Sales Enablement PRO Podcast

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO Podcast. I’m Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we’re here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so that they can be more effective in their jobs.

Today we are having Ankita Tiwari join us. Ankita, I would love for you to introduce yourself and your background to our audience.

Ankita Tiwari: Thank you for having me today, Shawnna. I’m Ankita, originally from India. About five years ago, I found myself starting my enablement journey in France. It’s funny because of how I stumbled into enablement, just like many others in the field, back then it wasn’t a very clearly defined role, and I sort of ended up in it by chance. It’s been a fun journey so far, and I never looked back.

So far I’ve had the pleasure of working with scale-ups, super multicultural, and international companies. The growth that I have experienced in these organizations has been rapid, exciting, and challenging. That’s just roughly who I am and my experience so far.

SS: Wonderful. Well, we are excited to have you on our podcast today. Thank you so much for taking the time. I want to talk about the current economic climate. I think a lot of organizations are trying to do more with less and enablement teams are really needing to prove their value now more than ever. In your opinion, why is enablement mission-critical for businesses today?

AT: It’s funny because like you just said, we are in this economic climate trying to do more, but with less, and isn’t that an enablement person’s job? It’s basically our job to do more than less. If you see the ratio of enablement to the salespeople that we have in organizations is roughly between 1 to 230, 1 to 250. Overall, that’s more important right now than before I feel, because there are so many companies that are finding themselves with 50 fewer salespeople, maybe 25 fewer salespeople because of the entire situation right now in the market. This is like the time when enablement can actually prove its value most because now is the time when the leaders and C-suite of the organizations will need to figure it out.

How do we actually work with 50 sales instead of a hundred? That’s when enablement will come into the picture. That’s our main job. Of course, I think all practitioners would agree with the fact that it’s something that’s been defined. I mean the enablement role has been defined like what recently maybe four to five years ago. That’s when I started my enablement journey. That’s also why it has been like an ongoing effort to prove our value, and because of this economic climate, I feel like we’ll probably be able to do it well now as compared to before. The solution right now is basically our job.

SS: Absolutely. Why would you say, from your experience, is it important for organizations to have at least a dedicated enablement person or function available for their teams?

AT: If I have to put it in one word, definitely yes. If I have to put it in a couple of points just to explain myself, I would say this. Firstly, I like to put it in a way that we are here as enablers to convert strategies into things that can be executed. It’s a very important bridge between strategy and execution in an organization. If anything you do in life, if the execution has not done well, any great idea will never be appreciated.

First, I think the alignment between these two things, is super important, and you need a dedicated person or a team to do that. Secondly, your main role as an organization is to generate revenue. That’s what the main goal is, and where does that stand? Like, who’s exactly doing that? It’s your sales team. If you don’t have that entire sales force empowered enough, it just doesn’t make sense. Having someone who’s able to empower the sales force, and especially with the rapid pace of technological advancements that’s been happening, you have to have someone that’s super dedicated to that part.

Lastly, I feel like each project, and everything that we do in an organization, whether it’s a learning program, whether it’s just like introducing a tool, are all related to a change. A lot of adaptation is needed there. A lot of change has to be welcomed there. You need an enablement person or a team to actually be the catalyst for organizational change and adaptation, in my opinion.

Three things, in my opinion, are super important being the alignment between strategy and execution. Secondly, having a dedicated team to empower your sales team. Lastly, having someone dedicated to driving these changes and being a very good catalyst for all the organizational changes and adaptation that takes place, that’s dedicated to the enablement team, basically.

SS: Absolutely. Now what advice would you give to organizations that are looking to build out an enablement team or function? Where should they start?

AT: I would say overall you need to build that function and to be able to scale it later the foundation needs to be really strong. Having the right talent and the right ratio is really important. Nowadays, I feel that, as I said before, the ratio is usually like 1 to 60, and it ends up being too intense, especially in the beginning. If you’re starting off, you need to have a couple of people who are skilled in specific pillars of enablement.

When I say pillars, let’s say some like content, someone who’s really good with content. Second, someone who’s really good with onboarding. Lastly, somebody who’s had the experience of sales before and can’t coach well. I would say having skilled people for different functions is really important if you’re starting off. Of course, there are zillions of other things to do, but in my opinion, this is the key in the beginning.

SS: I think that is great advice. Now, you were recently included in our recognition of women making an impact in enablement. As a leader in the field, what are some of the key traits that make for a good enablement leader?

AT: I think the list can be endless, especially if you have an opinion about how and what a leader should be like. For me, the top three worked out really well, which of course came with experience, which came with a lot of mistakes. So first, I would say that there are three that I can actually shortlist. One is the knowledge and the experience that you have bringing that to the table. Now, when I say knowledge and experience, how will you get that?

Knowledge, I would say, inside the company, what is your company doing? What is your product doing? What are the people inside of the company wanting to sell? How do they want to sell it? Being in your sales team’s shoes is the key. Get all the knowledge you can from that perspective, because your customer is your sales team at the end of the day. When you’re selling a product, how you see it is that, okay, I’m trying to solve a problem for my customer. It’s the same thing internally. I’m here to solve a problem for the sales team. Knowledge about everything that’s related to a sales role and the product they’re selling internally.

Now, knowledge for the outside world, use the knowledge of the experience of the experts that’s out there and are happy to share. I think that’s one thing that really changed the game for me because when I started, there were hardly any certification courses or anyone speaking explicitly about enablement or an enablement session. It was just starting to take shape. For me, each time I would go on the internet nothing would properly explain what I need as a beginner. These days, slowly, we’ve been lucky to have communities who are so happy to share. Each time I have actually gone on my LinkedIn and tried to see that, okay I’m a little confused about how do I measure this initiative of mine, I’ve just looked up on my network and asked people who I think would know. I don’t think there’s ever been a point when I’ve not received an answer. I’ve been receiving and giving help so much that in my opinion, you always learn by teaching after a certain point. That is the key.

One is the knowledge that is inside of your company outside and the second is the experience overall. I like to take it from outside when people are ready to give it. That’s the first thing you should be open to knowledge and experience. Now the second is what you think and how you plan, like strategic thinking and planning. Now, you are literally a pivot between the sales team and so many other departments. If I have to give you an example, if I want to choose a learning platform, I have to think about so many things. It is not just that this is good for my sales or not, but that is something the sales and the others will experience when they enter the company in the beginning.

How will HR deal with this? How will the marketing team make use of this? After a certain point, can this become a really good part of our tech stack? It’s basically thinking and trying to have a helicopter view. I think in the beginning, I struggled quite a bit and had the helicopter view and at the same time doing everything hands being the first enabler in most of the companies I’ve joined. It was very hard to switch between these two, but then eventually I got used to it. It’s a really good skill to have. Being able to think strategically and plan according to all your future plans, making sure it aligns with the business objectives, and making sure it aligns with what other departments are doing. That’s the second one, strategic thinking and planning overall.

Then lastly, I would say communication and collaboration. That is gold in enablement. I cannot emphasize enough how i

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO Podcast. I’m Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we’re here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so that they can be more effective in their jobs.

Today, I’m excited to have Bana Kawar from AWS join us. Bana, I would love for you to introduce yourself, your role, and your organization to our audience.

Bana Kawar: Thank you very much, Shawnna. Hello, everyone who’s listening to this podcast, and a shout out to all enablement professionals all over the world. My name is Bana, and oftentimes people think of a banana without an A to remember my name here in the UK. I look after the UK public sector enablement here at Amazon Web Services. I have been with the company for seven and a half years now in different functions and different countries. I currently spearhead the enablement function here in the public sector and help the organization grow to what it is today and reach our organizational outcomes.

Apart from work, I have a huge passion for ID&E. I try to call it IDEA where possible, where A stands for action. It’s inclusion, diversity, equity, and action. I’ve co-founded the EMEA chapter, along with two other Amazonians to reach where we are today. I love to mentor and empower different leaders on different topics. I’m a career coach as well. That’s a bit about me, Shawnna. I look forward to our discussion today.

SS: Absolutely. Likewise. I look forward to digging into that with you as well. Now to get started, for our audience and sales enablement, which I’m sure they can all relate to, you are extremely passionate about driving excellence in sales performance. I’d love to start there. From your perspective, how does enablement strategically influence sales performance?

