0:01

Welcome to the Revenue Enablement Society

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Stories from the Trenches , where

0:06

enablement practitioners share their real-world

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experiences . Get the scoop

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on what's happening inside Revenue Enablement

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teams across the global RES

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community . Each segment of

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stories from the trenches shares the

0:19

good , the bad and the ugly

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practices of corporate Revenue Enablement

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initiatives . Learn what worked , what

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didn't work and how obstacles were

0:28

eliminated by enablement teams and go-to-market

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leadership . Sit back , grab

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a cold one and join host Paul Butterfield

0:35

, founder of Revenue Flywheel Group , for

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casual conversations about the wide

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and varied profession of Revenue Enablement

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

0:45

solution .

0:48

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode

0:50

of the Revenue Enablement Society podcast

0:52

, stories from the Trenches , the podcast

0:54

where we bring together practitioners

0:57

and experts from our field from all

0:59

over the globe . We talk about the innovative

1:01

ways that they're getting things done . We talk about

1:03

what they're working on and sometimes

1:06

even the things that didn't go so well , because there's always

1:08

a lot to be learned from that . So we

1:11

want to welcome you and also welcome our guest

1:13

for this episode we have with us from

1:15

Forester Peter Astrow . Peter

1:18

, some of you may know the name because he

1:20

is a member at large of the RES

1:22

Executive Board . Peter also

1:24

is VP and Principal Analyst at Forester

1:27

. So welcome Peter . Maybe introduce

1:29

yourself a little bit about what you're working on

1:31

.

1:32

Thanks , paul , I appreciate the time to spend

1:34

with you . And what is

1:36

this ? The 498th Stories from the

1:38

Trenches episode or something pretty close to that

1:40

? At least the 498th take . Yeah

1:43

, it's been a great series , yeah , yeah

1:45

. So , as Paul mentioned , I followed up a long

1:47

career in B2B selling

1:49

, sales management , enablement and ops . With

1:52

coming to this side of the equation

1:54

, where I don't really do anything

1:56

, I just tell people what to do , it's a great gig

1:58

. I recommend it highly . I

2:01

live outside of Boston . We've got some piles

2:03

of snow outside from the storm this

2:05

past weekend . We've got a lot of questions

2:08

about the future of Bill Belichick and

2:11

those will all be resolved one

2:13

way or the other by springtime both the weather and

2:15

our once awesome Patriots' capabilities

2:18

here . Fun fact

2:20

, paul In college I was a member

2:22

of what I think to this day is

2:24

the only ice skating pep

2:26

band in the world . That

2:29

is a fun fact . You and I have known each other for quite

2:31

a long time and I think it's the first one time I've sprung that

2:33

one on you . I think it is . What instrument did you play on

2:35

skates ? I was in the Brown University

2:37

band initially on clarinet and

2:40

saw that the percussion folks were having a

2:42

lot more fun and drinking a lot more

2:44

. So I made that transition

2:47

. My roommate , senior

2:49

year , was the bass drummer . Someone

2:52

would skate dragging the bass drum

2:54

behind them and he would skate behind

2:57

playing the bass drum . I

2:59

mean you won't find me on YouTube , but

3:01

you can certainly YouTube Brown

3:04

University ice hockey band and see

3:07

the shenanigans that go on . That

3:09

sounds worthwhile .

3:10

I will do that , but for now we're going to play the Jimmy

3:12

Kimmel Challenge . Are you ready ? All

3:14

right , so later this year Kimmel

3:17

decides to retire . Through your connections

3:19

, you are offered his late

3:21

night show and you can have anybody you want

3:24

as your first guest . Who

3:26

did you invite ? Who will you invite and why did you

3:28

choose them , living or not ?

3:30

living .

3:30

Living or not living ?

3:33

Barack Obama .

3:34

All right , I think it's the

3:36

first time that he has come up . Michelle's been

3:39

mentioned twice that I can think of , but

3:42

why President Obama ?

3:44

Two reasons . One I want to find out if he's going

3:46

to become the new president of Harvard University , because

3:49

that's been floated around . And number

3:51

two , just very honestly , paul , my

3:55

mom and dad , george and Ina Ostro still

3:57

kicking at 92 and 89 , raised

4:00

my siblings and me with what

4:03

I consider to be a pretty high

4:05

bar of class

4:08

, ethics , morality , and I

4:11

think President Obama demonstrated in the public

4:13

sector at least as much of that as any famous

4:15

person I've ever paid attention to . Nobody's

4:18

perfect , but I'd love

4:20

to have him for a guest show guest .

