ISEs3 Ep5: Craig Nelson – SES Fore-founder and Entrepreneur
Hello and welcome to OrchestrateSales.com‘s Inside Sales Enablement Season 3 Enablement History. Where we hop in the Enablement Time machine and explore the past, present, and future of the elevation of a profession.
On Episode 5 Sales Enablement Society Fore-founder and Entrepreneur Craig Nelson joins Erich Starrett in the OSC Studios to go in the wayyy back machine to a coffee shop in 1998 when he registered the domain Sales Enablement dot com and remembers wondering “do I reserve it for one year or three?”
He breaks his journey down into three generations of Enablement history:
- Gen 1: Centralized Sales Content Thing (2003-2013)
- Gen 2: Content Packaged with Training, a Sales Thing (2013-2023)
- Gen 3: Sales Execution Across Buyer Journey, a Sales & Customer Success Thing (2024 – )
Please take a listen (and subscribe to!) the podcast to hear about all of the above, and so so much more.
Let’s Elevate Enablement TOGETHER!
Join in the journey at OrchestrateSales.com/podcast
Transcript
Erich Starrett (Studio Mic): In season three, we hop in the enablement
Speaker:time machine and take a look back with those who had a role in or
Speaker:contribution to enablement history.
Speaker:Then pause in the present to address a few modern themes and finally shift
Speaker:our focus to the future and what it may bring for enablement teams.
Erich Starrett:On today's show, our time machine is going way back, well before
Erich Starrett:what is now the seven year anniversary of the founding of the Sales Enablement
Erich Starrett:Society to the even earlier days before those two words, sales and enablement,
Erich Starrett:together were even really a thing.
Erich Starrett:They were just in their beginnings.
Erich Starrett:And the guest to take us back, sales enablement pioneer Craig Nelson, who
Erich Starrett:takes us all the way back to 1997, when Craig was a director of sales
Erich Starrett:engineering, enablement, using the word back then, and operations for NetIQ
Erich Starrett:all the way up through 2003, where he led sales engineering, sales ops,
Erich Starrett:and global training organizations, and was responsible for enabling
Erich Starrett:the All customer facing roles.
Erich Starrett:He's been doing it since the beginning.
Erich Starrett:, then in 2003, he began his own company as CEO and co founder of iCentera, which as
Erich Starrett:you may have already heard mentioned by Sales Enablement Society founder, Scott
Erich Starrett:Santucci, in the first episode of season three is a company that provided a sales
Erich Starrett:enablement SaaS solution that scaled to over 150 customers and to profitability.
Erich Starrett:And in 2011, Isentera was acquired by Kalidus Cloud.
Erich Starrett:I never, how do you, how do you say that?
Craig Nelson:Well done CallidusCloud..
Craig Nelson:You got it.
Erich Starrett:I got lucky and ultimately SAP.
Erich Starrett:We've all heard of that one and I can say three letters Since then
Craig Nelson:You're a roll, Erich.
Erich Starrett:yeah, hey, I'm on a roll man Since then craig has both led global
Erich Starrett:enablement training and operations for SAP themselves As global VP, probably through
Erich Starrett:that acquisition and started up even a few more companies, of which I will hand the
Erich Starrett:mic to Craig in a minute to let him speak.
Erich Starrett:But in that process, Craig played a role in pioneering the sales
Erich Starrett:enablement market, creating two U.
Erich Starrett:S.
Erich Starrett:patents for providing intelligence centers for marketing and sales.
Erich Starrett:Just to name a few.
Erich Starrett:Why not?
Erich Starrett:So, Craig, enough out of me.
Erich Starrett:Let's jump into the first question, and you can fill in the blanks on anything
Erich Starrett:I may have missed as we travel to the past, then present, and then the future
Erich Starrett:through your sales enablement lens.
Erich Starrett:So, let's start with that.
Erich Starrett:, when did you first hear the words sales and enablement
Erich Starrett:and what do they mean to you?
Craig Nelson:So, Erich, uh, thanks for having me, first of
Craig Nelson:all, and thanks for teeing it up.
Craig Nelson:It's kind of fun to hear, the memory lane.
Craig Nelson:Interrupt me at any point.
Craig Nelson:Whenever we come across something where you're thinking to yourself,
Craig Nelson:you know what, we actually learned something from that.
Craig Nelson:That's why I go back in time, right, to not repeat mistakes.
Craig Nelson:If there's something I say that sounds like a real learning point
Craig Nelson:and kind of a juncture in enablement.
Craig Nelson:Let's stop and go down that road
Craig Nelson:because to answer your first question, we were using the term
Craig Nelson:sales enablement in the late 90s.
Craig Nelson:. And the company was a company called Mission Critical, merged with
Craig Nelson:NetIQ, and we were going for it.
Craig Nelson:We felt that we'd be able to scale that company from 50 to 500 reps.
Craig Nelson:That was after going from five to 50 reps.
Craig Nelson:So, we kind of went through the been there and done that of the growth
Craig Nelson:of the sales organization direct.
Craig Nelson:We went from no channel partners to thousands of channel partners.
Craig Nelson:We looked at sales enablement as the secret sauce.
Craig Nelson:I'm doing that in air quotes here.
Craig Nelson:And when somebody would ask, how are we going to do this?
Craig Nelson:We're going to hire another 25 reps.
Craig Nelson:Are we going to ensure their success?
Craig Nelson:Well, that's today's sales onboarding.
Craig Nelson:How are we going to ramp another 1000 partners?
Craig Nelson:And not have a contribution rate of 10%, but maybe, 50 percent that
Craig Nelson:weren't just taking the paper, but actually doing the selling.
Craig Nelson:So we felt confident myself and a couple of other founders of the company called
Craig Nelson:iCentera, which little known fact , Erich iCentera stood for Intelligence Center
Craig Nelson:for a New Era of Marketing and Sales.
Erich Starrett:Oh, I love it.
Craig Nelson:So there, there's actually some meaning behind that.
Craig Nelson:The idea of that was we felt confident that this was for real.
Craig Nelson:We registered, the domain sales and avid.
Craig Nelson:com in 98.
