Podcasts about cso insights

Building a strong sales culture is crucial for driving consistent revenue growth and attracting top sales talent. However, several challenges can hinder this process for corporations. Here are some key obstacles, along with research to support them: 1. Misalignment Between Sales and Other Departments: Challenge: When sales goals are siloed from overall company objectives, it creates friction and distrust between sales and other departments like marketing, product development, and customer service. This lack of alignment can lead to inconsistent messaging, poor product-market fit, and ultimately, dissatisfied customers. Research: A study by CSO Insights found that only 42% of salespeople believe their marketing department is "highly effective" at generating qualified leads. 2. Lack of Focus on Customer Experience: Challenge: When the sales process prioritizes closing deals over building long-term customer relationships, it creates a transactional and unsustainable approach. This mindset can lead to high churn rates and damage the company's reputation. Research: According to a Salesforce report, 76% of customers expect companies to understand their needs and expectations. 3. Short-Term Focus and Pressure to Meet Quotas: Challenge: An overemphasis on hitting immediate sales targets can lead to unethical practices, poor product/service recommendations, and ultimately, customer dissatisfaction. This short-term mentality can also discourage investment in developing long-term customer relationships and employee skills. Research: A study by the Harvard Business Review found that a focus on short-term sales goals can lead to unethical behavior, such as pressure to misrepresent products or services. 4. Inadequate Coaching and Development: Challenge: Without ongoing coaching and development opportunities, salespeople struggle to adapt to changing market conditions, refine their skills, and stay motivated. This can lead to knowledge gaps, outdated techniques, and a lack of engagement with the sales process. Research: According to a study by the Sales Management Association, only 20% of salespeople believe their companies provide them with adequate sales training. 5. Unclear Recognition and Reward Systems: Challenge: Inconsistent or unclear recognition and reward systems can demotivate salespeople and fail to incentivize the desired behaviors. When rewards are solely based on closed deals, it discourages collaboration, knowledge sharing, and long-term customer focus. Research: A study by Gartner found that 74% of sales reps are dissatisfied with their current compensation plans.   About My Guest Alan Versteeg Meet Alan Versteeg, an engineer turned sales management expert. Initially skeptical about the sales world, Alan applied engineering principles of cause and effect to sales management, transforming his career. He co-founded Growth Matters, developing over 2,000 sales managers across 45+ countries and diverse industries. His company Growth Matters: https://www.growthmattersintl.com/  Alan's LinkedIn Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanversteeg/   What We Discussed in this Episode on Mindset & Culture in Top Sales Teams - Key differences between average and top-performing sales teams. - How to cultivate a growth mindset in sales teams. - Practical strategies for developing a winning mindset. - Essential elements of a high-performing sales culture. - Creating a culture of collaboration and knowledge sharing. - Challenges in building a strong sales culture. - Trends shaping the future of sales.   **** Sign up for the Simply Human Newsletter (monthly email newsletter): https://simplyhuman.substack.com For show notes and past guests on the Growth Hacking Culture Podcast: https://www.peoplekult.com/podcast-work-culture Follow Ivan Palomino on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ivanpalomino_ Follow Ivan Palomino on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ipalomino/ 

Stats to Validate Planning and Targeting: According to CSO Insights, organizations with a well-defined sales process experience 18% more revenue growth compared to those without. Additionally, LinkedIn reports that 62% of B2B customers respond to salespersons who connect by sharing insights and opportunities relevant to their business, underscoring the importance of targeted engagement.Stats to Validate Inbound and Outbound Strategies: HubSpot's State of Inbound report shows that inbound marketing strategies generate 54% more leads than traditional outbound tactics. Moreover, 84% of B2B decision-makers start their buying process with a referral, highlighting the power of networking (LinkedIn).Stats to Validate Nurturing the Opportunities: Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at a 33% lower cost (Forrester). Furthermore, nurtured leads produce, on average, a 20% increase in sales opportunities compared to non-nurtured leads (DemandGen Report).Learn more at: https://glintadv.com/____________FOLLOW US:Blog: https://glintadv.com/blog/Podcast: https://theglintstandard.buzzsprout.com/Facebook:   / glintadvertising  Instagram:   / glintadv  LinkedIn:   / glint-advertising  Twitter:   / glintadv  Support the Show.

Barry Trailer is co-founder of Sales Mastery, a sales research and advisory firm focused on AI-for-Sales solutions and Sales as a Profession. His recent article with Sales Mastery, “Can AI Really Help You Sell?” was published by Harvard Business Review. Barry first started as a professional engineer before migrating to sales and founding CSO Insights, one of the best research firms in professional selling, acquired by Miller Heiman in 2015. Bringing his expertise in sales training and sales enablement to Miller Heiman, he conducted over 400 training workshops and has since continued on his mission of elevating B2B sales today.  Join us as we discuss what has changed and what has stayed the same in the world of selling and go in-depth into the sales relationship matrix. Highlights: Barry's journey in professional sales What has stayed the same and what has changed in sales today Sales Mastery's research with over 500 sales organizations Sales Performance Matrix Episode Resources Connect with Mark Cox https://www.inthefunnel.com/ https://ca.linkedin.com/in/markandrewcox https://www.facebook.com/inthefunnel markcox@inthefunnel.com Connect with Barry Trailer https://salesmastery.com/ Can AI Really Help You Sell? (2022): https://hbr.org/2022/11/can-ai-really-help-you-sell Sales School 2.0 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHvBKz1R6UtA47rx7dSMf1g https://www.linkedin.com/in/barrytrailer/   Call to Action In the Funnel Sales Workshop Free Sales Tools How to Listen: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

BEST OF 2021 In this episode, we catch up with https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamaraschenk/ (Tamara Schenk). She is a globally acknowledged sales enablement leader, analyst, advisor, award-winning blogger, and keynote speaker. Her experience spans twenty-five years in corporate leadership and includes designing the global sales enablement initiative for T-Systems where she led the global enablement and transformation team. Prior to co-founding Bartlett Schenk & Co., Tamara was research director at CSO Insights. During this time, she led various global sales enablement studies and co-authored the book "https://www.amazon.com.au/Sales-Enablement-Framework-Empower-World-class/dp/1119440270/ref=asc_df_1119440270/?tag=googleshopdsk-22&linkCode=df0&hvadid=341793170132&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11961950126512157448&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9071830&hvtargid=pla-467231400395&psc=1 (Sales Enablement – A Master Framework to Engage, Equip, and Empower a World-Class Sales Force)." Tamara also serves as a strategic advisor for Showpad. These are some of the questions we're discussing: From your experience, do a lot of teams that you work with have a good idea of their buyer journey or is it an aha moment that they really focused on? What role does content play in really positioning your sales team and being a strategic advisor to the buyers? Do you think sales enablement should be owned by a senior leader? Or is it something that can be derived from the bottom up? What's the maturity level of an organisation before it makes sense to introduce sales enablement as a strategic initiative or as a strategic function? What makes enablement so hard for those people that are in the thick of it managing that function? What are the challenges associated with that role? What is something to consider for people who are considering moving into sales enablement? What's your take on frameworks and what frameworks have you seen work and work not so well with an organisation? Which role does technology play in successful sales enablement initiatives? Here are some of the resources referenced in this episode. Tamara's book - Sales Enablement – A Master Framework to Engage, Equip, and Empower a World-Class Sales Force: https://www.amazon.com.au/Sales-Enablement-Framework-Empower-World-class/dp/1119440270/ (https://www.amazon.com.au/Sales-Enablement-Framework-Empower-World-class/dp/1119440270/) Sales enablement resources brought to you by Krueger Marketing: https://www.kruegermarketing.com/learn (https://www.kruegermarketing.com/learn) Connect with Tamara Schenk online: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamaraschenk/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamaraschenk/) Connect with Felix Krueger online:https://www.linkedin.com/in/hfkrueger/ ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/hfkrueger/) Where to find The State of Sales Enablement: Website (subscriber exclusives can be found here) -http://thestateofsalesenablement.com/ ( http://thestateofsalesenablement.com/) LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-state-of-sales-enablement-podcast/ ( https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-state-of-sales-enablement-podcast/) Apple Podcasts -https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-state-of-sales-enablement/id1558307853 ( https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-state-of-sales-enablement/id1558307853) Spotify -https://open.spotify.com/show/4ceCJYJLuCbTNbRTriOFpe?si=avn_E9EGSNu3gmHfoqJ_6g ( https://open.spotify.com/show/4ceCJYJLuCbTNbRTriOFpe?si=avn_E9EGSNu3gmHfoqJ_6g)

Join us in the Krueger Marketing podcast studio this week for another episode of The State of Sales Enablement. In this episode, we catch up with https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamaraschenk/ (Tamara Schenk). She is a globally acknowledged sales enablement leader, analyst, advisor, award-winning blogger, and keynote speaker. Her experience spans twenty-five years in corporate leadership and includes designing the global sales enablement initiative for T-Systems where she led the global enablement and transformation team. Prior to co-founding Bartlett Schenk & Co., Tamara was research director at CSO Insights. During this time, she led various global sales enablement studies and co-authored the book "https://www.amazon.com.au/Sales-Enablement-Framework-Empower-World-class/dp/1119440270/ref=asc_df_1119440270/?tag=googleshopdsk-22&linkCode=df0&hvadid=341793170132&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11961950126512157448&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9071830&hvtargid=pla-467231400395&psc=1 (Sales Enablement – A Master Framework to Engage, Equip, and Empower a World-Class Sales Force)." Tamara also serves as a strategic advisor for Showpad. These are some of the questions we're discussing: From your experience, do a lot of teams that you work with have a good idea of their buyer journey or is it an aha moment that they really focused on? What role does content play in really positioning your sales team and being a strategic advisor to the buyers? Do you think sales enablement should be owned by a senior leader? Or is it something that can be derived from the bottom up? What's the maturity level of an organisation before it makes sense to introduce sales enablement as a strategic initiative or as a strategic function? What makes enablement so hard for those people that are in the thick of it managing that function? What are the challenges associated with that role? What is something to consider for people who are considering moving into sales enablement? What's your take on frameworks and what frameworks have you seen work and work not so well with an organisation? Which role does technology play in successful sales enablement initiatives? Here are some of the resources referenced in this episode. Tamara's book - Sales Enablement – A Master Framework to Engage, Equip, and Empower a World-Class Sales Force: https://www.amazon.com.au/Sales-Enablement-Framework-Empower-World-class/dp/1119440270/ (https://www.amazon.com.au/Sales-Enablement-Framework-Empower-World-class/dp/1119440270/) Sales enablement resources brought to you by Krueger Marketing: https://www.kruegermarketing.com/learn (https://www.kruegermarketing.com/learn) Connect with Tamara Schenk online: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamaraschenk/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamaraschenk/) Connect with Felix Krueger online:https://www.linkedin.com/in/hfkrueger/ ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/hfkrueger/) Where to find The State of Sales Enablement: Website (subscriber exclusives can be found here) -http://thestateofsalesenablement.com/ ( http://thestateofsalesenablement.com/) LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-state-of-sales-enablement-podcast/ ( https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-state-of-sales-enablement-podcast/) Apple Podcasts -https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-state-of-sales-enablement/id1558307853 ( https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-state-of-sales-enablement/id1558307853) Spotify -https://open.spotify.com/show/4ceCJYJLuCbTNbRTriOFpe?si=avn_E9EGSNu3gmHfoqJ_6g ( https://open.spotify.com/show/4ceCJYJLuCbTNbRTriOFpe?si=avn_E9EGSNu3gmHfoqJ_6g)

The buzz: “It’s no secret that selling to other businesses is tricky. You simply won’t succeed if you don’t take B2B selling for what it is: a high-stakes selling game that requires an entirely unique approach from direct-to-consumer selling…develop a sales process that works for your business, prospects, and overall goals.” blog.hubspot.com Companies around the world spend billions yearly on sales and digital marketing activity aimed at generating new sales lead opportunities. But much of this budget is wasted if the sales organisation has a poor deal closing performance. CSO Insights’s Annual Sales Enablement Study found the win rate for forecast deals was just 46.4%. How do-performing B2B companies achieve up to an 80% deal close ratio? What do they know? We’ll ask Michael May at s-peers AG, and Simone Oesch and Frederik Uekermann at SAP to share their experiences, best practices, processes and skills training needed for sales enablement in this critical area of business.

2020 has been brutal thus far. Across the board, from C-suites on down, we are hearing that sometimes people feel they are accomplishing so much and adapting really well to new business practices and remote lifestyles, and other times it's as if they are walking around in circles, unsure where to even start and wondering if anything will ever be “normal” again.  John Moore, Vice President of Revenue Enablement at Bigtincan sits down to give some great insight and share his experiences with all of these conflicting scenarios. Bigtincan has employed a global remote team since it's 2011 launch, and has ironed out the virtual kinks that many companies are just seeing now for the first time. What else can they offer? Take a listen.  What we talked about: Pandemic protocols: Transitioning off site. Phase 2: Actionable enablement for your remote teams Re-Onboarding: How to approach coming back to an in person environment Checkout these resources we mentioned during the podcast: Link to the CSO Insights study John mentions: https://www.csoinsights.com/research-studies/ Learn about Hermann Ebbinghouse's memory studies For more engaging sales conversations, subscribe to The Sales Engagement Podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or on our website.

