0:01

Welcome to the Revenue Enablement Society

0:03

Stories from the Trenches , where

0:05

enablement practitioners share their real-world

0:08

experiences . Get the scoop

0:10

on what's happening inside revenue enablement

0:13

teams across the global RES

0:15

community . Each segment of stories

0:17

from the trenches shares the good

0:19

, the bad and the ugly

0:21

practices of corporate revenue enablement

0:23

initiatives . Learn what worked , what

0:25

didn't work and how obstacles

0:27

were eliminated by enablement teams and go-to-market

0:30

leadership . Sit back , grab

0:32

a cold one and join host Paul Butterfield

0:35

, founder of Revenue Flywheel Group , for

0:37

casual conversations about the wide

0:39

and varied profession of revenue enablement

0:41

, where there's never a one-size-fits-all

0:44

solution .

0:49

Hello and welcome back to another episode

0:52

of the Revenue Enablement Society

0:54

Podcast , Stories from the Trenches , the

0:56

only podcast , as far as we know

0:58

, that finds practitioners

1:00

from all over the world , all sorts of backgrounds

1:02

, and brings them together to talk about the

1:05

work they're doing , the innovative things

1:07

that they are working on , sometimes

1:09

things that didn't go so well and what they learned

1:11

from it , which can be just as valuable . I'm

1:14

excited to introduce

1:16

you to today's guest . Many

1:19

of you know him , or at least know of him

1:21

. Welcome to the show

1:23

, Jerry Farr .

1:24

Hey everyone . Well , thank you so much . I'm humbled

1:27

and honored to be here .

1:28

So , jerry , you and I were talking

1:30

for a few minutes before

1:32

the show and you're a

1:34

long-term enablement

1:36

pro , but you're currently

1:39

working with your own

1:41

consultancy that you've called

1:43

Sales Excellence Advisor . Maybe just

1:45

take a minute and fill us in on some of the

1:47

work you're doing .

1:48

I'm a recovering seller . I

1:50

was an enterprise full cycle seller

1:53

for about six years and then an enablement

1:55

leader for about nine years

1:57

, and

2:00

last summer I made

2:02

the official transition to kind of hang up my own

2:04

shingle and do my own thing

2:06

, and I'm on a caffeinated

2:09

mission to help equip

2:11

enablement and operations teams to

2:14

build enablement programs that

2:16

are measurable .

2:17

I like that . A caffeinated mission , very

2:20

specific Almost brings to mind

2:22

. I don't remember the Blues Brothers movie . We're

2:25

on a mission , we're on a mission , we're on a mission , we're on a mission , we're on

2:27

a mission . Yeah , there you go . Yeah , exactly so

2:29

you're on a caffeinated mission , all

2:31

right . So , as

2:33

I'm sure you know , no one gets

2:36

off the show without taking the Jimmy Kimmel challenge

2:38

. For those that haven't heard us before , that

2:41

simply means that , through Jerry's amazing

2:43

network , he has offered Jimmy

2:45

Kimmel's show because Kimmel decides to retire

2:47

, and so , jerry

2:49

, you can have anybody you want on the couch

2:52

for your first episode . Who's going

2:54

to be there and why ?

2:55

Well , I'm going to be very selfish because

2:57

this person means a lot to me

3:00

, but there are probably like four other people

3:02

out there who even know who this is . There's

3:05

a guy named Towns Van Zandt , so

3:08

he was sort of a regionally

3:11

famous musician and songwriter in

3:13

Texas through

3:16

the kind of 70s and 80s and

3:19

he wrote a lot of songs you've probably

3:21

heard of that were recorded by

3:23

other people like Willie Nelson and that sort of thing . But

3:26

I'm just a sort of a

3:28

songwriting geek and

3:31

I'm just floored

3:33

every time I kind of listen to and read his music

3:35

and he has a great life story

3:38

, lots of ups and downs and struggles and

3:40

addictions and that sort of thing , and

3:42

I just would love to kind of hear him tell a story

3:44

. And my son is a fellow musician

3:46

.