4:24

I would love to , if I was on

4:26

that show with you , would ask him about

4:28

hot boxing , as Barry Obama

4:31

back in Hawaii back in the day , because he's talked

4:33

about that , he's referred to it . I guess

4:35

I should say I'll bet there's more stories there

4:37

than what he has

4:40

shared publicly , so need to get him on that show . All

4:42

right , so let's talk about

4:45

AI . There's a topic nobody's talking

4:47

about but , in all

4:49

seriousness , as you and I were preparing

4:51

for this , one of

4:53

the things that I would really am looking for

4:55

talking with you in that you

4:57

brought up in San Diego at the RES conference

5:00

, which has been a few months by the time this airs and

5:02

that is that there's a lot of excitement

5:05

about AI , but also

5:07

a lot of fear , or

5:09

at least concern , and

5:12

that maybe we're not , as a profession , not

5:14

being as proactive as we should

5:16

be . Did I get

5:18

that right and you want to elaborate on that for me ?

5:21

Yeah , you

5:24

and I have had many conversations about this , and I'm

5:26

not just saying that to Panda . We literally have had conversations

5:29

at this and our board , our board memberships , have

5:31

overlapped with that happening . Enablement

5:35

is too often a reactive

5:37

function . It's too often

5:39

the folks that we throw a bunch of other

5:41

stuff at because we can't figure out who is going to

5:43

take care of it . That tends to not only

5:45

dilute the effectiveness of enablement , because

5:47

they become more of a jack of

5:49

many trades instead of a master or a few , but

5:52

it also downgrades the view people

5:54

have of them . They're just going to do this extra

5:56

training , they're going to run this extra sco event

5:59

, and if enablement

6:01

deserves , let alone

6:03

wants , some sort of a seat at

6:05

the grown-ups table of decision-making , there

6:08

needs to be a way in which they become more of a

6:10

leader inside the organization , and

6:12

you and I know this . Anybody can be a leader , doesn't

6:14

matter what your job title is if you have no people

6:16

reporting to you . The same goes for

6:18

functions , and the interesting

6:20

thing about enablement is vast

6:23

majority of folks in the space

6:26

. From what I see with my customers

6:28

, our customers , and , frankly , what

6:30

I see even from the customers of all

6:32

of the enablement automation vendors is

6:35

they have yet to really do much with it . Hardly

6:38

anything in the enablement space , and

6:40

I feel like it's just analysis

6:43

, paralysis . Well , we don't know what . We're

6:45

waiting for someone else to tell us . What is the

6:47

security ? What is the privacy ? The

6:49

fact is , 95%

6:52

of the folks who are in our community , who are listening

6:54

to this already , are paying

6:56

every single month times 50

6:59

or times 500 or times 5,000

7:01

reps for their revenue

7:03

. Enablement automation technology it's

7:06

there . It's integrated with your CRM . You're

7:08

hopefully seeing people use it pretty well . You're

7:11

already paying for brand new generative

7:13

AI and relatively new AI

7:15

capabilities and , like so many apps

7:18

that we use as consumers , you're

7:20

not getting everything you're paying for , and

7:23

so that is a great opportunity to go

7:25

to the vendors and say , hey , you

7:27

now have generative AI and AI capabilities

7:29

and I think I'm already paying for

7:32

them . We need to step up our relationship

7:34

and show me what I can

7:36

and should be doing now .

7:39

So when you said a minute ago that there's

7:41

not enough being done with it , you're

7:43

referring to the practitioners , not

7:46

the platforms .

