Sales Enablement PRO Podcast

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we are here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so they can be more effective in their jobs. Today I’m excited to have Trevor join us. I would love for you to introduce yourself, your title, and your organization, Trevor. Trevor Yeats: Hi, my name is Trevor Yeats. I’m a director of business to business marketing at Verizon Media. We sell digital advertising on premium brands like Yahoo, TechCrunch, and HuffPost. I lead sales enablement initiatives for North America and I partner closely with colleagues from other regions to share best practices globally. SS: That’s very, very cool. Trevor, how did you determine a need for a sales enablement tool within Verizon, and what were some of the key urgency drivers that you were identifying? TY: Well, about a year ago actually, I conducted a listening tour of sales. I wa

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales Enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we are here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so they can be more effective in their jobs. Today I’m excited to have Glenn Clark, the Director of Sales Enablement at Smartsheet with us. Glenn, I would love for you to just introduce yourself, and a little bit about your background. Glenn Clark: First of all, I’m excited to be here. I have been in sales enablement for at least ten years. It probably feels a little bit longer than that. I started out in sales. I think a lot of people in the sales enablement profession started out in sales. But I recognized pretty early on in my career that I definitely had a passion for helping reps be more successful, more productive, and so I made the switch over to training back then, which now has evolved into sales enablement. And I really have spent the bulk of my career in tech, so I

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we are here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so they can be more effective in their jobs. Thank you so much for joining us today. I would love for you to take a moment and just introduce yourself, your title, and your organization. Willie Chan: Hi, my name is Willie Chan. I am a member of the corporate digital marketing team at Renesas Electronics in Silicon Valley. My primary focus within the group is to enable sales, from the digital demand creation point of view primarily. However, I’ve kind of taken it upon myself to also look at all aspects of sales enablement to address any areas of resistance in their sales process. For our listening audience, I should state that the opinions that I’m about express are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect those of Renesas Electronics. SS: Excellent. So, tell us a little

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we are here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so they can be more effective in their jobs. Thank you so much for joining us today. I would love for you to take a moment and just introduce yourself, your title, and your organization. Edwin Castillo: Yeah, absolutely. So, I recently joined 8×8. I am the new global VP for enablement, and that actually covers sales, our channel, and our customer and end-users. SS: Awesome, well, congratulations on your new role! I’d love for you to tell us about your experience in sales enablement. How long have you been doing enablement and how did you get to where you are today? EC: Yeah, absolutely. So, I’ve been in sales enablement for a little over 20 years, and my career actually started in the legal field. So, out of law school, I practiced business litigation for a co

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we are here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so they can be more effective in their jobs. Thank you so much for joining us today. I would love for you to take a moment and just introduce yourself, your title, and your organization. Kris Rudeegraap: I’m Kris Rudeegraap. I’m the CEO and co-founder of Sendoso. We’re a sending platform that helps other companies send out direct mail, gifts, and all that cool stuff you want to send offline. SS: Awesome. Welcome, Kris. We’re lucky to have you join us today. I would love to talk a little bit about today’s buyer, what matters to them, and how they’ve kind of changed the selling landscape. KR: Yeah, it’s a great question. I think today’s buyers really do a lot of homework in advance of buying. So, there’s a lot of information out there on the web and because of that, when salespe

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we are here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so they can be more effective in their jobs. Thanks so much for joining us today. I’d like to start by having you introduce yourself, your title, and your organization. Kirsten Boileau: My name is Kirsten Boileau. I am the head of digital enablement services under digital marketing for SAP. I sit in the global organization of the marketing department and I am essentially responsible for a lot of the training and enablement that happens around digital marketing, but also digital selling. So, I own our digital selling program which has been running for the last 5.5 years at a global level and a couple of years before that in a more pilot mode. Then, I also own the training and enablement around our launch of the marketing cloud as well as our training and enablement for the upsc

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO Podcast. I am 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 they can be more effective in their jobs. Thank you so much for joining us today. I’d love to start by just having you introduce yourself, your role, and your organization. Jenna Cronin: Sure. My name is Jenna Cronin, I’m the director of sales enablement at Unbabel. I’ve been in the sales, marketing, and enablement arena for about eight years now. I like to joke that I’ve held just about every job. I was a BDR, I did inside sales, I was a sales manager, and then a trainer, instructional designer, and found my love for enablement through all those different paths. It’s exciting to have that come together into one role. SS: Awesome. And Belen, can you introduce yourself as well? Maria Belen Eglez: Sure. My name is Maria Belen, I am the sales enablement manager here at Unbabel.

