0:01

Welcome to the Sales Enablement Society

0:03

Stories from the Trenches , where enablement

0:05

practitioners share their real-world experiences

0:08

. Get the scoop on what's happening inside

0:11

Sales Enablement teams across the global

0:13

SES member community . Each

0:15

segment of Stories from the Trenches share

0:17

the good , the bad and the

0:19

ugly practices of corporate sales

0:21

. Enablement initiatives learned what

0:23

worked , what didn't work and how

0:25

obstacles were eliminated by corporate

0:27

teams and leadership . Head back , grab a

0:29

cold one and join host Paul Butterfield

0:31

for casual conversations about the wide

0:34

and varied profession of sales enablement

0:36

, where there is never a fits all solution

0:38

.

0:40

Hello and welcome back to another episode

0:42

of the Sales Enablement Society Podcast

0:44

, stories from the Trenches the only

0:46

, as far as we know , completely

0:48

bias for us community-based

0:52

podcast , where we bring together enablement

0:54

professionals from all over the world . We

0:56

talk about common problems and how we're

0:58

solving for them , and we also try to draw out

1:01

some unique things that others are experiencing

1:03

and how they're dealing with those , to maybe give

1:05

us all ways to think about broadening what we're

1:07

doing and how we're impacting the teams

1:10

that we serve . Before

1:12

we jump in , I want to make sure

1:14

and thank our friends at Alleggo

1:16

for sponsoring this episode

1:18

. One

1:21

of the common problems that we face

1:23

as enablers is struggling

1:25

to get the sales teams we support

1:27

more efficient and

1:29

improving time to productivity . With

1:32

Alleggo's modern revenue enablement platform , marketing

1:35

, sales and enablement teams get

1:37

on the same page and have

1:39

continuous improvement available . You

1:42

can break through all the noise and deliver

1:44

the buying experience that the buyers

1:46

today demand . I would

1:48

say you're sellers too . They want a modern , clean

1:50

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1:53

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1:55

in less time . See how it can work

1:57

for you . You can check it out live at

1:59

Alleggocom . I

2:03

am excited now to introduce you . This

2:05

is a bit of a different format for us . We

2:08

recently had four new

2:11

board members join us and

2:14

we've brought everyone together and

2:16

we're going to have a conversation . I'm excited

2:18

we're breaking a little bit of new ground . I'm

2:21

going to briefly tell you who they are

2:23

and then they'll each introduce themselves a little

2:25

bit . We've got Del Nakai

2:27

, gail Ban

2:29

, mary Beth Hanifer and Chris Kingman

2:31

. Why don't we start off with you , del ? Just

2:34

a little bit about yourself and what you're doing

2:36

on the board with SES .

2:38

Sure , my name is Del Nakai and

2:40

I'm the founder and CEO of a new company

2:42

called Lead to Catalyze . My

2:44

focus for the SES , which I'm really excited

2:47

about , is building out content

2:49

and engaging our members with

2:51

new voices and really focusing

2:53

on ensuring there's really standards

2:56

across the board with how we're operating

2:58

and how we drive impact at our companies

3:00

.

3:00

I'm just going left or right across my screen , gail

3:02

.

3:03

Thanks , paul . I am the

3:05

director of sales and aimment for Genover

3:07

Square . I've been in the sales and aimment space about

3:09

10 years and I've had the privilege

3:11

to volunteer on the conference the last

3:14

two years before I joined the board . My

3:16

passion for SES is really around

3:19

community building and our ability to

3:21

strengthen this evolving

3:23

profession through community .

3:26

Okay , all right , we're going to talk

3:28

more about that in a minute . Mary Beth , let's hear from you .

3:30

Hi , I'm Mary Beth Hanifer and I

3:33

have been a volunteer with the Sales and Amablement

3:35

Society since 2017 , and

3:37

I've been in the sales and aimment space since before

3:39

it was called Sales and Amablement . I've been in roles

3:41

that have evolved from one thing eventually

3:44

into enablement as we know it

3:46

today , and also

3:48

the secretary on the board .

3:50

All right .