Jim Dickie is a Research Fellow at Sales Mastery and one of the original founders of CSO Insights. In this podcast, he shares examples of companies creatively using AI in their sales processes today and discusses how advancements in the Internet of Things (IoT) will have implications on the B2B buying experience. Listen to Jim and Jeremey discuss how AI and IoT will change the dynamic between buyers and sellers, transforming salespeople from vendors into collaborators and co-creators of solutions. Visit SalesLoft.com for show notes and insights from this episode.

Tiffani gives many modern strategies and examples that impact growth, GrowthIQ. She wrote the book she wanted to read, short bursts with 30 chapters and lots of visuals. What product you sell is interesting for you, how you sell them is process-oriented again for you, said Tiffani. What is important is how your customers feel when they engage at any level, and the tip of this is sales (whether offline or online sales). The act of selling must develop the feeling of personalisation and trust, said Tiffani, so the customer feels you know them. It's crucial that at the tip of the spear, that you are performing at a high level. If not, you are not getting the customer into your brand family. Then you do not have an opportunity to deliver customer support because they are not even a customer. You must start at the beginning and make it about that customer who wants to buy from you. Tiffani said it is difficult for sales organisations to switch because they are organised and measured and managed by how much they sell. Sometimes there is a conflict, what is best for the customer might be not to sell what you sell! If you said, "I have listened to you, and I just do not think this is right for you," stating that this level of trust gained said Tiffani, you cannot buy. The next time the customer approaches they know and trust that if it is right for them that you, the trusted advisor, will direct them. Tiffani advises on moving from product to customer-led to first understand which you are. Tiffani said, go and ask your team and then ask your customers? See if there is a gap between what your team and your customer believe. The question to ask your team is "do we do what's right, even if it means we will walk away from a deal." Tiffani points out because you are customer-led you must also be employee first, in the systems, process, tools, compensation plans, the training and the onboarding, stating because the customers are only as happy of your employees. When I started my career 25 years ago told Tiffani, we as sellers, held all the cards. When the internet began to take off the power dynamic changed. Customers started to do research, which meant that sellers have to re-evaluate their value. Some sellers have held steadfast to the way they have always sold. They have not been able to shift to knowing the trends or sharing what other clients in different industries are doing. The power shift means sellers must step up and be more willing to use technology than they have in the past. The most successful performers are good at using technology with human engagement. Research shows that half of the sellers will miss quota this year (CSO Insights), and 66% of a seller's time (Salesforce) is spent on non-selling activities. Companies do one of 3 things: High salespeople, increase marketing spend or cut cost. If I were still a sales leader, said Tiffani, I would focus on moving your middle performing salespeople by anywhere from 2-5% on quota attainment so you can increase top (and bottom) line without increasing headcount. Tiffani started in the legal sector and read everything and attending legal conferences. Tiffani has continued to ask and listen to whom she could learn from and to find whom can I ask. Consequently, Tiffani became comfortable with being uncomfortable with whatever she does not know, knowing full well that she will find out. Her career embraced Sales, Marketing and Customer Service. Deciding to be an analyst for a decade, she said was jarring, because it was such a different skillset. Salesforce has enabled her to bring together all her experience and skills. Tiffani advises the one thing that will give listeners the fastest impact to get results. "Go ask your customers what is the one thing that you are not doing or what you can do more off?" It is natural to do something new, sharing a story from her book GrowthIQ. If you discovered a gold nugget, you would mine that mountain before moving on to find the next discovery. Sell into your existing base as a priority. Stating it is the gold you already have, instead of the new, new, start with your current base of customers. www.linkedin.com/in/tiffanibova @Tiffani_Bova https://www.amazon.com/Growth-IQ-Smarter-Choices-Business/dp/0525534407

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 I’m excited to have Kristen McCrae with us from Intuit. Kristen, thanks so much for joining us. I would love for you to tell our audience a little bit about yourself, your role, and your organization. Kristen McCrae: Absolutely, thanks so much for having me today. I’m Kristen McCrae, and I work on the sales enablement and performance team here at Intuit. SS: So glad to have you. So, you and I met at the Sales Enablement Society’s annual conference recently, and you had a presentation where you talked about having a data-driven mindset for sales enablement. In your opinion, why is that so critical? KM: It’s such a great question and I think the answer is a little bit tricky, but when I was thinking about why data-driven enablement is so important, it really stems from these statistics that I’ve come across. So, CSO Insights estimates that about 60% of organizations have a sales enablement function, but of those, only 34% of respondents indicated that enablement was actually meeting a majority of their expectations. And I’ve heard similar statistics like this over the past few years, and I started thinking about, as enablement grows, how can we make sure that we have a seat at the table, that we’re respected, and that we’re adding value? I think that one of the reasons that enablement can be tricky is we wear a lot of hats. We can be the trainer, the go-to person when it comes to product marketing or content, but a lot of the things we work on don’t always impact success. There’s data everywhere, but you have to really find it and track it. And so, when it comes to that data-driven mindset, we have to find a way to quantify our impact – especially if one-third of our audience is feeling like they haven’t seen our impact yet. So, my challenge to every sales enablement practitioner is starting to think about what are you working on, how are you prioritizing it, and how are you measuring success to make sure that data-driven enablement has a seat at the table and is a highly respected field. SS: I couldn’t agree more, and I do think it is landing on the expectations of what success looks like. So, from your perspective, what are some of the core things sales enablement should track to really demonstrate the return that organizations are making on their investment in sales enablement? KM: I think it’s also a great question and I think it really comes down to understanding your business and how your business measures success. Every business is going to measure it a little bit differently. Like I said earlier, there is data everywhere, but sometimes it’s hard to find. So, you’ve got to make a commitment of how am I going to find this data, who can help me find it, and what story does it tell? And committing to the fact that with that data you are able to find, you are able to draw conclusions and you’re able to make sure that every single project that you work on has a before and after state when it comes to data. So, specific things that sales enablement should track I’m hesitant to answer. I think it’s more about uncovering what data is out there, what story does it tell, and what are you going to do about it, showing a before and after state of that data. SS: Absolutely. And you’ve said this a couple times, but with so many potential metrics to measure, how can sales enablement determine and prioritize the right metrics for their business? KM: Yes, there is so much data to track. And I know a really popular one is time to ramp, as an example. But there is so much more data out there, so you’ve really got to think about where can I start? What I would encourage folks to do is dig in, find metadata, and find how that metadata relates to a core KPI. This for me is what changed the game for me in enablement, when I was able to connect metadata to core KPIs. Those core KPIs for a business, for a sales leader, might be things like conversion rate, win rate, attach rate, average deal size, time to ramp. You want to look for things that your sales leaders are constantly pulling data about and that your executives with their board are constantly mentioning. Those are things that are top of mind for the business, so what can you do to impact that? You’ve got to drill into what metadata would correlate or cause here, and how can I find that metadata? What impact does that metadata have on that core KPI. I like to think of it as an onion. There are so many layers to the data. The biggest layer is that core KPI but peel those layers back and there are a lot of things that impact it. And that’s where you want to think about how I can impact that metadata to impact that core KPI. SS: Absolutely, and I think one other thing too, just because you mentioned it, I think defining certain terms within each organization is also important. You mentioned time to ramp, and I know I’ve had a lot of conversations with different sales enablement that all define even just the word “ramp” a little bit differently. So, I think that you are right, finding a way to ground it in the organization’s core KPIs is really critical. KM: Yes, it’s so true. There are so many different definitions of data and what it means, and then again, the metadata. So, be very specific in what you’re looking for, what type of data you’ve found, and again, it’s like an onion. If you’re measuring specific coaching data, you can start with coaching effectiveness. Well, how are you measuring that? How can you drill down deeper and deeper? The more you drill down deeper the more you are able to really identify the root cause, like what is causing this, positive or negative? And that’s where enablement gets really exciting, because you can start to build plans around creating results that ultimately impact that core KPI. SS: Absolutely. So, I know that you’ve done a lot of work on this. How can sales enablement use data strategically to truly quantify impact? Do you have an example of how you’ve used data to craft a compelling message? KM: So, in terms of how sales enablement can use data strategically to quantify your impact, it all starts with what’s happening now? Where’s the gap? And, how does data tell that story? Every enablement initiative should have a before and an after with a plan that drives that success. So, as an example of that, I always want to quantify current state, and what I did with one organization is I observed the time that managers were spending. There are so many amazing analytics out there that show correlation between sales coaching and performance. So, we know the more that managers are out there coaching, the more performance will come about. What I did was actually quantify how much sales managers were coaching, and what I found is that on average it was 5-10% of the time. I aligned with my sales leaders and showed that core KPI, that core conversion win rate that was being impacted, and said, what sales coaching percent do you want our managers to get up to and how do you see that impacting your core KPI of win rate? They got really excited and said we should really see managers coaching at least 30-40% of their time, and surely our win rate will increase. Through this initiative, again from that before and after state, I was able to say right now managers are coaching 5% of the time, through this initiative they are coaching 40% of the time. What we saw was not only an increase in conversion rate, that win rate, that core KPI, but we actually saw a 30% increase in RPC. So, for this specific organization that’s revenue per call, basically average deal size. So overall, we saw substantial increase in both core KPI metrics and what that led us to do was develop future enablement strategies around sales coaching and coaching effectiveness. Because I had that before state and that after state and how I was going to measure success, and that measurement was dictated by sales leadership, I had their buy-in, I had their endorsement, I had their excitement, and I was able to show how sales enablement strategically helped to drive that initiative forward. SS: That is a very impressive initiative, just kudos on that front. You mentioned alignment, right? So, who are some of the core stakeholders that enablement should partner with to both identify and track the right metrics? KM: I’ve learned that the more, the merrier with sales enablement. And that’s the tricky part about enablement, there are so many different people you can collaborate with. The more that really play a pivotal role, the better. When it comes to sales leaders, sales ops, marketing, I even try to work with product and engineering. Those folks in product can speak to the product in a way that no one else in the organization typically can. You can learn so much about the product, about the strategy, how it helps customers, and in return you can actually share it back and create that feedback loop with product and engineering about what you are actually seeing from the customers in the market. So, what I’ve learned with enablement is have as many seats at the table as you can, have one-on-one conversations with folks from every branch of the business, because everyone can offer something really unique, compelling and insightful to help develop your enablement strategy. I had the pleasure of sitting at a dinner after the Sales Enablement Society gathering, and we were talking about how teams measure success. So often in enablement, we think about sales leaders, sales ops, marketing, product, engineering, and customer success, and they are all these kind of separate silos in the organization, but what happens when those organizations actually share a KPI. And how can enablement be part of that? So, from this really insightful conversation, that’s what I’ve been really focused on lately is what are the shared KPIs across teams that can drive results that everyone is going to be excited about. Enablement really isn’t just sales enablement, it’s go-to-market enablement, it’s company enablement, it’s product enablement. So, what core KPIs can we drive together with a cohesive approach? And that’s just something that’s top of mind in partnering with other stakeholders in the organization. SS: Definitely. And on developing a sales enablement strategy, you shared in your presentation a 5-step process to execute sales enablement with a data-driven mindset. I’d love for you to disclose those five steps to this audience. KM: Yes. So, this five-step process is something that I’ve found to be very helpful in starting, building, and executing on a sales enablement initiative. Step one is observing and it’s my favorite spot. Basically, what you do when you observe is you become a sales rep. You ask questions. You want to relentlessly understand your customer and understand the current state. And not only that, but you want to understand what are the gaps and how can you fill them? Once you start to uncover common trends and gaps, you want to quantify that. Where are the gaps, what gaps being filled would drive the biggest change in output? And what can you do about it? Step two is all about aligning. Share these data-driven observations with your leaders and with your key stakeholders. Have an interactive discussion on why these gaps might be occurring, and bring a few plans, bring a few options to the table on how you might address it. Once you get their endorsement on “this is a gap that needs to be filled and this is how we can do it”, step 3 is development. Put together a really solid structured plan, and involve those executives, involve those leaders throughout the process. Also, involve key collaborative partners in the organization. The more people involved, excited, and bought in who really understand what their specific role is in driving this project’s success, the better. So, you develop out and you share. Step four is execution and this is where things can either go very well, or very poorly. The key to execution is make sure that those leaders who were bought in from the start have a key role in that execution. Whether that is sending out emails of enthusiasm, whether that is introducing you when you run a workshop, whether that is constantly reiterating the message you want to send across. Those key leaders need to be bought in and excited, and a key part of the execution. What I’ve found is that when you quantify and you are data-driven, and you say this gap is going to fill this core KPI, they are always involved and these are the things that they love to do and don’t have enough time to do in their day-to-day. So, it’s something that they are typically excited about being a part of, along with those other stakeholders. They all want to have a piece of the puzzle, and the more excited you get them, the more they understand clearly what their role is and how their success is measured, the more bought in they are going to be. Also, enablement can be tricky. Sometimes you are asking people to change or try something new or different. So, when you have leaders there, they are really able to help you navigate that change management process. If you get pushback, whatever might happen, the leaders have your back, and you can really to work together to continue forward. Step five is the really fun part, it’s quantifying. So, you’ve observed current state and you’ve quantified it – did those results happen? Why or why not? It is not a failure if you don’t have the results that you expected. That’s a compelling story in itself. So really dive deep, commit to understanding the metadata and the core KPI. What happened, what worked really well, and then build upon that as a foundation. Make sure that when you quantify, you don’t just put it out in an email, but you have time committed with those leaders who have been bought in from the start to give yourself credit. It’s okay to give yourself a pat on the back. I think the really exciting part about this is if you are really able to quantify your results and your learnings, then you are really able to justify your ROI. So, going back to an earlier point in the conversation, you’re able to say I brought value to the organization, here’s how I was a part of doing that – of course with many other folks involved. That’s where you get a seat at the table, that’s where you generate your ROI, and that’s where you’re able to build your team, become a highly respected business partner of the organization. I think that should be every sales enablement professional’s goal, to have that seat at the table through quantifying your impact. SS: I couldn’t agree more. And thanks so much for sharing your tips and tricks on how to get there. As my closing question to you, I would love – and I think I have a guess on how this will go – but as sales enablement continues to evolve, you do you envision the success metrics for sales enablement evolving? KM: It’s a fascinating question and one I love thinking about. I think that metrics are going to become a core responsibility and part of sales enablement. When a company is looking to hire a sales enablement professional, being stat-driven is going to be a must-have. And quantifying your impact is going to be an absolute ultimatum. I think it is so critical that we start to focus on those success metrics that tie to those core KPIs, and enablement is going to be part of that. When I talked about those shared KPIs earlier, enablement is going to get a seat at the table, but enablement is going to be responsible for showing here’s what I did that helped impact that core KPI. My advice would be, when you think about what you can work on tomorrow, how you can become more data-driven, stay-focused. Enablement can be tasked with so many different things in an organization, but just because those are the things you are tasked with now, doesn’t mean those are the things you’ll be tasked with tomorrow. Stay focused on just a few things you can deliver, really be methodical and strategic, develop that five-step process around an enablement initiative, and show your results. But focus, dive deep, and have more of a singular focus that wearing many hats. That allows you to really define enablement within your organization as a strategic function, and help drive future success, also help really impact the future things you are able to work on. So, when I think about success metrics, I think they are going to be tied to KPIs, but I think we’re going to have to stay really focused on what can enablement do, how can enablement be a strategic business partner, and what is the meta-data that we’re impacting that impacts those core KPIs. SS: Phenomenal advice. Thank you so much, Kristen. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us today. KM: Of course, it was really fun. SS: To our audience, thank you 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.

