Podcast appearances and mentions of roderick jefferson

"If done right, AI will actually make us more human. It handles the busy work and surfaces real-time insights—so GTM teams can focus on what really drives revenue: building relationships, solving real problems, and creating long-term customer value." That's a quote from Roderick Jefferson and a sneak peek at today's episode.Hi there, I'm Kerry Curran—Revenue Growth Consultant, Industry Analyst, and host of Revenue Boost, A Marketing Podcast. In every episode, I sit down with top experts to bring you actionable strategies that deliver real results. So if you're serious about business growth, find us in your favorite podcast directory, hit subscribe, and start outpacing your competition today.In this episode, titled AI + EQ + GTM: The New Growth Equation for B2B Leaders, I sit down with keynote speaker, author, and enablement powerhouse Roderick Jefferson to unpack the modern formula for revenue growth: AI + EQ + GTM.We explore why traditional sales enablement isn't enough in today's landscape—and how real go-to-market success requires alignment across marketing, sales, and customer success, powered by emotional intelligence and smart technology integration.Whether you're a CRO, CMO, or GTM leader looking to scale smarter, this episode is packed with real-world insights and actionable strategies to align your teams and drive sustainable growth.Stick around until the end, where Roderick shares expert tips for building your own AI-powered revenue engine.If you're serious about long-term growth, it's time to get serious about AI, EQ, and GTM. Let's go.Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:01)Welcome, Roderick. Please introduce yourself and share your background and expertise.Roderick Jefferson (00:06)Hey, Kerry. First of all, thanks so much for having me on. I'm really excited—I've been looking forward to this one all day. So thanks again. I'm Roderick Jefferson, CEO of Roderick Jefferson & Associates. We're a fractional enablement company, and we focus on helping small to mid-sized businesses—typically in the $10M to $100M range—that need help with onboarding, ongoing education, and coaching.I'm also a keynote speaker and an author. I actually started my career in sales at AT&T years ago. I was a BDR, did well, got promoted to AE, made President's Club a couple of times. Then I was offered a sales leadership role—and I turned it down. I know they thought I was crazy, but there were two reasons: first, I realized I loved the process of selling more than just closing big deals. And second, oddly enough, I wasn't coin-operated. I did it because I loved it—it gave me a chance to interact with people and have conversations like this one.Kerry Curran, RBMA (01:16)I love that—and I love your background. As Roderick mentioned, he does a lot of keynote speaking, and that's actually where I met him. He was a keynote speaker at B2BMX West in Scottsdale last month. I also have one of your books here that I've been diving into. I can't believe how fast this year is flying—it's already the first day of spring!Roderick Jefferson (01:33)Thank you so much. Wow, that was just last month? It feels like last week. Where is the time going?Kerry Curran, RBMA (01:45)I appreciate your experience for so many reasons. One is that—like we talked about before the show—my dad was in sales at AT&T for over 20 years. It paid for my entire education. So we were comparing notes on that era of innovation and what we learned back then.Roderick Jefferson (02:02)Thank you, AT&T!Kerry Curran, RBMA (02:13)So much of what you talked about on stage and wrote about in your book is near and dear to my heart. My background is in building integrated marketing-to-sales infrastructure and strengthening it to drive revenue growth. I'm excited to hear more about what you're seeing and hearing. You talk to so many brands and marketers—what's hot right now? What's the buzz? What do we need to know?Roderick Jefferson (02:44)A couple of things. The obvious one is AI—but I'll add something: it's not just AI, it's AI plus EQ plus IQ. Without that combination, you won't be successful.The other big theme is the same old problem we've always had: Why is there such a disconnect between sales and marketing? As an enablement guy, it pains me. I spent 30 years in corporate trying to figure that out. I think we're getting closer to alignment—thank you, AI, for finally stepping in and being smarter than all of us! But we've still got a long way to go.Part of the issue is we're still making decisions in silos. That's why I've become a champion of moving away from just "sales enablement."Yes, I know I wrote the book on sales enablement—but I don't think that's the focus anymore. In hindsight, “sales enablement” is too myopic. It's really about go-to-market. How do we bring HR, marketing, product marketing, engineering, sales, and enablement all to the same table to talk about the entire buyer's journey?Instead of focusing on our internal sales process and trying to shoehorn prospects into it, we should be asking: How do they buy? Who buys? Are there buying committees? How many people are involved? And yes, ICP matters—but that's just the tip of the iceberg. It goes much deeper.Kerry Curran, RBMA (04:44)Yes, absolutely. And going back to why you loved your early sales roles—it was about helping people. That's how I've always approached marketing too: what are their business challenges, and what can I offer to solve them? In your keynote, you said, “I want sales to stop selling and start helping.” But that's not possible without partnering with marketing to learn and message around the outcomes we drive and the pain points we solve.Roderick Jefferson (05:22)Exactly. Let's unpack that. First, about helping vs. selling—that's why we have spam filters now. Nobody wants to be sold to. That's also why people avoid car lots—because you know what's coming: they'll talk at you, try to upsell you, and push you into something you don't need or want. Then you have buyer's remorse.Now apply that to corporate and entrepreneurship. If you're doing all the talking in sales, something's wrong. Too many people ask questions just to move the deal forward instead of being genuinely inquisitive.Let's take it further. If marketing is working in a silo—building messaging and positioning—and they don't bring in sales, then guess what? Sales won't use it. Newsflash, right? And second, it's only going to reflect marketing's perspective. But if you bring both teams together and say, “Hey, what are the top three to five things you're hearing from prospects over and over?”—then you can work collaboratively and cohesively to solve those.The third piece is: let's stop trying to manufacture pain. Not every prospect is in pain. Sometimes the goal is to increase efficiency or productivity. If there is pain, you get to play doctor for a moment. And by that, I mean: do they need an Advil, a Vicodin, a Percocet, or an extraction? Do you need to stop the bleeding right now? You only figure that out by getting sales, marketing, product, and even HR at the same table.Kerry Curran, RBMA (07:34)Yes, absolutely. I love the analogy of different levels of pain solutions because you're right—sometimes it's not pain, it's about helping the customer be more efficient, reduce costs, or drive revenue. I've used the doctor analogy before too: you assess the situation and then customize the solution based on where it “hurts” the most. One of the ongoing challenges, though, is that sales and marketing still aren't fully aligned. Why do you think that's been such a persistent issue, and where do you see it heading?Roderick Jefferson (08:14)Because sales speaks French and marketing speaks German. They're close enough that they can kind of understand each other—like ordering a beer or finding a bathroom—but not enough for a meaningful conversation.The core issue is that they're not talking—they're presenting to each other. They're pitching ideas instead of having a dialogue. Marketing says, “Here's what the pitch should look like,” and sales replies, “When's the last time you actually talked to a customer?”They also get stuck in “I think” and “I feel,” and I always tell both groups—those are the two things you cannot say in a joint meeting. No one cares what you think or feel. Instead, say: “Here's what I've seen work,” or “Here's what I've heard from prospects and customers.” That way, the conversation is rooted in data and real-world insight, not opinion or emotion.You might say, “Hey, when we get to slide six in the deck, things get fuzzy and deals stall.” That's something marketing can fix. Or you go to product and say, “I've talked to 10 prospects, and eight of them asked for this feature. Can we move it up in the roadmap?”Or go back to sales and say, “Only 28% of the team is hitting quota because they're struggling with discovery and objection handling.” So enablement and marketing can partner to create role plays, messaging guides, or accreditations. It sounds utopian, but I've actually done this six times over 30 years—it is possible.It's not because I'm the smartest guy in the room—it's because when sales and marketing align around shared definitions and shared goals, real change happens. Go back to MQLs and SQLs. One team says, “We gave you all these leads,” and the other says, “Yeah, but they all sucked.” Then you realize: you haven't even agreed on what a lead is.As a fractional enablement leader, that's the first question I ask: “Can you both define what an MQL and SQL mean to you?” Nine times out of ten, they realize they aren't aligned at all. That's where real progress starts.Once you fix communication, the next phase is collaboration. And what comes out of collaboration is the big one: accountability. That's the word nobody likes—but it's what gets results. You're holding each other to timelines, deliverables, and follow-through.The final phase is orchestration. That's what enablement really does—we connect communication, collaboration, and accountability across the entire go-to-market team so everyone has a voice and a vote.Kerry Curran, RBMA (13:16)You're so smart, and you bring up so many great points—especially around MQLs, SQLs, and the lack of collaboration. There's no unified North Star. Marketing may be focused on MQLs, but those criteria don't always match what moves an MQL to an SQL.There's also no feedback loop. I've seen teams where sales and marketing didn't even talk to each other—but they still complained about each other! I was brought in to help, and I said, “You're adults. It's time to talk to one another.” And you'd think that would be obvious.What I love is that we're starting to see the outdated framework of MQLs as a KPI begin to fade. As you said, it's about identifying a shared goal that everyone can be accountable to. We need to all be paddling in the same direction.Roderick Jefferson (14:16)Exactly. I wouldn't say we're all rowing yet, but we've definitely got our hands in the water, and we're starting to go in the same direction. You can see that North Star flickering out there.And I give big kudos to AI for helping with that. In some ways, it reminds me of social media. Would you agree that social media initially made us less social?Kerry Curran, RBMA (14:27)Yes, totally agree. We can see the North Star.Roderick Jefferson (14:57)Now I'm going to flip that idea on its head: if done right, I believe AI will actually make us more human—and drive more meaningful conversations. I know that sounds crazy, but I have six ways AI can help us do that.First, let's go back to streamlining lead scoring. If we use AI to prioritize leads based on their likelihood to convert, sales can focus efforts on the most promising opportunities. Once we align on those criteria, volume and quality both improve. With confidence comes competence—and vice versa.Second is automating task management. Whether it's data entry, appointment scheduling, or follow-up emails, those repetitive tasks eat up sales time. Less than 30% of a rep's time is spent actually selling. If we offload that admin work, reps can focus on high-value activities—like building relationships, doing discovery, and closing deals.Kerry Curran, RBMA (15:59)Yes! And pre-call planning. Having the time to prepare properly makes a huge difference.Roderick Jefferson (16:19)Exactly. Third is real-time analytics. If marketing and ops can provide sales reps with real-time insights—like funnel data, deal velocity, or content performance—we can start making decisions based on data, not assumptions or feelings.The fourth area is personalized sales coaching. I talk to a lot of leaders, and I'll make a bold statement: most sales leaders don't know how to coach. They either use outdated methods or try to “peanut butter” their advice across the team.But what if we could use AI to analyze calls, emails, and meetings—then provide coaching based on each rep's strengths and weaknesses? Sales leaders could shift from managing to leading.Kerry Curran, RBMA (17:55)Yes, I love that. It would completely elevate team performance.Roderick Jefferson (18:11)Exactly. Fifth is increasing efficiency in the sales process. AI can create proposals, contracts, and other documents, which frees up time for reps to focus on helping—not chasing paperwork. And by streamlining the process, we can qualify faster and avoid wasting time on poor-fit deals.Kerry Curran, RBMA (18:58)Right, and they can focus on the deals that are actually likely to move forward.Roderick Jefferson (19:09)Exactly. And sixth—and most overlooked—is customer success. That's often left out of GTM conversations, but it's critical. We can use AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants to handle basic inquiries. That frees up CSMs to focus on more strategic tasks like renewals, cross-sell, and upsell.Let's be honest—most CSMs were trained for renewals, not selling. But cross-sell and upsell aren't really selling—they're reselling to warm, happy customers. The better trained and equipped CSMs are, the better your customer retention and growth.Because let's face it—we've all seen it: 90 days before renewal, suddenly a CSM becomes your best friend. Where were they for the last two years? If we get ahead of that and connect all the dots—sales, marketing, CS, and product—guess who wins?The prospect.The customer.The company—because revenue goes up.The employee—because bonuses happen, spiffs get paid, and KPIs are hit.But most importantly, we build customers for life. And that has to start from the very beginning, not just when the CSM steps in at the end.Kerry Curran, RBMA (20:47)Yes, this is so smart. I love that you brought customer success into the conversation. One of the things I love about go-to-market strategy is that it includes lifetime value—upsell and renewal are a critical part of the revenue journey.In my past roles, I've seen teams say, “Well, that's just client services—they don't know how to sell.” But to your point, if we coach them, equip them, and make them comfortable, it can go a long way.Roderick Jefferson (21:34)Absolutely. They become the lifeblood of your business. Yes, you need net-new revenue, but if sales builds this big, beautiful house on the front end and then customers just walk out the back door—what's the point?And I won't even get into the stats—you know them—about how much more expensive it is to acquire a new customer versus retaining one. The key is being human and actually helping.Kerry Curran, RBMA (21:46)Exactly. I love that. It leads perfectly into my next question—because one of the core components of your strategy and presentation was the importance of EQ, or emotional intelligence. Can you talk about why that's so critical?Roderick Jefferson (22:19)Yeah. It really comes down to this: AI can provide content—tons of it, endlessly. It can give you all the data and information in the world. But it still requires a human to provide context. For now, at least. I'm not saying it'll be that way forever, but for now, context is everything.I love analogies, so I'll give you one: it's like making gumbo. You sprinkle in some seasoning here, some spice there. In this case, AI provides the content. Then the human provides the interpretation—context. That's understanding how to use that generated content to reach the right person or company, at the right time, with the right message, in the right tone.What you get is a balanced, powerful approach: IQ + EQ + AI. That's what leads to truly optimal outcomes—if you do it right.Kerry Curran, RBMA (23:19)Yes! I love that. And I love every stage of your process, Roderick—it's so valuable. I know your clients are lucky to work with you.For people listening and thinking, “Yes, I need this,” how do they get started? What's the baseline readiness? How do they begin integrating sales and marketing more effectively—and leveraging AI?Roderick Jefferson (23:34)Thank you so much for that. It really starts with a conversation. Reach out—LinkedIn, social media, my website. And from there, we talk. We get to the core questions: Where are you today? Where have you been? Where are you trying to go? And most importantly: What does success look like?And not just, “What does success look like?” but, “Who is success for?”Then we move into an assessment. I want to talk to every part of the go-to-market team. Because not only do we have French and German—we've also got Dutch, Spanish, and every other language. My job is to become the translator—not just of language, but of dialects and context.“This is what they said, but here's what they meant. And this is what they meant, but here's what they actually need.”Then we dig into what's really going on. Most clients have a sense of what's “broken.” I'm not just looking for the broken parts—I'm looking at what you've already tried. What worked? What didn't? Why or why not?I basically become a persistent four-year-old asking, “Why? But why? But why?” And yes, it gets frustrating—but it's the only way to build a unified GTM team with a shared North Star.Kerry Curran, RBMA (25:32)Yes, I love that. And just to add—sometimes something didn't work not because it was a bad strategy, but because it was evaluated with the wrong KPI or misunderstood entirely.Like a top-of-funnel strategy did work—but the team expected it to generate leads that same month. It takes time. So much of this comes down to digging into the root of the issue, and I love your approach.Roderick Jefferson (26:10)Exactly. And it's also about understanding that every GTM function has different KPIs.If I'm talking to sales, I'm asking about average deal size, quota attainment, deal velocity, win rate, pipeline generation. If I'm talking to sales engineering, they care about number of demos per deal, wins and losses, and number of POCs. Customer success? They care about adoption, churn, CSAT, NPS, lifetime value.My job is to set the North Star and speak in their language—not in “enablement-ese.” Sometimes that means speaking in sales terms, sometimes marketing terms. And I always say, “Assume I know nothing about your job. Spell out your acronyms. Define your terms.”Because over 30 years, I've learned: the same acronym can mean 12 different things at 12 different companies.The goal is to get away from confusion and start finding commonality. When you break down the silos and the masks, you realize we're all working toward the same thing: new, long-term, happy customers for life.Kerry Curran, RBMA (27:55)Yes—thank you, Roderick. I love this. So, how can people find you?Roderick Jefferson (28:00)Funny—I always say if you can't find me on social media, you're not trying to find me.You can reach me at roderickjefferson.com, and you can find my book, Sales Enablement 3.0: The Blueprint to Sales Enablement Excellence and the upcoming Sales 3.0 companion workbook there as well.I'm on LinkedIn as Roderick Jefferson, Instagram and Threads at @roderick_j_associates, YouTube at Roderick Jefferson, and on BlueSky as @voiceofrod.Kerry Curran, RBMA (28:33)Excellent. I'll make sure to include all of that in the show notes—I'm sure this episode will have your phone ringing!Thank you so much, Roderick. I really appreciate you taking the time to join us. This was valuable for me, and I'm sure for the audience as well.Roderick Jefferson (28:40)Ring-a-ling—bring it on! Let's dance. Thank you again. This was an absolute honor, and I'm glad we got the chance to reconnect, Kerry.Kerry Curran, RBMA (28:59)For sure. Thank you—you too.Roderick Jefferson (29:01)Take care, all.Thanks for tuning in. If you're struggling with flat or slowing revenue growth, you're not alone. That's why Revenue Boost: A Marketing Podcast brings you expert insights, actionable strategies, and real-world success stories to help you scale faster.If you're serious about growth, search for us in your favorite podcast directory. Hit follow or subscribe, and leave a five-star rating—it helps us keep the game-changing content coming.New episodes drop regularly. Don't let your revenue growth strategy fall behind. We'll see you soon!

In this special Make It Happen Mondays episode, John Barrows takes you inside an intimate, after-hours debrief unlike anything we've released before. After a full day of sales content, networking, and roundtable discussions in NYC with 18 of the top minds in sales and tech, the group capped the night with a viewing of the Broadway revival of Glengarry Glen Ross, starring Bill Burr, Kieran Culkin, and Bob Odenkirk. What followed was a raw, insightful, and unfiltered conversation back at John's suite—covering everything from the timeless truths (and toxic flaws) of classic sales culture, to modern reflections on gender, race, authenticity, and the future of our profession.Featuring Jeff Hoffman, Morgan J Ingram, Doug Landis, J. Ryan Williams, Ashley Welch, Stefanie Boyer, Jaime Diglio, Sara Uy, Roderick Jefferson, Kasey Jones, Jen Igartua, Aneesh Lal, and more—this is your Sales MBA, served with bourbon and brutal honesty.You've never heard a sales conversation like this before. Buckle up.Are you interested in leveling up your sales skills and staying relevant in today's AI-driven landscape? Visit www.jbarrows.com and let's Make It Happen together!Connect with John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbarrows/Connect with John on IG: https://www.instagram.com/johnmbarrows/Check out John's Membership: https://go.jbarrows.com/pages/individual-membership?ref=3edab1 Join John's Newsletter: https://www.jbarrows.com/newsletter

Internationally recognized business speaker and stroke survivor Roderick Jefferson is our latest guest on the The Sea Captain Way. He has shared his dynamic voice at a variety of events including keynotes, guest lectures, webinars, podcasts, and domain expertise panels for companies such as American Express, Oracle, Cisco, LinkedIn, Salesforce, SAP, Uber and Zoom. He is also the author of the Amazon #1 Bestselling book, Sales Enablement 3.0: The Blueprint to Sales Enablement Excellence. Key points:One of Jefferson's keynote speaking topics is titled “The 2% Mentality,” and it's about overcoming life's obstacles. Jefferson talks about how he overcame a near-fatal stroke and made a full recovery.As part of Jefferson's sales enablement coaching and training, he helps his clients convert prospects into customers. This involves breaking down the complexity of the buying and selling process through scalable, measurable and repeatable practices.Inconsistent execution can doom even the strongest sales initiatives and strategies. Jefferson is an acknowledged thought leader in the sales enablement space. He wrote a book that was an Amazon #1 Bestseller titled “Sales Enablement 3.0: The Blueprint to Sales Enablement Excellence.”SeaCaptainCoaching.comInstagram linkFB linkConnect with PhilLinkedInConnect with GregLinkedInConnect with Roderick JeffersonLinktr.eeNow Available!The Sea Captain Way for Financial Advisors

Discover how a near-death ischemic stroke caused by hypertrophic cardiomyopathy led to an extraordinary recovery journey filled with resilience. The post Surviving an Ischemic Stroke: Roderick Jefferson's Journey with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy and Recovery appeared first on Recovery After Stroke.

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On this episode of RevOps Unboxed, Sandy Robinson sits down with veteran Roderick Jefferson, CEO and Fractional GTM Transformation Leader at Roderick Jefferson & Associates.They discuss how RevOps and revenue enablement should work together, removing friction and building the relationship, the challenges with gaining buy-in, and more.