3:47

Oh you really . Yeah , he's really an influence . Yeah

3:49

, as a fellow musician , I would watch that

3:52

and I've made a note to

3:54

go to Spotify and check him out , because I

3:56

don't know how I have not heard of him . Because

3:59

I'm also a big music geek , I'm

4:02

curious . I don't know how common the last name Van Zand

4:04

is , so it's probably a stretch , but my first thought is I

4:06

wonder if he has any relationship

4:08

to the Van Zandts from Leonard Skinner . Yeah

4:10

, I looked into it and also really good

4:12

songwriters .

4:13

As best as I can tell , the answer is no .

4:16

Oh , okay , okay , good , then I don't need to Google

4:18

that . Yeah , all right . So

4:21

let's get into the topic today and

4:23

this is one that I think

4:25

a lot of people are going to benefit from

4:27

or , at least , hopefully , think of things

4:29

differently , and

4:32

let's start off with the sales leaders

4:34

. How do sales leaders , if they're

4:37

honest , perceive

4:39

the value of enablement ?

4:41

So I love this question . I've been really fortunate

4:43

over the years to become

4:45

not just colleagues but pretty close

4:47

friends with a lot of sales leaders like going

4:50

to dinner and having drinks with her friends

4:53

, and so they're willing to share things with me that

4:55

they probably wouldn't otherwise . And

4:58

I've had conversations with three different sales leaders

5:00

over the years who I'm very close

5:02

personal friends with , and all of them had said

5:04

something to the effect of Jerry

5:07

, love you , love enablement . I like what you guys are

5:09

doing , good at doing your job . But

5:12

the truth is I

5:14

would never go to the CFO or

5:16

to the executive team and share the results

5:19

of enablement initiative because they

5:21

just , for whatever reason , they

5:24

wouldn't feel comfortable sharing that sort of thing . So

5:28

I think the answer to the question is most

5:31

sales leaders have ambivalence

5:33

. They're ambivalent about

5:35

their naval teams .

5:37

Let's unpack that . There's a lot there

5:39

and especially , I think , as

5:41

you said , that they they about . They like them as

5:43

people . I think they're doing good

5:45

work , but they clearly don't see them as

5:48

Business partners in the

5:50

literal sense , right , they're not driving business

5:52

results or they're not participating somehow

5:54

in that . So , yeah , what have you

5:57

seen or what have they shared

5:59

with you that the typical

6:01

problems are ? Where's the gap ? Because my guess is

6:03

those enablement folks probably

6:05

don't know , don't realize .

6:07

Well , I mean . So I went

6:09

through and I've I've done

6:11

and failed in a lot of ways , a lot of in

6:13

many ways that most enable people have trying

6:17

to Draw a line

6:19

between my teams , enable

6:21

initiatives and then outcomes they care

6:23

about . So I'd be banned by doing

6:25

the things that Millie , kind

6:28

of early in their career , enablement people do , which is focusing

6:31

on the learning outcomes . Look at the

6:33

number of people who showed up , number of people who

6:35

liked it and whether number of people who passed the quiz

6:37

or the certification , whatever . And

6:39

what I found is that , not

6:42

surprisingly , most sales aters don't really

6:44

care about that . I mean , they care enough to like give

6:46

you a key to when the numbers are good , okay

6:49

, nice job , but they it's

6:51

not gonna affect their jobs at all . So I really

6:53

care about that . So then I later transitioned

6:56

to that thing which also a lot of enablement leaders

6:58

once are into the role for a number of years Try

7:00

to do is do that alignment

7:02

and correlation to business outcomes . So

7:05

the attainment , win

7:07

rates , average contract value , average

7:10

sales cycle link , all those sorts of things which the

7:12

sales leader absolutely does care about and they're

7:14

important to the business . But

7:16

if you , as an enablement leader try

7:18

to start making the case that

7:20

your enablement initiative , initiative on

7:23

business value messaging or a new methodology

7:25

or whatever new thing is , you try to make the case

7:27

that that thing had

7:30

an impact on the win rates

7:32

or attainment , whatever . They're not gonna believe

7:34

you . They're gonna , you know , if not outright laugh

7:36

at you , just kind of go , yeah , okay

7:38

, right , and so

7:40

that's the thing is . It's not believable

7:43

. There

7:45

are too many other factors , they think

7:47

yeah , but then that's that .