3:51

And Chris . I'm Chris Kingman , global

3:53

head of digital enablement for TransUnion

3:55

and founding member of Sales

3:58

and Amablement Society , and I joined

4:00

the board a couple of months ago with

4:02

the specific focus on bringing the project

4:05

with Johns Hopkins to life .

4:08

Yes , and very exciting . So first , thank

4:10

you for everyone . Everyone

4:12

that you've just heard from have just jumped in

4:14

with both feet and the progress

4:16

and the things that they're accomplishing are just

4:18

phenomenal . Watch , gail

4:21

, you started to go down this road , the

4:23

road of why you're so

4:25

passionate about being part of SES , and

4:28

all of us are here because

4:30

we've been passionate about SES for

4:33

some time , some years but

4:36

when you join the board , that

4:39

is definitely leveling

4:41

up in terms of the amount of time , talent

4:43

and energy that you're

4:45

bringing to SES . So

4:48

, since you introduced the topic , maybe just a

4:50

little bit more on why

4:52

your decision to join the board and why you're passionate

4:54

about the work that we're all doing .

4:58

It wasn't even a decision to join the board . I was so

5:00

honored and excited . I think I said yes before

5:02

Bill finished the sentence of asking

5:05

me to join , so

5:07

I was really excited . I

5:09

think the Sales and Amount Society plays such

5:12

a critical role in our industry

5:14

, especially right now , because we

5:16

are in an evolving profession . We're in a profession

5:18

that doesn't have tight swim

5:20

lanes and black and white definitions . Thank

5:23

you , as a community , we have

5:25

an opportunity and a responsibility

5:27

to start adding that type of

5:30

structure , start building that type of

5:32

community to make this profession as powerful

5:34

as possible , and I didn't see any better

5:36

vehicle than doing that , besides

5:39

doing that with SES . Ses

5:41

, as a community , is member

5:43

driven . It started with 100

5:46

people in our room saying , yeah , we're

5:48

here and we're going to do this together . And to Mary

5:50

Bess Point , people have been doing this for years

5:52

under different titles , but

5:54

really had the opportunity in 2017

5:57

to bring together and start to codify

5:59

those ideas . And now

6:01

it's really important to even evolve that curve

6:04

and I wanted to have

6:06

a voice and an opportunity to be part

6:08

of that process , both with my Chicago network

6:10

directly and with the national and then

6:13

a global footprint too .

6:14

Mary Beth , apparently you were enablement before

6:16

. Enablement was cool , so I

6:19

would love to hear your perspective

6:23

. Why are you on the board ? What are you excited about

6:25

?

6:26

I'm so excited to , as Gail

6:29

said , it's taking your

6:31

volunteerism to a new level and

6:34

being able to give back to the community

6:36

that I feel has given so much to me

6:38

. When I first

6:40

learned about the Sales Enablement Society in 2017

6:43

, I had just come out of a company where I'd been

6:45

there for over 20 years , and

6:47

so I had a very what I call the bubble

6:49

around me a view of what

6:51

enablement was and what it looked like . And

6:53

so to come and meet this community

6:56

of people and to learn

6:58

from other practitioners , learn

7:00

about college programs

7:03

and sales , and to learn about

7:05

vendors and just the research analysts

7:07

and the fact

7:09

that everybody came together in

7:12

the Community Sales Enablement Society from

7:14

all of these walks of life it

7:17

just it was just amazing

7:19

to me , and so I started volunteering

7:21

and learning , and I mean I

7:24

just everything that's happened good

7:26

in my life from a career perspective

7:29

and personally these last two years

7:31

has been a direct result

7:34

of , you know , being part of this community .

7:36

So love that . Thank you , del

7:38

. You're the most recent member , and

7:40

then I've got a special question for you , chris , and tie

7:42

us all together , so be ready .

7:44

Yeah , I'm similar to Mary Beth and that I've

7:46

been doing this before . It was

7:48

a thing , so over 15 years

7:50

, and I really only found the enablement

7:52

community within the last couple of years

7:54

, and what I know is it would have

7:57

been amazing to have the support when I

7:59

was just starting out and I want to be able

8:01

to give back and really help the

8:03

community as we're evolving to Gale's point

8:05

, to set them up for success , especially

8:07

because we have enablers coming from so many

8:10

different walks of life and so many different backgrounds

8:12

.

