in Waterloo.
Uh the Twin City situation.
You gotta understand which sideyou're on.
It helps.

SPEAKER_00 (00:48):
And you're in Kitchener these days, right?
I'm in Kitchener, correct.
All right.
Just to be clear about that,we're not in Waterloo, we're in
Kitchener.
Got it.

SPEAKER_01 (00:55):
Yeah, just an hour and a half outside Toronto, two
hours of bad traffic, you knowhow it goes.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00):
Yeah, that 401.
I don't miss it at all up herein Collingwood, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 (01:04):
Yeah, two hours from Collingwood.
That's a much nicer drive, in myopinion.

SPEAKER_00 (01:07):
Yeah.
Well, good to see you, man.
Nice to reconnect you.
Thanks for being here.
Say hi to everybody, provide areal quick introduction.

SPEAKER_01 (01:14):
Yeah, so I was informed.
My name's Justin.
I work at Resolver.
Uh, it's a tech company inToronto.
We sell government risk andcompliance and security
software, as well as some sociallistening online brand
reputation monitoring services.
And um I work specifically inthe sales enablement function.

(01:34):
So I've been doing that atResolver for the past three
years, a little over three yearsnow, having done it at a
previous role as well.
So um once upon a time, I was aBDR.
That's actually where I firstran into you, Paul, when we went
through the source selling.
And I was it's been a manyyears, I was trying to rack my

(01:55):
brain on the things I remember.
One of the main things Iremember, I there was something
about like a no informationzone, right?
Uh that was a piece of it.
I was I was trying to thinkback, but having not made uh
cold calls in the past littlewhile on my enablement journey,
some of that stuff unfortunatelyuh went out went out the door.
But uh definitely excited tocome back here.
I remember it being reallypolished in a nice program.

(02:17):
So um thanks for reaching out.
Happy to chat.

SPEAKER_00 (02:21):
Happy to be here.
Thanks so much for the time.
And you're newly married, right?
Congratulations.

SPEAKER_01 (02:25):
Yes, married as of uh October.
So been settling into that, anduh yeah, things have been things
have been good.

SPEAKER_00 (02:34):
Gotcha.
Well, I look forward to talkingto you today.
You know, as we were talkingabout the podcast itself, it's
really all about mindset andintention and their roles and
overachievement.
Because from my perspective, youknow an organization can provide
their salespeople with everytool and the toolkit to go
dominate.
You can give them producttraining and you can give them

(02:54):
system training, you can givethem competitive intel, you can
give them skill set training,you can give them inbound leads
as well at the same time.
But if they're not mentallyready to go, chances are they're
likely going to crumble at theas soon as they get resistance.
And I'm curious about your takeon that as well.
Are you aligned with my thoughtsregarding mindset?
You can give them all thetactics, but if they're not
ready to go, they're probablygonna crumble.

SPEAKER_01 (03:17):
Absolutely.
Um, and having worked in thisand working with sales reps and
SDRs and many along the way,there are some that thrive on
what we're able to give them interms of all you said, the
tools, the leads, or thescenarios, the support, um, and
some that don't.
And that's just a reality of thesituation.

(03:37):
And I think the hypothesis thatthe mindset is playing a large
role in that.
And I think, you know, intoday's day, especially where a
lot of folks are starting out intheir careers uh fully remote,
fully digital, um, and havinggone through the pandemic in
more formative years, it's itcan be noticeable when the

(03:58):
mindset um is not necessarilythere to thrive in a high-pace
sales or corporate environment.

SPEAKER_00 (04:06):
And Justin, when did you take your first uh
professional sales job?

SPEAKER_01 (04:12):
Uh I guess there's two answers to this.
So I did have an internship.
I had a co-op in university, wasmy first exposure to it.
So second year university, Iworked for a company called
Uline shipping and packagingsupplies.
Uh once you see the name, youactually see it everywhere.
Um, but I was driving aroundMississauga, part of the GTA,

(04:34):
um, and uh in my mom's HondaAccord, driving around with uh a
trunk full of samples of boxesand tape and gloves and safety
glasses, and walking intowarehouses and looking for the
uh you know the managers to say,talk about what they're using us
for.
They were all existing customersas interns.

