Ep3 Setting Up a Strategic Sales Enablement Function & Charles Dickens

Welcome to the Inside Sales Enablement Podcast, Episode 3

Do you believe Sales Enablement is a function and profession? In this episode, Scott Santucci & Brian Lambert discuss the challenges they’ve encountered in living and driving transformations. In today’s evolving business landscape, Sales Enablement leaders are often asked to transform from within. Whether it’s new programs, new tactics, or even new organizational structures, Sales Enablement leaders and their teams are often “first through the wall.” Being in that position, means you’re trusted. The strategy is entrusted to you. People and resources are entrusted to you. Your credibility matters.

We talk about the evolution of bookkeeper to CFO and what that meant to finance — and its implication to sales enablement leaders. While many believe that sales enablement is a task or technology, we know that sales enablement is a function that translates strategy to execution. To tackle strategic and tactical at the same time, you have to be purposeful. To be purposeful, you have to be thoughtful. Listen to Scott’s story about how he got into Sales Enablement and how structures and outcomes are critical to success with the C-Suite. 

Join us at https://www.OrchestrateSales.com/podcast/ to collaborate with peers, join Insider Nation, participate in the conversation and be part of the continued elevation of the profession.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Intro 00:03

Welcome to the inside sales enablement podcast. Where has the profession been? Where is it now? And where is it heading? What does it mean to you, your company, other functions? The market? Find out here. Join the founding father of the sales enablement profession Scott Sam Tucci and Trailblazer Brian Lambert as they take you behind the scenes of the birth of an industry, the inside sales enablement podcast starts now.

Scott Santucci 00:33

Hi, this is Scott Santucci.

Brian Lambert 00:35

Hey everybody, Brian Lambert here and we are the sales enablement insiders. Our podcast is dedicated to asking the big questions you should be asking if you want to be successful with sales enablement. And in this podcast, we’re going to talk about trying something new and more importantly about being transformative. You know, sales enablement is a transformative role and a lot of us get hired to Do transformational work. And there are a lot of people talking about the transformative benefits of sales enablement. But what is transformation really mean? What does it mean to be a leader in these transformations? And to me, it all boils down to Are you a person that executives can trust to take the company or take the department or take the vision and make it a reality. And we talk about doing something new like that, you’ve got to be credible in how you go about it. In other words, people have to put their futures, their direction, their ideas, their processes, even their products in your hands. And to me that credibility has to be earned. And not just given because you have a title. And Scott, that’s what I want to talk about today is this idea of credibility, and where that comes from in this role.

Scott Santucci 01:50

So as always, we’d like to frame things out with with a story. I’m going to tell I’m going to leverage a little bit a little bit of the ideas from Charles Dickens. Charles Dickens, as you probably know, is an author at the turn of the century, really talking about issues dealing with the cutover from an agricultural to an industrial revolution. There’s really two ideas that he’s, he’s famous for. Everybody knows the tale of two cities, and specifically that wonderful quote, it was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was an age of wisdom. It was an age of foolishness. So, we have that have that one. The second thing that I want to bring up and we’ll promise we’ll tie these these ideas together is Charles Dickens also wrote A Christmas Carol. And if you remember A Christmas Carol, and you remember Tiny Tim, tiny Tim’s dad is the job of tiny Tim’s dad was a bookkeeper. And that bookkeeper was the one that Ebenezer Scrooge treated so so roughly. And I think that the big idea here is could you imagine today a CEO treating their equivalent of their bookkeeper, their CFO, the same way they treated tiny Tim’s Dad? And the answer is, of course not. So, what’s changed since then? That’s really sort of the framing the framing key idea.

Brian Lambert 03:21

Yeah, and I like that because certainly if you look at the CFO view, there’s they’re deemed as credible. But then that took some time right to go from tiny Tim’s dad, bookkeeper to CFO, but there’s there was a journey there that unfolded as that role evolved. And I think there are absolute correlations here to the sales enablement function. Sure, it might take some time, but the role can be elevated it can be seen as a strategic partner to the to the C suite, and it can drive you know, a more professional relationship with a lot of various groups inside the organization. And, and with customers. And Scott, one of the things that I know, we’ve talked a lot about, and, you know, we go way back is this idea of sales enablement, you know, and what it means. And no, we’re not going to define it here. But what we’re going to do is I want to outline this idea of, you know, sales enablement can be a process, it can be a platform, it can be technology, it could be jobs, etc. And one of the things that I know you have a visceral reaction to is, you know, your approach when you talk about this as a system, and its interrelated parts, it’s holistic, there are a lot of moving parts, and people call you academic. So, why why why does that bother you so much? To be called academic.