8:14

Right , Chris . So you were in

8:16

the room where it happened and

8:19

would love your perspective from

8:21

why you got involved then and

8:23

then bring us into why

8:26

you're involved so heavily today still

8:28

.

8:29

Sure , so I was . I

8:31

was involved at the LinkedIn

8:33

stage when it was a

8:35

group and there was a lot of talk and posts

8:38

and things like that , and when they decided to put

8:40

something together , the

8:43

first reason I went was because

8:45

it was within driving distance . If that

8:47

was out of state I would not

8:49

have attended . So I was

8:51

very fortunate that they all

8:53

decided Florida was the

8:55

place to be . What drove me to attend

8:57

? I had this feeling that

9:00

like I needed to be there . You

9:02

know , like there's this thing , there's a lot of buzz

9:04

. I see this term enablement

9:06

a lot , but you know I don't have my arms

9:08

wrapped around it , but a

9:10

lot of people are committing to

9:12

coming here and people who you

9:14

know they had a very big presence on LinkedIn . They had

9:16

a lot of good things to say and more importantly

9:19

for me was a lot of people were talking

9:21

about a lot of the things I was doing

9:23

or the questions I had , like what do you do about this

9:25

, what do you do about that ? And

9:27

I just wanted to know . Like

9:30

you know , I think , just like everyone

9:32

else , I was kind of figuring it out in real

9:34

time as

9:36

my organization sort of expanded into enablement

9:39

and I thought , you know what , maybe this could

9:41

be something that's going to help propel me

9:43

. Why am I

9:45

here today ? And kind of what's kept me engaged ? I

9:47

think I've always tried to be active in society

9:49

, you know , and volunteer where I

9:51

can . And , similar to everybody else's point

9:53

, I just feel

9:56

like I've reached the point in my career where I can give back

9:58

and if I can save somebody a couple years

10:00

or , more importantly , a couple headaches by

10:03

giving them some guidance or some , you know

10:05

, some hard game

10:07

knowledge , I'll say I don't want to point to expertise

10:10

, but

10:12

I think there's value in that and certainly

10:14

that's a lot of , a lot of the value I've gotten

10:17

out of it is just meeting people who have been doing

10:19

it before . It was a thing and then

10:21

, you know , sharing their expertise and knowledge

10:23

, and maybe

10:25

it is . I think it's overlooked , but there's a

10:27

lot of value in just networking

10:29

and connecting with folks and talking to them and

10:32

learning even something from somebody for 15

10:34

minutes . And so my goals

10:36

are to expand upon that

10:38

with the college program is

10:40

just increase awareness , increase adoption

10:43

, get it out there in the broader , you

10:46

know , academic sphere

10:48

and really , like you know

10:50

, put another lens on enablement , get

10:52

open more eyes to it and help more people

10:54

.

10:55

I think everyone would agree that this has

10:57

been a transformational

10:59

year . I don't think that's too strong a word for

11:01

the enablement community in good ways

11:04

, but , frankly , also in very challenging

11:06

ways , ways that I

11:09

mean . Anybody who was a hiring manager in the previous

11:11

12 to 18 months before last fall

11:13

was with knows the

11:15

number of recruiting calls and the

11:17

sometimes crazy numbers are being thrown

11:20

in enablement and then it was almost as if someone flipped

11:22

a switch and and things

11:24

turned in the other direction . So

11:26

and I'm whichever one of you is

11:28

wants to jump in on this , but would love

11:30

to have a discussion about the challenges

11:33

that we're experiencing as a community

11:36

and either

11:38

what role that that SES

11:40

is working to play in supporting

11:43

those challenges , or maybe even some things that

11:45

that you think we should . We should be thinking about

11:47

either one . I want

11:49

to go first .

11:50

I'll go first .

11:51

All right .