(04:57):
We didn't do any cold, but uhsort of, hey, you're using us
for boxes.
Have you thought about using usfor tape?
Here's a sample.
Let's look around the warehouseand see what else we can uh we
could help you with.
So catalog at hand, shoulderstrap with uh samples at my
side.
That was my first uh sales gig,but that was for just four
months in the summer.

SPEAKER_00 (05:17):
Gotcha.
What about professionally as apaying job post-uni?

SPEAKER_01 (05:21):
Yeah, thankfully that page is not as much.
Um post-university.
Uh yeah.
Post-university, uh, I startedas uh a BDR at a software
company in Kitchener Waterloo,in Waterloo specifically, uh
called Avik.
Um and they do networkmonitoring.
So that was my first role.
It was really, you know,interesting to get in because

(05:44):
Kitchener Waterloo is known as abit of a tech hub outside of
Toronto and has a lot of greatones.
You had uh a Vidyard guest, Iknow Jimmy from Vidyard, you had
on in the past, and I'm not surewho else you may have had, but
quite a few in the area that itstemmed from BlackBerry and uh
some other things before that aswell.

(06:06):
Um it's a it's a reallyinteresting vibe that was going
on, and I wanted to catch on tothat.
So I got into that onespecifically, and I had
graduated and I was living backat home, just working part-time
at the summer went up, did somecamp counseling again just
because I wanted to take it easyand do what I enjoyed.

(06:28):
Um, and once it was timeOctober, November hit, uh, I
buckled down, was getting someinterviews, um, and I had a
connection from university whowas working doing this business
development, whatever thatmeant, role at the time, uh, at
Aubik, and had a chat with him.
The timing worked out prettywell.
He was actually on his way out,but was in very good favor with

(06:50):
the managers there.
He had just found another role,said he'd pass my resume along,
and um from there I was able toget into the world of BDR.

SPEAKER_00 (07:00):
You know, the reason why I asked the question is
because I'm always uh curiousabout somebody's choice to get
into sales because there'sreally no path in university or
college for this.
There's business school andthere's things like that, but
there's no real uh you knowdegree uh to be a salesperson.
Yet there's millions of us outthere all kind of you know

(07:21):
trying to figure it out.
And when I got into sales, Itook economics at York
University and I got intofinance at Scotiabank, and then
I found myself in a positionwhere I was laid off and I was
out of work.
So a buddy of mine called me upand said, Hey, listen, uh, I
went to university with a guywho's running a sales team at
Xerox.
Why don't you apply?

(07:41):
And at the time I thought,sales, I'm not a sales guy.
Actually, quite frankly, I hatesales in my head as a bit of a
dirty word.
I don't really know why I had itthat way.
So I went into the interview, Ihad no other choice.
I was out of work.
I thought, well, let's give it ashot.
What's the worst that couldhappen?
And when they offered me thejob, I went into the job very
much with a six-month mindset.

(08:02):
Let me give it six months, seewhat happens.
And if I like it, I like it.
If I don't, I don't.
Ended up being almost 10 yearslater on, which was what I'm
very grateful for.
But in that first year, Justin,I must have mentally quit half a
dozen times.
I I I was I was a territory repin Toronto, I was 100%
commissioned, had a small littlebase salary just to kind of keep

(08:23):
the lights on, but it wasn'treally much at all.
And I'm just curious about yourfirst year in sales.
Did you kind of go through whatI went through?
Did it come easy to you?
Was it at heart?
Because the BDR role uh can bereally challenging.

SPEAKER_01 (08:38):
There were definitely ups and downs,
without question.
Um I I got into it in a similarway too.
I was looking to get that, youknow, everything seemed like you
needed that first year ofexperience, right?
Every job looked like it waslooking for having that you need
experience to get a job, but youneed a job to get experience.

