0:01

Welcome to the Revenue Enablement Society

0:03

Stories from the Trenches , where

0:06

enablement practitioners share their real-world

0:08

experiences . Get the scoop

0:11

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

0:24

initiatives . Learn what worked , what

0:26

didn't work and how obstacles were

0:28

eliminated by enablement teams and go-to-market

0:30

leadership . Sit back , grab

0:33

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

0:45

solution .

0:47

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode

0:49

of the Revenue Enablement Society podcast

0:51

, stories from the trenches the only

0:54

podcast that I know of that gathers

0:56

practitioners and analysts from

0:58

all over the world to talk about the

1:01

innovative and new ways that they're doing things

1:03

and accomplishing things , the things that are happening

1:05

in our industry . And sometimes we talk about things

1:07

that didn't go very well , because there's a lot that could be

1:09

learned from that too . So I'm excited

1:12

to get right to our guest this time and

1:14

introduce you to Dana Williams . Dana

1:16

is the author of the Diligence Fix

1:19

and , Dana , why don't you take a minute and introduce

1:21

yourself a little bit more to the audience ?

1:23

Great thanks , paul . Yeah , so I'm Dana Williams and

1:25

, as you mentioned , I authored a book called the Diligence

1:27

Fix , and it really is designed to start

1:29

a conversation around how

1:32

our striving for more revenue

1:34

stresses and can compromise our

1:36

sales organization , and I really was

1:38

inspired to write it as a result of talking

1:41

and interacting with sales leaders over the last 20

1:43

years , where I've had a career as

1:45

a white label consultant for a number of the

1:48

major sales enablement organizations in our

1:50

country , and so I start the conversation

1:52

in the book and then my website , thediligencefixcom

1:55

, we continue to drill down on those ideas

1:57

.

1:57

All right , thank you . Before we get

1:59

into and I'm excited , I'll show everybody

2:01

I actually saw Dana present

2:03

at an AI conference . I

2:05

guess it's been a month or a month and a

2:07

half ago now , and so we're going to talk

2:10

about some of what she brought there . But before we get

2:12

too serious , we got to do the Jimmy Kimmel

2:14

Challenge . So , dana , you

2:16

know the drill Jimmy retires later this

2:18

year . You get offered his show

2:20

. You can have anybody you want on the couch

2:22

the first night . Who did you bring , or who will

2:24

you bring , and why ?

2:27

Love the question , so I'm choosing Steve

2:29

Carell , because who

2:32

knows those types of shows better than Mr

2:34

Carell ? He is always a crowd

2:36

pleaser and at this point I think

2:38

I'm looking for some sort of definitive

2:40

information around a office reunion

2:43

.

2:44

Is that a thing ? Is

2:46

there an actual chance of that ? Do you know ?

2:48

I think they hint , they tease , but

2:51

up to this point I think everybody's

2:53

been busy with other projects . But you never

2:55

know . I

2:59

could be the spark that gets everybody together .

3:01

I think the best part of an officer unit is going

3:04

to see it's the action figure

3:06

. Yeah , action figure physique gym . I

3:08

mean look at what John Krasinski has done since

3:10

the office . Right , jack Ryan

3:12

13 hours . I mean the guy

3:15

looks like an action hero now .

3:19

Well , I don't know if you saw him host the SNL

3:21

show , but one of the SNL actors

3:24

in the audience stood up and was like

3:26

laughing because he goes . Oh , you're not Jim

3:28

Jim Soft .

3:29

Yeah right , Exactly yeah .

3:33

It's not quite his character .

3:34

One of the and there were not very

3:37

many . The only cool things

3:39

I'll put that way that came out of COVID and lockdown

3:41

were the human , that seeing humans

3:43

really step up and

3:46

I was so impressed . Do

3:48

you remember his

3:51

show , the Good

3:53

News ? What was it called ? The Good News Show , I think

3:55

so , or a little Good News , just

3:57

a YouTube show that he started putting together

3:59

with Emily just looking for

4:01

positive human interest stories around

4:03

the world of people helping each other during lockdown

4:06

, and it was amazing and

4:08

he made no money from it that I could tell

4:10

. It was just he just saw a need

4:12

and he filled it . I always loved that , so

4:15

he's somebody I would love to interview

4:17

someday , just partially

4:19

for that . It was like what motivated you to do that

4:21

and it was just really cool .

4:23

And if you're in the mood for a sassier side , he

4:26

did a nice little series of lip syncing

4:28

with Anna Kendrick and Cass

4:30

what . Google him , yeah

4:32

, for lip syncing , and it'll

4:35

rock your way , oh , wow .