7:47

Platforms are all great . We took a look

7:49

at all of them last summer and

7:51

they're not all quite at

7:53

the exact same level of maturity and advancement

7:56

, but even the least advanced

7:58

of them are doing they've all done

8:00

things with AI for a while right ? Ai

8:02

is not smart , ai is just

8:04

a lot faster and a

8:06

lot more of manual labor

8:08

. If it's a matter of figuring out which asset

8:11

is right for this seller in this buyer

8:13

situation at this stage of their deal , in

8:15

this market , with this skew , in this geography

8:17

, that's just manual taxonomy

8:19

automated by AI . The generative

8:22

piece has enormously bigger

8:24

you know perspective and possibilities

8:26

and they've all brought them , even the least

8:29

of them , to a really nice place . It's

8:32

really . It's a moment . I refer to it as

8:34

equivalent to the Y2K

8:36

moment . Some of our

8:38

audience won't know what we're talking about . Those

8:41

who do recognize that Y2K was a

8:43

moment 25 , 27 years

8:45

ago when we kind of got

8:47

our you know what's out of our you

8:49

know what's . We stopped

8:52

worrying about our individual silos and budgets

8:54

and we all said , wow , we collectively capital

8:56

W need to fix this or address

8:58

this . Gen AI is really the first

9:00

technology innovation that's

9:02

that big and that broad since that time

9:05

.

9:05

Interesting observation . I love

9:07

what you said Covenants ago about

9:09

not being reactive

9:12

all the time , and I absolutely agree with

9:14

you . It's . You know , if that's how you choose

9:16

to operate , you

9:18

will become a dinosaur or luxury quickly

9:20

. And so

9:22

, in fact I talked about this

9:24

recently on another podcast

9:27

the fact that , in my experience , too

9:29

many folks in the enablement profession

9:31

continue to be waiters

9:33

, as in a restaurant . People ask for stuff

9:36

and you bring it , as opposed to challengers

9:38

and yes , I'm , you know , challenger with a capital

9:40

C . And

9:43

just that mindset , right , that mindset

9:45

of that I think you're espousing , which

9:48

is understanding the needs

9:50

of the business , proactively , going out , identifying

9:52

gaps , and in this case , we're talking about . We're

9:54

going to talk about how do you use AI

9:57

to show a lead , take a leadership position in

9:59

your company and using it . So , what

10:02

are the biggest things ? Are , you

10:04

know , the enablement folks listening right now ? Let's

10:06

start with what should they be thinking about ? They're

10:08

nodding vigorously , they're excited about what

10:10

you're saying . Where to start ? What should

10:12

they think about ?