Craig Nelson:Uh, I still remember sitting in the coffee shop, uh, Erich, the question
Craig Nelson:was, do I reserve it for a year or three?
Craig Nelson:You didn't want to, to outspend, right, what you were willing to invest time
Craig Nelson:wise, but I went for three and, and, you know, happy that I did because over
Craig Nelson:the coming years, each of the companies that we worked with, didn't see us as a
Craig Nelson:word or a definition, they, they saw us as a discipline and for those that I've
Craig Nelson:had a chance to, to work with over the years, you mentioned Scott Santucci, I
Craig Nelson:remember connecting with him and Brian Lambert, out in, Northern Virginia at
Craig Nelson:their offices there and, and it went from a, a two hour meeting to, the balance of
Craig Nelson:the morning and lunch because we had that same passion that was, I would say 2007,
Craig Nelson:2008 . So this is before the SES, and I remember even way back then wondering.
Craig Nelson:Is Dreamforce going to do it for us, or maybe we should have our own home?
Craig Nelson:Right?
Craig Nelson:And then Scott was , that passionate person that was out promoting enablement.
Erich Starrett:So you registered sales enablement.com in 1998.
Erich Starrett:Like what was, were other people saying that?
Erich Starrett:Or was that in the iCentera circles?
Erich Starrett:Was that Salesforce related?
Erich Starrett:What solidified that enough to hit go on go daddy?
Craig Nelson:I think , the term just kind of made sense.
Craig Nelson:I remember getting a lot of grief from people that said,
Craig Nelson:you realize that's not a word?
Craig Nelson:And, uh, and, and so, you know, I said, well, somewhere in Great Britain, it is.
Craig Nelson:I'm, I'm, I'm certain of it.
Craig Nelson:So, one of our co founders was , from London.
Craig Nelson:And, so the, the more important part, if we get past the term sales enablement,
Craig Nelson:, we went out and test marketed the idea, Erich, , and I found a company
Craig Nelson:called Ventaso, if you really want to go back in time, Tim Reister, Ariel
Erich Starrett:I was going that's Riesterer!
Craig Nelson:I remember going to a show in San Francisco and they had a booth
Craig Nelson:presenting this Ventaso technology.
Craig Nelson:And what it did, I can still remember it because it really made an impression
Craig Nelson:on me with that, it assembled content on the fly specific to a particular proposal
Craig Nelson:or whatever was needed by the sales rep.
Craig Nelson:I looked at that and I said, it's about time.
Craig Nelson:Right.
Craig Nelson:There's something that, you know,
Craig Nelson:CRM was there, right?
Craig Nelson:Siebel and pivotal and all these old technologies before salesforce.
Craig Nelson:com,
Craig Nelson:so the question was what salespeople actually need to be better.
Craig Nelson:I saw them, I saw the Savo group.
Craig Nelson:Not necessarily talking about the term enablement or the technology
Craig Nelson:then they weren't using the term sales enablement, but it
Craig Nelson:was doing sales enablement.
Craig Nelson:Capabilities.
Craig Nelson:And that was the more important part at the time.
Craig Nelson:Talking about, CRM isn't enough for sales success.
Craig Nelson:More was needed.
Craig Nelson:Once you go out to the market, I think in a sense that other people are thinking
Craig Nelson:about it, , late nineties, , that gave us the energy and sort of the passion
Craig Nelson:to, to launch our own companies.
Craig Nelson:And, you know, firsthand launching companies, it's a bit of a risk.
Erich Starrett:Yeah, I've heard of that risk.
Erich Starrett:That's such a helpful snapshot in time.
Erich Starrett:Because I hear SAVO discussed in those early days, late
Erich Starrett:90s, um, and Ventaso for sure.
Erich Starrett:it's just interesting to step back in that time space with you when Craig
Erich Starrett:Nelson, registered SalesEnablement.
Erich Starrett:com, a great piece of enablement history.
Erich Starrett:You were influenced by the Siebels, Pivotals, which is fun to say those
Erich Starrett:out loud now, whatever 20 plus years later, and SAVO and Ventaso.
Erich Starrett:So those were the core, you were inspired by to go down the
Erich Starrett:iCentera with your partners.
Craig Nelson:Yeah.
Craig Nelson:And the question was, what was missing?
Craig Nelson:And I think we have learned the old fashioned way that sales
Craig Nelson:onboarding, which is pretty common today in terms of use cases.
Craig Nelson:Wasn't as common back then, but we felt early on that, it was less of a art, more
Craig Nelson:of an art and a science selling was, so there was things that we could repeat.
Craig Nelson:We felt from the very beginning that the one week sales onboarding, remember
Craig Nelson:those in person sales onboarding.
Craig Nelson:out at corporate, we, we, we learned very early
Erich Starrett:thick binder, of course.
Erich Starrett:That lot of dead trees.
Erich Starrett:Yeah.
Craig Nelson:we always wondered how far those binders made
Craig Nelson:it from corporate, right.
Craig Nelson:To home.
Craig Nelson:We felt about half of them made it to the airport.
Craig Nelson:So, we felt early on that there was more to it, things like continuous
Craig Nelson:learning , and then you launch a product and you're back to the drawing board.
Craig Nelson:for the first decade, you know, one of the big conversations is what's the term?
Craig Nelson:What's the definition?
Craig Nelson:But I think more importantly, how does it work with CRM and other technology that
Craig Nelson:was sitting on the desktop of the rep?
Erich Starrett:That's a great snapshot.
Erich Starrett:And you'd broken down with me beforehand that you'd put the early days of
Erich Starrett:sales enablement in a couple of buckets.
Erich Starrett:I believe you called generation 1 kind of from 2003 to 13, which is where
Erich Starrett:we've been hanging out for a minute.
Erich Starrett:Centralized sales content
Erich Starrett:. As you move from 2013 to present generation two was content
Erich Starrett:packaged with training and it became more of a sales thing.
Erich Starrett:Can you talk a little bit about why you chose those headlines and how
Erich Starrett:that plays into what you just shared?
Craig Nelson:Yeah, the early days we, , 2003 launching iCentera,
Craig Nelson:2005, six, about 30 clients.
