Tim Riesterer - From Sales Enablement Origins to Orchestrating the Future of Revenue:On Episode 7, host Erich Starrett hops in the OSC Studios time machine with Tim Riesterer - Chief Strategy Officer, Corporate Visions + Chief Visionary, Emblaze.Tim shares his wealth of experience in sales enablement, spanning from the early days of automated RFPs and proposals to the evolution of the sales enablement function. He discusses the origins of sales enablement, its role in bridging marketing and sales, and its potential for strategic impact in the future. Tim also provides insights into the organizational hierarchy of enablement and its relationship to strategy, as well as the future of digital selling and the upcoming Digital Now Revenue Summit. Join us as we delve into the history, current landscape, and future possibilities of sales enablement with one of its foremost experts.Tim and Erich talk all things sales enablement, the evolution of the industry, the future of Revenue Enablement, and even share a few sips 🥂of Tim's unique Enablement 🍾 Champage. Key takeaways:> The Evolution of Sales Enablement: Tim shared his journey in the sales enablement space, from the early days of creating automated RFPs and proposals to the current landscape of integrated digital selling experiences. The industry has come a long way, and the future holds even greater strategic potential.> Where Enabling Growth meets SCIENCE!: Tim discussed the concept of orchestrating science-backed "growth plays" as the future banner for enablement, emphasizing the importance of leveraging data, original research and strategic initiatives to drive sustainable impact and compelling customer experiences.> Synergy of the CSO/CRO: Tim intentionally architected his role as Chief Strategy Officer for direct access to strategic levers across silos. This allows for adaptability across nearly everything - enablement, marketing, research, product development - from original research to front line sales execution. > Book NOW! RSVP ASAP for the upcoming summit in Chicagoland from April 2nd to 4th! An opportunity to meet Tim and SO MANY other thought leaders face-to-face at the 2024 digitalnow Revenue Growth Summit in association with OrchestrateSales.com's ISEs3 podcast. Hosted by Emblaze, powered by Corporate Visions, bringing together sales, marketing, and success leaders to address the challenges and opportunities of digital selling. The link below includes an embedded "OSCISE" code for specially discounted ISE Insider Nation access! https://salesenablement.captivate.fm/diginow24 Don't wait - hit PLAY! - to hear about all of the above...and so SO much more.Join in the journey with curiosity alongside those courageously treading the past, present, and future frontlines of a growing function and global profession. Please click 👇🏻, subscribe 📲, listen 🎧 ...and 🎙️ join the conversation!  ORCHESTRATE Sales!Let's #ElevateEnablement TOGETHER!Mentioned in this episode:Join Orchestrate Sales' ISE Podcast Insider Nation!https://www.OrchestrateSales.com/podcastISEs3 PROMO CODE for Emblaze DigitalNow Revenue Summit 2024 in ChicagoHit salesenablement.captivate.fm/diginow24 and it will plug in promo code OSCISE automatically -- for $745 off of the Emblaze DigitalNow Revenue Summit 2024 registration fee! Hope to see many Enablement Insider Nation smiling faces soon in Chicago. Or, more specifically, *just* outside of the Second City ...on April 2nd!Emblaze DigitalNow Revenue Summit 2024ISE Listeners Get 30% Off of GTM AI Academy!GTM AI Academy. The only AI curriculum curated by Enablement for Enablement ...and the entire cross-functional GTM team. Don't get tangled up in all of the random vendor driven offerings in your feed. Learn AI from a globally trusted source - Coach K - Jonathan Kvarfordt Their bundle "Enablement AI Mastery" includes BOTH the core "Generative AI Foundations" course AND "Enablement AI Mastery" specifically. Each course has a value of $599 individually, but Coach K is offering them as a bundle with reduced pricing. AND as a listener of the Inside Sales Enablement podcast, if you "ACT NOW" you can use code "ISE30" to get an ADDITIONAL 30% off of the entire thing. You will also receive FREE access to the GTM AI Tools Demo Library. Coach K has done the demos so you don't have to and offers his straight shooting opinion through an Enablement lens. Go to www.gtmaiacademy.com and enter code ISE30 TODAY and elevate your AI Enablement game!Brought To You By GTM AI Academy - 30% Off for ISE!Visit us on the Orchestrate Sales Property https://www.OrchestrateSales.com/

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 6, Erich Starrett hosts Christopher Kingman M.S., Global Head of Digital Sales Enablement at TransUnion, in the OSC Studios. And - SPOLER ALERT - this Ep is COMPLETE with a first of its kind opportunity to meet our guest IRL and face-to-face! Along with some of the best-of-the-best who have made (and continue to make) Enablement and Digital Sales history. And with not one but two ISE Insider benefits to make it easy on the travel budget.Chris has a captivating Enablement past as the youngest SES Fore-founder in "the room where it happened" ...just up the street from his Florida home. He is also well known for standing up in that very room as the voice of the next generation.  He shares his unique perspective on the past, while concurrently holding executive board roles with both the Revenue Enablement Society and Emblaze. Don't miss insights from this consistent practitioner, leader and volunteer on the Enablement front lines about the past, present and future of the function and profession. Highlights include: PAST: > Participating in the founding meeting of the Sales Enablement Society with people who came from as far away as the Netherlands like Thierry van Herwijnen and big names like Gerhard Gschwandtner and Jill Rowley invested their time, talent, and travel generously. Dr. Robert M. Peterson, who never lets Chris forget that he was the "youngster" there. PRESENT: > Chris' board role with Emblaze (fka AAISP) is informed by years of involvement including at the F2F events.  > RES and Emblaze have partnered around the concept that your enablement person and your CRO/CSO are two sides of the same coin.FUTURE: > Developing the first standards-based Enablement Executive Education program. > The 2024 Emblaze #digitalnow Revenue Growth Summit in which the RES is cultivating the Enablement track, and Chris and RES President Gail Behun will be hosting a "How to speak CRO" session. We also announce an ISE Season Three exclusive... > Book NOW! RSVP ASAP for the upcoming summit in Chicagoland from April 2nd to 4th! An opportunity to meet Tim and SO MANY other thought leaders face-to-face at the 2024 digitalnow Revenue Growth Summit in association with OrchestrateSales.com's ISEs3 podcast. Hosted by Emblaze, powered by Corporate Visions, bringing together sales, marketing, and success leaders to address the challenges and opportunities of digital selling. The link below includes an embedded "OSCISE" code for specially discounted ISE Insider Nation access! https://salesenablement.captivate.fm/diginow24 (Check out the "mentioned in this episode" section👇🏻) Don't wait - hit PLAY! - to hear about all of the above...and so SO much more.Join in the journey with curiosity alongside those courageously treading the past, present, and future frontlines of a growing function and global profession. Please click 👇🏻, subscribe 📲, listen 🎧 ...and 🎙️ join the conversation!  