Scott Santucci 04:49

Well, I didn’t know I was going on the couch. But if

Brian Lambert 04:55

If we’re going to go on a TinyTim journey to, you know, can’t just wave our magic wand and I’ll be strategic

Scott Santucci 05:01

Right.The process of getting there is actually way quicker. But I think the reason that the I react so strongly to people call me theoretical or academic, is really the story about how I got into sales enable in the first place. And this isn’t a pretty story, by any way straight way, shape or form. But it’s a real story. And it started out when I was a sales rep at a company called Mehta group that’s now part of Gartner group. And that way, even way back then our biggest competitor at the time was Gartner. And as a sales force

Brian Lambert 05:40

This is in the 90s. Right?

Scott Santucci 05:42

Late 90s, early 2000s. Right, so I was a sales rep in the late 90s. And, you know, really what we would have to do is we literally competed for the Gartner budget. And that’s no winning proposition if you’re competing for the Gartner budget against Gartner. That’s a tough, tough, that’s a tough sell. So what we learned, the more successful reps and at the time I was the top, the top rep in the company. We learned that you didn’t talk about Gartner, you didn’t talk about syndicated Research Services or anything like that you position yourself as differently. And one of the one of the ways that we worked on that was to develop a concentrated on building really value added relationships with with CIOs. And the idea really was I was selling you insurance, decision making advice, and you’re gonna make a lot of decisions. And I have access to a lot of people who have lots of different conversations to help you hedge that hedge those bets. And as simple as that sounds, that’s a lot easier than talking about all your deliverables. So, in order to sell this, you actually have to have conversations with the right right folks. And I was brainstorming with the one of the CIOs that I had a relationship at Johnson and Johnson Pretty big company. And I had he and I had to come up with an idea. Wouldn’t it be great to hear what’s on the mind of other CIOs in the area? So, I said, well tell you what I’ll do. I will invite a lot of a lot of CIOs get a nucleus of folks here. And we’ll have an event I’ll bring in some of our analysts, we won’t charge anything for for it. What I need you to do is host it and help me out because I don’t have any budget. Just the Mirror, mirror salesperson. I don’t have any budget. They said, hey, that’s great. We actually have this amazing conference centers probably could imagine what a conference center Johnson Johnson look like. And I’ve got a good relationship with the marketing department. Let’s get them to help help create flyers. So, who wouldn’t want Johnson and Johnson’s marketing department to work on your on your own flyer? So, I talked to

Brian Lambert 07:55

Your sales rep at the time you’re like, this is gonna be awesome.

Scott Santucci 07:58

Yeah, exactly. That Johnson and Johnson work on my marketing materials. So, I was excited. And I’m thinking what a great prospecting event this is going to be, I’m going to be able to invite my prospective customers that weren’t giving me the time of day to a exclusive Johnson and Johnson event that’s powered by, you know, my company. And the only thing that I needed to do was get a high rez copy of our logo. So, I called up our VP of Marketing at the time, she answered, and I said, Hey, this is what I’m looking for. This is what I’d like. And she said, Well, I’m not going to send it to you. And I said, What? I laughed because I thought she was kidding. She said, No, I need to know what the what the material is because I need to decide whether or not our brand should be associated with it or not. I said it’s a Johnson and Johnson event. How do we not want our brand associated with Johnson and Johnson? See, I don’t know what the subjact matter is. And it was just such a pain in the butt. All I needed was the logo. So, I said, keep in mind I was in my late 20s. At the time, I probably said some things that my older self was embarrassed by, so we’ll edit those out here in this story, but it was a bunch of not nice things. And I hung up on her. I said, as I was hanging up on her said, I’m gonna make sure you get fired. So, it was sort of

Brian Lambert 09:25

Also not recommended

Scott Santucci 09:28

sort of pettiness of how how I got into

Brian Lambert 09:31

This is a a young young Scot Sam Tucci in the 90s. Everybody,

Scott Santucci 09:34

right, thank you for reminding that but it’ll help it’ll help say how unpragmatic OR, or NOT pragmatic, how unacademic getting into this was.