Craig Nelson:These were small companies that, in a sense, couldn't afford an intranet,
Craig Nelson:I'm really going to date myself here.
Craig Nelson:couldn't afford some kind of discussion forum.
Craig Nelson:And we were bringing that to small business.
Craig Nelson:not unlike what salesforce.com was doing.
Craig Nelson:And when we came across them, we felt, there's, there's a
Craig Nelson:great go to market partner.
Craig Nelson:We also found another company at the time, Eloqua.
Craig Nelson:And we felt that if you were to, combined up, we, we felt it was a dream team,
Craig Nelson:CRM, demand generation, sales enablement, but those three combined would be
Craig Nelson:something special to an SMB, which is trying to make a name for themselves.
Craig Nelson:That's where we focused, but for the first five years, when we looked
Craig Nelson:at our deployments, so many of them were a content store for sales
Craig Nelson:pitch decks for maybe brochures, a couple of customer facing things.
Craig Nelson:And a single source of truth was a positive term, and we, felt
Craig Nelson:pretty good about it, single source go there, you get the latest,
Craig Nelson:but the first decade, it was really hard to, to see these
Craig Nelson:clients just take advantage of it as a central place to store.
Craig Nelson:So that's why I call it, you know, a central content store thing
Craig Nelson:it wasn't a educational thing, training thing at that point or
Craig Nelson:coaching thing, but it needed to be.
Craig Nelson:And that's where I see in about 2011, 12, 13, some of the players we know today that
Craig Nelson:are in market with enablement solutions.
Craig Nelson:They began to embrace this idea that when you deliver the content, deliver
Craig Nelson:a bit of training, deliver a bit of coaching, you know, deliver something
Craig Nelson:so that frontline person can do better on the first pass, can improve over time.
Craig Nelson:I see the segue from it being a content thing to a sales thing
Craig Nelson:over that first 20 year period.
Erich Starrett:I love that you brought in, , Eloqua.
Erich Starrett:, Jill Rowley has come up on pretty much every single one of these, and in fact,
Erich Starrett:she's one of our guests in season three.
Erich Starrett:You had also mentioned a, a combination of a connection with her and the current
Erich Starrett:CEO can you share that with the audience?
Craig Nelson:Yeah, many years ago, when I was talking to the, CEO of
Craig Nelson:Eloqua, he said, look, let's do a partnership, let's use one another's
Craig Nelson:technologies and really begin to differentiate from the major CRM players.
Craig Nelson:You remember back then, Siebel is actually the main CRM player.
Craig Nelson:Salesforce is wanting to, you know, beat them at their own game.
Craig Nelson:And they were working with companies like us, so yeah, we went to market together.
Craig Nelson:We formed alliances.
Craig Nelson:There wasn't the SES at the time.
Craig Nelson:Tim Reisterer, might smile about this.
Craig Nelson:American Marketing Association.
Craig Nelson:It was his firm , and Eloqua and my firm at the time that, that said to the
Craig Nelson:AMA, you know, let us go to your, your client base and let the marketeers know
Craig Nelson:that we're going to take your content.
Craig Nelson:We're going to bring it to the frontline.
Craig Nelson:We're then going to get discussions going, ratings going.
Craig Nelson:We're going to look at, , not just the sales pickup, but the
Craig Nelson:customer pickup on your content.
Craig Nelson:We're going to tell you what white papers are needed and
Craig Nelson:which ones should be disposed.
Craig Nelson:I'd say this is a, a big pitch for the SES if it wasn't for this network,
Craig Nelson:the enablement industry could have went south, at any point it could
Craig Nelson:have been, gobbled up by, by one of these major players and been less
Craig Nelson:a discipline, more of a technology.
Craig Nelson:But, it really was a combination of us.
Craig Nelson:Going to market together our clients were asking, you know,
Craig Nelson:why wouldn't you come together and deliver, a SaaS solution combined.
Craig Nelson:So that's what SaaS did for us.
Craig Nelson:We were able to combine our solutions , we got together at Dreamforce as partners.
Craig Nelson:I remember talking to people like Jill, she was very social and
Craig Nelson:online and, being able to learn what she was learning from clients.
Craig Nelson:Cause in the end, that's what we're all trying to figure out what's next.
Erich Starrett:I love how you brought that all together.
Erich Starrett:It is a strong story of how much of a role vendors had in
Erich Starrett:evolving, , sales enablement.
Erich Starrett:, and Jill as the social selling queen , helped y'all get the word
Erich Starrett:out in many ways you just combined so many incredible stories into
Erich Starrett:one in a way I've never heard it.
Erich Starrett:So question two how, when, and where does the then sales enablement society.
Erich Starrett:And now as of a couple months ago, revenue enablement society, and we'll
Erich Starrett:talk about that in a little bit fit into your timeline and professional journey.
Craig Nelson:Yeah, I'll pick up on the point about working with
Craig Nelson:Brian and Scott Santucci because they gave us vendors at the time real
Craig Nelson:energy, to say this thing is for real.
Craig Nelson:when I heard from Scott a number of years later, that There was going to be
Craig Nelson:a get together right down in Florida, enablement professionals, most of us
Craig Nelson:made it down there on our own dime.
Craig Nelson:We went down just to see what was going on and where it was headed.
Craig Nelson:I think it was an important meeting because, you know, some of the people
Craig Nelson:we had worked with over the years, did a lot convey the disciplines.
Craig Nelson:I'm taking sort of a walk down memory lane from a technology standpoint,
Craig Nelson:Erich, talking about the tech vendors.
Craig Nelson:But there was all of these other content players, system integrators,
Craig Nelson:we've worked on deals with some of the largest Accenture and some of the
Craig Nelson:others with these deployments, they were, full on enablement deployments,
Craig Nelson:but for many, they weren't full on enablement deployments and they
Craig Nelson:were used as a content store, right?
Craig Nelson:It's a central place for, you know, your marketing material.
Craig Nelson:Well, that's just not enough.
Craig Nelson:And we felt that sales enablement society was going to bring it to the next level.
