Ep38 State of SE Panel 6: Executive Sponsors
Welcome to the Inside: Sales Enablement Podcast, Episode 38
Ever wonder what executive sponsors talk to about to Senior Leaders? Wonder why Sales Enablement gets funding in some organizations and doesn’t in others? What about the skills and competencies of sales enablement leaders?
In this last panel of our State of Sales Enablement Research, Scott and Brian pull together an amazing panel of the executive sponsors chartering sales enablement functions to hear their take.
On this panel, we have:
- Brian King, Managing Director King Consulting prior VP of Sales Enablement at Intercontinental Hotel Group
- Sameer Rupani, SVP Sales & Marketing at Solvay
- Greg Peelman, VP Operations at EcoLab
To view the research method, visit https://www.OrchestrateSales.com/research/
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 00:02
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. I’m Scott.
Brian Lambert 00:35
I’m Brian Lambert and we’re the sales enablement insiders.
Scott Santucci 00:39
Hello insider nation. We have the last and maybe the most impactful panel of our series studying the future of sales enablement. Just as a brief reminder on May 19, we’re having our executive briefing presenting all of our findings, visit www dot Inside se calm to register for it again inside sc.com register may 19, for our executive briefing of our findings, so the findings of what, as many of you know, we’ve conducted a survey of sales enablement practitioners, we were hoping to get 25 responses. We got 70. We now have 99 responses actually we got 70 within a week, there is no way one person can process it all that information or even two so we’ve created a guest analyst program and asked a leading experts have been doing this for quite some time to chime in on it. We have been doing several panels so just as a review, our first panel with with sales enablement experts. The second panel that we ran was with sales leaders. The third panel that we ran was with sales practitioners who do not have it at learning and development background.
Our fourth panel was with sales enablement leaders who Do have a learning and development background, then we follow that up with our its academic series or with our professors. And now finally, executive sponsors. So the people that we have here, I met and are all part of the Conference Board. And what that is, is you can go listen to one of our earlier podcasts, we just we talked about that before. What we’ve got here is an amazing panel of tremendous people. It’s hard to describe our all of our relationships when you’re in a group or a leadership council, where you’re blending a lot of expertise. It’s really it’s a kind of hard to describe, so maybe we’ll let we’ll let them do it, but I’m gonna introduce them in order. So the first person that I’d like to introduce is Brian King. Brian King, most recently was the SVP of sales and operations at intercontinental hotels. One of the amazing things that we were able to do as affiliated to the Conference Board is we brought in a whole bunch of people More business travelers to help simulate for the people at IHG. What business travelers think of with the goal of making Brian look really good while testing out his sales enablement plan. I’ve been really excited to work with Brian. Brian is one of the most courageous people that I know. And I know a lot of courageous people. So if you get a chance to meet Brian or work with them or hire him or something, do it because not only not only is he courageous and smart, but he’s a great guy as well. Brian, would you like to introduce yourself to inside our nation?
Brian King 03:33
Yeah, thank you, Scott. It’s great to be with you and Hello, insider nation. I look forward to the time we’re gonna spend together one of my favorite topics, sales enablement, and with a great group of guys on this podcast, so
Scott Santucci 03:47
great to be here. Excellent. So up next, we have Samir Pani, who is the SVP of sales and marketing as Solvay, over here in in North America. This is one of the smartest guys in sales. I know he’s a chemical engineer. And it’s really fascinating to watch this man brain work is definitely what you see is what you get kind of guy. I really enjoy how authentic is and I really love how he publishes how he’s thinking. It is for me easy to follow along. He has tremendous amount of energy. I can’t wait for everybody to get to know him, Samir, introduce yourself to insider nation. Hey, insider nation.
Samir Pani 04:31
This is Samir. What’s the most exciting Of course for me is to reconnect with that when you stop. And of course a great group of guys that served on the sales executive council alongside myself and for us to learn and share experiences together. So here’s one more goal at the same and looking forward to it.
Scott Santucci 04:48
Yeah, and hopefully we can keep this going. This is a fantastic team. And then finally bringing up the rear is Greg Gilman. Greg pillans, Vice President of Operations at eco labs. I gotta tell you, I’m a huge fan of Greg style. One of the things that he has this great ability to do is to process a lot of information. And there’s a lot of different ways to talk about it. And he just says it for what it is in the most plain spoken executable way and it activates things moving forward. I think it’s fantastic. I always get energized. I also love the kinds of pictures he shares with you at dinner. I got to make sure we qualify it they’re not. Well let him say what, Greg, what are the kinds of pictures that you share with us at dinner? Why am I making this comment?
Greg Gilman 05:35
Okay, Scott, this couldn’t be with you today. And
Greg Gilman 05:38
I do work for Ecolab. I’m the VP of operations for North American our pest elimination division. So it’s an exciting business. I know the call that a long time across a lot of international geographies with international policies and of course here in North America, so great to be with you today and look forward to the discussion.
Scott Santucci 05:56
So what about those pictures now? What kind of pictures will you share with us Dinner?
Greg Gilman 06:02
Well, let’s just say there may be a few photos of different scenarios that, you know, maybe you don’t want to look at while you’re eating dinner. And I happen to be a pest elimination. Of course, they’re all anonymous. But you can imagine I can find myself in some pretty precarious positions occasionally.
Scott Santucci 06:18
Yes. And as the benefactor of some of those pictures while I’m trying to eat if they’re interesting, I’ll tell you that, that’s for sure. So starting off with we do the same format for our panels, we asked the open ended question. So I’m going to go through the same kind of order. I’m going to first ask you, Brian, having looked at the survey findings, what are a few things that stood out for you?
Brian King 06:41
So for me after going through the initial set of findings and reading through some of the feedback from the survey, what I found interesting was really that the data is starting to lean more toward, I’d say an evolved understanding of what sales enablement is as a practice as it Discipline than where it was about 567 years ago when I first started to get involved with with sales. At the same time, you know, kind of counterpoint to that point, you can still see that there are folks who, you know, kind of believe, hey, sales enablement is really just sales training, or it’s just onboarding or it’s only about sales transformation. While it’s graduating, and it’s understanding, and probably the understanding of company’s value of, of the sales enablement practice, there’s still a lot of work to be done in terms of getting that value and that understanding kind of broadly accepted and understood.
Scott Santucci 07:39
Excellent. Thank you, Brian. Samir, how about you? What were takeaways that stood out for you in looking at the survey findings?