11:53

Yeah , I mean , I completely agree . It does feel like a

11:56

switch was flipped right , like all of a sudden

11:58

a lot of our peers are

12:00

saying you know , I'm , I'm part of the

12:02

next round and my tech

12:04

startup decided they needed

12:07

to let go of folks . My perception

12:09

is to the uninformed sales

12:11

enablement is a gamble and

12:14

it's very hard if

12:16

you don't have the right

12:18

conversations or the right value propositions

12:21

. You're effectively asking for budget to gamble

12:24

on this idea of enablement right , rather

12:26

than the inverse of do it and prove it

12:28

works and then get the funding . And

12:31

I just my . My two cents

12:34

are my . My opinion is that a lot of folks , a

12:36

lot of folks , went with the gamble first , instead

12:39

of you know somebody taking out a side of their

12:41

plate and maybe it didn't work

12:43

, maybe it didn't pan out , but it's

12:46

very easy to take bad enablement

12:48

and the label it as an operating expense

12:50

and cut it from your you know

12:52

, your budget as

12:55

a society . What are we going to do about ? How

12:57

can we help that that ? There's a couple things . One

13:00

, the jobs post . I

13:02

think it's critical . You

13:05

know it's great it's . It's

13:07

better than the job sorting functionality of LinkedIn itself . Linkedin

13:12

doesn't recognize enablement as a category

13:14

in its jobs thing which maybe , maybe

13:16

we put a board member on just that , indeed

13:20

doesn't recognize it as a practice or a career and

13:23

so just pulling what is it's

13:25

like 50 jobs maybe is hugely impactful . And

13:29

then another thing I think that we're we're

13:31

now just working on is and Paul and I are just working on is and

13:33

Paul and I are just working on and I have just started these

13:35

conversations but expanding our partnerships

13:37

with folks outside right , looking

13:40

at other organizations that are sales

13:42

focused and saying you know

13:44

can enablement benefit you and your members

13:47

right , and in increasing

13:49

the access to enablement resources

13:51

so organizations might

13:53

be able to engage with enablement practitioners

13:56

without investing that money . And so

13:58

they can , they can validate and they can test

14:00

and they can see hey , this might be worth it instead

14:02

of a blank gamble .

14:04

Gail , your hand was up .

14:05

Chris made such a great point . Thank you so much . And

14:07

I think , to piggyback on

14:09

that , I think there's been a lot of what

14:11

I've been calling buyers for more

14:13

on the part of our CROs and our

14:16

VP of sales . They bought into

14:18

the idea of enablement . They bought into it heavily

14:20

. We've seen organizations that went from a

14:22

function of one to a function of seven or

14:24

eight very quickly and then

14:27

just as quickly didn't see the immediate

14:29

ROI , didn't really understand

14:31

how enablement could affect

14:33

outcomes , just looked at programs

14:35

and have gone hard in the

14:37

reverse . And so I think

14:39

, as part of SES , our goal

14:42

is also to help bridge

14:44

this conversation from sales enablement

14:46

to the CROs , to the sales leaders , to help

14:48

them understand how to build scalable

14:51

, repeatable , responsible enablement

14:53

programs that are there for

14:55

the test of time . I mean , I have always said

14:58

as an enabler , we are here for the long

15:00

term . We are not a quick

15:02

fix , we are not a band aid . We are

15:04

here to build the practices that build

15:06

sustainable businesses . And now we

15:08

have to focus on building sustainable enablement

15:10

practices in our own worlds

15:12

and I think if

15:15

we can do that and influence that as a society

15:17

, we're really a resource for

15:19

our members and to our companies , the CROs

15:22

and the VPs of sales , because they're going

15:24

to get better outcomes from their enablement

15:26

partners when they have a

15:29

really good opportunity and understanding

15:31

of how to leverage these teams .