10:13

Good place to start would be number one

10:15

. Think about replacing

10:18

your

10:20

interns , or the equivalent

10:23

of your interns , but not your sellers

10:25

. So what do I mean by that ? That's a little bit mysterious

10:27

. If you think about the easiest

10:29

part of your job , paul , or my job

10:32

, or an enablement professionals job , what's

10:34

the stuff that you can do when you're tired at

10:36

the end of the day , just fine Versus

10:39

the stuff that you really need to be bringing

10:41

your A game for the parts

10:43

of our jobs , whether it's content creation

10:45

, course creation , coaching

10:48

, whatever it might be in

10:50

enablement that you

10:52

could bring an intern or a fairly

10:54

junior level employee in , teach

10:56

them a few things and

10:58

they could probably do a reasonably good

11:00

job right from moment five

11:04

, if not moment one . Those

11:06

are things that AI can probably do

11:08

for us . The

11:10

time savings that all of us are starting

11:12

to recognize are achievable with foundational

11:16

and maybe foundational to intermediate

11:18

level complex tasks is

11:21

great time to replace . What we don't want to

11:23

replace is the high performance

11:25

, nuanced , professional

11:27

, on-the-field , judgment-based

11:29

capabilities of our best B2B

11:32

sales people . So

11:35

that would be point number one for things we

11:38

should know about and be thinking about . Number

11:40

two would be to

11:42

have Peter admit

11:44

that the things he's been saying for years about

11:47

keeping enablement at an arms

11:49

length from the IT department are

11:52

no longer appropriate , and I will take a

11:54

dive on that one . Enablement technology

11:57

, like any line of business technology , is

11:59

usually best implemented with a

12:01

bit of a distanced relationship

12:04

from the folks in the technology space , because

12:06

they normally want to own and build and buy

12:08

all the stuff on their own and they don't always get what we're doing

12:10

out in the field . Enablement's always

12:12

been like that . That's why all of the vendors in our space

12:14

sell to the Chief Revenue

12:17

Officer or Sales or Revenue Ops

12:19

or Sales or Revenue Enablement , not to

12:21

IT . They may sell to marketing , but they're not going

12:23

to sell to IT . Now . This

12:25

second point is about being more

12:28

willing to understand and become more

12:31

expert on data lake

12:33

quality . This would be the single point I would want

12:35

folks to take away . A

12:38

good generative AI solution points at

12:41

something . Chatgpt

12:43

points at the entire Internet

12:45

. Our own

12:47

in-house forester

12:49

and all companies probably have this by now . Version

12:52

of ChatGPT points at everything on

12:54

the Internet , but it doesn't allow us to put confidential

12:57

stuff on there . The generative

12:59

AI solutions that we already have from these

13:01

enablement automation providers are

13:03

going to be pointing at our own artifacts

13:06

, our content , our PowerPoints , our PDFs

13:09

, our spreadsheets , our lists , our

13:11

private stuff , and making

13:13

sure that we understand how important the quality

13:15

of that data lake is , that things

13:17

are up to date . That is going to become

13:20

a much more important competency

13:22

for enablement leaders , because

13:25

it's a brand new one than it ever was

13:27

for any enablement leaders in

13:29

the past .

13:31

You're talking governance , peter Governance

13:33

, or is it something ?

13:35

more . It is governance married

13:37

with awareness . I

13:40

don't think we need for enablement folks to go back to

13:42

school and stop enabling and start getting a PhD

13:44

in data science or in

13:47

global governance and economic policy

13:49

, but they need to be more aware of

13:51

those limitations and expectations

13:54

than they once were In your experience

13:56

.

13:58

does that also include that

14:00

awareness and the things you're talking about , especially

14:02

with the content and the data lake

14:04

, as you called it ? Enablement

14:07

is that enablement plus product marketing , enablement

14:10

plus someone else

14:12

?

14:13

Yeah , Y2K time .

14:14

Should that live for you .

14:15

Okay , yeah , I don't care

14:17

that much where responsibilities live . It's

14:20

one of the advantages of being an analyst , Paul you just tell

14:22

people what to do . You don't really care whether they get it done

14:24

or not . I'm mostly

14:26

joking , as

14:29

with Y2K , where organizations came

14:31

together and said we , Capital W , have to be

14:34

able to do this . Addressing

14:36

AI and most of our organizations has

14:38

become an organization-wide

14:40

initiative . Then we all retreat to

14:42

our own little fiefdoms and our own little departments

14:45

and our own little budgets and our own little egos and

14:47

we're like what are they going to do about it ? What are we going to do about

14:49

it ? It's inevitable . It's an ingrained in Western

14:52

business culture that we think that way . It's

14:56

important for someone to do it . My

14:58

pitch to our audience is

15:01

for enablement to take one of the leading voices

15:03

, in that it doesn't matter who

15:05

ultimately executes , but if you're a leading voice

15:07

in it , you are leading and people will

15:09

follow .

15:11

So we talked about

15:14

what they need to know , what they need to understand

15:16

, what they need to learn , but now it's time to put

15:18

into action what do they need

15:20

to do Right Beginning ? It's early

15:22

in the year . People are thinking about this stuff

15:24

anyway . What's your advice

15:26

?