SEASON: 4 EPISODE: 14Episode Overview:If you are ready to improve your productivity and increase your revenue, then you are going to enjoy this episode of Becoming Preferred as we dive into the world of sales enablement and go-to-market transformation with a true industry luminary.My guest on this episode is a powerhouse in the realm of business strategy, leadership coaching, and sales enablement. He's the author of the game-changing book, Sales Enablement 3.0: The Blueprint to Sales Enablement Excellence, and his expertise has transformed countless businesses from struggling to thriving.In today's episode, my guest will share his insights on creating clear paths to success for small to medium-sized businesses. We'll explore how companies can improve productivity, increase revenue, and navigate the complexities of today's market, so get ready for a conversation packed with actionable advice, inspiring ideas, and transformative insights. Join me now for my conversation with the brilliant strategist and sales enablement guru, Roderick Jefferson!Guest Bio: Roderick Jefferson is an internationally recognized, business-focused speaker. He has shared his dynamic and energetic voice in a variety of events including keynotes, guest lectures, webinars, podcasts, and domain expertise panels, with companies such as ATD Conference, B2BMX Conference, Cisco, Collibra, LinkedIn, MindTickle, Revasum, Oracle, Sales Assembly Conference, Sales 3.0 Conference, Sales Enablement PRO Conference, Salesforce (Dreamforce), SAP, Seismic, Showpad, SiriusDecisions, Uber, and Zoom.Roderick is also an acknowledged thought leader in the sales enablement space and author of the Amazon #1 New Release & Bestselling book, Sales Enablement 3.0: The Blueprint to Sales Enablement Excellence. He has held a variety of executive leadership, sales, sales enablement, operations, and customer experience roles at 3PAR, AT&T, Business Objects, Magnit, Marketo, Oracle Marketing Cloud, NetApp, Netskope, PayPal, Roderick Jefferson & Associates, Salesforce, and Siebel Systems, and Siteimprove.Resource Links:Website: https://roderickjefferson.com/keynotes/Product Link: https://amzn.to/3vENYAoInsight Gold Timestamps:04:25 You learned the importance of setting the goal, and how were you going to get there?05:39 I think you train animals, you enable people07:03 Sales enablement in 3.0 is both art and science07:29 It's communication, it's collaboration, and it's orchestration09:38 What isn't sales enablement?11:44 I'll see trainers that are teaching people how to give presentations instead of having conversations15:36 Culture is what happens when no one is watching17:20 Where I see the biggest problem18:48 What a sales onboarding program might look like20:49 We're constantly validating24:29 What's gone forever and what are the new things that we should be preparing for24:37 Those two big little words, AI26:33 You're doing it because of a why, not a what, and you're getting to the root cause28:32 A strategic investmentConnect Socially:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roderickjefferson/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThevoiceofRodTwitter (X): https://x.com/ThevoiceofRodYouTube:

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3 big ideas discussed in this episode:  BIG IDEA #1: Focusing on GTM Transformation instead of Sales Enablement BIG IDEA #2: Leveraging AI Improving sales productivity & increasing revenue leads to working smarter, not harder! BIG IDEA #3: Take off the professional "mask"... NEVER allow what you do to become more important than you are! Get the show notes for this episode here: https://AskJeremyJones.com/363  Enjoy the interview

On today's episode, Andy welcomes yet another roundtable of seasoned sales enablement professionals in a lively discussion about a multitude of issues impacting the sales industry. Panelists include Roderick Jefferson, CEO of Roderick Jefferson and Associates, Crystal Nikosey, VP of Sales Transformation at the Sales Collective, and Amy Hrehovcik, a seasoned sales professional, coach, trainer and podcast host. Topics include the CEO's views on the importance of in-person work, the role of sales management vs sales leadership, the need to incorporate EQ into the selling process, and evaluating the efficiency of the BDR/SDR role in the sales process. They also highlight the significance of detaching from a focus on outcomes, encouraging a mindset of helping rather than selling, and the necessity of centering the buyer in the sales process.Host Andy Paul is the expert on modern B2B selling and author of three best-selling, award-winning sales books, including his latest Sell Without Selling Out. Visit andypaul.com to subscribe to his newsletter for even more strategies and tips to accelerate your win rate!Thank you to our sponsors:AllegoClozdCognism

In this special episode, join hosts Brynne Tillman and Bob Woods as they break away from their usual setup, with Brynne live from San Francisco. Brynne shares her exciting journey as the closing keynote speaker at the Sales 3.0 C R. O conference. She spills the beans on her incredible encounters with industry giants like Roderick Jefferson, who left her floating on air with a bear hug. Eli Cohen and Tiffany Bova also make appearances, taking Brynne into their tribe and sharing unforgettable moments. The real highlight of this episode is Brynne's updates on the first days of the Sales 3.0 Conference. She provides a sneak peek into what's transpired so far, offering brief glimpses of the latest sales tools and the increasing role of AI in sales enablement. Whether you're at the conference or couldn't make it, this episode keeps you in the loop with the freshest highlights.

Roderick Jefferson joins us on this episode to explore the correlation between AI and Sales Enablement. He explains how AI can increase revenue by simplifying processes, automating tasks, and giving personalized coaching to empower sales reps. Learn how it improves efficiency, enabling sales professionals to concentrate on relationship building, making data-driven decisions, and closing more deals. Don't miss this insightful dive into the future of sales success. Roderick Jefferson is the CEO and Fractional Sales Enablement Leader of Roderick Jefferson & Associates, an award-winning sales enablement practitioner, global keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book "Sales Enablement 3.0". With over 25 years of experience in sales, leadership, and productivity, our conversation with Roderick promises to offer you exclusive insights. Learn more about Roderick by visiting his website. You can also follow and connect with him on LinkedIn and other social channels.

Roderick Jefferson joins us and we go deep on some amazing topics. .Understanding and navigating corporate politics Stop doing presentations and start having conversations. Who owns expansion and upsell revenue? How to adjust the CSM mindset to handle upsell/ cross-selling Big props to Hubspot for making us a part of the Hubspot Podcasting Network! They even offer free tools to help your sales and marketing team. Click Here  Connect with us on LinkedIn Richard Harris Scott Leese Want to go to Costa Rica? Come to the next Surf and Sales event! Register Here! https://linktr.ee/roderickjefferson  

If sales enablement is like an orchestra, is everyone in your company playing from the same sheet music? Expert in revenue-producing techniques and sales productivity, Roderick Jefferson joins the show to speak about everything from creating long-lasting customer relationships to your Ideal Employee Profile.    How can companies leverage sales enablement? What if sales and marketing are speaking completely different languages? How can companies better leverage AI? Listen in for more insights.    → Find more from Roderick at: https://roderickjefferson.com/   A rising tide lifts all boats. Join the rising tide at Sales Logic for the Sales Logic Mastermind —spots opening now!  

As the world shifts and adapts to new ways of living and working, so are B2B buyers! Sellers must adjust their tactics to meet new demands. People don't want to be sold to anymore — they already have access to a lot of information and are looking for confirmation to buy or not from your company. It's like buying a car, people hate the experience because they feel like they'll be sold something that costs more than they want to spend and with a poor ROI.During this episode of the #B2BMX podcast, our host Klaudia Tirico chats with Roderick Jefferson, a Sales Coach for Growth Companies and author of “Sales Enablement 3.0.” The pair discuss the difference between sales enablement and sales training and talk shop about how sales teams can break the mold and build better relationships with prospective clients. Tune in to learn: The importance of enablement in onboarding; How to adapt onboarding for different generations; The concept of “ever-boarding” and how it can impact your sales team; Tailoring Assessment, Management and Learning Management Systems to the company's maturation cycle; and How to move beyond smiley sheets and attendance reports with your sales enablement efforts. Plus, get a sneak peek into Roderick's upcoming keynote at the B2B Sales & Marketing Exchange! RELATED LINKS Connect with Roderick here! Check out Roderick's book here. Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter! Check out the agenda and register for B2BSMX 2023 — use code PODCAST25 at checkout and receive 25% off your ticket!

Get ready to revolutionize your sales enablement strategy with an expert who knows the secret to unlocking unprecedented growth. In this episode, I sit down with Roderick Jefferson, renowned CEO of Roderick Jefferson and Associates, to delve into the world of sales enablement. Are you struggling to align your sales enablement efforts with the hiring process? Feeling stuck in a constant cycle of trial and error? Well, Roderick is here to show you the way out. He unveils the game-changing approach of creating the ideal candidate profile and demonstrates how it can supercharge your sales enablement initiatives. But that's not all – we explore the true nature of sales enablement as an ongoing journey of improvement and growth. Roderick shares his groundbreaking Sales Enablement System, a powerful tool that tracks and reports on your sales team's progress. Discover the critical importance of ongoing communication, iterative processes, and change management to ensure your sales enablement efforts achieve remarkable results. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take your sales enablement strategy to new heights. Join us as we unlock the secrets of aligning, improving, and succeeding in the dynamic world of sales enablement. Click this link for a 7 Day Free Trial of Customer Conversations.  Find out more about Roderick and get in touch 

In this episode, Pete and Lindsay are joined by Roderick Jefferson who is the CEO of Roderick Jefferson and Associates. Roderick Jefferson is an internationally recognized, business-focused speaker. Pete and Roderick Jefferson have a mutual passion for helping salespeople become successful. Roderick talks about how he began coaching athletics due to the symbiotic relationship between what he received and was doing professionally, and how it relates to learning how to deal with other teammates, handle winning and losing, and constantly improve through practice. Join us for a discussion on mastering the art of sales enablement and building connections to provide support. This skill is crucial not just for sales professionals, but for anyone looking to better understand and meet the needs of their customers and colleagues. Watch this episode if you're a sales leader who wants to boost results and team success. Learn practical strategies and techniques to optimize sales performance and reach your revenue targets. Get ready to take your sales game to the next level! Timestamps 0:00:00 - Conversation with Roderick Jefferson: Accelerating Speed to Revenue and Increasing Productivity 0:02:43 - Sales Enablement Professional Discusses Challenges of Assisting Salespeople 0:04:50 - Strategies for Building Rapport, Community, and Customer Service 0:06:33 - Heading: The Impact of AI on Sales Enablement 0:08:55 - Exploring the Impact of AI on Sales: Helpers vs. Sellers 0:12:47 - Conversation on Differentiating Between Sellers and Helpers 0:14:54 - The Value of Hiring Athletes for Sales Teams 0:19:16 - Exploring the Difference Between Managers and Leaders in Sales 0:24:12 - Qualities and Attributes Needed for Successful Salespeople in Today's World 0:29:20 - Critical Skills Needed for Salespeople and Leaders 0:31:00 - Qualifying Prospects and Effective Leadership Key Highlights: - Adjusting to the new virtual environment presents challenges in building rapport with customers and staying engaged in virtual meetings - Importance of finding ways to help customers increase productivity and efficiency while working virtually - Some sales reps were initially resistant to the shift to virtual meetings  - Transitioning to AI may be difficult, but will likely create more productivity in the end.

This week Kieran is joined by 'The Godfather' of sales enablement, Roderick Jefferson. Roderick is the CEO and Founder of roderick Jefferson Associates and the author of the book 'Sales Enablement 3.0'. We discuss the current state of Sales Enablement, why being a fractional enablement leader isn't for everyone and also why he wrote his book.

From Fear to Fire: Secrets to Overcome Fear, Embrace your Gifts and Achieve Success This is the place where real people share real challenges. Where you can find a common bond and uncommon wisdom through their stories. Use tips from … Read More The post Sales Enablement with Roderick Jefferson appeared first on HeatherHansenONeill.

Born Leader or is that a myth? Unravelling the Leadership Enigma with Roderick Jefferson on The Bigger Game In this thought-provoking episode of "The Bigger Game" podcast, hosted by Steve Claydon and Darcy J Smyth, founders of The Outbound Game (https://outbound.game), we are thrilled to welcome Roderick Jefferson, a world-renowned speaker, author, and founder of Roderick Jefferson & Associates LLC. Roderick has dedicated his career to helping individuals and organizations unlock their leadership potential and challenge conventional wisdom. Join us as we delve into the heart of the leadership debate: Are leaders born or made? Roderick shares his unique perspective on the age-old question, drawing on his extensive experience as a leadership consultant and mentor. Don't miss this fascinating discussion on the true nature of leadership and the power of growth mindset, brought to you by the minds behind The Outbound Game.

This episode of The Sales Transformation podcast welcomes Roderick Jefferson, otherwise known in the industry as “The Godfather of Sales Enablement”.Roderick is an internationally recognized, business-focused speaker. Over the past 20+ years, Roderick has shared his dynamic and energetic voice globally in a variety of events including keynotes, guest lectures, and domain expertise panels, with companies including Oracle, Salesforce.com, NetApp, PayPal, AT&T and others. In addition to a highly successful speaking career, Roderick is an acknowledged thought leader in the sales enablement space and author of the Amazon bestselling book, Sales Enablement 3.0: The Blueprint to Success.Hear insights about:-       [11:28] Valuable selling lessons from Roderick's long-spanning career-       [16:19] Values and Emotional Intelligence: A recipe for sales success-       [23:47] What salespeople need to remember when using sales toolsConnect with Philip Squire on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/philipsquire/ Connect with Roderick Jefferson on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/roderickjefferson/ Sign up for our Sales Transformation community - https://info.consalia.com/consalia-community Make sure you're following us on LinkedIn and Twitter to get updates on the latest episodes! Also, take our Mindset Survey and find out if you are selling to customers the way they want to be sold to today - https://www.consalia.com/mindset-survey/?utm_medium=podcast&utm_source=transistor&utm_campaign=tl23 

Roderick Jefferson is the Founder and CEO of Roderick Jefferson & Associates. Roderick has been leading Sales Training and Sales Enablement for companies since the mid 2000s and has operated at scale several times with companies like PayPal, Salesforce, Oracle and Marketo.In addition to helping companies with Sales Enablement, Roderick is also one of the founding members of the Sales Enablement Society and is an Advisory Board Member for two (2) companies in the sales acceleration space: Autobound.ai and Selleration.In this episode, we learn about all things Sales Enablement but most importantly how to set it up correctly.#salesconsultantpodcast #?Time Stamps:The Definition of Sales Enablement[1:00] Roderick walks us through his impressive background and how he transitioned his career from Sales to Sales Training. Defines Sales Enablement and talks about its evolution. “You train animals, you enable people.” -Roderick JeffersonSales Enablement At Scale vs At a Startup[8:23] Talks about the differences between running Sales Enablement at a large enterprise company and a smaller startup.His Sales Enablement Consulting Practice[11:22] Roderick shares his transition into consulting + when, how and why he started Roderick & Associates[15:00] His advice to someone who wants to transition their career into an independent consultant.[18:00] How Roderick grappled with the messaging he uses in his GTM strategy as a consultant.AI Meets Sales Enablement[23:00 I ask if we're at a point with AI where we can focus more of our enablement time and money on just in time support or should we still be focusing 100% on preparing reps for scenarios (vs enabling them during the live situation).[29:00]”AI is going to give me more time to spend time with humans.” -Roderick Jefferson[31:11] Covers how Sales Enablement is measured and type of KPIs the department should be held to.Do A-Players Really Make Bad Managers?[35:80] We tackled the issue of A-Players being promoted into management and I challenge the notion that this is a bad approach.Partnering With Product Marketing[41:40] Explains what the relationship between Product Marketing and Sales Enablement should look like.Mapping a Sales Process to The Buyer Journey[45:35] Roderrick's 5 step approach to mapping your sales process to the buyer journey.Mentions:The Blueprint To Sales Enablement Excellence: Sales Enablement 3.0 - https://roderickjefferson.comAutobound.ai - https://www.autobound.aiConnect with us:Roderick's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/roderickjefferson/Roderick's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/roderick_j_associates/Roderick's YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@roderickjeffersonassociate5012The Sales Consultant LinkedIn Page - https://the-sales-consultant-podcast.captivate.fm/Derrick's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/derricklwilliamsjr/Derrick's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/derrickis3linksales/Derrick's Twitter - https://twitter.com/derrickis3link

When your company doesn't see the value of enablement, how can you show its worth and value? My guest this week is Roderick Jefferson, Bestselling Author, Keynote Speaker and CEO.   Today you'll learn:   How to show what Sales Enablement REALLY does for the business What Metrics you should use to show your value How you can unlock Sales Potential   As Roderick says: "Think about an Orchestra, all trying to play the right song, but sometimes they're stepping on top of each other...the same thing happens with companies; we're all trying to do the right thing on behalf of the customer or prospect, but the problem is you don't have the orchestrator. I believe that Enablement is that, they are that one organisation or individual that steps up taps the stand and all that noise and chaos going on internally becomes a beautiful sheet of music." Check out the episode now! And subscribe to get more episodes like this one!

Joining me this week is Roderick Jefferson.Roderick is a keynote speaker, author, and inventor of the name “Sales Enablement.” It was something I didn't know going into the conversation, and it really speaks to the experience that he has had in this industry since it began, essentially giving it its name.He has a book out right now called Sales Enablement 3.0, and we explore the key points in the book as well as my curiosity regarding his background.I found it an honor and a privilege to host a podcast with and really pick the brain of someone who's "been there and done that" in the trenches for so long. I know you're going to enjoy this one too.Please sit back, relax, and enjoy my conversation with Roderick Jefferson.

Joining me this week is  Roderick Jefferson.Roderick is a keynote speaker, author, and inventor of the name “Sales Enablement.” It was something I didn't know going into the conversation. And it really does speak to the experience that Roderick has had in this industry since it began and really gave it its name. He has a book out right now called Sales Enablement 3.0.In this "Rapid Fire 5" segment, I gather his first thoughts on five key questions related to learning and enablement. 

This episode was originally published in July 2022. Salaries are the single biggest cost item when building a sales department. So how can revenue leaders maximise the return on investment? Our guest in this week's episode is a legend of the noble profession that is sales enablement and he shares his keys to effective talent development. Please welcome the best-selling author of Sales Enablement 3.0, Roderick Jefferson.  These are some of the questions we discuss in this episode: - Salaries are one of the largest cost items for any sales department. How can businesses be strategic about developing talent to protect their investment in sales talent?  - How can sales and sales enablement leaders go about analysing which capabilities and skills are required to execute a GTM strategy effectively?  - What is from your experience the most effective way to structure skills assessments on an individual level?  - Looking at all the levers available to nurture sales talent (such as onboarding programs, custom training, 3rd party training content, and coaching), how do sales and sales enablement leaders determine where to focus? - How can sales leaders strike a balance between personalised and scalable talent development, especially in large corporations. Here are some of the resources referenced in this episode: Roderick Jefferson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roderickjefferson/ Roderick Jefferson on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roderick_j_associates/?hl=en Roderick's book - Sales Enablement 3.0: https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Enablement-3-0-Blueprint-Excellence/dp/1736190911 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)

In this week's episode of Scale Your Sales podcast my guest, Roderick Jefferson talks about sales enablement as one of the Pioneers. We talk about the different phases of sales enablement, the buyer journey and customer excellence. Roderick Jefferson is the author of the best-selling book “Sales Enablement 3.0: The Blueprint to Sales Enablement Excellence”.    My next guest is a Senior Executive with 20+ years of sales enablement leadership experience. He is also an acknowledged practitioner and keynote speaker in the sales enablement space that understands how to create bridges between internal organizations to empower sales to exceed expectations.  Welcome to Scale Your Sales podcast, Roderick Jefferson.   Timestamps: 00:00 - Empowering Sales Teams By Connecting Organizations   5:30 - Three key stages and phases in enablement depending on your company's maturation cycle.   7:35 - Focus on the buyer's journey to close deals    10:45 -  Prioritizing impact and influence when enabling your team   12:55 - Roderick Jefferson's enablement journey   15:00 - Enabling customers to buy?   17:15 - Sales leaders should start every meeting with this...   19:00 - Importance of diversity of thought   22:00  - Significance of professional and personal development   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roderickjefferson/   Twitter: @thevoiceofrod   Instagram: roderick_j_associates   Janice B Gordon is the award-winning Customer Growth Expert and founder of Scale Your Sales Framework. She is by LinkedIn Sales 15 Innovating Sales Influencers to Follow 2021, the Top 50 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on Customer Experience Nov 2020 and 150 Women B2B Thought Leaders You Should Follow in 2021. Janice helps companies worldwide to reimagine revenue growth through customer experience and sales.   Book Janice to speak virtually at your next event https://janicebgordon.com   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janice-b-gordon   Twitter: https://twitter.com/JaniceBGordon   Scale Your Sales Podcast: https://scaleyoursales.co.uk/podcast   More on the blog https://scaleyoursales.co.uk/blog   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janicebgordon   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ScaleYourSalesJBG    

I think we can all agree with the statement, "People buy from people." Today's guest, Roderick Jefferson, believes that success and fulfillment in sales happens when we show up as real people with our authentic self. Just wait until you hear Roderick's story of what's happened since he was last on the podcast. You'll discover what he has learned and leave with practical action items that will inspire and motivate you to do some powerful deep work. Sales Leaders: Breakthrough to the next level of success and fulfillment by creating an authentic sales culture. Get the mindset, skillset, and toolset at the Breakthrough Sales Leaders Retreat, on October 20, 2022. Larry and Darrell will be joined by Dave Sanderson and Special Guest: Holly Dowling to create a powerful event. Learn more and register at www.breakthroughsalesretreat.com.

Roderick Jefferson, believes that success and fulfillment in sales happens when we show up as real people with our authentic self. Just wait until you hear Roderick's story of what's happened since he was last on the podcast. You'll discover what he has learned and leave with practical action items that will inspire and motivate you to do some powerful deep work.Sales Leaders: Breakthrough to the next level of success and fulfillment by creating an authentic sales culture. Get the mindset, skillset, and toolset at the Breakthrough Sales Leaders Retreat, on October 20, 2022. Larry and Darrell will be joined by Dave Sanderson and Special Guest: Holly Dowling to create a powerful event. Learn more and register at www.breakthroughsalesretreat.com.