(09:00):
And this seemed like a greatentryway.
And I knew I could do salesbecause I did it in that
internship.
So it wasn't necessarily where Ithought I'd be going with my
career, but I I knew it wassomething I could do, make some
money, be in a professionalenvironment, and get that
experience.
Um so that's really what droveme towards this option and uh
why I thought that it would be agood first step because I had

(09:22):
some applicable skills and Iknew it was hard, but I back to
the mindset thing, I knew Icould dig in with the mindset to
do it because that internshipthat I was describing to you was
no walk in the park.
Um so understanding that, Ifigured, hey, I'll give this a
year and either get theexperience I need to go and and
work somewhere else, or maybeprove to the company that I have

(09:45):
what it takes to work here, butthen transition to something a
little different.
So I went to school forbusiness.
I'm not entirely sure what Iwasn't sure exactly where I
wanted to go.
I knew it was business.
I thought maybe marketing, Ireally like problem solving.
I don't know if it was workingfor product or I just knew I
wanted to get in.
I did know I wanted to get intoa business and be working in a

(10:06):
business and um trying to growit.
I just didn't know what part ofit it was going to be.
Um, and yet six years later,I've stayed on the sales side.

SPEAKER_00 (10:16):
You know, I want to get into your decision to go
from sales to enablement becausethat's not the path that
everybody takes.
It's what I took, and I shouldbe uh we talk about that, but I
want to get into that in asecond.
But before we do that, you saidto me before we hit record, I
think you said you're what 28now?

unknown (10:33):
Yep.

SPEAKER_00 (10:34):
Okay.
So I want to ask you a questionabout something.
I was on a call uh earliertoday, actually it was
yesterday, with a VP of salesout of um London, England.
And where we were talking abouta few different things about my
sales training and what he's upto with his team and so on and
so forth.
And he happened to mention acomment to me.
He just said one of thestruggles that he's having right

(10:55):
now is that he's finding that uhsomething to the effect of uh
the the younger kids coming intoday, nobody really wants to
work.
And so I was interested when hesaid that to me, it made me
think, you know, like my I I'm aGen Xer, I'm I'm early 50s, and
yeah, you're not what would yoube?

(11:16):
A Gen, what is it called?

SPEAKER_01 (11:18):
I think I I qualify as Gen Z, but I'm Gen Z pretty
uh adamant about saying I'm kindof an in-betweener between
millennial and Gen Z.
I don't quite identify withmillennial, and I don't quite
identify with Gen Z.
So some have called it azillennial, I call it an
in-betweener, but uh I'm in thatin that flux.

SPEAKER_00 (11:39):
So the reason why I ask is because there's the
there's a lot of Gen Xers outthere in my generation who are
the hiring managers, the teamleaders, the VPs, and the
directors, and so on still.
And I think that our generationgives your generation a bad rap
in a lot of cases.
And I'm just curious about howyou've managed or have you had

(12:00):
to manage this sense of mygeneration saying to you, you
don't work as hard as we do.
Has that come up in your careerso far, as far as you know, has
that had to have that come up atall?

SPEAKER_01 (12:12):
You know what?
It's a really it's a goodquestion to ask because I in
short to myself, I don't thinkso, but I also think that that's
a part of working in techsoftware that are very uh
meritocracy focused, right, andvery pragmatic.

(12:36):
Um, I would say where I've been,age has not really defined a lot
of things in the areas.
There are very young VPs intech, there are very old VPs in
tech.
It's a lot of the time, it'shey, who's the best for the
role?
So I didn't feel that in theroles that I've experienced.
Now, I've absolutely heard thatdiscourse.

(12:56):
I've heard people say itanecdotally, not necessarily in
the work environment.
And quite frankly, I have comeacross in my past experience a
lot of folks even younger thanme, maybe towards that Gen Z,
that some of them do strugglewith a specific work ethic, but
it might just be magnified, andthere could be an equal amount
in the older generations.
It just gets a little bit moremagnified uh at this level or at

(13:19):
this age.
You know, the next generation isalways uh something a little
crazy, a little different,right?
I'm sure the boomers said thatabout the Gen Xers as well.