Yuri Dekiba, research director and sales operations expert at CSO Insights, the research division of Miller Heiman Group, joins host Greg Moore this week to discuss all things data strategy and sales technology. Dekiba offers her best advice on how executive sales leadership can own sales data strategy. She then gives a case study to show how taking a step back—going slow to go fast—results in sales operations, sales enablement and sales management working together to create a data strategy that accelerates seller performance.

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 idea of simplifying for our partners the way that they’re getting the right ideas, or the messages, or their tools to the rep, and I think that’s incredibly important because it stops them from being distracted by noise or pieces of content that aren’t really going to help them be super productive. I think you can look at it through the blunt instrument of how many reps, what’s the overall number they are closing? I think you can look at the next level down from that, which goes back to improved win rates, faster sales cycles, and really important for me is conversion rates from stage to stage through the sales process. Are they qualifying the bad deals out early? I just don’t want the sales organization to be focused on things that aren’t going to close. I want them to be thinking about the ones that really are showing true buyer signals and really going to go somewhere for us. I have another element to introduce to this as well. I sort of feel like I think about this both in a quantitative manner and a qualitative manner in all things. Very broadly, there’s this common perception that sales reps think about how they can earn their money. They’re money motivated. And I certainly wouldn’t disagree with that at all. But I think if you are really trying to drive world-class sales organizations and world-class sales rep productivity, you need to think very seriously about how your teams are motivated and how you can create a constantly curious approach to their attitude. That is for me is how you get to real productivity. So, engage with them, find their motivators, understand what underpins them, what strengthens their resilience, what gives them grit at the end of the quarter or the end of the year. And then provide them with what they need to be really, truly productive by hitting those motivators, by helping them be strong even when they’re tired at end of quarter, as I said. There is some context to this. Many years ago, I worked on a consulting project which was about benchmarking process costs. One of the things we looked at, and we looked at absolutely everything we could think of, was employee seconds. How productive per second can we get an employee to be who was running a process? And I still remember to this day that if you work a 40-hour week, then you have 7.5 million employee seconds per year per person. That’s a crazy number to remember but it will stick with me forever. So, honestly doing this project, we thought about hungover mornings, we thought about structured bathroom breaks, we thought about timed tea breaks, but it’s not about that. That is upside down or inside out. It’s about helping people know exactly what the next best thing to do is and where that information is, how to find it, and how to know whether it’s working. We can look at productivity ratios in dollars or pounds or per head, and it’s a strong steer, but if you’re really motivating people and you can see what’s working, you can also see what’s not working and you can back that out and you can try and fix it. SS: I love that. I love that. Have you found any consistencies on what are the components that do motivate most reps? IM: Well, yes. Interestingly, we have. Now, this isn’t rocket science. It is about helping the very executive leadership in an organization and even the most senior people in a selling organization realize that your commission structure takes you so far with your reps, but actually they all want to be developed and invested in and see what their future looks like. They want to know that they are loved and cared for in a place that’s going to actually drive some success for them. So, what we have done most recently is a huge piece of work to roll out competencies and to roll out objectives for our organization. Now, it was a hard piece of work to do. It took a long time and a lot of resources. We wanted to complement competencies with clarity on behaviors and skills, and we did this top to bottom. CSO to entry-level, we mapped out and we looked at with working groups and with external best practices what would make a fantastically successful Argus sales rep anywhere in the world, anywhere in their career. So, we rolled out objectives and competencies, as I said. At the end of one of the first working sessions we did when we were rolling this out to the sales teams, a salesperson came up to me and said, “Imogen, I finally understand not just what my company want me to do in terms of hitting target, but how they think I should be doing it, what will make me successful, and what I need to do to develop and advance my career at Argus. And I feel like I can own that success and I know where to go to develop myself, to get to the next stage.” So, that person is no longer sitting at their desk ticking the boxes and doing the administration and CRM to show that they are busy. They are now genuinely owning and thinking about what their next step could be and how to do something to make them productive and successful. That’s fantastic. If they feel empowered then we are a long way into making them really, truly productive as well. SS: Absolutely. And you alluded to executives and sales leaders as well, and how is it that you think sales enablement needs to work with those sales executives and sales leaders to both get their buy-in as well as help move them forward as well and get them to see the value of sales enablement? IM: Well, I sit at the table. I report to our chief sales officer and I meet weekly with our global COO, and I think that exposure is really important. I think making sure that you understand why your company is investing in sales enablement as a department and that your meeting or driving or steering those objectives and that you’re constantly revisiting them with your sponsors. So, I talked about the purpose statement or the vision or the charter and making sure that you’ve got your executive sponsors involved in that. I think if they feel bought in from the beginning and influential from the beginning, that really helps. And if you can lay out for them what you’re going to be focused on, whether that is short-term payback, whether that is lots of iterative changes over several years, or whether that’s a long-term return of investment, then if they get twitchy, if they start to ask, “well, what are we doing this quarter, what are we rolling out this quarter?” It doesn’t matter because we can take them back another level and say, “look, we are continuing to hit our numbers, we are driving productivity, we’ve brought in a bedrock for change and guess what, 12 months ago when we sat down, these were the core areas that you asked me to focus on.” So, that’s one element to it. We touched on the idea of making sure that you know your audience and you’re spinning your information – spinning seems a bit strong – but you are articulating and clearly talking about the metrics that matter to the audience members, depending on where they are in the organization. My CSO and my COO, they honestly don’t care how many people have been through training or how many hours or how many pieces of content we’ve developed for them. They do care that we have reps who are staying, that are onboarding quickly, and that know how to be successful fast, and they are the sorts of things I talk about with them. We have a quarterly sales leadership meeting. I’m part of designing that and I’m obviously in that as well. So, we talk about initiatives and we get people re-engaged and thinking about what they will do when they go back to their desk, when they go back to their regions, and how they are part of driving that success forward. I never talk about sales enablement success. I always talk about their success, how we can get them closer to the number and how the metrics that perhaps trip off the tongue very easily to us about win rates and conversion rates, why that’s important to every single rep that they have in their teams. SS: Excellent. It is important to have a seat at the table. You also alluded earlier that it’s important to make sure that that sales operations and training are components of enablement. Within a lot of organizations, there can often be a hierarchy struggle. Sometimes sales enablement reports into operations and sometimes vice versa, and it sounds like you’re making the recommendation for operations to fall under enablement. IM: I’m not somebody who cares particularly about hierarchy and perhaps that does me a disservice, so I think the recommendation is that these teams are core partners with each other. I know that my sales enablement programs wouldn’t work without the insights and the skills that our sales operations team bring to that. Of course, I built a department where enablement and ops and training are seen as equals and work together as equals. There’s been a lot of work to think about the value that we offer to each other and we think about something as end-to-end, and I had a blank sheet of paper basically so I could do that. I have a group of people, let’s call them sales operations, who bring deep analytical and strategic planning to the table and they’re very tactical, spotting snags in our process or managing or looking for leading and lagging indicators to opening up and viewing where the future opportunity might be. I add to them sales enablement people who tend to be more plugged into the day-to-day sort of selling environment. And we have the training, so we can bring this to life and execute on the things that sales ops might have spotted that need fixing. I think that end-to-end, we operate as one. A rising tide raises all ships, right? But it is amazing to have a group of people who can do that analysis, who can have a look at the metrics. You know, we have reporting on tap and we have the complementary skills from the enablement and the training team. I think as long as everybody understands the aim and the purpose, the name or the business title of the people you are working with isn’t necessarily the most important thing. It’s more about do we have the right team in place, bringing the right skills or competencies to what we’re trying to achieve, and can I get everything out of the way to make sure that they can deliver on it? Do I think enablement should report to ops or ops should report to enablement? I honestly don’t think it matters. I think what does matter is that you have a common understanding and it’s about mutual benefit, which is we’re all successful when our sellers are successful and when we’re growing as a company. SS: I love that. That was the perfect answer. IM: Well, it’s my perfect answer because that’s what I design. I’m sure there are companies that would need better, deeper process first, or operationalization first, but you can’t do one without the ability to bring that to life and the selling conversation is the design point here. Come together and think about how to make our sellers successful in front of our clients and differentiate in the client environment and we’re all successful ultimately. SS: How would you for other practitioners who are just getting started, where would you recommend they spend their first hundred days? IM: My god, learn from my mistakes I think is probably right, I would direct them. Everybody says when you join a company, spend a lot of time listening. I think sales enablement practitioners come from all sorts of backgrounds. Mine was clearly sort of process and engineering but also with a commercial background. You have people who come out of HR and training, people who come out of ops, people who come out of marketing. So, I would come up to speed on the areas that you’re less strong on first. I would spend time with the sales leadership team and listen for themes or issues or problems. Money is being spent if you are building a sales enablement practice, so you go back to the “why”. Why is that, where did it originate from, is it internal or external? Ours was external. It was a private company who said you’ve got to think about how to do sales enablement. You should invest in that. So, I had more time to spend selling the power and the outcome and the impact of having a sales enablement department. Then, if you possibly can and if it’s a new company to you, go out with your sellers. Use the newbie card, ask to go on the road with them, make sure there’s a good narrative for why you’re in a client meeting. Listen to calls if you can’t get out on the road but really understand how your clients engage. I actually own client success as well and so I spend a lot of time thinking about them, hearing what sort of questions we get through the client success team. That’s a great way to get to the reality of how your customers and your prospects are actually experiencing working with you as a company with your services, what sort of value they’re seeing because perception is truth there. So, whatever you’re being told by marketing or the product teams or your selling team, what the client says is really the truth. So proactive listening to all of those different groups of people and then think about the processes that are in play, are they well embedded, are they well understood, do you hear the language of that process outside of the sellers’ organization or not? Think about your tech landscape. Is it designed for selling or is it designed for fulfillment or finance, and what do you need to sort of clean that up or invest in? How are relationships with marketing? It is one of those friction areas in all companies. What can you do there to try and get some quick wins? And then, and only then, sit down and write your strategy paper and propose the charter. Honestly, genuinely, try and give yourself or buy yourself as much time as possible before committing to paper what you’re delivering over 12-18 months, two years. Align it to the go-to-market strategy, align it to the key company metrics and outcomes, and any advice you can get from anywhere, listen and take it. You know, I’ve been doing this for 12 years, longer probably for my sins. I will still come into a company humble and listen first and then believe that I have bought myself the right to speak aloud with my ideas and some of the things I think should be driving towards. SS: I love that. On the note of the sales enablement charter or purpose, given that you’ve been in this space since the very beginning in 2007, how would you define its evolution over the years? IM: Sales enablement generally. Gosh. So, I mean obviously people hadn’t even thought of enablement and there was definitely this, “well yes, I’ll give you some scraps from the table and let’s see what you can do.” But in my world, I had this gift of working with these great brains and these great leaders right from the beginning. I think that we are less apologetic and defensive. I hope people aren’t offended by me saying that. You know, other sales enablement professionals might have felt they’ve never had to be defensive or proving themselves. But I think in terms of us as a community, I think that a) we have a voice now and I think that’s really, really fantastic. You know, I think some of the things like the Soirée, the Sales Enablement Society, Sales Enablement PRO, it’s a really, really lovely way to show we’re starting to show some real change and some real impact. I think that we seem to care about each other. Everybody I’ve come across is very collaborative and there seems to be less focus on this idea of where do you report, or where do you come from. I touched on it. Did you come from HR, did you come from finance, did you come from ops? I think we’re starting to focus less on where we came from and more about what we are trying to achieve. I also think in my experience, sales enablement is less – well perhaps this is not fair – but it is moving away from just being the VP of broken things. We’re starting to be more about the VP of “can we get some stuff fixed”, or get it done, and we’re starting to have the right to say no to people within an organization. We’re defined enough to say, “no, that is not our remit now.” This is what and how we are delivering value, and this is why I’m saying no to, for now anyway. I think there are some really strong frameworks, there are fantastic proof points, and frankly, we’ve become a market. There is technology now designed to sell into us. That means that we have a budget in a way that we didn’t have before. As soon as you get interesting for vendors, you know that you’re an organization or a movement that is interesting beyond just what people are trying to do internally at their companies. SS: There are a lot of practitioners in the space that see the future of sales enablement as becoming a growth function. I would love to hear your thoughts on that. IM: Honestly, many of us are still trying to build a really slick present for sales enablement. But with that said, I do believe in the maturity curve. I do believe that we have become more than just a set of tactical executions, that there is discipline around sales enablement now, and I think we’re moving to it being considered more of a strategic approach. So, Tamara Schenk talks about it in her CSO Insights work, and eloquently as well. These are her thoughts, but I know that I have said to my last two employers, if I do this well, you’re not going to notice. You’re not going to be distracted, you’ll find yourself doing a new business as usual, and it will be better and you’ll be more successful and it will be repeatable. And when you have that experience as a sales enablement professional or as an internal customer of sales enablement, that’s when we’ve really moved it towards a strategic approach, and I think that we’ll continue to move in that