from a sellers point of view - what are your likes and dislikes around Enablement?
Matt Schalsey
Enablement
9
I like enablement when I'm selling to the person who makes the decision on whether my proposal will be accepted.
I dislike enablement when I'm selling to the person who tells me they are the decision maker but the real decision maker didn't enable this person to make the purchasing decision.
Hopefully my thoughtful response to your question helps you achieve quota...
I dislike enablement when I'm selling to the person who tells me they are the decision maker but the real decision maker didn't enable this person to make the purchasing decision.
Hopefully my thoughtful response to your question helps you achieve quota...
Saucy. I like it
The fluffers of the sales process. No offense to fluffers.
๐
Are you focused on your own KRs, or on finding ways to actually help the sales reps?
By which I mean: does your org focus on data (all reps have taken xyz sessions) or are you looking for ways to actually enable reps to sell more and remove roadblocks to selling? If you focus on the latter, that is what reps really want.
By which I mean: does your org focus on data (all reps have taken xyz sessions) or are you looking for ways to actually enable reps to sell more and remove roadblocks to selling? If you focus on the latter, that is what reps really want.
I am all about the latter - as a former seller I understand the pain that enablement can produce to sellers.
Thatโs the right kind of enablement. I do understand that certification, etc, is important, but it needs to be meaningful. Bless you.
Are you talking about internal sales enablement leaders? It's a bit vexing when 90% of those at the helm haven't made a sale in years. Sellers have a hard time respecting enablement leaders who haven't personally navigated the sales battlefield.
Only a rare breed of enablement leaders have truly climbed the ranks
(SDR --> Sales --> Manager --> Enablement). They're gold dust. Their organic growth equips them with the real know-how to empower sellers. We must protect them at all costs.
Only a rare breed of enablement leaders have truly climbed the ranks
(SDR --> Sales --> Manager --> Enablement). They're gold dust. Their organic growth equips them with the real know-how to empower sellers. We must protect them at all costs.
Does enablement actually help sales or do they sit around not selling?
I personally try to help sales!
They tend to ask a lot of stupid questions ;)
Whatโs some of the stupidest questions youโve been asked?
One that show they haven't carried a quota in half a decade
I believe that sales enablement sessions are nice at the entry level stages as they particularly work out with newbies with little to no sales experience,not bad also to be held as refreshment sessions frequently for old members especially with whom sales numbers ain't good as expected or below quota!
Likes: I don't have to build my own marketing decks or do my own research for what will and won't work.
Dislikes: Majority of enablement has no sales experience and thus there is a disconnect between them and sellers
Dislikes: Majority of enablement has no sales experience and thus there is a disconnect between them and sellers
IDK, I have seen sales enablement and revenue enablement, usually they're nerds and all into data, hopefully, that's to help us with win rates and pipeline and all, but I am never sure of what they are actually doing, there's always projects and half the time nothing comes to fruition.
One thing I can say for sure that I hate: the agenda.
Most of the software companies I've worked for have had an agenda they want to push down and tend to use sales enablement as the vehicle to do that. Example:
Board/C-suite: "we want our sellers to use more examples of customers we've helped when they're on calls!"
Sales Enablement: comes up with some training where the seller has to prove they can do exactly that in an hour long session.
Sales: why the f*** did we do that, why did I take an hour out of our time to prove that I could use a customer story on a call?
This is wrong. Why? Because if they're not sellers, they're just arm-chair-quarterbacks. If the Board/C-suite aren't sellers, they've got to (respectfully) stay in their lane. It also makes you look like their lackey instead of someone who legit wants to help the sellers do their job better/win deals.
What should you do instead? Ask the AEs (reps, etc.) what they want training in. If you mean to arm them with the knowledge to do the job better, ask what THEY would find USEFUL. You probably won't get a ton of eager responses, so don't be a lazy enablement person and post it in Slack then bemoan the lack of engagement. Instead, ask a few reps you know or are close to, to give you something. If that's not enough, go ask the BDRs, and they'll eagerly give you something. Ask sellers for examples of sales they lost, were confused by, didn't get the response they wanted, etc. Its up to YOU to DIG IN and really find those examples. But the agenda has to come from reps, not the leadership, because they're not sellers. Sellers have to set the agenda for it to be useful to sellers. Go figure.