SPEAKER_00 (13:28):
No, I never heard that once.
No, of course, many times.
My parents used to say to me allthe time, you gave it just so
easy compared to what I had itas, and so it's all the same,
right?
So good.
So listen, let's talk about yourtransition from uh sales to
enablement.
And so, as I shared with you, aswe were talking through the
episode here, I gained mypedigree in sales at Xerox, and

(13:50):
I kind of went through the uh Iguess the Xerox uh path, so to
speak, sales rep, productspecialist, sales manager.
Uh I moved to Calgary for acouple of years and I ran the
production business for adivision out there as well.
And of my, I guess, almost 10years at Xerox, I spent three of
them as a national salesinstructor.
So I was on the training side ofthings, and that to me um was

(14:15):
the best job I had uh at thatcompany.
It was a lot of fun.
I love being a part of thecreation of courses and programs
and coaching.
I got like I missed directsales, I missed everything that
kind of went with the bullpenenvironment, of course.
But I had so much fun doingthat, but that was not what I
wanted to do when I first gotinto sales, it just kind of

(14:36):
happened for me.
And I'm curious about yourdecision to dip your kind of toe
in the water of enablementversus versus sales.
Did they find you?
Did someone ask you to do this?
Did you kind of gravitate to howdid that happen?

SPEAKER_01 (14:50):
Yeah, great question.
Um in my background, I thinklooking back on it, it seems now
that it makes a lot of sense.
It seems quite natural that Iwould end up in a role like
this.
And who knows what the futurestill has in in store for me.
But at some point in my career,being in enablement, which is a
lot, you know, for folks outthere, if they're fully familiar

(15:10):
with sales enablement, um, everyplace defines it differently.
Actually, Paul, I'd be curiousto understand what your
definition of sales enablementis, because I'm gonna guess you
and I even define it uhdifferently.
It's a it's a bit of a fluidthing, depending on which
company that you're at.

SPEAKER_00 (15:28):
Fair.
So I think when I hear salesenablement, I hear sales
training.
I I hear you're arming the salesteams to achieve their numbers.
That's what I hear when I hearthat.
I I also hear revenueenablement, which I think it
obviously links to drivingrevenue for the company, but I
link it all into are you armingyour sales people with the skill

(15:50):
sets to go dominate in theirexisting roles?
That's what I hear when I hearsales enablement.
What do you hear?

SPEAKER_01 (15:57):
Yeah, for sure.
And and that's absolutely a partof it.
And for a lot of organizations,that's exactly what sales
enablement is and means.
I would say, in my experience,working in very small sales
enablement teams that areworking at these fast-paced tech
companies, my experience withthe leadership that um I've had,
I'll shout out my boss, LisaDakin Bartellos, who you've

(16:19):
worked with as well.
You know, we our philosophyaround enablement, or at least
the way I see it through us, isuh quite simply doing as many
things as I can to take off of amanager's plate so that they can
focus on doing the things theyneed to do to have the reps
execute.
So training 100% is a part ofthat.

(16:42):
I can specialize in training,managers don't specialize in
training, and they don't havethe time to do all that
training.
Let me do that.
But it also goes beyond that.
Do we need to test new tools?
Do we need to write updocumentations?
Do we need to cross ideasbetween divisions?
Do we need to get in early on anew product launch to make sure

(17:02):
that marketing is speaking thesame language as sales so that
when it comes out, no one ispointing fingers or wondering
what the heck happened here?
Right?
Making sure that those launcheshave been translated and run
through the salespeople in aconsistent, repeatable, and then
uh traceable or trackable mannerdown the line.
So those are the ways that Iview sales enablement.

(17:23):
Um, and what I like about thatperspective, and not all
companies have that perspective,which is totally fine, but I
like working for companies thathave that perspective because it
means I get to wear a lot ofhats.
So I get to I get to do thetraining, and I've always this
kind of goes back to where I wasstarting.
I love the training stuff.
I used to be a swim instructorin high school, and so I have a
background in just I I liketeaching, I like training.