7:49

That's why I want to ask . So I mean , I spent

7:51

more years leading sales teams than I have enablement

7:53

and I've been enablements for 11 years , I think

7:55

now , and I absolutely agree with what you

7:58

said . As a sales leader , I would

8:00

not have cared at all . Enablement didn't

8:02

exist during most of my leadership career

8:04

, and and

8:06

and . So when I moved to enablement , coming straight

8:08

from leading a sales team , to

8:11

me it was just like , yeah , I , I

8:13

don't know what enablement is . This is 2012 , but

8:16

I know what I don't want . I know

8:18

what Didn't work , you

8:20

know , in the past for my teams . And so

8:22

Now , fast-forwarding

8:24

to something else that you said . So we're totally

8:27

in alignment on that . Let's

8:29

really get into that statement

8:31

that you made just now , because there's a

8:33

lot of chatter and talk In

8:36

the enablement community and and there's

8:38

one phrase that I really think

8:40

people need to stop using I think you'll agree with this and

8:43

that is ROI . Oh , it's ridiculous

8:45

. I mean to me . I don't

8:47

even teach sales reps use ROI because they're

8:50

going to . Yes , you can establish a business case

8:52

, you can establish a gap , you can establish impact with

8:55

real numbers of theirs , but you're

8:57

never going to have the information needed to do an ROI

8:59

analysis . So stop saying that . And Same

9:02

thing when I hear enablement people say it , it's

9:05

it's like folks that right

9:07

there is gonna sap your credibility because

9:09

there is no

9:11

way you're doing that . Yet how often do we see

9:14

that Mm-hmm in the way that

9:16

people are talking ? So

9:18

help , help , help educate

9:20

all of us . So we're again . We're agreement

9:22

on the ROI . Yeah , you're saying that

9:25

even the correlation people think they're doing

9:27

may not be sticking or may not

9:29

be resonating .

9:31

Yeah . So I've talked to some people in really

9:33

big enterprises who have data

9:35

scientists who are doing really

9:38

sophisticated regression analysis

9:40

and Looking at , okay , correlating

9:43

impact and that kind of thing . And yet , okay

9:45

, what I hear from them is that even their sales

9:47

leaders are like rolling their eyes at that

9:49

. It doesn't pass the sniff test

9:51

. They just don't . It

9:53

doesn't feel right to the sales leaders . They're

9:56

probably not gonna understand the regression , regression analysis

9:58

anyway , but it doesn't feel right

10:00

. It feels more right to them that the

10:03

the more likely

10:05

cause of the improvement in win

10:07

rates and that sort of thing is probably the

10:09

change in Territories or that new product

10:11

feature release or the

10:13

new marketing cam . There are dozens

10:16

other things they would point to that are

10:18

probably much closely correlated

10:20

to impact than an enable program

10:22

. Now you know the reason

10:24

. They think that it's probably some psychological

10:27

, sociological thing that I don't fully understand . But

10:29

what I know is I I

10:32

don't think I've ever in my Nine

10:35

years in enablement , in six years as

10:38

a seller , encounter the sales leader Yep , who

10:40

just would immediately believe

10:42

that sort of argument that the enablement

10:45

team had that direct impact , even correlational

10:47

, on the business outcomes . So

10:50

you know .

10:51

I have a theory on why you may be experiencing

10:53

that again , just my own experience growing up in

10:55

sales . In

10:58

sales we often have

11:00

that view of until somebody

11:03

sells something , nobody gets paid , and

11:05

which I actually don't have a problem with . But

11:08

but it's a very sales

11:11

centric view of the world and

11:13

because sales is difficult , because

11:15

you are digging and mining

11:17

hard for every deal , it

11:20

might be difficult mentally or

11:22

emotionally to attribute

11:25

that that may also be happening

11:27

because of some sales training . That's just

11:29

a theory . I have no idea . Yeah , but

11:32

I yeah . I think

11:34

so what should ?