15:33

Yeah , and I can build on what Gail was mentioning

15:35

in terms of enablement is not a quick

15:37

fix . So that's something I focus on a lot

15:40

, which is change management , and I have

15:42

so many opportunities to talk to members of

15:44

our community because they reach out to me

15:46

and say , hey , I'm going through these different

15:49

initiatives , how do I manage all of this change

15:51

? And I've also talked to so many

15:53

people who were laid off at least a dozen

15:55

who went through the interviewing process and

15:57

it gave me a lot of insight into what's going

15:59

on . And what I'm observing is a

16:01

combination of responsibility , part of

16:03

it on our end and in terms of enablement

16:06

, and part of it in terms of our stakeholders really

16:08

understanding how to leverage enablement . So

16:11

what I'm seeing is enablement

16:13

is oftentimes brought into filling gaps

16:15

, especially in terms of revenue

16:18

leadership , whether it's based on capacity

16:20

, time , skill set , but

16:22

what is missing is really understanding

16:24

that revenue leaders still play a really key

16:26

role in any initiative that we help

16:28

to lead in terms of coaching

16:31

, reinforcing , holding their teams accountable

16:33

to it and the way that SES

16:35

can really help with this . And what we're working on in

16:37

terms of the content initiative is

16:39

having content dedicated to addressing

16:42

not only the needs of our community in terms

16:44

of enablement , but also sharing

16:46

this with our stakeholders , so with CROs

16:48

, even CEOs , and addressing

16:51

exactly how to build

16:53

an enablement function , where to place

16:55

the enablement team , how to define

16:57

enablement in a way that sets them

16:59

up for success , which ultimately

17:01

sets the company up for success . So there's just

17:03

a lot of opportunity there to help

17:06

educate and we're also seeing a lot of

17:08

newer people coming into enablement

17:10

. That to Chris's point earlier . They

17:13

can stand on the shoulder of giants . So

17:15

many of us have done this for so long that

17:18

we've learned by mistake and in

17:20

some ways , newer folks to enablement

17:22

. They don't have the

17:24

ability to make those mistakes . They

17:27

need to hit the ground running . So with

17:29

some of the content we're going to be building , that is

17:31

really meant to help them as well .

17:33

That's a great observation we

17:36

all did have when we came

17:38

into enablement at various stages in our career

17:40

a lot more of a honeymoon period

17:43

than most people are going to get now

17:45

.

17:46

Mary Beth , take a step , building

17:49

on Gail and Gail and Chris , especially

17:53

that honeymoon period , and we have the newer enablers

17:56

and when you look at the job descriptions that are out

17:58

there for enablement , the

18:02

kitchen sink is getting thrown at it . Basically

18:04

, as far as you have to be

18:06

everything and they're wanting

18:09

one person that can be . In

18:11

the past would have been four or five

18:13

people's different functions and it's

18:15

all in one . So it's also

18:17

, I think , what we're going to be up . What we can offer

18:19

our community and our members , and especially

18:21

our newer folks that are newer

18:23

in their careers , is how to approach

18:26

all those different initiatives

18:28

from a change minimum perspective , but also

18:30

how to address those

18:33

strategically and

18:35

so that we're not just viewed as something

18:37

tactical . I mean , yes

18:39

, there are tactical steps somebody would take

18:41

in initiating a program , but

18:44

how to change your thinking and be more

18:46

strategic and have those strategic conversations

18:49

with the leaders that you're supporting

18:51

. So I think

18:53

that's a key differentiator of our community and

18:55

I think of what we're starting to offer as a

18:58

board and as an

19:00

organization build out our

19:03

programs to serve our members .

19:05

Yeah , all right , I

19:08

want to shift gears . I don't want this to be

19:10

too much of a commercial , but we

19:12

got to talk about the SES experience

19:14

in San Diego . So in about 30

19:16

days , maybe a little more , we will all be

19:18

there in San Diego . And

19:21

going back to 2016

19:23

, 2017 , I

19:25

wasn't in Florida for that first meeting

19:28

or involved in the LinkedIn groups before , but it was

19:30

shortly after that that . At

19:32

the time , I was doing some work with Jill

19:34

Rowley and she's going to let

19:37

me know , and I was like , wow , this is cool , there's

19:39

a tribe . So very good

19:41

, now fast forward . There

19:44

are a lot more options for

19:46

folks in the enablement community . So

19:50

what is different about

19:52

the SES experience and

19:55

why should

19:57

people really give it some serious

19:59

consideration again ? When there are

20:01

so many choices , anybody want to

20:03

start off on that one , mary Beth

20:05

.