direction. We won’t talk about big, flashy sales enablement rollouts or programs. We won’t find ourselves firefighting and tactically addressing things, or rather we will probably always be doing that. But this new normal. And don’t get me wrong, I’m thinking 10-15 years from now. It will be about programmatic output and it will be so well accepted across the company strategy and sales strategy that the frameworks and the approach will just be embedded in everything that we do. I don’t think the department or the idea of sales enablement will go away but ultimately, it’s about all departments in a company thinking about go-to-market and moving as one to make that as easy as possible to sell to and to maximize how the clients and our prospects hear about all the great things we’re doing, and that it’s resonating with what they’re worried about and thinking about. So, I hope that makes sense. I’m basically saying we are maturing, and we will move away from a set of functional, practical, tactical programs and become just a strategic approach, just embedded in the way companies think about their selling organization. SS: I think that’s a beautiful future for sales enablement. IM: Well, it puts me out of a job, but yes, I genuinely hope that’s something we can move towards in the next 10-15 years. If I may, I have one more thing to add. I think that one of the things that’s really powerful about what’s happening in sales enablement in the next stage in our maturity curve is the fact that there is technology that’s designed for us. We’re not having to accept tack-ons to CRM systems. We’re not having to think about vanilla content management platforms, that we’re genuinely empowering our selling organization and we can start to look at and track and manage and show them the leading indicators of using a particular piece of content or a particular approach. I think that’s a really lovely place to be. I can see huge acceleration in how we drive success going forward and I’m excited about that. SS: On that note, if you had to give advice to some of the vendors in the space around how to make sure their platform is really truly built for sales enablement, what would that advice be? IM: Well, we worry about making sure the client is truly represented and the clients can be so broad spectrum. I think that helping us keep the client first, helping us think about not who is our seller or how mature is our seller or how experienced is our seller, but actually who are our clients, what do they worry about, what are their buying roles, helping us get our content to our sellers based on that. That’s really powerful and that would be really, really helpful. SS: Thanks for listening! For more insights, tips and expertise from sales enablement leaders, visit salesenablement.pro. If there is something you would like to share or a topic you want to know more about, let us know. We would love to hear from 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 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 enablement properly in about 2007 when the company I was working for, which was Forrester Research, asked me to think about and design a simple sales process to underpin the global selling approach. That went very well and that gave me a lot of exposure to the day-to-day world that our sales reps were living in and trying to be successful within. Forrester asked me to pick up the global sales enablement organization. Bear with me with this story and I promise I’ll answer your question at the end of that. There was already a great sales training team in place, so I picked them up and I had access to a small sales operations group that was in finance. This same time as I was doing that, we had Scott Santucci and Brad Holmes building and launching Forrester’s sales enablement practice selling research to our clients. So, as a company, Forrester really wanted to show that we believed in what we were telling our clients, that we were doing it right, and we would be putting those best practices into practice. So that was an incredibly supportive time, but it was very scary scrutiny to be under. The other thing that was playing out at that time, and remember that this was around 2008 or 2009, is that sales enablement was really coming into focus as a discipline, as a strategic approach. I think to some extent that was because of the global economic turmoil that we were operating in, our businesses were operating in, and particularly in tech, there was huge pain and complexity of selling and competing in a very crowded market, low barriers to entry and lots of companies that were starting to have restricted or no budgets to spend. So, companies needed to find a way to differentiate themselves and to stand out, and they couldn’t do that just through their products and services anymore because, frankly, they were constantly being updated and they were constantly new entrants into the market. So, we needed to think about how we could differentiate through the way we sold as well as what we were selling. And so, I believe that sales enablement really started to maximize on that, this idea of the routes to the rep to get the messages and the tools and the content out to the frontline sales teams quickly and easily, and to make sure they were designed around the client conversation. So, stopping random acts of sales enablement, making sure the reps weren’t distracted and ensuring the simple, professional, consistent way to selling. That is the thinking that for me drives the reality of who and what should be in a successful sales enablement function. It is perhaps a very longwinded way of saying that, in my experience, and I’ve built sales enablement structures from scratch a couple of times now, that very first structure plays out still. It still works. Sales enablement works well when you also have the training, the sales training organization, and you have sales operations. So preferably not just access to sales operations, but actually have that dedicated resource inside your group. Once you’ve got those elements or those key components in place, it is what you do with them and that sort of differentiation that makes the difference. We hear this a lot, but I will reiterate other people and add my own flavor to it, I think those groups of people really need to be operating to a clear and agreed vision. So you can call it a charter or a purpose statement, but that vision needs to be understood, it needs to be documented and by preference it needs to be made by the whole team and preferably, you’ll have your executive sponsors involved in crafting it as well. So, a very simple, clear vision or charter. Then I think to make sure there’s a high level, clear sales process in place, preferably aligned to the buying and buyer motivations that you work with, but fundamentally staged and articulated so you can build your framework and your metrics on the back of that. And of course, that leads to the clear and measurable outcomes that you are trying to achieve. Those measurable outcomes need to be linked to vision, to purpose, and they need to bring that charter to life. How does that charter, through the metrics, link directly to the bookings number? I probably should have started by saying that having the skill sets and competencies of enablement and operations and training is really important, but it is also that fantastic team, that team of people who are really commercially minded and proactive in their approach, that they may not have ever been sellers. To some extent, I don’t think that matters as long as they can understand how to build and drive toward a commercial target, and that they can think about how to orchestrate initiatives so that they come to life in the conversation with the client. So, yes: process, vision, charter, clear measurable outcomes, and simple high-level sales process. Then, the responsibilities are to ensure that the organization thinks about simple, clear, consistent, and I would even say repeatable, drivers for success for the commercial team. Stop the noise, think about the rep, the route to rep, and make it really easy for your other departments and the other initiatives and projects that are going on in the organization to be heard and to really manifest for the sellers. So, there you go. I know that’s a longwinded answer, but I hope that sort of clearly articulates my thoughts on this. SS: I love it. In fact, I want to tee off of something that you mentioned and that’s that sales enablement needs to be focused around those core key metrics for success. I would love to understand from you what you think those are. IM: Ah, the key metrics for success. Okay, so obviously ultimately, we are tied to our selling organization being successful. Have they hit their booking number or their growth number and can they get there? I think that there are multiple things within that, though. So, do you know who your audience is, do you know who you are trying to prove or sell your success to? And how can you prove or track that? So, let me unpack that a little bit. I work a lot with our C-suite. We’re a private equity-backed company so our C-suite care about e-bit DAR ratios, they care about making sure we are showing double-digit growth, and they care about high employee engagement. So, my job in leading this department is to make sure that our metrics ultimately can tie back to that, can be proved to show that we’re moving the needle at the company level. That is audience #1, if you like. My next audience is the CSO. That’s who I report to. She is accountable for cost of sales, for productivity in her organization and that’s sort of per capita per person. She looks at deal size and renewal rate as health factors. Now I do think that some of those things can be slightly blunt instruments. You know, take the number of salespeople and divide that by the number you hit; does that really prove productivity? But to some extent at a high level, that’s the first metric. Have we improved sales productivity year on year? At Argus, we can show that we’ve improved sales productivity by three percent every year even while adding on quota carriers to that group, so ultimately, we know we’re moving in the right direction. They are high-level ones. I think the next most important set of metrics are focused on the frontline sales leaders and ultimately the reps themselves. In order for me to move the needle and really make a difference here at Argus or in any company, I think, we really need the sales leaders to engage with us. I need their hearts and their minds. They’re the people who see whether we’ve affected change, see whether we can embed a behavioral change. So, what do they care about? Ultimately, they care about whether their reps are hitting their number and whether they can hit their number and providing them with sort of attention-grabbing metrics are really powerful. So as old school as conversion rates and win rates, but I think that really helps there. Some of the other metrics we look at, and I’m going with a fairly broad brush here because the metric will be specific to the project or the program of work that you are delivering on, but the other thing we look at, of course, is the people we work with outside of the sales organization, be that marketing or the product team, or subject matter expertise that we’re trying to use as the resource, I really want to make sure that they feel part of delivering on something. Again, we look at conversion rates there, we look at win rates, we really want to help them show that they’ve done something valuable in delivering a difference or having an impact on the selling conversation and the success that people are having within that. I do have one other element about metrics, and I know I’ve talked about how it will be dependent on the program work that you are focusing on. I think it is essential to own the narrative around the metrics as well. So always, always try to celebrate collective success, but – well, I’ll give you an example. At the moment, and I did touch upon this at our panel discussion as well, but we are doing a program of work to look at how we are selling consulting. And if we look at the CRM data and what we see there, it says that our consulting projects take 13 days to close and we get a 90%-win rate. Fantastic. That looks amazing. Nobody believes that. The work that my team are doing will probably look at the CRM metrics and look at how we can better expose deals earlier in the process, whether we can really reflect true pipeline management, whether we can ensure that resource is leveraged at the right time in the right place through doing that, and that, without question, will look like it’s slowing down the sales cycle time and look like it’s absolutely decimating the conversion rates. But because I’m going to own the narrative on that, from the absolute beginning and outset, I will tell the organization what we are going to do and what they will probably see as a result of that. It’s okay. It’s okay to take us to a place where the numbers look worse but actually the long term understanding of why we’re doing this is understood and is bought into. SS: At the Soirée you had mentioned how important it is for sales enablement professionals not to be afraid of the metrics, and I think that you’ve been talking through some really great ones and really kind of explaining what it means to own the narrative, and not always be so reliant on whether the initial onset numbers are showing positive results or not, that it is the long-term gains. Are there some key examples of that that you can provide to our audience, just some things that they should be thinking about? IM: So, I’ve been lucky enough to set up sales enablement departments from scratch and I said that at Soirée as well, and that’s given me the opportunity to get the clock running or start reporting running. It’s almost like drawing a line to say this is what it was like before sales enablement, and this is what it’s like since sales enablement. And I think those sorts of comparisons really help when you’re selling an impact or trying to explain to people what metrics for success should be. I look for external benchmarks too, so CSO Insights do fantastic work through their research on what other organizations are doing and how that has impacted conversion rates or renewal rates. So, thinking about how we are doing against external benchmarks is really good. I think that if you truly believe in what you’re doing and why you’re doing it and you can articulate that why, then you can very quickly get to the correct metric to track against it. And you know we’ve talked about looking like we’re failing when our numbers change, but if we really do fail, fail forward, learn something, and stop if you’re not having an impact. We talked about the audience metrics earlier on and we talked about the reason for doing some of these things. I think that we should talk about things like – well, I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you some examples. We did a piece of work on looking at the cost of sales for servicing our smaller clients or smaller spend clients, but people who are incredibly important to us anyway. I worked with our marketing department on that, in particular, and we created this automated client value program. Now ultimately, the problem we were trying to solve was that all salespeople at all levels in the organization had these low-value contract value clients and they were spending a lot of time and effort working on them, and the clients weren’t necessarily getting the service that they really wanted. So, we were trying to improve the value that these clients were receiving and also move our expensive selling resource off doing that all the time, so they were the metrics that we were looking to track to see if we could have impact on. The program of work has been running for about a year now. We can see that usage is up in those clients that have been brought into or opted into that program of work, so they are using us more, and that’s a key indicator of a new role for us. And even after a year, we can see that the open rates on those emails is holding steady over 50% and even more than that, we’re having a 17% clickthrough. We’ve had one unsubscribe and that was actually the guy testing the process internally for us. So, we have some really strong and clear metrics that we can show there in terms of we have changed the way that the seller’s portfolio is built. They don’t have to support these clients anymore. The renewal rates are staying up and, in fact, they are staying high because of increased usage. The emails are obviously of value and interest because you’ve got huge clickthrough and open rates, but there’s another element to it as well. Andrew came to me about six months into the process and he said this program of work is something that he had been trying to do and trying to think about for a really long time. He said he hadn’t known how to go about getting sales buy-in to thinking about it or to do it, but that this had given him the opportunity to try out some things that he believed would really make a difference and that he felt like a complete rock star because of the open rates. So, we could look at the impact that we had for the sellers, we could look at the impact we could have for the clients. But we could also, through that lovely statement, see that we were working collaboratively and well with our partners internally. I know for a fact he was telling his colleagues about that experience, that he was talking about the great experience of working with sales enablement and seeing it made an impact. And so, I know that we have an open door with our marketing team now to try some things with sales and try things that they might not have necessarily been open to. We can’t say up-front it definitely will work, but we have an open there, we have an in, and that’s a lovely other metric to think about when we’re putting these things together. SS: Thanks for listening. For more insights, tips and expertise from sales enablement leaders, visit salesenablement.pro. If there is something you would like to share or a topic you want to know more about, let us know. We would love to hear from you.