Another month, another action-packed agenda in the fast-evolving world of Sales Enablement. These are the latest resources we've covered in the July edition of This Month In Sales Enablement. https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:6949525967572717568/ (Watch) the live stream recording featuring https://www.linkedin.com/in/devonmcdermott/ (Devon McDermott) and https://www.linkedin.com/in/hfkrueger/ (Felix Krueger). Subscribe to The State of Sales Enablement https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/month-sales-enablement-july-felix-krueger/?trackingId=2yvFl3l2RY%2BJFbD48Pt2sg%3D%3D (newsletter on LinkedIn). Insightshttps://drive.google.com/file/d/16g4iS0KvtZalrL4jnmsNtgnGWLsUATTn/view?usp=sharing (Vince Zapulla) on establishing product-market fit (https://www.goffwd.com/launching-sales-teams-with-vince-zapula-interview/ (click here) to listen to the full interview) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BB8DeOiSdEMWz9jm5x9dliHcGIH4XNoF/view?usp=sharing (Malvina El Sayegh) on Human-to-Human sales (https://www.goffwd.com/humanising-sales-with-malvina-el-sayegh-interview/ (click here) to listen to the full interview) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CE0mRSYlhwb6d9P_4xvkRcySoyJSoHzs/view?usp=sharing (Roderick Jefferson) on hiring the right sales talent (https://www.goffwd.com/strategic-talent-development-with-roderick-jefferson-interview/ (click here) to listen to the full interview) Jobs https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6954792837431390208/ (Steffaney Zohrabyan's latest job board) Recommended Bookshttps://www.amazon.com/Transparent-Sales-Leader-Sincerity-Structure/dp/1646870646/ref=asc_df_1646870646/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=564685171189&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10956405293405951329&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9031396&hvtargid=pla-1480188492904&psc=1 (Book: Todd Caponi - The Transparent Leader) (Devon's Rating: A) https://www.amazon.com/Customer-Success-Innovative-Companies-Recurring/dp/1119167965/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2CF3EMUUXNHAV&keywords=customer+success&qid=1658106828&sprefix=customer+succes%2Caps%2C319&sr=8-1 (Book: Customer Success - How innovative companies are reducing churn and growing recurring revenue)  (Felix's Rating: B) Featured Articleshttps://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2022-06-21-gartner-says-marketing-leaders-must-reconceive-their-digital-experience (Gartner Says Marketing Leaders Must Reconceive Their Digital Experience and Sales Enablement to Help Virtual Buying Groups Reach Better Outcomes (Gartner)) https://www.mikekunkle.com/2022/07/02/there-are-limits-to-what-sales-enablement-can-fix/ (There are Limits to What Sales Enablement Can Fix (Mike Kunkle)) Online Coursehttps://www.goffwd.com/blocks/ (FFWD's course based on Mike Kunkle's "The Building Blocks of Sales Enablement") Upcoming Eventshttps://world.salesenablementcollective.com/location/sanfrancisco (SE Summit) (San Francisco - September 07 - 08, 2022)  https://world.salesenablementcollective.com/location/crosanfrancisco (CRO Summit) (San Francisco - September 07 - 08, 2022)  https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-enablement-squad/events/ (Enablement Squad Hackathon) (Chicago - Jul 27, 2022) https://www.linkedin.com/events/theenablementsquad-enablementha6950945576108650496/about/ (Enablement Squad Hackathon) (Seattle - Aug 3, 2022) https://www.sesociety.org/emevents/event-description?CalendarEventKey=745f24bc-7a6a-4409-ace8-f52fcf513bd2&Home=%2Fhome (SES Experience) (Atlanta - September 28 - 30, 2022 ) Connect with the hosts online Devon McDermott's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devonmcdermott/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/devonmcdermott/) Felix Krueger's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hfkrueger/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/hfkrueger/) Where...

Roderick JeffersonSenior Vice President, Enablement, PRO UnlimitedFollowing a substantial personal life experience, Roderick's perspective and outlook on life shifted drastically. Listen in to hear how this experience made him question how much you are giving up for what you are gaining.In conversation with: Derek Lundsten, President and Chief Culture Officer, LifeGuides.

Salaries are the single biggest cost item when building a sales department. So how can revenue leaders maximise the return on investment? Our guest in this week's episode is a legend of the noble profession that is sales enablement and he shares his keys to effective talent development. Please welcome the best-selling author of Sales Enablement 3.0, Roderick Jefferson.  These are some of the questions we discuss in this episode: - Salaries are one of the largest cost items for any sales department. How can businesses be strategic about developing talent to protect their investment in sales talent?  - How can sales and sales enablement leaders go about analysing which capabilities and skills are required to execute a GTM strategy effectively?  - What is from your experience the most effective way to structure skills assessments on an individual level?  - Looking at all the levers available to nurture sales talent (such as onboarding programs, custom training, 3rd party training content, and coaching), how do sales and sales enablement leaders determine where to focus? - How can sales leaders strike a balance between personalised and scalable talent development, especially in large corporations. Here are some of the resources referenced in this episode: Roderick Jefferson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roderickjefferson/ Roderick Jefferson on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roderick_j_associates/?hl=en Roderick's book - Sales Enablement 3.0: https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Enablement-3-0-Blueprint-Excellence/dp/1736190911 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)

Sales enablement isn't just for major corporations; it's for businesses of all sizes. In today's episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by bestselling author and VP of Enablement of PRO Unlimited, Roderick Jefferson, to discuss how we can apply sales enablement to any organization.  Three distinct factions of sales enablement: The original enablement began when sellers sold knives and vacuums door-to-door. The second faction arrived during the .com boom of the early 2000s. Finally, the current age of sales enablement is the present day, featuring an innovative approach focused on increasing sales productivity with a systematic, personalized, and collaborative process. Whether a small organization or a large corporation, sales enablement joins the various departments and roles to unify the end goal. Get people to have conversations instead of presentations: The proper discussion isn't just the right topic - it's talking to the right people at the right time in their language. There's a difference between training and enablement - training is a sprint, and enablement is a marathon.  Enablement is a change in lifestyle, including talent acquisition, role-specific onboarding, and coaching for sales leaders.  Enablement should be driven from the top-down. It cannot be something pushed out by the owner of sales enablement. There has to be collaboration and communication across all business lines. To start this lifestyle change, remember: the further you get from the sun, the colder you get. (And sales is the sun.) Understand what the objectives are and what the KPIs are - translate it to understand the goal of sales as a department. Make sure we, first and foremost, tie everything back to the prospect. How do we ensure everything we do helps the prospect or customer increase productivity or decrease pain? Roderick's parting advice? Start a conversation with a simple three-part question: Do you want me to listen, do you want me to coach, or do you want me to fix? As leaders, we go to fix mode. But sometimes, that's just not what's needed. For more great content from Roderick, connect on LinkedIn or follow him on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. You can find his book, Sales Enablement 3.0, on Amazon. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn Sales Navigator. The Great Resignation has become the Great Reshuffle, meaning it can be difficult for sales professionals like you to find leads and close deals. Luckily, Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is here for you! Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is the only tool that uses real-time alerts and up-to-date insights to help you know when prospects are ready to buy. And, with over 30 advanced filters, sales professionals can quickly find genuine leads with the intent to purchase. Gain the advantage of accurate, quality lead generation data from LinkedIn Sales Navigator. You can get a 60-day free trial of Sales Navigator at www.LinkedIn.com/TSE.  This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Closers.io. Closers.io helps sales reps land their dream remote sales gig, where they can set their own hours, work from anywhere, and make six or even multi-6 figures per year. That sure sounds good to us! Committed to helping sales reps make a shift, Closers.io will place you in an available sales role that will increase your commissions and help you live the life you want. Apply for free now at go.closers.io/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we're speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we've found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson's workflow, so you don't have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com.  As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We'd love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.

Roderick Jefferson, Global Vice President of Enablement at PRO Unlimited, Bestselling Author and Keynote Speaker talks about his experience surviving a near fatal stroke and his renewed outlook on life, faith, family and friends. We also discuss focusing on what you can control and the importance of asking for help.

The amazingness of my guests and the insight they bring keeps astounding me. You are in for another fantastic show today with Roderick Jefferson. The first conversation he and I had, I was scribbling notes like a madwoman. Today, you'll hear us talking about the importance of making someone else's day a little bit better. The first wake up call that woke him up temporarily and the adjustments he made after that. The other piece of the equation to ROI. How to be a better leader. And so much more. Roderick Jefferson's list of titles and experience is extensive and impressive. He's a rock star in the sales enablement world. And we didn't focus on any of that in this show. For the record tho, he's the Vice President, Field Enablement at Netskope with 20+ years of field enablement leadership experience. He's also a keynote speaker in that space and the author of the Amazon bestselling book, Sales Enablement 3.0: The Blueprint to Sales Enablement Excellence. He is currently an Executive-in-Residence with VentureScale and one of the founding members of the Sales Enablement Society. Roderick is also a member of several Advisory Boards. When he's not working – which he is much better at doing now – you'll find him perfecting the art of barbecuing or playing on his bocce court with his family. Today's episode is sponsored by Zen Rabbit. The question many people are facing lately is – are you in a really bad place? Or a less bad place? Either way, it's bad. The Great Resignation isn't happening because people simply want more money. Studies show it's because they want to work in a culture that values them and thinks holistically about their happiness and well-being. This is where the F*ck Being Fine program for companies comes in. It's time to stop saying everything's fine when, clearly, everyone's hair is on fire. The program teaches business leaders and their teams how to stay calm and grounded no matter what's going on around them. So they can focus better, respond thoughtfully instead of react impulsively, work more efficiently. And ultimately increase profitability. If this sounds like something that would be valuable in your work environment, message me at Lori@ZenRabbit.com or text me at 571.317.1463. Roderick's walkout song is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fneGMgyMSE ("Brush Your Shoulders Off" by Jay-Z) Website: https://roderickjefferson.com/ (https://roderickjefferson.com/ ) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roderickjefferson/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/roderickjefferson/ ) Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThevoiceofRod/ (https://www.facebook.com/ThevoiceofRod/ ) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roderick_j_associates/ (https://www.instagram.com/roderick_j_associates/) Twitter: https://twitter.com/ThevoiceofRod (https://twitter.com/ThevoiceofRod)

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 that they can be more effective in their jobs. Today, I’m excited to have Roderick Jefferson from Netskope join us. Roderick, I would love for you to introduce yourself, your role, and your organization to our audience. Roderick Jefferson: Absolutely. First of all, Shawnna, I'm absolutely honored to be here with you again and looking forward to diving in on this. From an intro perspective, my name is Roderick Jefferson, I’m the VP of field enablement at Netskope, a cybersecurity company. I am responsible for field enablement – that includes everything other than customer education. So, I’ve got SDR, BDR, sales, technical, alliances, and channels as well as customer experience, so the full gamut. SS: Very excited to have you here RJ. Now, we’ve known each other for years and you’ve actually previously joined us on our Book Club podcast with Olivia Fuller, and there we asked you about kind of the core components of an enablement strategy and you broke it down for that audience into three key categories: strategy, architecture, and reinforcement. I’d love to start at the top. How does strategy lay the foundation for the architecture and reinforcement pieces? RJ: Well, I think it starts at the very foundation of things. What I mean here is you need to understand who’s your audience, what are you looking for, what’s your definition of enablement and who’s your audience? Finally, what are the metrics and how are you going to validate all the things that you’re doing from an enablement perspective? I don’t mean the old-school smiley sheets and butts in seats, but what are we doing to really impact a few things? One is overall revenue. Secondly, accelerated speed to revenue. Next is overall proficiency for our folks. Then finally, how are we now building out what I call the front and the back of the house, which is inclusive of sales, pre-sales, product marketing, marketing, etc… all the way out through customer support and customer experience so that you’re not building a big, beautiful house with a short hallway where your prospects and your customers are turning out the back door. SS: I always love the analogies that you come up with. Now, as you’re building out your house or your sales enablement strategy, what are some methods for ensuring that your approach has longevity and is really built for scale? RJ: Well, first and foremost, it starts with working with sales leadership and understanding what their needs are and their expectations and then agreeing upfront before you dive into things that these are going to be the key three to five objectives and then you’re going to have to agree on the KPIs. The reason I say that first is so that the ball when you get close to, let’s say you’re in the red zone and you’re about to score, the post doesn’t move and the end zone doesn’t move as it happens. Also, as practitioners, we’ve all seen it before. Here are our top five things, and here’s two more that we need to do. Well, the answer is literally, absolutely, we can do anything, but we can’t do everything. In order to make sure that it’s realistic and we’re all being set up for success, what are the two things we’re going to take off of my plate and my team rather than just continually piling things on? SS: That’s a fantastic approach. I don’t know if I can handle the football analogies right now, though, with all the trading that’s been going on recently. RJ: There’s a lot going on out there, a lot of craziness. SS: Just lost one of my favorite players. RJ: Russell Wilson, let me guess. SS: Yes. And Bobby Wagner. RJ: Yes, he's gone now as well. SS: Yes, it's a tough time to think about football. When you’re outlining the goals for your strategy, though, getting back on the topic of enablement, how can you create goals that drive specific transformation and measurable change in the organization and its performance? RJ: Again, it’s a collaborative effort, it’s a matter of understanding from top-down and I mean from the CEO and the e-staff going down, what are the key objectives and that way it doesn’t become just a sales enablement initiative. This is something that is now woven into the fabric of the company and the culture. Also, it’s something that’s being driven down. I’ll give you an example. We are in the midst of rolling out a brand spanking new sales methodology. Instead of me going out, and I could jump on these workshops and say, “hey, here’s the value of it. Here’s what we’re doing. Here’s why we’re doing it. Here are all the KPIs, here the objectives.” Instead, what we actually did was had our CEO do a 30-second recording on the value and how important this is transformationally across the entire organization and company. Now, what does that say? One, it says that the CEO is fully behind this and is a part of the strategy and the execution piece. Secondly, it says this is a companywide initiative. This is not something that’s only being driven by sales or field enablement, in my case. SS: Yes, I think getting executive reinforcement is absolutely critical, especially when it comes to those big initiatives like rolling out a new sales methodology, for sure. RJ: It takes a village. SS: It really does. I want to actually return to something that you had also brought up in the Book Club episode that you had done with us previously. You talked about the idea of creating an enablement council to improve alignment with other teams. I’d love to dig into this a little bit so that our audience can get tips and tricks on how they might be able to comprise a similar council. How do you go about identifying the right players to bring to the table? How can it help you secure maybe some more of that buy-in at the executive level for enablement strategy and really improve the collaboration across these teams? RJ: Great questions. If I may, let me do them backwards about the buy-in piece and I’ll come back to who should be at the table and what the enablement council is. The second part of this is all about making sure that everyone is on the same page, that everyone is hearing the same instructions, definitions, goals, objectives, again KPIs. But the key piece here is, Shawnna, that they hear it in their language. Now, let me go back to who should be at the table. That should be marketing, product marketing, HR, engineering, channels, and alliances, as well as sales and enablement. Why? Because it requires all of them to service our internal customers. I don’t believe in calling them stakeholders. They should be your internal customers and enablement should be that hub that spokes out to each one of them. But that’s not enough. The other piece is you have to be able to speak in their language. Thus, I call us the translators of dialects and languages. You’ve got to be able to speak Spanish, French, Russian, German, Swiss, English, etc. – and that would be all of the multiplicity of languages of each of those lines of business. Don’t go out trying to teach them “sales enablement-ease”, because you’ll lose them right away. The purpose of the field enablement – or sales enablement – council is getting all of these folks together at the same table on a monthly basis. There are executables. There are deliverables and most importantly, there is accountability for each one of those. Let’s look at a real-life example. You bring them together, and let’s say you’re rolling out a brand-new sales bootcamp, as we’re doing. I’m going to talk to product marketing and make sure we’ve got the most current and consistent messaging and positioning. We just came out of SKO, so I want to make sure everything is fresh there. I’m talking to product management around release cycles and making sure that the things we’re teaching these folks that are coming through onboarding and eventually boot camp are getting the most current information. I’m talking to channels and alliances because I want to make sure that we’re getting at the same level for our partners that we’re getting internally, or if there needs to be some kind of adjustment, that we’re all on the same page. I’m talking to SEs, sales engineering folks, on the technical side as well as our CS and CX organizations because we need to understand what those roles need on a different, sometimes deeper and wider level versus just trying to peanut butter things across all of the various roles. Now, once you get them all together, it’s amazing how much collaboration, communication and then finally orchestration comes out of this because you’re not having to repeat this multiple times. It’s not like the old telephone game that we did is as a kid where you whisper in their ear and by the time that same message gets to the other side of the room, suddenly the bunny wears fuzzy slippers. Well, that’s not exactly what I said. You don’t have to repeat that multiple times, and there’s nothing better than bringing sales and marketing and all these other groups to the same table at the same time. SS: I could not agree more. To the audience, if you don’t yet have an enablement council in place, take Roderick's advice and establish one this year. It will change the game for you within your organization. Now, you brought up your book, “Sales Enablement 3.0,” which is absolutely one of my favorite books in our space. In it, you really talk about the importance for enablement leaders to position the function as a strategic lever in the business to overcome that old perception that we have around enablement being the “fixer of the broken things”. In your opinion, what are some of the challenges that practitioners might have in proving that strategic impact? How can they overcome some of those challenges? RJ: Well, I think first of all, another fantastic question, and I think it starts with not identifying yourself and being only viewed as either schedulers and coordinators or just training. Don’t get me wrong, training serves its purpose, but it also puts you in a box, as Shawnna said. You become the fixers of broken things and broken people. That’s not what we do, right? We bring so much more value to an organization than just doing those things. And by the way, I think IT has that whole fixer of broken things kind of cornered. I’m going to let them keep that. Instead of doing that, get away from just NPS scores. Everything that you do has to resonate back from a focus metric on how are you accelerating speed to revenue? You’re increasing productivity per head and you are creating synergy between the front and the back of the house. I always start with talking with your leaders right away and understanding what’s important to them from metrics, and I don’t mean just numbers. I go to a sales leader and I say, “hey, I’ve got a laundry list that we can talk about. Everything from average deal size, collateral use and frequency, deal velocity, new pipeline creation, number of closed deals, product mix, quota attainment, win and loss rates. Of all of those things, what’s important to you?” That way I can now go back with sales ops and work inside of my CRM to say, all right, here are dashboards, and here are reports that I can show you on an ongoing basis. Here’s an example. When I first came into a previous life at Marketo, the time-to-first- close in the mid-market was 88 days. By the time I left, two and a half years later, it was 54 days. Now, I can go back and say, “okay, the number of times that folks are now more productive times the number of sellers times their quota, here’s how enablement has impacted and influenced it.” Please, don’t say that we drive revenue because we don’t carry a bag, but we do impact and influence revenue, and here’s how we did it from a hard-line revenue metrics perspective. That speaks volumes to not only the sales leader but to your executive team. It makes you show up in a whole different light whereby now you become a partner with sales, marketing, product marketing, engineering, HR etc… versus this is the training team, these are the people that do scheduling and coordinating. Does that answer your question? SS: Yes, and it’s night and day the difference that enablement can make when they get that seat at the table. RJ: Absolutely. SS: Well, RJ, I always learn a ton when I talk to you. I’d like to close on one question though, because the enablement function has been evolving rapidly over the years. I mean, we’ve seen significant change in the time that we’ve been in it. What is your advice for how other enablement leaders can keep up with and stay ahead of the curve here? RJ: Yes, I always start with networking and networking with people that are more senior than you and also less senior, and it may sound oxymoronic, but I want to explain. You’re talking to the more seasoned folks. Why? Because they’ve been there and done it. As we say, you’ve been to a couple of picnics and rodeos, so they’ve been through where you’re going so they can give you not only how to do things, but how not to. To me, it’s equally as important, if not more important. And why do I say someone more junior than you? Here’s why. They’re on the cutting edge they may have inlets and outlets for new technology, for new fresh ideas, for integrations of things that you may not even have thought of because you’ve gotten comfortable doing things the way that you’re doing it. They will break you from that on both sides. So, I try and submit myself between very seasoned people and then people that are kind of net-new coming into enablement so that I can learn from both of them. The second piece is always be a perpetual learner. I don’t care what your title is, I don’t care how large the logo is on your company. Always be a perpetual learner, because you can learn something new every day and look at things and shift. To your point, Shawnna, for as long as we’ve been in enablement, what I realize is it constantly shifts. The third piece is you have to keep your pulse on the direction the company is going, not just focus on how can I get them there by working on doing right now? And finally, you have to build what I call a culture of learning across your organization, and that means everything from beginning on the front end of enablement, being a part of the talent assessment and acquisition. Yes, you should be a part of the interview cycle. Make sure that you have a role-specific onboarding program, because we’re doing this virtual. I’d say now start thinking about how you can shift your virtual to live because before the end of the year, we’ll be back on-site doing these. I have no doubt. The next is what are we doing from a business acumen perspective and what new tools are available, but not from the perspective of just shiny new tools, but instead, what can I learn more about that will fit and parse out inside of my organization based upon where we are in the maturation cycle of our company? Next is the coaching and reinforcement of your first and second-line managers. That’s where the buck stops. You can have an amazing world-class enablement program, but if they’re not a part of building this and they don’t buy into it, they won’t own the adoption, the execution or most importantly, they will not own the positive modeling of this. The next is I go back to metrics. For me, everything goes back to metrics because if you just have numbers, you’re not of high value to the company. And finally, and most importantly, make sure that you’re putting in succession plans around guided learning paths. For those that don’t know what those are, that is from the first day of employment for a given role that is role-specific all the way through until leadership, coaching, and delivery. If you’ve got all of that in place, you now have a world-class sales enablement program versus just training. SS: Fantastic advice, Roderick, as always. Thank you so much for joining us today. I appreciate the time. RJ: My absolute honor. Thank you. SS: Again to our audience, I will give a plug – if you haven’t read Roderick Jefferson’s book, “Sales Enablement 3.0” yet, definitely check it out. You can find it on Amazon, or you can connect with Roderick for additional details. To our audience, thanks for listening. For more insights, tips, and expertise from sales enablement leaders, visit salesenablement.pro. If there is something you’d like to share or a topic you’d like to learn more about, please let us know we’d love to hear from you.