11:35

we be . Yeah , yeah , go ahead , I just want

11:37

other thing and then I'll go back to the other question

11:39

. Yeah , yeah , I think their

11:41

their personal experiences with sales

11:43

trainings probably haven't

11:45

been great . That's true .

11:48

So why should I believe these other people are

11:50

having that ? Yeah , yeah , yeah

11:52

, yeah . No

11:54

, I'm sure you , like me , have sat through your fair share of what

11:57

am I doing here trainings in your career , absolutely yeah

11:59

. Yeah , so

12:02

your next question like so what to do then ? Yeah , so

12:04

what's ? What should we be doing ? What should the name of leaders be doing ? Because even

12:07

those that feel they've evolved in

12:09

your world view , your point of view

12:11

, probably haven't , or

12:14

at least not the way they think they have .

12:15

What do they do Well ? So I think if you

12:18

try to measure , talk about learning outcomes

12:20

, they don't care . You try to talk about

12:22

business outcomes , they don't believe you . What

12:25

to do ? Yep , my view is focus

12:27

on the middle ground in between and

12:30

focus on behavior change our

12:32

reps actually doing things in

12:35

real life , in interactions with

12:37

prospects and customers , that that

12:40

show that they're doing the things

12:42

you wanted them to do , that you're an enable program

12:44

was was focused on in Kirkpact . In Kirkpatrick

12:46

terms , this is sort of like level three Okay

12:49

Evaluation are they actually

12:51

? Do you mean favors ?

12:53

Some of our listeners may not be familiar

12:56

enough with Kirkpatrick to know what level three means .