Tamara Schenk, CSO Insights Research Director and co-author of Sales Enablement, joins host Greg Moore to discuss how sales leaders can evolve sales enablement at their organization, taking it from the rough to a sparkling diamond. She also offers her best advice for putting theory into practice and discusses upcoming research from CSO Insights, including the Sales Enablement Study coming this autumn.

CSO Insight Study Results are Troubling – Has the Canary Died Yet? Seleste Lunsford, Chief Research Officer of CSO Insights discusses the startling results of their latest World-Class Sales Performance Study: All that Glitters is Not Gold, with Funnel Radio host Jim Obermayer.  Lunsford talks about how the respondents in the study reported increases in quota attainment and revenue last year, however, key metrics show a decrease in adherence to sales best practices from previous studies.  The authors of the study state that there is possibly a misleading nature of sales effectiveness metrics collected from the nearly 1,000 sales organizations.   Is this a canary in the coal mine scenario? The survey shows that world-class sales organizations have systems driving performance that smaller organizations lack. Why is the report so important this year? What was the triggering event that prompted the study? Is this study generally only about companies with large ticket products and services? What are the most startling results? What are the sales effectiveness metrics that alarmed you? Does the study tell the reader what to do about the failures?  About the report and how to get a copy:   “All that glitters is NOT GOLD” 2019 World-Class Sales Practices Study Sections: Section I: The Deceptively Shiny State of Sales Section II: Customer Engagement Section III: Performance Support Section IV: Strategy Alignment Study Parameters: The 2019 World-Class Sales Practices Study collected data from more than 1,500 respondents from January through March 2019. The analysis was conducted on responses from 949 sales leaders. This sample was global in nature and spans across B2B industries, with particularly strong representation from the technology, manufacturing, healthcare, professional services, and banking/finance sectors. GET THE REPORT GET THE REPORT SUMMARY About Seleste Lunsford Seleste Lunsford has consulted with sales and service organizations for more than 20 years, helping them acquire, grow and retain client relationships. As Managing Director of CSO Insights, Seleste guides CSO Insights’ research focus areas and define its market deliverables. She has co-authored two books, “Secrets of Top-Performing Salespeople” and “Strategies that Win Sales.” She’s proud to have supported some of the world’s most recognized companies including AAA, Alliance Bernstein, American Express, Arrow Electronics, Citibank, Convergys, U.S. Department of Defense, Office Depot, Traveler’s Insurance, and Verizon Wireless. About CSO Insights Independent research backed by one of the world’s premier selling and service brands  CSO Insights is the independent research arm within Miller Heiman GroupTM, dedicated to improving the performance and productivity of complex B2B sales. The CSO Insights team of respected analysts provides sales leaders with the research, data, expertise, and best practices required to build sustainable strategies for sales performance improvement. CSO Insights’ annual sales effectiveness studies, along with its benchmarking capabilities, are industry standards for sales leaders seeking operational and behavioral insights into how to improve their sales performance and to gain holistic assessments of their selling and sales management efficacy. Annual research studies address sales and service best practices, sales enablement and sales performance optimization.  

Und wieder habe ich einen tollen Gast bei Kundenzentriert: Tamara Schenk, Research Director bei CSO Insights. Mit Ihr spreche ich über Sales Enablement und wie Vertrieb mehr Erfolg und mehr Ergebnis erzielen kann. Sie berichtet über Erfahrungen in Ihrer Projektarbeit und kann sogar mit Zahlen belegen, welche Umsatzsteigerungen mit Sales Enablement möglich sind.

In this episode we had Jim Dickie, Partner at Sales Mastery discuss latest trends in B2B Sales and Marketing. About Jim: Jim Dickie is a Co-Founder of CSO Insights and Research Fellow for Sales Mastery; an independent research firm that focuses on profiling case study examples of how firms in the B2B marketplace are leveraging sales process, CRM, AI and knowledge to optimize revenue performance. Jim has over 30 years of sales and marketing management experience. Jim began his career with IBM and Sterling Software and then went on to launch two successful software companies. Jim then went on to co-found CSO Insights, which was acquired by Miller Heiman Group. Jim is also a contributing editor for CRM Magazine, CustomerThink, Top Sales World, and a contributing author for the Harvard Business Review. He has served as an advisor to Baylor Center for Professional Selling, William Patterson University’s Russ Berry Institute for Professional Selling, and is a lecturer at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business and the University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business. Over the past twenty years, Jim’s teams have surveyed over a thousand sales transformation initiatives. Their research has become the benchmark for understanding how the role of sales is evolving, the challenges that are impacting sales performance, and most importantly what companies are doing to address those issues. Having worked with clients spanning multiple industries, including such firms as 3M, ADP, Cisco Systems, Corning, Direct Energy, Fairchild Semiconductor, Federal Express, IBM, Accenture, VISA, Xilinx, McKesson, Unocal, as well as many small to midsize enterprises, Jim has a broad perspective into sales transformation in the B2B world. Top ten takeaways from the episode: “A key question to ask in B2B Sales today is- What’s the next generation of solutions to optimize sales through better solutions.” “I spend part of my time looking for answer and the other part of my time sharing answers!” “One of the major trends we are seeing (because people have access to better data) is that marketing and sales is trying to be all things to all people.“ “We see people spend a lot of time identifying what their ideal prospect looks like.” “We have to start thinking about things from our prospect’s perspective. A personalized message should talk about how you can help someone do their job better. Everyone makes a decision based on personal payback.” “We spend a lot of time doing an analysis to understand who we want to engage with. But we forget to identify how we can help other people do something better.” “We have to earn the right to engage people as Sales and Marketing people today.” “A lot of companies do sales cycle reviews to understand why they lost a deal. But how often do they ask themselves, ‘what did you do to lose the deal’?” “If Customer Support people are not part of a prospecting campaign or part of the marketing campaign, there will always be a disconnect.” “When we did our study, the number one thing people were focused on is AI for lead generation.” About the podcast Sunny Side Up is a series of 15-minute podcasts. Leaders and innovators share what they’ve learned in the B2B tech sector on topics related to marketing, product management, sales, and leadership.

This week Tamara Schenk, Research Director of CSO Insights, shows us how to use dynamic coaching to gain a two-digit improvement to drive your sales team’s success. She has performed the research that shows how coaching is a skill that can be developed, talks about how sales leaders should have a long-term view while focusing on short term issues.

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts   Great content marketing is about more than just publishing content. Your content has got to stand out - it's got to be truly great. On this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine, Bernie hosts Stephanie Stahl, the General Manager of the Content Marketing Institute. She says that the companies that do content marketing really well are those that are providing the best content, content that is aimed at connecting with audiences emotionally about things that really matter to them. Listen to this episode to learn how brands are doing great content marketing, why webinars are still very effective, what isn’t working for content marketing, and why having a clear picture of your audience's content consumption preferences is one of the most important things to understand. As GM of the Content Marketing Institute, Stephanie brings a wealth of experience to this topic, so be sure you listen! How Does Great Content Marketing Work Differently For B2C and B2B? Content marketing has evolved over the years and has traditionally required differing approaches for B2C and B2B. Today, both require a similar philosophical approach because both are aimed at attracting an engaged and loyal audience - and in both cases, the challenge is that there is so much content out there, it’s hard to create truly great content that overcomes the noise. The answer is to create truly great content all the time. Consistency is key. Brands that are doing successful content marketing are showing their personality, speaking directly to their target audience as people, and appealing to the human desire to see the greater good served. Listen to Stephanie’s description of great content marketing and use it as a benchmark for assessing your own content marketing strategy. Are you building the trust you need to build? Are you speaking to your customer avatar in the right way and using the right methods? Webinars Are Still A Winner For B2B Content Marketing Webinars have long been a mainstay as an effective tool for great content marketing. Stephanie says they are still working extremely well for many brands, though the format and approach have changed in many ways over the years. Webinars are a great way for prospective customers to spend an hour taking a deep dive into an important topic to learn something valuable that makes a connection to the brand delivering the webinar. Research shows this to be true, as does Stephanie’s experience. In her gut, she knows that webinars are still very powerful for content marketing. Is your organization conducting webinars? Why or why not? Does Your Content Marketing Include A Variety Of Types Of Content? Content marketing isn’t just about getting attention - it’s about earning trust and credibility with your audience. That means you need to learn the formats and channels that best suit your audience. How are you going to do that? You need to explore all the channels of content that your audience uses. We refer to this as the “Omnichannel approach.” In most cases, your ideal audience will not be focused on only one form of content. Publish many types of content and then assess what is most effective in reaching and engaging your audience. Stephanie points out that content marketers must study what’s effective with their particular audience. Are the channels you’re using the best ones for your audience? Is what you’re publishing resonating with your audience? It’s the only way to ensure you’re spending your time in the most productive content creating practices. You'll also hear about the Content Marketing Institute’s annual event - Content Marketing World coming up in September and how you can get a $100 discount to attend this year's event. Bernie is speaking yet again at CMW. This year he is partnering with Seleste Lunsford, Chief Research Officer at CSO Insights, the research division of Miller Heiman Group. Bernie and Seleste are presenting key strategies for integrating content into sales enablement. (cham to insert CMW image of Bernie & Seleste here) Be sure to listen to the entire episode for Stephanie’s insights and recommendations for great content marketing. Featured on This Episode Stephanie on LinkedIn Stephanie on Twitter: @EditorStahl Stephanie on Instagram: @Stephanie_Stahl Seleste Lunsford on LinkedIn Outline of This Episode [2:49] The evolution of content marketing in B2B and B2C [5:23] What are the things that are not working in the B2B space? [9:17] The annual event CMI puts on: Content Marketing World [16:25] A preview of the fun activities that happen at CMW [18:41] Bernie’s summary of the conversation Resources & People Mentioned The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) Episode 206 of the podcast, with Cathy McPhillips of the Content Marketing Institute The Content Marketing World event (this year’s theme, “Amaze Your Audience” Seleste Lunsford, Chief Research Officer of CSO Insights The Rock N Roll Hall of Fame Punchbowl Social Get into the conference for $100 off. Use the code “MME100” The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Altify Research Stated, "If the salesperson is a Woman you will see a 10% Greater Win Rate" which led the host Patrick Morrissey to discuss how to recruit and hire top women in sales. Morrissey smiled when he read Altify’s recent research, The Customer Revenue Optimization Benchmark Study 2019, which found that all things being equal, you can generate a 10% greater win rate if the salesperson is a woman.  And research is coming in from many directions with the same message. To discuss this topic, host Patrick Morrissey interviews Tracy Eiler from Inside View about what it takes to attract and retain women in revenue. Top players that increase revenue are in demand. Recruiting top revenue creators is taking on a new urgency as companies realize there is competition for talent and those that know how to recruit win over those that don’t know it is a skill. Patrick, therefore, suggests that companies should be hiring women if they want an increase in sales. Specifically, many companies have found that women in revenue creation and management often are judged to be especially prized as a recent report from CSO Insights - 2018-2019 SALES PERFORMANCE STUDY specifically points out. This is an annual survey of nearly 900 B2B companies that says women in revenue are especially sought and valued. Visit Women In Revenue's site. About Tracy Eiler Currently an Executive at Inside View, Tracy Eilier is a revenue-driven SaaS marketing executive with “core DNA” in demand generation and awareness. Co-author of “Aligned to Achieve: How to Unite Your Sales & Marketing Teams into a Single Force for Growth” (Wiley, 2016). Eiler has driven marketing strategy for companies with a variety of revenue models including freemium, high velocity/small business, midmarket, enterprise, and OEM. Start-up, a public company, and M&A experience. She marketed to line-of-business executives, end users, IT, and C-suite. Metrics-driven across all initiatives. She has a roll-up-the-sleeves attitude with a strategic and creative outlook. Her professional recognition includes: named a B2B Demand Marketing Game Changer, Top 20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management, Most Influential Women in B2B Marketing Technology, and Top 35 #WomenInSales  