20:05

Yeah , I think the real

20:08

key differentiator of our experience

20:10

is it's for practitioners , by

20:13

practitioners . We

20:15

are there for our community and

20:17

when we review the speaker

20:20

submissions , we are looking and

20:22

balancing the different themes and

20:24

the roles of

20:26

the folks that are submitting , and they're

20:29

you know where they are in their

20:31

journey as well is for

20:33

what they're offering to

20:37

bring and share with our practitioner

20:39

, you know , with other practitioners . So

20:41

I think that that real key thing there has always

20:44

been , you know , for practitioners by

20:46

practitioners , and oh , my

20:48

goodness , it's what an

20:50

amazing opportunity

20:53

it is to be with your community

20:55

of practitioners and also , at

20:57

the same time , we have our partners

20:59

who are there helping support us through it

21:01

, and so it's an opportunity to

21:03

meet with those folks

21:05

face to face as well .

21:07

Since Mary Beth stole everyone's answer , I

21:10

will say that's why she went first

21:12

. Yeah , yeah , the

21:15

benefit for me and I've been , I was at

21:17

a lot of the earlier conferences , did

21:20

a lot of digital ones and then I missed

21:22

the last one due to a hurricane . But

21:25

the benefit for me and it's always been the benefit

21:27

for me is you have to think

21:29

about where you are in your enablement career

21:31

and the reality is , unless you've

21:33

been to three or four organizations , like if

21:35

you've been doing it at one place for a good amount of time

21:38

, you really only have one flavor

21:40

of enablement . Like enablement looks one

21:42

way to you . The real

21:44

benefit for me is meeting people at

21:47

different organizations or

21:49

within different industries and

21:51

understanding how they do it and

21:53

understanding the problems that they face . The

21:56

greatest learnings I get are sitting down with

21:58

somebody who does enablement

22:00

outside of the tech industry , who

22:03

approaches a problem that maybe

22:05

I've already solved or maybe I'm just

22:07

now becoming aware of and hearing

22:09

what they did about it . It's

22:12

even if that's a 20 minute conversation over

22:14

lunch and then

22:16

a LinkedIn connection . You

22:18

know you can reach out to that person a year

22:20

down the road and say , hey , you

22:22

said you did this thing . This

22:25

is now a priority for me . It's initiative . Can

22:27

you tell me how you did it ? And

22:30

I've done that a handful of times and

22:33

100% of the time people like , absolutely

22:35

, here's my calendar , let's talk about

22:38

it . The easiest

22:40

way to get ahead in enablement is to

22:42

have the frameworks and have

22:44

the answers , and at that conference is where

22:46

you're going to go get them .

22:47

Absolutely , and we're live and it's in

22:49

person and it's practical , and

22:51

all of those things come together to make the experience

22:54

so critical . I will

22:56

sound a little like a commercial , because I get to , because

22:58

I get to work on the conference . It's October

23:00

2nd through the 4th . It's San Diego . We've

23:03

got 30 plus sessions , we've got hackathons

23:05

, we've got workshops , we've got hands

23:07

on , we've got amazing keynote speakers . And

23:10

, to Chris's point , this is the one time of the

23:12

year you can take two and a half

23:15

days out of your life , off of

23:17

Zoom , and be in a room

23:19

with real human beings who are doing

23:21

what you're doing and solving the problems and

23:23

facing the same challenges , and

23:26

that energy will sustain you for the other

23:28

361 days of the year . And

23:30

we need that , especially now that so much of

23:32

us have gone to almost full

23:35

Zoom or working virtually or

23:37

not . We can't sit shoulder to shoulder with our

23:39

salespeople . We can't break bread

23:41

as often with our leaders and

23:44

enablers . For the most part , a large part

23:46

of our community that attends the conference

23:48

are solo

23:50

practitioners or a team of maybe

23:52

one or two , and so that's

23:55

. The other advantage is that we build

23:58

community , because that becomes our team

24:00

. So many of us are working alone

24:02

or working with small teams . That

24:04

conference is a place to start to build your

24:06

virtual department , and

24:09

there are so many times I go out to Connections

24:11

and say I'm building a framework , I need help

24:13

, I'm building this , I need help , and

24:16

that community is 100% there and

24:18

the conference is the place that you can make

24:21

and bridge those connections in a real live

24:23

, human , non-zoom setting .

24:25

Non-Zoom setting . That should be the headline . That's

24:27

our tagline .

24:29

That was Zoom .

24:30

As the conference chair , I want to ask

24:32

you just kind of an add on to that . It's

24:35

not the SES annual conference or

24:38

something similar , it's the SES

24:40

experience and that name

24:43

I know you were involved in choosing and it

24:45

was very intentional . Why

24:47

experience versus whatever else we could have

24:49

called it ?