12:58

can you just so

13:00

Kirkpatrick was

13:02

probably in the 60s or 70s when he did this , not

13:04

really sure , but is it ? Adult learning

13:07

theorists very famous , wrote a bunch of books

13:09

on how to

13:11

measure the impact of trainings

13:13

and he has sort of five different

13:15

levels level one , two , three , four , five and first

13:17

one I actually don't remember the

13:19

names right now off the top of my head , but the first one is like Did

13:22

they , did they like it ? And

13:25

the next one is did

13:27

they show mastery ? Like did they pass

13:29

an assessment or quiz or something like that . And

13:31

the third one is did they apply it

13:33

? Actually do the things . And eventually you

13:35

get to the fifth words like ROI and that sort

13:37

of thing . Okay , but so thanks , my

13:40

view is a name what leaders

13:42

are best

13:45

advised focusing on that , that middle

13:47

ground , the behavior change , the application

13:49

, because it is the one thing that you

13:53

both have . It is important

13:55

to the business , maybe not as important

13:57

as when rates entertainment , but it's important to the business and

14:00

you have a strong case that you influenced

14:02

it . It's attribution . How can

14:04

you get attribution for your efforts ? So

14:07

, and when

14:09

I say behavior change , I'm not

14:12

talking about Did

14:15

they go do that

14:17

? Take that

14:20

training online , did they

14:22

go access thing

14:24

in your LMS . What I'm saying is in

14:26

interactions with prospects and customers , like

14:28

customer facing things , what they do and

14:32

I think part of the reason

14:34

very few enable or

14:36

think about it this way is

14:38

it takes a knowledge base

14:40

, a skill set that very few enable

14:42

people have , which is you have to deeply understand

14:45

how , what different things

14:47

are captureable with data

14:49

, what sorts of activities

14:51

are captural and how . You have to

14:54

understand what is a different tool stack you're using

14:56

and what data points are captured , how

14:58

, where are they stored , how can you report on

15:00

them and those sorts of things . So

15:02

simple things like every

15:05

email sent and received

15:07

, every meeting

15:10

scheduled and attended and held

15:12

, and then using conversation

15:14

intelligence to analyze what happened , those sorts of things

15:17

. If you use a

15:19

tool for sending quotes

15:21

or sending proposals , those things

15:23

likely log data , log

15:26

activity data somewhere . Whatever tool you have

15:28

almost guaranteed it has

15:30

a way of capturing the activity

15:32

that reps are doing in their engagements with

15:35

prospects and customers . So that , for

15:37

me , is the way you measure

15:39

the most direct impact of

15:41

your programs . Whatever your goals were

15:43

of the Enable initiative , let's

15:45

say reps were doing this thing

15:48

, this sort of behavior that we didn't want them to do

15:50

. We want them to do this other thing

15:52

instead . And how can

15:54

I measure the gap between those two things ? They

15:56

were doing this , now they're doing this . How do I measure that ?

15:59

One of the reasons I'm such a huge fan of

16:01

conversational intelligence is

16:03

because to me it's an unprecedented

16:05

way to capture

16:07

behavior at scale . Yeah

16:10

, I mean , you've been around long

16:12

enough to remember the days where you are just

16:14

, you know , randomly trying to listen to Zoom

16:16

recordings or , before that , you know

16:18

, just joining calls and

16:20

you just never knew what you're going to get . But he certainly

16:22

didn't have it any kind of analysis at

16:25

scale . So do you agree

16:27

with me on that ? Is CI part

16:29

of your tool bag ? Oh , 100% .

16:31

Yeah , it's tough to do a lot

16:33

of what I talk about without that . Yeah

16:37

, okay , and honestly , even

16:40

though sales

16:42

technologies and conversation intelligence , those

16:44

kinds of tools have been around for seven-ish

16:47

years , it's only

16:49

in the last few years where you've

16:52

really been able to capture the data I'm talking

16:54

about . So I'll give you a kind

16:56

of tactical example here . Let's say

16:58

that

17:00

you work with the leadership sales leadership and

17:02

discovered that multi-threading

17:05

is something that your sellers

17:07

need to improve on . They're not multi-threading very well

17:10

.

17:11

Okay . No , you're talking about multi-threading in their accounts

17:13

. Yeah , in sales cycles

17:15

.