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO Podcast. I am 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 they can be more effective in their jobs. I would love for you to introduce yourself, your role, and your company. Cori Hartje: My name is Cori Hartje, and I lead the sales enablement team, as well as a group of folks that do technical training, for Poly. Our technical training side is what you typically think of as the “university” and our sales enablement side is a global team that does all things sales enablement – from onboarding to skills and improving the continual learning of our sales folks. SS: I would love to get some advice from you on how to go about seeking executive buy-in for global sales enablement initiatives. CH: You want to have the outline of the people, process, priorities, and programs – and products. You still want all those things discussed by sales l

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO Podcast. I am 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 they can be more effective in their jobs. I would love for you to introduce yourself, your title, and your organization. Cori Hartje: My name is Cori Hartje, and I lead the sales enablement team, as well as a group of folks that do technical training, for Poly. Our technical training side is what you typically think of as the “university” and our sales enablement side is a global team that does all things sales enablement – from onboarding to skills and improving the continual learning of our sales folks. SS: Well, I am so glad to have you today. It’s interesting, we were actually just coming out of the Sales Enablement Soirée event last week and one of the panels was really around change management. I know that you’ve been a part of Poly as it has experienced a

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we are here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so they can be more effective in their jobs. Today, I’m excited to have Laura Welch join us. Laura comes with a wealth of sales enablement experience from several notable organizations like Poly, and most recently HP. Laura, let’s dive in. SS: I want to talk to you first a little bit about sales training and gamification. How do you engage sales reps in sales training activities? What are some of the strategies you have for reinforcing what they learn in training sessions? Laura Welch: Well, I think one of the most important things about enabling sales reps is to provide training in a way that supports their sales activities. What I mean is, it doesn’t occur as an interruption or a problem. They don’t roll their eyes when they get invited to an enablement activity, and I

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we are here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so they can be more effective in their jobs. I would love for you to introduce yourself, your role, your company, and your background. Imogen McCourt: Yeah. So, my name is Imogen McCourt. I am the global head of sales enablement ops and training at Argus Media. Argus Media is a price reporting agency, so we supply the markets with data and insights to support trading and traders. SS: What are some of the ways that sales enablement can impact sales rep productivity? IM: Yes. It’s a good question and it’s important. It’s well understood. It’s a little bit like selling time. You know, are we making our reps as productive as possible? Are they doing the best things with their time when they have time in front of the client? I talked earlier about this route to rep concept, this id

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we are here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so they can be more effective in their jobs. I would love for you to introduce yourself, your role, your company, and your background. Imogen McCourt: Yeah. So, my name is Imogen McCourt. I am the global head of sales enablement ops and training at Argus Media. Argus Media is a price reporting agency, so we supply the markets with data and insights to support trading and traders. SS: Excellent. Thank you so much for joining us today. I would love to hear from you, some of the key components of a successful sales enablement function. In your opinion, what are sales enablement’s core responsibilities? IM: Okay, so I’ve been thinking about this and I’ll give a bit of context about how I got into sales enablement and I think that will help frame my answer. I started in sales enabl

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we are here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so they can be more effective in their jobs. I would love for you to introduce yourself, your title, and your organization. Sharon Little: I usually introduce myself by saying that I’m a salesperson at my core. I started, as so many do, setting appointments for salespeople, which is a tough job but a great foundational place for any sales career to begin. I deeply, truly love what I do in sales enablement. I work both for very large tech companies, software companies, as well as very small startups, and I’ve enjoyed every aspect of it. And in sales enablement, I think we’ve just kind of scratched the surface in terms of what we can do and what we can bring to business from a strategic and value-add standpoint. I couldn’t be any more excited to see what the next 10 years bring.