Brian Lambert 09:48

That’s good point. Yeah.There you have it all started with a logo

Scott Santucci 09:54

And a friction with marketing and we ended up having this event. And the event was incredibly successful as part of my master plan to get the VP of Marketing fired. I made sure to invite some of our some of the leaders who were on our executive committee to attend this event.

Brian Lambert 10:15

So, when you say successful, what do you mean the event was successful?

Scott Santucci 10:19

Well, because first and foremost, number one, my CIO client at Johnson Johnson was elated, because we were able to bring 120 different executives, VP and sea level from throughout New Jersey, there and he was expecting maybe 10. So, to get that diversity to build that, build that footprint, he was just blown away. And then as far as how it was successful for for me personally, I wrote the equivalent of my entire quota for the year there on the spot during little breaks in here and there because people are just so blown away by the connections and the value I was able to create as as a salesperson. So, fast forward, the executive committee members were all talking about it and how come more or more the reps don’t do this. So, I used that buzz, and you’re, you know the way that you have as a as a top rep, you don’t really realize it until you try to start using it. So, I called Bernard up and Bernard was our CFO. And I said, Bernard, I’ve got some time as at what 300% of my quota. I’ve got some time. I think we’re wasting a lot of money in our marketing budget. And I’d like you to help find it out. And of course, he took me up on that, because most CFOs think that they’re wasting money on marketing or sales and marketing in general. So, we spent a day whiteboarding out, whiteboarding that out and he said, I want you to present this today. The Executive Committee next month.

Brian Lambert 12:01

So, before you go there, now I’m going to I wasn’t there, but I’m going to project here, you can correct me if I’m wrong. But for you to take that action, I don’t think because I’ve known you for a while. I don’t think you were you were you were being vindictive, so to speak. I think there’s a piece of you being competitive here. But you know, I think I want to explore the flip side of this is, you probably saw a huge market opportunity. And you probably also knowing you kind of put the whole event on your back and did a lot of the work yourself. And all you asked for was a little bit of help, and you didn’t get it. And so that really probably pissed you off. So so are those two things true here? Or, you know, what was the what was the impetus for wanting to take the marketing actions that you did?

Scott Santucci 12:49

Well, I I took the actions with the CFO, and I’d be I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was mostly vindictive. So angry that I just asked for a little bit of help. And my feeling was he just

Brian Lambert 13:07

You just asked for a logo, right?

Scott Santucci 13:08

Right. I just asked for a logo well, yeah, I just asked for a logo. And it just was the straw that broke my back of all the sales prevention that I felt we were running into a you know, there’s there’s other stories too, like having a having some of having policies created because I sold went over list too much. It so one of the services that I sold our average deal size or average subscription price was 17,000. I started selling these things for $30,000. And I was told by it. Yeah, and then you put together 120 person conference as a sales call. Right. So, the you know, I just wanted a little bit of help, right and just constant self-prevention drug. Not so I think I think if I were really honest, it was mostly vindictiveness. Was it all? at that one individual, the VP of marketing? No, unfortunately, as the leader of, of all of that stuff, it’s a it’s a figurehead. And the meeting with the CFO was really how do I create a business case? To get the executive committee to look into this stuff?

Brian Lambert 14:30

Sure.

Scott Santucci 14:33

However, hindsight being 2020 and having a lot of space behind that, it was, I think a little bit of it was the CFO taking some advantage of me because I made he had an axe to grind with the marketing department too. You know, it’s it’s sort of like a political slash business case. The CFO has a great way of Just talking about the numbers. So, when I presented to the executive committee, we presented all these numbers about, you know, the cost and productivity, you know, problems and like, and after presenting it, he verified all the numbers for me,

Brian Lambert 15:15

Was it basically saying that there was a lot of money being spent without a lot of, you know, impact or what was the big sound?