Samir 07:46
So the first one and that’s just literally just scanning through the data is the fact that wherever you had two or more options are if you had two options, you had a bi modal distribution. If you had more options you had at least a tri modal So, what that tells me is, there’s still a fundamental lack of clarity around what sales enablement is, and how it’s supposed to actually operate. Is it supposed to be innovation? Or is it supposed to be operational excellence or, or commercial excellence? And I think when you want to look at the the popular media today around the whole concept of sales development in any form, you know, you don’t have customer excellence in sales ops and sales enablement. And so I think there’s been so much slicing and dicing of the sales onion that I’m not surprised that survey broad cross section of even commercial professionals, you get their particular tape. And then of course, what I thought was particularly humorous was there was actually one person who agreed with the fact that sales enablement was a fancy word for sale string, it sort of had me laughing out loud because it just kind of goes to show you the again, the breadth of understanding or even misunderstanding about what it is So hopefully, you’re feeling a real need here with with a chance to kind of make clear what it is and how to best deploy it.
Scott Santucci 09:07
Excellent. Thank you, Samir. Greg, how about you? I
Greg 09:11
think what I noticed in the data, first of all, if you look at the distribution of people, everyone is more or less in sales enablement. So the answers you’re gonna get from that is, is from a group that envisions it to be a certain way, not necessarily the people that are employing that group, which may give you a very, very different opinion. So, you know, if there’s overwhelming response from the group saying, it’s not on the decline, it hasn’t peaked, yet. It’s on the rise. That’s 80%. Well, of course, if you’re asking a bunch of people in charge of sales enablement, they’re gonna say they’re on the rise, right? And they’re gonna say, we buy it right, not hold it or sell it. So I think a lot of the data probably led to where I thought it would end up given, given the set of people get as we kind of go through the discussion here today. I you know, I do think there would be a divergent opinion If we looked at your what what is it those individuals that are again employing them, the managers of those those people? What is it they’re getting? What do they believe they should be getting?
Scott Santucci 10:09
I think you get a very different picture here. Excellent. So that’s perfect. So Brian, you get to comment. What are you? What are your thoughts on what your colleagues said?
Brian 10:19
Yeah, I think well, just to piggyback off of what Greg has just said, when you think about who your customers are in sales enablement, it should always first and foremost be the sales organization. And in that organization, you’ll have different types of customers, you’ll have your actual field sales people, and you’ll have your sales managers, then you’ve got your sales leadership team. And in each one of those, you’ll have a different set of value drivers and enablers that you’re going to need to deploy. And if you’re doing that and an orchestrator way, it’d be great to see what their purview or what their perspective of whether or not sales enablement was a stock would you buy it, hold it, sell it short it you know, better off? Because I think in some instances, you may have sales leaders say, Yeah, absolutely, you’re helping deploy new coaching opportunities for my managers growing their leadership skills on how to truly coach them be transactional with their sales teams, team members may say, I don’t really need all that training, or I don’t need a new planning tool to help me figure out what my goals are going to be. I just can do things the way that I want to do them. So depending on what audience you’re talking to, I think you’re going to get a wide variety different responses to questions like this in a survey. If you’re looking at your core customer set as the sales organization, if you turn the other direction, and you look back at the rest of the company of the enterprise, it’d be interesting to see what how they would respond to some of these questions. It’s true, you’re going to get when you’re when you’re pulling an audience of people who are quote, unquote, in the same field and discipline, you’re going to get a very biased point of view.
Scott Santucci 11:55
So both Greg and you brought up the same thing. What do you think the answers were If you went around the horn and asked the sales leaders, what they think marketing, what they think other groups what they think, what would those answers be?
Unknown Speaker 12:10
From my point of view, I think initially, it was like who is this group of people who think that they need to get involved in my area. And what I mean by that is sales enablement from ihcs point of view in the organization we created there was this inner connective tissue and, and muscular component that kind of connected sales to the rest of the organization. So we would work with it with the data teams, we would work with comp and Ben and on sales incentives, we would work with HR and learning and development on sales training. Previously, those groups had just said we’re doing the things that we do the way we do them. And then sales enablement came along and said, We need your help and doing this very specifically in this way for sales. And you don’t have necessarily the sales side subject matter expertise. So let’s help you understand that. And then together, let’s create a joint approach to doing something different and better for sales, which ultimately means for our customers, and then hope and then hopefully hopefully means for, for the organization and the company. That’s a hard proposition in the beginning. But ultimately, I think if you were to go and survey those in those different functions now, three, four years after we started that push, you would have, say, 75% of them on hold it or buy it from a from a stock point of view. Excellent.
Scott Santucci 13:41
So Samir, what was your reaction to your to your peers?
Unknown Speaker 13:46
No, I mean, they, my expectation that we would we would look at it completely differently was completely met. Yeah. I mean, you know, and again, it speaks to the variety of the responses you got, as you know, Greg pointed out the fact that the majority of the respondents Word sales enablement professionals. But despite that, you had quite a variety of responses, meaning even even the folks within sales enablement, don’t look at it the same way. And I think that reflects the difference in maturity and or the way in which it’s deployed in every single organization. And so, I mean, really, perhaps one of the things you can get us to do through the course of this discussion, Scott is to unify, you got three very different takes on the on the subject right here at a sponsor level. And you know, if you could help us unify and rather healthy for the benefit of the audience, and I’d say that’s value add right there.
Scott Santucci 14:40
Well, thanks for escalating the expectations of my audience. Man. I appreciate that. That’s helpful. All right, tough crowd. I thought that was funny. Greg, how about you what was your reaction to hearing from Brian and Samir about their take and how you processing it?
Unknown Speaker 14:56
For the most part, I’m in agreement. I think what’s interesting to me As I look into the data itself is where we are and where we want to be based on the questions are very different things. So I think one of the choices we could make about what a sales enablement to you was, you know, how we simplify our commercial system for salespeople and customers? Right? Well, the overwhelming response was actually people believe it to be the linchpin to helping us execute our sales transformation. So I absolutely agree with the second but I think most organizations find themselves in the first right so now the question to me becomes how do you What’s that journey look like and how do you flatten the learning curve if you will to get there I you know, I really I really liked the way that this was put together and I would encourage you and your team as you continue to do this to solicit from again that next level up you know, as you talk about who should sales enablement report to I asked him pretty strong feelings on that one. But I would reach out to that group and marry the data together and see what it is. Because if you’ve got a group of sales enablers, however, you know, however that title finds itself to be constructed, I think it’s one direction. And then this other group comes back and says, No, that’s absolutely not what I think it needs to be, you know, the position can quickly devolve into one of the others was, which was a fancy word for sales training, right?
In the absence of value or true enabling people are going to think it’s worth a couple of decades behind where we are now and where we’re trying to go. I think a lot of people get hung up today. And it’s important, but in data and information and thinking technology, while again, it is very important that we we transform ourselves into digital, it’s not everything, right? It is a data point or a series of data points, but then we have to figure in the humanity behind what it is that we’re trying to do. And how do we then enable professional salespeople across an organization are very different. You have the 10% or whatever number you want. Pick, we can argue if it’s 20, there are always going to be top performers. You got 60 or 70. In the middle, right, you got the lower end. So who is it you want to reach? And what’s the best way to do that? And I think getting those two groups together, and marrying that data up would make a lot of sense.