ORCHESTRATE Sales!Let's #ElevateEnablement TOGETHER!Mentioned in this episode:ISEs3 PROMO CODE for Emblaze DigitalNow Revenue Summit 2024 in ChicagoHit salesenablement.captivate.fm/diginow24 and it will plug in promo code OSCISE automatically -- for $745 off of the Emblaze DigitalNow Revenue Summit 2024 registration fee! Hope to see many Enablement Insider Nation smiling faces soon in Chicago. Or, more specifically, *just* outside of the Second City ...on April 2nd!Emblaze DigitalNow Revenue Summit 2024Join Orchestrate Sales' ISE Podcast Insider Nation!https://www.OrchestrateSales.com/podcastISE Listeners Get 30% Off of GTM AI Academy!GTM AI Academy. The only AI curriculum curated by Enablement for Enablement ...and the entire cross-functional GTM team. Don't get tangled up in all of the random vendor driven offerings in your feed. Learn AI from a globally trusted source - Coach K - Jonathan Kvarfordt Their bundle "Enablement AI Mastery" includes BOTH the core "Generative AI Foundations" course AND "Enablement AI Mastery" specifically. Each course has a value of $599 individually, but Coach K is offering them as a bundle with reduced pricing. AND as a listener of the Inside Sales Enablement podcast, if you "ACT NOW" you can use code "ISE30" to get an ADDITIONAL 30% off of the entire thing. You will also receive FREE access to the GTM AI Tools Demo Library. Coach K has done the demos so you don't have to and offers his straight shooting opinion through an Enablement lens. Go to www.gtmaiacademy.com and enter code ISE30 TODAY and elevate your AI Enablement game!Brought To You By GTM AI Academy - 30% Off for ISE!Visit us on the Orchestrate Sales Property https://www.OrchestrateSales.com/

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 Mentioned in this episode:ISE Listeners Get 30% Off of GTM AI Academy!GTM AI Academy. The only AI curriculum curated by Enablement for Enablement ...and the entire cross-functional GTM team. Don't get tangled up in all of the random vendor driven offerings in your feed. Learn AI from a globally trusted source - Coach K - Jonathan Kvarfordt Their bundle "Enablement AI Mastery" includes BOTH the core "Generative AI Foundations" course AND "Enablement AI Mastery" specifically. Each course has a value of $599 individually, but Coach K is offering them as a bundle with reduced pricing. AND as a listener of the Inside Sales Enablement podcast, if you "ACT NOW" you can use code "ISE30" to get an ADDITIONAL 30% off of the entire thing. You will also receive FREE access to the GTM AI Tools Demo Library. Coach K has done the demos so you don't have to and offers his straight shooting opinion through an Enablement lens. Go to www.gtmaiacademy.com and enter code ISE30 TODAY and elevate your AI Enablement game!Brought To You By GTM AI Academy - 30% Off for ISE!Visit us on the Orchestrate Sales Property https://www.OrchestrateSales.com/Join Orchestrate Sales' ISE Podcast Insider Nation!https://www.OrchestrateSales.com/podcast

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 we begin in the present as Erich Starrett is joined in the OSC Studios with Gail Behun who was announced just last week as the new President of the Revenue Enablement Society!  In this episode, Gail shares insights gained from many milestones on her personal Enablement journey including...> Her PASSION for the elevation of the Enablement profession, including many companies (and namely those who laid off entire Enablement teams) coming to embrace the reality... "What was happening to our community wasn't about enablers not showing value. It wasn't about us not doing a good enough job at our job. It was very reactionary. It was our CROs and CEOs not understanding the value of Enablement.Going from mentality of growth at all costs to a mentality of profitability at all costs." And that meant they had to cut anything that didn't directly lead to profitability, which meant cutting Enablement because Enablement adds to the cost of sale....this crash was not just because of our performance and that we had to be able to own the parts of it that we didn't do well enough. We needed to understand how to better build a bridge to our CROs, and then we needed to understand how do we go forward from here.""We really need to bring this function back and bring it back strategically. "> The Sales Enablement Society's decision to rebrand in 4Q23 to the Revenue Enablement Society..."This is a real recognition that our profession is evolving dramatically...that we have a much bigger footprint that we're empowering, not just sellers, but customer success, solution consultants, marketing, working across product marketing. We really are that connective tissue to the sales organization.""The title is how people are seeing us. But for me and my passion is how are we seeing ourselves? How do we define what we're doing so that whatever our title is, we know we're having the biggest impact, whether you are, a support level, whether you're just coming in, whether you're a VP level and everything in between, really having a clear understanding of how you can have an impact on those bottom line revenue metrics. How what you're doing ties back to revenue.> How her love of the live conference community experience led her to lead the annual global SES/RES event..."It lets me really bring my passion for face to face marketing and the power of conferences and the power of connecting into an organization that I feel so strongly brings so much value to members. One of the things I love about sales enablement is it's still a niche profession. There's not a lot of us, we're still figuring a lot of stuff out. And so you have this community of people who are. Incredibly brave, incredibly creative, incredibly scrappy, and perfectly happy to show you what they're doing." > Her take on the future of Enablement, and elevating the profession..."The evolution for me is to continue to make sure that people have outlets to have good discussions with their community on a regional level, on a national level, on a slack level, that they have those conversations, and that those conversations can focus on 'What makes our strategy impactful?' Yeah, we've got to talk about the tactics, like how are we actually going to pull this thing off? But the more conversations we have about the strategy, the more that we speak that CRO / CEO language, the more likely we are to elevate our entire profession."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 the rise at OrchestrateSales.comMentioned in this episode:ISE Listeners Get 30% Off of GTM AI Academy!GTM AI Academy. The only AI curriculum curated by Enablement for Enablement ...and the entire cross-functional GTM team. Don't get tangled up in all of the random vendor driven offerings in your feed. Learn AI from a globally trusted source - Coach K - Jonathan Kvarfordt Their bundle "Enablement AI Mastery" includes BOTH the core "Generative AI Foundations" course AND "Enablement AI Mastery" specifically. Each course has a value of $599 individually, but Coach K is offering them as a bundle with reduced pricing. AND as a listener of the Inside Sales Enablement podcast, if you "ACT NOW" you can use code "ISE30" to get an ADDITIONAL 30% off of the entire thing. You will also receive FREE access to the GTM AI Tools Demo Library. Coach K has done the demos so you don't have to and offers his straight shooting opinion through an Enablement lens. Go to www.gtmaiacademy.com and enter code ISE30 TODAY and elevate your AI Enablement game!Brought To You By GTM AI Academy - 30% Off for ISE!Visit us on the Orchestrate Sales Property https://www.OrchestrateSales.com/Join Orchestrate Sales' ISE Podcast Insider Nation!https://www.OrchestrateSales.com/podcast