BK: A lot of organizations, including ours, are focused on growth. I truly believe as an enablement function, we have key responsibility, and also a pleasure to be part of that journey as well. If I look at my current role for the UK, we’re trying to hit 1 billion business this year, and enablement is helping to drive insights that would help sellers in different orgs and different roles from ISRs, account managers, business developers, partner teams, etc, to drive those valuable conversations with their customers and help them on their key missions. I really think when enablement is aligned to the business and also aligned to revenue ops or business ops, depending on how organizations define it, you can influence strategically as well.

The last piece that comes to mind is how enablement can play a role in reducing time to market. When you’re enabling teams to be more adaptive versus reactive, you are already helping in reducing that time to launch and ramp up faster. Finally, the downstream impact of this is having more time and more focused resources to drive high-velocity decisions and build better products from there. In a nutshell, that’s three different ways, how I see enablement playing a role in the business strategy.

SS: I couldn’t agree more. One of your areas of expertise is really around building everboarding programs that continue to align with those organizational goals. I’d love to hear more about your everboarding programs. What are some of your best practices for building everboarding programs that drive sales performance? In other words, what does good everboarding look like?

BK: I really believe in the power of everboarding because it also shows that you’re a learn it all organization versus a know it all organization. I truly believe in any function, learning does not stop when you hit that 90-day mark that oftentimes is the industry standard for onboarding. That continuous learning journey is ongoing in so many different ways and functions. To build a good everboarding program I think you could look at it and dissect it into different ways.

The first one is the discovery piece. Truly understanding what are some of the problem statements that you’re solving for. In today’s world, we have a tsunami of information, and people are overwhelmed with how much they should get up to speed on. An everboarding program should sometimes also be a refresher. We have recharge programs here and I really think some of those key skills that a lot of people learn in their early selling journey are needed very much in everboarding programs. Examples that come to mind include prospecting, objection handling, mission understanding, and negotiation skills. Those are key to any seller in any role, and sometimes those refreshers can be absolutely valuable to drive those customer conversations and reduce time to ramp.

The second piece that comes to mind is making sure you’re always up to date with what’s happening in the market. That brings me to the second point product knowledge and market understanding. A lot of SaaS companies have so many solutions and products that they’re trying to bring to market and one way to really do that is certifying reps and making sure that they’re actually going through the knowledge check and getting certified on a specific use case. I’m a firm believer in having certifications on any new product releases and also on new market trend understanding because that also shows your customer that you are meeting them where they need you to be as well.

Last but not least, an everboarding program, or as a matter of fact, any enablement program, should align with business objectives. That includes successful OKRs to measure their success and iterate from there. If I zoom out, those are the three key things I would look at from an everboarding perspective and build from there.

SS: Yeah, absolutely. Bana, what would you say the importance is of having everboarding programs rather than just onboarding programs?

BK: One of the things that are important in any organization is staying agile and moving to a learning journey continuously. As I mentioned before, the learn it versus know it all, because of the pace and the agility that the market is moving towards. I think having everboarding programs is not nice to have, it is an absolute must-have, in my humble opinion, to be successful and have your position in the market lead and truly help to solve one customer problem at a time. A beautiful way to do that is to help grow the business and grow your own knowledge as well, whether you’re a seller, a partner, or even someone in enablement because I believe that you should enable the enablement org as well. You do that through creating everboarding programs to maintain that high performance, and retention, and also hit your OKRs at the end of the day.

SS: Absolutely. Everboarding is increasingly important, especially as you try to make sure that you’re maximizing the productivity of your in-sync sales team. Now your everboarding programs have reached upwards of 400 employees globally. What tips do you have maybe for our audience who are also trying to create enablement programs on a global scale?

BK: I really believe that scale happens a bit easier than what we expect when we’re solving the right problem. What I’ve noticed at Amazon, as an example, is that the problem statement is often shared across different functions and across different geographies versus only the actual customers that you’re looking after. That brings me to the first part of problem-solving, which is ensuring that the discovery phase is done really well. What I mean by that is what problem to solve first, and from there, you move into the solution.

Enablement could and should, in my opinion, spend a bit of time on the discovery phase understanding first, is that problem statement shared across? Is that a global or regional problem only? You do that by asking the same set of questions as an example across the board to understand who’s the customer at this point. What are some of the key missions that they’re solving for? Who are the customer profiles that they look at at the moment? What is their impact on the industry? What vertical do they sit in? What are some of the KPIs that they’re assessed against? More often than not, sellers have similar metrics, but different numbers that they need to hit. That’s one way how to approach it when you’re trying to scale as well before you move into build mode.

The second part that brings me to the ID&E is any perspective because I’m a huge believer in getting different perspectives and getting content reviews and content even being created by different people across the company and having that cross-functional and cross-pollination happening to build the best products you have so they get that impact that they need.

The third piece, if I’m thinking of the power of scaling, is what happens afterward. How do you make sure that you tie in your input with your output through what we call a mechanism? That’s when you build through iterations and have a phased approach and a very clear feedback process built in and weaved done and you hold yourself and your stakeholders accountable to make sure that whatever you’re building is insisting on the highest standards and also really impacting the end customer and helping them move faster towards their mission. If you put those 3 things together, that’s when a beautiful Venn diagram is shaped and you see the impact of what we think of as the power of scaling.

SS: I think that is amazing. You have done a phenomenal job building these programs at scale. Now, as you mentioned in your introduction, you are also a co-founder of the EMEA inclusion, diversity, and equity chapter. I think you also had action at the end of that at AW

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO Podcast. I’m Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we’re here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so that they can be more effective in their jobs.

Today, I’m excited to have Chiara DiFede from Birdeye join us. Chiara, I’d love for you to introduce yourself, your role, and your organization to our audience.

Chiara DiFede: Hello, and thank you for having me. I am a sales enablement manager with a focus on partner sales at Birdeye. Birdeye is an all-in-one reputation management platform, and I currently support and focus on enabling our internal sales reps how to effectively sell to our channel partners. Sales ultimately found me like it does most people, and when I found success, I wanted everyone around me to find similar success.

I had an opportunity to dive into the enablement world, and I haven’t looked back since. I’m so happy I took that chance. I constantly seek to expand my own education and I have a multitude of certifications in product management, instructional design, customer success, and leadership development. I really crave to learn and I put myself in situations to learn new things as I find it important to understand what it feels like starting from the beginning and being in a new situation so I can bring that understanding to the programs I create.

SS: We’re excited to have you here. Now, one of the things that I loved about your profile and your background is that you refer to yourself as a behavior and process-focused sales leader. How do you balance both behavior and process in your approach to your enablement programs?

CD: Yeah, good catch. Personally, I find this is where the balance of equality and equity is important to achieve this approach. I recognize that individuals have different learning styles and needs when learning and retaining information in training programs, even if it is aimed at one unified common goal. With the training sessions and content I deliver, I always aim to tailor enablement programs to accommodate these diverse learning preferences by providing a variety of resources such as interactive workshops, eLearning modules, job aids, coaching sessions, and more.

I find when you offer a multitude of different platforms to learn in your programs, you get to see the reps retain their individuality which helps them sell, while still inciting the behaviors needed to succeed in their role. They can still follow that process roadmap needed for them to graduate and prosper at the company.

SS: Now, in your current role, you focus on enabling sales reps to sell to channel partners. What are some of the unique considerations for selling to channel partners?

CD: That is a great question, as it is a very unique role. In short, channel enablement is sales enablement, both for account executives and also for our partner sales teams. When I focus on our internal sales reps, and those account executives, it’s important to enable our AEs to understand the dynamics of the partner, their current operations, where products fit, and align our onboarding team with that structure. This ensures smooth implementation, partner training, and end-client adoption.

Ultimately, what makes it unique is having to go through that extra layer of teaching the AE how to sell and aiming to control the controllable. Not only are we ensuring our internal AEs understand our platform and best practices, but we also have to make sure they’re sharing the best practices with the partner just as we share and train our direct sales reps.

SS: From your perspective, what does good channel sales enablement look like? In other words, what are some of your best practices for enabling reps to sell the channel partners?