Scott Santucci 17:15
Awesome. Great. It sounds like, let’s focus on where we agree. It sounds like we agree that if we were to look at this data set five years ago, it’s a lot more congealed, but yet not congealed enough. To really get behind as a as a true profession. Is that a statement that we can agree with?
Unknown Speaker 17:37
Like, that’s fair,
Scott Santucci 17:39
smear. Yeah. Yep. Okay, then the second statement would be in this mix, as we’re changing, probably will want to find pockets of value and anchor on there and build from there. That’s that’s something else that I heard I actually tease this out of what what Brian was saying about He put together he put together his group, you know, pockets of working with say compensation or pockets of working with marketing or the other departments. We agree with that.
Unknown Speaker 18:10
Make sense? Agree.
Scott Santucci 18:13
Okay. So those are those would be two things that we agreed on. The third thing would be, if you aren’t going to do a program like this, it’s probably pretty important whether we were to keep doing this study. So Greg’s suggestion was, why don’t you do this study? And as sales, different sales groups, why don’t you do this study and ask executive sponsors? Why don’t you do this study and figure out what the suppliers might think about that those would be all interesting things that we could go do. But if you’re going to run a department like this, you should probably do your own scores, you should go and ask these kinds of questions to all of your different constituents to make sure you’re really clear on the value you’re adding. Is that something that we agreed on?
Unknown Speaker 18:53
I said it so I’m in Scott, you know, I’m in
Unknown Speaker 18:58
Bryan Could I could get
Unknown Speaker 19:00
there? Yes, yes, yes. Gotcha.
Scott Santucci 19:02
Okay. Okay, question number two. And Samir, you’re going to be the first person to answer it. What was your favorite question asked in the survey? Why? Trying to think here? My favorite question,
Unknown Speaker 19:15
I guess it would have to be, which business strategy? Should sales enablement follow? The options being an innovation path or an operational excellence path? So that was my favorite question. And as far as why, my answer would be both. And so I would struggle to answer the question. So I’m sort of, I guess, personally bipolar in this particular matter anyways, but I think it speaks to mindset, right? The folks who are doing it one way or the other are likely to answer with that in mind, just as Greg said earlier, that folks in the function believe it’s on the rise because you never know you know, that you’re never going to vote yourself out. And so I think it could be both and it really speaks to The maturity and life cycle in which sales enablement finds itself in a given organization.
Scott Santucci 20:06
Well, Samir, is it possible that some people also struggled? And they had, you know, this was one of those questions that they had to answer out a little bit more about where you think it’s both but describe that.
Unknown Speaker 20:18
Okay. So I mean, I think if you if you look at the elements of what sales enablement is, right, and so, the risk of being reductionist there’s three elements, people, process and technology. So it could, depending on where you are, so if you if you have a highly functional and well trained Salesforce, then it’s really being used to innovate, because they’ve got the opposite side of the house, well covered. On the other hand, if you’re if you’re sort of lagging in technology, if I look at the use of digital vehicles, It’s very advanced, versus say a commodity business like ours where we’re sort of catching up. You know what I mean? I’ve been really impressed by some of the stuff that Greg is posted on LinkedIn on water technology and water monitoring that Ecolab is actually doing. I mean, it’s just it’s flat out amazing. So for us, it would be the technology deployment side of sales enablement would be what I would call very operational trying to get everybody bought in and doing the basic blocking and tackling. Whereas it Ecolab it’s, it’s on the innovation side of their journey. So let me take a pause there. In fact, I invite Greg to comment on my comment. So
Unknown Speaker 21:38
I agree.
Unknown Speaker 21:40
And we all are on different different life cycles of our digital journey. And even within our own company, we see that right whether it’s our healthcare business and some of the things they’re doing today, our institutional business inside kitchens or restaurants and hospitality, and a lot of that is because the the customer subsets very different. So yeah, I think I would agree I would agree very much with what Samir is proposing.
Scott Santucci 22:03
Awesome. Brian, what’s your favorite question?
Unknown Speaker 22:08
I’ve kind of mentioned it a little bit already. It’s my my question about stock. I like any kind of question in a survey, that forces me outside of the traditional way of thinking about something, and reframes me so that I have to apply some other kind of lens to it. Because I know that it’s going to get a little bit more mindshare from myself. And so what I’m the first reason is I like to because every frame me, the second is it made me think about enablement. Is it a business that I would actually invest in? Is it a viable business? And one of the things that I would normally think about in that regard is, you know, is there growth as a stable business is what’s the management team like I’ve experienced they bring to the table. Now I want to do my research on a stock before I make a decision on what I’m going to buy, hold or sell it or short it. So To me it was What were his, his sales enablement on, on its journey and its evolution. And would I consider it a viable business? Which I do, I do think it’s a it’s a buy it stock, because it has to have value. And you have to be able to articulate that value back to your stakeholders, just as we were talking about earlier, whether that’s the Salesforce or the, the enterprise of the organization you’re working for. And I think it’s critical to be able to kind of think of yourself as that business and a business model that we’ve shared an executive board and can kind of work through multiple times so that we understand exactly what’s the core the value drivers who will be really servicing and, and who are our shareholders.
Scott Santucci 23:44
Mm hmm. For context sake, I think this would be good to add color for our audience. Now, I don’t know whether or not you guys are going to remember all this. But we had a meeting at Tiffany’s. And we opened up that meeting, we had Breakfast at Tiffany’s way. We had Breakfast at Tiffany’s. And then we had a meeting at Tiffany’s. We did have prefaces, entities. I’m thinking of correcting and we all get to brag that we all did. That was fantastic. And then I think, Greg, did you end up buying a whole bunch of diamonds?
Unknown Speaker 24:19
No, I did not. I definitely went and I looked at all the watches though. And it was a was a pretty interesting day. That was really that was a cool experience.
Scott Santucci 24:28
So I okay, so any rate, so thank you, Luke, on doing that, Luke, you know, you are alright, anyway. And in that session, what we had is each of the different participants around the room. I made up some sort of scenario like imagine I were a reporter from one of the financial Wall Street TV shows and I was going to interview each of these guys, as you know, businesses, business sells an airline, and each of them had to present their findings. Remember that individually and how for collectively, we did Then we did a an exercise where people got into groups with a simple structure of what’s your business? What’s your product? Who do you sell to? Who are your suppliers? Does it just answer those four questions? And the discussion sharpened up dramatically? I think that’s what we’re talking about here is having a different focus in return reframing it. Brian, Greg, Samir, do you guys recall that that that experience? And can you elaborate on that a bit?