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast, I 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 that they can be more effective in their jobs. Today, I’m excited to have Roderick Jefferson from Netskope join us. Roderick, I would love for you to introduce yourself, your role, and your organization to our audience. Roderick Jefferson: Absolutely. First of all, Shawnna, I'm absolutely honored to be here with you again and looking forward to diving in on this. From an intro perspective, my name is Roderick Jefferson, I’m the VP of field enablement at Netskope, a cybersecurity company. I am responsible for field enablement – that includes everything other than customer education. So, I’ve got SDR, BDR, sales, technical, alliances, and channels as well as customer experience, so the full gamut. SS: Very excited to have you here RJ. Now, we’ve known each other for years and you’ve actually previously joined us on our Book Club podcast with Olivia Fuller, and there we asked you about kind of the core components of an enablement strategy and you broke it down for that audience into three key categories: strategy, architecture, and reinforcement. I’d love to start at the top. How does strategy lay the foundation for the architecture and reinforcement pieces? RJ: Well, I think it starts at the very foundation of things. What I mean here is you need to understand who’s your audience, what are you looking for, what’s your definition of enablement and who’s your audience? Finally, what are the metrics and how are you going to validate all the things that you’re doing from an enablement perspective? I don’t mean the old-school smiley sheets and butts in seats, but what are we doing to really impact a few things? One is overall revenue. Secondly, accelerated speed to revenue. Next is overall proficiency for our folks. Then finally, how are we now building out what I call the front and the back of the house, which is inclusive of sales, pre-sales, product marketing, marketing, etc… all the way out through customer support and customer experience so that you’re not building a big, beautiful house with a short hallway where your prospects and your customers are turning out the back door. SS: I always love the analogies that you come up with. Now, as you’re building out your house or your sales enablement strategy, what are some methods for ensuring that your approach has longevity and is really built for scale? RJ: Well, first and foremost, it starts with working with sales leadership and understanding what their needs are and their expectations and then agreeing upfront before you dive into things that these are going to be the key three to five objectives and then you’re going to have to agree on the KPIs. The reason I say that first is so that the ball when you get close to, let’s say you’re in the red zone and you’re about to score, the post doesn’t move and the end zone doesn’t move as it happens. Also, as practitioners, we’ve all seen it before. Here are our top five things, and here’s two more that we need to do. Well, the answer is literally, absolutely, we can do anything, but we can’t do everything. In order to make sure that it’s realistic and we’re all being set up for success, what are the two things we’re going to take off of my plate and my team rather than just continually piling things on? SS: That’s a fantastic approach. I don’t know if I can handle the football analogies right now, though, with all the trading that’s been going on recently. RJ: There’s a lot going on out there, a lot of craziness. SS: Just lost one of my favorite players. RJ: Russell Wilson, let me guess. SS: Yes. And Bobby Wagner. RJ: Yes, he's gone now as well. SS: Yes, it's a tough time to think about football. When you’re outlining the goals for your strategy, though, getting back on the topic of enablement, how can you create goals that drive specific transformation and measurable change in the organization and its performance? RJ: Again, it’s a collaborative effort, it’s a matter of understanding from top-down and I mean from the CEO and the e-staff going down, what are the key objectives and that way it doesn’t become just a sales enablement initiative. This is something that is now woven into the fabric of the company and the culture. Also, it’s something that’s being driven down. I’ll give you an example. We are in the midst of rolling out a brand spanking new sales methodology. Instead of me going out, and I could jump on these workshops and say, “hey, here’s the value of it. Here’s what we’re doing. Here’s why we’re doing it. Here are all the KPIs, here the objectives.” Instead, what we actually did was had our CEO do a 30-second recording on the value and how important this is transformationally across the entire organization and company. Now, what does that say? One, it says that the CEO is fully behind this and is a part of the strategy and the execution piece. Secondly, it says this is a companywide initiative. This is not something that’s only being driven by sales or field enablement, in my case. SS: Yes, I think getting executive reinforcement is absolutely critical, especially when it comes to those big initiatives like rolling out a new sales methodology, for sure. RJ: It takes a village. SS: It really does. I want to actually return to something that you had also brought up in the Book Club episode that you had done with us previously. You talked about the idea of creating an enablement council to improve alignment with other teams. I’d love to dig into this a little bit so that our audience can get tips and tricks on how they might be able to comprise a similar council. How do you go about identifying the right players to bring to the table? How can it help you secure maybe some more of that buy-in at the executive level for enablement strategy and really improve the collaboration across these teams? RJ: Great questions. If I may, let me do them backwards about the buy-in piece and I’ll come back to who should be at the table and what the enablement council is. The second part of this is all about making sure that everyone is on the same page, that everyone is hearing the same instructions, definitions, goals, objectives, again KPIs. But the key piece here is, Shawnna, that they hear it in their language. Now, let me go back to who should be at the table. That should be marketing, product marketing, HR, engineering, channels, and alliances, as well as sales and enablement. Why? Because it requires all of them to service our internal customers. I don’t believe in calling them stakeholders. They should be your internal customers and enablement should be that hub that spokes out to each one of them. But that’s not enough. The other piece is you have to be able to speak in their language. Thus, I call us the translators of dialects and languages. You’ve got to be able to speak Spanish, French, Russian, German, Swiss, English, etc. – and that would be all of the multiplicity of languages of each of those lines of business. Don’t go out trying to teach them “sales enablement-ease”, because you’ll lose them right away. The purpose of the field enablement – or sales enablement – council is getting all of these folks together at the same table on a monthly basis. There are executables. There are deliverables and most importantly, there is accountability for each one of those. Let’s look at a real-life example. You bring them together, and let’s say you’re rolling out a brand-new sales bootcamp, as we’re doing. I’m going to talk to product marketing and make sure we’ve got the most current and consistent messaging and positioning. We just came out of SKO, so I want to make sure everything is fresh there. I’m talking to product management around release cycles and making sure that the things we’re teaching these folks that are coming through onboarding and eventually boot camp are getting the most current information. I’m talking to channels and alliances because I want to make sure that we’re getting at the same level for our partners that we’re getting internally, or if there needs to be some kind of adjustment, that we’re all on the same page. I’m talking to SEs, sales engineering folks, on the technical side as well as our CS and CX organizations because we need to understand what those roles need on a different, sometimes deeper and wider level versus just trying to peanut butter things across all of the various roles. Now, once you get them all together, it’s amazing how much collaboration, communication and then finally orchestration comes out of this because you’re not having to repeat this multiple times. It’s not like the old telephone game that we did is as a kid where you whisper in their ear and by the time that same message gets to the other side of the room, suddenly the bunny wears fuzzy slippers. Well, that’s not exactly what I said. You don’t have to repeat that multiple times, and there’s nothing better than bringing sales and marketing and all these other groups to the same table at the same time. SS: I could not agree more. To the audience, if you don’t yet have an enablement council in place, take Roderick's advice and establish one this year. It will change the game for you within your organization. Now, you brought up your book, “Sales Enablement 3.0,” which is absolutely one of my favorite books in our space. In it, you really talk about the importance for enablement leaders to position the function as a strategic lever in the business to overcome that old perception that we have around enablement being the “fixer of the broken things”. In your opinion, what are some of the challenges that practitioners might have in proving that strategic impact? How can they overcome some of those challenges? RJ: Well, I think first of all, another fantastic question, and I think it starts with not identifying yourself and being only viewed as either schedulers and coordinators or just training. Don’t get me wrong, training serves its purpose, but it also puts you in a box, as Shawnna said. You become the fixers of broken things and broken people. That’s not what we do, right? We bring so much more value to an organization than just doing those things. And by the way, I think IT has that whole fixer of broken things kind of cornered. I’m going to let them keep that. Instead of doing that, get away from just NPS scores. Everything that you do has to resonate back from a focus metric on how are you accelerating speed to revenue? You’re increasing productivity per head and you are creating synergy between the front and the back of the house. I always start with talking with your leaders right away and understanding what’s important to them from metrics, and I don’t mean just numbers. I go to a sales leader and I say, “hey, I’ve got a laundry list that we can talk about. Everything from average deal size, collateral use and frequency, deal velocity, new pipeline creation, number of closed deals, product mix, quota attainment, win and loss rates. Of all of those things, what’s important to you?” That way I can now go back with sales ops and work inside of my CRM to say, all right, here are dashboards, and here are reports that I can show you on an ongoing basis. Here’s an example. When I first came into a previous life at Marketo, the time-to-first- close in the mid-market was 88 days. By the time I left, two and a half years later, it was 54 days. Now, I can go back and say, “okay, the number of times that folks are now more productive times the number of sellers times their quota, here’s how enablement has impacted and influenced it.” Please, don’t say that we drive revenue because we don’t carry a bag, but we do impact and influence revenue, and here’s how we did it from a hard-line revenue metrics perspective. That speaks volumes to not only the sales leader but to your executive team. It makes you show up in a whole different light whereby now you become a partner with sales, marketing, product marketing, engineering, HR etc… versus this is the training team, these are the people that do scheduling and coordinating. Does that answer your question? SS: Yes, and it’s night and day the difference that enablement can make when they get that seat at the table. RJ: Absolutely. SS: Well, RJ, I always learn a ton when I talk to you. I’d like to close on one question though, because the enablement function has been evolving rapidly over the years. I mean, we’ve seen significant change in the time that we’ve been in it. What is your advice for how other enablement leaders can keep up with and stay ahead of the curve here? RJ: Yes, I always start with networking and networking with people that are more senior than you and also less senior, and it may sound oxymoronic, but I want to explain. You’re talking to the more seasoned folks. Why? Because they’ve been there and done it. As we say, you’ve been to a couple of picnics and rodeos, so they’ve been through where you’re going so they can give you not only how to do things, but how not to. To me, it’s equally as important, if not more important. And why do I say someone more junior than you? Here’s why. They’re on the cutting edge they may have inlets and outlets for new technology, for new fresh ideas, for integrations of things that you may not even have thought of because you’ve gotten comfortable doing things the way that you’re doing it. They will break you from that on both sides. So, I try and submit myself between very seasoned people and then people that are kind of net-new coming into enablement so that I can learn from both of them. The second piece is always be a perpetual learner. I don’t care what your title is, I don’t care how large the logo is on your company. Always be a perpetual learner, because you can learn something new every day and look at things and shift. To your point, Shawnna, for as long as we’ve been in enablement, what I realize is it constantly shifts. The third piece is you have to keep your pulse on the direction the company is going, not just focus on how can I get them there by working on doing right now? And finally, you have to build what I call a culture of learning across your organization, and that means everything from beginning on the front end of enablement, being a part of the talent assessment and acquisition. Yes, you should be a part of the interview cycle. Make sure that you have a role-specific onboarding program, because we’re doing this virtual. I’d say now start thinking about how you can shift your virtual to live because before the end of the year, we’ll be back on-site doing these. I have no doubt. The next is what are we doing from a business acumen perspective and what new tools are available, but not from the perspective of just shiny new tools, but instead, what can I learn more about that will fit and parse out inside of my organization based upon where we are in the maturation cycle of our company? Next is the coaching and reinforcement of your first and second-line managers. That’s where the buck stops. You can have an amazing world-class enablement program, but if they’re not a part of building this and they don’t buy into it, they won’t own the adoption, the execution or most importantly, they will not own the positive modeling of this. The next is I go back to metrics. For me, everything goes back to metrics because if you just have numbers, you’re not of high value to the company. And finally, and most importantly, make sure that you’re putting in succession plans around guided learning paths. For those that don’t know what those are, that is from the first day of employment for a given role that is role-specific all the way through until leadership, coaching, and delivery. If you’ve got all of that in place, you now have a world-class sales enablement program versus just training. SS: Fantastic advice, Roderick, as always. Thank you so much for joining us today. I appreciate the time. RJ: My absolute honor. Thank you. SS: Again to our audience, I will give a plug – if you haven’t read Roderick Jefferson’s book, “Sales Enablement 3.0” yet, definitely check it out. You can find it on Amazon, or you can connect with Roderick for additional details. To our audience, thanks for listening. For more insights, tips, and expertise from sales enablement leaders, visit salesenablement.pro. If there is 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.

The season ender of the Revenue Real Hotline features some of the most impactful moments with the truly amazing people featured by Amy: 1. 01:27 https://www.revenuereal.com/e7-dejuan-brown-unchains-feeling-friendship-and-sales-enablement/ (DeJuan Brown) 2. 02:16 https://www.revenuereal.com/e10-andrew-herman-transcends-leadership-and-transforms-team/ (Andrew Herman) 3. 04:00 https://www.revenuereal.com/e16-scott-leese-breathes-belief-into-all/ (Scott Leese) 4. 05:51 https://www.revenuereal.com/e15-mark-kosoglow-sharpens-my-iron/ (Mark Kosoglow) 5. 08:03 https://www.revenuereal.com/e14-lorena-morales-desilos-and-designs-all-things-revenue/ (Lorena Morales) 6. 09:13 https://www.revenuereal.com/e27-shelton-banks-reworks-business-problems/ (Shelton Banks) 7. 10:44 https://www.revenuereal.com/episode-32-ashley-welch-on-the-intersection-of-design-thinking-and-sales/ (Ashley Welch) 8. 11:26 https://www.revenuereal.com/e25-roderick-rj-jefferson-impacts-humans-and-revenue-alike/ (Roderick Jefferson) 9. 12:48 https://www.revenuereal.com/e13-davidson-hang-redefines-masculinity-and-drives-impact/ (Davidson Hang) Reach out and connect with Amy:  Subscribe to the Revenue Real Podcast:https://revenuereal.com/ ( )https://revenuereal.com (https://revenuereal.com) Follow her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyhrehovcik/ ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyhrehovcik/)

BEST OF 2021 Join us in the Krueger Marketing podcast studio this week for another episode of The State of Sales Enablement. We catch up with https://www.linkedin.com/in/roderickjefferson/ (Roderick Jefferson) who is the vice president of Field Enablement at Netskope and author of the book Sales Enablement 3.0: The Blueprint to Sales Enablement Excellence. These are some of the questions we're discussing: What has the evolution been so far and what is next for sales enablement? How do you scale the sales enablement function and the culture that comes with it? What are some of the things to look out for as a sales enablement leader during M&A? What are the things enterprise technology sales teams most often get wrong when it comes to communicating value/benefits to complex buying committees? What is the role of content in the enterprise technology sales process these days? What advice do you have for sales enablement professionals who want to become better at what they do? Here are some of the resources referenced in this episode. Sales enablement resources brought to you by Krueger Marketing: https://www.kruegermarketing.com/learn (https://www.kruegermarketing.com/learn) Udemy Course - Applying The Art and Science of Sales Enablement by Roderick Jefferson: https://www.udemy.com/course/applying-the-art-and-science-of-sales-enablement/ (https://www.udemy.com/course/applying-the-art-and-science-of-sales-enablement/) Book - Sales Enablement 3.0 by Roderick Jefferson: https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Enablement-3-0-Blueprint-Excellence/dp/1736190911 (https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Enablement-3-0-Blueprint-Excellence/dp/1736190911) Connect with Roderick Jefferson online: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roderickjefferson/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/roderickjefferson/) 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)

Sales enablement is likely something your company drives for you. But if you want to be at the top of your profession, is there danger in assuming what they are providing is all you need to be absorbing? Time and time again, self-enabled growth is what sets apart that top 1% of performers. And right now, an opportunity like never before is presenting itself–to adapt and evolve as a top sales professional in the next normal. On this episode, Luigi is joined by Roderick Jefferson. A founding father of the Sales Enablement movement, best-selling author, keynote speaker, and current Vice President of Field Enablement at Netskope, Roderick fills this episode with unmissable insights. Find Roderick on https://www.linkedin.com/in/roderickjefferson/ (LinkedIn), https://www.instagram.com/roderick_j_associates/ (Instagram), Twitter, and check out his new book https://roderickjefferson.com/book/ (Sales Enablement 3.0). Follow Luigi on https://www.linkedin.com/in/luigiprestinenzi/ (LinkedIn). RingDNA is a recognized Gartner cool vendor that makes rev ops possible. Find them at https://www.ringdna.com/ (ringDNA.com)

Roderick Jefferson is the VP of Field Enablement at Netskope and author of a new book titled Sales Enablement 3.0: The Blueprint to Sales Enablement Excellence. On today's episode, Roderick shares tips and best practices from his book. We dive into what the ultimate purpose of sales enablement is, which Roderick says is to partner with sales leaders to build and execute on strategies that achieve two goals: decrease ramp-up (time to revenue) and increase productivity. Plus, we dig into why Roderick believes that if your sales enablement team is still enabling sellers to focus on selling products, services, or even solutions, then you are doing them, your company, your prospect, and your customers a disservice. Connect with Andy: LinkedIn Sponsored by: ringDNA | Transform your sales team into a high-performing revenue engine | ringDNA.com BombBomb | Build better business relationships with video messaging | BombBomb.com Explore the ringDNA Podcast Universe: Sales Enablement Podcast Selling with Purpose Podcast RevOps Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 17: Why is Sales Enablement CRITICAL with Roderick Jefferson Sales enablement is absolutely critical, there are no two ways about it! Today’s guest, Roderick Jefferson, is an acknowledged practitioner, keynote speaker, and award-winning author of Sales Enablement 3.0: The Blueprint to Sales Enablement Excellence. Listeners will hear the story of how Roderick coined the phrase ‘sales enablement’, what the term entails pre-COVID and today, and how it differs from training. You’ll learn more about the role, which includes talent acquisition support, role-specific onboarding, teaching business acumen, measurements, leadership coaching, and succession planning. Roderick considers training to be a part of enablement, and sees AI and developments in technology as the next level. He gives us his opinion on ‘Shiny Tool Syndrome’, and tells us why he doesn’t hire anyone who isn’t “carrying the bag” before telling us why he believes that shelfware is the enemy of productivity and where companies can start if they are looking to adopt an enablement strategy. Tune in to hear all of this and more from this highly experienced enablement expert today! Key Points From This Episode: Roderick’s background in sales, running enablement, consulting, and VP of field enablement at cyber security company, Netskope. How he coined the phrase ‘sales enablement’. The belief that 70 percent of a sale is already done before a salesperson gets involved. Sales enablement pre-COVID: breaking the complexity of sales into practical ideas through scalable, repeatable practices. Sales enablement today: being woven into the fabric of a company through market strategy. How tools, processes, and people need to shift as you move further up the maturity curve. Why enablement needs to sit under sales, in the thick of things, to stay in the loop. Due to time constraints, the more a company grows, the more they need enablement. The option of hiring a consultant for this role rather than an in-house person. The difference between training and enablement: enablement is ongoing. What a sales enablement job entails, from talent acquisition support to succession planning. Why the biggest challenge is acquiring the right talent that fits your ideal profile. How to delineate between training and enablement: training is a part of enablement. The reason sales leaders should care about enablement: it takes some things off their plate.