CD: To answer that simply, it comes from having a good solid framework and roadmap on what the AEs need to learn. As an enablement manager that comes from ensuring you have constant communication and cross-collaboration internally to set our sales teams up for success, especially when it comes to creating those training programs so that you don’t replicate our process from a direct selling. Partner sales are selling the idea of incorporating your company structure into their agency, not just the idea of products. The more that understanding can be fortified, the more successful AEs will be.

SS: That’s fantastic. Now on LinkedIn, another thing that I had seen that was really cool is that your ultimate goal as an enablement practitioner is to create a sales environment that values learning. How do you motivate reps to engage in learning programs focused on channel sales?

CD: That’s a great question. One thing I found in my career is that everyone I’ve come across is eager to learn, but it’s one thing to teach and provide resources and it’s another thing to have the attention and buy-in from the sales reps themselves. Most importantly, for reps selling into channel sales, the value prop of the training programs needs to be specifically tied to that target audience.

When the rep feels and understands the programs have value and impact on their role, specifically towards partners, and helps them sell to partners, the more engaged they will be. Plus, when reps find success in these calls with these training programs, it gives them a success story to speak to in further calls as well as enablement to utilize in trainings. That way we continue to gain that buy-in, that motivation, and participation from reps.

SS: I think that’s fantastic. What are some of your best practices for creating effective learning programs for sales reps so that they can also maximize their effectiveness with channel sales?

CD: Great question, and I’ll continue to reinforce how important it is for our sales reps to understand the partners they sell to and their business model. Throughout the sales cycle, it is important to encourage reps to get to know the partners, the size of their business, and the unique challenges they face. Understanding the characteristics and personas of the end customer is so crucial to ensure you have the proper information and are therefore offering the right solutions.

An effective way to encourage this, beyond regular scheduled trainings and resources, is by reinforcing this directly by providing feedback on the calls AEs will have with partners throughout the sales cycle. It is made even more helpful to use a call analytics tool that will allow it to be linked to the call directly for the AE to easily refer back to the feedback and that prospect that is exactly tied to it. This allows doors to open up for the AE and the company because, in addition to the coaching provided by enablement, these tools allow sales leaders and managers access to feedback, allowing AEs to have different avenues and perspectives for approaching certain calls.

Furthermore, when calls have feedback attached to them, especially those good calls, those could be used as examples for new AEs entering the company to have an idea of how to apply the knowledge from trainings on an actual call.

SS: Fantastic. Last question for you. What business impact have you seen from effective channel sales enablement?

CD: You will see reps establish more credibility in the sales process and ultimately more closed deals for the company. This really gives them success stories to speak on and use as examples in tandem with the training programs. Not only will you be able to continually add to training programs that you create, but you’ll be able to see the ultimate success, which is an increase in retention, upsell, and overall satisfaction from partners.

SS: Fantastic. Well, Chiara, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts.

CD: Thank you so much for having me.

SS: To our audience, thanks for listening. For more insights, tips, and expertise from sales enablement leaders, visit salesenablement.pro. If there’s something you’d like to share or a topic you’d like to learn more about, please let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO Podcast. I’m Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we’re here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so that they can be more effective in their jobs.

Today I am excited to have Anna Duong from Cisco join us. Anna, I would love for you to introduce yourself, your role, and your organization to our audience.

Anna Duong: Thank you, Shawnna. It’s a pleasure being here and I consider it an honor to be part of this podcast. I lead product, solution marketing, and sales enablement at Cisco for two multi-billion dollar data center portfolios. I am a marketer by training who aspired to be more. When I first started out, I started my career in product management, then product marketing, then I ventured into demand gen, and now into sales enablement.

In between these experiences, I practice and hone my trade in a variety of business environments from startup to mid-size, and now I’m multinational. My company, Cisco, is a global industry leader in networking which is the connection of people, devices, and things. I’m sure a lot of you have heard of Cisco. We are also known as the company that offers networking security and collaboration hardware and software solutions.

SS: Well, awesome. Thank you so much, Anna, for joining us. Now, Cisco was actually one of the award winners for our Sales Enablement PRO member awards around the business impact on sales proficiency, and it was a well-deserved recognition. In your opinion, what does good look like when it comes to optimizing sales proficiency through enablement programs?

AD: Well, first of all, thank you for the recognition and we feel very privileged to be recognized along with industry peers. With respect to your questions, the way we think about proficiency is all about competency. I’m sure many of my industry peers would say that the optimization of that is when people, processes, and technology work together in unison. However, there’s one aspect of proficiency I want to spotlight is competency and that is the ability to understand complex problems and solutions and then effectively communicate that to your customers, and then build relationships along the way.

The latter two are often addressed by sales mastery training or even technical training on how to sell, how to be a good salesman, et cetera, but the first, the ability to understand complex problems and solutions is often undermined because all sales teams have one finite resource, and that is time. This means time to research and learn, it is time not to sell. To us, what good looks like is when product and marketing intelligence, which includes market, industry, competitive, intelligent, et cetera, and the insights are provided to our sales team at the right place, at the right time, in an easily digestible and memorable format.

Some of the KPIs that we can use, which we also use at Cisco to measure good and how optimal we are improving sales proficiency, our high seller engagement that sustains over time, we call this sentiment. Also, high utilization of sales enablement content and program, as well as high converter sales opportunity from the usage of those sales enablement content and programs.

SS: I love that. I think that’s a great definition of what good looks like. Now, in today’s sales environment, what are some of the challenges, Anna, that teams can face in optimizing proficiency and how can enablement teams help overcome these?

AD: Oh gosh. I think this list will probably be really long, but for the sake of time, I’ll just highlight the top two. The most prevailing ones are informational overload, and two, the nature of the landscape, whether in the industry, in the business, or even in the market itself. I’ll start with information overload, which is the constant inundation of information coming to our sales team from products or new products to product details and features and nuances within those customers’ needs and challenges and how their business changes over time. The market trends, the industry trends, et cetera, and even the competitors.

Oftentimes for multinationals, we don’t just have one or two competitors, we have a variety of them in different ways and in different markets. A lot of that is inundating and very challenging for our sales team to not only digest, and connect the dots, but also effectively formalize them in a way that can help them be effective in their day-to-day selling.

The second part of that, which also compounded the first is the rapidly evolving landscapes. Even if you get a hold of it, you spend a lot of time building the information, and the insight that you need, and then you start using it and become successful at using it, guess what? It’s going to change again next week, next month, or even next year. That constant change makes it even harder to digest the information overload and to really have a good grasp on it, especially for sales teams who are selling more than one product. We call those the generalists, not the specialists where they master the product in the portfolio that they’re selling.

Obviously, if I state the challenge I’d like to also share some of the ways we can address these challenges. With the two I mentioned, really it all boils down to the ability to simplify complex information. Simplification means more than just creating concise, easy-to-understand content or product presentations or enablement collateral, et cetera. It’s all about connecting the obvious for our sales team. How does this particular feature or capability connect back to the value, or the business outcome our customer wants, and as a result of that, what kind of tangible or even intangible benefit they can expect from it?

That’s where the simplification comes in. With that, it also helps with a particular selling strategy where our sales team is customer-centric, so that as their needs evolve, their pain points evolve or get even more complex, we’re able to understand and lack of a better word, propose a solution that would address that specific challenge showcasing the breadth and depth of our value.

SS: I love that, and I think that that is a fantastic recap of some of the challenges, but also how enablement has helped to overcome them. As a leader of a team of marketers, what role does product marketing play in driving sales proficiency?

AD: You’re hitting on a sweet spot here because as I shared, I started my career in product marketing and I think it plays a pivotal role. The top three areas where I see product marketing can really contribute to sales proficiency are product and market understanding. As product marketers, we are the experts on the company, product, and services, and then the market that we operate in as well as the customer persona that our product and services serve. With all of that, we are able to simplify that and also tailor it to the different selling journeys or the selling plays for sales to be proficient at.

Two is competitive intelligence. We continuously monitor our competitors, the landscape, their strategy, or even the positioning of their offering against ours, and where we’re good at, but also where we are not so good at. With this intelligence, we can extrapolate insight and then we can help when a sales team is engaging, let’s say a competitive deal against some of our prominent players, and how do we go down the path of differentiating our solution? It isn’t always who is the cheapest product out there.