ISE Season 3 is focused on the past, present and future of Enablement History. And timed perfectly as we just celebrated the seventh anniversary of the official signing of the Sales Enablement Society into reality by the ~100 SES Fore-founders in Palm Beach, November of 2016.For Episode 3, Paul Butterfield, President of the Executive Board of the (as of recently) Revenue Enablement Society joins us on the Orchestrate Sales Property and shares his take on Enablement History:⏪ BEFORE the Sales Enablement Society: ❇️ Building out the enablement function for multiple companies including Vonage, Instructure, and General Electric's CoE. ❇️ Googling "Sales Enablement" and being introduced to the research of Scott Santucci⏯️ Paul's introduction to the SES via Jill Rowley and ultimately getting involved locally. ❇️ A review of the three founding positions and how they, in part, solidified Paul's findings from having built Enablement programs organically ❇️ A peek "behind the scenes" at the catalysts, current events, and decision making process that informed the executive board's transition from the SES to the RES⏩️ Paul's take on the present and future of Enablement and his personal mission to empower enablement through the lens of Customer Journey ❇️ Enablement has yet to fully embrace and apply "business within a business" ❇️ The impact and opportunity of A.I. ❇️ A challenge for all to embrace becoming Enablement Challengers vs. Waiters ❇️ Drop the "ROI calculator" and rather focus on reasonable correlation to resultsMentioned in this episode:Join Orchestrate Sales' ISE Podcast Insider Nation!https://www.OrchestrateSales.com/podcastISE Listeners Get 30% Off of GTM AI Academy!GTM AI Academy. The only AI curriculum curated by Enablement for Enablement ...and the entire cross-functional GTM team. Don't get tangled up in all of the random vendor driven offerings in your feed. Learn AI from a globally trusted source - Coach K - Jonathan Kvarfordt Their bundle "Enablement AI Mastery" includes BOTH the core "Generative AI Foundations" course AND "Enablement AI Mastery" specifically. Each course has a value of $599 individually, but Coach K is offering them as a bundle with reduced pricing. AND as a listener of the Inside Sales Enablement podcast, if you "ACT NOW" you can use code "ISE30" to get an ADDITIONAL 30% off of the entire thing. You will also receive FREE access to the GTM AI Tools Demo Library. Coach K has done the demos so you don't have to and offers his straight shooting opinion through an Enablement lens. Go to www.gtmaiacademy.com and enter code ISE30 TODAY and elevate your AI Enablement game!Brought To You By GTM AI Academy - 30% Off for ISE!Visit us on the Orchestrate Sales Property https://www.OrchestrateSales.com/

Welcome to Inside Sales Enablement, Season three, where we take a leap into the enablement time machine and...> Take a look back with those who played a part in enablement history. > Pause in the present and hit on a few modern themes> And then shift our focus to the future and what it may bring for enablement teams. Hello and welcome! I'm Erich Starrett. I started out as an ISE "Insider Nation" devotee of Sales Enablement Society founding father Scott, Santucci, and trailblazer Dr. Brian Lambert. I then collaborated with them to build OrchestrateSales.com, the global home for the podcast and related resources for Enablement Orchestrators and sales enablement history. Why? Well as a sales enablement history nerd with a passion for the continued elevation of the profession. I see it as the Sales Enablement Smithsonian and, more specifically, an opportunity to serve you - the global enablement community. Together, we will revisit the wisdom of the treasures therein as well as uncover some new ones with a series of special guests, which may even include you.The foundation of cross-functional and enablement orchestration was established in the three founding principles signed into existence by the hundred-ish fore-founders of the SES back in Palm beach in 2016, for which this week in the studio is the seven year anniversary. So in celebration after a year of hiatus, we're knocking the dust off the orchestrate sales.com property. In the first episode we had Sales Enablement Society founding father Scott Santucci as our special guest, focusing on before the SES and how it almost didn't even exist.Today, Scott rejoins me in the orchestrate sales studios, as we land alongside the a hundred-ish, fore-founders in Palm beach, back in November of 2016, where, and when the Sales Enablement Society officially began.  Mentioned in this episode:ISE Listeners Get 30% Off of GTM AI Academy!GTM AI Academy. The only AI curriculum curated by Enablement for Enablement ...and the entire cross-functional GTM team. Don't get tangled up in all of the random vendor driven offerings in your feed. Learn AI from a globally trusted source - Coach K - Jonathan Kvarfordt Their bundle "Enablement AI Mastery" includes BOTH the core "Generative AI Foundations" course AND "Enablement AI Mastery" specifically. Each course has a value of $599 individually, but Coach K is offering them as a bundle with reduced pricing. AND as a listener of the Inside Sales Enablement podcast, if you "ACT NOW" you can use code "ISE30" to get an ADDITIONAL 30% off of the entire thing. You will also receive FREE access to the GTM AI Tools Demo Library. Coach K has done the demos so you don't have to and offers his straight shooting opinion through an Enablement lens. Go to www.gtmaiacademy.com and enter code ISE30 TODAY and elevate your AI Enablement game!Brought To You By GTM AI Academy - 30% Off for ISE!

Episode 64: ISE Season 3#1: BSESWelcome to "season three" of Inside Sales Enablement ...ISE - focused on Enablement History. I'm Erich Starrett. I started out in the ISE audience listening to SES Founding Father Scott Santucci and Trailblazer Dr. Brian Lambert', and then collaborated with them to build OrchestrateSales.com to be the global home for the ISE Podcast and related resources for Sales Enablement #Orchestrators, including Sales Enablement Society history.It is the week of the seventh anniversary of the official signing of the SES into reality by the ~100 Fore-founders in Palm Beach, November of 2016. We begin ISE Season 3 with a focus on "Before the SES ...and how it almost didn't exist" with SPECIAL GUEST Sales Enablement Society Founding Father Scott Santucci himself.Was Sales *Enablement* the first choice, or were there a few left marked through on the the whiteboard?What HEROic role did the four days of Scott and Brian Lambert's Forrester Sales Enablement Conferences play?Would the Sales Enablement Society have even become a thing if Jill Rowley didn't engage a cynical Scott in a Social Media challenge centered around Tiffani Bova, with a few extra nudges from across the pond thanks to Tamara Schenk?The significance of Lisa Pintner not just letting Scott sulk in a corner at the happy hour?How do you create a forum that fosters creative conflict and to challenge each other in a positive way?What was the role of vendors including Corporate Visions (@Jody Kavanaugh and Tim Riesterer,) SAVO Group (now part of Seismic) and @iCentera (Craig Nelson)?What came into reality of the intersections of Sheevaun Thatcher, CPC, Jill Guardia (she/her), and Daniel West introducing Scott to @Jim Ninivaggi?...with involvement of key players like Walter Pollard, Carol Sustala, Mike Kunkle, Lee Levitt)How long did it take Rahul Gupta to come up with the SES Lion brand marketing package and approach?And THOSE questions don't even yet have us to the Palm Beach MEETING! Enjoy part one! Part two coming soon...Mentioned in this episode:ISE Listeners Get 30% Off of GTM AI Academy!GTM AI Academy. The only AI curriculum curated by Enablement for Enablement ...and the entire cross-functional GTM team. Don't get tangled up in all of the random vendor driven offerings in your feed. Learn AI from a globally trusted source - Coach K - Jonathan Kvarfordt Their bundle "Enablement AI Mastery" includes BOTH the core "Generative AI Foundations" course AND "Enablement AI Mastery" specifically. Each course has a value of $599 individually, but Coach K is offering them as a bundle with reduced pricing. AND as a listener of the Inside Sales Enablement podcast, if you "ACT NOW" you can use code "ISE30" to get an ADDITIONAL 30% off of the entire thing. You will also receive FREE access to the GTM AI Tools Demo Library. Coach K has done the demos so you don't have to and offers his straight shooting opinion through an Enablement lens. Go to www.gtmaiacademy.com and enter code ISE30 TODAY and elevate your AI Enablement game!Brought To You By GTM AI Academy - 30% Off for ISE!