Roderick Jefferson, VP of Global Enablement at Netskope and author of Sales Enablement 3.0, joins Ashleigh and Ryan to discuss networking, leadership, and being an ally on the corporate and individual level.SHOW NOTESSales Enablement-Roderick started his career as a BDR and quickly got promoted to an AE. But, he realized he loved the process of selling, not the quota that hung over his head. So, he moved into sales training.Networking-Networking is about the other person. It has nothing to do with telling them about yourself or pushing your product, service, or solution.-Stop selling and start helping. You want to find mutually equitable relationships.Old Tactics-The old sales tactics (think Glengarry Glenross) persist because old school salespeople refuse to mature their strategy.-Embrace that the world changed and selling has never been more personal.Video-Many salespeople fear utilizing video because they can't sell their product or platform. What they're selling those videos is their personality.-It takes time to become comfortable. However, once you do become comfortable, it's a powerful tool.Sharing-You're invaluable because of what you share. Sharing is how you build your trust, credibility, and brand. But, you can't expect anything in return.Leaders vs. Managers-If your markers of success are awards and numbers, you're a manager. True leaders don't care about awards. They care about their people.New BDRs and SDRs-Use a guided learning path with new BDRs and SDRs. They had a syllabus and plan for each semester and year. Use that to your advantage instead of trying to retrain them.-Don't expect them to know everything. Expect them to be positive and open to learning new things.Being an Ally - Corporate-Think about the diversity of your hiring managers, the impression your website is making, inclusive mentorships, anti-racism education, community collaboration, marketing practices, entrepreneurial investments, among many other things.Being an Ally - Individual-Think about owning your biases, speaking up against racism, holding your elected officials responsible, advocating for change with actions, financially supporting organizations that create change, voting, and preparing the next generation to carry the torch.Resources-Sales Enablement 3.0 by Roderick Jefferson-Anti-Racism ResourcesConnect With Roderick-LinkedIn-TwitterConnect With Ashleigh-Instagram-LinkedIn-TwitterConnect With Ryan-LinkedInConnect With OSoS-Instagram-LinkedIn-TwitterSend in a voice message

Ryan O'Hara and Jon Mazza talk about the Buyer's Journey on LinkedIn Live feed...prepping for their episode of B2B Tonight with Roderick Jefferson and Jack Wilson. 5 Things We Talk About: * What is the Buyer's Journey * How to Identify and Prioritize Challenges * Why Do Deals Fall Apart * Prospecting and Sales Tactics for Account Executives

Sales Enablement 3.0: The Blueprint to Sales Enablement Excellence by Roderick Jefferson About the Book: Sales enablement is both an art and science. There are no magical silver bullets or single approach that will guarantee that you will be successful. There is, however, a formula just like any other success process, program, or tool that requires a combination of practical application, trial and error, mixed with a lot of conversations with sales leaders to understand their wants, needs, and expectations. At its core Sales Enablement 3.0 is an innovative approach focused on increasing sales productivity through a systematic, personalized, and collaborative approach designed to support buyers that will fuel the conversation economy and impact revenue. This book will provide you with a blueprint that will help you to navigate the twists and turns that will ultimately lead you to designing, deploying, measuring, and iterating a world-class sales enablement organization.  About the Author: Roderick Jefferson is an award-winning senior executive with 20+ years of sales leadership and is an acknowledged practitioner and keynote speaker in the sales enablement space. He is currently an Executive-in-Residence with VentureScale and one of the founding members of the Sales Enablement Society. Prior to his current position at Netskope, he held a variety of executive leadership, sales, sales enablement, operations, and customer experience roles for various companies including Oracle Marketing Cloud, Salesforce.com, PayPal, Siebel Systems, & AT&T. And, interesting fact - as a child growing up, his favorite cartoon was The Jetsons! Click here for this episode's website page with the links mentioned during the interview... https://www.salesartillery.com/marketing-book-podcast/sales-enablement-roderick-jefferson

Most people understand sales training, but what about enablement? That's just what you use for when something is broken on your sales team, right? Wrong. The fact is, sales enablement is essential to every organization — and it's time we structured our companies to reflect that. It's time we moved onto sales enablement 3.0. My guest today not only coined the term “sales enablement,” he's now pioneering its revolution to 3.0. Roderick Jefferson, Vice President, Field Enablement for NETSKOPE and author of the new Amazon bestseller "Sales Enablement 3.0 ” joins me to discuss the secrets to sales enablement success.Now that you understand why sales enablement 3.0 matters, are you ready to finally figure out how to bring up challenges at work or learn to transform your sales org with data and technology? Check out the full list of episodes: The B2B Revenue Executive Experience .

Most people understand sales training, but what about enablement? That's just what you use for when something is broken on your sales team, right? Wrong. The fact is, sales enablement is essential to every organization — and it's time we structured our companies to reflect that. It's time we moved onto sales enablement 3.0. My guest today not only coined the term “sales enablement,” he's now pioneering its revolution to 3.0. Roderick Jefferson, Vice President, Field Enablement for NETSKOPE and author of the new Amazon bestseller "Sales Enablement 3.0 ” joins me to discuss the secrets to sales enablement success.Now that you understand why sales enablement 3.0 matters, are you ready to finally figure out how to bring up challenges at work or learn to transform your sales org with data and technology? Check out the full list of episodes: The B2B Revenue Executive Experience .

If you have yet to meet Roderick Jefferson, allow me friends. RJ is currently the VP of Field Enablement at Netscope. A fitting spot after 24 years in Sales Enablement at orgs like Siebel Systems, Network Appliance, Business Objects, HP, PayPal, Oracle, Salesforce, and Marketo. If you're wondering how the business of sales got to this point, this is the conversation for you.   We talk sales enablement and how the function got to where we are today. We talk where it's going, 3.0-style. We talk communication, transparency, value, metrics, and alignment.  We talk weaving sales enablement into the fabric of GTM strategies, starting at the top.  We talk root cause problems vs. chasing symptoms, indefinitely.  We talk revenue, profitability, and efficiency.  We talk sales boss (vs. sales leader) and manager skill development.  We talk flipping the script of building high-potential programs vs. high potential leaders. We talk the power of the question: Do you want me to listen? Do you want me to coach? Do you want me to fix? (40 mins) We talk "shiny tool syndrome." And we talk team design.  We talk succession planning for sellers! We talk the cost of doing nothing. We talk transparency, my all-time favorite topic. We talk how it starts and ends with the buyer's journey.  We talk selling and leading with empathy and EQ. Really though, we talk human.  For more on Roderick "RJ" Jefferson, check him out on https://www.linkedin.com/in/roderickjefferson/ (LinkedIn,) the website.  And buy the darn https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Enablement-3-0-Blueprint-Excellence/dp/1736190903 (book), friends. Interested in joining the conversation? Hit us up @ 646-470-0248. Resources:  https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Enablement-3-0-Blueprint-Excellence/dp/1736190903 (Sales Enablement 3.0) by Roderick Jefferson https://open.spotify.com/episode/44g34lvN03ktx15b6K3ngZ (Made It: The Black Sales Stars Show with Roderick Jefferson) What's Your Problem https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/managers-identify-what-makes-a-great-manager/steps/learn-about-googles-manager-research/ (Project Oxygen) https://www.amazon.com/Coaching-Habit-Less-Change-Forever/dp/0978440749 (The Coaching Habit) by Michael B Truth, love, and joy, friends.  Happy selling! 

Join us in the Krueger Marketing podcast studio this week for another episode of The State of Sales Enablement. We catch up with https://www.linkedin.com/in/roderickjefferson/ (Roderick Jefferson) who is the vice president of Field Enablement at Netskope and author of the book Sales Enablement 3.0: The Blueprint to Sales Enablement Excellence. These are some of the questions we're discussing: What has the evolution been so far and what is next for sales enablement? How do you scale the sales enablement function and the culture that comes with it? What are some of the things to look out for as a sales enablement leader during M&A? What are the things enterprise technology sales teams most often get wrong when it comes to communicating value/benefits to complex buying committees? What is the role of content in the enterprise technology sales process these days? What advice do you have for sales enablement professionals who want to become better at what they do? Here are some of the resources referenced in this episode. Sales enablement resources brought to you by Krueger Marketing: https://www.kruegermarketing.com/learn (https://www.kruegermarketing.com/learn) Udemy Course - Applying The Art and Science of Sales Enablement by Roderick Jefferson: https://www.udemy.com/course/applying-the-art-and-science-of-sales-enablement/ (https://www.udemy.com/course/applying-the-art-and-science-of-sales-enablement/) Book - Sales Enablement 3.0 by Roderick Jefferson: https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Enablement-3-0-Blueprint-Excellence/dp/1736190911 (https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Enablement-3-0-Blueprint-Excellence/dp/1736190911) Connect with Roderick Jefferson online: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roderickjefferson/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/roderickjefferson/) 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)

Roderick Jefferson the Vice President of Field Enablement of Netskope shares how to ensure that we make sales professional more productive, more efficient, and we insure we they have conversations and stop presentations. Get more info at https://www.Netskope.com/

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast, I'm Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we’re here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so that they can be more effective in their jobs.Today, I’m excited to have Terry from Hyperscience join us. Terri, I would love for you to introduce yourself, your role, and your organization to our audience. Terri Petion: Hey, everybody. Thanks so much for having me. My name is Terri, and I work at Hyperscience. I currently lead our Sales Enablement function, which is part of our Revenue Operations department. I’m a team of one, supporting around 90 in total in the sales org. A little bit about myself, I got into enablement through training roles where I did internal and external product training and onboarding. It’s not something I imagined doing growing up, although for a while I thought I would become a teacher, but it is something I truly enjoy. Even more, I enjoy seeing the impact of the work that I do. SS: Excited to have you here. You and I connected on LinkedIn because you are such a strong advocate for DE&I in the workplace and I think that that is an absolutely critical thing for organizations to get right. From your perspective, how can sales enablement nurture DE&I efforts within the revenue organization in both a meaningful and authentic way? TP: It’s a really great question. Sales enablement's primary focus is typically on onboarding and obviously ensuring reps have what they need in terms of tools, processes, and resources to effectively sell your solution or product, whatever it may be. It also serves as an extension of company enablement. There’s so much opportunity to expand the scope of enablement to cover things that impact the world outside of sales. Part of that includes talking about the impact that we as individuals and as a company can have. I think the first step in creating opportunities to speak about DE&I efforts has to come from leadership and it has to be authentic. It’s important that we think about current events, mental health, and the overall impact that the state of the world has on the people with the closest ties. Doing things like having company all hands, workshops, DE&I groups within an organization both within and outside of sales, those all are things that are key to making sure that there is space for people to share their experiences, but more importantly, find support amongst their peers. I think there’s an opportunity for enablement leaders to advocate for company funding of these types of initiatives outside of the direct organization as well. On the Revenue Operations side of the house, we’re all very closely aligned to the success of the business. Using that position to push for action is definitely something that you can do to encourage more participation and definitely create more awareness in the space. SS: Now, how can enablement though go about helping to remove barriers to ensure that there’s equity in the opportunities for reps to succeed and advance their careers within an organization? TP: The most important thing, and sometimes the hardest thing to do in enablement I think, is to listen for things that are not said. Paying close attention to areas where reps need support the most, but maybe they don’t recognize it on their own is critical. You have to be able to read between the lines in some cases, and in others where it is more explicit, you can create programs that are tailored to the specific needs of the organization and of those reps. It’s also about holding everyone equally accountable for the success of the team. It’s about celebrating wins, coaching when there are losses. Enablement has a unique perspective that puts us in a position to support reps and how they’re treated, how they’re coached, and in the opportunities that we help create within the organization. It should always be about the team success, driving that point home as much as possible because ultimately that means the success of each individual and the fair treatment of each individual matters within that. While enablement doesn’t necessarily create “career ladders,” we can influence those who do by being a voice for the reps and an advocate for fairness across the board. SS: Absolutely. Now, on the point about being an advocate and a sales enablement leader, what has been your experience in navigating the industry and rising to levels of leadership throughout your career? TP: Sure, it’s a really great question. Working in sales as a woman of color is not easy as I’m sure a lot of people know. I think working in tech isn’t easy as a woman of color, and really, working period is not easy as a woman of color. I think there are so many challenges that we face just being a woman. I’ve had to ask myself over and over again, do I speak loudly enough without being too loud? How do I do that? How do I ask a question without seeming incompetent? There’s so much doubt and second guessing and questioning your ability when in truth, you have what you need within you. I think once I realized that, it stopped being about what people thought about me and my capabilities and my knowledge, and it became about what I needed to do for me. That’s where I had to shift my focus and that’s the place that I’m in today. SS: I love that. As the Sales Enablement team has been expanding over at Hyperscience, you’ve also been involved in some active hiring for enablement roles on your own team. In your opinion, what are some of the core skills or attributes that practitioners need to be successful in sales enablement today? TP: I love this question. There’s such a long list of skills, but I can focus on a couple. I think enablement requires someone who is agile because of the ever-changing world that we live in, we work in, we exist in. They need to be a critical thinker because a lot of times the role expectations and needs of the organization are undefined. I’d say technical, because there are some complex aspects of the jobs such as working with product teams. I’d say process oriented because the goal is to create scalable programs, so processes go hand in hand with that. I think one of the other things I'd highlight, because as I said I can go on and on, but the last thing I’ll say is that the person needs to understand the impact that enablement can have on the company’s bottom line. Someone who is a clever thinker and really understands the work that they put into something can directly have an impact on how the company sees success and experience success overall. SS: I couldn’t agree more. What advice would you give professionals interested in pursuing a career in sales enablement that maybe haven’t come from this space before? How can they build up their skills or maybe position themselves for success? TP: Yeah. There are certifications and books out there that you can reference. If you’re interested in learning more about enablement, I’d say check out courses from ATD, Sales Enablement PRO, Roderick Jefferson also came out with a book this year called “Sales Enablement 3.0.” It’s a really great book. There are podcasts you can listen to, the one that we’re on. There are blogs and articles. I’m also available to chat with anyone interested in joining the space, but beyond learning enablement, I think it’s important to understand sales. How to sell, the different methodologies that are out there, and to get a good understanding of what success looks like and the types of organizations that they want to be part of. SS: Absolutely. I think those are some great resources, of course I’m not biased at all. The last question for you, how can enablement practitioners position themselves as leaders within their organization? TP: Yeah. In order to do this, I think you have to develop good relationships with leadership, inside and outside of the sales organization. Meet with them regularly, listen to their complaints and requests, and show and prove that you’re truly an advocate for them and that you’ll do what is required to help make change happen. You’re the representative when they’re not present, so showing that you’re knowledgeable, credible, and will get the job done is how you’re going to position yourself as a leader. SS: Fantastic advice, Terri. Thank you so much for joining us today. I learned a ton and I know our audience will as well. Thank you so much. TP: Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me. SS: To our audience, thanks for listening. For more insights, tips, and expertise from sales enablement leaders, visit salesenablement.pro. If there’s something you’d like to share or a topic you’d like to learn more about, please let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

We're thrilled to welcome Roderick Jefferson on this episode of Selling in Color. As the Vice President of Field Enablement at Netskope with over 20 years of sales leadership, he knows how to create bridges between organizations to empower sales to exceed expectations. In today's episode, we ask him one important question: why aren't companies hiring more black people? Many companies are not hiring people of color. Why is this the case? It starts at the leadership level; there often aren't people of color making the hiring decisions. The recruiting process is flawed for two main reasons. First, recruiting is based mainly on referrals. And that's usually people who look like you or are in your circle. Second, companies continually recruit from the same schools year after year. The cost of this is not just diversity by gender, color, or ethnicity; you lose diversity of thought. Unfortunately, we have many people of color who aren't utilizing the resources and platforms they have to support other people of color. To current company leaders - here's how you can help: Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Stop doing what you've always done, broaden your horizons and put on a different set of lenses. Think about what is missing on your team, as far as diversity of thought. Ask people of color inside your company how to find more people. But don't just say, “how can I find more people like you?” because that puts you in a box. Humbly explain that you're looking to diversify.  From the company perspective, recruiting starts with your website. If there is no show of diversity, equity and inclusion, it makes people of color feel like they aren't welcome. Make sure that your hiring managers are asking to see diverse recruits.  Roderick's parting advice:  We get excited when a company moves from 1% to 2% in diversity -  that's the wrong response.  To Roderick, diversity means being invited to the table. Equity means being able to order anything he wants off the menu. Inclusion means the people in the restaurant sit down and break bread with him.  Get comfortable with being uncomfortable and get away from doing things the way you've always done it. Because the world older generations grew up in doesn't exist anymore. It's not going to happen by accident. Want to get in touch with Roderick? Find him all over social on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. You can also check out his website and congratulate him on his new book! 

Alice speaks to sales enablement practitioner, and author, Roderick Jefferson about something we all want to be better at: understanding our customers' pain points to provide the solutions they actually need. It's time  for sales teams to focus on providing the experience clients can only get by working with you and your company. 

Read the complete transcription on The Sales Game Changers Podcast website. RODERICK'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "First, get away from being viewed as the fixers of broken things. Sales Enablement is not the junk drawer where you've got a thimble and a spoon, a paper clip and a dirty sock. You have to put together a charter that outlines and defines specifically what your organization is responsible for and what it's not responsible for, and that doesn't mean this is NOT what we do. What it means is this is not the highest level of value that we will bring to the organization. You've got to have that charter, otherwise, you become the fixers of broken things and that junk drawer. Lastly, you cannot HOPE that this is going to work, you can't hope that Sales sees the value. You can't hope that you're going to get the results that you're going to need. You can't hope that you're going to be able to right size your organization and you can't hope that you're going to be viewed as an integral partner internally. Because as my hashtag goes, #HopeIsNotAStrategy.