4:36

Okay , well , I'd go for

4:38

Jack Ryan reunion too , but

4:42

I think I think Reacher has taken

4:44

Jack Ryan's throne on Amazon , so we're

4:46

digressing badly . But that's what's fun about this . We

4:49

can talk about whatever we want , but let's talk about what we came

4:51

to talk about . So , again

4:54

, I saw you talk on

4:56

not just AI , so whole conference

4:58

was AI . But to me , what stood out

5:00

about your session was the

5:03

fact that and I'm going to probably

5:05

not summarize it as well as you would , but

5:07

it's like , yes , ai , amazing

5:09

, all these cool things , etc . But

5:11

slow down , kids , and

5:14

think let's think about this

5:16

, right , let's not rush into

5:18

it . You need a framework . So I don't want

5:20

to give away too much , but

5:22

that's why I've been excited to talk about this , because I don't think enough

5:25

people at least the podcast stuff I list you are talking

5:27

about that . So you know everyone

5:29

is buzzing about AI . It is , it

5:31

is the shiny object now

5:33

for quite some time , but I don't think that's going to change

5:36

. So , in your experience or view

5:38

, dana , what's missing from the hype

5:40

in the headlines ?

5:42

Yeah , so I think when leaders

5:44

get excited and when I speak of

5:46

sales leaders , I'm talking , you know , cros

5:48

, heads of Sales and so forth and I distinguish

5:51

that from our friends in sales enablement , who

5:53

are often the voice of reason in the room . You

5:56

know , these are folks that have

5:58

what you mentioned shiny objects syndrome

6:01

and they get

6:03

sucked into the hype . They get excited

6:06

and the idea is let's just bring

6:08

these tools into the organization like

6:10

magic . It's going to help

6:13

us scale and accelerate and , sadly

6:15

, possibly eliminate an FTE

6:17

or something along those lines realize

6:19

effective and efficient cost savings

6:22

. Well , that's great , but what's missing

6:24

from the conversation is everything

6:26

behind it that's necessary for

6:28

you to fully realize the investment

6:30

that you're making .

6:32

When I hear people talk about AI , the word

6:34

transformation almost is always in the same

6:36

paragraph of , not the same sentence that

6:38

people seem so excited about that . But

6:42

the time that I've spent with AI and I've used some of

6:44

it it's not something

6:47

you can just . It's not a turnkey situation

6:50

. So how should be people be thinking about that

6:52

right as far as if it's not do ? If

6:54

you agree that it's not plug and play , what

6:56

are the potential downsides if we're

6:59

not getting ready and not being thoughtful ?

7:01

Yeah . So I think it's like anything else , whether

7:03

it is a platform

7:05

, maybe like a non-a I platform , but

7:07

a platform whether it's a training

7:09

curriculum or now include

7:12

something along the lines of the I when

7:14

we make the decision to sign and bring

7:16

these solutions into the organization , it

7:18

becomes somebody or somebody's

7:21

Third full time

7:23

job to implement so

7:26

and so is going to own it . And

7:28

the problem is and I kind of

7:30

alluded to this in my book is that every

7:32

time you make that decision , you're

7:34

adding more weight To

7:36

your organizational car , and

7:38

just because you don't see it and live it every

7:40

day as a leader , it doesn't mean it's

7:42

not weighing down the car . And the more

7:45

that it becomes somebody's third , fourth

7:47

, fifth job and they're fighting

7:49

through the level

7:51

of effort and the roadblocks and the obstacles

7:54

and the missteps to implement

7:56

a solution like a I or anything else

7:58

effectively , you are eroding

8:00

your productivity . It's like death by a

8:02

thousand cuts . We tend to

8:05

know this intuitively because we

8:07

live it every day . More often , the people who

8:09

are tapped to make it our fourth job , yeah

8:11

, but leadership loses visibility

8:13

, and so I think one of

8:15

the things that's missing right now

8:17

is a very simple question what

8:20

is it going to take for us to implement

8:22

this well and if we can

8:24

visualize and sort of quantify

8:27

the level of effort , that's gonna

8:29

be a counterweight to all

8:31

the sizzle and razzle dazzle

8:33

that people get excited about in

8:35

terms of a solution and bring into the organization

8:38

. It's gonna counterweight that .

8:39

You work with a lot of sales organizations

8:41

, sales leaders . Let's start with them . What

8:44

are you seeing , as you're talking

8:46

to them about a ? I and interacting with them ? I'm sure

8:48

they're all asking about

8:50

it at least . So what's going on out there ?