Craig Nelson:And you think about all these roles showing up in companies, one of our
Craig Nelson:worries early on was we were going to be pigeonholed as sales trainers,
Craig Nelson:as opposed to something strategic.
Craig Nelson:So to, to me, the SES over the years has really done a great job of
Craig Nelson:saying, this is not a sales thing.
Craig Nelson:It's not a marketing thing.
Craig Nelson:It's a company thing.
Craig Nelson:Some of our early clients, I'll give a shout out to Thomson Reuters.
Craig Nelson:I remember the first division using us over there.
Craig Nelson:, it was a small division, tax and accounting, and they just took off, and
Craig Nelson:then another division, and then another division, but with each one of those
Craig Nelson:divisions, they, they positioned it, not as a central place for marketing
Craig Nelson:content, they positioned it as that next thing to launch a new product.
Craig Nelson:To launch new sellers, partnerships.
Craig Nelson:I think SES did a great job of promoting the role, the discipline.
Craig Nelson:Pretty much each quarter we have a local user group here in Twin Cities.
Craig Nelson:I'm in Minneapolis.
Erich Starrett:Shout out Lori Gross
Craig Nelson:she did a great pitch, , at her last, , meeting,
Craig Nelson:you know, Jessica Ryker and Jocelle.
Craig Nelson:I mean, they, they've really taken the Twin City chapter to the next level,
Craig Nelson:it's going strong, it's nice to have these local chapters Erich because
Craig Nelson:then you can , have a beer and talk about things in less serious, mode
Erich Starrett:That's where it happens, right?
Erich Starrett:And what a great crew you just named in the Twin Cities.
Erich Starrett:It might be cold up there, but you're keeping warm with
Erich Starrett:those beers and enabling folks,
Craig Nelson:Yeah, , each one of those companies, , Erich,
Craig Nelson:they're the passionate companies.
Craig Nelson:They believe in this discipline.
Craig Nelson:They have a group, . That's responsible for enablement.
Craig Nelson:Many people that go to these local chapters, they're it, right.
Craig Nelson:They don't have a group.
Craig Nelson:They're the enablement person.
Craig Nelson:And then they're the ones that I think benefit greatly by seeing these teams.
Erich Starrett:I'm really interested when you talked about going to Palm
Erich Starrett:Beach in, November, 2016, you said, we, and you've been telling a great story
Erich Starrett:about all these interwoven and, going back to the late 1990s, who was the
Erich Starrett:we that you headed to Palm Beach with?
Craig Nelson:I don't know that everybody made it to Palm Beach
Craig Nelson:on that particular meeting.
Craig Nelson:But if you look back Tamara Schenk throughout this entire journey.
Craig Nelson:She's been one of those that you're thinking to yourself, I wonder about
Craig Nelson:customer enablement if that's going to be the next thing, , who do I
Craig Nelson:think of, I think about calling Tamara and she's got such a great balanced
Craig Nelson:understanding of the discipline and the people and the human element.
Craig Nelson:She was one of the individuals that we worked, over the years with
Craig Nelson:Joe Galvin from Sirius Decisions, when you said walked on memory lane.
Craig Nelson:If you go back to the early days of the demand gen waterfall, then
Craig Nelson:you had Joe over here at Sirius Decisions talking sales enablement.
Craig Nelson:A lot of people that were your go to, to test an idea.
Craig Nelson:Because the enablement discipline, one could argue, 20 years,
Craig Nelson:why aren't we further along?
Craig Nelson:That's an important question a lot of people have asked over the years.
Craig Nelson:If you look all the way back to 2007, eight, that was a
Craig Nelson:breakout year for us, Erich.
Craig Nelson:Not because of the siloes in the companies.
Craig Nelson:These companies suddenly need to get better at selling.
Craig Nelson:We, need more compelling events in history, I think, to drive enablement
Craig Nelson:when you go to that next level, enablement becomes a company thing.
Craig Nelson:That was the discussion at that meeting that was down there in Florida, how are
Craig Nelson:we going to make sure the discipline is for real and the role respected so that
Craig Nelson:we had a seat, you know, seat at the table not just the, sales QBRs, but the
Craig Nelson:company, BRs and the Partner QBRs.S, we had to be in those meetings, be because
Craig Nelson:we didn't want to be some afterthought.
Craig Nelson:We wanted to be, at front end of the strategic thinking and then from that,
Craig Nelson:put into place a discipline of enablement.
Erich Starrett:You just nailed it.
Erich Starrett:And you've used the word so many times throughout this, but strategic, a
Erich Starrett:strategic function, not just doing, doing, doing, fixing, fixing, fixing.
Erich Starrett:Fixing sales, putting out the next fire.
Erich Starrett:And so exactly that point, question three is your relationship
Erich Starrett:with the founding positions.
Erich Starrett:My cards are on the table.
Erich Starrett:I'm a big fan of the three that you and your 99ish fellow fore-founders of the
Erich Starrett:sales enablement society put together as a cross functional group of all different
Erich Starrett:walks and industries and areas of focus.
Erich Starrett:I'll start with position 1, that sales enablement is a strategic
Erich Starrett:approach to eliminating friction across the commercial process.
Erich Starrett:The subset to that there are different flavors of enablement.
Erich Starrett:There's a message enablement in marketing.
Erich Starrett:There's talent enablement in onboarding, the sales operations side of things.
Erich Starrett:And the, delivery aspect of it and the entire customer
Erich Starrett:life cycle, just to name a few.
Erich Starrett:A discipline that has alignment with each of the corporate functions.
Erich Starrett:And if you didn't strategically address the friction in each the
Erich Starrett:whole thing could fall apart.
Erich Starrett:It wouldn't be orchestrated,
Erich Starrett:what did that mean to you at the time?
Erich Starrett:And where are we now?
Craig Nelson:To sort of regroup your generation, one first 10 years of
Craig Nelson:enablement, a lot of focus on centralizing marketing material and, and sales content.
Craig Nelson:Generation two was a combination that, and training that was good.
Craig Nelson:, but it wasn't great.
Craig Nelson:when we think strategically and we think about one of the big
Craig Nelson:inhibitors of enablement success.
