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 we’re excited to welcome Joe Booth to the podcast. Joe, could you take a minute and just introduce yourself? Joe Booth: Yeah. My name is Joe Booth. I am currently the senior director of sales enablement and competitive intelligence for a company called SecureAuth and we’re in the cybersecurity space, specifically around identity access management. SS: Excellent. So, I want to talk a little bit about key competencies for sales reps. How can sales enablement professionals ensure that their reps are meeting these key competencies before they’re released out into the field? JB: Well, first you have to understand what the key competencies are, and that comes down to the priorities within an organization and the experience that the

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 we’re excited to welcome Joe Booth to the podcast. Joe, could you take a minute and just introduce yourself? Joe Booth: Yeah. My name is Joe Booth. I am currently the senior director of sales enablement and competitive intelligence for a company called SecureAuth and we’re in the cybersecurity space, specifically around identity access management. SS: I’m so glad that you were able to join us today, Joe. I would love to understand what sales enablement looks like within your organization. The competitive intelligence portion of your title is relatively unique. JB: Sure. I think the reason that competitive intelligence really lines up nicely with sales enablement is it all comes down to why we win and lose. I think a lot of tim

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. Our guest today is Zeb Couch. He oversees strategic enterprise accounts at LeadGenius. Zeb, could you take a minute and introduce yourself and your role? Zeb Couch: Sure. So, at LeadGenius, I’m heading up the strategic accounts team. Our focus over here is to help people figure out what data they need, what personalized data they need to run their sales and their marketing teams, and then once we are able to get them the data that they need, we help them figure out the best way to use it. SS: Excellent. So, being on the strategic account side, what are some of the ways that sales enablement processes have impacted your efficiency and productivity at your organization? ZC: I don’t know if you guys have found this but whenever I talk 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’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. Our guest today is Hillary Anderson, senior sales enablement manager at Host Analytics. Hillary, it’s great to reconnect with you. Could you take a moment and introduce yourself? Hillary Anderson: Yeah, for sure. So, my name’s Hillary Anderson. I work for a company called Host Analytics. We are in the enterprise performance management space, and our tools help companies with their various financial budget processes, forecasting, making sure that we can help them with planning, modeling, consolidating and reporting. I am a senior sales enablement manager there, and I’ve been at the company just shy of two months. Prior to that, I was over at a company called Hired.com. I started in sales there actually and built our enablement functio

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. Our guest today is Hillary Anderson, senior sales enablement manager at Host Analytics. Hillary, it’s great to reconnect with you. Could you take a moment and introduce yourself? Hillary Anderson: Yeah, for sure. So, my name is Hillary Anderson. I work for a company called Host Analytics. We are in the enterprise performance management space and our tools help companies with their various financial budget processes, forecasting, making sure that we can help them with planning, modeling, consolidating, and reporting. I am a senior sales enablement manager there. I’ve been at the company just shy of two months. Prior to that, I was over at a company called Hired.com. I started in sales there actually and then built our enablement funct

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. Our guest today is Hillary Anderson, senior sales enablement manager at Host Analytics. Hillary, it’s great to reconnect with you. Could you take a moment and introduce yourself? Hillary Anderson: Yeah, for sure. So, my name is Hillary Anderson. I work for a company called Host Analytics. We are in the enterprise performance management space and our tools help companies with their various financial budget processes. Forecasting, making sure that we can help them with planning, modeling, consolidating and reporting. I am a senior sales enablement manager there. I have been at the company just shy of two months here, and prior to that, I was over at a company called Hired.com. I started in sales there actually, and then built our enable

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. In this episode, we’re chatting with Paul Butterfield, the head of global sales enablement at Vonage. Paul is a proven sales and sales enablement leader who is passionate about helping sales teams differentiate the companies they represent and themselves by how they sell. So, let’s dive in. Paul, one of the things that you mentioned when you were on a panel at the Sales Enablement Soirée was around alignment. How do you make sure that you’re aligning core messaging to what a lot of us are thinking of as the modern buyer? Because nowadays, modern buyers don’t want canned messaging from their sales reps. How can enablement step in and really ensure that the things they’re getting from marketing to sales reps are actually resonating wit

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. In this episode, we’re chatting with Paul Butterfield, the head of global sales enablement at Vonage. Paul is a proven sales enablement leader who is passionate about helping sales teams differentiate the company they represent and themselves by how they sell. So, let’s dive in. Paul, we’re obviously seeing a lot of visibility and necessity for sales enablement, do you see that momentum continuing and where do you see things going in the future for the discipline of sales enablement? Paul Butterfield: I definitely see an increase in it from the standpoint that– well, I’ll give you an example. When I entered sales enablement, I had been running sales teams and selling software and hardware myself for the better part of 20 years.

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. Today, we’re joined by James Bridgeman, the head of sales enablement and operations for Siemens’ building technologies division. James has experience working with massive sales teams and markets across the globe, and we’re thrilled to have him on the podcast. James, as you know, we’re seeing more necessity for sales enablement, so I would love to hear from you, your perspective on if you see this momentum continuing, and where you see the evolution of sales enablement going. James Bridgeman: Definitely. Yeah, I absolutely see the continued importance and momentum behind sales enablement. Looking back, I think a lot of it was technology, systems, platform-based, technology stack-based. But what I’m seeing now is a combination of techn

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. Our guest today is Jen Spencer, VP of sales and marketing at SmartBug Media where she leads the sales, marketing, and brand strategy. Throughout her career, she has built many sales enablement programs from scratch and we are so excited to be hearing from her today. Jen Spencer: Of course, of course. I love it. SS: So, I want to jump a little bit over to the conversation that you led at the Sales Enablement Soiree. We really kind of had you focused on the content component. In the panel, you had actually mentioned that the lines are starting to blur between marketing content and enablement content. I would love your opinion on how they differ and then also how they work together. Jen Spencer: So I think when you’re creating content,