8:53

Yeah . So what I what I'm seeing is

8:55

that people are adopting it

8:57

sort of From a point solution

8:59

perspective . So think about the good equivalent

9:01

is you know , I spent a lot of time

9:03

in the assessment world , so using

9:05

sales assessments to Assume

9:08

determine the level of sales talent you

9:10

would hire into the organization . So

9:12

the reason why that's such a Big

9:15

segment , such a profitable

9:17

segment , is because it's really easy for people

9:19

. They want to hire better and they

9:22

have to implement one solution

9:24

along a multi step process

9:26

when it comes to hiring . It's easy for them to

9:29

wrap their head around that . I'm seeing

9:31

the same right now in most organizations

9:33

. I'm not talking about like the forward thinking , like

9:35

service now that's transforming everything . I'm

9:37

talking your average sort of rank and file

9:39

sales organization Is looking at something

9:42

that might save them time . A good example

9:44

would be sort of these solutions

9:46

where they're powered by chat , g2p

9:49

and there's like an exoskeleton over

9:51

it and maybe it saves you time writing

9:53

a tailored email or it

9:55

helps marketing improve the

9:57

output of blocks something

9:59

that they can . There's a very defined

10:02

start and end point and they can easily slide

10:04

it into the work that they do and it is truly

10:06

plug and play . Okay every

10:09

month that goes by . Solutions

10:11

on the AI universe

10:13

are going way beyond plug and play and

10:15

that you use the word transformation . That's

10:18

what they're promising to do . Right

10:20

where we're gonna get into trouble . Okay I'm gonna

10:22

get into trouble when we move outside of the

10:24

very simple point solution adoption

10:26

and we reach for the rafters

10:28

to bring in something truly transformational

10:31

before we're ready and we have

10:33

not had the implementation conversation .

10:35

Do you see the same Challenge

10:39

maybe is the best word that we see

10:41

with a lot of other new tech that's come on the

10:43

scene . Let's just say conversational intelligence

10:45

, which I'm a huge fan of , but it was the same

10:47

sort of thing when it was first really getting big

10:49

is just , everybody wanted to rush out and get

10:51

it . But I've

10:54

worked with some clients where it was horribly

10:56

deployed . I mean a

10:58

just I won't go into the details here , but just

11:00

like wow , do you realize that you're not

11:02

getting anything out of this ? Spend

11:04

all this money . Do you see

11:07

that ? Or do you think that's the sort of risk that

11:09

we're looking at now with a

11:11

? Is people just rushing out , putting a bunch of stuff in

11:13

place ? He

11:16

said they think maybe they're gonna be able to replace headcount

11:18

, but in fact it sounds like they're almost creating

11:20

more work for somebody , if not another

11:23

headcount I think so .

11:24

Now , while they may well organizations , may

11:26

, you know privately think

11:28

that with some time , a and

11:30

I powered solution could replace

11:32

headcounting , both of them , most of them know today

11:35

that isn't something that's gonna happen right away , but

11:37

I think , if we're honest with each other

11:39

, it's in the back of their mind , right ? How

11:41

can I operate a leaner hybrid

11:44

? You know , I human driven

11:46

sales organization ? Listen

11:48

, it's an important question and I don't think it's one that people

11:51

shouldn't be evaluating

11:53

. But as it stands today , because , again

11:55

, what I'm seeing , what

11:57

the people that I work with there are

11:59

bringing in more point solutions . The

12:02

point solutions work , depending

12:05

on how you define work , outcome-driven

12:08

, depending on what your outcomes are . I mean

12:10

, I've used some of these solutions myself

12:12

and , as somebody who prides myself

12:15

on great writing , I'm horrified

12:17

by some of the stuff that has spit out . I find

12:19

myself half the time when you're writing everything

12:21

from scratch just

12:23

because your reputation precedes

12:26

you . You can't sound like a robot

12:28

wrote it .

12:32

I was going to say . The other thing I know is a chat GPT because I

12:34

use it as a starter . It's kind of like kindling

12:36

for me . I'll let it generate something

12:38

and then it gets me past writer's block

12:41

. But it

12:43

just seems like and maybe it's the prompts

12:45

I'm using , but it tends to be very

12:47

verbose and

12:49

use a lot more words than necessary

12:52

.