Sales and marketing management is struggling. A study from CSO Insights has the hard evidence. They found that for the last six years, the percentage of salespeople meeting their quota is declining steadily. George Bronten, founder and CEO of Membrain, has an idea what’s causing the downward trend… and how to turn it around.

  In this session, host Patrick Morrissey interviews Tracy Eiler about what it takes to attract and retain women in revenue.  Top players that increase revenue are in demand, be it attendance at a professional game or products sold in B2B. Recruiting top revenue creators is taking on a new urgency as companies realize there is competition for talent and those that know how to recruit win over those that don’t know it is a skill. Specifically, many companies have found that women in revenue creation and management often are judged to be especially prized as a recent report from CSO Insights - 2018-2019 SALES PERFORMANCE STUDY specifically points out. This is an annual survey of nearly 900 B2B companies that says women in revenue are especially sought and valued. About Tracy Eiler Currently an Executive at Inside View Revenue-driven SaaS marketing executive with “core DNA” in demand generation and awareness. Co-author of “Aligned to Achieve: How to Unite Your Sales & Marketing Teams into a Single Force for Growth” (Wiley, 2016). Eiler has driven marketing strategy for companies with a variety of revenue models including freemium, high velocity/small business, midmarket, enterprise, and OEM. Start-up, public company, and M&A experience. Marketed to line-of-business executives, end users, IT, and C-suite. Metrics-driven across all initiatives. Roll-up-the sleeves attitude with a strategic and creative outlook. Professional recognition includes: named a B2B Demand Marketing Game Changer, Top 20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management, Most Influential Women in B2B Marketing Technology, and Top 35 #WomenInSales.

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts For years Marketing and Sales have been complementary but isolated departments. There was no reason for them to function in any other way. But the world has changed - business has changed. With the rapid evolution of digital technology, business cycles are more complex and buyers are more sophisticated. Organizations who thrive in the world of digitally engaged customers are those that adapt to the buyer’s behavior by marketing, selling, supporting and delivering a great customer experience leveraging digital engagement. Chris Sikora is Vice President of Marketing for Strategic Enterprise and The Public Sector at CenturyLink. Chris has more than three decades of sales experience in the telecommunications industry. His background in sales uniquely equips him to help with the digital transformation journey the company is making - and it’s not a small undertaking for CenturyLink with 55,000 employees. He's been working diligently to equip his marketing and sales teams at CenturyLink to use digital tools to be effective at reach, engagement, and building sales pipeline. CenturyLink is a global telecommunications company and provider of technology solutions with IT, hosting, managed services, connectivity, cloud and security solutions for global enterprise customers. The company has customers in more than 60 countries and has an intense focus on the customer experience. Listen to hear how Chris is equipping his marketing and sales teams to embrace digital tools to reach and engage their customer - and the results they are experiencing. This episode is brought to you by Zubtitle, a new online tool that makes it easy to automatically add captions to any video in minutes. Don’t let your videos get passed over on social media because people can’t follow along on mute. Head to http://Zubtitle.com/Vengreso to get started. When The Marketing & Sales Gears Turn In Isolation, We Have A Problem When Chris took on his current role at CenturyLink, the structure of the business was very traditional. The marketing department did its thing and the sales department did its thing. Chris had spent enough time in a modern sales environment to know that had to change. The reason is that the modern B2B buyer is more educated about products and services they need, so marketing and sales need to work in tandem more than ever to gain the customer's attention, earn their trust and keep it. Listen to this episode to hear how Chris is leading the way as the CenturyLink team has changed its approach to both marketing and sales with a digital first mindset and strategy. The integration of social media, LinkedIn, social selling best practices, digital advertising and more are enabling salespeople at CenturyLink to be digital first and produce impressive results (see below). Sellers Need To Be Teachers And Guides To Customers The buyers that are considering the products or services you sell know almost as much about them as you do - from internet searches, from your company website, from reviews, blogs, downloadable content, comments from peers, and from friends or associates who may have used your product or service. They don’t need you to “sell” them, they need you to listen and to field their specific questions relating to their needs. Chris says that one of his biggest goals in leading digital transformation at CenturyLink is to help sellers become teachers and guides to buyers. Sellers have to understand their buyer’s journey and learn to provide resources they need in order to make buying decisions. On this episode, Chris explains the impact of social selling training his teams received from Vengreso to make them more effective at buyer engagement and through a digital first approach. A “digital first” approach to marketing and selling means many things. But primarily it’s about utilizing digital tools and online platforms to engage in a helpful way with the people who are potentially looking to buy your product or service. One of the things Chris’ team learned is the value of well-written profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, and other digital platforms. The training taught them how to use those platforms to build their personal brands as representatives of the company. This powerful strategy opened the door to greater effectiveness as a sales team. Listen to this episode to hear how Chris’ team is doing it. Do You Know How To Address Customer Problems From A “Digital First” Mindset? A “digital first” approach to marketing and selling means many things. But primarily it’s about utilizing digital tools and online platforms to engage in a helpful way with the people who are potentially looking to buy your product or service. One of the things Chris’ team learned is the value of well-writtern profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, and other digital platforms - then they learned how to use those platforms to build their personal brands as representatives of the company. This powerful strategy opened the door to greater effectiveness as a sales team. Listen to this episode to hear how Chris’ team did it. RESULT: 83% More Digital Engagement By The Marketing & Sales Teams As Chris’ team at CenturyLink was trained to work more effectively in the digital realm, they adopted the mindset needed to make an impact. They understand from their own lives as consumers how digital is changing the way people buy - including business customers - and how those changes in buyer behavior apply to reaching and engaging CenturyLink enterprise customers. Their change in approach has enabled them to connect with prospects and buyers more effectively. Chris shared statistics measured since the Vengreso social selling training was delivered. They’ve experienced a 42% increase in the use of tools among their team, a 50% increase in reach, and an 83% increase in digital engagement. Their approach has changed from random acts of social selling to a regular cadence of digital engagement. And, it’s having an impact on business results. Learn more about how the team at CenturyLink is experiencing digital transformation internally while helping their own customers on their digital transformation journey. On this episode, Chris Sikora explains how their digital first mindset is enabling the marketing and sales team to deliver a great customer experience from prospect to closed-won and beyond. Featured on This Episode Chris Sikora on LinkedIn CenturyLink CenturyLink Digital Business Transformation Outline of This Episode [1:16] Introduction to Chris and the work he does at CenturyLink [4:20] The ongoing evolution from classical marketing to digital marketing [9:22] Transforming marketing and sales in the overarching scope of the company [10:49] The impact of the changes on the sales organization [17:26] A bridge from internal transformation internally to external change [17:49] What Chris sees ahead as they continue their digital transformation Resources & People Mentioned This episode is brought to you by Zubtitle, a new online tool that makes it easy to automatically add captions to any video in minutes. Don’t let your videos get passed over on social media because people can’t follow along on mute. Head to http://Zubtitle.com/Vengreso to get started. CSO Insights 2017 Study CSO Insights 2018 Study Salesforce The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://twitter.com/mmenginepodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Seleste Lunsford, Chief Research Officer of CSO Insights discusses the surprising results of their latest Sales Performance study with Funnel Radio host Jim Obermayer. She talks about how the 900  companies in the study report that 95% are on their revenue plan and yet other parts of the report show some disturbing sales performance outcomes that show there could be trouble on the horizon. It appears companies are hiring more sales reps, but sales performance is down per rep; this means sales expenses are up and with any downturn there will be large problems. About the report and how to get a copy:   Selling in the Age of Ceaseless Change: 2018-2019 Sales Performance Study.   Sections: Revenue Are up Sales Performance is Not. Customer-Centricity Separates Top-Performing Organizations Lead Generation Suffers from Organization Silos Planning improves New Account Capture Account Renewals Dominate Revenues Win Rates of Forecasted Deals Vex Sales Leaders Roughly 900 global sales leaders were surveyed to identify the four main objectives underpinning their performance improvement efforts in the coming 12 months. These main objectives were improving lead generation, capturing new accounts, expanding penetration into existing customers, and increasing win rates. The purpose of this report is to show how sales organizations today are performing in terms of these objectives, how that compares to recent years and what successful companies are doing that’s working for improving sales performance. GET THE REPORT GET THE REPORT SUMMARY About Seleste Lunsford Seleste Lunsford has consulted with sales and service organizations for more than 20 years, helping them acquire, grow and retain client relationships. As Managing Director of CSO Insights, Seleste guides CSO Insights’ research focus areas and define its market deliverables. An experienced business leader, Seleste has led a range of consulting, product development, professional services and operations functions. She has co-authored two books, “Secrets of Top-Performing Salespeople” and “Strategies that Win Sales.” She’s also written articles on sales effectiveness found in Selling Power, Entrepreneur, Chief Learning Officer and PharmaVoice, as well as DestinationCRM.com and HR.com. She’s proud to have supported some of the world’s most recognized companies including AAA, Alliance Bernstein, American Express, Arrow Electronics, Citibank, Convergys, U.S. Department of Defense, Office Depot, Traveler’s Insurance and Verizon Wireless. Seleste earned both her bachelor’s degree and MBA from Florida State University. _______________________________________________ Funnel Radio is hosted by James Obermayer and sponsored by the radio/podcast company the Funnel Media Group LLC.

