Welcome to the Inside Sales Enablement Podcast, Episode 20

Since starting the podcast, the guys have received a lot of feedback from listeners who've built more advanced functions. These listeners have one thing in common... they all are using the "old Forrester sales enablement" definition Scott authored in 2008 and peer-reviewed by Brian and published for Forrester clients in 2010.

In 2017, acting as the President of the Sales Enablement Society, Scott sponsored work by enablement professionals to bring together: analysts, academics, practitioners, and vendors to create a common definition that was published and shared at the first annual sales enablement society conference.

Yet, here we are in 2019 and Forrester has not only a new definition of what sales enablement is - but also Sirius Decisions' definition to rationalize.  Gartner is talking about "buyer enablement" and "sense-making" while CSO insights have narrowed the focus to be about enabling the sales force.  Meanwhile, marketing has moved into their own versions of helping "sales" by advocating: content marketing, account-based marketing, and growth marketing.

The guys think this has gotten out of hand and have decided to become far more definitive.  In this episode the guys:

1) Highlight the key enabler that propelled accounting into the finance department and the rise of the CFO

2) Contrast the similarities between finance and the sales enablement space

3) Outline the drivers that exist in the economy that point to a huge gap between strategy and execution

4) Discuss the purpose of sales enablement is to bridge that gap

5) Observe the only way to solve that problem is to do it cross-functionally

6) Review the basic pillars of what should be in the scope of a department tackling the strategy/execution gap

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Nick Merinkers 00:02

Welcome to the inside sales enablement podcast. Where has the profession been? Where is it now? And where is it heading? What does it mean to you, your company, other functions? The market? Find out here. Join the founding father of the sales enablement profession Scott Santucci and Trailblazer Brian Lambert as they take you behind the scenes of the birth of an industry, the inside sales enablement podcast starts now.

Scott Santucci 00:34

I'm Scott Santucci.

Brian Lambert 00:35

I'm Brian Lambert and we are our sales enablement insiders. Our podcast is for sales enablement. Leaders looking to elevate their function, expand their sphere of influence and increase the span of control within their companies.

Scott Santucci 00:47

Together, Brian and I have worked on over 100 different kinds of sales enablement, initiatives as analysts, consultants or practitioners. We've learned the hard way, underlined the hard way, what works and what doesn't.

Brian Lambert 01:01

Our podcast is different. We use a conversational format to help share the experiences that only people who've been there and done that can provide, as we've been pushing the envelope on the profession for over a decade. And today on this show, we're going to discuss sales enablement defined. And as usual, we're going to start with a centering story to give our episode a theme. Scott, take it away.

Scott Santucci 01:27

Thank you, Brian. And I think you're gonna like this, Brian. This is a very, very modern story for some of the stories that we've been...