Craig Nelson:It's been the silos within companies
Craig Nelson:when you look at some of the deployments and you see sales training
Craig Nelson:handles the new rep here, and then management handles them here, don't
Craig Nelson:we all manage the success of reps,
Craig Nelson:all these silos that were in place.
Craig Nelson:It was really getting in the way of true enablement.
Craig Nelson:If you really want to think strategic, think about becoming part of the
Craig Nelson:planning process for the next 3 to 5 years within your company so that
Craig Nelson:when you're scaling sales, expanding into new markets, think enablement.
Craig Nelson:How is enablement going to play a role?
Craig Nelson:When when your company makes a decision, and it's usually a conscious decision
Craig Nelson:to grow, not just organic, but also through acquisitions, think sales
Craig Nelson:enablement or now revenue enablement.
Craig Nelson:When you think about launching new products, launching partnerships, and
Craig Nelson:don't even think about doing partners without having partner enablement.
Craig Nelson:shift the mindset from, enablement being an afterthought, Oh no, we better get
Craig Nelson:the training squared away for the new sales organization, that new product.
Craig Nelson:No, it should be at the front end of planning.
Craig Nelson:So the strategy, the company has for the next three to five years, enablement
Craig Nelson:should be in that conversation.
Erich Starrett:So through the lens of those corporate silos.
Erich Starrett:Do you feel like certain silos are being addressed better than others?
Erich Starrett:Where's the opportunity?
Erich Starrett:, Craig Nelson: early days, we had about 150 deployments in the end
Erich Starrett:with our commercially available SaaS platform, , and there was no doubt if
Erich Starrett:you could align sales and marketing to get this discipline going in the
Erich Starrett:company, that was your first opportunity.
Erich Starrett:And historically, and maybe even still today, those two groups.
Erich Starrett:You went to them and say, let's do sales playbooks.
Erich Starrett:Well, we don't do sales playbooks, flash forward now 20 years.
Erich Starrett:And the group does do playbooks.
Erich Starrett:Now the question is, are they used?
Erich Starrett:I think today as we think forward about revenue enablement, generation three,
Erich Starrett:let's say, and we think about the broader, all customer facing roles, just like
Erich Starrett:sales have been using CRM, customer success has been using some CX products,
Erich Starrett:but it's still not enabling their success.
Erich Starrett:So we should be thinking about that.
Erich Starrett:So those silos are pretty firmly in place between sales and services.
Erich Starrett:They don't necessarily don't like each other.
Erich Starrett:They don't know each other.
Erich Starrett:What's interesting about sales and marketing is they may not like each
Erich Starrett:other, but at least they knew each other.
Erich Starrett:They might not have agreed in their positioning on certain things and what
Erich Starrett:work needed to be done, but they knew each other, but sales and services
Erich Starrett:don't always, especially if you're doing the work through channel partners.
Erich Starrett:So how do we bridge that gap?
Erich Starrett:Right?
Erich Starrett:In a service world, if you don't bridge that gap, the term we use many
Erich Starrett:years ago, land and expand, right?
Erich Starrett:You land that new opportunity.
Erich Starrett:You make them successful.
Erich Starrett:You know, you expand.
Erich Starrett:If that handoff doesn't take place and it's not repeatable and you're not doing
Erich Starrett:things like wind loss reporting and you're not doing things like taking a
Erich Starrett:look at, what are the first 30 60 90 days,
Erich Starrett:something that that was mentioned the other day from a client , Why wouldn't
Erich Starrett:every one of our clients be referenceable?
Erich Starrett:And that should be the goal.
Erich Starrett:So I think there's plenty of opportunity there.
Erich Starrett:Every customer should be a reference.
Erich Starrett:And of course, I've got the sales hat always on Erich,
Erich Starrett:every customer should buy more,
Erich Starrett:and tom Pisello, you know, the ROI guy, when you go from pre to post
Erich Starrett:and making sure that value isn't just pitched value is realized.
Erich Starrett:And that too is a discipline, not just a technology.
Erich Starrett:So ultimately I think the name of the game is, how do you break those barriers
Erich Starrett:down and have the company thinking it's a company thing, enablement,
Erich Starrett:not a sales or a marketing thing.
Erich Starrett:Love that.
Erich Starrett:And, from the beginning throughout this, you've used the word partners.
Erich Starrett:And, as I'm sure you're well aware, Jill Rowley's new focus,
Erich Starrett:nearbound is surrounding the customer and how do you do that?
Erich Starrett:Partners who already have a relationship, right?
Erich Starrett:And I think there's a newfound interest in enablement and that being
Erich Starrett:a silo that goes from forgotten much like CS to in the spotlight.
Erich Starrett:So position 2, that sales enablement needs.
Erich Starrett:to be an effective, strategic, cross functional business within
Erich Starrett:a business in order to accomplish the mission of enablement.
Erich Starrett:Any further thoughts on that?
Erich Starrett:You already reinforced it a bit,
Craig Nelson:think the one thing , we learned with our strongest
Craig Nelson:deployments, companies that, that understood it wasn't just technology
Craig Nelson:that they had to have a process.
Craig Nelson:And then there's always this great debate, I'm like, I don't care which
Craig Nelson:sales process you pick, just pick one.
Craig Nelson:If you have a process thing, have a content and then have the people, when
Craig Nelson:you had a champion within a company that understood that it was people
Craig Nelson:process content, then technology, those were our strongest deployments.
Craig Nelson:These were people that were not afraid , to ask in to that, QBR
Craig Nelson:meeting , and if they were perceived as being the sales trainer and
Craig Nelson:they'd say, why would you be here?
Craig Nelson:Because as you're selling, we're going to be helping you get better.
Craig Nelson:I like that business within a business, if they felt it was a
Craig Nelson:business, they would attend various meetings across the organization.
Craig Nelson:Ultimately, it wasn't just the scorecard is the technology being adopted it was
Craig Nelson:a, what impact are they having, our clients, not just being landed, but also
Craig Nelson:expanded and are they being successful,
Craig Nelson:We also had a couple of clients that over the years.
Craig Nelson:For as fast as they were building content, they were retiring content.
Craig Nelson:They kind of got it, right?
Craig Nelson:More wasn't more.