Subscribe to Social Business Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts Effective Sales A.I. Is Great, But There Are Human Things It Can’t Replace Most sales professionals these days are excited about the ways A.I. is changing the sales landscape. Automated lead generation and lead nurture, as well as the way follow-up can be streamlined effectively, are just some of the benefits technology is bringing to the world of sales. But there are certain things tech can’t and shouldn’t replace. Among those is the human quality of empathy. In this conversation, Shari Levitin explains how empathy builds trust, why it takes a human to express it, and how sales leaders can strategically hire and build their teams around the soft skills needed to complement new sales technologies and close more deals. The PEOPLE Who Implement Your Sales Process Make The Biggest Difference Shari points out that if we neglect the human aspect of sales, we do so to our own peril. There is a person on the other side of every sales conversation or interaction and the responses to their needs that lead the sales process forward are the ones that are most human. Drawing from a new book, “The Road To Character,” Shari points out that there are two kinds of virtues in people - Resume Virtues and Eulogy Virtues. Both are important, but it’s the Eulogy Virtues that are of greatest value when it comes to hiring and training effective sales teams. What ARE Eulogy Virtues? They are the kinds of things people would emphasize or memorialize in a eulogy - things like kindness, curiosity, drive, and a growth mindset. Hiring managers need to have these in view as they consider candidates for the sales positions in their organization. Why? Because they are the traits that enable sales reps to be agile enough to learn, hustle, and build trust with customers in the fast-paced sales world we live and work in. You May Be Missing Quota Because Your Sales Process Is Not Human Enough In its 2018 - 2019 Sales Performance Study report, CSO Insights revealed that 53% of sales professionals are missing their sales quotas. That’s a consistent drop from recent years. In this conversation, Bernie was very curious how Shari interprets the research and asked for her opinion. He was mostly curious whether it reveals that the adoption of sales tech has distracted sales reps from the more human aspects of the sales process. Shari says that very often, the issue with missing quota is not that sales reps aren’t making enough calls, but that they are not making the right kind of calls. She means that their sales presentations and conversations are lacking some of the human skills needed to make them effective. The good news is that it’s a problem that can be fixed. Listen to learn how. Why Your Sales Reps Must Do What Alexa Can’t Do As A.I. is implemented more and more in the sales industry, the effective salespeople of the future will be skilled at doing what Alexa and the other technologies can’t do. Shari refers to those things by using the acronym C.A.L.L. It describes 4 things that only a human can do... CONNECT to another human ASK questions that get to the heart of why people would buy LISTEN to the emotion, what is not said, what’s being said by things like body language LINK all that to a brighter future for the customer that connects to their product or service Listen to this great conversation. You’ll see why Shari is one of the most powerful and compassionate speakers on the sales circuit. You'll also understand why you should consider purchasing her new book Heart and Sell and see her speak live at the upcoming Frost and Sullivan STAR event February 11 - 13, 2019. . Look below for a discount code for the event. Featured on This Episode Website:https://www.sharilevitin.com Shari’s new book: Heart and Sell : https://www.amazon.com/dp/1632650746 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharilevitin/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/sharilevitin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShariLevitinGroup/ Outline of This Episode [0:44] Why Shari is on the show to discuss the importance of building trust [3:28] It’s important to keep the human factor in the sales process, in spite of A.I tech [5:50] The soft skills needed and why sales leaders are accepting Shari’s message [8:30] How to hire sales people in light of humanizing the sales process [11:28] Dealing with your existing situation means leaders have to lead the way [13:49] How much of missing quotas is that sales reps lack a human component? [20:12] Is it harder to sell today than it was 20 to 25 years ago? Resources & People Mentioned This episode is sponsored by Frost & Sullivan’s STAR event for Sales leaders taking place February 11-13, 2019 in Lake Tahoe, NV. Register for the event at https://Frost.com/Vengreso and use the discount code MARIO at registration for a $250.00 savings. BOOK: The Road To Character by David Brooks : https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812983416 CSO Insights : https://www.csoinsights.com/ The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Xvoyant: Coaching platform company : https://www.xvoyant.com/ Rob Jeppsen, Founder and CEO of Xvoyant : https://www.linkedin.com/in/robjeppsen/ Connect With Bernie and Social Business Engine https://www.facebook.com/socialbusinessengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://twitter.com/sbengine   Subscribe to Social Business Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts   There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above. This podcast originally appeared on Social Business Engine

Tamara Schenk is the Research Director at CSO Insights, the research division of Miller Heiman. Tamara recently wrote a book on sales enablement, which is called Sales Enablement: A Master Framework to Engage, Equip and Empower a World-class Sales Force. Sales Enablement is a fast growing discipline with 59% of sales organisations currently reporting a sales enablement initiative or function compared to only 19% in 2013. We discuss what sales enablement is all about, the key trends emerging and what's critical to make it work.

Subscribe to Social Business Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts Does your organization have a clear sales enablement strategy that is aligned with your customer’s journey? According to Bernie’s guest for this podcast conversation, Tamara Schenk, you’ll experience more sales wins if you do. Tamara is Research Director for CSO Insights, the research division of Miller Heiman Group. She is focused on global research regarding all things sales enablement, CX, and sales effectiveness. The book she’s co-authored with Miller Heiman Group CEO Byron Matthews, “Sales Enablement – A Master Framework to Engage, Equip, and Empower a World-Class Sales Force,” provides incredible insight into the value of effective sales enablement. On this episode, Bernie and Tamara discuss the influential role of content in sales enablement as well as the evolving role of sales enablement in the modern organization. You’ll learn about the critical nature of sales enablement for modern sales and how it can provide the tools needed in order for marketing, sales, and internal processes to work together to win more deals. This episode is sponsored by Conversica, AI software for marketing and sales that fosters real conversations to discover the most qualified sales opportunities. Learn more at https://conversica.com What Is The Role Of Sales Enablement In Modern Sales? In order to engage in this topic effectively, let’s begin with a definition of the term, “Sales Enablement.” Tamara says it’s a strategic, cross-functional discipline with the goal of increasing predictable sales results. It does this by providing scalable enablement services such as training, content, coaching, and a variety of tools for customer-facing professionals and their managers. This enables them to serve as relevant and valuable sources of expert knowledge in every buyer interaction. As you can see, sales enablement is a focused role that seeks to equip all members of the sales team with key understanding of the buyer’s journey. In order to be effective, it requires clear insight into the buyer’s needs, and the various roles buyers play in their organizations. Listen to learn what Tamara and her team have discovered about the role of sales enablement in the modern sales environment. Content Plays A Powerful Role In Sales Enablement As Miller Heiman Group’sCEO, Byron Matthews often says, “The modern buyer has become better at buying faster than the seller has gotten better at selling.” That means sales teams need to adapt their sales approach so they can meet the buyer where they are and how the buyer wants to engage. It’s a process that relies heavily on the type and quality of content they have at their disposal. The creation and distribution of that content is one of the major responsibilities of the sales enablement team. Through the research of customer personas, the enablement team creates content aimed at various stages in the buyer’s journey. The sales team uses that content to serve the buyer in relevant ways. Blog posts, podcasts, and media of various sorts are used to gain trust, build credibility, and carry the conversation in ways that directly address the buyer’s needs and questions. But that’s not everything we mean when we refer to “content” produced by the sales enablement team. There is also internal enablement content the customer never sees but that serves as vital tools to make sales teams more effective. Tamara mentions things like playbooks, comparison guides, objection guides, solution configuration tools, pricing tools, and closing/order templates as some of those possible resources. Tamara's insights on this subject are research-based and detailed, so don't miss this conversation. Organizations With A Clear Content Strategy Have Higher Win Rates Does a clear content strategy exist in your sales organization? If so, you’re in the minority. Tamara says that only ⅓ of organizations have a clear, relevant content strategy in place. To be clear, we’re talking about a plan to create and use specific content that addresses questions and needs buyers have from the beginning of the customer journey all the way to the close of the deal. It’s content that helps to evolve the relationship with the buyer in valuable, relevant, and unique ways. The impact of having a clear content enablement strategy in place is huge. Companies with a clear content strategy experience a 55% win rate as compared to 43% win rate for organizations without one. As you can see, it makes sense (to the tune of a 12% increase) to organize content creation and management to achieve better sales results. But be careful: Just because an enablement team creates content resources doesn’t mean the sales team is automatically going to know how to use them. Training is required to make the best use of the resources. Tamara recommends you champion the members of your sales team who have been highly successful - empower them to record short videos showing how they use the content assets in various buying situations. Don’t let it get too complicated, just focus on things that will be practically helpful to your team. Tamara and Bernie wrap up their conversation with a discussion of the main pitfalls to watch out for as you implement your sales enablement strategy, so be sure you listen to get all the details. Featured on This Episode Tamara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/TamaraSchenk Tamara on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TamaraSchenk https://CSOInsights.com Tamara’s book: Sales Enablement: A Master Framework: http://a.co/d/3DliT7t Outline of This Episode [2:24] The role Tamara plays as Research Director at CSO Insights [4:12] What is sales enablement - and why Tamara is able to speak about it [6:00] Customer engagement isn’t only about sales conversations [9:10] Content has a crucial role in sales enablement efforts [13:55] Win rates are higher for companies that have a content strategy [16:00] Sales teams need to learn how to use content effectively [21:34] Pitfalls that can be avoided in sales enablement development [23:56] Where does sales enablement usually fall in organizations? Resources & People Mentioned This episode is sponsored by Conversica, AI software for marketing and sales that fosters real conversations to discover the most qualified sales opportunities. Learn more at https://conversica.com  Tamara’s article Bernie mentions: https://www.csoinsights.com/blog/customer-engagement-irrelevant-content-lowers-win-rates/Why You Need A Sales Enablement Content Strategy (blog article): https://www.csoinsights.com/blog/why-you-need-a-sales-enablement-content-strategy/ The Selling With Social Podcast episode with Miller Heiman Group CEO Byron Matthews hosted by Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Subscribe to Social Business Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts  

Sales enablement is here to stay but do you know enough about it. In this episode, two titans of sales enablement, Tamara Schenk @CSO Insights & Scott Santucci @Growth Enablement Ecosystems, discuss what sales enablement is and how companies can succeed with this emerging function in sales.

According to CSO Insights 2018, 64% of salespeople worldwide hit their quota in 2013. In 2018, it looks like that has fallen to BELOW 50%. The blind reliance on social selling, propagated by people with an axe to grind to sell social media training, is in large part responsible for this shocking result. In part 2 of my packed interview with #SamRathling, we discuss the opportunities and pitfalls for corporate executives of using LinkedIn. Listen in for some tough home truths and practical tips on using LinkedIn to build your company, hire the best talent, enhance your reputation personally and as a business leader. Sam is Europe's number 1 #LinkedIn trainer for Corporates.  She's been a user of LI since 2003 and she eats her own dog food. She is always booked months in advance, and personally secures 10-30 INBOUND enquiries per day using what she teaches! Her clients generate immediate positive results which can be as high as a 400% increase in pipeline. She regularly helps them win 6-figure accounts. It starts with aligning your company strategy with your @LinkedIn strategy.  We discuss company branding for sales and attracting top talent. We explore personal branding, sales, rekindling lapsed relationships, the power of testimonials, the mistakes corporates make when they misuse LinkedIn, the potential for reputation damage or career advancement and much more. This interview is packed with practical advice on #winning and building #enterprise accounts using the #power of LinkedIn. For the avoidance of doubt, LinkedIn alone without picking up the phone & creating engagement is like running your car on only one cylinder. We'd love to hear from you about your tips for building your brand, winning sales, expanding accounts and developing partnerships using LinkedIn.  Please like, comment and share this podcast

Did you know you have a social selling score? Linkedin provides all users with a Social Selling Index (SSI). Does it have any value? How can you use it to improve the results you are getting from your LinkedIn subscription? In part 1 of 2 episodes, I discuss how corporates can use LinkedIn to build their brand, find and win new business, hire top talent and generally improve their performance both as individuals and companies on the world's largest business community. How you measure your effectivenss is the Social Selling Index. You can learn more about it here: https://business.linkedin.com/sales-solutions/blog/g/get-your-score-linkedin-makes-the-social-selling-index-available-for-everyone https://www.linkedin.com/sales/ssi Reps who employ social selling only hit target about 47% of the time. Reps who employ social selling effectively hit target about 75% of the time. According to CSO Insights 2018, the AVERAGE number of reps hitting target globally has dropped from a disappointing 64% in 2013 to below 50% in 2018 which, frankly, is pitiful. Many blame the reliance on social media and not picking up the phone. Perhaps there's some truth in that, but not because social selling doesn't work, but because they have NO IDEA how to use LinkedIn effectively. #SamRathling is a superstar when it comes to using LinkedIn as a business builder. She has gone from £0 to £30,000 a month revenues in her brand new business with 85% utilisation in only 4 months using social selling via LinkedIn. A user of LinkedIn for a decade, she was one of the early adopters and has used it to recruit, to build pipeline, to build her personal brand and the brands of her own and several other businesses. She serves global brands (Fortune 500/FTSE 100) through to SMEs and startups through a mix of in-house reinforcement programmes, master classes, coaching and tools.   