Unknown Speaker 25:29
I’m happy to take it. So, you know, I had, honestly struggle, I think, before that corporate executive board meeting at Tiffany’s, on how to best articulate the value of sales enablement. And I would go down a couple of different paths to try to explain it to a layman like my parents, or to people inside of the company, and forcing me and reframing me through an exercise to think about sales enablement, as a business within a business. really started to kind of put me into a framework that I could actually work through to be able to start articulating what that looked like. Ultimately, I think from that meeting, I said, I raised my hand and said, let me take this and go work on it in more detail so that I can bring back what I think how I would articulate it based on what were IHG at the time was with their enablement journey with the organization and capabilities, etc in that organization and really identify who our stakeholders are and our products that we offer or services that we offer and how we add value. And what we pulled together and shared at the very next corporate executive board meeting,
Scott Santucci 26:40
which was at your facility in Atlanta at IHG. So, Greg, I know we hosted here you are there. So what would How did you take away from what Brian presented? So Brian presented basically a letter to shareholders that mapped out what they were doing. And that’s what where we can And I was trying to facilitate that virtually. All right, I got so mad at you guys sitting right
Unknown Speaker 27:07
there. Well, it wasn’t obvious, Scott, that you were matter. So,
Unknown Speaker 27:13
you know, that’s kind of the question I had. I do remember that meeting very well. And the two words that I would probably use to describe it were frustrating and painful, right? Not the one when we’re in Atlanta, but the one where we were trying to pull together this framework. And I think it was because we all had in our head what we believed enablement to be, but it was really hard to create something tangible that we could all agree to. So giving it some framework was good. I thought, write out your consultant background when you pulled together the letter to shareholders. I was very impressed with that. And I think part of what our challenge was when we were trying to pull it together. You know, I kind of commented on severes favorite question earlier. It goes goes even further upstream to what was your favorite question, if which is so simple but determines so many other components is, who should sales enablement even report to me if you don’t have that aligned from the beginning, I don’t think you’re going to have access to the right people or the right resources, or be able to, you’re getting something quantifiable or back to the word tangible to a group on something like sales enablement, it will devolve into, you know, that sales training thing that we were talking about a little bit earlier if you don’t have the right ability to merchandise in the right places and ask for the right resources. So I you know, I think we probably if I was redoing that meeting would have backed up a little bit further and gotten to some of that and then uh, but even then, it was surprising to me to see what a challenge it was to get a bunch of people who were fairly like minded. We may not all agree that the outcome you how we get to that place. Some people might be heavier based and digital, which again, I think is important. But we have representatives from major companies that their world is digital. Right. And so that that gives you a lot of, you know, they would lean towards that like a sales enablement, professional or lean towards, you know, saying this is a on the prize that I would buy the stock.
Scott Santucci 29:19
Excellent. The meeting that you’re referring to is the one at Tiffany’s not the one planner at that Brian sponsored. Yeah, although that’s when the letter to shareholders came out that that you were referring to that I think is really nice. He did really, I was excellent. I want to go around and brag on him on a soapbox and say look how good this is. Thanks. Anyway, so So you were at IHG meeting, what was your experience with the letter shareholders and what kind of help I
Unknown Speaker 29:46
think that was a homerun. I mean, Brian just knocked it out of the park. And
Unknown Speaker 29:48
I was just glad to be part of the supporting cast. I mean, I think it was also in fact,
Unknown Speaker 29:53
I just pulled it up to look at it. I love the page, which he sort of summed up the three performance keys when it when you look You know, one of the one of the debates we’re having here, the debate beneath the debate, if you will, is, is the perceptions and the perspectives of different people. I mean, I think you had sponsors there the you that helped Brian put the story together. And then you had Brian sponsors. And I think at the end, you really had what I think was a dream come true, which is everybody aligning around the fact that the message was spot on, the expectations were spot on, and that we should go make this happen, as in, Brian was given the greenlight as best I could tell them to go do what he proposed, following the two days of work that we did together as a team.
Scott Santucci 30:38
Yep. Yeah, absolutely. So it’s one of those messages. I think we’d all agree, it takes a lot of work to make something simple.
Unknown Speaker 30:46
Yes. It takes a tremendous amount of work to make something simple.
Scott Santucci 30:52
And I think that’s one of the things that a lot of people don’t appreciate is that sort of the value add of sales enablement is to simplify a complex and If it’s already complex, you have to put a tremendous amount of energy to rationalize it make it simple, which is an maybe different muscles than what you’re used to. If you’re thinking about this as a traditional siloed role, is that fair? Okay. All right, well, let’s move on to our last part, which is the crystal ballpark. What I’m interested in doing is based on what you know, here, and based on what you know about the business problems. And this is where Greg, I’m looking forward to more strong opinions about work should report to all those things that you’ve alluded to earlier on. We want to hear him in the forecast. But I want your crystal ball of where does sales enablement go from here? So Greg, you get to go first dust off the crystal ball. Tell us what you see.
Unknown Speaker 31:51
All right.
Unknown Speaker 31:53
So let me see what let me tell you where I think it should go. So in terms of reporting, I think we’re all real quick to save sales enablement should report to sales, whether that be because a relationship or insights or what your what have you. And I’m personally a bit of a contrarian on that when I think and having led large sales teams for long periods of time, you know that that required me to put my sales head on the side for a second and try and understand how do I get the most out of a sales enablement role so that my team performs better. And I almost see it as getting the most value if it is a almost as a CEO role in terms of a business unit, so I report to the senior vice president and general manager if you will, and I believe that that will reports there and for a fear for a few reasons.
One, it gives them a little bit of insulation and a greater ability to push back on things to make some calls. It also gives them the ability to get some resources and merchandise a little bit more where they’re headed. It allows them to have a Access to the higher level strategic thought that they can get some response to maybe what it is that they’re planning. It gives them access to different verticals, as they ask for that from that person that maybe they wouldn’t get if they were just sitting inside a function, whether that be time with your research and development group, or time with marketing or time with finance by changing where they sit inside the hierarchy. I think it opens up a whole new world for them to be able to leverage different tools, I see this position, very similar to sales in the future, whereas the individuals that are really good at it are going to be worth their weight in gold, where they know how to balance the digital. They know how to balance the people they know how to achieve. You. I mentioned earlier sort of the bell curve of sales, whether it’s 20 6020 or 10 8010. The top salespeople always figure out a way and they always sell a lot. So how do you get that middle bandwidth? How does sales enablement allow you to get The most out of your middle hitters in the in the batting lineup. And I believe by changing the way that works, I think those people, again that are worth their weight in gold or to be able to elevate their value in the organization and getting access and leadership from that more senior role that sits outside of sales. If I had a crystal ball or I was able to construct it myself, that’s exactly where I’d put it in how I’d put it in the reason that I would put it there.
Scott Santucci 34:24
Okay, so Brian, your next.