Craig Nelson:So you always look for that person that wanted to build a business,
Craig Nelson:but want to do it in a smart way.
Craig Nelson:Those are the best deployments.
Craig Nelson:Those are deployments that, a decade later, they were still in play.
Erich Starrett:Those are the deployments that stopped and thought like a business.
Erich Starrett:Who are our key stakeholders?
Erich Starrett:What do they want?
Erich Starrett:And if I help this silo get what they want, will they understand if I bring
Erich Starrett:them all together cross functionally to nod their heads in the same room?
Erich Starrett:I don't know.
Erich Starrett:Maybe a center of excellence.
Erich Starrett:Right?
Erich Starrett:So maybe can you talk about those concepts
Erich Starrett:? Craig Nelson: Yeah, I think, with ice and terror, right?
Erich Starrett:Intelligence center, we felt that if you could get more of the organization
Erich Starrett:bought in to the discipline.
Erich Starrett:There's been those companies we've come across where the, executive team felt you
Erich Starrett:were either in sales or enabling sales.
Erich Starrett:It might be a little bit of a stretch for, for some businesses to think about, but I
Erich Starrett:think now that we're in more of a customer centric world, why wouldn't you work with
Erich Starrett:sales and partners as part of your routine to understand the inflection points that
Erich Starrett:are in the field where you're learning,
Erich Starrett:a lot of companies talk customer centric, but once the last time did a
Erich Starrett:ride along and listen to the client and it wouldn't be a ride along in person
Erich Starrett:today, it's more in web conferences, doesn't matter, by the way, it's, it's
Erich Starrett:really understanding, great discovery.
Erich Starrett:Some disciplines are still for real, right?
Erich Starrett:Question based selling, you know, ask a lot of great
Erich Starrett:questions and learn from clients.
Erich Starrett:Yeah.
Erich Starrett:And then go to the next town and learn from a different client.
Erich Starrett:I think more and more today, it's building that center of excellence.
Erich Starrett:I'm back, leading sales and we're looking at one vertical at a time, but the
Erich Starrett:first question might be, is that in that vertical that you're doing really, really
Erich Starrett:well in, where you have clients , who's the best out there, who are the people out
Erich Starrett:there we can go to market with or go to customer, that understand that market,
Erich Starrett:because a genErich question is good, a question to that specific vertical, be
Erich Starrett:it healthcare, manufacturing, financial, you know, great set of questions,
Erich Starrett:great content, great messaging, but you really have to go to the thought
Erich Starrett:leaders in that respective place, right?
Erich Starrett:That vertical, that market,
Erich Starrett:one of the things that we've learned over the years that, selling on the West
Erich Starrett:coast was different than the East coast.
Erich Starrett:Which rest assured is different than it is in Minneapolis, St.
Erich Starrett:Paul.
Erich Starrett:So it's just different.
Erich Starrett:And then you go abroad to Europe and it was different there too.
Erich Starrett:In the end it was, more of a consultative conversation.
Erich Starrett:The hope being is that, and I do think that more and more people are talking
Erich Starrett:about go to market partners and selling through them, learning about who they're
Erich Starrett:connecting to because they've got the credibility and you most likely don't.
Erich Starrett:So why wouldn't you reach out?
Erich Starrett:But it's an investment of time and it's also a bit of a strategy call.
Erich Starrett:Do you want to hire all these roles or do you want to, work with
Erich Starrett:partners and go to market together?
Erich Starrett:It's a different approach.
Erich Starrett:So position three, by design.
Erich Starrett:If you're promoting and elevating a function, it's elevating to something.
Erich Starrett:So the aspirational state that was position number three was that
Erich Starrett:sales enablement would evolve to be chief productivity officer.
Erich Starrett:What are your thoughts on the evolution of enablement?
Erich Starrett:Is it a role in the C suite
Erich Starrett:? Craig Nelson: I'm not concerned about the title of the role, uh, as
Erich Starrett:I, as I would be the passion of that individual who's leading enablement
Erich Starrett:within their respective company, being able to reach the right people.
Erich Starrett:and be able to overcome some of the obstacles that, that the
Erich Starrett:company is putting in front of you.
Erich Starrett:It's one thing to say, you're going to be customer centric.
Erich Starrett:It's something very different to, do ride alongs and then with
Erich Starrett:this information we gather from the field, actually do something
Erich Starrett:,, it's good to have that, executive title.
Erich Starrett:But I think most importantly, it's the better you understand the market
Erich Starrett:you're selling into you , that's one of the things with enablement
Erich Starrett:early on, we had some big ideas, but the clients weren't ready for it.
Erich Starrett:Enablement maturity, Right.
Erich Starrett:I love the term that's got coined many years ago, random acts of enablement.
Erich Starrett:And when he said that, I'm like, finally, somebody put a term on something
Erich Starrett:where we tried to nail down for years.
Erich Starrett:Usually somebody that's, somebody who's super passionate that's able to step up
Erich Starrett:in these meetings and say, all right, before we recruit another hundred
Erich Starrett:partners how do we do with the last 100
Erich Starrett:Right.
Erich Starrett:Yeah.
Erich Starrett:And I like what you said earlier, too, about a strategic function.
Erich Starrett:And I'll add a little bit to that.
Erich Starrett:An organization looking through the lens of cross functional enablement
Erich Starrett:when there's an economic downturn, it's not the first function to go,
Craig Nelson:and let's, let's talk about today, you know, 2024,
Craig Nelson:I'll go back to my, my earlier positioning around what enablement
Craig Nelson:is, if you're thinking about retaining clients, think enablement.
Craig Nelson:The selling organization, a lot of companies have reduced that
Craig Nelson:group as well to me, that's a bit of a beginning of the end.
Craig Nelson:You know, that's, that's your lifeblood of your company.
Craig Nelson:But right now, maybe enablement is going to be making sure your customer
Craig Nelson:success organization , make sure they're enabled, make sure they understand,
Craig Nelson:not on an annual basis when they come to the renewal, make sure they
Craig Nelson:understand week by week, month by month.
Craig Nelson:Are these companies taking true advantage of our solution?