Welcome to Inside: Sales Enablement Episode 63How do we make sales today and one of the things that we need to concentrate on is selling the value of what is actually value mean in the first place? No human being on the planet can live without water. But water is cheap, and prevalent, and inexpensive in most places. Whereas none of us need diamonds to survive. But diamonds are expensive. So what actually is value?In this episode, the guys are joined by Jen Burns who runs sales enablement globally for IQVIA. The reason the concept is so important today is as we move into a digital into the digital economy where customer experience becomes so vital.The key questions you must be able to help your sellers answer are: What actually is valuable? Is the product and service that you have, is that what is valuable? Or is it the outcome the customer achieves? Is that what's valuable. That's what we're talking about today.AUDIO 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 Santucci and Trailblazer Brian Lambert, as they take you behind the scenes of the birth of an industry, the inside sales enablement podcast starts now.Scott Santucci 00:34  I'm Scott Santucci.Brian Lambert 00:36  I'm Brian Lambert and we are the sales enablement insiders. Our podcast is for sales enablement leaders looking to elevate their function, expand their sphere of influence, and increase the span of control within their companies.Scott Santucci 00:49  Together, Brian, I've worked on over 100 different kinds of sales enablement, initiatives as analysts, consultants or practitioners. We've learned the hard way, what works and maybe what's more important, what doesn't.Brian Lambert 01:03  And our focus is on you, as a sales enablement leader and Orchestrator, sales enablement, leaders need to develop specific characteristics that we call Orchestration, operate in the blended domain of strategy and tactics, where you do both. Our goal on this podcast is to help you clarify what that looks like, provide examples that you can then take an action in your own company and give you confidence to engage up down and across the organization. And as usual, we have a centering story. So Scott, what do you have for us today?Scott Santucci 01:34  So I'm going to lead with a quote, and I'm going to ask you to see if you can think place the quote and the time period.Brian Lambert 01:42  Okay.Scott Santucci 01:44  Here's the quote. Why is water that is vital for all life. cheap. And diamonds are so expensive.Brian Lambert 01:56  Isn't this say? Something tells me that this is like the 1980s or something that a technology reference like a Steve Jobs keynote or something?Scott Santucci 02:06  Close?Brian Lambert 02:06  It isScott Santucci 02:07  very close. Yes. It's Aristotle. And it's about 300 BC. You were right. Close. My hopesBrian Lambert 02:17  only to bash it upside that. Okay. Well, fine. Aristotle's a smart dude. I can get go for that.Scott Santucci 02:22  I guess he's Steve Jobs. Yes. And essentially, he's got, you know, big thoughts.Brian Lambert 02:27  And they probably are more like sandals.Scott Santucci 02:29  There's the close part. So why are we talking about this and diamonds, around the time of Aristotle, many of the people many of the Greeks actually believe diamonds were literally tears of the gods. And between, then, and in the dark ages, many kings wore diamonds on their armor because it was a great, it was a great sign of health and virility and safety. And then in 1477, I guess that's the Renaissance time. maximillian, who at the time that this happened was the Archduke of the Habsburg Empire, babe later became the Holy Roman Emperor. So there's your Italian Kwazii connection there for you. Thanks. You're welcome. Nice pay out there. But this, this is pretty interesting. And 1477, he became the first person to actually propose to a woman using it using a diamond ring.Brian Lambert 03:32  So it's his fault. I see.Scott Santucci 03:34  It is his fault. So set so that then so we fast forward to 1938. And the reason 1938 is a is a good is a very important time is because at this point in time, that De Beers organization we all know about the beers cornered the diamond industry. And they commissioned a study because most of the diamond sales were happening in the United States at the time. And what's significant about 1938 Yes, it's during the Great Depression. And there was a big dip in diamond sales. They commissioned a study figured out that before 1938 you know, who they were trying to sell diamonds to directly to women. And what they found out is that they needed to sell diamonds to men, and specifically around this whole engagement ring phenomenon. So a woman named Dorothy diam did did a bunch of this research and when it first came out, they came out with a she's the one who came up with the Diamonds Are Forever program.Brian Lambert 04:37  What's her name?Scott Santucci 04:38  Dorothy was Dorothy Diane.Brian Lambert 04:40  I thought I thought you said Dorothy diamond. I'm like what that did she changed her name. Okay.Scott Santucci 04:46  Great. Yeah, actually credited as being one of the first people to do product placement so thatBrian Lambert 04:52  diamonds are forever. That's right.Scott Santucci 04:55  So that's that became a slogan and wrote by By the 1950s diamond sales that drunk jumped at the time they were promoting one, one month salary for what you should pay for a ring that went so well they doubled it to two months. So those things are all going on. Now what's interesting then, and at the same time, in 1954, so think about alchemy, we've talked about alchemy, before people trying to make gold, and people have been trying to make diamonds or synthesize diamonds. And it wasn't it wasn't until 1954 that synthetic diamonds could be produced today, synthetic diamonds are its own industry and upon itself. So you have the regular mined diamonds that are used mostly or for gems. But then the synthetic diamonds are used for machine and cutting tools. They're used as thermal conductors, they're used as optical materials, electronics, and increasingly as gemstones and to bring this full circle. Part of the reason gemstones are becoming an option is because of environmental reasons and be poked, people are becoming more concerned with it. So for example, it takes about 250 tons of earth to produce one carat of diamonds, or also some of the poor working conditions are like, so what you have is, you know, coming back full step full circle to Aristotle. Why is water? vital? And why are diamonds so expensive? Well, there's a whole bunch of reasons for for diamonds, and a whole bunch of people have different value for it. So that's our centering story, full circle from Aristotle, the Aristotle between 300 some odd BC to 2020. And we've covered a lot of ground here.Brian Lambert 06:56  Yeah, thanks. Great, great lesson, I guess. But I got to ask. So what? So what does this have to do with sales enablement?Scott Santucci 07:05  So this has to do with sales enablement is the first part of that word is sales. How do we make sales today and one of the things that we need to concentrate on is selling the value of what is actually value mean in the first place? No human being on the planet can live without water. But water is cheap, and prevalent, and inexpensive in most places. Whereas none of us need diamonds to survive. But diamonds are expensive. So what actually is value. And the reason that that's so important today is as we move into a digital into the digital economy where customer experience becomes so important. What actually is valuable? Is the product and service that you have, is that what is valuable? Or is it the outcome the customer achieves? Is that what's valuable. So that's what we're talking about today.Brian Lambert 08:02  Great. Well, we have with us to help us unpack this. And actually, we're using this and it this podcast in a in an interesting way. I think our listeners are gonna love to hear about this. We've got Jen burns with us, Scott, why don't you tell us a little bit about Jen and have her introduce herself. And then I'll come back at the end and recap what all this means to orchestrators.Scott Santucci 08:22  Well, I'm super excited to introduce Jen for a variety reasons. So Jen and I go back aways. Jen actually was one of the participants, Brian, if you remember, the sales enablement society didn't start as a sales day was sorry, started as the washington dc local sales enablement. networking group, which I titled that was my baby.Brian Lambert 08:47  That's why you're not in marketing.Scott Santucci 08:48  That's true. I'm not in marketing. So Jen, Jen, join us there. Jen has been the been on the board of directors of the sale today and once it along the way. And now she runs sales enablement globally for a company called a cavia. So when they The third thing there for actually The fourth thing that I'm excited about is I'm really interested to see how Jen reacts to our centering story and connects the dots of what we're going to talk about. Jen, would you care to add some color about who you are and introduce yourself to inside our nation?Jen Burns 09:23  Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm kind of nervous about the pivot to the centering story, but we'll see what we can do. From that perspective. It was a great one. So see, I'm Jen burns, and Senior Director of Sales, global sales strategy, enablement training at IQ vs. Scott mentioned. And and I'm really excited to be part of this podcast and it I think it's been quite a number of years actually, since Scott, you and I have been on a webinar or podcast together and Brian similar to that, so. So it's great and a lot of has happened since then. Particularly since our early days. It days for sure. But um, you know, but I'm very excited to kind of get into this topic today, particularly because we're preparing for a keynote, this coming week at our global sales conference, which Scott is, is going to be leading, and I will be joining him in the discussion. So really important that we start to flesh this topic out and wanted to use this platform to really kind of think through some of the key issues to ensure that when we put it in front of the sales team, you know, it makes sense, and they can start leveraging some of these techniques. So it's really important, you know, for me, and for my organization to ensure that we continue to drive, you know, value to our customers, and very, very excited to discuss what that actually means today. So yeah, really great to be here, guys. Thanks for having me.Scott Santucci 10:46  Oh, no problem. So in case you're wondering. And following along, let's make sure we're paying attention really clear, crystal clear, Jen is doing this podcast, because she's practicing. And she's practicing for a keynote presentation, that, well, we're gonna do, we're gonna do, we're gonna do together. So we're gonna do a keynote presentation for the sales kickoff that she's got in a few days. And we're practicing landing some of the concepts. So I just want to make sure that everybody recognizes that we all have to practice we all have to put ourselves in uncomfortable situations, we're asking our sales people to do it don't get outside of their comfort zone. I think this is a great opportunity to highlight that Jen's doing exactly that. So with that, having said that, let's talk about value. And why is this topic so important? Don't doesn't everybody know what value means? Gen y's, why is talking about values such a central theme for sales organizations in 2020?Jen Burns 11:52  Yeah, so I think, you know, it reminds me back to the days when we were trying to put a definition behind sales enablement, right? It kind of means something different to every person. And, you know, I think for every sales enablement practitioner that's listening to this, or even a salesperson or marketing professional, it's the word value is a very nebulous term. And I think, you know, frankly, we throw it around, you know, in a way that it doesn't really clearly provide value. Right? So when we say we're