Unknown Speaker 34:28
I see where’s it all going in the future? I see a real need to be even clearer on how we articulate value and the amount of stuff that we expect our salespeople to do and to achieve when they have external complexity from the competition. There’s more products, there’s more solutions, more and more and more process on the inside. So the internal complexity is continuing to get bigger and greater In order to navigate, and our company’s own products are getting complex, shorter cycle times to get to products to market. There’s a lot of complexity that we put on salespeople to understand and be able to go out and sell, where they used to be able to focus on kind of poor selling activities around account strategies, relationship mapping, knowing exactly how the money flows to the companies and how to get to a yes, and create kind of a collaborative based sale with all the various stakeholders who have to be involved. And I think that the ability to articulate the value of less to a big company like an IMG or an eco lab, or you name it, it’s not easy. And I think you have to be able to really understand what you want your impact to be as a customer impact, you know, is it Are they adopting your products or services? Are they successful with those are you innovating with your customers? Is it is it retention? I mean, those are things salespeople, you To be really focused at is it financial impact of the sale? Is it driving revenue and how profitable that revenue is? The market impact Are you know, I always think that sales needs to be at the front leading and feeding, quote unquote, feeding the enterprise.
I like sometimes to say the kind of feed the beast to drive the market share and the place in the market, because at the employee impact, you know, if we’re continue to throw more and more stuff at salespeople, and we don’t take the complexity out of it and make it simple. Ultimately, you’ll have trouble retaining your superstars. So the ability to really start to describe the value of less to your enterprise to product marketing, all the way down to technology, and digital, what we put on our salespeople, it needs to be filtered through this sales enablement lens to say, is it seller ready? And how does it stack up against their business’s usual activities that they’ve got to keep going to high value and drives impact versus is just stuff we’re giving them which I think Anything kind of parlays? into what what if you would have asked me this question or if I would have listened to Greg say, I think we should reconsider potentially where it reports in the future, I would have been like, man, it belongs in sales. How could you, you know, it needs to be as close to sales as possible. But I actually have turned a corner on that. And I’m much more open to this idea of changing where it should report because I do believe as graduates highlighted, and I won’t repeat all of his points, but it requires greater functional sponsorship across the organization to truly be able to show that overall impact whether it’s financial or employee or, or market impact, it’s got to have bigger, better sponsorship than just sales. Because right now, there’s stuff in the way that’s, you know, sales or marketing alignment, you know, my priorities versus your priorities on the inside of these companies, my budget versus your budget, my headcount versus your headcount. It’s got to get to a place where the competition should be saved for outside of the company with our actual competitors, then our internal teams trying to demonstrate their own value is shoving too much stuff towards ourselves.
So I think that’s a big piece of our ability to describe the value of last, when all we want to do is more and and really changing the sponsorship across the organization so that that can be accomplished. And then the only other thing that I’d mentioned is I think the skill set of sales enablement, enablement people, and what we’re looking for needs to, we need competencies, we need really strong competencies between people who will be effective in these roles versus not. And I think there’s a whole nother conversation that could be had on that.
Scott Santucci 38:41
Because I would be some of those competencies because that’s come up.
Unknown Speaker 38:45
I was just thinking myself, Oh my gosh, if he asked me a follow up, I need to know if I have anybody. Um, you know, I, I think that you need to have people who are goal oriented. And what I mean by that is that they’re present forever. Step of the journey because they can see a bigger picture. They aren’t leading through direction, they’re leading through influence. They’re not results oriented people who are just showing up for what they think that will get them what they want, that are kind of closed off to any other way than their own. Those are kind of results orient people, they’re about their results, right? The glory of people have a tendency to kind of create a positive energy and will are will be open to and have empathy to the way that other people are doing business inside of their own company. And try to chart a different path by establishing a stronger level of network in their own company, and then building some performance out of that. So aligning them, enabling them creating networks that are all going to be towards a goal, like goal oriented, bigger picture, along for every step of the journey, because that type of leadership is more about influence and control. And it’s also more indirect and direct form of leadership. So requires that leaders create this work environment based on autonomy and empowerment, trust and sharing. So, you know, those are a lot of fun words that we love to toss around. But there are people who, who get that and they’ve come from varying backgrounds in sales and sales and marketing and sales and product and sales and marketing in end, and they can see a bigger picture because they can see the interdependencies of what it takes to make something work.
Scott Santucci 40:26
Brian, that was phenomenal. So first of all, I appreciate that I clicked on the spot. The good news is this topic came up in our sales practitioner or sales enablement practitioner, not l&d. What the competencies are out of that is let’s make a list of companies right now. And I think what you provided is a lot of color that every single one of them would have would agree with. So the fact that you just did that in a stream of consciousness that map to what that other panel said, shows that there’s something there and I think that’s pretty amazing. So thank you for doing that. Brian Lambert and I have to figure out how to put that into some sort of structured deliverable to get people to react to. That’s our problem, not yours. Okay, so we’re at with you, Samir.
Unknown Speaker 41:13
How do I follow that?
Scott Santucci 41:15
I know, but yeah,
Unknown Speaker 41:17
so I tell you how, please,
Unknown Speaker 41:20
I’ll tell you how I’m going to follow it.
Unknown Speaker 41:23
Um, I think there, there were two
Unknown Speaker 41:25
ideas. And so this is really just, I mean, you have the benefit of going third is you get to steal from two people that went before you, which is precisely what I’m going to do. So the first the first idea that I that I really resonated with, which was just stated by by Brian very clearly that I must say until he said it, I don’t know that I fully appreciate the difference myself. And that’s the goal orientation versus results orientation. And so the continue to steal from Brian I mean, I just pulled up that work of art that he produced back in Atlanta, And it’s really it’s really this, it’s, you know, what do we mean when we say goal orientation, and he has the very last page of the document, unlocking the value of sales together? And I think and so the just repeat what he did already say for the sake of emphasis, right.
So it’s your it’s about combining What do we mean by together, you’re trying to really harmonize into an orchestra or just as an orchestra word, sales of sales effectiveness, sales, delivery, performance, measuring performance in it and gaining insights. And then of course, the the communication and marketing activities, product management, and ultimately, even strategic marketing, right. So all of those things need to be playing in concert. Right? And so it’s really about and so it’s the role of sales enablement to act as the conductor of the orchestra. And the second idea that I want to steal from is what Greg referred to, very early on, and it’s you know, It’s about fantastic salespeople doing fantastic work. And really what makes them fantastic is the fact that they have an extraordinary ability to connect and understand what the customer wants. And that’s really what so the tip of the spear actually, as a Houston resident, for me, it’s the, it’s the Saturn five. And I think that that thing is marvelous no matter how you look at it, and so, you know, those are the guys in the command module. But are they the ones who are flying every stage of that Saturn five? The answer is no. There are four other stages which they may or may not actually be flying. And that could be done from from Mission Control in Houston, and different different groups within Mission Control. And so it’s, it’s bringing that together. And I think sales enablement is that glue that allows you to bring those five stages and allow us to sort of land on the moon and come back safely with with a with computer power. That’s less than what we have in our iPhones. I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s the, that’s the marvel of the achievement there. And so all of this to say, to say what, right, which is if we can create this level of functionality, then then where would that, which is the second part of your question, you know, form needs to follow function. And so, you know, I guess I’m sort of agreeing with both Brian and, and Greg, when when I say, I don’t think it needs to report into sales. But I believe, you know, there’s a, it’s not it’s not new anymore, but the role of Chief Commercial Officer, right, that’s a rule that embodies all aspects of commercial So, you know, sales, marketing, Product Management, basically everything driving the front end of the of an organization that faces and or interacts and or in some meaningful way touches the customer. That’s, that’s my thought, Scott.