Scott Santucci 15:23

Yeah, I think we can get to get into more about metrics later. I mean, a moment was part of our plan will be to go through some of the reports and one of the reports we’ll cover is the hidden cost of sales enablement. But it really was, look, we’re spending a tremendous amount of money that has literally no utility to sales, literally none. And it’s, it’s not an issue of budgets. And, you know, we spent this amount of money on events or this amount of money on collateral, etc. It just has no utility whatsoever. And on top of that, because it has no utility, and it’s the information out there, it actually detracts from my ability to do my job. So, for example, I shut off in my in my CRM system, access to the corporate marketing department to my key accounts because I didn’t want the information they were sending out to get to him. Because all of it all that did was compare us to Gartner. And going back to the original story, I didn’t want to be compared to the Gartner budget, because once somebody says that, then you get delegated to the lower-level minions and my access to the CIOs who had all the money was squashed. So those were those were the cases that were made at the executive committee. in that meeting, they asked me to leave. And 10/15 minutes later, they asked me to come back and I was looking forward to hearing what they had to say and they said, You’ve got a new role. Here, your job now is the VP of product marketing and management, and you’re going to, you’re going to fix all these things that you brought up to us. Go Go figure that out. So it’s like, oh, geez

Brian Lambert 17:11

So, is that what you? Was that what you were expecting?

Scott Santucci 17:13

No, no, no, no, at all. It wasn’t what I was expecting or what I what I was looking for. It was, um, I just wanted. I just wanted action to be taken so that this could be fixed for me.

Brian Lambert 17:29

Yeah.

Scott Santucci 17:31

So that’s what I was told I was I was doing the first thing that I did. I said, I, Bernard, you know, let’s, I need to build a baseline. And then the, so we built a baseline first and I built the relationship that said, moving forward, you’re going to present out all of my metrics moving forward, just so they’re credible. So, this is the help that I need. And I think this is really where I learned to build great relationships with the finance department they want to help, actually a lot. And so that that was helpful. But the first thing that I did was for the first three months, all I did was collect information. So, there’s a lot of pressure, go do this, go do this, go to this, go to that. And I said, I’m not going to do any of that until I have a strategy. And you guys all see the magnitude of the problem that we’re dealing with. So, I interviewed that we had six different sales regions. Each of the sales regions had their own view of what’s and their own sales processes. We had 17 different business units, all of who said, selling is easy, you only need to know these five things, you know, multiply that by 17, and it gets over gets overwhelming. We had a massive amount of collateral there was a belief by our CEO that any monkey could sell this stuff. So, you know, because the product was so good. that those were the things that we’re dealing with. And I presented that as a readout. And

Brian Lambert 19:06

How long was that process, by the way?