value selling, or we're driving value to our customers, I think we really need to be careful about how we use that term, because what ends up happening is it doesn't carry meaning. And, you know, one of the reasons you know why Scott, I'm so excited to, you know, to be working with you, and growth enablement and trying to, you know, work through what, what the definition of value really means to to our sales, sales organization, so we can continue can continue to drive growth, it's really thinking about, you know, what it means to the customer, because I think we all want to define it from our lens. But really, you know, the value is what the customer thinks it is not what we think it is. And so there's a lot of, you know, ways that I think we can get to that answer. And so really excited to, you know, to start working through, you know, one, how we do that, and to how we communicate it to sales so that they can articulate it in a much stronger way to our customers,Scott Santucci 13:22  right. And one of the things that where this problems begins, or starts, really comes down to as businesses, we tend to go to market. And when we go to market, we think, let's make a list of all the different products that we've got our capabilities that we've got. Now let's compare those capabilities, and how do we compare those capabilities, either by the speeds and feeds that we can prove and demonstrate or what we can demo, or by how we compare against our competitors. And I think the observation that we're on Jen and love, you get some add some more clarity about that, is, as we build more and more capabilities, one, we can't communicate all that stuff to people, it becomes overwhelming. And to from a customer standpoint, one of the challenges is how are we going to get everybody who is who's involved in that on the same page? And how are we going to turn those capabilities into value for us? So are you seeing similar similar situations? And how do you go about preparing the right kinds of materials to have a value driven conversation?Jen Burns 14:32  Yeah, so let's, let's unpack this a little bit, because I'll give you my perspective. And then actually, I'd like to get yours right on, you know, potentially a different direction. so well done in a very, in a very simple way, right? The way that that you know, and I and I will come out and be transparent and say that this is how I typically view value right and i think others do as well is that when we're trying Trying to prepare our sales organization to sell more effectively and have better deeper conversations with buyers, we often anchor that conversation to what our solutions are going to drive. Right? So, you know, what can we increase or decrease? Can we drive revenue growth rate, all of the key buzzwords that everybody uses in their marketing materials or sales conversations. And you know, of course, that's all talking about product. And while we absolutely want to share those things, and they're very meaningful at different parts of the conversation, and conversations that we have with buyers and other key stakeholders, I don't think they're the things that really set us up for a good consultative relationship so that we can help our buyers understand, you know, what is that value that that they're looking for? Right, because we think myopically that it's directly, you know, related to our product and what it can do versus what actually is going on with an organization that directly impacts that definition to them. So I would actually turn it back to you, Scott, and just get your thoughts on, you know, one is, is the pattern kind of that you see, directly correlating value to product versus, you know, people actually digging into the value that the customer believes that they're trying to drive, which may be influenced by things going on in their environment? And then how do we actually think differently about that? As we're crafting, you know, our resources and tools for sales? Because it's a very difficult thing for me to kind of get my hands around? Yes.Scott Santucci 16:35  So Jen is leading with all of you guys. She has a more refined view than what she's what she's sharing. The Jen, you and I both have had experience talking about this concept of prototypes. And it's been really the width inside your company. I think that's really where where things start, is that we've just got so much muscle memory, about wanting to talk about what we've got, that we're losing sight of what's valuable for customers. That's one point. The second point is, I think it's really difficult when we so let's say that Brian, were a real estate agent and genuine I had a business partnership where we're looking to buy some real estate. Brian referred to us as buyers, we're going to be put off because we haven't bought anything yet. So I think another another challenge is let's, let's move off of thinking about the people that we're trying to sell to as buyers because it desensitizes it, we treat them like there's some formulaic thing out there just waiting. They have all this demand for whatever our product and services, but the reality is they don't. The reality is to create demand with them. And maybe we don't treat them as buyers, we treat them actually as customers and human beings.Jen Burns 18:06  Yeah, no, that's that's a fair point, honestly, and, and frankly, if we were doing our jobs well, as salespeople, you know, we want them to recognize, you know, in many cases, problems they may not realize exists. So if there's no problems in their mind, they're not buyers. That's right. So it actually makes sense to say it that way, I agree with you.Scott Santucci 18:26  So when we when we when we unpack that, then what makes it be makes it very difficult is we're in the b2b world. So in your case, Janet acuvue, you sell to pharmaceutical companies. So pharmaceutical companies are multinational, large, complex entities and word that's what we're technically selling to. However, we're also selling to human beings as well. And I think this is where things become challenging is to not confront the complexities that exist in a b2b organization to start off with. So one of the things that we have developed is a, what we call a value equation. And there's three simple parts to it, there is the impact that we can bring to bear to the company that you have to co create or agree on. There...

In this episode , we're joined by Brian King. Sales Enablement leader who brought a cross-functional team together to develop and clarify the value of his team at Intercontinental Hotels. In this podcast, we talk through bringing together cross-functional leaders (all who have a myopic lens of "value") as well as understanding the commercial ratio and how to leverage to elevate the strategic conversation and strategies.And our focus is on you, as a sales enablement leader and Orchestrator, sales enablement, leaders need to develop specific characteristics that we call Orchestration, operate in the blended domain of strategy and tactics, where you do both. Our goal on this podcast is to help you clarify what that looks like, provide examples that you can then take an action in your own company and give you confidence to engage up down and across the organization.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 Santucci and Trailblazer Brian Lambert, as they take you behind the scenes of the birth of an industry, the inside sales enablement podcast starts now.Scott Santucci 00:34  I'm Scott Santucci.Brian Lambert 00:36  I'm Brian Lambert and we are the sales enablement insiders. Our podcast is for sales enablement leaders looking to elevate their function, expand their sphere of influence, and increase the span of control within their companiesScott Santucci 00:48  together, Brian, I've worked on over 100 different kinds of sales enablement, initiatives as analysts, consultants or practitioners. We've learned the hard way, what works and maybe what's more important, what doesn't.Brian Lambert 01:02  Our focus is on you as sales enablement leaders and orchestrators as a sales enablement orchestrator, you need to develop specific skills to blend both strategy and tactics together to help your company succeed. As you work across the sales and marketing, you're also bringing together a lot of different inputs, and you're turning those inputs into value for your company. As usual, we have a centering story, Scott, what do you have for us today?Scott Santucci 01:27  So our centering story goes way, way, way, way back.Brian Lambert 01:31  usually say that it doesn't isn't that far. Either way.Scott Santucci 01:35  With that.Brian Lambert 01:36  When you add all the emphasis you blow it that it's not that far back.Scott Santucci 01:41  We have the benefit of actually knowing what the story is because I'm including you on this one. So that's a little unfair. I'm usingBrian Lambert 01:47  the fact that I'm not in the dark this time.Unknown Speaker 01:50  Exactly.Scott Santucci 01:52  But so we've we've had stories that go way back as I remember around BC period, BC when we talked about the invention of improv.Brian Lambert 02:05  That's right.Scott Santucci 02:06  That's how far back we've gone. So this time, we're going all the way back to episode six gaven, episode six of our actual podcast. So how modern are we getting here? So if you haven't, if you haven't listened to Episode Six, you probably shouldn't do it. It's we published this in in June of 2019. And there's actually a funny story about that. What prompted us to do this episode was a call that I made to you, Brian Lambert, of when I was in Atlanta, what was that call? Like?Brian Lambert 02:42  That's right, you called me and you're like, guess where I'm just leaving this meeting. And first you had some sort of travel disaster you went through, because there was some sort of major issue in the meeting had to start without you or something. And then youScott Santucci 02:54  think our guests might have some comments on that.Brian Lambert 02:59  And then, you went to you told me about this guy who was like, you're not going to believe this. Brian, he got Lambert, you have this guy who brings who brings us all in when we're going through this idea of his charter. And then he actually at the end of this meeting, get this he briefs and brings in his executive team to do the readout. And that's what this two day meeting was about. How awesome is that? That this guy would put his, you know, team through this. And this is a group of people that actually was coming together for the Conference Board. It wasn't even his team. That's right, we're just super jazzed up about it.Scott Santucci 03:34  I am always so if anybody if any of our listeners has a idea to tackle something different out of the box, call me and I'll get in the foxhole with him because I just love anybody who does that. And our special guest, this is the guy or we'll talk about who he is in a second. I was the program director, whatever you call it for the for the Conference Board. And for those who don't know, the conference board's 100 and x 160 year old organization. It's actually the organization that came up with the 40 day 40 Hour Workweek that's that's true story, got labor and management together. And then during the Industrial Revolution, and ever since then, has been creating these councils. And that's how I met our guests. This guy, his name's Brian King, and he was one of the members. And we were having a meeting. I think it was at Tiffany's. We literally had breakfast. Two days at Tiffany's. Brian and I right. That's right, Brian,Unknown Speaker 04:35  right. Yeah. Ray would have breakfast. Every everyone's dream.Scott Santucci 04:40  Yes, exactly. So we were at we're having our meeting at Tiffany's. And we we had the situation where had everybody present out what their, what their sales enablement. Charter would be if we were on CNBC and it didn't go well. So we realized we needed to work on our messaging instead. We've got to adopt this idea of a business with our business. So Brian King goes while do that, that makes sense. I'll do that. So we decided