17:16

In sales cycles . Okay , you're working on a deal , are

17:19

you engaging with just one buyer or

17:21

do you have lots of buyers involved

17:23

in that discussion ? Are you engaging with

17:25

all the people who are involved ? Okay , so we're saying the same thing . Then

17:27

, yeah , got it . Yeah , okay , so multi-threading

17:29

there . And so

17:31

you look at what are the reps

17:33

doing or not doing . That suggests they're

17:36

not multi-threading . Well , well

17:40

, the easiest thing to look at is in

17:42

your CRM , looking at the number of

17:44

contact roles attached to that opportunity

17:46

. Okay , they're not doing it . All right , fine

17:49

. But you can also look at , let's

17:52

say , in calls throughout

17:54

that sales cycle , is the

17:56

rep ending those calls by

17:58

saying , hey , why don't we invite so-and-so to

18:00

the next one , like proactively inviting

18:03

people to the next call ? And that's something you

18:05

can measure , like the percent of calls throughout

18:07

a sales cycle that

18:09

were you asked to invite other people . But

18:12

you can also look at throughout a sales cycle

18:14

. Let's say you had seven

18:16

meetings and sometimes you had

18:18

one person , sometimes you had three people , sometimes

18:21

you had seven people on the call . What's the

18:23

number of people on the customer side who actually

18:25

spoke , actually engaged

18:28

in that

18:30

call ? That's another indicator of

18:32

multi-threading . Then you can do something similar , or just emails

18:35

? What's the number of people on the customer

18:37

side who actually replied to threads

18:39

during

18:42

a sales cycle , right ? So yeah , this

18:45

is by no means an extensive list , but I'm just throwing out

18:47

a handful of examples of ways you can measure

18:49

empirically indicators

18:52

of multi-threading in a sales cycle . And

18:54

so , if you do that , you've said , okay , here are the behaviors

18:56

that reps are doing or not doing , and we want

18:58

to . We want them to do these other things Instead

19:00

. We want them to end calls by making

19:02

recommendations to add that to people

19:04

. We want them , during calls , to know

19:07

how to engage all the people on the

19:09

calls . We want all those sorts of things

19:11

, right ? So you do that sort of initiative

19:13

and then , in terms of measuring

19:15

, it's I pretty much defined

19:18

what the measurement is . Let's look at the average

19:20

number of contact roles on an opportunity and

19:22

see if that changes over time . Look at the average

19:25

number of calls during a sales cycle where

19:27

the rep asks to invite other

19:29

people to next call . Let's look at

19:31

the average number of people

19:33

on the customer side who actually speak during calls

19:36

. Let's look at the average number of people who reply

19:38

to email threads during a sales cycle . Those

19:41

like four different metrics right there and

19:43

pretty much everyone would agree

19:45

that those maybe not an exhaustive

19:47

list , but a pretty good list of indicators of

19:49

multi-threading . You can measure that . You

19:52

can create a dashboard that shows each of those things going

19:54

up and to the right . And if you go to your sales

19:56

leader and say , hey , we agreed that

19:58

multi-threading is something we want to get better at

20:00

, we're going to do this training

20:02

and coaching kind of program and

20:05

here's where here are the metrics we're going to look at

20:07

For behavior change and

20:09

then fast forward three months we're going to see if

20:11

those things have gone up and to the right and then , three

20:13

months later , if you see those

20:15

things going up and to the right , pretty

20:17

much anyone is going to believe that you

20:19

had an impact on those , that you influenced those

20:22

four metrics going up and to the right . Now

20:24

is that thing going to change the business

20:26

, that those four metrics are going to improve

20:28

the business ? I mean , it's not going

20:30

to change the world , but that

20:33

right there showing you developed

20:36

an initiative and had an empirically

20:38

measurable way to show that you made a difference in the behavior

20:41

. You do that three

20:43

times , five times , 10 times , you

20:45

start to earn the credibility that

20:48

when you do something , reps

20:50

use it and

20:52

incorporate it into their conversations and engagements

20:54

with customers and eventually

20:57

people will not laugh at you

20:59

when you try to say that your team , comprehensively

21:03

, over a lot of time , had an impact

21:05

on the win rates and attainment and those sorts of things . So

21:08

that's my point of view is you start by

21:10

on individual initiatives focusing

21:13

on behavior change metrics and

21:15

then eventually you earn their credibility

21:17

to make the case on the business outcomes .

21:19

So what you described makes

21:22

a lot of sense to me and I do

21:25

almost the same thing , but

21:28

for me and my programs

21:30

, those have been our leading indicators , because

21:34

you know , but we

21:37

still looked at lagging indicators , like

21:40

some of the ones you showed at the beginning , and

21:43

it was a mix of both . But

21:45

you're saying that really it should be

21:47

just or mostly . What

21:50

to me , are leading indicators ?

21:52

So I on the enabler

21:54

team , I would certainly also be

21:56

looking at changes in attainment

21:58

, win rates , those sorts of things . But

22:00

I'd be very cautious about

22:03

presenting to sales leadership

22:05

saying , hey , look how we improve win rates . I

22:08

would sort of couch that in terms of , hey

22:10

, look at these behavior change

22:13

metrics that we focused on and we all agreed that

22:15

these were important . We moved the needle

22:17

. Look at these things going up and to the right , and

22:20

before I make the case that

22:22

those things had an impact on these win rates

22:24

, I would like to propose to you that

22:26

you allow the enabler team to do this other

22:28

initiative focusing on this other set

22:30

of behavior change and to kind

22:32

of make the case . Let me do

22:34

these other things first because I just want to keep earning

22:37

the credibility before I start making

22:39

the case on those lagging indicators .

22:41

Got it . What about the role of frontline sales leaders

22:44

in your model , jerry ? Where do they fit in and

22:46

how do you account for their contribution to that behavior

22:48

change ?