Last but not least, is the customer insight and persona. I think this is the key foundation when it comes to competency in sales proficiency because like I said, the efficiency can be tackled by processes and better utilization of resources, sales mastery on the sales skills and training, but without really understanding who your customer is, what is their care about, their pain point, their motivation, and how do we already engage with them or haven’t engaged with them is really the missing foundation in all sales proficiency program. As product marketers, again, we understand our customers, and all the research and intelligence we have can be shared and even can be customized into training that can enable our sellers to be more informed.

SS: I love that. As a marketing professional myself, I couldn’t agree more. Now on the flip side, given your expertise in enablement as well, what role do you think enablement plays in driving proficiency and how can you bring marketing enablement and other teams across the company together to collaborate on optimizing proficiency?

AD: Certainly an equally pivotal role, just like product marketing. It’s all about providing assets due to the right tool, resources, and support that are needed in a timely manner. I will talk about two areas. It all started with aligned goals and objectives. By having shared objectives, for example, revenue targets or customer acquisitions, or market penetration, all teams can work together toward this common purpose. Therefore they are aligning their resources and program in the same direction, and also share learnings across their teams and programs to fine-tune it further going forward. As a result of these aligned goals and objectives, the collaboration will become a multiplier effect.

For example, in cross-functional collaboration when marketing bill selling guides to help improve opportunity qualifications, if that guide is built based on a methodology that

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO Podcast. I’m Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we’re here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so that they can be more effective in their jobs.

Today, I’m excited to have Kate Munday from Google join us. Kate, I would love for you to introduce yourself, your role, and your organization to our audience.

Kate Munday: Thank you so much for having me. A bit about what I do, I help transform people and brands by educating them on how to communicate their stories effectively. I’m a communications coach, I’ve got my own company, Out The Box Speakers, and I’m also a creative business partner for Google.

I’ll just elaborate on that cause I think it’s really funny and ironic really that I am in communications and storytelling. I’ve always really loved storytelling, but communication has been something that I used to really struggle with. To tell you a little bit more about that, speaking particularly was my number one fear. I always talk about how it’s funny, I’ve turned my fear into my career. It has basically been a long journey from being very much an introverted individual born into this big family of extroverts who didn’t understand me. I am also dyslexic, and like I said, just shied away from communication a lot growing up.

It was only then really getting into the working world that I started to really understand the importance of it and how much it could do for me if I was able to master this skill of communication. It’s really been a bit of a whirlwind, a bit of a journey, but it was nine years ago that I joined Google and that’s when I joined our sales organization and since then they’ve really given me a platform to educate myself and now to help educate others in storytelling and speaking.

I mostly coach and I work with our brands, but in terms of individuals, it tends to fall within three buckets. It’s like people who want to speak for themselves, so that’s either getting up on stage or radio, or even podcasts, or they want to perhaps climb the corporate ladder, so they can get a promotion at work and they understand that communication is going to be a really important factor to that, or perhaps they want to, like we’re talking about now, become better sellers, communicate their products or services more effectively as well.

SS: From one introvert to another, I am excited to have you here on the podcast. Now, you talked a lot about storytelling in your introduction, and it is one of your key areas of expertise. To start, I’d love to understand from your perspective, why is storytelling so critical in sales.

KM: I guess to give you an idea, I started with Google nine years ago in our sales team, and of course, Google is known for our masses of data. That’s how I started selling. It’s like this actually makes sense for somebody then surely they should buy the product or service that we’re offering, but that’s not quite the case. Throughout those nine years, I have come to recognize that actually, of course, we are emotive beings when we make decisions, we feel something first, like how does that make me feel, and that’s why advertising works. We play into love and fear, these two big emotions, and then we rationalize something.

When we are telling somebody facts and figures, it only ignites two different parts of a person’s brain, whereas if you start to tell a story and you play into those emotions, you start to ignite seven different parts of their brains. There’s proof in the pudding there, that’s why storytelling is so important. It helps us relate and connect to other people, to products, and to brands. That’s really what we want. We want that connection. We want to feel like somebody understands us and our needs and they’re going to deliver an effective solution for us. In selling, a key part of that is relationships, isn’t it? Storytelling and relationships where we know these all go hand in hand. Even if we are out with our friends, with storytelling, with our partners, we’re at work, we’re constantly telling stories. It’s a critical part of sales.

SS: Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. Kate, what would you say are some common mistakes that sellers might make when they’re trying to convey value to buyers and how can better storytelling help them overcome these challenges?

KM: I think, first of all, not hooking your audience in the first place, so it really is when we speak, people really only care about what’s in it for them, to be honest. They just want to know how to be better or they say tell me what I need to know to not make the mistakes you’ve made or to actually be successful, or whatever it is. It’s how we add value to someone’s life. I think that’s the very first thing that we need to do, is to call that out, like this is what I can improve your life and make it look however you want it to look.

That initial hook and I talk about there are multiple different hooks in the first stages. Even the title of your email is also a hook. The title of your speech, the very first words that exit your lips, because it actually takes five seconds, and that’s why the skip button on YouTube is after that five seconds because that’s the amount of time it takes somebody to decide whether they’re going to actually listen to you or not. I think that is one of the most common mistakes, people get excited, don’t we? We just get away with ourselves and start speaking, but it’s not about you as a seller or a speaker, it’s about your audience and it’s about how you can help them. I think delivering value first is really important. That’d be my first one.

Then I’d say that we get into this trap of highlighting features rather than benefits, and again, it comes back to that added value, doesn’t it? We’re really good at listing off, oh, you know, it does this, it’s shiny, it’s cool, it has all these fun things, but look, what does that mean? What’s the reason behind that? Yes, okay. It might be shiny, but what does that mean to someone’s life? How can that make it better?

The next one I’d say, and it’s going back to that relationship, it’s that relatability and that connection really throughout my sales career, I don’t really see it as selling. I’m just connecting with people and helping them and building relationships, and actually, somebody said this to me at a networking event the other day, and they said that the difference between contracts and contacts is the letter R, which stands for relationships. I really do think that you can’t get those contracts without having good contacts, which you have great relationships with.

The way that we can build better relationships with our clients is through storytelling. It’s about opening up, letting them in, showing them that you are a real human person just like them and that you perhaps have things in common and you can start to build those relationships and those connections and then the selling comes later. People do business with people and they’ll invest in you as a person before the product or service or future that you are about to tell them. They’re my three things. The hook at the start, highlighting the benefits again and delivering value, and then it’s about relationships.

SS: I think those things are absolutely critical in good storytelling. On that note, I would also love your advice because we are looking into understanding what good looks like. What does good storytelling look like in sales? In other words, what are some key best practices that sellers should leverage in their conversations with buyers?

KM: What does good storytelling look like in sales? So I guess there are all these common patterns. It depends on what that selling looks like and what platform you’re using. Is it a presentation or a podcast or a video? Whatever that looks like, of course, you’re going to tweak the way that you actually tell that story and be intentional about what part of that story you are telling, but I think again, to reiterate, to start off with, it’s really about why they should care on the very first instance, and that being upfront and center.

If we think about a normal pitch and how that goes, the first thing is hooking them in. Why should you listen? Then we kind of pre-frame them, so we talk about that’s why we set agendas, we are using the adult learning theory. This is what I’m gonna tell you, so perhaps again, if we think about it, that’s why you introduce characters. You set the scene, don’t you? You’re preparing people for what they’re about to receive. If this is a presentation, it’s like different from a video perhaps, but if it’s a presentation, then you might go into explain why you are the best person to deliver that information to them and that you are an expert and you do really care and you’re there to help them, and that’s the problem that you’re going to solve for them today.

Then you get into obviously the crux of the story. That’s when you actually can start to uncover things and we call that a Google the messy middle. In the end, you’ll come to some quiet kind of resolution or conclusion toward the end, but really, I think there are many different ways in which y

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO Podcast. I’m Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we’re here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so that they can be more effective in their jobs.

Today I’m excited to have Christian Palmer from Riskified join us. Christian, I would love for you to introduce yourself, your role, and your organization to our audience.