24:52

Oh , because experiences are

24:54

memorable . I spent

24:56

the first 20 years of my life working in conferences

24:58

and events and I still have a passion for it

25:00

. We can talk , we

25:02

can teach , we can learn , but when we

25:04

experience , it sinks

25:07

in at a much deeper level . It becomes

25:09

part of who we are . You will

25:12

remember experiences long after

25:14

books that you've read or movies that

25:16

you've seen , or even conversations , because

25:18

experiences are what moves

25:20

us as human beings . And being

25:23

able to create an experiential

25:25

space where we can bridge connections , where

25:27

we can have live workshops , that's

25:29

the passion behind SES . It

25:31

isn't , and it's never intended to be

25:33

a talk down session . If it

25:35

was , we could just do it on Zoom . We

25:38

could get a lot of great talk , but

25:41

in the reality of we've

25:43

encouraged a lot of hands on

25:45

a lot of opportunities

25:47

for workshops . We want you to come away

25:49

with notebooks and a pen

25:51

and actually write things down and

25:55

make it stick in your brain , because you're experiencing

25:57

it and

26:00

that's an exciting opportunity for SES

26:02

.

26:02

And I know that as part of and we've

26:04

had you have some really great help in

26:07

the selection committee . I know we had a maybe

26:10

even a record number of people

26:12

submit abstracts for presenting

26:14

this year .

26:15

Naring that down could not have been easy

26:17

.

26:18

But I believe one of the criteria was that

26:20

workshop interactive experience

26:23

that you were all looking for in

26:25

their abstracts , so that it wasn't going to be talking

26:28

at them at the audience . True .

26:30

Yeah , that's absolutely part of the criteria

26:32

. We always look to make sure we have a handful of

26:34

new practitioners who have never spoken

26:36

with us before . It's really important that

26:38

we shuffle voices and we hear from community

26:41

members that are new to our space . We

26:43

really promoted the idea of workshops . We actually

26:46

have a workshop space specifically

26:48

for the hackathon and for some

26:50

other workshops that will be happening , and

26:52

we look for diversity of topics

26:55

. Even when we get multiple

26:57

topics on the same track , we look for how

26:59

is this practitioner going to speak about

27:01

metrics or about measurement

27:04

a little bit differently . We

27:06

also look at where do we have practitioners that maybe

27:08

come from larger organizations who are going to bring

27:10

one viewpoint , where they have a team of 20

27:12

enablers versus people who are solo

27:15

enablers and they're DIYing it all

27:17

, and so that mix and match really

27:19

allows an audience , an attendee

27:21

, to come in and pick and choose

27:24

the tracks and the sessions that are really

27:26

going to resonate with them and where

27:28

they want to learn from . Maybe they're with a really

27:30

small org and they want to see hey , what would it be

27:32

like if I ?

27:33

went over and joined Amazon .

27:35

And they can learn from those practitioners

27:37

. So that's the goal

27:39

of the tracks is to give a lot of diversity

27:41

, a lot of hands-on opportunity

27:43

and a lot of community building

27:45

.

27:46

Thank you , and that half hour

27:48

flew by . So , chris

27:50

Marybeth Del Gail

27:52

, thank you for bringing

27:54

your energy and

27:56

your talents to supporting

27:59

our global enablement community , and

28:01

thank you for the last 30 minutes and spending

28:03

some time out of your day with us . I

28:06

also want to thank our audience

28:08

, who invests time with us every

28:11

other week to tune in and listen . And

28:13

finally , I want to thank Alleggo . We

28:16

are a nonprofit , for those that may not be aware

28:18

, and we definitely are

28:20

dependent on the kindness of our friends , and

28:22

Alleggo has consistently been one of those

28:24

, and we appreciate it . So we'll

28:27

be back in two weeks with another guest

28:29

and new content . In the meantime , stay safe

28:31

.

28:32

Thanks for joining this episode of Stories from the

28:34

Trenches . For more sales enablement

28:36

resources , be sure to join the Sales Enablement

28:38

Society at sesocietyorg

28:40

. That's sesocietyorg

28:45

.