Scott Santucci 19:08

just doing that analysis, I’d say about three months. Okay. And it was really important because getting the voice of everyone in the show the executive committee, the scope of the problem. And then I said, this is how we’re going to address it. We’re going to first do a process. So, the way that we’re going to organize our products and services, etc. The first thing that we’re going to do right now is we’re going to rationalize instead of having 17 different services with all these different tactics, or rationalize around five business imperatives, so we got the executive committee to support that, and in partnering with our, our events team, that action took maybe a month and later that year, our conference was all thematic based on those business imperatives and etc. record for the first time it turned a profit. And ever since then it’s been been a revenue generating function. Then the second thing that we did is say, hey, there’s so many different mechanics, and there’s all these different groups that are disconnected. We’re going to create three different working groups that all interface with each other. And by working groups, we call them committees. We had a product management committee, and that product management committee had, I think, 17 or 15 different people on it. And we just asked anybody who was at all involved in the product development or product launch or communications process to have a representative there, and we would talk through all the issues and redo we reduced all the sales prevention down to almost nothing. And it was just by talking about things like what the right product code is or whether or not you have the right collateral, how we launch it out how we communicate it, what the customer support mechanism is. So, it was super, super, super tactical. And I had one of the people on my team chair that and he gave me readouts. And the next thing that the next group that we had, was a function that I chaired, which was the product message Product Marketing Strategy committee. And that was with a sample set of the business unit heads, a representative from sales, and Bernard, the CFO was was on that group. And we talked about the tactical things. And then we talked about the business strategy things and mesh those things together to make recommendations. And then the third thing that that I did is said, Hey, in order to do this, I need to make sure that I’m on the executive committee meeting. You don’t need to put me on the executive committee. I don’t know don’t earn that right etc. Just have a 30-minute chunk to get let me have readouts. And let me share with you guys the information that’s going on. So, creating that structure was really helpful because at any one point in time, I had more information than anybody in the company about what was going on. And the fact that all of the all of the material and information was vetted, with with our CFO, all the metrics fit in place, we had one source of truth, it was really easy to manage. And on top of that, I was really popular with all those other groups because they had their voices heard and no one wants to create more work for anybody else. So then moving forward. The next thing that we did was we are going to build these these content packs, and we were going to identify the stakeholders that we were targeting. We were going to pick different different roles that we were going to go after and we were going to go five deep for the global 2000. So, the first thing that we had to do is come up with a list of who the global 2000 companies were, no one in the company agreed on that. Then the second thing we had to do is find out how many of those we actually had contact information for. And by contact information, I’m talking about the CIO, the VP of operations, the VP of security, the VP of CRM, things like that, you know, basic functions within IT organization. And I want to go five stakeholders deep in those roles. So, who the VP is three or four directors, no managers. So, when we did that, we found that we didn’t have any of the lists. So, we started a calling campaign just to call the admins of those people to collect and capture the right information. And while we were doing that, the marketing department you know, said hey, you’re doing this all wrong. The we did an analysis and the cost our customers most of our customers aren’t Global 2000 companies, so you’re wrong. So, I took that email, and I immediately click that back up to the I took that email, I forwarded it directly, and copy the entire executive committee and said, this is a decision you guys need to make. I am under the assumption that our target is global 2000. The department that you have running this is saying that, you know, the data shows that most of our customers aren’t global 2000. And our CEO was so pissed at that email that he wrote a not very friendly email response back saying, do exactly what I’m saying, because we make 10 times more on each global 2000 company than we do on the other ones. And he’d rather us not sell to the lower-level ones. We just need to penetrate more the big companies. So, it’s it’s all about activity. Working with pockets of sales teams because some of the sales leaders just disagreed with the strategy. They wanted to follow their own strategy. So, you create pockets of success and you create more of that demand. And two years later, you know, when we had our CFO compare our baseline information with what our results were our average deal size, deal cited increased by 54%. We’ve collapsed our sales cycle time. By 33%. We improved our average deal size, or not our average deal size, our average win rate 25%. So just all the metrics across the board, we were killing it. And the goal was we wanted to have as much productivity and performance hiring the least amount of people because the ramp up cycle of hiring was so so brutal. So that’s that’s really the story that happened. And it was brutal was a lot of hand-to-hand combat, it was a lot of strategy, a lot of coordination and collaboration, setting up functional groups and operating models and operating committees and all these other things. But they all go hand in hand to making you to making you successful. So, I think that’s a lot. That’s a lot of talking. I’m gonna, I’m gonna be quiet now. And

Brian Lambert 26:25

like, it’s hard. Well, I wanted the overall journey to play out, because you know, that the beginning of it, the Genesis all the way through to the business results because I think it’s helpful to see that, you know, especially you know, in my role I sometimes get in the, in the day to day, and it’s so easy to get kind of sucked into the, either the politics or the meetings or whatever. And one of the things that I’m hearing here is this idea of focusing on you know, what you’re trying to do? And, you know, in this case, what was that to you? You know, were you trying to grow the business? Were you trying to scale something out? Were you trying to build? What would be the first ever sales enablement function? Like, what were you doing? We just try to drive the business strategy fulfill your role. I mean, that’s a lot of ownership of outcome here. Why’d you do it?