15:28

This is a dramatic change in competencies

15:30

. We spend a lot of time helping our enablement

15:33

customers upgrade

15:36

and uplevel the competency maps

15:38

for all of the selling and other customer-facing

15:40

roles that they support . What

15:42

does someone need to be good , great or

15:44

amazing at ? Or which

15:47

competencies do we buy when we hire

15:49

, build , when we onboard and promote

15:51

, when we ever board around the skills

15:53

and the knowledge and the process pieces

15:56

to be great at my individual contributor

15:58

or managerial job ? So

16:00

those competencies evolve over

16:02

time as we change what we sell , to

16:05

who we sell it , how we sell

16:07

it . When there's a global socioeconomic crisis

16:09

, a big industry thing happens technology

16:11

, innovation , legal ramifications

16:15

, mergers , acquisitions . This is

16:17

another very important competency , and

16:20

what I'm referring to is pretty much prompt engineering

16:22

. We've all , hopefully by now

16:24

, played with chat , gpt or similar

16:26

tools and we've started to figure

16:28

out how do I communicate

16:30

with this enormous pile of data in

16:33

very easy English in

16:36

order to get the most out of it . It's

16:38

not hard , but to be able

16:40

to do that efficiently will

16:43

help add the only currency that

16:45

matters to be-to-be sales professionals time . We

16:48

know , for instance , that high-performing organizations

16:50

REPS spend 12% less time looking

16:54

for searching for modifying content

16:56

than REPS in low-performing organizations . Everything

16:58

enablement should do should be

17:01

about two things Helping folks adapt

17:04

to the winning behaviors that the company wants them to move toward and

17:07

save them time , and they work with REVOPs on the latter piece . So

17:11

the skill set is super important , both

17:13

for enablement as well as for

17:15

the sellers . And then the other

17:17

thing I'd say is to always be thinking with them . What's

17:20

in it for me , for your customers

17:22

? I believe

17:25

I know we've had these discussions that

17:27

the customer of enablement is

17:29

the sales force or the entire revenue team . Whoever faces your customers

17:31

, they are our customers because they're

17:34

the people that we interact with . Of

17:37

course , the outside customers are their customers by default . Those

17:40

folks , of course , are writing the checks . But our customers what do

17:42

they need ? Internal customers , yeah .

17:45

Yeah , yeah .

17:46

They want us to help them with their efficiency and decision

17:48

making . They want us

17:50

to tell them what to do and how to do it . They

17:54

want us to give them content , answers and insight , and

17:57

by gum . They don't want us to give them a hammer in search

17:59

of a nail . Hey , everybody

18:01

, we're in luck . We just bought some artificial intelligence

18:03

. Yeah , we bought

18:06

it . It was on the fourth aisle , four down at Stop and Shop

18:08

, next to the cookies , and now you're all going to

18:10

consume it . We don't want to see that . So

18:14

the opportunity to create

18:16

things , evaluate things

18:19

, learn things and

18:21

understand things is enormously

18:24

increased by these capabilities . You know

18:26

and I don't think there's probably a lot of folks listening

18:28

who need to

18:31

know more tactically what you and I mean

18:33

by all of those phrases We've all played around

18:35

with it , yeah , and we should

18:37

keep playing with it . The easiest thing for anybody who's never

18:39

done it , who's listening to this , is just go to chatgpt and

18:41

just start playing . It's so easy you can't

18:43

break it .

18:44

Can't break it . Can't break it . Yeah , no

18:46

. So you mentioned earlier , if

18:48

you have any of the enablement

18:50

platforms , you probably are paying for AI you haven't

18:52

used so low hanging fruit . Go

18:55

talk to your CSM at the vendor

18:57

, Find out what you've got and start

18:59

figuring out ways to lead inside the company

19:01

by using it . You're already paying for it . So you mentioned

19:04

that number two You're

19:06

talking about actually get your hands dirty with it . Open

19:09

up chat gpt account , play with it , mess

19:11

around with it . That sort of thing .

19:13

What else Find like-minded

19:15

leaders inside the organization who

19:18

are also playing and toying

19:20

around with it . There are , in most of our

19:22

companies , rules and regs that says

19:24

attention , everybody . You

19:27

know it's like banning TikTok , right ? No

19:29

one gets to use this without our permission because

19:31

we're still figuring out what our coverage

19:33

is . That's fine , but you know what

19:35

we are already using

19:37

every single moment the revenue automation

19:40

tool , and it's

19:42

already pointing at all of our documentation

19:44

. It's pointing at our

19:47

battle cards , it's pointing at all of our objects

19:49

. We just want to continue having it pointed our

19:51

objects but to gain better insights from it

19:53

. You know I've got a couple of

19:55

quotes and I'm going to look on one of my

19:57

slides here because it's

20:00

easier to just sort of share them than to remember

20:02

what they are . The

20:05

things that we talk to folks about , the

20:08

capabilities either now

20:10

or very short from now , include things

20:12

like hey machine . Here's

20:14

a PDF from my prospects website and

20:17

our company's product list . Write me an email

20:19

linking our most appropriate products to

20:21

their most pressing needs . Or

20:23

look through our internal artifacts to tell me which

20:26

of our competitor services are most like or

20:28

unlike ours . Or

20:30

turn this email message into a social media

20:32

post targeted at CTOs

20:35

. Or compare this digital

20:37

sales room with these six other digital sales

20:39

rooms and tell me which assets are most and least

20:41

often consumed by our buyers . Or

20:43

listen to this meeting recording and tell me

20:45

who the economic buyer is . Or

20:47

watch this recording and tell me what

20:49

my body language was good and

20:51

bad . Evaluate me , rate me . I

20:54

mean speaking of that . There's one little widget that's on the market now

20:56

where it can be right in the corner of the screen

20:58

and tell me if I'm speaking

21:01

too slowly or in a monotone

21:03

, or it can tell me if I'm behaving in a little bit of

21:05

a threatening way , right , or if I'm being very

21:07

closed off . The biometrics capabilities

21:10

, well beyond conversation intelligence

21:12

, which we all are familiar with , are pretty

21:14

impressive .