Christian Palmer: Thanks so much, Shawnna. Happy to be here. In my role at Riskified, I’m the global revenue enablement manager. I sit on a global enablement team that focuses primarily on the sales org that handles both inbound and outbound selling as well as our customer success function as well. Riskified is a fraud and abuse platform that aids and assists e-commerce companies to make sure that only the good customers are the ones who are buying and performing acts on their websites.

SS: We are excited to have you here, Christian. Thank you so much for joining us. Now, as an enablement leader, I’d love to hear from you. Why is it so critical to establish credibility with reps?

CP: This is a great question and I feel like it does not get spoken up enough about as we go through all the different enablement functions that we take on on a daily basis. When you think about enablement itself, your audience is your sales reps, your clients are your reps essentially. They can be your biggest advocates internally, not only to your enablement department and your manager but also to sales leadership and cross-functionally. What I think is really important here in establishing that credibility is to have strategic communication and more specifically within that over-communication.

I hold this to a pretty high standard when you enter an organization. You want to be able to shape the behaviors of the reps to help impact the future of that function and also get ahead of any future change that’s going to come and make it a little bit less of a blow to the sales function, especially for reps that have been there for quite a while. If you have great credibility coming in and you can establish that off the bat, your voice will matter that much more. You are destined to be able to make an impact very quickly, and like anything else, similar to sales, enablement is in the business of influencing. It is an influential role and because of that, having that credibility with reps is going to be so powerful for you down the line.

SS: Absolutely. I think that’s important to establish, especially for long-term relationships. What do you think enablement teams are commonly missing when it comes to this and how can some teams avoid these mistakes?

CP: Sales enablement itself is still relatively new. I think you guys, as well as myself and other people in the community, are still defining what sales enablement is. It’s funny because, in past roles and any other places that I worked probably prior to a couple of years ago, it felt like I was doing an enablement role, even though I was titled trainer, or learning and development and what have you. I think now as the role becomes a little bit more mature, there are probably some best practices that you can be thinking about that don’t generally come top of mind to people when they enter an org.

I think the biggest one is when it comes to reps, not being able to understand their perspective, and this is not dependent on you being in a previous sales role, it could still happen even if you’re in a sales role, but obviously will happen a little bit more if you’re coming from a non-sales background. It is important to align with what the reps are really going to care about. What at the end of the day are they there to do, and whatever it is that you’re asking them or working on with them, how is it going to benefit them? That should be at the forefront of every initiative that you’re trying to push. Start with why I think is a good way to kind of emphasize that. Very Simon Sinek of me, but essentially always starting with like, Hey, why are we here? What are we trying to get out of this? What’s the point really?

I think that oftentimes people come into the role, they just kind of dig in and jump right in, and they don’t necessarily take the time to see what it is that reps really care about. In addition to that, I think another area, and this is probably going to apply a little bit more towards folks that are on larger enablement teams, but staying siloed to just your enablement department and not branching out cross-functionally. In roles past that, I’ve been in a lot of the times where there would be teams that don’t necessarily interact with enablement that often but, could benefit from having an enablement voice in the room. At the very least, be a liaison to the sales team about any messaging or things that need to be communicated if there is any particular confusion around what it is that they’re trying to get across and how I can deliver that to the sales team, I think is important.

The last one, I think it’s commonly missed is something that I think in any role, you’re entering an org you really should take the time to do. This is a very traditional piece that I think is probably a part of everybody’s 30, 60, and 90-day plan, but more specifically the 30-day piece, but not building real relationships with reps is a problem. I always tend to start off personally with folks, and this could be applicable to sales org that only have 10 to 15 reps, or similar to the org that I’m in now, which has north of a hundred.

Taking the time to learn more about them, I’m not just saying like where they live so you can ask them what the weather’s like, but also what interests them, who’s in their life that’s important, why did they choose this role in the first place? All those things show that you really do care about them, and I think in order to avoid all of these different mistakes, you really do want to take a concerted approach with who you’re working with. Again, whether or not you were in a sales role previously, kind of putting yourself in the shoes of a sales rep is really important here.

If I was a sales rep and an enablement person was coming into the organization, how would I want them to exhibit themselves? How would I want them to work with me? What’s the best way of learning? Can they pivot and be flexible and necessary? Those are all the things that I would be caring about as an individual contributor who’s going to work with a support function like this, but it often is amiss and I tend to see it a lot more with organizations that have leadership that’s not echoing positive messaging about enablement.

What I mean by that is your senior leaders, your C-suite, really should be the ones who are helping advocate why having the role is going to be important for the organization that’s not happening. It can be difficult to make sure that you are setting yourself up for success.

SS: Now, you touched on a few tips and tricks on how to begin to build relationships with sales reps, but do you have advice for our audience on how to do so and how to start gaining their trust?

CP: As I had mentioned before, getting to know them personally, I think is a really important piece. Not only in a group setting but more importantly individually. If you want to insert yourself into projects, initiatives, and conversations, you are positioning yourself to kind of become an agent of change in that case, and if you’re involving yourself more often, the more agency you’re going to have when it comes to change management in the future.

A lot of the times how I generally start, and this has kind of been like the de facto starting point for me in any org, whether or not I was joining in an enablement capacity, is to be vulnerable. Recognize that you don’t have all the answers and that you’re here to learn just as much as they are. Emphasize the journey of learning and how impactful one nugget of knowledge can be to a rep and how that can change their entire perspective on their role and what it is that they can impact.

I always will come in straight up acknowledge the fact that I don’t have knowledge around specific topics or enablement is still ongoing, you know, function that’s being developed and I’m here for the ride, but I by no means, know more than you guys do, and I’ll be wanting to learn just as much from you, especially upfront as you will be wanting to learn from me. That’s definitely number one.

I think the second piece, and this is kind of an assumed one, but one thing it’s lost in the sauce, especially when you have a lot of priorities and projects you’re walking into, but deliver on what you say you’re going to. What I mean by that is if you say you’re going to do something for somebody, whether it’s following up with a Slack message or helping out with another person, or facilitating something, whether it’s a session or a project, or let’s say document that they’re going to walk away with, do what it is that you say you’re going to do.

I think this is a special piece to add to it. Ideally do it ahead of the time that you suggest. Anytime I’ve been a part of a project with a group, let’s say it’s like writing up different emails and how they could be structured, I would give some type of date that I was gonna be circling back to them on. Let’s say it&

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO Podcast. I’m Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we’re here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so that they can be more effective in their jobs.

Today I’m excited to have Jennifer Rizzi from Squarespace join us. Jennifer, I would love for you to introduce yourself, your role, and your organization to our audience.

Jennifer Rizzi: Thank you so much for having me, Shawnna. My name is Jennifer Rizzi and I am the sales enablement manager for the enterprise team at Squarespace. My background is actually in journalism, believe it or not, and my career took several interesting turns to end up in my current role supporting technology sales, but I love it and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I started off in TV reporting and I worked as an on-air reporter in two state capitals, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Charleston, West Virginia. After that, I relocated to New York City and I became the first iPhone-only video reporter for the New York Daily News, and I used a storytelling app called Videolicious, which was very revolutionary for the time. Not many people were using iPhones to report, and my content there really helped the sales process for that company.

Videolicious was acquired by Squarespace in 2019, and that’s where I moved into my current role, which really blends my passion for content creation with my experience selling. I support the sales of our B2B enterprise product, which is a version of our website builder that’s made to serve complex organizations. Now, you might be familiar with Squarespace as a leader in website design for individuals and small businesses, but we also do support major companies with enterprise-grade security and team collaboration features.

SS: We’re excited to have you here, Jennifer, and what an interesting story about how you’ve ended up in the enablement space. I love learning more about your background. Now, I’d love to also understand from your perspective, at a high level, how would you say that enterprise-level sales enablement differs from sales enablement focused on other market segments.

JR: That’s a great question. I would say that I think enterprise companies have different needs and expectations throughout the sales process and rarely do enterprise buyers make decisions alone. They’re usually part of a decision-making team, or they’re an influencer at their organization who can persuade supervisors or colleagues to adopt their recommendations.