Scott Santucci 27:29

Well, I did it because that was my job, and I wanted to be successful. And I did it the only way I knew out which was working backwards from sales. You have a lot of credibility with salespeople when you’re the top rep, you know, and you’ll learn very quickly, you can’t just because you’re the top rep, there are other reps who are just as good that sell differently than I did. You like, huh? Okay, well, we can’t really prescribe one method on everybody. Then once you build that base, you get the ability to communicate back to the business units. Here’s what’s really happening in the trenches. There’s a lot of people who are so certain that they know what’s happening in the field by sellers until they realize Hmm, salespeople are human beings too. They all have different ways. And some of them we have we had some reps that could meet their number just on transactionally and we had some reps that met met their number selling more like I did, you know, more to an elevated role. So, we had to we had to realize okay, we can’t do a one size fits all we don’t want to upset they upset the applecart but let’s break it out. I think the the the lesson that I’ve learned is when you go and read textbooks on how things should be and work like Oh, Kotter following the Kotter method for change management is just a bunch of bunk. Yeah, yeah, so these these methodologies, they sound good. And they’re, they’re interesting to read environment. Yeah. And an environment that we’re talking about where there’s just so many variables going on, there’s so much stuff happening, there’s so much complexity, those models don’t work. And if you want to focus on execution, and you know, keeping your job and, you know, driving results, that’s what it looks like. Having one of the one of the, the VP of the central region just flat out hated me. So that whole, that whole region was off off limits to produce any kind of results. So, I had to say, Alright, well, how do we produce results here? And how do we create a flanking strategy, so that eventually these guys are going to want to participate in the programs that we put out. So that’s where what you have to do is you have to figure out where your where your base is. And then the other thing too, is make the the number one thing that I learned is you have to make the people in corporate first empathetic about the plight of sales, because all they do is feel complaints from salespeople, and they don’t want to help them. And the second thing is making sure that they’re listened to, because no one listens to them. And the amount of information that they’re sitting on is massive. And you just spend a little bit of time and ask them questions like, why do we have so many skews, and they’re gonna get angry at first? It’s like, why are you getting angry? I’m just curious. Like, I know, it’s just really frustrating because everybody’s got a new way of doing something out. And then the only way we can account for it is this way. So that’s why we have so many skews. And, you know, just understanding where everybody is coming from. Then you can say, Well, how do we start reducing the complexity from there and that’s where you get the biggest results. And just making sure people are communicated to and you communicate up down and across, up being to the executive committee. So make sure you have a space there, make sure you have something informative to share. don’t own results, just present information, ask them what they think. Give them choices, because ultimately, they’re the ones that have to choose not you. Until they unless they ask you for your recommendation, then you’re allowed to give them your opinion on your communicating across, there are so many different middle level functions, or even even at a VP level, that if you don’t build bridges across them, they’re gonna, they’re gonna work to squash you. And then communicate down is so incredibly important because if you don’t communicate folks, the journey that you’re under with a little bit of curiosity, the pain that you’re communicating creates too much friction and, you know, the folks can go batshit crazy

Brian Lambert 32:02

Yeah, and I think when you look at that, I definitely hear the takeaway there, about the communication and, and also the multiple perspectives, not discounting them, but where you do find that that roadblock working around it. But also, for me, one of the big takeaways is is the, the CFO relationship. And the what the numbers do the talking Rosetta Stone approach, right? I think we have to be comfortable with numbers, and we have to be able to use that math has translation between the front functions, and then you know, through those conversations, be able to elevate where where there might be some misunderstanding to have that that arbitration happens, right? Like you did with the the CEO. Because if you can, if you can’t elevate or escalate or bring it up and have somebody else’s For you, and you make the decisions, you end up holding the bag. And if you’re not using numbers, it too easily devolves into a little bit of an interpersonal dynamic, at least it has in my world. So, I think those are the two big takeaways for me is building the, the financial view with the right people, and then also the right buy in to have the bat so the executive team has your back, and doesn’t put you out on a limb accidentally. So that you have to, you know, be all holding all the risk.