(17:46):
Um, I've volunteered as a coachbefore, and so I like that
stuff.
Um, but in addition to that, Iget to go in the back end of
Salesforce and make things surethings are working well.
I'm working with our AI toolsright now to make sure that reps
are using the most efficientworkflows in them.
I'm meeting with the vendors tomake sure we're mostly using the
tools and doing all of thesedifferent things, working with

(18:08):
marketing, working with productto make sure that the managers
can focus on managing andcoaching and making the reps the
best that they could be, and letus take all of those other
things to make sure that theship is still sailing smoothly
as those pieces are going.
So to get back to uh sorry, I'mnot sure if another comment, but
to get back to uh the originalpiece, sales enablement then

(18:33):
made a lot of sense where um Iwas an SDR or a BDR for about a
year and a bit.
And uh I at about the one yearpoint, I got I was uh I was
doing pretty well and I waspromoted because I was working
well.
Uh we had a lot of new hires anda lot of turnover, and I was
working a lot with them.
So I was promoted to a teamlead.

(18:53):
And doing the team lead forportion, I 80% of my role was
still being a BDR, and 20% wasbeing a team lead, uh, working
and doing a little bit ofcoaching and some onboarding
stuff.
And I realized I really likethat 20% a whole lot more than I
liked that 80%.
And I'm sure other people haveexperienced this as well.

(19:14):
There is a lot of not exactlypressure, but expectation that
if you're a BDR, the the pathyou're going down is to become a
seller, right?
Carry a bag, um, be an accountexecutive or or maybe uh you
know, account manager, butthat's the destination.
And I was enjoying those otheraspects so much and the parts

(19:34):
that not because it was carryinga bag, I didn't mind carrying a
bag and having a quota, and it'sreally fun when you can do it
and exceed it.
And I I got all that, but I wasjust having way more enjoyment
on the training side and workingwith new hires and that piece.
So I wanted to embrace that andtake an opportunity.
So that's when my manager at thetime, his name is Ryan Shin, and

(19:56):
uh Lisa, as I mentioned before,who's my current manager,
reached out to me and said, Hey,we have an interesting role for
you.
Lisa needs some help for BDRenablement.
Would you like to take it on?
And I hadn't even I didn't evenknow what enablement really was
at that time.
I couldn't have given you adefinition.
I didn't enter sales knowingthat enablement was even a
thing.
So um you know, it's it's one ofthose when you get started, um,

(20:21):
what's the Microsoft quote?
You can apply it to your career,right?
Um, your career is gonna changeless than you want within one
year, but more than you canimagine within five.
Um, and that's that holds trueto my experience at that point.

SPEAKER_00 (20:37):
You know, you certainly have seen a lot in a
short period of time in yourcareer, and as you think about
it, like you're in your late20s, you kind of survived COVID,
which was unique for all of us,no matter what, no matter what
we were doing.
It was such a such a majorhiccup in the world of the time
back in 20, 2021, and so on,even into 2022, of course.
And even now, as we're recordinghere in mid-May 2026, for a lot

(21:01):
of companies out there, it'slike a bloodbath out there.
The amount of people that arebeing laid off, and Q companies
are condensing this AI movementand so on.
And so, congrats on your successto this point.

SPEAKER_01 (21:14):
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, it's interesting.
The COVID piece, I guess we blurit out, but I got just a taste
of I'll say the glory days orthe golden age of tech.
It was 2019, uh, October when Isigned my contract and started
as an SDR.
So that was, of course, inoffice, but the office was it
was cool.