The content that you equip your sales teams with should be very shareable. It should be succinct and pithy, and it really should convey your value prop instantly to anyone who comes across it. Even if they don’t know your product and they weren’t part of previous sales conversations, it should be able to stand alone and convince audiences of your product’s value at first glance, even if they have no background.

SS: I love that. I also have some experience with enterprise deals and they are notorious for having long sales cycles. How can enablement help reps to accelerate those sales cycles?

JR: I think it’s really about qualifying prospects as much as possible before they have that discovery call or before they meet with an AE for the first time. Ideally, you want your prospects to self-select based on the content you publish online. You want them to get really excited after reading a blog or a white paper that speaks to their needs and then raise their hand for a meeting. In a perfect world, of course, it doesn’t always work that way, but you want to strive for that.

Then throughout the sales funnel, you want to keep providing prospects with relevant content that’s tailored to their particular needs and concerns, and that preemptively addresses them. That way you’ll have educated prospects who join your sales meetings and you’ll save really valuable time going over ideas that a piece of content could have communicated to them beforehand.

SS: Absolutely. You talked about the interesting dynamic within enterprise deals around having multiple people as part of the buying decision. With a lot of enterprise buyers, relationship building is absolutely key between the rep and not only the key buyer but actually multiple buyers within the organization. How do you equip reps to effectively engage buyers in a multi-threaded way throughout the sales process?

JR: As I touched on just a little bit earlier, you really want your reps to be skilled at adding value to buyers’ professional workflows, and you want them to essentially perform a consultative role in their sales discussions showing that you understand the issues they face and the goals that your prospects need to meet and that you have the right knowledge to help them navigate those. That’s what’s going to build those relationship bridges.

You want to position yourself as a resource they can count on to be in their corner who has their best interest in mind. That way you’re going to stay top of mind when they need that solution and they’re going to feel really comfortable coming to you.

SS: I love that. Now I do want to shift gears a little bit because you mentioned on LinkedIn that one of your areas of expertise is creating content to help reps guide their buyers, kind of like you just mentioned through the sales funnel. In your opinion, what are some of the key components of an effective sales content strategy?

JR: I think listening to your sales team and gathering their input is so important for producing content that really resonates with prospects. They’re the ones in the trenches having those conversations every day, whether it’s over email or over sales calls, they’re seeing what prospects respond to and where they get stuck in the funnel. Lean on their perspective to really diagnose what content will help prospects get unstuck, and what common questions can be answered more efficiently with content saving time on those sales calls.

I really believe that reps should view sales enablement as a partner working with them in strategy, and they should always feel comfortable bringing ideas to you with the confidence that they’re going to be heard and validated. It’s really important that they feel that validation. Even if you can’t deliver exactly what they’re asking for at a given time, maybe you don’t have the bandwidth or the resources, you can still use your content expertise to suggest an alternative path that may be a more efficient way to get their message across and accomplish the same goal.

SS: Now you also mentioned the importance of using customer-centric language, especially when you’re positioning enterprise products. Why is customer centricity so important, especially in times of economic uncertainty like we’re experiencing today?

JR: I really love this question and I think as Donald Miller put it so eloquently in his book, Building a Brand Story, your customers need to feel like they’re the hero in the sales journey. Too often sales reps make the mistake, I think, of trying to swoop in unsolicited to just be a customer’s white knight with the solution to all of their problems, when in reality that customer might not feel that they need to be rescued and they might even be resistant to that idea out of pride or for other reasons.

When you flip the script and you position them as the hero and you put yourself in the role of the mentor or guide, or the knowledgeable one that helps them achieve their full potential, that’s when they’re going to be open to building a relationship and partnering with you.

SS: I love that. How do you infuse that same notion of customer centricity into your sales content strategy?

JR: I think being mindful of your customer’s time is key. In enterprise sales your prospects are all busy professionals with a lot on their plate, so you can’t really expect them to devote a ton of time to consuming your content in the way you want them to necessarily, or also to engaging in quirky, novel experiences the way the general public might respond to.

Sometimes simple formats, just like a one-sheet, slide decks, and landing pages are the most effective at getting your message out, and you really want to be direct with your message and elegant. Speak to customers like the educated professionals they are. Avoid being overly casual and using slang unless your brand voice is known for that and just keep your content short and easily digestible.

I’m a big fan of using video whenever possible because it’s a really visual, engaging medium and links are very shareable. Video is something that viewers can possibly consume without much effort, so you really want to try and lower that effort bar as much as possible to consume your content.

SS: I love that advice. Last question for you, Jennifer. What advice would you give to other enablement practitioners to help get their reps to better engage buyers through content?

JR: I would say just try different types of content. Keep iterating based on learnings. Be open to ideas from your team and be really prolific with your content creation. Try to be agile in supporting sales rep needs. We know they can always change based on your product offerings and just larger economic patter

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO Podcast. I’m Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we’re here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so that they can be more effective in their jobs.

Today I’m excited to have Marina Jeanbart at Ankorstore join us. Marina, I would love for you to introduce yourself, your role, and your organization to our audience.

Marina Jeanbart: Thank you very much for having me. My name is Marina Jeanbart, as you said, perfectly. I am based in Paris, France. I studied hospitality management back then and worked in a couple of hotels before moving to business operations five years ago, and this is where I got close to sales and account managers and started to understand their pain points. I then got the chance to join Ankorstore as a sales enable manager two years ago and this is when the company actually grew massively and we had to hire 200 sales reps across six different markets. We had a big need to develop the sales enablement function there.

SS: I love that. One thing that caught my eye, Marina, on LinkedIn is that you shared that you design sustainable learning frameworks for sales reps to succeed. What does this look like at your company and how do you make learning programs sustainable?

MJ: In order to create sustainable training programs, we need to identify training needs. We do it in two different ways, top-down to share business changes and bottom-up to respond to the team’s needs. For the bottom-up, every month we meet with the team leads individually to address their needs and either we scale training sessions to the rest of the markets if it makes sense, or we arrange a bespoke training session with the appropriate stakeholders. Basically, we grasp their pain points and needs and translate that into training topics.

For top-down, what we do for any change in the organization, we work beforehand with the right teams like product marketing and logistics to address new topics in the best possible way. What’s really important is that we bring expertise by speaking to the right people and enabling them to create impactful content. This is very important because they have the knowledge whereas we are more enablers and we make sure that they have all the keys to develop some interesting content and impactful content for the sales reps.

We also involve the team leads at this point to make sure that they raise awareness with their team before we roll out any training session. In both cases, so for bottom-up or top-down, we add all the topics to our enablement calendar, which basically serves as our training roadmap and we make that available and visible to everyone.

Back then, when I first joined Ankorstore, we used to create training for any topic that seemed interesting for the reps, but we have now understood that creating just-in-time training is what’s best for our teams who are already swamped with work, and they cannot all handle any nice to have a training session. They still exist and we share some interesting content with them, but we rather focus on creating training that has a direct impact on their performance and that can help them solve their issues and anticipate change in the best possible way. We have identified their needs, now we need to define the training format.

We like to use our learning management system to deliver training for us. It’s the best way to scale training and capture results. We also do live sessions, of course, but we do that a bit less than online sessions. For the online programs, we create one training path every quarter, so we have one source of truth when it comes to training, which is much easier for the learners. What we do is we use the training calendar that I was mentioning to populate the path every week or two weeks, and we make sure to address the topics that were either escalated as needs or that are related to business changes.

At the end of each week, we report the training results to the managers and to the reps to ensure that they have some perspective on their level of knowledge. At the end of the quarter, this is really the important part, we create a recap quiz to assess everyone’s knowledge across the teams and when it’s over, we share the results and the leaderboard to engage the teams even more into taking that quiz very seriously.

We provide a cheat sheet for them to have a summary of all the key topics and changes before closing the period. This definitely helps them be set up for success before they jump into that new quarter. The quiz also aims at helping team leads identify coaching opportunities and set objectives for the next period for their reps. The report is, of course, open, it’s shared with the general manager so that everyone can have a good understanding of the team’s behavior when it comes to training and quiz results.

SS: I love that. I think that that is a very thorough end-to-end sustainable program. Now, you also partner with a lot of other teams around the organization. How, in particular, do you partner with your L&D, or learning and development, teams to create impactful training programs?

