Revenue Enablement Society - Stories From The Trenches

Most business leaders would agree with former Home Depot and Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli that "people, unless coached, never reach their maximum potential," yet many teams and organizations lack a strong coaching culture. According to Devon Anthony,  Director of Sales Enablement and Learning at Morningstar, Enablement teams can really impact revenue teams' success and create a multiplier effect by building and nurturing a strong coaching culture. Listen in while she shares:The differences between coaching and managingCommon misperceptions that devalue coachingHow Enablement teams can grow the value of coachingCoaching "landmines" to watch forDevon Anthony has a passion for developing sales and coaching others. She's spent her entire career in financial services and has been with Morningstar since 2019. As Director of the Sales Enablement and Learning Team, her primary focus is developing curriculum at scale while prioritizing for impact.Devon volunteers her time as a coach and member of the board of directors for Near West Little League and as a Client Advocate for Administer Justice, a legal aid ministry. Devon enjoys concerts, yoga, and exploring all the cultures of Chicago with her husband Rob and dog Tonka Truck.Please subscibe on Apple, Spotify or Google.

Enablement - what's in it for your sellers? No, seriously. Can you measure and quantify the benefits or impact of your Enablement programs and activities? If not, how do you know whether you're meeting the needs of the Sales, SDR, or CSM teams your team supports? For Sunil Chhabra, Vice President, Global Enablement at Conga, having these critical benchmarks and measurements in place is non-negotiable. In this episode, he talks about:Providing guard railsIdentifying the right metrics and KPIsShort-term vs. long-term KPIsGenerating buy-in from Sales leadersSunil Chhabra is the Vice President of Global Enablement at Conga. He's transitioned from Engineering to Sales (and Sales Engineering) Enablement during his career with companies like Cisco, Oracle, and Salesforce while leading teams in Product Management and Marketing for close to 20 years along the way. Sunil's interests lie in bridging technology products to customer needs and pain points - and, therefore, his passion for the Enablement function. He enjoys setting up systems that help sellers become more effective - faster—and demonstrating the measurable impact that the Enablement function can have on an organization's sales. Please subscibe on Apple, Spotify or Google.

Harvard Business Review reported that Emotional Intelligence accounts for nearly 90% of what sets high performers apart from peers with similar technical skills and knowledge (HBR, 4/3/19). Is EQ just as critical for success in sales? Matt Cameron, CEO of SaaSy Sales Leadership says "Yes"! In this episode he shares what he's learned about applying EQ in sales and sales coaching and the framework he's developed to support it:How to think about Emotional Intelligence in the context of salesMapping EQ to methodologiesAssessing EQ for targeted coachingHow to integrate Emotional Intelligence into an enablement programMatt Cameron is the CEO of  SaaSy Sales Leadership, the creators of the world’s first EQ-based go-to-market leadership development programs.  A regular speaker and columnist on the topic of SaaS sales leadership, Matt started his career in traditional IT with roles at HP, EDS (HP Enterprise) and Wang. Having started with Salesforce in 2005 he is approaching 2 decades in venture-backed SaaS companies in RVP and VP roles. A New Zealander by birth, he currently lives in Las Vegas which has cut down on SKO travel by 50%.Please subscibe on Apple, Spotify or Google.

In a 2018 survey of more than 3,000 employees from various firms and industries, less than a quarter said they regularly felt curious at work. According to Macy Tanking curiosity plays a critical role in successful revenue enablement teams. In this episode she shares the key elements of creating a culture of curiosity she’s learned and applied in her career:Obstacles to being curious and how to avoid themEgo vs. EmpathyHow to listen to understand; not to respondConducting effective discovery with stakeholdersMacy has over two decades of experience coaching leaders and teams within sales teams at fortune 100 companies. She is an innovative and consultative leader, having coached executives and organizations at Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, Nordstrom and Southwest Airlines. Currently she is the Head of Sales Enablement for VidMob, the world’s leading digital advertising platform for intelligent creative.  She founded GRIT, a community for connection and compassion for girls ages 6-22 (girlswithgrit.me).  Macy lives with her six year old son, Zavier in Kansas City, MO. Her life-long goal of attending every MLB park will be realized this next summer (2023).Please subscibe on Apple, Spotify or Google.

When John Lennon sang "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans" to his son Sean he captured what so many in the revenue enablement and tech communities are feeling right now. While working through challenges and setbacks it's critical to maintain your long term vision and perspective while continuing to bring your "A" game but it can also be very difficult. Jeff Hatchell, from American Express has worked through his share of career setbacks and disappointments. In this episode we discuss his experiences and a framework he developed to keep his vision for himself and continue to succeed despite challenging times in his life. For example:Ensuring your last success doesn't limit your future success.The importance of perceiving the best in every situation.Learning how to expect to receive good things.Not making long term decisions based on temporary situations.Jeff Hatchell is Vice President, U.S. Field Sales Enablement and Global Leadership at American Express. Jeff is also an executive coach and motivational speaker and built a reputation as an inspirational executive with a track record of creating winning strategies that leverage the strength of teams to exceed corporate objectives.Please subscibe on Apple, Spotify or Google.