Olivia Fuller: Hi, and welcome to Book Club, a Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I’m Olivia Fuller. 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. Sales enablement as a function has undergone massive transformation in recent years, and as it’s continued to be elevated more and more as a strategic business function to empower revenue growth, practitioners and business leaders want to know what good looks like. But in sales enablement, there’s no silver bullet or secret sauce that will lead to success for everyone. However, there are some core components of successful sales enablement that professionals can apply to their own organizations to drive meaningful outcomes. Roderick Jefferson’s new book, “Sales Enablement 3.0”, covers just that, and I’m so excited to have him join us to talk a bit more about his book. Roderick, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background? Roderick Jefferson: First of all, thank you very much. I’m absolutely honored to be here and can’t wait to dive into this. A little bit about myself, I am the consummate salesperson. I started as a BDR, so I've got a lot of love for them. I understand that role and how difficult it is. I got promoted into AE, went to president’s club, and all that fun stuff, and then got promoted to sales leader and promptly turned it down. I know it sounds odd, but it’s because I figured out that I absolutely loved the process of selling versus actually taking down big deals. I stepped at that point into my first training role and that was years ago with, at T&G. I’ve been fortunate since then. I have run enablement at Siebel Systems, NetApp, eBay, HP, Oracle, Salesforce, and Marketo. While that was a great run, I decided I was going to be a masochist and go out on my own and give it a shot as a consultant, which went really well. I had a great time for about three years consulting and helping companies. I started in the SMB space and then slowly got pulled further upstream by some larger clients and then realized done everything I wanted to do as a consultant, and it was time to come back in house. As of today, I am the vice president of field enablement at Netskope, which is a network security company. OF: Fantastic. As I mentioned, your new book is titled “Sales Enablement 3.0”. I’m wondering, can you just tell our audience a little bit about what “Sales Enablement 3.0” is all about? How have you really seen sales enablement evolve over the last few years, given your wide breadth of experience, and then what do you think is really the current state of the function right now? RJ: Well, I’ll go backwards and then I’ll come back to today if I can. If you would’ve asked me that as a couple of years ago, I would have said sales enablement was about breaking the complexity of sales into practical ideas, through scalable and repeatable processes that will lead to accelerated speed to revenue, increase seller productivity and customers for life, and then ultimately leading to increase revenue. Now, to answer your second question and why I wrote the book, we have completely changed now. I believe that sales enablement is more of an innovative approach focused on increasing sales productivity, through systematic, personalized, and collaborative approaches, designed to support the buyer to fuel what I’m calling the conversation economy. There was a time where we could talk about how do we help them increase productivity, decrease pain. Well, COVID changes everything, as we know. Even the pre-COVID things were starting to shift to where enablement now has become more of a strategic function that is woven into the fabric of companies. We should be a part of the go-to-market strategy. We are actually a differentiator if done correctly for both internal and external messaging and positioning around the key differentiation, competitive advantage, and business value of a given company. We’ve stepped away from what I call the kiddie table now. We sit squarely at the strategic table at a C-level. It’s interesting, the last three companies I was at, sales enablement and now field enablement was actually one of the top five initiatives for the overall company, which really speaks volumes to how much we moved away from being just training. OF: Absolutely. I could not agree more that sales enablement really must be a strategic function and viewed that way by the C-suite and given that seat at the table. You described “Sales Enablement 3.0” as both an art and a science. I’m curious, what do each of those aspects look like and enablement today – the art and the science – and why is it important to have both working in tandem in order to be successful in sales enablement? RJ: Fantastic question. When I was putting this together, I was like, how do I bring both the art and the science together that I’ve seen over the last few years? I realized something really quickly. There are no silver bullets. There’s no single approach that’ll guarantee success. However, there is a formula, just like any other successful process, program, or tool that requires a combination of practical application, trial and error, mixed with a lot of conversations with different sales leaders to understand what their wants, their needs, and their expectations are. You’d take the practical application piece and you tie it together with learning how to and how not to. You look at it from the processes, programs, platforms, tools, all of those things that we do, but there’s another piece and here’s where the art comes in. Think of an orchestra. you’ve got strings, percussion, woodwind, brass, and they’re all trying to play the same song. Sometimes the notes are out of key. They’re out of faith. Now, let's align that to the business units: you’ve got marketing, product marketing, product management, HR, engineering, sales, and enablement. We’re all trying to do the right thing for the customer, but most of the time there’s a lack of collaboration or coordination. Sometimes we’re stepping over each other. Sometimes multiple messaging is going to the same prospect or customer. Until – just like the orchestra – internally, one person or one organization that I call sales enablement steps up and taps the stand and all of that chaos before now becomes a beautiful piece of music. There’s the art piece of it. OF: That is a fantastic analogy. I love that orchestra. You mentioned this also, that your book lays out a formula or blueprint for building a world-class enablement organization. What are the core components of an effective enablement strategy in your opinion? RJ: I think there are eight pieces and they fall into three categories. I look at it as strategy, architecture, and then reinforcement. In the strategy piece, it’s about defining and building a charter that outlines and defines what enablement means to your company and what it doesn’t mean. I don’t mean this isn’t my job. I’m looking at it more of here’s what we are best at what we bring the largest amount of value. Here’s how we can collaborate. Also, here’s how we can be what I call the translators of dialects and languages. Let me explain that briefly. We go out and we meet with different customers and prospects. We come back and we say, “product marketing, absolutely love the first call pitch. Problem is, slide eight gets a little fuzzy. Can we either smooth that out or remove it?” Then we come back to product management and say, “we’ve heard this same request for a feature 10 times. How do we get that moved up on the release cycle?” Then, step over to sales and talk to them about not only our ICP, or ideal customer profile, but because we don’t have enough acronyms, I’ll add another one. IEP — what’s our ideal employee profile for our sellers? Because as companies grow, the maturation cycle requires a different type of seller. You may have that volume velocity sell upfront, and then as you grow, you’ve got more complex and or larger big-ticket items. You need a more mature seller. Then we go to HR and say, “as we are out recruiting, here’s what we’ve worked with sales to define as a new IEP. Here’s the new look for the recruiting piece.” On that point, I think enablement has to be a part of the overall interview process as well. Then you’ve got to look at how do you make learning a marathon and not a sprint? And I’m talking about everything from talent acquisition, role-specific onboarding, to a business acumen at a role-specific level, to coaching and reinforcement for your first and second-line managers on two levels: one net-new manager for the first time and second, the legacy manager or that old dog that we’ve got to teach new tricks because obviously we are all looking at things differently now. Then you’ve got measurements and I’m not talking about smiley sheets and butts and seats like we used to look at. I’m talking about what are we doing to impact revenue-generating metrics. Then finally, you’ve got to have a succession plan in place because how are you going to get folks from that individual contributor level to leader? I don’t necessarily mean just sales leader. They may figure out along their journey that, “Hey, I want to go look at product marketing or product management”, or “I may want to go look at this thing that we’re calling sales enablement. I think that fits me better.” OF: I love that holistic view of all the possibilities of how salespeople can grow in their careers and how sales enablement can support that. You did mention a few core partners that sales enablement works with in the business and going back to that orchestra analogy as well, one of those core leaders is the sales leader. You talk about the importance of really understanding the needs and expectations of sales leaders to be able to design effective enablement programs. What are some of your best practices for really building alignment with sales leaders? RJ: It may sound corny and simple, but I start every conversation with sales leaders with a single three-point question. Do you want me to listen, do you want me to coach, or do you want me to fix? The reason I do that is because it allows me to put on the right set of ears, if you will, and hear what it is that they need. Secondly, it shows them that this conversation is all about them. The second is I approach sales leaders with a simple three-part process. That is listen, learn, then lead. Too many times as sales enablement practitioners, we want to dive in because we’re fixers by nature, but that may not be what that sales leader needs. Then the third piece is when I’m building out a seller enablement org, my goal is that everyone on my team has carried a bag in some sort prior to going into enablement, whether you’re a BDR, an AE, a CSM, you’re in channels, or wherever you may have been. The reason is there’s an enormous amount of credibility by saying I’ve walked in your shoes and I understand what’s going on. Plus, it raises our BS filter a lot higher with sales because we’ve done that job. We can go, “that’s not going to be two weeks. It’s more like four days. Come on now.” OF: Yes. I love that point about really having credibility with sales leaders and one of those ways that you can also build credibility is just by furthering the sales leader's strategic goals and their priorities. In your opinion and in your experience, how does sales enablement help further the strategic priorities of sales leaders? RJ: First and foremost, don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know”. We don’t have the answers to everything and we’re not the fix to every problem. We are a matter of fact, we’re not the break fix organization at all. Back to credibility, when you say that to a sales leader, most people think, “Oh, no, I’m supposed to know this. I can’t say, I don’t know.” No, no, no. What it does is it gives you credibility because it gives you an opportunity to learn from them. It also forces you to be the perpetual learner and listener to learn from the sales leader. The next is talk to them in the language that they speak. Don’t try and get them to speak sales enablement jargon. Too many times, we throw all of these cool acronyms out thinking they’re going to pick it up. No, listen to them as your internal customer, not your stakeholder. That’s because if their stakeholders, that means you’re beholden to them as an internal customer. You’re doing everything to ensure that they are successful and satisfied, but it also has to be mutually equitable. That’s where the third thing comes in. You cannot be a sales scribe. You cannot be seen as sales support. You cannot be seen as the break fix organization. You need to outline what your value is that you bring and agree with the sales leader upon what enablement means in your company at this particular point of the maturation cycle. Come back on a regular basis to make sure that as the company is changing messaging, positioning, competitive landscape, hiring acquisitions, those kinds of things, that you revisit what that definition means and agree upon that so that when you have your deliverables – which should be no more than five, because above five, you’re setting yourself up for failure – when you have those deliverables, you can always come back and you have a baseline with them. That way, the goalpost doesn’t move when you think you’re about to jump into the end zone and score. OF: Absolutely. You actually touched on something that I want to dig a little bit deeper into, which is really just defining your deliverables and how you’re going to measure results so that you really have that alignment. What are some of the core metrics that you recommend looking at in order to really just prove the business impact of sales enablement? RJ: I love that question, because for so long, we have been seen, as I said earlier, as smiley sheets and butts and seats, and those days have changed. If you don’t have hard line metrics, then you don’t have a lot of value to the organization or to sales in general and they will completely cut you off. To that point, I believe there are two types of enablement metrics. First, there are the metrics that we influence and then there’s the others that we own. Let me say this as a caveat, if you’re in enablement and you say that you’re driving revenue, I call BS. Unless you’re carrying a bag, we are influencing. We do not drive revenue. Let me say that again. We influence and impact, we do not drive revenue unless you have an actual number on your head that your team is responsible for. On the influence side, it’s things like accreditation completions, average deal size, collateral frequency, usage, deal velocity, pipeline created, closed deals, product mix, quota attainment quarter over quarter, annual time to first close, win and loss rates. We impact those with our processes and programs and tools. The things that we actually own are things like the accreditation process, the biannual needs analysis, the program-based surveys, the usage stats, the communications, the e-learnings, all of the pieces that come together that we help. As I talked about, there is a journey and marathon of learning earlier that we own. Then we come back on the back end with reinforcement and that reinforcement is working directly with and partnering with the sales leaders to ensure that they own the adoption, the execution, and most importantly, the positive modeling of all of those programs that we have. We can give you the best, most world-class programs, processes, platforms, and tools in the world. What if the sales leader first and second line doesn’t buy into it and own it? We’re dead in the water. OF: Yeah. That’s a great way to think about it, the metrics that sales enablement has influence over versus those that enablement can own. You are very forward-thinking in sales enablement, so I’m curious, how do you think the function will continue to evolve in the next year and possibly even beyond that? RJ: Phenomenal question. I’ll give a little book teaser. Don’t be afraid of AI, make it your friend. It’s everywhere. I think that AI is going to play a larger piece and role in sales enablement than ever before going forward. I also think that the metrics that I just outlined there are separate metrics for sales and separate metrics for CSM. Those are going to be your best friend. If you don’t have dashboards right now, start getting them together out of your CRM. Metrics are going to play a bigger role. I also believe that we’re going to become more and more ingrained in the fabric and the culture of companies, because I’m seeing more and more CEOs now that are putting enablement on their top priority lists and their deliverables list. The next is build a field enablement council as I call it. That is, bring all of the players together. The product marketing, marketing, product management, HR, bringing them together once a month, once a quarter to make sure that everyone is on the same page. You have to become the orchestra master. That is going to become more and more important because the changes in landscape from a competitive perspective, mergers and acquisitions are going to play larger piece in what enablement actually does. Determine where you are in the maturation cycle of your company, and start building for where your CEO is trying to take you. Start that build today. Don’t be afraid of scaling automation and don’t be afraid of AI. Those are going to be an integral part of enablement going forward and play an even bigger piece. At one company, I was even reading out to the board, what our metrics were on a quarterly basis. I believe that enablement is going to have a higher profile in companies than ever before. OF: That is fantastic advice, and I love your perspective on the future of enablement. Roderick, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to our audience today about your book. RJ: Thank you for having me. Again, I’m absolutely honored and I am dying to get that baby that I call my book out there to the world so that they can see and grasp and my hope is start executing on “Sales Enablement 3.0”, which is I call the blueprint sales enablement excellence. You want to get there, go grab the book OF: To our audience, you can find Roderick’s book now on Amazon. Thanks for listening. For more insights, tips, and expertise from sales enablement leaders, visit salesenablement.pro. If there’s something you’d like to share or a topic you’d like to learn more about, please let us know. We’d love to hear from you. You can purchase “Sales Enablement 3.0” now on Amazon here.

Olivia Fuller: Hi, and welcome to Book Club, a Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I’m Olivia Fuller. 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. Sales enablement as a function has undergone massive transformation in recent years, and as it’s continued to be elevated more and more as a strategic business function to empower revenue growth, practitioners and business leaders want to know what good looks like. But in sales enablement, there’s no silver bullet or secret sauce that will lead to success for everyone. However, there are some core components of successful sales enablement that professionals can apply to their own organizations to drive meaningful outcomes. Roderick Jefferson’s new book, “Sales Enablement 3.0”, covers just that, and I’m so excited to have him join us to talk a bit more about his book. Roderick, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background? Roderick Jefferson: First of all, thank you very much. I’m absolutely honored to be here and can’t wait to dive into this. A little bit about myself, I am the consummate salesperson. I started as a BDR, so I've got a lot of love for them. I understand that role and how difficult it is. I got promoted into AE, went to president’s club, and all that fun stuff, and then got promoted to sales leader and promptly turned it down. I know it sounds odd, but it’s because I figured out that I absolutely loved the process of selling versus actually taking down big deals. I stepped at that point into my first training role and that was years ago with, at T&G. I’ve been fortunate since then. I have run enablement at Siebel Systems, NetApp, eBay, HP, Oracle, Salesforce, and Marketo. While that was a great run, I decided I was going to be a masochist and go out on my own and give it a shot as a consultant, which went really well. I had a great time for about three years consulting and helping companies. I started in the SMB space and then slowly got pulled further upstream by some larger clients and then realized done everything I wanted to do as a consultant, and it was time to come back in house. As of today, I am the vice president of field enablement at Netskope, which is a network security company. OF: Fantastic. As I mentioned, your new book is titled “Sales Enablement 3.0”. I’m wondering, can you just tell our audience a little bit about what “Sales Enablement 3.0” is all about? How have you really seen sales enablement evolve over the last few years, given your wide breadth of experience, and then what do you think is really the current state of the function right now? RJ: Well, I’ll go backwards and then I’ll come back to today if I can. If you would’ve asked me that as a couple of years ago, I would have said sales enablement was about breaking the complexity of sales into practical ideas, through scalable and repeatable processes that will lead to accelerated speed to revenue, increase seller productivity and customers for life, and then ultimately leading to increase revenue. Now, to answer your second question and why I wrote the book, we have completely changed now. I believe that sales enablement is more of an innovative approach focused on increasing sales productivity, through systematic, personalized, and collaborative approaches, designed to support the buyer to fuel what I’m calling the conversation economy. There was a time where we could talk about how do we help them increase productivity, decrease pain. Well, COVID changes everything, as we know. Even the pre-COVID things were starting to shift to where enablement now has become more of a strategic function that is woven into the fabric of companies. We should be a part of the go-to-market strategy. We are actually a differentiator if done correctly for both internal and external messaging and positioning around the key differentiation, competitive advantage, and business value of a given company. We’ve stepped away from what I call the kiddie table now. We sit squarely at the strategic table at a C-level. It’s interesting, the last three companies I was at, sales enablement and now field enablement was actually one of the top five initiatives for the overall company, which really speaks volumes to how much we moved away from being just training. OF: Absolutely. I could not agree more that sales enablement really must be a strategic function and viewed that way by the C-suite and given that seat at the table. You described “Sales Enablement 3.0” as both an art and a science. I’m curious, what do each of those aspects look like and enablement today – the art and the science – and why is it important to have both working in tandem in order to be successful in sales enablement? RJ: Fantastic question. When I was putting this together, I was like, how do I bring both the art and the science together that I’ve seen over the last few years? I realized something really quickly. There are no silver bullets. There’s no single approach that’ll guarantee success. However, there is a formula, just like any other successful process, program, or tool that requires a combination of practical application, trial and error, mixed with a lot of conversations with different sales leaders to understand what their wants, their needs, and their expectations are. You’d take the practical application piece and you tie it together with learning how to and how not to. You look at it from the processes, programs, platforms, tools, all of those things that we do, but there’s another piece and here’s where the art comes in. Think of an orchestra. you’ve got strings, percussion, woodwind, brass, and they’re all trying to play the same song. Sometimes the notes are out of key. They’re out of faith. Now, let's align that to the business units: you’ve got marketing, product marketing, product management, HR, engineering, sales, and enablement. We’re all trying to do the right thing for the customer, but most of the time there’s a lack of collaboration or coordination. Sometimes we’re stepping over each other. Sometimes multiple messaging is going to the same prospect or customer. Until – just like the orchestra – internally, one person or one organization that I call sales enablement steps up and taps the stand and all of that chaos before now becomes a beautiful piece of music. There’s the art piece of it. OF: That is a fantastic analogy. I love that orchestra. You mentioned this also, that your book lays out a formula or blueprint for building a world-class enablement organization. What are the core components of an effective enablement strategy in your opinion? RJ: I think there are eight pieces and they fall into three categories. I look at it as strategy, architecture, and then reinforcement. In the strategy piece, it’s about defining and building a charter that outlines and defines what enablement means to your company and what it doesn’t mean. I don’t mean this isn’t my job. I’m looking at it more of here’s what we are best at what we bring the largest amount of value. Here’s how we can collaborate. Also, here’s how we can be what I call the translators of dialects and languages. Let me explain that briefly. We go out and we meet with different customers and prospects. We come back and we say, “product marketing, absolutely love the first call pitch. Problem is, slide eight gets a little fuzzy. Can we either smooth that out or remove it?” Then we come back to product management and say, “we’ve heard this same request for a feature 10 times. How do we get that moved up on the release cycle?” Then, step over to sales and talk to them about not only our ICP, or ideal customer profile, but because we don’t have enough acronyms, I’ll add another one. IEP — what’s our ideal employee profile for our sellers? Because as companies grow, the maturation cycle requires a different type of seller. You may have that volume velocity sell upfront, and then as you grow, you’ve got more complex and or larger big-ticket items. You need a more mature seller. Then we go to HR and say, “as we are out recruiting, here’s what we’ve worked with sales to define as a new IEP. Here’s the new look for the recruiting piece.” On that point, I think enablement has to be a part of the overall interview process as well. Then you’ve got to look at how do you make learning a marathon and not a sprint? And I’m talking about everything from talent acquisition, role-specific onboarding, to a business acumen at a role-specific level, to coaching and reinforcement for your first and second-line managers on two levels: one net-new manager for the first time and second, the legacy manager or that old dog that we’ve got to teach new tricks because obviously we are all looking at things differently now. Then you’ve got measurements and I’m not talking about smiley sheets and butts and seats like we used to look at. I’m talking about what are we doing to impact revenue-generating metrics. Then finally, you’ve got to have a succession plan in place because how are you going to get folks from that individual contributor level to leader? I don’t necessarily mean just sales leader. They may figure out along their journey that, “Hey, I want to go look at product marketing or product management”, or “I may want to go look at this thing that we’re calling sales enablement. I think that fits me better.” OF: I love that holistic view of all the possibilities of how salespeople can grow in their careers and how sales enablement can support that. You did mention a few core partners that sales enablement works with in the business and going back to that orchestra analogy as well, one of those core leaders is the sales leader. You talk about the importance of really understanding the needs and expectations of sales leaders to be able to design effective enablement programs. What are some of your best practices for really building alignment with sales leaders? RJ: It may sound corny and simple, but I start every conversation with sales leaders with a single three-point question. Do you want me to listen, do you want me to coach, or do you want me to fix? The reason I do that is because it allows me to put on the right set of ears, if you will, and hear what it is that they need. Secondly, it shows them that this conversation is all about them. The second is I approach sales leaders with a simple three-part process. That is listen, learn, then lead. Too many times as sales enablement practitioners, we want to dive in because we’re fixers by nature, but that may not be what that sales leader needs. Then the third piece is when I’m building out a seller enablement org, my goal is that everyone on my team has carried a bag in some sort prior to going into enablement, whether you’re a BDR, an AE, a CSM, you’re in channels, or wherever you may have been. The reason is there’s an enormous amount of credibility by saying I’ve walked in your shoes and I understand what’s going on. Plus, it raises our BS filter a lot higher with sales because we’ve done that job. We can go, “that’s not going to be two weeks. It’s more like four days. Come on now.” OF: Yes. I love that point about really having credibility with sales leaders and one of those ways that you can also build credibility is just by furthering the sales leader's strategic goals and their priorities. In your opinion and in your experience, how does sales enablement help further the strategic priorities of sales leaders? RJ: First and foremost, don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know”. We don’t have the answers to everything and we’re not the fix to every problem. We are a matter of fact, we’re not the break fix organization at all. Back to credibility, when you say that to a sales leader, most people think, “Oh, no, I’m supposed to know this. I can’t say, I don’t know.” No, no, no. What it does is it gives you credibility because it gives you an opportunity to learn from them. It also forces you to be the perpetual learner and listener to learn from the sales leader. The next is talk to them in the language that they speak. Don’t try and get them to speak sales enablement jargon. Too many times, we throw all of these cool acronyms out thinking they’re going to pick it up. No, listen to them as your internal customer, not your stakeholder. That’s because if their stakeholders, that means you’re beholden to them as an internal customer. You’re doing everything to ensure that they are successful and satisfied, but it also has to be mutually equitable. That’s where the third thing comes in. You cannot be a sales scribe. You cannot be seen as sales support. You cannot be seen as the break fix organization. You need to outline what your value is that you bring and agree with the sales leader upon what enablement means in your company at this particular point of the maturation cycle. Come back on a regular basis to make sure that as the company is changing messaging, positioning, competitive landscape, hiring acquisitions, those kinds of things, that you revisit what that definition means and agree upon that so that when you have your deliverables – which should be no more than five, because above five, you’re setting yourself up for failure – when you have those deliverables, you can always come back and you have a baseline with them. That way, the goalpost doesn’t move when you think you’re about to jump into the end zone and score. OF: Absolutely. You actually touched on something that I want to dig a little bit deeper into, which is really just defining your deliverables and how you’re going to measure results so that you really have that alignment. What are some of the core metrics that you recommend looking at in order to really just prove the business impact of sales enablement? RJ: I love that question, because for so long, we have been seen, as I said earlier, as smiley sheets and butts and seats, and those days have changed. If you don’t have hard line metrics, then you don’t have a lot of value to the organization or to sales in general and they will completely cut you off. To that point, I believe there are two types of enablement metrics. First, there are the metrics that we influence and then there’s the others that we own. Let me say this as a caveat, if you’re in enablement and you say that you’re driving revenue, I call BS. Unless you’re carrying a bag, we are influencing. We do not drive revenue. Let me say that again. We influence and impact, we do not drive revenue unless you have an actual number on your head that your team is responsible for. On the influence side, it’s things like accreditation completions, average deal size, collateral frequency, usage, deal velocity, pipeline created, closed deals, product mix, quota attainment quarter over quarter, annual time to first close, win and loss rates. We impact those with our processes and programs and tools. The things that we actually own are things like the accreditation process, the biannual needs analysis, the program-based surveys, the usage stats, the communications, the e-learnings, all of the pieces that come together that we help. As I talked about, there is a journey and marathon of learning earlier that we own. Then we come back on the back end with reinforcement and that reinforcement is working directly with and partnering with the sales leaders to ensure that they own the adoption, the execution, and most importantly, the positive modeling of all of those programs that we have. We can give you the best, most world-class programs, processes, platforms, and tools in the world. What if the sales leader first and second line doesn’t buy into it and own it? We’re dead in the water. OF: Yeah. That’s a great way to think about it, the metrics that sales enablement has influence over versus those that enablement can own. You are very forward-thinking in sales enablement, so I’m curious, how do you think the function will continue to evolve in the next year and possibly even beyond that? RJ: Phenomenal question. I’ll give a little book teaser. Don’t be afraid of AI, make it your friend. It’s everywhere. I think that AI is going to play a larger piece and role in sales enablement than ever before going forward. I also think that the metrics that I just outlined there are separate metrics for sales and separate metrics for CSM. Those are going to be your best friend. If you don’t have dashboards right now, start getting them together out of your CRM. Metrics are going to play a bigger role. I also believe that we’re going to become more and more ingrained in the fabric and the culture of companies, because I’m seeing more and more CEOs now that are putting enablement on their top priority lists and their deliverables list. The next is build a field enablement council as I call it. That is, bring all of the players together. The product marketing, marketing, product management, HR, bringing them together once a month, once a quarter to make sure that everyone is on the same page. You have to become the orchestra master. That is going to become more and more important because the changes in landscape from a competitive perspective, mergers and acquisitions are going to play larger piece in what enablement actually does. Determine where you are in the maturation cycle of your company, and start building for where your CEO is trying to take you. Start that build today. Don’t be afraid of scaling automation and don’t be afraid of AI. Those are going to be an integral part of enablement going forward and play an even bigger piece. At one company, I was even reading out to the board, what our metrics were on a quarterly basis. I believe that enablement is going to have a higher profile in companies than ever before. OF: That is fantastic advice, and I love your perspective on the future of enablement. Roderick, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to our audience today about your book. RJ: Thank you for having me. Again, I’m absolutely honored and I am dying to get that baby that I call my book out there to the world so that they can see and grasp and my hope is start executing on “Sales Enablement 3.0”, which is I call the blueprint sales enablement excellence. You want to get there, go grab the book OF: To our audience, you can find Roderick’s book now on Amazon. Thanks for listening. For more insights, tips, and expertise from sales enablement leaders, visit salesenablement.pro. If there’s something you’d like to share or a topic you’d like to learn more about, please let us know. We’d love to hear from you. You can purchase “Sales Enablement 3.0” now on Amazon here.

Is there ever a moment when you can say, “I MADE IT?” Join Shelton Banks and the Sales for the Culture crew as they get real with Black folks about success, finding opportunities, and how they used tech sales to change the game! This week we are chopping it up with Roderick Jefferson, Vice President of Field Enablement at Netskope, CEO of Roderick Jefferson & Associates, author of Sales Enablement 3.0, and winner of more awards than we can count.