21:15

Yeah , I've also heard a cool use case

21:18

of having AI analyze

21:20

an RFP . Oh

21:22

, yeah , so we have not seen A lot of times they're large

21:24

, they're boilerplate and it's

21:27

easy to miss stuff in them and

21:29

anyway , this is another use case where I've seen

21:31

yeah , I still Different response teams using

21:33

it .

21:33

Yeah , so I have childhood

21:36

trauma of thinking about RFPs that I had to

21:38

respond to in the past , or

21:40

young adult trauma . Yeah , and

21:43

those are tough . Those are really tough . What's interesting is yeah , you'll also

21:45

find additional stuff that you could learn where we do the research that participates in

21:47

some of your research . What are we trying to do ? All right , did you ever own a radar

21:49

detector for your car ? Yeah

21:51

, still do .

21:52

Okay , I don't bother

21:55

anymore .

21:56

Yeah , when I was a radar

21:58

detector owner , it felt like the same companies

22:00

were selling to consumers this capability

22:02

. Then they would sell law enforcement that

22:04

capability . Then we had to catch up and we'd

22:06

have to sell by this and it was just like

22:09

you know , iphone 95 , right , they just keep

22:11

selling it to us . I feel like

22:13

AI has got that capability with buyers

22:15

and sellers . We don't have research

22:17

yet on specific buyer

22:19

behavior utilizing AI

22:22

. What's to stop

22:24

us right now from saying , hey , go out

22:26

and examine these five different offerings , based

22:28

on their website , based on their G2 rating

22:31

, based on the Forester Wave

22:33

, based on the Glass Door , based

22:35

on whatever , and tell me the

22:37

strengths and weaknesses of all of them , given my

22:39

particular needs ? If

22:41

there's not an , I don't know anything about the world of procurement

22:44

. I mean , I don't know if anybody wants

22:46

to . You know , when I grow up , I want to be a procurement

22:48

. We need probably not , but you

22:50

got to . We've got to assume there's companies out

22:52

there that are that have been . There's companies

22:55

that sell to procurement . They're going to be selling

22:57

these tools . So it's the radar detector

22:59

. Over and over and over again .

23:01

It'll be like the Cold War . I

23:03

mean , we've got sales methodology workshops . There are

23:05

procurement methodology for lack of a better phrase

23:07

. Workshops have been for years . A lot

23:10

of companies have figured out this is a cost

23:12

. Excuse me , it could be a

23:14

profit center , more

23:16

of a profit center . Oh , absolutely .

23:18

And if there's any- .

23:18

Training them to effectively negotiate , bonusing

23:21

them on , you know , discounting

23:23

that they receive , and yeah

23:25

, it's a whole industry It's- . Oh , yeah , I

23:28

guess if they don't realize that .

23:29

And for all the procurement weenies on the call who've I've offended

23:32

, I recognize that for companies

23:34

like Walmart and their supply chain and Amazon

23:36

and their supply chain and things like that , now , these are enormous

23:38

cost savers and all of us who have ever

23:40

been through any kind of a riff or anything like

23:42

that know how important it is to have that stuff at

23:44

hand . As a sales professional

23:47

, you know , not a fan , for all

23:49

the obvious reasons , absolutely yeah .

23:51

Yeah , yeah , that's . It's interesting

23:53

analogy with the , with the speed or

23:56

the radar detectors and the technology

23:58

they're selling to both sides . So

24:01

we're coming close up on time

24:03

and I want to leave a couple minutes

24:05

for you to drop some knowledge on us

24:07

, life experience knowledge . So , to

24:10

wrap up , what else would

24:12

you , you know , would you admonish our listeners

24:14

at this point ? Hopefully they're getting more

24:16

comfortable or excited about the idea of

24:18

digging into AI . What's

24:21

the last thing you'd leave with them ?