22:49

Love that question . So my whole , I've

22:51

said behavior change probably a dozen times already and

22:54

Anybody who knows anything about drinking game

22:56

now official yeah , anybody

22:58

who knows anything about behavior change will tell you it

23:01

doesn't happen overnight , it's not gonna happen with

23:03

a single training and

23:05

and enable folks I'm sorry to break

23:07

it to you , but we really don't change

23:09

behavior that much the way

23:11

it way early greens is

23:14

in the conversations they have with

23:16

their , their frontline managers , in my

23:19

sort of model , my framework , the way it would work

23:21

is we would design this initiative around

23:23

, you know , for example , the , the

23:25

multi-threading , and we're gonna we

23:28

reps were doing this , we want them to do this instead

23:30

, and here the Dashboards we're gonna

23:32

use for it . Um , then

23:34

I would go try to get the commitment

23:37

from sales leadership to say , hey , we do

23:39

this and we're focusing on these specific behavior

23:41

change metrics . Can I ask you to have

23:43

the frontline managers and

23:46

incorporate in their

23:48

one-on-ones with reps talking about

23:50

those particular things and Literally

23:53

showing the dashboard that we created for

23:55

them in their one-on-one , saying

23:57

, hey , you're doing great on Adding

23:59

contact roles , but you're not really ending calls

24:02

by inviting other people . Next call , let's talk about

24:04

that . Something like , okay , okay

24:07

and so the case I make to

24:09

sales leader is hey , we're gonna build

24:11

this initiative and I'm Commit to

24:13

you work , we're gonna try to change

24:15

, move the needle on these metrics . But I need

24:17

your commitment as well . I need your commitment to

24:20

hold your managers accountable

24:22

for doing okay that additional

24:24

coaching conversations . It doesn't have to be

24:26

long , it can be like a five minute , seven

24:29

minute thing during their one-on-ones

24:31

Over the course of

24:33

, you know , a month or two or something like that . But

24:36

if that , if that doesn't happen , that reinforcement

24:38

directly by the manager , you're

24:41

very unlikely to be successful at this .

24:43

Oh , I absolutely agree

24:45

. That's one of the first lessons I learned in my transition

24:47

over to Leading . Enablement

24:49

is , you know , my best hope

24:51

was to be an influencer , but nobody

24:53

worked for me anymore . You know , they , they

24:55

, they were gonna do it because I thought it was a good idea

24:57

, no matter how Well

25:00

it was designed . So any

25:02

pro tips on getting

25:05

the frontline sales leaders to lift

25:07

up their heads and Listen

25:11

and collaborate and then do what you need them to

25:13

do , because in my experience that can be tough . I

25:15

mean , they're chasing a number and that's always gonna

25:17

be top of mind for them totally so

25:19

.