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am 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 they can be more effective in their jobs. I would like you guys to just do a brief introduction to you, your role, and if one of you guys could give a brief introduction to Deluxe, that would be great. Tieg Herman: My name is Tieg Herman and I lead product marketing and sales effectiveness at Deluxe Corporation. Megan Friedrich: And my name’s Megan Friedrich and I work on our sales effectiveness team at Deluxe Corporation. SS: I would love to understand what you guys are doing to kind of provide a more holistic view to your sales reps around the buyers, and what they have done to date in their journey with your organization prior to the rep reaching out so that the rep can have those educated conversations. MF: I think a lot of that starts with our technology and makin

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am 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 they can be more effective in their jobs. I would like you guys to just do a brief introduction to you, your role, and if one of you guys could give a brief introduction to Deluxe, that would be great. Tieg Herman: My name is Tieg Herman and I lead product marketing and sales effectiveness at Deluxe Corporation. Megan Friedrich: And my name’s Megan Friedrich and I work on our sales effectiveness team at Deluxe Corporation. SS: I would love to talk to you guys and better understand how long you have had sales enablement within your organization. TH: Yeah, we’ve really been focused on sales enablement for about five years. We’ve had different permutations of sales enablement for many years prior to that. But I think, along with the rest of the industry, we’ve

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am 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 they can be more effective in their jobs. Brenda and Heidi, thanks so much for joining us today. Could you each take a moment and introduce yourself and your role? Brenda Herlihy: Sure. So, I’m Brenda Herlihy, and I am in the sales operations and partner program operations for NVIDIA. My role is to manage our sales enablement systems, make sure the users get what they’re looking for and providing administrative support and management. SS: Excellent. And Heidi, could you introduce yourself? Heidi Castagna: Absolutely. I’m Heidi Castagna, and I’m the senior director of global sales enablement at NVIDIA. What that includes is a heavy focus on training for our internal sellers and our partner community as well as technical training for – whether it’s field engineering or solutio

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am 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 they can be more effective in their jobs. Brenda and Heidi, thanks so much for joining us today. Could you each take a moment and introduce yourself and your role? Brenda Herlihy: Sure. So, I’m Brenda Herlihy, and I am in the sales operations and partner program operations for NVIDIA. My role is to manage our sales enablement systems, make sure the users get what they’re looking for, and providing administrative support and management. SS: Excellent. And Heidi, could you introduce yourself? Heidi Castagna: Absolutely. I’m Heidi Castagna and I’m the senior director of global sales enablement at NVIDIA. What that includes is a heavy focus on training for our internal sellers and our partner community as well as technical training for – whether it’s field engineering or solutio

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we are here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so they can be more effective in their jobs. I would love for you to just introduce yourself, your title and your organization. Patrick Merritt: Sure. Hi, my name is Patrick Merritt. I’m a director of sales enablement at Puppet. SS: I want to talk about metrics. PM: My favorite topic. SS: You mentioned that there’s a difference between correlation and causation in measuring sales enablement’s impact on outcomes such as revenue because there are so many other factors involved. With that in mind, how do you measure the success of your sales enablement organization? PM: I don’t. So, let’s make this a little more interactive. Are you a sports fan? SS: I’m not. PM: Okay. But you know sports are played, right? SS: Yes. PM: Okay. So, maybe take something current. The Golden State War

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we are here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so they can be more effective in their jobs. I would love for you to just introduce yourself, your title, and your organization. Patrick Merritt: Sure. Hi, my name is Patrick Merritt. I’m a director of sales enablement at Puppet. SS: You mentioned in the past you reported to different roles across the company from marketing to sales. I would love to understand the difference from your perspective in how each structure affected sales enablement and what were some of the pros and cons? PM: Sure. Maybe I’ll start with just my strong opinion. Sales enablement should report to the head of sales. That is where it should report. Now, let me give you a few exceptions. If the head of sales doesn’t get sales enablement, then you have a choice. You either go ahead and work for the head o

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we are here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so they can be more effective in their jobs. I would love for you to just introduce yourself, your title, and your organization. Patrick Merritt: Sure. Hi, my name is Patrick Merritt. I’m a director of sales enablement at Puppet. SS: Excellent. So, Patrick, so glad we’re able to connect today. One of the things that I heard was that you’ve mentioned in the past that you coach people not to go into sales enablement because it’s a challenging role. From your perspective, what does it take to be successful in sales enablement? PM: It takes a lot of things. I think you have to really love the job. It’s not a job for the faint of heart because there are a lot of challenges. You have to love working with salespeople and you have to equally love working with marketing people, and you