Once you find these situations/teachable moments, ask the more experienced sellers how they'd handle them ahead of time (I can already hear some of you moaning). Hey, maybe even steal some of the most common questions/responses from Bravado/SalesGPT so you have a working knowledge base instead of taking up a rep's time. Come pre-prepared (to the hour or two you've taken from your AEs time) so that you give them actual juicy answers.
Once you've taken a real life example from one of your reps, PLEASE GOD anonymize it. Keep them from becoming the focus, don't burn your sources. Keep the meeting moving. There's nothing worse than "enablement" says "what would you all do in this situation?" then it devolves into 30 mins of people saying "I would have done this instead" then people arguing about why some other guy's response is stupid/not a perfect answer. This is the actual worst thing that can happen, because everyone (not in the argument) will just roll their eyes and moan about what they could be doing instead. Again, keep the meeting moving. Come up with the top 3 responses then move on to the next example. If the meeting is supposed to be 1 hour, get them out in 45. Two hours? Get them out in an hour. You get it.
If I was forced into the enablement role, I would take this approach. Then I might find a way to feed this info into the Slack channel (naturally and no more than) once a week (know those sales influencer post that take 2 mins to read and no longer? Yeah do that), so that you're giving a little help all the time instead of these big, long sessions leadership forces on people. Be useful everyday, not just once a quarter.
Given the length of this response, you'd probably think I was working through some shit about sales enablement, but I honestly hope this helps you.
Most of the software companies I've worked for have had an agenda they want to push down and tend to use sales enablement as the vehicle to do that. Example:
Board/C-suite: "we want our sellers to use more examples of customers we've helped when they're on calls!"
Sales Enablement: comes up with some training where the seller has to prove they can do exactly that in an hour long session.
Sales: why the f*** did we do that, why did I take an hour out of our time to prove that I could use a customer story on a call?
This is wrong. Why? Because if they're not sellers, they're just arm-chair-quarterbacks. If the Board/C-suite aren't sellers, they've got to (respectfully) stay in their lane. It also makes you look like their lackey instead of someone who legit wants to help the sellers do their job better/win deals.
What should you do instead? Ask the AEs (reps, etc.) what they want training in. If you mean to arm them with the knowledge to do the job better, ask what THEY would find USEFUL. You probably won't get a ton of eager responses, so don't be a lazy enablement person and post it in Slack then bemoan the lack of engagement. Instead, ask a few reps you know or are close to, to give you something. If that's not enough, go ask the BDRs, and they'll eagerly give you something. Ask sellers for examples of sales they lost, were confused by, didn't get the response they wanted, etc. Its up to YOU to DIG IN and really find those examples. But the agenda has to come from reps, not the leadership, because they're not sellers. Sellers have to set the agenda for it to be useful to sellers. Go figure.
Once you find these situations/teachable moments, ask the more experienced sellers how they'd handle them ahead of time (I can already hear some of you moaning). Hey, maybe even steal some of the most common questions/responses from Bravado/SalesGPT so you have a working knowledge base instead of taking up a rep's time. Come pre-prepared (to the hour or two you've taken from your AEs time) so that you give them actual juicy answers.
Once you've taken a real life example from one of your reps, PLEASE GOD anonymize it. Keep them from becoming the focus, don't burn your sources. Keep the meeting moving. There's nothing worse than "enablement" says "what would you all do in this situation?" then it devolves into 30 mins of people saying "I would have done this instead" then people arguing about why some other guy's response is stupid/not a perfect answer. This is the actual worst thing that can happen, because everyone (not in the argument) will just roll their eyes and moan about what they could be doing instead. Again, keep the meeting moving. Come up with the top 3 responses then move on to the next example. If the meeting is supposed to be 1 hour, get them out in 45. Two hours? Get them out in an hour. You get it.
If I was forced into the enablement role, I would take this approach. Then I might find a way to feed this info into the Slack channel (naturally and no more than) once a week (know those sales influencer post that take 2 mins to read and no longer? Yeah do that), so that you're giving a little help all the time instead of these big, long sessions leadership forces on people. Be useful everyday, not just once a quarter.
Given the length of this response, you'd probably think I was working through some shit about sales enablement, but I honestly hope this helps you.
Honestly I see enablement as a ridiculous silo created by companies with more funding than they can spend and the only thing they could do was hire and create "game changing" specialized departments. The more division we create the more disconnected we become as an organization.
I think its always smart to just set reasonable expectations. If I am told this will save X amount of time, it better save time
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