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space and we’re here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so they can be more effective in their jobs. In celebration of Black History Month, we wanted to lift up the voices of some of the many Black sales enablement experts in our community to share their insights into how sales enablement is helping to reshape the business world to be more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. Driving a rich and diverse culture is becoming a critical priority for a lot of organizations, and sales enablement can be a strategic lever for organizations to enhance their efforts in this arena because of its unique cross-functional nature. Let’s hear Roderick Jefferson and Simon T. Bailey share their thoughts on how sales enablement improves innovation through collaboration and communication, especially when faced with adversity. Roderick Jefferson: I believe that sales enablement is all about breaking the complexity of sales into practical ideas, through scalable and repeatable practice that ultimately leads to increased revenue. I also believe that there are three components. There’s communication, there’s collaboration, and there’s orchestration. On the communication piece, it’s all about making sure that we are getting out clear, consistent communications across the entirety of our organization, that everyone understands what’s going on and what’s the value that we bring so that we’re not viewed as the fixers of broken things, or just simply training because we know there’s way more to it than just that. The collaboration piece is making sure that everyone understands their role, that they have to play in order to support the entire organization, as well as our prospects and our customers, and even our partners. Finally, as the orchestration piece, I always give this analogy of a true orchestra. And what I mean there is you’ve got brass, percussion, strings, woodwinds. Now let’s take those to the different lines of business. Internally, you’ve got sales, sales enablement, product marketing, product management, engineering, HR. They’re all trying to do the right thing for the customer. The problem is there’s really no true orchestra master that’s making sure that they play these in sync that we’re not stepping on top of each other and no sour notes being played until one individual or organization, which I believe is sales enablement, steps up to sustain. Now all of that chaos becomes a beautiful piece of music. Simon T. Bailey: We know that right now in this world, there is information that is swirly, industries are being transformed, and people are worried. They may not say what’s going on, but they’re thinking, “Does my leader value who I am and my contribution to the team?” And how we have to show up is recognizing that fortitude is the new attitude by helping people fortify their future, to say here’s what’s right. Alright? Now let me just give you some quick examples of what fortitude looks like. If you saw the movie “300”, right. King Leonidas, right? That’s fortitude. If you saw “Wonder Woman”, that is fortitude in action. If you saw Jennifer Lawrence in “Hunger Games”, that’s fortitude in action. Courage in the midst of adversity. So, then the question becomes, “Simon, how do I now encourage my team in the midst of uncertainty, especially when people are working remote?” Well, think about when you do your conference calls with the teams that are obviously happening virtually. How do we start with the question? And the question is “What are you most grateful for?” And it’s a different question because you’re probably saying it has nothing to do with business. But it has everything to do with business. It’s counterintuitive. So, allowing people to start with the first exercise, What’s Right. But then to answer a question, “what are you most grateful for?” allows them to be centered when everything is shifting around them. So, if I see how I fit tomorrow, starting today, when I answer I’m most grateful, what they’re doing is they’re setting that intention, creating that tone, and that disposition that I am totally present to this moment. I am supposed to be right here, and everything is working out for my good. SS: When people feel a sense of belonging in an organization, it enhances psychological safety, which in turn creates an open, collaborative, and supportive culture. Blaire Hervey and Lakisha C. Brooks explain the power of psychological safety in improving team performance. Blaire Hervey: Give everyone permission to feel the way they’re feeling, to speak how they speak, and to have a space where they can share those thoughts, those emotions, etc. I think at this point, we truly have to activate our superpower of being empathetic and understanding that everyone is feeling and thinking something different, but all of those things add true value to our teams, our departments, and our organizations. LaKisha C. Brooks: If people feel that I belong, I’m accepted, I am appreciated to have around, morale is going to go up, they’re going to want to come to work. They’re going to want to work for a year. They’re going to want to show their best because they feel that sense of belonging within your organization as well. You’re going to see heightened psychological safety; people are able to share their thoughts. People feel free that they can share whatever is going on without feeling that they’re going to be reprimanded or they’re looking over their shoulder if you are embracing that people feel like this is a safe place for me to share how I feel. SS: One of the core ways in which enablement can help build a culture that empowers psychological safety is in the hiring and development of sales talent. Blaire, LaKisha, and Kate Philpot share advice on how to prioritize DE&I in the hiring process to improve retention. Blaire Hervey: Oftentimes we hear these leaders out here saying it’s just too hard to recruit people of color. The talent isn’t there. That’s not true. That is so false. The pipeline is full and I’m still having to compete against those other individuals of color. And me in particular, I don’t have a degree. So, my grittiness and my passion in my experience is that competitive factor. So, when I get that role, when I get that job, when I get that position or that seat on a board of directors or whatever the case may be, I have to stop thinking it’s because they needed a black person. Or because they needed a woman. It’s because they needed a Blaire. And so, I think about that, I show up with my red hair, my natural hair girl. I show my earrings. I show up with all of my energy, not only for myself and in my authenticity, but because it gives Shawnna the same permission to be herself because she may see me. Maybe not just you, but say, “Wow, I didn’t know I could come to the table like that.” And then we are starting to duplicate that effort and then there’s just less only’s and then we become more of a force together. LaKisha C. Brooks: First, we want to identify our own biases. This may be our organization may have biases, maybe we’re hiring the same people. Maybe you are someone that hires people and you’re realizing I’m actually hiring the same type of people. I’m having an affinity bias. Or, maybe you realize that people are quitting because they feel that they’re not feeling as though they’re being fairly judged in their performance assessments, because you have a performance bias. So, identify your own biases and then figure out where they’re coming from so that you can actually overcome that and your organization. I also would recommend you guys look at cultural competency as well. And that also talks a little bit about those biases. Next, we want to conduct a diversity assessment. This can be any type of assessment and you can go and ask questions. You can look at some of your records and data as well. You really want to be honest about where you guys fall with your assessment as well. That assessment can be something short or it could be long-term. It could be something that’s inexpensive. It could be something expensive. You have to look at your own organization to see what’s best for you all. Create a coalition. You can’t do this on your own. You want to have people support you. Kate Philpot: The challenge for a lot of organizations is they have to set up activities that notionally address culture. So, we do an engagement survey every year. We do an exit survey. We do check-ins at the six month and the end of year basis. The question is, what are you doing with the information that comes out of those things? If you’re just going through the exercise without then taking the information that’s produced and making some different decisions as a consequence, then it’s a complete waste of time…What happens if the feedback from the person who’s exited is, “I left because I didn’t feel included”? What conversation happens with the manager of that person who let that happen? And what are the consequences with that manager in order to make sure it doesn’t happen again? Those are the kinds of live conversations that we’re having now. Not only about because you know, by the time somebody exits, it’s too late, let’s be honest. You want to get people feeling included at the beginning of their experience in our organization, rather than by the time they’ve tendered their resignation. SS: Implementing programs aimed at improving or enhancing organizational health also requires a great deal of behavior change. Aisha Wallace-Wyche and April Terry explain strategies that enablement practitioners can leverage to drive behavior change. April Terry: We’re doing all of this work and changing our behaviors because we want to see a different result. So, within this final level and the result stages, we are really tying the impact of changes to behavior to metrics in the business. We talked about beginning with the end in mind, right? That’s the whole reason why we’re doing a lot of these programs. So, now that we understand that people are finding it enjoyable, right? They’re engaged, they feel maybe more confident about the lesson or the subject now, before they came in, and went through the program. We’re seeing changes in behavior. Now we’re asking, what does that look like in the context of our business? Aisha Wallace-Wyche: A lot of times, enablement is looked at as the person that is going to come and save the day and fix it, but in certain circumstances where performance is in question, training may not be the answer. Oftentimes, it could be a systems issue, like lack of access or know-how for a system. Other times it could be compensation or incentive related, the commercial team may not be being incentivized properly, and that’s why you’re not getting the behavior out of them that you want. Then, a lot of times you have to look at your talent, you may not have the right butts in seats. So again, don’t be afraid to speak up after you’ve done some analysis and asked the right identifying questions to just simply state that training may not be the answer. SS: While sales enablement can be the champion for driving DE&I efforts in an organization, alignment and buy-in with leadership is essential to maximize the impact of enablement programs. Glenn Clark and Blaire Hervey outline tips to secure leadership buy-in and garner support for critical enablement initiatives. Glenn Clark: My team and I have the opportunity to be on the floor, in the trenches with reps, and making observations that we capture. We also have a sales background as a team. Being salespeople, carrying a bag, so we know what we believe are the ingredients of being a great salesperson, and so we led with that. And then what we asked the sales leadership team to do is decide–based on what’s important to you in terms of success of the business, in terms of revenue–would you adjust these? What would you add? Is there anything we missed? So, I love that approach because what it does is it allows for us to come with an initial recommendation helps increase our value, but it also gives managers an opportunity to weigh in and say, ‘I think I would tweak this’ or ‘I want to add that’. So, we’re gaining buy-in while we’re getting their input so that when we launch it, we actually have a consensus across enablement and senior leadership. And sales reps because their managers have input also tend to buy-in on that as well. Blaire Hervey: Now you can start with the top and you can try to get their buy-in and, you know, reach out to all the stakeholders. And I hate to say this, but oftentimes you’re going to be disappointed because they’re not going to share the same passion for you because they’re focused on a different end result. That’s fine, starting a grassroots campaign, if you will. And really getting that groundswell by talking to other individuals who may have similar experiences and learning more about how we can attribute to their retainment, then that’s a number. And then that’s something that’s quantifiable you can take back to leadership. You can take that impact that you can make there and let them know that we can make an impact by focusing on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging programs. We can make an impact on retainment by this much and by doing so that saves the organization this much, because now we don’t have to rehire and retrain. And additionally, we can focus on grooming these individuals and helping them become our next set of leaders, which also means that could be less for training. And that could be a less tedious succession plan because we already have the folks in house. SS: Thanks for listening to this special episode to honor Black History Month. 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.

Roderick Jefferson, author of the upcoming book - "Sales Enablement 3.0" - recently joined Kristina Jaramillo and Eric Gruber on the Stop the Sales Drop Podcast to discuss what sales enablement should be - and what it has become instead. When you listen to the podcast interview, you'll learn:Why most sales enablement programs have become cost centers and why they have limited impact on revenue growth. What is the white noise that is distracting many sales enablement teams?How sales enablement leaders can drive a more unified front between leadership, sales, marketing, account management/customer success teams, and customersHow sales enablement teams need to reboot and continually align to the changing buyers' journey and to the organization's selling processes that should also be evolving.The role sales enablement should be playing in ABM

Join us on the Market Dominance Guys as Chris and Corey continue their conversation about sales enablement with CEO Roderick Jefferson of Roderick Jefferson & Associates. This week, the guys address the challenge of hiring the right people for this function — people who have a certain level of sales credibility within the company. Roderick explains that in order to be a respected voice and get a vote when it comes to providing sales enablement tools and processes to support the sales team, you need to bring people on board who have extensive sales experience.Now, don’t get him wrong: Roderick is not advocating a perpetual continuation of “Do sales the way we’ve always done sales.” Instead, he suggests hiring those who understand that what really works in sales is helping clients maintain their customer roster, and aiding clients with increasing THEIR profits, reducing THEIR costs, and mitigating THEIR risks. In other words, your need to hire a sales enablement team dedicated to having conversations with prospects about business outcome. Roderick states that to do this, sales people have to stop giving presentations and start having conversations — true discovery conversations.Chris, Corey, and Roderick then discuss how diagnosing a prospect’s pain is only a first step in what we should teach sales reps. “Isn’t it a miracle,” Chris says, “that most salespeople act as though whatever a prospect’s pain is, their product will fix it?” The guys wind up this Market  Dominance Guys’ session in agreement that sales reps should be taught how to get out of the way when their solution is NOT a solution. You won’t believe your ears at some of the eye-opening, jaw-dropping ideas in this week’s podcast!About Our GuestRoderick Jefferson is CEO of Roderick Jefferson & Associates, a global sales enablement consultancy that uses cutting-edge technology to enable its clients to decrease time-to-revenue and increase productivity. Market Dominance Guys is brought to you by:ConnectAndSell. ConnectAndSell allows your sales reps to talk to more decision-makers in 90 minutes than they would in a week or more of conventional dialing. Your reps can finally be 100% focused on selling, even when working 100% from home since all of their CRM data entry and follow-up scheduling is fully automated within ConnectAndSell’s powerful platform. Your team’s effectiveness will skyrocket by using ConnectAndSell’s teleprompter capability as they’ll know exactly what to say during critical conversations. Visit, ConnectAndSell.com where conversations matter.andUncommon Pro - Selling a big idea to a skeptical customer, investor, or partner is one of the hardest jobs in business, so when it’s time to really Go Big, you need to use an Uncommon methodology to gain attention, frame your thoughts, and employ a sequencing that is familiar to convince others that your ideas will truly change their world. Through Uncommon Pro’s modern and innovative sales, scripting, and coaching toolset, we offer a guiding hand to ambitious Sales Leaders and their determined teams in their quest to reach market dominance. Today is the day things change. It’s time to get “uncommon” with uncommonpro.com.

Today on the Market Dominance Guys, you’re invited to join Chris and Corey and their guest, Roderick Jefferson, the CEO of Roderick Jefferson & Associates, a global sales enablement consultancy firm. This trio of sales gurus outlines the whys and how's of providing sales teams with the information, training, content, and tools that reps need to successfully engage buyers throughout the buying journey. This is known as “sales enablement.” Sounds like a pretty simple “follow the blueprints” process, doesn’t it? And, yet, as Roderick informs us, if you ask 10 people what sales enablement is, you’ll get a multitude of answers. Chris and Roderick discuss this quandary and, more specifically, how the pandemic has impacted training and overseeing sales teams now that each rep works from home, physically away from their manager’s watchful eye. Roderick relates this problem to that of an orchestra whose conductor is missing. Like so many other things now, sales enablement must be fine-tuned to this new situation. In order to orchestrate and conduct a sales team so that each rep plays their part and uses the provided resources in a collaborative manner, a major change must take place in how they are managed.If you’re a follower of the Market Dominance Guys, you know that this episode will have you nodding along with the opinions of Chris, Corey, and their guest, and jotting down notes from their insights. Stay tuned! They aim to help you dominate your market! About Our GuestRoderick Jefferson is CEO of Roderick Jefferson & Associates, a global sales enablement consultancy that uses cutting-edge technology to enable its clients to decrease time-to-revenue and increase productivity. Market Dominance Guys is brought to you by:ConnectAndSell. ConnectAndSell allows your sales reps to talk to more decision-makers in 90 minutes than they would in a week or more of conventional dialing. Your reps can finally be 100% focused on selling, even when working 100% from home since all of their CRM data entry and follow-up scheduling is fully automated within ConnectAndSell’s powerful platform. Your team’s effectiveness will skyrocket by using ConnectAndSell’s teleprompter capability as they’ll know exactly what to say during critical conversations. Visit, ConnectAndSell.com where conversations matter.  Uncommon Pro - Selling a big idea to a skeptical customer, investor, or partner is one of the hardest jobs in business, so when it’s time to really Go Big, you need to use an Uncommon methodology to gain attention, frame your thoughts, and employ a sequencing that is familiar to convince others that your ideas will truly change their world. Through Uncommon Pro’s modern and innovative sales, scripting, and coaching toolset, we offer a guiding hand to ambitious Sales Leaders and their determined teams in their quest to reach market dominance. Today is the day things change. It’s time to get “uncommon” with uncommonpro.com.

DTRH Ep.13: The Origin of Sales Enablement - Feat. Roderick Jefferson  Ever heard of the term "Sales Enablement"? Well, you're about to learn not only what it is but what it means and uncover the origin of the term from the man who coined it himself—Roderick Jefferson. The man, the myth, the legend. Oh yeah, baby, you gonna learn today!  Episode Summary  In today’s episode of Down The Rabbit Hole, your host, Rob Turley, Co-Founder & Co-CEO at White Rabbit Intel, delves deep into the mind of Roderick Jefferson to unearth the truth about sales enablement and sales team strategies by aligning with The Buyer's Journey.  The Buyer's Journey is the most critical piece to a successful sales strategy while enabling sales because people buy from people! That's the truth. There is nothing fictitious about a business's success that drives selling via customer engagement and relationship building. The key is to think on your feet to put oneself into the buyer's shoes as best as possible, and to do that, you need to understand not only them but their industry as well.  How would you want to buy the product or service you're selling? Do you want to be treated as a "cha-ching" or a number? Nope! You want to be treated like a valuable asset. Like you matter. Like you are the most important person in the room. It's all about getting helped and being shown, not told and sold. Simple as that.  If your sales strategy does not drive this simple concept, then you're not going to get very far, and you're not going to last. That's when the relationship starts, not when it's concluded. Your job as a sales professional is not done until the relationship has concluded to its entirety, and even still, staying in touch and on good terms is vital to success.  “If a sales professional believes that the sale is over after the close, they're dead wrong. It has only just begun.”  – Rob Turley  About Roderick  Roderick Jefferson is the CEO of Roderick Jefferson & Associates. He has 20+ years of sales leadership and is an acknowledged thought leader and keynote speaker in the sales enablement space. Roderick is a highly regarded executive whose expertise and insight is sought after because he understands how to create bridges between internal organizations to empower sales to exceed expectations.  Prior to Roderick Jefferson & Associates, he held various executive leadership, sales, sales enablement, operations, and customer experience roles for Marketo, Oracle Marketing Cloud, Salesforce, 3PAR, Business Objects, NetApp, PayPal, Siebel Systems, & AT&T.  Check out Roderick's new book Sales Enablement 3.0 and mention that you got referred by Down The Rabbit Hole Podcast and you'll get a massive discount! It's worth it because it's a hell of a read.    Feel free to connect with Roderick Jefferson or Rob Turley on LinkedIn or Follow Roderick @ThevoiceofRod, and Rob @RobTurley2 on Twitter!  #DTRHpodcast #FollowTheWhiteRabbit #SalesEnablement #SalesCoaching #Leadership #SalesEnablement3dot0 #TrainAnimalseEnablePeople #HopeIsNotAStrategy 

Roderick Jefferson, one of the founding members of the Sales Enablement Society and a top sales leadership guru joins the podcast to teach us how to focus on the buyer experiences rather than the goals and intentions of the seller. Problems get prioritized, while products do not. Roderick shows us how to create experiences that are shared by both the buyer and the seller, creating more wins and more satisfied customers. To order the book, “Sales Enablement 3.0: The Blueprint to Sales Enablement” please send an email to: info@roderickjefferson.com. If you’d like to learn more, Roderick is offering $35 off of his Udemy “Best Seller” course, “Applying The Art & Science Of Sales Enablement” until 12th December 2020 by using the code: ENABLEMENT

Being authentic is when our actions and words are congruent with our beliefs and values. It is being ourselves, not an imitation of what we think we should be or have been told we should be. It can be reflected in our sense of fashion, hair style, and even the words we use.While rewarding and fulfilling, authenticity can be hard, especially at work. While many organizations are striving to create diverse environments where employees can be authentic and feel a sense of belonging, efforts often fall short of their inclusive ambitions.Continuing our Special Series on Inclusion, Equality, and Belonging, Tamara McMillen, Roderick Jefferson, and I were joined by Celine Crawford, Chief Communications Officer at Smarkets to explore the topic of authenticity.What does it mean to be authentic and can we be authentic at work?How is authenticity related to achieving Inclusion, Equality, and Belonging?Why is it important that we are able to be authentic - especially at work?What is the impact of inauthenticity?Together we explore these questions , share real life experiences and offer tips for individuals and businesses to TAKE ACTION and deliver a work environment and corporate culture which naturally fosters, supports, celebrates, and flourishes with authentic employees.Give a listen and together we will convert words into action.Curious how you can create an environment where authenticity is welcome and made possible.Company culture and values should be clear and explained as part of the hiring process and throughout. The degree of authenticity will need to live within the bounds of the corporate core values.Create safe spaces where employees have the ability to come in and be their full self without worry.If you have the ability, enable access to mental health services, much as you would physical health services, for your employees.Teach leaders how to be authentic. You must help your leaders to model and live your core values. There were so many other great tips and insights, don't miss out on this one.

Mentorship has long been recognized as important for the development and growth of employees. Sponsorship requires more active involvement from leaders of all levels and can lead to deeper levels of growth for individuals and the business.Cynthia Barnes and Stephane McShane join Roderick Jefferson, Tamara McMillen, and the Collaborator to explore how far mentorship goes, and how to go further with active sponsorship. Stories, real life experiences, and tips for individuals and businesses to leverage to improve themselves and their businesses.

Roderick Jefferson, Tamara McMillen, and The Collaborator kicked off the launch of this new series by both sharing their thoughts on equity, inclusion, and belonging, but also by sharing why this matters so much now. In addition, Roderick provided a framework for businesses and individuals to use to begin addressing these challenges and lead to a better world, a better human people. You can access this framework right here and begin putting it in action today.http://ccsepodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Diversity-Corporate.pdfWe have created this series in hopes of not simply talking about challenges, but to truly create change. If you want to join us by participating in the series please reach out.If you want to begin making changes in your business to address these issues, please reach out.Let's create a better world together by collaborating and facilitating these changes in our lives, our businesses, and in the world around us.

 Connect with Billy and Chatfunnels!Billy on LinkedIn and Twitter.Chatfunnels on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.Comment on our social media using the #digitalconversations for the chance to win some ChatFunnels Swag!Check out our blog to sign up for a FREE 14 day trial of of bot platform!