on the spot. You know, little did we know, why don't we have our next meeting, our next Conference Board meeting at in Atlanta at international, intercontinental hotels group in Atlanta, so they have a big hospitality company. And what we're going to do is we're going to put all of us on the spot and create an agenda, where we're going to provide a readout for as executives. Now how cool is that?Brian Lambert 05:38  I that's amazing. That's,Scott Santucci 05:39  I think it's I think it's the coolest thing. So anybody who's got the stones to be able to pull that off is immediately going to be somebody that I idolize. And we have that person now with us, Brian King. So Brian, tell us a little bit about that story. And, you know, pick us up and what we're going to be talking about today.Unknown Speaker 05:58  Yeah, well, thanks. It's great to join. Both you gentlemen today, always have a great time chatting with you With you both. And talking about sales and commercial enablement, that that meeting was so interesting, because we had pulled together a considerable number of corporate executive board members, they all came to Atlanta, we sat in our boardroom. And for two days, we talked through challenges around value propositions for sales for sellers, about our product, and our product ID, intercontinental hotels, at that point in time was our brands. So everything from a Kimpton to a Holiday Inn to, to an intercontinental across our brand categories, and why our sellers who sell to them in the b2b space, so they would sell to the IBM's, the Cisco, the Coca Cola has, etc, in order to get their business travel, as well as their groups and their meetings and titles. And so we spent a lot of time really kind of focused on value propositions as well as loyalty. And we, as a sales organization, had a kind of working knowledge of what, what our ideas were, but we wanted to have loyalty and brands Come and join us in the room and listen to what other corporate executive board members like. Like Ernst, and young and Tiffany and Microsoft and anhand are really exceptional group of sales leaders. And listen to what they think about these value propositions and where we were going with with loyalty. Anyway, long story short, that room represented over half a billion dollars worth of business travel. So a great opportunity for our executives to get in front of the those groups who travel most predominantly salespeople, these are all sales leaders, and really kind of worked through the the output of that session. And it was was a phenomenal session. I think everyone participated. Great. But it shows something it should cast the light on this idea that you guys have been talking about with the insider nation around Productitis. You know, that real belief that the features and the functions of the product, which in this case is a hotel, really have more meaning or more value for our customers for our customers experience than than what the sales relationship is really providing. And so I'm really saying that those executives kind of came in and they nodded their heads, they listened. And then they exited stage left. AndScott Santucci 09:00  it was those executives You mean the executives within IHG? Correct?Unknown Speaker 09:05  Right? That's correct. Yeah. I think it was the guy who ran loyalty to the brand leaders ran upscale brands. And it was a it was a an eye opening experience. For me. It was an eye opening experience for the team of people that I had brought in on my team, whether we're speaking marketing or sales enablement teams, and then we actually had sellers come in as well, and sellers who are actually aligned to the accounts that are representative. So a great a great experience and a great learning for me. A lot of differentScott Santucci 09:42  levels. to Brian, I'm getting fired up. Because you're making me remember and I know you're holding me at gunpoint making me remember right like it's Yeah, but I am remembering that situation. We should probably do a whole podcast just on that but go through each part.Unknown Speaker 10:00  HowScott Santucci 10:02  people in loyalty just kept asking questions about loyalty and how it didn't connect at all withUnknown Speaker 10:08  like, yeah, yeah, they want to have a points conversation,Scott Santucci 10:12  right? What are you talking about? What do you mean? WhatUnknown Speaker 10:14  are you talking about here?Brian Lambert 10:16  And there's a couple of things on this. Like, there's the whole idea of just bringing these folks together, which I think a lot of our listeners would be intrigued by, like, how did you actually pull that off? And then there's the what happened in the room? Yeah,Unknown Speaker 10:28  yeah. Yeah, there's, and there's also it would probably be great to have one of the other attendees come to it too. Because I think there were two perspectives of the folks that came into the room, there was, Hey, I'm, I'm coming. I'm going to help Brian. But I actually have the same challenges that Brian's got with value propositions or with, let's call it loyalty or retention of our clients or, or what have you. And so I can wrap my head around me helping Brian is actually helping myself. And then there were other folks in the room who were like, no one sent me the memo on this, or I didn't understand what's happening. I'm just here helping Brian, like, I really would prefer to maybe engage in a different way. And in this, so I think there are there are so many different perspectives and layers of how that meeting down that Yeah, we could totally do an entire.Scott Santucci 11:18  So Alright, well, let's do this. We're gonna call out so we're gonna, we're gonna I'll reach out to Greg and Samir. Yeah. And let's try to recreate that that magic a year later. Let's see what happens. But the purpose of this is, is your reactions to the last of our commercial, commercial enablement seminar series. Before we get into that, can you introduce and tell folks about how you ran or runs, run sales in a month, a little bit about your department, your your game plan and how you did it?Unknown Speaker 11:55  Yeah. So I, in my last position, which is with hp, which I left about a year ago, I ran global sales operations enablement,Scott Santucci 12:07  I want to hold off on Wait, before we do that, when I mention a qualifier, there is no correlation between Brian leaving in this meeting that we had, I just want to make sure that correlation doesn't exist, there's other factors go on.Unknown Speaker 12:21  That's true. That's very true. And so I came into the organization and I was winning strategic accounts, and I had some other aspects to my role. And, you know, the system was broken. The, the dots were not being connected on the inside of, from everything, from analytics, to operations, to process, to engagement with legal and other business partners. The technology that was there was fragmented, we had over 29 different product technology products that we used in the world of sales, which was bizarre to me. And ultimately, what I did is I ended up taking an internal position, because I wanted to kind of start to sort all of that out. And in doing that, we had to centralized specific parts of the team of teams where maybe analytics have been regionalized, for, you know, Greater China and for the Americas or Europe. It was really bringing all of those together as centers of excellence, which I'm not really a fan of that term. But who says you're Excellent. So I am, I would giveScott Santucci 13:38  myself labeling. Yeah, I mean, I could bring my own exercise, right.Unknown Speaker 13:43  Yeah. So but but really centralizing a lot of these functions that we're having pregnant for a long time. So the team grew to about 200 people across eight different countries. That really was set to enable the global sales organization. And we developed a really a vision statement with the leaders as I brought everyone together. I said, Well, what is our purpose was our mission here. And we we said, you know, it's really to unlock the value of sales. So when you guys talk about value, and without clear clarifying value, and how that's really not rocket science is you're right, it doesn't have to be. And what we did is we make sure everyone can see themselves in that mantra every single day, that regardless of whether they were working in the technology area, or if they were working operations or effectiveness or training or you name it, they were they were all contributing to unlocking that value so that our sales people could do what they needed to do best. So and help simplify and make things seller ready for the sales teams because we had so many different parts of the organization. burdening them with their own agendas and we kind of became The stock app to prevent that from happening. And with design and simplify, in order to help release that burden from salespeople reduce the workflow or just the number of approvals reduce the produce all of the internal stuff that our customers don't care about. Because they, they don't need to hear from the salesperson, it's gonna take another week and a half to get the contract, when they're waiting for it. The holdup is on our and we should be able to move in a much more agile pace. So anyway, so we had that organization out. And I'm really aligned each of my direct reports to their to their most relevant business partner in the organization, whether it was finance or it or HR, HR for training and effectiveness and talent. For for, for all of our technology with it was our product management teams, etc. So, um, and as we've created those partnerships, a lot of the, the business partners were like, Well, wait a minute, why are you doing training and sales when we have a training learning department, we, we feel like you're kind of getting in our space. And we spend a lot of time saying, actually, we can do this together. And this was really, when orchestrating things really started for us, we can actually bring this together, you can still have a role in all of this. But we're the subject matter experts in sales, you're the subject matter experts and adult learning, let's actually combine those two things, and figure out how we do this together and weave our agendas or priorities together, when we did that across a number of fronts. So when I met Scott, it was through that corporate executive board. And I thought, I thought organization was kind of like the last to the party on this. And so when I first met Scott, I was very kind of quiet in terms of what we would have been able to accomplish that he and, and this concept of orchestration, and really come to the forefront of my mind on Well, that's what we were doing. And Scott would talk about this was you call your unconscious, your unconscious,Scott Santucci 17:15  unconscious competence?Unknown Speaker 17:17  Yes. And every time I would talk about something that you'd say, well, there's that unconscious competence. And so it became more and more evident that what we were doing was really starting to orchestrate the enterprise around how to more effectively enable salespeople at every step of the buying journey. And, and that's kind of that's just a little bit about what I was doing. And he, um, and so I guess, I have to say, um, you know, thinking about this goes to customer webinar that, that we justScott Santucci 17:56  let me let me go produce that that topic gives some space. So okay, as a list or sort of digest that I want you to sort of imagine this is what Brian's doing. This is how he's running in his organization help you level set about the scope and scale of what he's working on. So I asked, I asked Brian, hey, you want to do a podcast and react to our go to customer? webinar? So as you know, we've we've asked other people to do that. So I don't know anything? He may hate it. I have no idea. So um, hopefully he does. He doesn't hate it. But I asked him to come up with three thoughts. But I think it's important that you, as a listener, have a frame of reference of where he's where he's coming from. Yeah, thank you.Unknown Speaker 18:44  So...