Scott Santucci 44:58
That’s great. So normally what at this point Time what I’d be doing is summarizing all your answers. Samir did a good job of that for us already. What I wanted to do is, all of you guys are very fascinated by serendipity. I don’t know if you saw in the in the meeting response, or the survey responses. Somebody wrote mission critical, you know, what business would they be the rocket thing like that. Mission Control Mission Control. So, Samir, what’s interesting about that is the person who wrote that response was actually one of our panelists, so we didn’t know So, Siobhan batcher. That was her response. She went on talking to metaphor. And I said, I sat in that dude’s office, your office that I was referring to, as the mirror, and he had almost the exact same metaphor. How’s that possible? So, out of all the answers you we all saw all the answers, consulting, consulting, consulting, consulting, professional services, but admission control. You’ve doubled down on that, on that metaphor, and she had the exact same one. That’s fascinating. How do you what do you? What do you think of that?
Unknown Speaker 46:11
Well, I mean, I think if you’ve if you’ve been if you’ve actually been to NASA, and seeing the Saturn five, and and sort of if, if you’re, if you’re impressed by what you saw, and then choose to reflect on that experience, I think you can connect it to, to just about anything complex. That’s, that’s been harmonized into something simple and effective. And that’s what that’s what I love about. That’s why for me, the Saturn five is such a great metaphor.
Scott Santucci 46:41
So I’m going to ask another, this is a off the cuff question for all of you guys. First of all, this is a fantastic panel before I turn it over to Brian Lambert for the summer summary, but I think there’s something really important here about mindset or the lens with which you look at this particular problem. So something that Brian King mentioned earlier on that you touched on as well, I think Greg mentioned it as well, is we have to think of solving this problem through a different lens. That’s part that’s part of the reason why, Brian, I put you on the spot of saying, what are some of those characteristics? I’d like Greg to put you in severe on the spot. Can you describe some of those other characteristics? What are the characteristics that’s common across all of you guys, so that we can help our listeners develop the mind or, you know, sort of the right mindset? Because I think we all agree, we’re not going to solve this complex problem looking at it through the same siloed lens that we’ve been tackling it. So if we could just get you know, to comment a little bit maybe, Greg, I’ll ask you first, what are some of the characteristics or traits required to be able to pull something like this off?
Unknown Speaker 47:51
You know, I think what we have to, I think the first thing that person has to do is realize that it’s about getting the best ideas, Scott, you and I talked about this the other day, I’ve always been is this way I, I when I get into a room full of my direct reports, it’s not about whether or not I have the best ideas whether or not the best idea leaves that room, right? And I think that the right sales enablement, professional needs to be able to create the conversation. They don’t need to be an expert in any one thing. They don’t need to be the best corporate trainer, which I think a lot a lot of times ends up being someone they say, Okay, well, you know, they should be in charge of sales enablement, because they’re a great sales trainer or something. I don’t think that’s where we need to go with this right. I think he needs someone who gets along with people who can work across various functions, who knows how to manage up well. I believe that position should be reported and knows how to accomplish a set of outcomes through an organization that does not refer to him or her right, that nuance type relationship. And really having that, you know that outcome of where the team says, oftentimes we can have this report to me because I’m the expert or whatever the subject is. Now what you actually need is, you need an individual who’s going to go out there, think with a diverse perspective, and bring you back things that change you and change your game and cause you to expand your own thoughts and your own horizons. And then the two of you together will start to be symbiotic. And you can get to something that neither of you was going to get to on their own right, almost in a synergistic fashion. But I think that person needs to be able to listen, I need I think they have to have be almost a chameleon in nature. And I don’t think they need to be an expert in in any one discipline, but in the ability again to leverage a relationship matrix that gets everybody you know, to the win in the end.
Scott Santucci 49:55
I got me fired up, Greg. Hope that use the mirror. What would you what would be character thing you need to look for and say,
Unknown Speaker 50:02
I mean, at the risk of at the risk of repeating what Brian already said. And I think he summed it up really well. The first one is goal orientation versus results orientation. And I think I, you know, I never realized or actually appreciated fully how a result orientation makes you slightly more myopic or actually narrows your field of vision. Which, I don’t know that, that if we’re, if we’re aspiring to be business leaders, that’s the way to go. I mean, so that’s a personal development thing. So that’s one. Secondly, and probably, I mean, a subject that we’re all we’ve heard a lot about, meaning it gets a lot of lip service, but perhaps not enough. It’s not as as visible in action is leading leading by influence versus leading by authority. And so I think I think it’s for For an effective sales enablement professional, you need to be willing to be influenced in as much as you are willing to influence and able to do the same. And I think so those two I’d say, are for me the top two, you know, and then again, it’s the ability to look at the world from the need to influence someone you need to be able to speak their language and look at the world through their eyes. Because then they know you’re not trying to sell them snake oil or you’re actually trying to appreciate their perspective. So those are my top three and thank you Brian for supplying the top two.
Scott Santucci 51:36
Awesome. So I’m gonna turn it over to Brian Lambert for for wrap up but Brian’s Brian Lambert is responsible for summarizing put put together deliverable out of this so Dr. Brian Lambert How about you share your your summer share?
Unknown Speaker 51:52
Thanks, Scott. Yeah, so guys, what I’ll do is I’m going to have three key points that I’ve synthesized out of this discussion. So I will read, you know, basically read it off, give you a little background, then you can agree or disagree. And I’d love for you guys to each weigh in because I want this to be met with your seal of approval before I publish it. So the first, the first thing here is, is where we just ended up. And it’s this idea of articulating the value of doing less with other people. So articulating the value of doing less is where it started. But the more you guys talk, it’s got to do less with others. And that’s a huge, huge mindset shift that I think you guys are calling out here. So what what’s your take on on that theme or ticket sales enablement leaders to be successful? need to learn how to articulate the value of doing less with other people? So I’ll start with you, Greg, would you agree with that, or
Unknown Speaker 52:54
maybe I misunderstood articulate the value of doing less, can you maybe it’s just semantics. And can you clarify that for me?
Unknown Speaker 53:01
Yeah, sure. Brian had a great discussion about doing less and the value of simplification and actually combating the do more mentality. So I’m keying off of that to say, you know, what’s the value of doing less, but doing the less with the other people in Product Marketing sales groups? That’s a theme that you guys really discussed here at the end. Did you agree with that?