12:52

And I think about the implications , and this may be a little

12:54

rabbit trail , but it's interesting because our

12:56

friends in marketing are directly

12:59

responsible in some cases for the quality

13:01

of leads that come our way . I

13:04

find that if everybody's out there rushing

13:06

to saturate with even more

13:08

content but it's not originally produced

13:11

, it's like this weird hybrid . Can

13:13

you imagine some of the workarounds

13:15

we're going to have to do to grab attention

13:17

as AI continues to saturate

13:20

the airwaves with more noise

13:22

, AI driven noise ? I

13:25

think that's something probably people aren't talking about

13:27

either , just some of the unique

13:29

problems that it's creating . But

13:32

just your question before , in terms of people

13:34

dropping the ball in implementation , it's so

13:37

point solution driven . Right now for most

13:39

organizations , it's sort of hard to

13:42

ruin the deployment , but

13:44

I think we're a hairpin length

13:48

away from that changing and

13:50

that's why our conversation is really timely

13:52

.

13:53

Okay , I agree . Yeah , I mean , the noise

13:55

is already starting to be . I was reading an

13:57

article just this week about this concept of

13:59

AI influencers and to

14:01

me that doesn't even make sense . An influencer

14:03

is somebody who has a unique point of view , who's

14:05

developed a brand , developed a voice

14:08

and worked hard at it , and

14:10

if it's just AI , it's nobody's voice , but

14:12

anyway .

14:13

So if I think about this because I think this

14:15

has sales implications if you want to just

14:17

indulge me for two seconds here . When

14:20

you think about this new world , right

14:23

, you have apps AI driven

14:25

apps that will take a picture of you sitting on a park

14:27

bench and transform

14:29

it so that you have this gorgeous

14:31

, you know headshot that you can use on

14:34

LinkedIn or wherever you

14:36

have AI writing resumes . You

14:38

have AI that is really creating

14:41

this . I think potential crisis

14:43

really around deception

14:45

, where people are going to have to learn

14:47

what's real and what isn't

14:50

, because if I bring this person on and they

14:52

used an AI you know for their headshot , their

14:54

resume , their project sample

14:56

. How do I know that this talent

14:59

right ?

15:00

Or is there any talent ? Yeah , you're right , is

15:02

it ?

15:03

And do we care anymore as leaders ? Because if we're

15:05

going to depend solely on AI

15:08

, then are we only expecting

15:10

the human component to

15:12

do almost like a sniper or an

15:14

elite special force ? Are we expecting

15:17

them to do something very narrow

15:19

, extremely well ? And then what

15:21

does that mean ?

15:23

That's again probably the opposite of what

15:25

people are hoping for when

15:27

they bring in . You don't want a bunch more specialists

15:30

, you need people that can

15:32

do more than

15:34

anything more than they used to be able to do ?

15:36

Yeah , Analyzing it , serving up

15:38

your emails , nurturing

15:40

the customer and the early prospect

15:43

in the earliest parts of the funnel

15:45

Right . Then you're going to

15:47

get dropped in to the action

15:49

as a salesperson to something

15:51

already in progress , and one

15:54

of the things I talk about in the Diligence Fix

15:56

is this idea of situational intelligence

15:58

. You have to have mastery

16:01

so that when you're dropped into that

16:03

, it's this seamless experience for

16:05

the prospect .

16:06

Because they're going from non-human to

16:08

human interaction , which could be great , and they don't want

16:11

to feel like that , do you ? Want to feel like

16:13

you buy something .

16:14

Do you want ? To feel like you've been nurtured by

16:16

AI .

16:17

Yeah , so what do we

16:19

do ? You talked about a framework

16:21

or maybe readiness plan . Talk

16:24

to me about that . What does that look like

16:26

? Maybe describe the elements

16:28

of it or help people understand . What should they

16:30

be ? How should they be thinking

16:32

about that framework ?