Craig Nelson:how many deployments have you gone in to look at after a couple of years
Craig Nelson:and they're just not that far along.
Craig Nelson:why wait, right, for that annual review?
Craig Nelson:I'm saying something that I think most companies have already figured out.
Craig Nelson:If you can't keep these clients and expand them, It may not
Craig Nelson:ever be profitable revenue.
Craig Nelson:There's a real reason to retain because those same companies will be buying again.
Craig Nelson:, and you've got some credibility within that organization.
Craig Nelson:Hopefully that, CS professional is still there with that relationship and
Craig Nelson:you're proactively coming into them.
Craig Nelson:Giving them customer stories.
Craig Nelson:Giving them ideas on how they can do better.
Craig Nelson:You're bringing ideas to them.
Erich Starrett:And what I hear there is not only is the customer service and
Erich Starrett:delivery team landing the desired business outcome that was promised by sales.
Erich Starrett:Why?
Erich Starrett:And how is it promised by sales?
Erich Starrett:The entire sales ecosystem was strategically set up to have a consistent
Erich Starrett:value message that everyone from the BDR initially in identifying the opportunity,
Erich Starrett:and then the salesperson and bringing it home and landing in those couple desired
Erich Starrett:business outcomes that resonate with that client, then the customer service is
Erich Starrett:landing those desired business outcomes.
Erich Starrett:This is one Jacco over at Winning by Design . I went through his
Erich Starrett:Revenue Architecture course and what they landed on is impact.
Erich Starrett:recurring impact.
Erich Starrett:And I think that's the perfect way to put it landing the desired business
Erich Starrett:outcome, seeing the impact, ensuring the client realizes the connection of
Erich Starrett:what they've been bringing to the client and how it relates to that impact and
Erich Starrett:continuing that relationship and looking for new opportunities to drive impact.
Craig Nelson:and, customer centric.
Craig Nelson:What does that mean?
Craig Nelson:A company has a sales process.
Craig Nelson:Why wouldn't you have a buyer journey?
Craig Nelson:, it only makes sense.
Craig Nelson:And then why wouldn't those two come together?
Craig Nelson:Where are, decisions formed on, is that vendor any good?
Craig Nelson:Interesting enough.
Craig Nelson:There's some surveys that say it's during the sales process,
Craig Nelson:Did you make it easier for them to learn about you?
Craig Nelson:Did you make it easy for them to buy from you?
Craig Nelson:Are you thinking about sales execution where it's not, three
Craig Nelson:weeks till a proposal sent out?
Craig Nelson:Are you personalizing it for that particular buyer?
Craig Nelson:So let's say you nail the front end of the cycle, Erich, then you got
Craig Nelson:to nail the back end of the cycle.
Craig Nelson:And if you don't do the back end of the cycle, again, you might land and
Craig Nelson:have the unprofitable deal in place.
Craig Nelson:They don't even want to keep.
Craig Nelson:Salesforce taught us a lot about that in the early days of, isn't a winnable deal,
Craig Nelson:are they going to keep it?
Craig Nelson:Are they going to expand,
Craig Nelson:now the question is, if you look at customer enablement and CX.
Craig Nelson:It's the experience of the seller.
Craig Nelson:It's the experience of the partner.
Craig Nelson:It's the experience of the buyer.
Craig Nelson:That's increasingly going to matter, I think, in the next 10 years.
Craig Nelson:have you made it easy for them to, to buy from?
Craig Nelson:And have you made it easier for your sellers to sell?
Craig Nelson:They'll stick around.
Craig Nelson:it's interesting when we were interviewing sales reps, five, 10 years ago, they
Craig Nelson:were saying, do you have enablement, ? Are you thinking about our success?
Craig Nelson:What's like, all right, we finally have arrived, right?
Craig Nelson:They now know that.
Craig Nelson:Why would they want to come in and draft all the materials they knew they needed?
Craig Nelson:Well, it's already there.
Craig Nelson:I think today, if we look forward, it's got to be a company
Craig Nelson:thing going to summarize here.
Craig Nelson:, you got to look at that entire journey.
Craig Nelson:, you've got to cut out the friction.
Craig Nelson:You really got to think about the experience of the seller, the partner,
Craig Nelson:the buyer, , not just the financials, because that experience, it will matter.
Craig Nelson:It's what differentiates companies.
Craig Nelson:There's a whole slew of new A.
Craig Nelson:I.
Craig Nelson:companies coming around the corner.
Craig Nelson:That's what's fun about this industry.
Craig Nelson:We know they're coming, but what they better do fairly quickly is find a use
Craig Nelson:case and a business problem to solve.
Craig Nelson:And then find a, go to customer, go to market strategy that aligns.
Craig Nelson:Because the best technology, as we've all figured out, doesn't always win.
Erich Starrett:Especially if it's an empty shell, right?
Erich Starrett:Without enablement attached.
Erich Starrett:Yeah,
Erich Starrett:. Craig Nelson: believers.
Erich Starrett:We're believers, Erich.
Erich Starrett:But yeah, if you don't do the enablement part, you know, it's just a big idea.
Erich Starrett:And what did you say the other day?
Erich Starrett:the ideas are for free, you just put them out there.
Erich Starrett:Dreaming's free ideas are free and you can turn
Erich Starrett:them into impact if you do it right.
Erich Starrett:As you know, the Sales Enablement Society, at the time, announced
Erich Starrett:at the Global SES Experience in San Diego that they were evolving to
Erich Starrett:become the Revenue Enablement Society.
Erich Starrett:Curious, your reaction to that announcement how
Erich Starrett:does that land with you?
Craig Nelson:Yeah, I'm glad we're ending on this because there's
Craig Nelson:many crossroads and people have written about this, over the years.
Craig Nelson:I think right now that the fact that enablement is a profession isn't seen as
Craig Nelson:a, standard role within these companies and a standard discipline is an issue.
Craig Nelson:And I think Making this about revenue, not just a sales thing,
Craig Nelson:is going to give us that seat at the table that we've longed for.
Craig Nelson:I think it's going to put into perspective, hey, the enablement team
Craig Nelson:should be part of the planning cycle for companies, once you're revenue.