Welcome to Inside: Sales Enablement Episode 61In this episode we're joined by long-time listener Erik Host-Steen who appreciates getting into the meat of some issues. Since we like introducing ideas and inviting people to participate and push back, Erik reached out to discuss business outcomes and business impact of Sales Enablement.Erik finds that sales, marketing, and product leaders are often working at cross-purposes. One way to get alignment is through business impact measures. What are the goals of the organization? And certainly, growth is usually a part of that. And that growth is for some purpose, value creation, profitability, etc. And then if it's a venture capital backed, firm, there's an exit. So then we have to have an eye toward valuation. And the top typical valuation models have many other factors involved rather than the Commercial Ratio we discussed on the show.What does the Commerical Ratio really add to the toolkit in terms of being able to solve growth problems being able to drive toward a particular valuation or profitability? Find out as we walk through the top-down view of business impact measures so you can quantify your business impact of the sales enablement function.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 Santucci and Trailblazer Brian Lambert, as they take you behind the scenes of the birth of an industry, the inside sales enablement podcast starts now.Brian Lambert 00:33  I'm Scott Santucci. I'm Brian Lambert and we are the sales enablement insiders. Our podcast is for sales enablement, leaders looking to elevate their function, expand their sphere of influence, and increase the span of control within their companies.Scott Santucci 00:48  Together, Brian, I've worked on over 100 different kinds of sales enablement issues. As analysts, consultants, we're practitioners, we've learned the hard way, what works, and maybe was more importantly, what doesn't. AndBrian Lambert 01:01  our focus is on you as sales enablement, leaders and orchestrators. In that role as an orchestrator, you have to blend both tactics and strategy to execute. Our goal is to help you clarify the measures of success, provide an example of what that looks like to execute, and work together across your function across your organization. And then give you confidence to engage up down and across so you can drive results. And on this podcast today, we're just really excited. And it's really awesome to have another insider join us. We've got Eric hosting with us. Hi, Eric, how you doing?Erik Host-Steen 01:37  Great, thanks. Thanks for having me.Brian Lambert 01:39  Absolutely. And I was, I wanted to bring you in, because you and I had both had a conversation on the heels of the Commercial Ratio webinar. And I learned a little bit about you, you've got you fixed sales and marketing and product problems. You've been with Rogers Corporation, and hoche and Red Mountain, and you're very process driven and quality focused, and have a product marketing background in business development. And, you know, one of the things that I learned about you as you really are focused on having a dialogue, to understand but also where things maybe don't necessarily come together for you, you want to have a discussion. And that's what we're doing here today. I thought, Well, you know what, instead of having the conversation between us, between you and Scott, let's have you on the show. And you can ask Scott yourself. So thanks for joining in, tell us tell us a little bit more about yourself, Eric will do.Erik Host-Steen 02:31  Yep, longtime listener or I've been listening here for for quite a while. And if the podcast is made the cut into my the ones that I always listened to. What I appreciate about it is not just sort of soft, fluffy interviews, but get into the meat of some issues and introduce some new ideas and you invite people to participate and push back. And that's what I'm why I'm here. My practice what I do I explain it in a fun way I fix or prevent a condition that most sales enablement people have experienced, I call it round canoe syndrome. And round canoe syndrome happens when we have sales leaders, Marketing Leaders and product leaders all in around boat, each with a paddle rowing in the direction they think they need to go.Brian Lambert 03:18  Awesome. That's a great setup for this conversation. So tell us and tell our listeners and tell us why you're here. And what your questions about the Commercial Ratio.Erik Host-Steen 03:30  Yeah, I you know, so I listened to the prior podcasts that talked about Commercial Ratio and watch the webinar also. And, you know, I appreciate this idea of how do we try to drive sales and marketing efficiency and alignment. But what I've thinking about it, I come up with two words, incomplete and unnecessary. And that's what I would like to explore a little bit today and try and find out from a question standpoint, what, what really is this Commercial Ratio trying to accomplish? And what does it do that other tools and methods that already are in place don't accomplish?Scott Santucci 04:11  Excellent. So I think let's start with to our listeners know, we so we've published a podcast on the Commercial Ratio or two podcasts, we have Commercial ratio.com microsite and then we also have done a whole webinar on it. So we've shared a lot about that. Let's talk about let's let's break down incomplete and unnecessary. Let's first talk about incomplete what what about from from your lens? What, what is your perspective of it? What's incomplete and what is the purpose of the ratio from from your understanding?Erik Host-Steen 04:51  Sure. So when I think about the things that drive revenue, it's it's more than marketing and sales and Something that I always think about is is left out in the sort of sales and marketing alignment piece is what about the product. And that's not captured in here. So if we're if we're looking at it trying to drive growth, and neglecting whether or not the product portfolio is keeping up whether product quality is where it needs to be, whether customer support is what it needs, what needs to happen. You know, one of the stories I like to add observations from my past experiences, we do a great job bringing customers in, but the rest of the organization would run them out back to our faster than we could bring them in the front.Scott Santucci 05:39  Excellent. Okay, so then what? So you're saying, What would be your alternative for what's, what would make it more complete?Erik Host-Steen 05:50  Well, I think that the bigger question is, what are the goals of the organization? Right? And certainly, growth is usually a part of that. And sometimes not, you know, sometimes you think of a lifestyle business. And growth really isn't all that important. But the sense of the types of organizations that were usually involved with growth is usually a component. And that growth is for some purpose, value creation, right profitability. And then if it's a venture capital backed, firm, there's an exit, right? So then we have to have an eye toward valuation. And the top typical valuation models have many other factors involved rather than a Commercial Ratio. So you know, that's, that's the it gets to Well, what what does it really what does it really add to the toolkit in terms of being able to solve growth problems being able to drive toward a particular valuation or particular profitability?Unknown Speaker 06:53  outcome?Unknown Speaker 06:55  That's, that's part of it. Mm hmm.Scott Santucci 07:00  So let's, um, let me provide some responses back in a in an ordered way, and not overwhelming way. So first and foremost, having conversations about these things are awesome. So this is what we want to have what we want to have happen. So step number one would I did? Do I disagree? That there are many factors that go into revenue? No, of course, not. As a matter of fact, the entire company's revenue engine, everything it does, should be driving to revenue. Totally agree with there's no disagreement there. So the question then becomes the role of the Commercial Ratio, and what what its intent is to drive balance across not, it's not just about driving balance across sales and marketing, it's a lens to look at the driving balance between how finance is accounting, and what investors see. So the difficulty is from an investor's standpoint. So just as a reminder, we co created this Commercial Ratio in partnership with TCV, which is a very large, well known private equity firm. And in talking with, after having published that publish that work, we've now been in contact with other leading private equity firms who are all seeing a similar problem. So from their perspective, what they see again, their investors so that they'll look at things more like the income statement. And to your point, and I'm glad you brought this up, Eric, the kinds of things that go into making the company valuable, versus the kinds of things that investors see as valuable. So we'll cover the the valuation metrics later, are two different things. So I'm gonna pause there. Are we in alignment so far?Erik Host-Steen 08:56  Yes, yes. And this, this accounting thing is, I think important.Scott Santucci 