MJ: That’s an interesting one. We did not create programs together yet, but this is definitely something that we want to do in the future. To me, the first step will be to scale the learning methodology at Ankorstore and make sure that we’re going in the right direction and that everyone does it in a way that fits the company culture.

Today we haven’t really discussed this, but I think we should definitely. One thing that we’re doing with the L&D department is we’re reviewing the HR performance review process. Basically at the end of the quarter, everyone chats with their manager to review their target achievement or objectives, we’re changing that to include training and coaching results there.

Today, we’re not targeting the sales reps on training because we think that otherwise they will be attending training for the wrong reasons, and their compensation plan is already very complex, but we think that if we include that in the performance review check-ins in collaboration with HR and L&D, we will make sure that the team leads have coaching opportunities and can help the reps set some objectives for themselves in the next period. We think that that would be very relevant and we’re working on that currently.

SS: I love that partnership. Now, just to shift gears a little bit, what metrics do you track to understand what good looks like when it comes to training?

MJ: Mainly we would be looking at participation rates, completion rates to see who commits to the full training, average score on the assessment quiz that I was mentioning earlier, and lastly, satisfaction rate or NPS for qualitative insight. We rely mostly on the average score on the assessment quiz because we think that’s the easiest way to identify what might have been unclear or if we need to coach reps on certain topics in more depth in the next period. The main goal is for managers to check our reports systematically to have a deep understanding of their team’s behavior, but this is still something that we need to educate them on because it’s not really something that they’re doing intuitively yet.

The challenge that we’re facing is actually that the teams are not taking the quizzes seriously. At least not all teams are doing that, which means that it’s hard for us to identify whether the quality of the training is good or not, and if the teams are knowledgeable enough or not. This is still something that we need to improve to make sure that they’re consistently not only attending training, but also doing the quiz thoroughly so that we can then make a statement that the teams are knowledgeable enough or not, and then take action based on that statement. It is a work in progress, but we’re getting there.

SS: I think that’s phenomenal. Now, how do you leverage these insights to potentially even uncover levers that lead to improved performance and, that also helped to scale some of the best practices across your sales teams?

MJ: To me, it’s quite sensitive to say that training has a direct impact on performance. There are many factors that can lead to performance variability, however, we can try to map sales performance with training performance and observe some trends. If we see that, let’s say, the reps that do the most training see their sales performance increase over time, we can assume that knowledgeable reps are more likely to perform. Also, if we observe that top performers are the ones to score the highest in training, we can assume that the quality of the training is high enough to drive performance.

Sharing the quiz leaderboard can increase competitiveness and make the reps want to score higher on their quiz, which is a good way also for us to boost training attendance and eventually, hopefully, sales performance. When we build training, we like to select champions, so ambassadors or champions based on their behavior and their willingness to take on side projects as well as their performance in a certain field. For example, we recently launched the product champions, as we called them, so we looked at performance in terms of product adoption on certain features, et cetera, but also training attendance when it came to product training.

That helped us designate product champions across all markets and they’re now responsible to h

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO Podcast. I’m Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we’re here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so that they can be more effective in their jobs. Today I’m excited to have Jess Rodriguez from Beyond join us. Jess, I would love for you to introduce yourself, your role, and your organization to our audience.

Jess Rodriguez: Thanks so much. My name is Jess Rodriguez. I am the senior sales enablement manager at Beyond, and what we do is we work in the short-term vacation rental space and we help property managers and hosts grow and keep their revenue.

SS: We’re excited to have you here, Jess. Now, in addition to your sales enablement experience, one of the things that I thought was really cool about your background is that you’re also a professionally trained actor and have coined yourself as The Improv Girl. How does your experience in improv influence your approach to sales enablement?

JR: This is a great question and there’s a lot of ways that I can answer it, but really both improv and enablement are about creativity and the willingness and the ability to adapt and learn to really see and feel and embody whatever project or program that you’re working on. Anyone that has done improv gets into it for a different reason. Some really like the opportunity to create something, some people want to make people laugh, others do it to build their confidence, and I think mine was a combination of the three. Regardless of why you do it, what you get out of improv are these magical moments of experiencing what it’s like to take an idea or a concept, and not only bring it to life but to see how far you can go with it.

In improv, you go from, let’s say, talking about taking a trip to the beach. That’s maybe the scene that you’re provided with, and you are then tasked with acting out this trip to the beach. If you want it to be good and you want the scene to really resonate with your audience, you have to make yourself believe and act like you are at the beach. Maybe you’re thinking through the details about packing, you are holding your figurative beach hat when the wind blows, and you’re feeling your toes in the sand, but it’s just like a real trip to the beach where you could experience a tidal wave mid-scene and you have to roll with it.

Having the familiarity and taking things from an idea and putting them into an action to really just embrace every part of that idea and learning to pivot has made a major impact on how I actually approach sales enablement and the programs that I work with.

SS: I think that’s fantastic. Now, what are some improv skills that could help sales reps improve their performance?

JR: I love this question. It’s one that I get a lot and I think people hear improv and sales and they automatically assume we’re going to use improv to teach people how to be better at a specific sales skill, like negotiating or objection handling or demoing a product. You can absolutely do that, but I think we have to look at what it takes now for someone to be a great seller. I actually read in the Sales Enablement PRO report on enabling the future of selling, it stated that some of the top priorities for salespeople would be learning to collaborate and how to create very personalized journeys for their prospects and customers.

What we know is that it actually takes something quite different today for sellers to be really great and it’s gone beyond these very standard sales skills. It’s really about having the ability to connect with that prospect or that customer to understand their story, their motivations, their pain points, and their goals, and then be able to communicate how their product or service not only fits into that story but actually makes it better.

What better way to improve that ability to learn that story, and tell that story than with improv? I think about the skills that improv has taught me and what I’ve applied in my career, and I think what really comes to mind first would be listening, which sounds very basic, but is so essential. I think about something called characterization, and as I mentioned, I think about storytelling as well.

SS: I love those elements. What are some of your improv techniques for training salespeople to be more effective at listening and responding to customers?

JR: Great question. Let’s start with listening. There is one technique that I use consistently during every workshop and keynote presentation that I’ve done that starts with explaining and demonstrating something called ‘yes, and’. One of the first things that you’re taught at improv is this concept of ‘yes, and’, and it represents the mindset that no matter what someone says or does in a scene, you have to accept it with a literal or figurative ‘yes’ and then you add to it.

The reason it’s so important is during improv, it prohibits you from going into a scene with this premeditated agenda of how the scene is going to go because you can’t control what your scene partner will do or say. That’s like the fun in improv. That means you go into this scene with zero expectations. When I think about why sales reps struggle with something like listening, I think it’s because they go into this “scene” or their conversations with an agenda and with an expectation of what’s going to happen.

They’ve done this before, maybe it’s their eighth demo of the week, and they feel like they know what Susan from Company A is going to express as pain points or obstacles, so they’re anticipating how this will go and they’re unintentionally closing themselves off to something that could be a really great conversation. When you go into a scene with zero expectations, it forces you to be what I call powerfully present in that scene. You will naturally start to pay attention not only to what is being said, but the body language, those nonverbal cues that you’re getting, and when you think about listening, that’s what you have to do. Listening means you are really just powerfully present in what is happening in that scene.

Now for the second part of your question, responding to customers’ needs, what I didn’t tell you about ‘yes, and’ is the, ‘and’ part of that means that there has to be this logical connection for what you add to the scene. Let’s say, for example, you start out the scene in the kitchen and you decide that the kitchen has caught on fire. That’s logical, quite unfortunate, but it’s logical. If you start in the kitchen and then you decide you’re on the moon, that’s not a logical connection, so at that point, you’re doing what we call going for the laugh, and you’re not actually thinking about the common good of the scene.

Let me kind of bring it all back together here. As a seller, I think about how to respond to a customer’s needs in a way that is for the common good of that scene, and the common good of their goals, their objectives, not my own objectives as a seller, and that can be really hard because we want to feel prepared. We want to be viewed as the expert, the consultant, the one with all the answers, so we think about maybe how you do this. How do I go into this conversation with no agenda or expectations, but still be able to act as that expert or consultant?