Craig Nelson:So, short answer is, absolutely.
Craig Nelson:I think this is long overdue, Erich, in my opinion.
Craig Nelson:, that it become revenue enablement, but for those companies that think of
Craig Nelson:enablement as all customer roles should be enabled, they've already been doing this.
Craig Nelson:I think this opens up, more conversations.
Craig Nelson:It opens up a journey now that we can tackle.
Craig Nelson:It's not going to be any one company, in my opinion, that's going to tackle it.
Craig Nelson:It's going to be a collection of companies.
Craig Nelson:It's kinda funny, we always wanted to be, you know, the single source of truth.
Craig Nelson:There's only gonna be one data store.
Craig Nelson:I haven't seen it yet, you know, nobody still have stuff up on
Craig Nelson:YouTube and LinkedIn and you name it.
Craig Nelson:So, certain ideas, ultimately don't fly.
Craig Nelson:But I think certain use cases.
Craig Nelson:Once across the organization, once pointed at enabling revenue and repeating
Craig Nelson:success in revenue and profitability, I think this discipline is going to
Craig Nelson:be here, beyond the next 10 years
Craig Nelson:where we're testing the market today is, is going out to the field and asking
Craig Nelson:that question, " how big a deal is the customer enablement customer experience?"
Craig Nelson:That that's part of our sort of list of questions we asked.
Craig Nelson:And how can we make a, not just a better environment for sellers and partners,
Craig Nelson:better environment for the customer during the cycle of buying and deploying.
Erich Starrett:I hear a resounding yes there.
Erich Starrett:, it makes sense because where you started was talking about enabling the
Erich Starrett:entire customer facing frontline, let's shift from focusing on sales on the
Erich Starrett:front lines to everyone who touches the customer, making sure we're including
Erich Starrett:customer service, including partners, including sales overlay, if that hasn't
Erich Starrett:been done to date sales engineering.
Erich Starrett:And that's what you've been naturally doing for more than a decade or
Erich Starrett:two, right, which is beautiful.
Erich Starrett:So we've been in the past.
Erich Starrett:We've landed in the present, a good bit, everything that you've been talking
Erich Starrett:about that we've need to focus on the customer and the impact and an additional
Erich Starrett:emphasis on customer success, that's the here and now in this current economy.
Erich Starrett:What about the future?
Erich Starrett:You shared generation three, which is 2024 and beyond.
Erich Starrett:And I think the headline you shared with me was sales execution
Erich Starrett:across the buyer journey.
Erich Starrett:A sales and customer success thing.
Erich Starrett:Whereas Gen one was marketing and getting everything consolidated,
Erich Starrett:single source of truth.
Erich Starrett:Gen two let's enable the Salesforce, get sales and marketing working
Erich Starrett:together with that value message
Erich Starrett:and three being sales and customer success coming together in alignment
Erich Starrett:with marketing Where are we headed?
Craig Nelson:That's a great summation and also kind of summarizing the years.
Craig Nelson:Most of the ideas that I've talked about today, if not all of them
Craig Nelson:have been tested in the field at a local chapter SES meeting.
Craig Nelson:With a client.
Craig Nelson:And what we're testing out in the market today is how do we
Craig Nelson:enable the entire buyer journey?
Craig Nelson:how do we leverage technology,
Craig Nelson:the technology you have today it's how do we use the analytics and all the
Craig Nelson:behavioral understanding of the sellers, buyers, and customers during selling?
Craig Nelson:You're not waiting to the end of the quarter to see, Hey,
Craig Nelson:what content made a difference?
Craig Nelson:You're looking at your platform for enablement day to day to see who's selling
Craig Nelson:what, where, what products are working.
Craig Nelson:What's not, you don't want to wait until after a quarter, after a year to say that
Craig Nelson:new company we acquired isn't selling.
Craig Nelson:And here's why you want to see during execution, what's happening.
Craig Nelson:So I think there's going to be a tremendous amount of analytics
Craig Nelson:that now are bubbled up.
Craig Nelson:You can use your AI engine to go through it.
Craig Nelson:Most of us are using AI daily to sell, because it can be
Craig Nelson:leveraged to take a thousand leads down to a hundred that matter.
Craig Nelson:To take, a thousand lines of, messaging and take it down
Craig Nelson:to the 50 words that matter.
Craig Nelson:So I think AI is going to play a role, but I think more important, it's , , you
Craig Nelson:want to understand the sales people, the partner people and the customer every day.
Craig Nelson:That's the execution part and execution would fit underneath revenue enablement.
Craig Nelson:And, , it doesn't stop when the sale is completed.
Craig Nelson:It never ends,
Craig Nelson:one last story for you,
Craig Nelson:We went to a CRM show in 2002, we purposely got a
Craig Nelson:booth next to the Siebel booth.
Craig Nelson:We spent three days at a CRM show, trying to figure out, how are we going
Craig Nelson:to add value, and then find a set of go to market partners, and we're there
Craig Nelson:sitting at the booth and the Siebel people kept coming over saying, all
Craig Nelson:right, who the heck are you guys?
Craig Nelson:What is this enablement about?
Craig Nelson:And, because they were in sales, they got it.
Erich Starrett:On behalf of the audience, thank you for your time, your insights.
Erich Starrett:And for being not only a forefounder of the society, but
Erich Starrett:the guy , who got sales enablement.
Erich Starrett:com.
Craig Nelson:You can find me up on LinkedIn under Craig Nelson.
Craig Nelson:, I lead today a company by the name of Triptych, and I lead marketing and sales.
Craig Nelson:. I love it.
Craig Nelson:It's a discipline enablement that we see at the core of our work here.
Craig Nelson:, Erich, thanks for inviting me today.
Craig Nelson:It's been fun to go down memory lane,.
Erich Starrett:So look him up.
Erich Starrett:And continue to be on the cutting edge of sales enablement history being made.
Erich Starrett:Thanks so much for the time, Craig, excited to keep in touch and have
Erich Starrett:you back one day soon in the future.
Craig Nelson:Yeah.
Craig Nelson:I look forward to it.
Craig Nelson:Thanks, Erich.
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