(21:34):
There was beer on tap, there wasa soda pop machine, snacks in
the drawers, Wednesdays.
They cater to lunch.
We would dress casually, but onFridays, actually, as SDRs or
BDRs, we would have fancyFridays.
So we would put on uh we dressup like I'd wear a suit on
Friday and just because likeit's fun and we're dressing down
so much, why not switch it upand subvert expectations and

(21:57):
dress up?
And you know, I got four monthsof that or five months.
Or six or whatever it was untilMarch, and I guess it was
November to March of 5.
Um, it was great, but then COVIDhit, um, and it was never the
same.
So I got to taste a lot ofpeople entering and who I've
worked with and onboarded in thepast six years since I've
started in the more enablementside.
Um I did didn't even get toexperience that, albeit it's

(22:22):
coming back a little bit in someplaces, in some way, shapes, and
form.
But uh I can't tell if it's agift or a curse that I got to
taste, you know.
That that was that was greatthat I got to experience it.
And also I know what I'm stillmissing out being uh fully
remote at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 (22:38):
Yeah, I appreciate that.
You know, Justin, thanks so muchfor being here, man.
Nice to reconnect.
As uh as I always like to closeoff each episode, you know, if
you think about your career tothis point, uh any best practice
or advice that has been given toyou that has served you well
that you would share withanyone?
Anything come to mind?

SPEAKER_01 (22:57):
Yeah, am I allowed to do two, or do you want me to
pick one?

SPEAKER_00 (23:00):
Pick five if you want.

SPEAKER_01 (23:02):
Okay.
I think serving myself and themindset thing, right?
Getting back to that, um, Paul,I can't agree enough that your
mindset is going to serveeverything here in sales.
Um, when I was an SDR, it wasn'tif BDR wasn't my favorite thing
to do, but I knew I wanted to dowell so I could get to that next
thing.
So, anyone out there, if you'rea BDR, have the mindset, even if

(23:23):
you don't love what you're doingright now, if you can execute in
this position, other positionswill open up to you.
They're looking for topperformers to hire, even if it's
different skill sets.
They want to know can you masterthe role you're in right now?
Because that's a good indicatorthat you might be able to master
the next role you get into.
So really push through that.
Um in the enablementperspective, I like to take a

(23:45):
bit of that Disney approachwhere it's um, you know, maybe
it's the 30th person that I'veonboarded this year, but it's
the first time that they've beenonboarded at this company with
me.
So I need to make sure that Itrain it as if it was the first
and the only one and giving themthe full effort every time.
And I think that has led to somevery strong satisfaction amongst

(24:09):
the reps that we've beenonboarding, which leads to
success down the line, thetenure that they stay by being
shown how important they are tothe company and getting that
really white glove and uh caringabout their onboarding and
giving it the full effort.
So, you know, treat everysituation that you can to enable
somebody and bring them on as ifit's the main one.

(24:31):
Um, the most insightful advice Igot was when I was interviewing
around and I was I was doingsome coffee chats with some uh
connections.
Luckily, my dad had someentrepreneur connections, so I
was talking to them about theirbusinesses.
And the best piece of advice Igot from them, which is again, I
think it's about mindset, is uhif you want to get promoted,

(24:51):
make yourself replaceable asfast as possible.
And I love that quote becauseit's all about mindset.
If you have a timid or shy ornervous or scared mindset,
making yourself replaceable,that's the fear of being fired,
right?
And being left out and gone.
But if you have a capable,strong, powerful, ambitious

(25:14):
mindset, it's that, hey, I don'twant to be tied down because
they need me to do this thingthat only I can do.
I need to make sure others cando that because they know I know
that I'm good enough to get tothat next thing and do that next
thing.
So I really, I really like thatone.
Um, I think it's it's powerfulwith the right mindset that uh

(25:36):
do what you can, write thedocumentation if you need to
train somebody else on how to doit.
Uh, make it less of a black boxso that you're not stuck in your
role because you're the only onethat can do it.

SPEAKER_00 (25:48):
Really well said, man.
Nice to reconnect.
Thanks for being here, Justin.

SPEAKER_01 (25:51):
Yeah, thanks, Paul.
I appreciate the time.

SPEAKER_00 (25:53):
You're welcome.
Right, everybody.
We're gonna wrap it up rightnow.
Remember, as I always say, yourintention matters.
Why?
Because that's a result you'lltend to get.
We'll see you on the nextepisode.