My response to you would be that you prepare. In improv, they tell you to expose yourself to as many cultures, references, characters, news articles, and happenings in the world as you can because it makes you well-rounded. It will set you up for success when you’re in a scene, someone throws something out there at you because you have to accept it and you have to know what to say and do next to effectively respond in that scene.

In sales, I think about all the resources that we have out there for us, like talk tracks, playbooks, competitor news, or information. Lean on the resources that your marketing or your enablement teams have given you to prepare for those conversations, but overall, when you’re going in, don’t go in with that expectation or that agenda and that will make you a better listener, and make you more equipped to respond in a way that really makes an impact for the person you’re speaking to.

SS: I think that is phenomenal advice. I can’t tell you how many times I feel like that’s exactly what reps struggle with because they’re more concerned about what they’re going to say next than actually listening to the customer and expanding upon their needs. I think that’s fantastic advice, and I love the analogy that you drew there. Now for sales enablement, one of the tools that we use is that manager/rep role play. This is a relatively common tool to use in the sales training world. I would love to understand from you how improv can be used in those scenarios to help managers better coach their teams.

JR: Yeah, that’s a great question. Let’s talk about roleplaying. First of all, it really breaks my heart for roleplaying because it just seems to have a very bad reputation and people don’t seem to like it. I have a theory, but I’m curious, like, as a sales enablement person, why do you think that is?

SS: Well, for me personally, I think I get a little bit of stage fright,

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement Pro Podcast. I’m Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we’re here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so that they can be more effective in their jobs. Today, I’m excited to have Kristin Klinkner from Zumper join us. Kristin, I would love for you to introduce yourself, your role, and your organization to our audience.

Kristin Klinkner: Hi Shawnna. I am the sales enablement manager at Zumper, which is a platform you can use to find your next rental property, whether long-term, short-term, or vacation rentals, we have them all in one place. We’ve got a fantastic user experience and because of that, we attract our audience organically, and then we’re able to provide our clients with high-quality leads for renters to their properties.

I’ve been at Zumper for a bit over two years. I’m a team of one, and this is the first job I’ve had with the official sales enablement title. I took a really non-traditional path to a formal sales enablement position as I spent the first 18 years of my career in the non-profit sector. The last 15 of those were for the American Cancer Society, where I started as a local staffer working on raising funds through events and sponsorships in a local community. I moved into a manager role and then into a national role coordinating corporate engagement strategy for some of the world’s largest fundraising events.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but all of that work in the early part of my career was sales. Fundraising is sales. My national role was really sales enablement. I built the strategy, infrastructure, marketing, resources, support, and training for thousands of employees and tens of thousands of volunteers to attract corporate financial support, essentially B2B sales. We were hugely successful raising around 80 million per year for cancer research and support through just my B2B programs, but when Covid hit, our in-person fundraising event method for the American Cancer Society had to change as our strategy for bringing in revenue.

My department was eliminated, as I’m sure many people can relate to back during the pandemic, but I really saw that as a great opportunity to find a role that encompassed all of what I truly love doing and it boiled down to the positive impact, the changes in programming, infrastructure, and strategy for gaining corporate partners through others providing the resources necessary for others to be successful in landing those partners, not doing it myself. That’s what I really loved about the last role I had there. We also had just gone through a transition to Salesforce as our CRM and I liked learning the technology and figuring out how I could use that technology to help our fundraisers achieve goals.

I started looking at the SaaS world and tech companies and startups, and I discovered some podcasts, probably sales enablement PRO, that mentioned sales enablement. As I dug in and joined webinars and online career fairs like I know you all hosted, I heard leaders in enablement talk about their roles and strategies to be effective, and I knew this was the right place for me, but I needed to figure out how to translate my career in nonprofits to sales, and that’s where a huge network of sales enablement professionals were really sold me on it and helped me find my way.

It was really scary at first, but I started being vulnerable and just asking to connect with some of those speakers in those webinars and asking them just to connect or give guidance. So many of them were willing to chat and give coaching advice and connect me to other leaders. That’s really where I started to take off, and one of the best pieces of advice I got was to do a better job of clearly translating fundraising to sales. That piece of coaching that I received. When I figured out how to do that, I very quickly secured a few offers and accepted my first enablement position.

That’s a really long-winded way to say that the coaching I received allowed me to see a clear path to achieve what I wanted to do with my career shift. I immediately started finding ways when I got into that sales enablement role to build the type of into the company where I work now.

SS: I love that. One of the things that stood out to me about you on LinkedIn was that you really focus on building a sales culture that values coaching, as you mentioned, and celebrates success, which I can’t stress how important that is these days. I’d love to learn more about some of the ways that you’ve built this into your company’s culture.

KK: I really do value a strong culture of coaching and celebrating wins in a sales team. Coaching is not something that came naturally to me, but I’ve seen that as more and more people in an organization embrace it, we can achieve greater things. Taking a step back for a second, about me, I’m a doer, a problem solver. When I was younger, I felt if I could just figure out a way to do something and then share it with other people, they could just copy what I did and we’d all be fantastic top performers, right? That didn’t go over super well, especially when I became a people manager, so I did a lot of introspection and work on emotional intelligence, and that helped me see that I didn’t need to, nor should I, solve everything for everyone because when I tried to do that, nobody was bought in and they really didn’t adopt my solution long term even if they gave it a shot.

Learning about and improving my EQ helped me figure out how to be a coach instead of a fixer, and that really gave better results for the whole team. There’s a quote in an episode of Ted Lasso that has really stuck with me, and it’s something to the effect of all people being different people, and that’s what I think building a culture of coaching can do. Explaining to our sales leaders or coaching them to see that all of the sellers on their team are different and need different approaches and methods of feedback delivery and have different learning styles is a good way to introduce some initial changes to our onboarding and ongoing development opportunities. The way I did that was by adding role plays to our formal onboarding and training cadence.

I know people hate role plays, because I kind of hate them too, but the vulnerability you need to show and the trust that you need to give that everybody there on that call or who’s giving you feedback is there to help you. All of that helps build engagement and really solidifies every person on a team or, hopefully, solidifies for everybody on the team who’s involved with this, that they are a valuable part of that team or that company and the shared success. When you’re open to receiving that help, many times it results in growth or a tangible win that then we can call attention to.

It’s sort of a cycle, right? Then as we start seeing those wins, based on a result of something we learned in a role play, it gains acceptance as a development strategy and garners buy-in for continuing that type of exercise. Even when I ask really directly after a role play, like, how’d you feel about that, I usually start by sharing where I messed up and saying like, ooh, I felt really awkward at this part. Then people also feel like it’s okay to say like, yeah, I didn’t love that either. In the end, they always talk about what they did learn and how it really did help them feel more comfortable with whatever skill they’re working on. It’s kind of those shared awkward experiences that propel a team to build stronger bonds, have more engagement, greater success, and then eventually enjoy helping others and celebrating those successes as a team.

SS: I love that. One of the ways that you’ve improved coaching at your organization is through sales management training to help them also become better coaches for their reps. Why are the role of the manager and their effectiveness as a coach so important, especially amid changing times?

KK: I think we can all agree that coaching is better in the long run. For somebody coaching them to find a result is better than me just fixing it. I think we can also agree and I can get a team of leaders to agree that if I’m the only person providing that coaching that’s not very effective either. Having several people in an organization who are strong coaches out in the field with our sellers can really amplify my work in enablement. I can’t be in every sales meeting and my particular industry is very face-to-face for our sales, so I can’t even listen to recorded calls to give coaching.

That’s not a function of our company for me in enablement that I know a lot of other companies have. Instead, it all has to be done either as a group on a call or face-to-face when out in the field and really making those presentations. When I know that a manager who is going to be in some of those meetings is capable of providing the coaching a seller needs to improve, or even just to keep doing the things they’re already really good at, that’s easier for me to focus then on correcting skills and knowledge gaps that can be detrimental to our sales. It’s amplified even further when our sellers feel comfortable coaching each other. So we incorporate that a lot at Zumper too.

For example, as I said, our industry is multifamily real estate. I didn’t know anything about that when I started here. I know how to sell and I know how to do enablement and coaching, all that kind of st