Scott Santucci 33:35

Yeah, I think in future podcasts, we should probably go over a few things. So, one is what’s different about the early 2000s, late 1990s than it is today. We are metrics out the wazoo. And I don’t think you know, if you get past the people talk about the metrics, but I don’t think people really understand what the metrics mean and data behind the metrics isn’t factored into. So, if you have bad data quality, the data that you’re you’re talking about, you’re just talking past each other. The one person who knows that the most is the CFO. And if you go and present information, finance is always going to be the tiebreaker. And if you don’t know how to speak, the language of finance, it’s self-defeating, especially if you get really rigid on on your metrics. So, I think we need to really explore metrics and what they mean. I think we need to really talk about finance. I think the overwhelming majority of people in sales enablement, even sales leaders are intimidated by by having conversations with finance and marketers to they think that the conversation is always going to be about scrutiny of budget, and that is not the lens that a CFO has. It just isn’t. So, I think we need a need to I think we need to talk about that. And then I saw I think we needed to Talk about where the source of metrics are coming from. We are so over metric and we’re talking all these things that they just don’t make any sense. Right now. They’re not they’re not tied to what the core objective is. And what that does is it just creates more opportunity to miss communicate with a collection of stakeholders when the real goal is what you really want to be doing is get a whole bunch of stakeholders on the same page.

Brian Lambert 35:29

Yeah. Yeah. And if we can’t have those conversations, it’s almost like going to slay the dragon without the armor.

Scott Santucci 35:36

Yeah, and I think I think the reason so let’s bring this full circle, why do I get so upset? And you saw this happen when we’re a forest or two with with with our clients saying that sounds theoretical. It’s really frustrating for me, because I did this. Yeah. And I I read through it. I pushed through I did all the all the pain and suffering, etc. And I built an elevated function with great results that had executive level support. So much so that I got recruited to be a VP of Sales and Marketing at 29 years old. So, it was very, very, very, very, very, very successful. And I did all these things. I think the I think what I haven’t learned was how much of the credibility so go back to tying it back to the Tiny Tim, tiny Tim’s dad and how do you build credibility for a role? I think that what I didn’t realize is how much I was trading on the personal credibility that I had as the top Rep. And if I didn’t really make it blatant, it was just so easy to articulate stories about how the different things that we’re doing are creating sales prevention. Because I had the stories involved because I actually had to do a lot of the work myself to overcome the obstacles that we put in our own way to prevent us from selling adult money contracts. Yes, it was insane. So, to be able to articulate all of that stuff and say, This is the contract that we’re after Bernard, CFO, you’re paying me to get contracts, you’re not paying me to account for the rent, the money and simple stories like that, that highlight what the roles are, are incredibly important. And I think what I’ve not found out the right way to do is highlight how important a lot of these little details are. Yeah, I come up with vocabulary that I pulled from books because people read these management books and the like, and I sound theoretical, and it drives me insane to get called theoretical.

Brian Lambert 37:58

Yeah, well, thanks for for all of us, it doesn’t go back to like mom or dad issues.

Scott Santucci 38:04

Right?

Bryan Lambert 38:06

But the the key thing here, I think, yes, we should talk about those things. And also, this idea of, you know, being putting yourself out there, what does that really mean having having the ability to have some key principles to stand on that or your platform, and then being able to kind of, you know, put yourself out there in front of folks is also something at a personal level that I’ve struggled with, you know, because what’s an inherent thing here, and I’ve seen become difficult to translate into places that I’ve worked is this idea of accountability. You know, you’ve assumed a lot of accountability for that impact, and you took it on and you you didn’t have a challenge with that level of accountability, scrutiny, you know, inspection etc. and You know, boy in sales enablement, we’ve got to be able to handle that scrutiny. The objections, the, the nitpicking, if you will, you got to have a really thick skin. And I think that’s another another podcast for another day. But because we’re because we’re out of time, but I really appreciate Scott and hearing these stories. Also, I didn’t know a lot of those details. So, I’ve learned a lot. And I’ve also seen it come to fruition. Here I, I got to do a better job in the roles that I have around finances as well. And knowing the numbers and being able to have those conversations. So, thanks. Thanks for tuning in, everybody. Thanks, Scott for that, and we’ll see you next time. Take care. 

Outro 39:47

Thanks for joining us. To Become an insider and amplify your journey. Make sure you’ve subscribed to our show. If you have an idea for what Scott and Brian can cover in a future podcast or have a story to share, please email them Engage at inside sp.com You can also connect with them online by going to inside se.com following them on Twitter or sending them a LinkedIn request.