When you were the VP of Global Enablement for Marketo, Head of Global Sales Enablement for Oracle Marketing Cloud, and had key sales enablement and training leadership stints with Salesforce, 3PAR, PayPal, NetApp and Siebel you might have learned a thing or two. And indeed, Roderick knows enablement, and has a knack for codifying what many perceive as a difficult and complex set of practices into a set of straight-forward rules and guides. We discuss what it takes to get your sales enablement right - the correct mindset, skillset and toolset you need to succeed. https://www.linkedin.com/in/roderickjefferson/ #b2b #sales #salesenablement #salestransformation #salestech #salestechnology #digitalselling #remoteselling #valueselling #valuemessaging #salesoptimization #salesreadiness #valuestory #agileselling #ditchthepitch #orchestrator #businessvalue #personalvalue

We brought Roderick Jefferson onto the State of Demand Gen podcast to learn his take on Sales Enablement. He shares his knowledge and experience as it relates to what exactly sales enablement is, what metrics matter from an enablement perspective, how sales has changed in 2020, and where sales enablement falls in the org chart. For more content, subscribe to State of Demand Gen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Tired of just listening? Check out Refine Labs on LinkedIn and YouTube.

Roderick Jefferson is the Founder of Roderick Jeffersons and Associates, LLC, and a long time guide for those looking to achieve sales enablement success. The Collaborator and Roderick spend time going through best practices, talking diversity, and look ahead to the future of sales enablement.Here are some key lessons learned from Roderick during this conversation.1️⃣Collaboration is the starting point for all things Enablement. 2️⃣Hope is not a strategy. Don't hope for the changes you desire, create a strategy and make it happen.

Sales enablement thought leader Roderick Jefferson and Paul Butterfield, Instructure Sales Enablement VP explore the role that sales enablement teams should play in driving a diverse and inclusive corporate culture. As Roderick put it “Diversity means you’re invited to the table. Inclusion means you have access to the menu along with the opportunity and ability to order from it.” How sales enablement teams can help ensure a diversity of job candidatesWhat ways can we create sales assets, training materials and courses that are inclusiveThe critical role onboarding and ramping have in helping new diverse employees feel welcome and includedPrior to Roderick Jefferson & Associates, he held a variety of executive leadership, sales, sales enablement, operations and customer experience roles for Marketo, Oracle Marketing Cloud, Salesforce.com, 3PAR, Business Objects, NetApp, PayPal, Siebel Systems, & AT&T.

Join Mary Grothe, CEO of Sales BQ as we welcome Roderick Jefferson, one of the founders of the Sales Enablement Society and a keynote speaker. We are grateful for his powerful contributions to sales. He started as a BDR years ago, achieved President's Club multiple times, and eventually transitioned into sales training and sales enablement.Roderick shares the 5P's of Sales - Purpose, People, Program, Performance, and Platform. For him, it all starts with people. Start making conversations. Listen. Ask the right questions.You deserve to learn fresh and relevant sales techniques that work with today's buyers, from prospecting through close. Access the Training Room now and start crushing those quotas! https://www.salesbq.com/access-the-training-room Connect with Mary Grothe: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marygrothe/Connect with Roderick Jefferson: https://www.linkedin.com/company/roderick-jefferson-associates

As the Founder and CEO of his firm, Roderick Jefferson & Associates, Roderick Jefferson has made a career out of helping organizations get their sales enablement initiatives into tip-top shape. A speaker at the 2020 B2B Marketing Exchange, Roderick reveals how a few key adjustments to rep on-boarding, enablement and collaboration practices can help decrease time to revenue.

Travis and Kevin talk with CEO of Roderick Jefferson & Associates, Roderick Jefferson about the current global movement, the four components of designing and building sales enablement 2.0, developing sales leaders, and more.

Travis and Kevin talk with Roderick Jefferson, CEO of Roderick Jefferson & Associates about what sales enablement is, common mistakes, and The 5 Ps, and more.

Roderick Jefferson is a Leading Sales Enablement Consultant who has worked with many innovative, category-leading companies (AT&T, eBay, Oracle, Marketo, and Paypal to name a few) His Mission- Drive growth in small and midsized businesses (SMBs) and Fortune 500 companies. He does this by coordinating and conducting multiple units (HR, Product, Marketing, and Sales) to ensure that the sales team receives the necessary support to effectively close deals. Resources Website: https://roderickjefferson.com/ Twitter: @ThevoiceofRod Sales Coaching: https://www.lessonly.com/sales-coaching/

Adam Torres interviews Roderick Jefferson CEO of Roderick Jefferson & Associates in this episode. Follow Adam on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/askadamtorres/ for up to date information on book releases and tour schedule. Apply to be interviewed by Adam on our podcast: https://www.moneymatterstoptips.com/podcastguest --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/moneymatters/support

Are you ready to step up your sales into a whole nother notch? We have invited one of the recipients of this year's Top 10 Sales Enablement Consultant by Sales Hacker and LinkedIn Top 15 Sales & Marketing Influencer, Roderick Jefferson from Roderick Jefferson & Associates, LLC to give us some details on how to boost your sales. Sales is a crucial part of your business. It is building a relationship with your business and your clients. You will hire people to do to deal with your customers before and after-sales and it's important that you prepare them for the battle they will face head-on. Strategic planning on sales processes will help them build their foundation and therefore, serving them effectively and efficiently. "I think they wait too long to bring in someone that is seasoned to help them build out their entire sales enablement strategy" - Roderick Jefferson Roderick Jefferson & Associates, LLC is a global sales enablement consultancy. They work toward decreasing time to raise revenue and increase sales productivity.

Many people get sales enablement wrong because they have different concepts and ideas about what it actually is. Roderick Jefferson began his sales career as a BDR, then an AEE, and finally moved into sales management. He discovered that he enjoyed sales more than he enjoyed closing deals. So he stepped into sales training. Now, through his company Roderick Jefferson and Associates, he breaks the complexity of sales into practical ideas through scalable and repeatable practices. SALES ENABLEMENT MISTAKES Sales enablement helps develop the right conversations the right way with the right tools. Ultimately, it seeks to decrease time to ramp or increase productivity and revenue. Many companies make mistakes implementing their sales enablement. They fail to establish consistency and parameters. Many wait too long to hire sales enablement consultants. They assume they need a consultant or a resource without realizing they need both. One can help you lay the groundwork that you can hand off to another. Many companies aren't really sure what they need. They know what isn't working and they treat enablement like IT. But those who do sales enablement aren't the fixers of broken things. They aren't sales scribes or sales support. They must be sales partners. TRAINING VS. ENABLEMENT A difference exists between training and enablement. Roderick believes that training applies to animals while enablement applies to humans. Enablement is woven into the fabric of the company. It literally has to be one of the top five initiatives of the overall success of the company. It also must have specific time-bound and measurable deliverables, metrics, and KPIs. MEASUREMENTS Some of the sales enablement measurements have changed. We used to talk about butts in seats, headcount, and NPS scores, but those things don't carry water. Sales enablement now focuses on different questions. What's the completion percentage of certification or accreditation? What's the average deal size? Collateral use infrequency? How much new pipeline is being created? What's the number of closed deals? What's the product mix? What's the quota attainment percentage? What's the time to revenue? What's the win rate? Many of the old measurements aren't definitions of success and they won't help move the needle forward for sales. BIGGEST MISTAKE Companies aren't tying their goals, their sales processes, or their sales methodology to figure out where they fit into their buyer's journey. They are trying to make their buyer fit into their processes, methodologies, sales stages, and CRM. They must step back and reverse engineer their process and document what the buyer's journey looks like. They must also figure out where to fit in multiple touch points in the buyer's journey. Sales enablement must be in place before you need it. By the time you need it, it's already too late. If, for example, you're planning to hire more people over the next year, you must have the content ready for them. You must have a process for onboarding. Without these processes in place, you've essentially planned to fail rather than ensuring success. RETHINK ICP Rethink the ideal customer profile. Start thinking instead about the ideal employee profile. From an enablement perspective, you start to get a feel for new hires and who is going to be a rock star. Instead of doing that after the hire, Roderick focused on working with HR resources around talent acquisition. Consider what a rock star looks like especially in the context of where the company is going. Then take that job description to HR and explain what you're hiring toward. Sometimes sellers do well by accident because the prospect happened to need their product or service. In that case, they become simply order-takers. When we fail to measure, plan, or structure our efforts, we don't optimize. Imagine if every organization operated that way. It's the detriment of the sales industry. Supply chain ensures that you hit your markers and that sales leaders don't move the goalposts. If you're in the red zone about to score, you don't want anyone to move the goal post. RESOURCE VS. CONSULTANT Many companies don't want to pay for consultants but they want help connecting the dots. It's important to use resources and consultants because what one lacks, the other brings. Roderick's team brings templates to their clients so they don't have to recreate the wheel. The process includes four stages. Infrastructure build and augmentation. Established sales enablement team. Sales leadership and coaching. Sales-focused metrics. HOPE  Instead of hoping that marketing does its job and that the customer buys, institute a clear process instead. Remove hope at every stage and rely on the process that focuses on your buyer's journey. Enablement is an ongoing conference rather than a single event. “SALES ENABLEMENT” EPISODE RESOURCES You can connect with Roderick on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, or you can email him directly with questions at roderickjefferson.com. Connect with me at donald@thesalesevangelist.com. Try the first module of the TSE Certified Sales Training Program for free. This episode is brought to you by the TSE Certified Sales Training Program. I developed this training course because I struggled early on as a seller. Once I had the chance to go through my own training, I noticed a hockey-stick improvement in my performance. TSE Certified Sales Training Program can help you out of your slump. If you gave a lot of great presentations and did a lot of hard work, only to watch your prospects choose to work with your competitors, we can help you fix that. The new semester of TSE Certified Sales Training Program begins in April and it would be an absolute honor to have you join us. TOOLS FOR SELLERS This episode is also brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. It's super easy, it's helpful, and I recommend that you try it out. You'll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link. Mailtag.io allows you to see around the corners. You can see when people open your email, or when they click on the link you sent. Mailtag.io will give you half-off your subscription for life when you use the Promo Code: Donald at check out. I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility. If you haven't already done so, subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss a single episode. Share it with your friends who would benefit from learning more.

There's an old poem that says, “No man is an island.” Nobody does it alone. Nobody gets to the place in their career where they want to be on their own, without others helping them get there. Ask anybody at the top of their field how they got there, and they'll talk about the people that helped them get there. The people who believed in them. The people who gave them chances. The people that helped them see something in themselves that they couldn't see on their own. Roderick Jefferson, CEO of Roderick Jefferson & Associates, was on the Sales Engagement podcast lately talking about mentors and sponsors. What they? Why do you need them? And what is the difference?

Roderick Jefferson has done what many people would want in life. He's been successful in many ways in different situations. Now he shares his knowledge in keynote speeches and helping companies improve their sales teams. In this podcast he, and host Robert Mattson, discuss why it's important to ask one very specific question at the start of a client engagement, why it's better to give first before getting, and what is a good goal to have when going to sleep at night. 

Few people know more about the topic of sales enablement than this week's guest, Roderick Jefferson. Having worked with the biggest names in sales and marketing technology, Roderick is passionate about helping sales organizations develop and execute effective sales enablement strategies. He's also passionate about authenticity. The combination of his expertise and his passion has led to an engaging and informative episode you're going to love! We'll have an honest (and sometimes humorous!) discussion about sales enablement and authenticity.

Few people know more about the topic of sales enablement than this week's guest, Roderick Jefferson. Having worked with the biggest names in sales and marketing technology, Roderick is passionate about helping sales organizations develop and execute effective sales enablement strategies. He's also passionate about authenticity. The combination of his expertise and his passion has led to an engaging and informative episode you're going to love! We'll have an honest (and sometimes humorous!) discussion about sales enablement and authenticity.

Few people know more about the topic of sales enablement than this week's guest, Roderick Jefferson. Having worked with the biggest names in sales and marketing technology, Roderick is passionate about helping sales organizations develop and execute effective sales enablement strategies. He's also passionate about authenticity. The combination of his expertise and his passion has led to an engaging and informative episode you're going to love! We'll have an honest (and sometimes humorous!) discussion about sales enablement and authenticity.

What do you tell a sales leader who just wants the team to do what they say? “I say 1) You're not a leader. And 2) Get ready for attrition.” Roderick Jefferson is the CEO of Roderick Jefferson & Associates a sales enablement consultant that focuses on driving growth in small/mid-size and Fortune 500 companies. With over 20 years in sales enablement, Roderick has gained a lot of practical insight on the tools and strategies sales leaders use to foster growth in their teams. Roderick believes that one of the most powerful things a sales leader can do is learn to listen to their subordinates and demonstrate that they value the needs of their team over the things that they want to say. On this episode of The Sales Engagement Podcast, Roderick explains a 3 part conversation framework that will help any person in a leadership position to become not just a sales manager, but a leader growing leaders.

What's up Diamonds, Welcome to another episode of the LJDNShow! Monday’s show is a podcast this one is from July 28th of 2014 it was a DiamondForum show. The show included 3 guest, Voice Over actor at that time Roderick Jefferson, Author Nicole M. Dixon and Entrepreneur/Network-Marketer Robert McNulty. Our first conversation was about social media as a business owner. The second conversation was about mobile phones and how old do you think a child should be before they get a mobile phone. and the last conversation we had was about texting while driving. During that time my shows were 2 hours long, now my show is an hour long, so I had to chop out some things in the show in order to make it an hour. I managed to get it down to one hour and 15 minutes, that's because if I took out anymore I would have to break it in the middle of a conversation. So, if you have an hour and 15 minutes of your time enjoy the show. I will be back live next month with 5 new guests enjoy the show and I will see you in the networks. I will also be live Wednesday for the #LJMorningSparkle from 10 AM to 11 and on Thursday night at 8 PM for #Inthecutwjay” until then I will see you in the networks. Update: The LJDNRadio.com website is on track and should be up and running this week, look out for it and be ready to give some thumbs up for your 2018 DiamondAwards winners coming up in March. It is closer than you think. We are still looking for people to send in your MP3's or MP4's for the LJExpression Show send you recordings or videos to ljdnexpress@gmail.com  Thank your continued support. #LJDNShow #ljmorningsparkle #inthecutwjay #ljexpress #linajones  

In this episode, my good friend Roderick Jefferson joins me to talk about how hope is not a strategy, and why enablement is so critical to organizations success. Training is not a one-time spot fix that’s reactive. It’s ingrained and woven into a company’s fabric If you don’t know the sales handshake, you’re marketing  If you know one more thing than everyone else in the room, you’re the subject matter expert We’re change management agents Coaching only works if someone is coachable Hope is not a strategy  Reps need to think about the enablement department of a company What drives the company? Sales, service, engineering will all drive the company differently. You need to go where your personality fits Make leadership your megaphone Ask people who are smarter than you Enablement is a lot like college or marriage, it’s not for everyone and it takes a lot of work!

This week on the Sales Hacker podcast, we feature Roderick Jefferson, a leader in the sales enablement space to talk about sales enablement and onboarding new sales reps. Tune in!

This week on the Sales Hacker podcast, we feature Roderick Jefferson, a leader in the sales enablement space to talk about sales enablement and onboarding new sales reps. Tune in!

This episode I speak with Roderick Jefferson - CEO of Roderick Jefferson & Associates, LLC which is sales enablement company focused on driving growth in small/mid-size companies and Fortune 500 corporations. He is also a founding member of the Sales Enablement Society which has the goal to better define the sales enablement functions and roles that currently exist within organizations and ultimately solve the vast disparities that exist in the profession today What you'll learn from our conversation: >The relationship between Sales Enablement and the strategic alignment of Sales and Marketing >A phased approach to decreasing time to revenue >The importance of focusing on customer value throughout the entire customer journey Music/Production: Chris "KID" Robinson, Hitmakuzz Productions

Roderick Jefferson is the global head of Sales Enablement for Oracle Marketing Cloud. This week we continue to build on a topic we discussed before in the Sales Enablement Lab podcast, the role of the front line Sales Manager. Like Dave Brock, Roderick is passionate about this important topic. Roderick shares why the role of the front-line sales manager is critical. According to Roderick, this is where the rubber hits the road. We discuss what makes a great front line sales manager, the importance of coaching and how you develop a coaching program. We also debate the benefits of having a dedicated coaching team and the value they can bring to your sales opportunities. At the end of the podcast, Roderick shares his practical tips for Sales Enablement practitioners on how to create an enablement approach for front line sales managers. What do you do to enable front line sales managers? What programs do you run? Let us know and share your thoughts and questions below. Did you enjoy listening to this podcast and don’t want to miss another episode? Subscribe to my podcast on iTunes!

"Sales enablement is the hub that spokes out to every part of the organization. We work with product marketing, product management, marketing, sales, IT etc. So we kind of translate languages if you will, between those groups." As Head of Global Enablement at Oracle Marketing Cloud, that makes Roderick Jefferson chief translator. His collaborative approach to sales enablement means that he focuses on decoding what the business requires. It's this perspective that Jefferson has followed throughout his career in sales and sales enablement. Listen now to hear how Jefferson has built sales enablement functions from the ground up at blue chip companies including salesforce.com, eBay and Oracle.

What if sales enablement stopped being perceived as a cost center? What if, instead of thinking of it as training, or onboarding, or the resting place for an organization’s broken things, we thought of sales enablement as a strategic investment—a proactive function that actually enables sales to sell more, sell higher and sell faster? According to Roderick Jefferson, we may already be there.

  Full Notes https://www.salestuners.com/rj Takeaways Your Network is your Net Worth: Spend the time necessary to grow your relationships both inside your organization and outside of it. Coaching High Performers: Before starting the conversation use a simple three-part question, Do you want me to listen? Do you want me to fix? Or do you want me to coach? Enablement is Ongoing: Simply put, enablement is not a single event, it’s getting the right people in the right conversations at the right time with the right information and it can’t start early enough. Book Recommendation The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon Sponsor Octiv - Transform the way your sales assets are created, distributed and tracked around the world. Because a better sales process is a better buying experience.

What's Up #Diamonds, It feels like I've been gone longer but I haven't, picking up from where I left off is the most difficult part the summer always brings new challenges that stack on top of everything else mainly because it is vacation season for lots of us. Although I don't understand why it is called vacation because you do so much during that time (for most of us) that we need a vacation from our vacation. I feel like I could sleep for another 3 days at least but I'll muttle through and snap the heck out of it cause its #showtime, I thank you for your patience and your support! So much has happened since I spoke to you last wow it seems like the world is spinning out of control. On a lighter note re-connecting with entrepreneurs I've interviewed in the past is always a pleasant experience. Voice over Actor Roderick Jefferson has added Public Speaker to his resume. You may not have heard about him but you've heard from him cause his voice has been opening up my show now for well over a year, he introduces me to you every Monday. Roderick Jefferson has an amazing voice and lately it has been taking him in all the right directions. I will be catching up with him live on Monday, if you ever thought about getting into voice acting he is the man you want to check out. See where his voice career has lead him join us live 7pm EST. Now you know it's a new month and there is new stuff on my calendar, this time I actually have something on my page! I talk about my vacation and have even put some photos of the places I visited I thought I'd share them with you. I know I'm a little late getting there but I was on vacation.... I hope you all have a chance to vacation this summer it is so good for you it can help you relax. Check out the updated website and feel free to leave a comment or sign up to receive showtime notifications.

What's Up #Diamonds, I will be back live next Monday with my guest Voice-over Roderick Jefferson until then check out my interview Monday and the July updates for the LJDNShow's website. I've got some great pics of my vacation and read about the interesting folks I met on my short getaway. I wish you all a save #IndependenceDay celebration, please be safe and try to take it easy on the food and alchol remember don't drink and drive have a designated driver with you for the weekend. #1luv #Lina Jones

What's Up Diamonds! Welcome to the very last podcast I play before the new year starts next Monday I will be back live of course at the shows new time from 6:00pm - 8:00pm still on Monday's so make sure you check me out!  The forum discussions usually consist of 2 guest not including myself talking about 2 subjects, the subjects are selected by the forum guest during the month until two of the subjects are agreed upon and it must be a decision agreed upon by all the member panels. The #DiamondForum happens once a month on the last Monday of the month. In this episode I had a couple of guest who had to leave early Roderick Jefferson and Nicole M. Dixon although I try to have the guest obligate to the panel sometimes things just don't happen that way.. What can you say its a live show and the show must go on. #ShoutOut to Robert for staying on with me we had a blast listen for yourself. If you would like to add a subject send your questions to ljdnshow@gmail.com Voice over actor Roderick Jefferson Twitter handle: @thevoiceofrod Author Nicole Maddalo Dixon Twitter handle: @NikkiMDixon Robert McNulty Twitter handle: @linearcashflow The two subjects selected will be posted on Sunday in Social Media. The music artist I will be promoting for this show is: Icepack Tali Twitter handle: @icepack9999 Jimmy Packes Twitter handle: @axxepackes Laird Oli Twitter handle: @laird405 If you would like to be a guest on the Lina Jones DiamondNetwork Show to receives some Free exposure for your business send and email to: guest@linajonesdiamondnetwork.com Send inquiries and suggestions to: ljdnshow@gmail.com To have your music heard on the show during live on air showtimes send email to: diamond.safehouse@gmail.com Contact Lina Jones PO Box 2025 Chesapeake, VA 23327