To customers Tamara Schenk (@tamaraschenk) is a sales enablement leader, analyst, speaker, and co-author of Sales Enablement – A Master Framework to Engage, Equip, and Empower a World-Class Sales Force. As an analyst, Tamara is research director at CSO Insights, the research division of Miller Heiman Group, where she is focused on global research on all things sales enablement, CX and sales effectiveness.     She enjoyed twenty-five years of experience in sales, business development, and consulting in different industries on an international level. Before becoming an analyst in a research director role in 2014, she had the pleasure to develop sales enablement from an idea to a program and a strategic function at T-Systems, a Deutsche Telekom company where she led the global sales force enablement and transformation team.   Podcast Highlights: Situational knowledge is more important to customers Less is more, relevant marketing material is essential 50% of sales forecasts are fantasy   Contact Tamara: LinkedIn Blog Twitter Get My Book  

A lot of people talk about how the buying process has changed but it's hard to find where that information came from. To change that Jim and team decided to interview 500 business buyers (with deal sizes over 10K and not in procurement) to understand what really happens during the buying cycle. The findings were fascinating as the top was not a sales person, in fact, a sales person was 9th on the list. Tune into this episode to learn more about this research and how decision makers really make decisions. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Jim's LinkedIn Understanding Buyer Behavior White Paper State of Sales Research In This Episode You'll Learn: What 500 business buyers think about buying Why sales reps don't make the list and how they can What research says is real reason decision makers buy

CSO Insights found that of companies that push through a CRM software implementation, less than 40% of organizations achieve full scales end-user adoption. That is what Brandon Bruce, COO and Co-founder of Cirrus Insight, tells us in this episode of Helping Sells Radio. We talk about why software projects fail and how to turn them around. He details all of this in his book, "The Shelfware Problem: A Guide to CRM Adoption." Get on the email list at helpingsells.substack.com

Our guest, Byron Matthews is the President & CEO of Milller Heiman Group.   Check out Byron's new book, Sales Enablement:  A Master Framework to Engage, Equip and Empower a World-Class Sales Force Highlights from this Episode:   Companies investing in sales enablement is up 26% from last year, with 59% of organizations that now have a sales enablement function. Yet, only 34% of organizations are achieving their sales enablement goals. (CSOi Report) B2B companies can assess their sales teams' gaps and opportunities in relation to each component of sales enablement and look for the alignment (per the Clarity Model). Sales enablement cannot be put in a box like other functions. It is cross-functional, and orchestrates all enablement efforts across all “boxes,” including its alignment with the customer journey. Defining sales enablement: Sales force enablement is a strategic, collaborative discipline designed to increase predictable sales results by providing consistent, scalable enablement services that allow customer-facing professionals and their managers to add value in every customer interaction. More about and from Byron:  Anyone familiar with Miller Heiman Group (brands include: Miller Heiman, Huthwaite, AchieveGlobal, Impact Learning, Channel Enablers, and CSO Insights) knows that championing the customer experience is a main tenet of their mission—and also one that I happen to share.As President and CEO of Miller Heiman Group, I bring a broad depth of experience in growing, leading and providing guidance to the best organizations globally surrounding their sales processes, as well as the leading operations that support the mission of a great sales organization. Throughout my career, I have sought out challenges and answered demands that call for singular vision, energy and creativity. I have consulted and collaborated with industry leaders throughout the world and crafted new funnel-management solutions, compensation plans, sales methodologies, and sales-management processes, as well as developed and implemented sales-operations capabilities, sales structure, and territory design, for such Fortune 500 companies as Microsoft, AT&T, Sprint, and Aflac. Personally, I am passionate about the education of sales as a discipline. In collaboration with university faculty and administrators, I am working to drive a nationwide effort to incorporate the study of sales into graduate and undergraduate academic environments. I teach and volunteer my time as a guest lecturer for universities including Cornell and Harvard Business School and contribute to published academic and industry research on sales strategy and concepts. I also run sales boot camps and coach, train, and judge students at university sales competitions across the U.S. and participate regularly as a featured speaker at industry wide events.

Every week, I’ll pick one marketing question and attempt to address it with actionable takeaways. So send me your questions. I want to help you take on your marketing challenges. At my last episode, I shared the exciting news that I started writing my 2nd book. The book is going to examine sales enablement and I explained why I picked this topic. My friend Amy asked me what sales enablement is, anyway? Like everyone else, I turned to Google for answer. There are only 2 million results, but I like this one: CSO Insights, a research company specializing in sales research, articulated a definition that is widely recognized and accepted in the sales enablement field:  “A strategic, cross-functional discipline designed to increase sales results and productivity by providing integrated content, training, and coaching services for salespeople and frontline sales managers along the entire customer’s journey, powered by technology.” This definition centers on providing essential technology-based training, onboarding and coaching as well as relevant and effective content. Ok, Google is not the only way to get a definition. I also turned to Amazon. I bought several books about sales enablement because I wanted to see the definitions from different authors. Cory Bray and Hilmon Sorey, authors of The Sales Enablement Playbook, state, “Sales enablement is the concept of extending a prospect-centric mindset to all departments within an organization. ” “Sales enablement isn’t a position; it’s an ecosystem... [An ecosystem that] crosses all functional and hierarchical boundaries. ” Although their book mostly covered training, onboarding, coaching, content and prospecting, which is similar to CSO Insights’ definition, they stress that sales enablement is everyone’s job. In addition to Google and Amazon, I also turned to companies who build sales enablement platforms, like Hubspot. Hubspot’s sales enablement definition focuses on technology and process. “Sales enablement is the technology, process, and content that empowers sales teams to sell efficiently at a higher velocity. ” In these 3 distinctive definitions, there are some common elements: • Training • Coaching • Content • Cross-functional • Technology • Process For the purpose of my book, I created my own definition of effective sales enablement: “Delivering a positive customer experience by equipping sales teams with knowledge, skills, processes and tools through cross-functional collaboration in order to increase sales velocity and productivity.” Most definitions I’ve seen shared focus on supporting sales and facilitating the purchase process. They are written as one internal team (marketing) supporting another internal team (sales). I get that. In a digital-first marketing environment, it’s crucial to deliver a positive and consistent customer experience both online and offline. That is why it's vital to add the customer to the sales enablement definition. Without customers, there are no sales. In my definition, “knowledge and skills” represent content, training and onboarding. “Process” suggests documented sales processes and methodologies. “Tools” are mostly software platforms and technologies to implement sales enablement efforts. Increasing sales is important, but sales enablement’s role is to increase sales velocity. Sales velocity, another term which is common in technology-based selling, is defined as how quickly a product is sold or a deal is closed. Now, you understand my definition of sales enablement. I’ll keep you all updated as my book progresses, but in the meantime, do you have any sales enablement story that you can share with me? Reach out and I’d love to include your stories into my book. That is this week's 7-minute Marketing with Pam.  If you have a question for me, you can reach me pamdidner.com or @pamdidner. Thank you for listening, until next week.

  Did you know that a recent study has revealed that if 75% of your organization adopts social selling techniques to engage with buyers, you are likely to see a 61% quota attainment result? How is that possible? What steps can your organization take to see those kind of results? You’ll find out on this episode of #SellingWithSocial with guest expert Tamara Schenk. Tamara is a research director at CSO Insights, the research division of Miller Heiman Group, focused on all things sales force enablement, frontline sales managers, social selling, and collaboration. She enjoyed more than twenty years of experience in sales, business development, and consulting in different industries on an international level. Before becoming an analyst in a research director role in January 2014, she had the pleasure to develop sales enablement from an idea to a program and a strategic function at T-Systems, a Deutsche Telekom company where she led the global sales force enablement and transformation team. Don’t miss a minute of this compelling episode featuring Tamara! Embracing a Sales Enablement Strategy If you were to evaluate your organization right now, what score would you give it when it comes to sales enablement? Do you have a well thought out strategy? Are you in the process of growing and developing it? Or is it more of an afterthought and lumped in with sales operations? On this episode of #SellingWithSocial, Tamara explains why it's so important for businesses to have separate sales enablement and sales operations teams that work closely together. Too often these two teams get lumped into one, learn from Tamara’s perspective and the research she’s done that points to the benefit of having these teams work independently but part of a cohesive strategy. Make sure to listen to this episode! How can Sales Enablement drive Social Selling? Is your sales enablement team driving social selling? Do you, as a leader see the need to expand and develop your approach in the social selling arena? On this episode of #SellingWithSocial, Tamara goes over her observations of how social selling fits into a broader approach to the sales environment. Tamara says that social selling is not just another piece of technology, it’s not just another tool, it comes down to embracing a total mindset shift on how to engage in a different way. Find out what lessons you can learn from Tamara’s perspective on this powerful episode! How you can create alignment between sales and marketing. Is there alignment between sales and marketing in your organization? Would the personnel on those teams agree with your assessment? What does it take to have a cohesive and focused strategy that brings your sales and marketing teams into alignment? On this episode of #SellingWithSocial, Tamara shares how leaders like you can work toward healthy alignment between your sales and marketing teams. Tamara says that it’s important to start with a change in perspective, the pushback between sales and marketing needs to come to an end if there is any hope for lasting alignment. She goes on to explain how this push for alignment between sales and marketing can impact the overall sales enablement strategy. Make sure to listen to this episode as Tamara expands on this topic and much more! Social Selling is not just using social networks! Have you ever had someone contact you to do business and then proceed to completely and utterly fail at their sales pitch? What are so many salespeople getting wrong in their digital approach and sales pitches? On this episode of #SelingWithSocial, Tamara and I go over an email I recently received that serves as a prime example of what happens when organizations fail to understand that social selling is not just using social networks. Make sure to listen to this episode as we unpack this salesperson’s approach and key lessons you can learn to avoid their same mistakes. Outline of This Episode [1:00] I introduce my guest, Tamara Schenk. [4:30] Why was there a need for sales enablement optimization study? [7:30] Is social selling an important area for organizations to focus on? [13:30] Takeaways from the sales enablement optimization study. [18:00] Why sales coaching is so important. [20:00] How do you create alignment between sales and marketing? [23:30] Tamara and I go over an email I recently received. [33:00] Tamara goes over why intentions are so important. [36:30] Navigating the complexity of connecting with buyers. Resources Mentioned 2017 CSO Insights Sales Enablement Optimization Study Twitter: @tamaraschenk LinkedIn: https://de.linkedin.com/in/tamaraschenk https://www.csoinsights.com/blog/effective-social-selling-part-2-adoption-rates-impact-quota-attainment/ https://www.csoinsights.com/blog/ The Intouchables Connect with Mario! www.vengreso.com On Facebook On Twitter On YouTube On LinkedIn

Tamara been in the world of sales for more than 20 years, building up a reputation as an innovator and sales enablement evangelist, specializing in strategic sales enablement and sales force transformation.She’s also an influential blogger and speaker, and a regular contributor to Top Sales Magazine.Learn More: https://www.csoinsights.com/blog/Influential Influencers with Mike Saundershttp://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/

Tamara been in the world of sales for more than 20 years, building up a reputation as an innovator and sales enablement evangelist, specializing in strategic sales enablement and sales force transformation.She’s also an influential blogger and speaker, and a regular contributor to Top Sales Magazine.Learn More: https://www.csoinsights.com/blog/Influential Influencers with Mike Saundershttp://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/

In this week's podcast, we continue our conversation with Tamara Schenk, Research Director CSO Insights, from last week and discuss the findings from her latest research on Sales Enablement. This week we will focus on questions like: 'How do you create a culture of collaboration to maximize the outcome of your Sales Enablement initiatives', 'What is the latest thinking around sales onboarding'. If you are interested reading the full report you can find it here (scroll down and download the CSO Insights 2016 Sales Enablement Optimization Study). If you would like to read more from Tamara I highly recommend her blog posts.

Welcome to Season Three, Episode 1. We kick off the latest season of the Sales Enablement Lab podcast with a conversation with Tamara Schenk. Tamara is Research Director at CSO Insights focussed on Sales Enablement. Tamara joined us earlier in season one for a conversation on 'Why a Systems Approach to Sales Enablement is Crucial.' In this episode, we will discuss the latest research from CSO Insights on Sales Enablement, based on a study and survey conducted earlier this year. Because of the wealth of information Tamara has to share this will be a two-part podcast. This week we will answer questions like: 'What is according to CSO Insights the latest definition of Sales Enablement?', 'How mature is Sales Enablement currently?' or 'What is the scope of Sales Enablement?' If you are interested reading the full report you can find it here (scroll down and download the CSO Insights 2016 Sales Enablement Optimization Study). If you would like to read more from Tamara I highly recommend her blog posts.

Tamara Schenk is a Research Director at the MHI Research Institute focussed on Sales Enablement. She is one of the key thought leaders and influencers in this rapidly evolving space. During this week's podcast Tamara shares her perspectives on Sales Enablement. She shares how she has seen Sales Enablement evolve from a highly fragmented function with disconnected programs to a much more integrated selling systems approach in the recent years. Tamara shares how you can create your own selling system based on her four key principles: Map your sales execution to your business strategy Define which Sales Enablement Services you want to offer Measure your impact through Sales Enablement Operations Focus on reinforcement, adoption and change management We also touch on the million dollar question, to who should Sales Enablement report in the organisation? Sales,  Marketing or ... ? At the end Tamara will give you her top 3 tips you can use to start building your own selling system today! Are you interested to participate in the Sales Enablement survey from MHI Research Institute? Visit Tamara's blog and complete the survey. Upon completing the survey you will be able to download the CSO Insights’ 2015 Sales Management Optimization Key Trends Analysis and you will receive the 2015 Sales Enablement Study Key Trends Report in October. Did you enjoy listening to this podcast and don’t want to miss another episode? Subscribe to my podcast on iTunes! What are your thoughts on building a selling system for Sales Enablement? Participate in the discussion on my blog and leave your feedback, thoughts and questions. http://www.salesenablementlab.com/s1e13 b

Listen to this podcast which discusses insights from Accenture's analysis of the 2013 Sales Performance Optimization study on improving sales effectiveness.

Listen to this podcast which discusses insights from Accenture's analysis of the 2013 Sales Performance Optimization study on improving sales effectiveness.