Unknown Speaker 53:27
I would agree with that. And Scott, you know, Scott kind of started it. That’s, that’s where I like we are really good as at organizations at making things complex, right building, taking the simple and making a complex because we think there’s a value in there and then we actually end up hurting the organization because no one can figure out how to articulate exactly what it is that we’ve done. Right. So I am all for simplification or Said another way. Yes, doing less.
Unknown Speaker 53:52
Yeah. How about you, Brian? You said it. So hopefully I got that, right.
Unknown Speaker 53:57
Yeah, I would say it’s definitely And we won’t get into some, I guess, semantics, but it’s definitely about sales enablement, helping the company realize that force ourselves people, we have to help them do a little bit less of all the stuff that we throw at them and help just like Greg has said so beautifully, like, Hey, we we can we make this so much more complex and that doesn’t necessarily have to be. So I don’t want to make it sound like we have to do less with our, our, with our business partners across the organization, but it’s about helping them see the value of less like sounds like less is more when it comes to the impact our sales organization is supposed to have on behalf of the business. How about
Unknown Speaker 54:44
you, Samir?
Unknown Speaker 54:46
A ton of the things we’re doing are just a kook from all right where we’re at, we’ve accessorize the hell out of everything. So, you know, I mean, most of the more is just dead weight. Or it’s actually not making you or the organization more aerodynamic. It’s actually less so. So I mean, I think less is more. The question is, how do you how do you establish a, a process wherein you actually select those items that truly add value versus the accessories? I think that that’s really where the magic is. Yeah, I love it. That’s where the mindset, you know, having a broad perspective, mission orientation, or goal orientation, having people that are trying to achieve the same thing as opposed to achieve their thing
Unknown Speaker 55:36
comes in. That’s a double down mentality, right?
Unknown Speaker 55:40
Yup.
Unknown Speaker 55:42
Yeah, absolutely.
Unknown Speaker 55:43
Great. So my second theme that I’m pulling out from you guys is it takes a hell of a lot of work to make something simple, and you got to do the work to simplify and that that requires a different type of muscle and it requires a different type of effort. work, but somebody’s got to do that. And that’s the second theme. So, Samir, what do you think about that theme? embrace the fact that it takes a lot of work to do something simple?
Unknown Speaker 56:11
Absolutely. I mean, try to try to put in a think of an idea, right? If I if I asked you to express yourself, you know, in 1000 words, you know, maybe you could do so in 500. If I asked you to express an idea in a sentence, you’ll need a day to think about it.
Unknown Speaker 56:31
Yeah. Mark Twain. If I had more time I wrote a shorter ladder. There you go. Yeah. Brian, what are your thoughts on that takes a hell of a lot of work to do something or make something simple.
Unknown Speaker 56:45
I agree with it. I, just this morning was talking with a client at Novartis who’s in product marketing, and they acknowledge that 90% of what they want. build out for the sales force will stay in the trunk. And I said, Well, when Why are you building the 90%? Why are you even going to make them go through a training on it? And where are you gonna, you know, all these other pieces that that you know that they’re not going to use. And so well that’s not my department. And that’s a that’s their department over there and they’ve got people and they’ve got the budget. And so that’s they want to do. So there’s right there. And there’s, there’s the problem. And this is one of the reasons why I think, hey, would be really interesting to take enablement and move it out of sales and put it into a commercial, right, plug it right into commercial. I love that idea. And, and empower it to say, Hey, we’re going to make sure everything is has its purpose and reduce the complexity of it to make sure that 90% of it doesn’t stay in the trunk.
Unknown Speaker 57:54
That’s awesome. That you can put that right terrible investor letter that’s How you wrap it up? Let’s make sure it doesn’t stay in the gym. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 58:07
And here’s my quote, if people listened to themselves more often they would talk less.
Unknown Speaker 58:13
Love it. Greg, anything to add on that?
Scott Santucci 58:18
worry that was directed at me.
Unknown Speaker 58:22
I think it was for me. Anyway.
Unknown Speaker 58:25
Greg, your thoughts on that?
Unknown Speaker 58:27
Yeah, my ad would be and I don’t know if it’s because of the type of personality that a lot of us who have been lifelong salespeople find ourselves with me we are. We are drivers, we are negotiators. We are looking to go out and get the deal closed. Right? We are looking for your what’s the payday and how quick Can I get it? So I don’t know how the evolution has occurred. But it’s so one yes, I agree. The need to simplify is very hard. But we often find ourselves when we’re creating sales organizations in a much more tactical atmosphere than Australia. TJ one, yo. And as people move through sales organizations, because they’re promoted, and they weren’t good salespeople before, and they take over bigger responsibilities or what have you, you’re really getting up pulling together a five year sales plan, when and understanding where are we going to be? And why are we going to be there? And what are the levers we’re going to do? And how does the digital work? And what are we going to quite frankly, rationalize? Right? I think our our CEO does a fantastic job of putting things in perspective, when he says, Look, I decide the things what’s going to make you rich, and what’s going to kill you. Right? What what are those main things that you have got to go after? Because they are going to be the value plays that are out there? And what are the things that are on the horizon that you better see them coming? Or you gotta you got a big problem, right? And then in the middle of the whole thing, you got to figure out, you know, while I’m putting something on the table, what is it that I’m going to take off because if you don’t do that you’re only going to bury the sales team further. And what we often what we often get for what we often have a problem doing is We have people and we’ve all been guilty of this, we we decide something in a boardroom or whatever, that makes an awful lot of sense. But then we don’t think through the full operationalizing of that concept. And then at the end, we go out or 95% of the way there and sales sales enough figure it out. Yeah. Right. And that’s where it becomes a problem. So yes, getting simple is very hard.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:22
Yeah, I love it. Yes. Great point. Amen.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:25
Yeah, last one. And this is because Greg, you know, I’m gonna keep going with you. You said a great quote, which I resonate with, and we have to figure out the humanity behind what we do. You know, we’re at a people business, we can’t rotate around the lowest common denominator, but this is knowledge work, and people are doing work. So my theme there is, if you as a sales enablement leader don’t recognize that your customer determines what’s valuable, right. So your customer, whoever it is, you got to figure that out, but you as a sales leader need to figure out who your customer is and realize that they determine what’s valuable here. That’s my, my, my final theme is, know the definition of value to your customer. What do you think about that? Greg?
Unknown Speaker 1:01:11
I agree into your point know who that customer is. We could spend a whole nother podcast on that if we wanted to, but 100% you can merchandise the wrong piece of value all day long. And then you’re just going to be expensive.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:27
Some year or? Yeah, let’s go smear next thought on that. Do you agree with that? No, the value to the customer, whoever that is that you’re defining?