Forrester calls First Line Sales Managers the "secret agents" of change and Revenue Enablement teams are often on the leading edge of change alongside them. In over a decade of experience as an enablement pro, Del Nakhi of MariaDB, has learned how to create and optimize those relationships for success. Listen in as she talks about:Why the change management relationship with Revenue Leaders is so critical.Where the Revenue Enablement role ends and the Sales Leadership role begins.How Revenue Enablement can set leaders up for success.Where to start in creating this critical partnership.Del Nakhi is the founding member and global head of revenue and customer enablement at MariaDB Corporation. She has a passion for managing strategic changes to multiply the impact of her team and partnering with revenue leaders to turn strategy into a reality. As a business partner and certified change management practitioner, she's helped executives evaluate and address corporate challenges and objectives at both large public companies and smaller startups, for more than a decade. By working with and through leaders and enabling them to effectively coach their teams, Del is not only able to scale her team’s efforts, but also collaboratively achieve sustained change and business impact.Please subscibe on Apple, Spotify or Google.

Gartner says the foundation of a sales enablement strategy is to provide sales teams with what they need to successfully engage the buyer throughout the buying process.  How are you and your revenue enablement team ensuring sellers can easily find relevant customer facing assets? What about product info, research and competitive intelligence they will consume internally? In this episode Lisa Capra from Instructure shares some of the best practices she's developed over two decades including:Scoping and defining a knowledge management strategy.Who are the stakeholders outside of revenue enablement?How to build workflow processes with all stakeholders.Best practices for governance and scaling.Lisa Capra is the  Revenue Knowledge Strategy Manager on Instructure's global revenue enablement team, She brings over two decades of experience in instructional design, online learning, and content strategy. Through cross functional coordination with Instructure‘s internal stakeholders, Lisa has designed, developed, and created  governance for a 700+ page revenue enablement knowledge base to support Instructure’s global sales, services, and customer experience teams.Please subscibe on Apple, Spotify or Google.

Is it possible to enable sales reps to hit quota more consistently while keeping them happy? How does a sales enablement team measure "happiness"? Can revenue enablement teams create a voice for sales teams that gives them input into corporate level decisions?According to Sarah Fricke of RingCentral the answer to all of the above is yes! Listen in as she shares:How they developed a sales happiness surveyHow it differs from engagement surveys from HR teamsExamples of how the results of the happiness surveys were shared with other teams to help break down barriers and improve communicationSarah's life motto is "Make my life a story worth telling!"  She faces all life adventures with this  audacious spirit and loves helping team members, clients, colleagues and partners succeed. At RingCentral Sarah advises senior commercial sales leaders on the strategic direction for sales to drive business results. This work includes implementing go-to-market strategy and facilitating cross functional alignment. Before RingCentral, Sarah ran enablement for the large enterprise team at Gartner and built sales teams for TrackMaven and Atlantic Media.Please subscibe on Apple, Spotify or Google.

Who doesn't love a great success story? This year the Sales Enablement Society Experience was held in Atlanta and the theme was "Take The Leap". For this episode I had the opportunity to sit down with 11 different Revenue Enablement pros from as far away as Singapore and listen to their stories about a time in their careers when they took a big leap; why they did and the outcomes. These are inspirational stories. They shared great ideas that were new to me and I'm sure you're going to enjoy listening to them just as much as I did!Thank you Jesse Potter, Zeenath Kuraisha, Russ Clark, Rebekah Ash, Jay Allen, Patricia Guobadia-Nicholson M.Ed., Bob Britton, Cassie Watkins, Mary Baez, Jessica Hendricks, and Chuck Marcouiller for sharing your stories. Please subscibe on Apple, Spotify or Google.

What are the areas of professional development that Sales Engineers are interested in but that many Sales Enablement teams miss? How can Revenue Enablement teams generate excitement and boost morale within Sales Engineering teams? What do  customers say they want Sales Engineers enabled to  do well?John Care, Author and Managing Director of Mastering Technical Sales shares his insights with me in this 2 part series. In Part 2 we focus on discovering and developing professional development pathways for SEs that focus on the experiences and skills they're most interested in developing. Since 35% of SEs say they'd like to go into leadership we also cover how to help them prepare for that career goal.During his career, John built world-class sales engineering organizations at Oracle, Sybase, Business Objects, Nortel, CA Technologies, and HP. His responsibilities have varied from an individual level up to a VP of Presales running teams of over 200 people. He also has diverse experiences as both a quota-carrying salesperson and a senior IT executive/ CIO listening to salespeople and presales engineers trying to sell him their “solutions.”Please subscibe on Apple, Spotify or Google.