24:23

I would implement

24:26

and execute on AI as

24:29

not its

24:31

own initiative . Just

24:34

the way we say to folks if

24:37

you are going to buy insert

24:39

revenue enablement vendor product here

24:41

, please , please

24:43

do not go to your Salesforce and say , hey , everybody

24:46

, welcome to January of 2024

24:48

, go this year . We're going to recognize

24:50

this , we're going to award that and , everybody

24:53

, we're going to be implementing ACME software

24:55

or we already did . That just that's

24:57

just the perpetuation of the

25:00

perception of enablement as the peddler

25:02

of tools . If enablement , if I

25:04

don't see enablement as the people who are going to get me to

25:06

my number , enablement should all be fired . I

25:09

just literally agree . The only thing that matters

25:11

to me as a seller is my deals right

25:13

now . So your AI initiative

25:15

should be tucked into Things

25:18

that you're going to do to make my life better . Hey

25:20

everybody , we've been hearing some things

25:22

about productivity . We've been hearing things

25:25

about findability , searchability , skill

25:27

sets , introducing at SCO 2024

25:31

, acmevision 25,

25:33

. I'm not a creative person , so you

25:35

brand your initiative about better sales

25:37

, learning , better sales , content management

25:40

, better this or that . What are we doing in the C&D initiative

25:42

? We've heard from you and we're going

25:44

to be doing A , we're going to be doing B , we're going to

25:46

be doing C . Then , by the way , once

25:48

we've done those things , we're going to automate it with

25:50

some new stuff that we purchased . Don't worry about the

25:52

provenance of it . Trust us

25:54

. Don't be the peddler of technology

25:56

. Be the greaser

25:59

of the skids to get me to my number

26:01

. That's the whiff of that matters to

26:03

your customers . If the AI

26:06

initiative is anything but that , then don't bother

26:08

.

26:10

I'm listening to you and I think this is how at least hopefully

26:12

enablement teams are teaching

26:15

and coaching sellers to sell . You really

26:17

just use what you're

26:19

hopefully teaching others to do . If

26:22

you have a seller that goes out and just starts spouting

26:25

off product features and

26:27

that sort of thing without really any

26:29

business acumen , it's not going to be a great discovery

26:31

and it's not going to land well . I think what I

26:33

hear you say is the same thing . If you just start spouting off

26:35

features oh look at this , look at this , look at this you don't

26:38

position it , you don't tie it back to things

26:40

that you've heard , problems that you helped identify

26:42

, all of that makes all the difference

26:44

in the world .

26:45

We've got tons and tons of activity right

26:47

now in our research about measuring

26:49

enablements capabilities . It all

26:52

boils down to did you

26:54

change my behavior in the way that my

26:56

bosses up the food chain want

26:58

it changed and did you give me more

27:00

time to do my core activities ? Ai

27:03

fits beautifully into both of those it

27:05

does . But with great AI comes

27:07

great responsibility .

27:10

All right , before

27:12

I let you go , I would love to have

27:14

you just share just some personal advice

27:16

, if you don't mind . You've been given

27:19

the gift of time travel . You

27:21

are allowed to go back , but the only person

27:23

you could talk to is some younger version of yourself , but

27:25

it can be anywhere on that continuum . You

27:28

can only coach yourself in one area

27:31

. So out of all the things you've

27:33

learned in your career , in your life , what's

27:35

the biggest thing you wish you could go

27:37

back and help yourself understand sooner Make

27:40

more dad jokes . Okay

27:44

, make more dad jokes .

27:47

I caught you flat footed on that one . You know what you did

27:49

.

27:49

Well , I was waiting for a dad joke , because normally

27:52

I don't get out of a conversation with you without

27:54

I know . I know , this is the outlier so far

27:56

.

27:57

Yeah , all right , we'll do one . Then Roman

28:00

walks into a bar and says I'll have

28:02

five beers .

28:06

Nice , very nice . I had to think about

28:08

that one , but not too badly . Some of

28:10

them are tougher , all right

28:12

. Well , peter , thank you Really , appreciate

28:14

your time , appreciate all the energy

28:17

and effort that you put into helping

28:19

our profession working with

28:22

the RES board , and appreciate

28:25

you being here . Thank you to

28:27

everybody else who's been listening . We appreciate

28:29

you investing another half hour or so of your time

28:31

and please continue to do that . You

28:33

can follow us on Apple , google or

28:36

Spotify , and we'll be back in two weeks with

28:38

another episode .

28:39

Thanks for joining this episode of Stories

28:41

from the Trenches For more revenue-enablement

28:44

resources . Be sure to join the Revenue

28:47

Enablement Society at REsocietyglobal

28:51

. That's REsocietyglobal

28:55

.