Unknown Speaker 1:01:34
Without a doubt. I mean, if you don’t then Game Over, I mean, yeah. And that’s That’s it. That’s it. That’s the recipe for crash and burn. I mean, what else is what else can you get?
Unknown Speaker 1:01:44
Ryan’s you’re good at that. thoughts.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:46
You agree? I agree with that. I would just want to just be additive to it and say,
Unknown Speaker 1:01:52
you should definitely know the customer and the value.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:56
But sometimes, you know, well, Henry Ford said If I asked them for what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. So sometimes they don’t always know exactly what it is they need. And then it becomes incumbent becomes incumbent on sales and enablement or leadership to kind of tease that out and figure out what’s next to where it goes next. So, all I would say is that sometimes, they don’t always know what they mean. Great, thank you. All right,
Unknown Speaker 1:02:25
Scott, back to you.
Scott Santucci 1:02:28
Great. So Brian, I think we subscribe to the same quote, Rolodex or whatever, because I use that same one a lot. Yeah, I love it. It’s so great.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:39
Faster board. Yes. I mean,
Unknown Speaker 1:02:41
well, I mean, if you ask sales VPS if you know some of the things that they need, they just kind of say it’s the only real good leads. Yes. Partly it’s what works. Well, I don’t know if that’s exactly how you need it. Maybe you need lead prioritization and you need something that’ll help you get to you know, more qualified the pastor. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I’ll take that. Yeah. So it comes down to maybe that maybe they don’t know what they need. So right.
Scott Santucci 1:03:08
So we’re gonna wrap this up. Last couple questions. What did you learn about this conversation or in this call? So Brian, your first, what did you learn today?
Unknown Speaker 1:03:18
I think your survey results confirm the sales and the sales enablement as a practicing a discipline is getting better in terms of more widely understood,
Unknown Speaker 1:03:30
there’s still a long way to go in that.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:34
With that maturity comes a lot of, you know, heartburn and challenges. And what you what we needed out of sales enablement five, six years ago is not going to be what we need out of it in five years from now, and so, doing this kind of work, um, and pulsing against what’s actually taking place and having folks like us and having The professors and having, you know, the the academics, all these different practitioners, all these different sides kind of come together and give you this kind of triangulated view of where it is today in a snapshot in time and where it’s going. It’s pretty. It’s pretty interesting. It’s dynamic. And I kind of nerd out on some of this stuff. So it’s kind of confirmed to me that it’s moving, it’s maturing. I don’t know, if you had to give it a number of like, how you’re how old it is today. As as long as a person is still a child or adolescent, or if it’s a teenager, I mean, maybe it’s in that tween position, I don’t know. But it’s at least it’s maturing. And so for me, it’s a positive, it’s optimistic, and it’s great to know that someone is trying to help move that maturity along. Awesome.
Scott Santucci 1:04:57
That was great. Greg, how about you? What did you learn today?
Unknown Speaker 1:05:03
I learned that Samir really likes Brian’s ideas.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:05
So that was good.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:11
You guys, I think no, in all seriousness, and it’s good to talk to you all. Again, it’s been far too long.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:17
I think I’ve learned the importance of the skill set of the individual that you put into the sales enablement role and being diligent with you can’t settle. You can’t settle with this because of the need to work across the function. You’re having Everybody understand that? What’s the most important thing, getting the business to be? And that might not look the same for every group of individuals. And that’s okay. Right. So they need to really probably define a charter for an organization around what is sales enablement? What is in that scope and what is not in that scope. And I think we’re better are able to articulate the who and the what, then we were, I think a next step is also, what does it What does sales enablement look like? If it is successful? That’s what I’d like to spend more time on is it’s really quick to run and say, Well, if sales grow by x, then right? Well, you know, we can have the whole correlation causation, you know, discussion at some point if we want to do that, but how do you how do you understand because sales enablement might be a two or three or five year process on our roadmap, and how do you mark stones along there, which aren’t necessarily launching programs or things like that, but how do you actually get to that value is paying off with a with a quantifiable metric? So that’s something I’d like to like to dig into further.
Scott Santucci 1:06:54
Awesome. So Samir, you are the anchorman here. We’re in the zone. What did you learn?
Unknown Speaker 1:07:02
Well, I saw a lot.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:06
But for starters, I think, again, it’s it goes back to the very first, the answer my answer the very first question which I saw in action, which is even among like minded people, and mission oriented and goal oriented people like Greg, myself and Brian, you have a very different take on things. And at the same time, if you look at what we believe allows things to happen. They’re very fundamental. And so I think it really starts with, with, you know, leadership, direction, purpose, you know, what are we trying to accomplish, and how do we align ourselves to be able to get there and that’s sort of my probably my biggest takeaway, which is, yes, we all have different ideas on on what may be the most important But would we think different if we if we were to redirect what we’re trying to accomplish collectively versus what we’re trying to accomplish individually? And so again, it’s that it’s that evolution of mindset that comes from looking at a looking at a goal bigger than my goal. I mean, if we can if we can align around what is our goal, which in this particular case is a is a deeper understanding of the present and future state of sales enablement, then I think you kind of you start with first principles. Now the challenge is to always keep those things have that be your Northstar. Because if you lose that, then then you sort of, you tend to go looking for, you know, goals that you can grab your put your arms around, and that’s when that’s when you have you know, things fraying if you will. So that’s, that’s really my big takeaway today is, you know, hopefully our organizations have the kind of leaders who are not just a preacher The value of sales enablement, but that it’s it’s really designed to act as the glue for what is a an absolutely mission critical aspect of the organization, which is sales itself. And, you know, how do we how do we get a better understanding of our customers and how we can win with them.
Scott Santucci 1:09:21
That’s outstanding. So we’re going to wrap this up that that’s a great way to close this out. So inside our nation. Now you’ve heard, this is our sixth panel that you’ve heard from ranging from sales enablement, subject matter experts who talk about a lot of the context and the details and then we heard from sales leaders who talked about what their expectations are and really universally said, you got to step up and lead. We heard from two sets of practitioners, one group of practitioners was very much about how these things all interconnected, really, I guess what they were really Finding out is what kind of language to describe the stuff in the middle. This, the center of the Tootsie Pop, if you will. Then we had another panel of sales enablement experts with a l&d background. We heard different perspectives there from bringing in human learning and all those other attributes to it. We’ve heard from we heard from university professors and other educators about sort of the trends and to be aware of how much things are changing. And now finally, we’ve heard from a variety of business executives who are struggling with those changes right now and wanting to see a new roll merge. So please, that puts a lot of pressure on myself for May 19. Again, I have to summarize all of these things into a cogent document, and a presentation that will take 45 minutes to summarize all this great work. So now I’m extremely nervous, but make sure that you log in right Just work and find out how well we did. Thank you so much. Thank you panel.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:05
And
Outro 1:11:08
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 at 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.
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