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. Our guest today is Jen Spencer, VP of sales and marketing at SmartBug Media where she leads the sales, marketing, and brand strategy. Throughout her career, she has built many sales enablement programs from scratch and so we are really excited to have her here with us on this podcast. Jen, I’m so glad that you’re here. You have a ton of experience in this space, coming from companies that have served the sales enablement space and also simply being a VP of sales and marketing which really kind of is at that intersection of sales enablement. So, as you know, we’ve seen increased visibility and necessity for sales enablement and I think that it’s a growing trend that we’ve both been watching over the last few years. Do you see this mo

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. We are welcoming John Dougan to the podcast again today. John is the director of global sales and productivity at Workday and he has spent most of his career helping organizations grow revenue through sales enablement. He is here to talk about some of his advice to build sales effectiveness. So, John, you’ve obviously written some pieces around sales enablement and one of the pieces of advice that you wrote about, it really resonated with me, and it was about making sure that sales enablement professionals understand the current state of the sales culture before they start taking on too many initiatives within their organization. For practitioners that might just be getting started within their function, I would love your advice to

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. We are welcoming John Dougan to the podcast today. John is the director of global sales and productivity at Workday and he has spent most of his career helping organizations grow revenue through sales enablement. He is here to talk about some of his advice to build sales effectiveness. Hi, John. We are glad to have you. Let’s just go ahead and dive right in. I would love to start asking you a few of these questions. We are going to start out kind of broadly. We are definitely seeing a lot of visibility and necessity for sales enablement. Do you kind of see this momentum continuing, and where do you see things going in the future for the discipline of sales enablement? John Dougan: That’s a great question, Shawnna. I think it is prob

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, 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. In this episode, we’re sitting down with Marcela Piñeros, senior director of sales enablement at New Relic. Marcela has over 20 years of experience designing and implementing learning programs in organizations across the globe in many different sectors, from corporate to academia. Without further ado, let’s jump right in. I’d love to just kind of hear from your perspective, how do you guys delineate between what a lot of companies consider traditional onboarding and where does that either dovetail or coincide nicely with traditional training components for sales reps? Marcela Piñeros: I look at it from the perspective of– and I don’t know, you’re probably familiar with the 5 Moments of Need, that framework? SS: No, I’m not actually

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. In this episode, we’re sitting down with Marcela Piñeros, senior director of sales enablement at New Relic. Marcela has over twenty years of experience designing and implementing learning programs in organizations across the globe in many different sectors, from corporate to academia. Without further ado, let’s jump right in. Obviously, we’re seeing a lot of increased visibility and necessity for sales enablement in general across all organizations. Do you see this momentum continuing and where do you see the evolution of the sales enablement role? Marcela Piñeros: First, I absolutely see the momentum continuing basically as long as enablement continues to be a competitive advantage. You can bet that revenue centers and sales centers

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. Joining us today is Christopher Kingman, the director of international sales enablement for TransUnion. Chris has extensive sales enablement experience in training and mentoring, and increasing seller efficiency and effectiveness, as well as problem-solving to increase sales productivity. I would like to better understand what have been your most impactful sales enablement initiatives to date and why? Christopher Kingman: When I was in the U.S. part of TransUnion, I created a program to address a very common sales problem. Most sales organizations, as they grow, take their best seller and they promote them to sales leader. But as we learn, and as a lot of people know, those jobs are very different. The skills that make you great at

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. Joining us today is Christopher Kingman, director of international sales enablement for TransUnion. Chris has extensive sales enablement experience in training and mentoring and increasing seller efficiency and effectiveness, as well as problem-solving to increase sales productivity. In your opinion, what does the optimal sales enablement organizational structure look like? Who and what have you found ideal to report into and how have you found it ideal to have the team structured? Christopher Kingman: I think optimally it should report into either an operational function or a sales function, either to an executive sales leader, somebody who oversees an entire organization, versus a portion of it. That way they can make sure that you

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. Joining us today is Christopher Kingman, Director of International Sales Enablement for TransUnion. Chris has extensive sales enablement experience in training and mentoring and increasing seller efficiency and effectiveness, as well as problem-solving to increase sales productivity. Hi, Chris. Welcome to the podcast. So, we’ll just start at the top and as things come up along the way we can take some detours, but we really wanted to start at the beginning. Obviously, we’re seeing increased visibility in the sea for sales enablement. Do you see this momentum continuing and where do you see things going in the future for this discipline? CK: I totally agree with that statement and I think a lot of organizations are in this “wait and s

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 we are joined by Cameron Tanner, who leads sales enablement for strategic accounts at Amazon Web Services. Cameron has several years of experience working with sales leaders to help drive productivity and empower their sales teams. Hi, Cameron. Thank you so much for joining us today. Cameron Tanner: Hey, Shawnna. SS: What are some of the crowd-sourcing best practices that you have seen by your top sales performers? CT: I think we can talk about peer-to-peer training for sure. I would say that’s one of the things on a personal level that I am fascinated with this year. First of all, if I was speaking to core enablement leaders out there, one of the most eye-opening things that I did is ask my organization: what am I doing that

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 we are joined by Cameron Tanner, who leads sales enablement for strategic accounts at Amazon Web Services. Cameron has several years of experience working with sales leaders to help drive productivity and empower their sales teams. Hi, Cameron. Thank you so much for joining us again today. One of the things I wanted to talk to you about was around sales enablement practitioners getting a seat at the executive table. There’s been some research, including our own Sales Enablement PRO State of Sales Enablement report for 2019 that indicates a lot of sales enablement practitioners are now reporting directly into the C-suite or they have a representative that reports directly into the C-suite. From your perspective, do you think it