25:20

The way I've been successful is enable initiatives

25:22

emerge out of some need . Someone

25:24

is going to someone and saying , hey , we need to focus on

25:26

this , whether it's me enablement

25:28

leader going to sales leader saying , hey , we're noticing this

25:30

, we'd like to do something , or sales leader

25:33

saying , hey , me , do this , what . In regards

25:35

to how that happens , if

25:37

I kind of come back to the sales that are saying

25:39

, hey , here's what we propose to do about this , I

25:42

Come . One of the things I carry with me

25:44

is an agreement . We have found

25:46

this problem , we want to do

25:48

this about it and we expect to get these

25:50

results and this is what

25:52

we're gonna do . But I need you . I need your commitment

25:54

to hold your managers accountable and to ensure

25:57

that they are . They are going to

25:59

have these conversations during that , and so I Really

26:01

get like any in , not signed , but in

26:04

an email thread . Yes , I agree , we're gonna do that . Not

26:06

sign in blood , I'm not signed in blood . So

26:09

get that sort of commitment . And then you do have

26:11

to make it easy for the manager . You have to make

26:14

it easy . Okay , so I literally

26:16

create a dashboard that is just

26:18

for this initiative . You're going to this one

26:20

place and in that dashboard I'm showing

26:22

a leaderboard how

26:25

different who's doing well on each of them . I'm

26:28

showing a benchmark . What do

26:30

we want them on each of these Metrics

26:32

? And I show a trend line . You

26:34

know how are things changing , month-over-month , quarter-over-quarter

26:37

, whatever it is . So again that

26:39

, and I give them sort of a A

26:42

talk track or framework when you're having

26:44

your conversation with the , with the rep , here

26:46

are the three , four , five , however many things

26:49

like your agenda for that meeting

26:51

and here's how you , here's

26:54

how you begin the conversation , here's

26:56

how you , you know , here's the link to that dashboard

26:58

and , by the way , here's so what to . Here's how to make

27:00

sense of those metrics . Here's what this particular

27:03

metric means and sort of in okay and

27:05

can translate it for them into language that

27:07

makes sense for them . So

27:09

it is sort of Enabling

27:13

the managers to have those

27:15

conversations . Now I

27:17

try not to make a huge deal of it . I don't

27:19

. I don't like to think of it as like this is

27:21

our Coaching framework

27:24

or something like that . I just like here's a tool

27:27

for you to use during these conversations to make

27:29

it seem sort of low-lift .

27:31

This has been , I think , a

27:33

powerful episode . Thank you . Thank you for

27:35

coming . You know well , life

27:37

probably prepared you For

27:39

this , but you clearly , you know , did some other preparation

27:41

as well , so we appreciate that . Before I

27:43

let you go , would love to have you drop

27:46

some knowledge on everyone

27:48

that may or may not be enablement related , and it's

27:51

that you've been given that gift of time

27:53

travel . You can go back Anywhere

27:56

in your life , career or

27:58

not , and coach some younger

28:00

version of yourself , but you can only do it

28:02

for one topic . What's the number

28:04

one thing that you wish you'd understood earlier

28:06

, don't ?

28:08

Make a goal for what you want to be when you grow

28:10

up . Okay , if

28:12

you try to set a goal for what you're going to be when you're up , you're

28:15

going to be wrong , because you're not going to be one

28:17

thing . You're going to be

28:19

12 things . Your career is going to evolve . I've

28:22

had four different careers , so

28:25

I just think it's an unrealistic

28:28

expectation in modern days to think that

28:30

someone's going to be doing one kind of thing

28:33

for the rest of their lives . So

28:35

don't get caught up in

28:37

. Oh my God , I don't know what I'm

28:39

great at , what I'm going to be when I grow up . Don't

28:41

worry , there are going to be lots of things

28:43

. Just find something that you're good at right now

28:46

that someone will pay you to do . That's

28:49

it , and then it'll change your career .

28:51

That's legal . That's legal . Yeah , that's legal . Yeah

28:53

, let's be really clear here .

28:56

You're good at it . They'll pay you and it's legal

28:58

.

28:59

Yeah , yeah , absolutely . It's funny

29:01

. I saw a meme once about you

29:04

just reminded me of you know that talked about if

29:06

we all grew up to be the things that we thought when

29:08

we were young , the world would be full of more astronauts

29:10

, fighter pilots and firemen firefighters

29:13

. So there'd be a lot of firefighters out there

29:15

. Yeah , A lot of firefighters out there and

29:17

veterinarians , absolutely . And oh , I

29:20

actually did that one . Yeah , I forgot about veterinarian

29:22

. Okay , well , jerry , thank you

29:24

. Thank you for your time , appreciate you being

29:26

here . You're awesome . Paul , thanks so much . Okay

29:30

, and everyone , thank you for investing

29:32

another half hour of your time with us . We

29:35

appreciate you . Keep listening and we'll see

29:37

you again in two weeks .

29:38

Thanks for joining this episode of Stories

29:41

from the Trenches . For more revenue

29:43

enablement resources , be sure to

29:45

join the Revenue Enablement Society

29:47

at resocietyglobal

29:51

e societyglobal

29:54

Group .