09:03  Yes. And I think this, it's really important. It's where we, where we can get where we can get lost. So I'm going to share with you some really interesting things, I was anticipating about the incomplete part, because how exactly do you account for marketing investments that aren't earmarked for growth, for example, or there's all these little nuances, unfortunately, there about accounting rules. And, and, and when you're looking at metrics from a financial standpoint, from the investors, we have to worry about the ways that things are accounted for, and also the rules of what goes into what bucket. So unfortunately, unfortunately, we can't be theoretical at all there because there are laws that people follow. And if you look at the revenue recognition laws and rules that people follow. Each company can make different choices amongst themselves. So there's a lot of work that needs to be done to figure out which being goes into what bucket. Right? Okay. So that's one of the things that's been so challenging from the investor to the company view, about how to get clarity of what's happening. I will tell you that over the past five years, the degree of frustration, of the return of investment that investors are seeing and sales and marketing has grown increasingly more frustrated. And maybe we have a negative consequence that a lot of these random acts of sales enablement, are coming from frustrated investors who are just telling them to go do different things. So I will definitely say that investors are part of the problem. And I think part of what we need to do is better understand where they're coming from, and what what metrics that they're looking at. So I'll let you I'll let you respond to that. Because and by the way, Eric, I'm I'm trying to do is be very step by step approach, so that we can find out where we agree, where we disagree, and then how might we amend this analysis so that we can make it more complete? And then hopefully, if we make it more complete, then we'll see why it's valuable or necessary, instead of being unnecessary. That's, that's my goal.Erik Host-Steen 11:25  Right? So from a gap standpoint, gap standpoint, yeah. Sales and Marketing belong in SGA. And I think I picked up one of the things that creates some some of the trouble which is there are very few people on the commercial side that have a deep enough understanding of accounting. And then they hear the term cost of sales, which is just an out just a nother term for cost of goods sold. Even though it says cost of sales, it gets lost in the translation of accounting English into normal person's EnglishScott Santucci 12:05  spot on right.Erik Host-Steen 12:08  And so, you know, they're in and of itself creates a lot of confusion.Scott Santucci 12:12  Whoa, glad we're having this conversation. Keep going.Erik Host-Steen 12:15  Yeah, we call it costs of sales. But we don't put costs of sales in that bucket. Well, one of the phrases I have in my in my in my in my toolkit is that the beginning of alignment starts with the definition of terms. And cost of sales might be one of these great examples that causes confusion, because when you deconstruct it from an English standpoint, anyone except for an accountant would say, Well, of course, sales goes in there.Scott Santucci 12:44  So that's, so what we're talking about for those of those of you who need a visual because I need a visual when I think about an income statement. Eric and I right now are talking about the definitions of an income statement. So you've joined this podcast, and yes, we're actually talking about gap financial standards, and we're talking for sales and marketing. So yes, it's super exciting stuff that we're getting into.Brian Lambert 13:10  We're just I'll say, also, for our listeners, because sometimes I take the voice of our listeners, and I interrupt people at awkward moments. But if, if you're wondering if you should go switch to something else, I would say do not do that. Hang in there. And if you're not sure what's happening, reach out to us because, as Eric just said, there are very few people in sales and marketing who actually understand this. And, and this is part of the challenge. So hang in there,Scott Santucci 13:37  no huge part of the challenge. It's it's. So let's first talk about cost of sales. So Part of , and then let's talk about sales and marketing expense or SG&A. Right? What what they're saying, in plain speak language is that there's money that you spend in order to get the revenue. That's what's cost to sales. Sometimes it's referred to cost a revenue. You can you can call it either one, then there's sales and marketing expense that we would think of that is OP x or operating expense. And what the investors are looking for is, and this is where some of our sales leaders are where we've gotten some challenge on Commercial Ratio, Eric, from from people from the sales perspective, right? their view is 100% of the revenue coming in is related to the sales effort. If you're looking at it from an investor's standpoint, they're saying even if we got rid of the Salesforce, we would still be generating 80% of our revenue anyway, and the Salesforce is very expensive. So to talk like that is an invitation to get a practical exam on what your expenses are. Right? So that's one challenge. So to your point, Eric, this is all about the accounting. Now the other angle, It is, what do investors think the purpose of the sales and marketing expense are. And they think it's to drive revenue growth, not revenue, revenue growth. So that calculation is the difference between what you saw last year, what you sold this year, whatever that delta is, that's what your contribution was. And then that's what they want to do is hold that line item that's on the OP x expense accountable for it. Now, the other key aha moment for me talking to these investors, so we talked to when we were working on it, we talked to so how how investors work is they put one of their portfolio people, one of their operating partners, they sit on these boards. So we talked to six of them. So basically, six people who are on boards of directors, each of three different companies. And universally, they all said that when they look at the retain revenue bucket, they expect most of that money to be paid for out of cost of revenue. So for example, your your customer support, people are going to be allocated or accounted for in that cost of revenue bucket. So just having that clarity was illuminating for me, because I was thinking, How much money do you spend to retain your customers? I thought that was a sales and marketing expense. And yes, there's some gray area, there's no absolutes, I'm just trying to give the rationale of where, where they're coming from with this ratio. And part of what they're trying to do is, of course, the investors think the only two people in the company that know anything are the CEO and CFO. Right. So that's, that's their bias. And the difficulty that the CFO has is how do I connect the dots between these budget expenses and these levers that our investors are driving pressure for, to the activities that sales and marketing keeps asking for more and more budget? And that's really where the tension point rests from the top down perspective?Erik Host-Steen 17:09  Yes, right. And there are none of these. And within the frameworks of gap, or whatever financial standards of private equity VC firm is going to use. There are there are guardrails. And there's the cliff where you go to jail because you break the rules. Yeah, right. And there's a lot in between, yep. And to correct. And when we start thinking about getting into the publicly traded realm, and let's say, your portfolio manager for Goldman Sachs, or someone like that, being able to do apples to apples comparison, when there are no standards within gap on, you know, does Customer Success belong to sales, marketing? Or does Customer Success belong to cost of sales, because their job is to retain customers, using a ratio based on publicly traded publicly available information to draw broad based conclusions, I think is dangerousScott Santucci 18:14  to what makes that dangerous versus empowering. So I would argue, literally, for everything that you just said, I would argue the opposite perspective, and it's actually empowering. So tell us why you think is dangerous,Erik Host-Steen 18:27  because we don't know what's included in different numbers. And at the end, we have some, you know, the mathematics is very straightforward, right? I mean, revenue at the end of the period minus the revenue of the previous period divided by marketing and sales expense, like that's pretty straightforward. And we get some number, and what's it mean? And what's good enough. And if you're at, you know, 1.5 today, and you're given a, you know, you're not going to get your bonus next year, unless this gets up to 2.0. Is that really the right thing to start measuring and incenting on versus we want to see top line growth and top line and bottom line growth, customer retention, customer satisfaction, other other metrics that are more direct to what it is that we're trying to achieve, which is to build and grow a valuable...