16:33

I should say yeah , so exactly , I think we throw

16:35

good questions out there and we frame problems

16:38

, but we don't want to leave people there . So

16:40

, for me , when I look at readiness

16:42

whether the goal

16:44

is to bring in AI , whether the

16:46

goal is to reach for higher tiers

16:48

of revenue the bottom line is you're

16:50

looking to stretch your existing

16:53

organization to reach new

16:55

goals , and so if that's what you're trying

16:57

to do as a sales leader , what I'm just going to sound

16:59

like a broken record , but this is the silver bullet

17:01

. One of the things you have to do

17:03

is make sure you have a very

17:06

clear , defined , visualized

17:09

not just documented , but visualized

17:11

sales process . Because

17:13

if you do and we're talking plugging

17:16

in the evidentiary outcomes

17:18

, the roles , the responsibilities and so forth

17:20

and you have to lead according

17:23

to the process and you have to recognize

17:25

behaviors that align with the process and

17:28

provide consequences when people disregard

17:30

it . Because if you have that

17:32

, that becomes your game plan in

17:35

terms of running an organization where

17:37

you can decide at this particular

17:39

stage that we've defined . We

17:41

will be plugging in this AI

17:43

solution to drive this

17:46

outcome . It's going to be owned

17:48

by this person or this

17:50

role and , as a result , we

17:52

need to up this type of training

17:55

. We need to provide additional

17:57

supports and tools for this person

18:00

using this tool to accomplish this outcome

18:02

. If you don't have that

18:04

, then you're not plugging something

18:06

in strategically with a defined outcome

18:09

. You're really taking the throat against the

18:11

wall and see what it does approach , and maybe that's

18:13

okay if that's the type of organization that you

18:15

run , but what you risk is continuing

18:17

to add Unless you interact with customers , nobody

18:20

wants to .

18:20

nobody , no prospect wants to feel like

18:22

you're throwing things at the wall to see what sticks .

18:24

I mean , I agree with you , but I work with

18:26

so many organizations or let me say

18:29

, I don't always work with them because they don't always think they need

18:31

help but I interact with leaders

18:33

that think that their product is so damn

18:35

good that doesn't matter

18:37

that they can do anything and the

18:39

customer is going to buy it , and we're just

18:41

heading into a marketplace with

18:44

unforeseen challenges and pressures

18:46

where that's not going to be good enough . And

18:48

so the ones that want to take growth

18:50

at AI , human hybridization

18:53

, they want to take these next gen initiatives

18:56

seriously . It's going to come back to the process

18:58

.

18:59

That's an interesting statement to me

19:01

, because AI is seen

19:03

as this new shiny , it's going to revolutionize

19:06

every which which I'm not saying , it's not those things

19:08

, but people . Yet what I

19:10

also hear you saying is the basics

19:13

of sound business practices still

19:15

haven't changed . Yes , it's all those

19:17

things , but you still

19:19

have to be smart business from a

19:21

planning standpoint , from a like I say what are the

19:23

outcomes ? Who's going to own it ? What

19:25

is what a success look like , all of all

19:28

of those things . The other

19:30

thing that's interesting you mentioned is the fact

19:32

that that their organization that think the product will

19:34

sell itself , and and

19:36

I mean I go back to Jeff Moore's Crossing

19:38

the Chasm book , which

19:40

which is still one of my favorites , because in

19:42

SAS I've seen it play out time and time

19:44

again he was just a little ahead of the curve and

19:46

figured in or defining it , and

19:48

I think a lot of those organizations haven't hit that chasm

19:51

yet either , when , if you are new

19:53

enough and you are different enough , your

19:55

product does kind of sell itself

19:57

, but only to that very small market

20:00

segment that's really good at creating their own

20:02

vision of outcomes . You

20:04

know they don't need a salesperson to do it , they

20:06

can do it . But again , going back to

20:08

Moore's research , that's no more

20:10

than 20% of your TAM . And

20:13

so once you've gone through that group , that's

20:16

where you start to see a lot of companies , especially tech

20:18

companies , start to flame out because they don't know

20:20

. At that point they think they've got the greatest

20:22

sales and marketing organization in the world and

20:24

all they did have , but it was just a great product . Now

20:27

they're selling to skeptics and laggards and pragmatists

20:29

I can't remember all the words he uses and

20:31

it's a different game . And so I'm

20:33

listening to you and I just find that fascinating . It's like , okay

20:35

, yes , ai knew , cool , all

20:38

of that . Yet fundamentals have not changed

20:40

. No , they haven't .

20:42

So one of the things that I'm really spending my time this

20:44

year working on with sales leaders and

20:46

again it starts as a conversation and then

20:48

, if they desire any sort of support

20:50

for do it yourself

20:52

or whatever I'm more than happy to do that . But

20:55

we tend to exactly like you said when

20:57

things are going well , we're really

21:00

casual about the fundamentals of

21:02

running a sales organization , including

21:04

training . Then we hit a

21:06

revenue crisis point where

21:09

we've addressed that first . 20%

21:11

or any number of things have shifted . Competition

21:13

has come in , we hit a crisis point , or

21:15

maybe the board has come in and levied 20%

21:18

growth on us . Who knows what it is . But

21:20

we hit a crisis point and then , all of a sudden

21:22

, that's when people start reaching for

21:25

training , ai tools

21:27

, data supports and so forth . They

21:30

pile the cart , implementation

21:32

gets done in a subpar way

21:34

, if at all , and then , before you know

21:36

it , they're out there going back out to market to say

21:39

, well , those things didn't work , what else would work

21:41

? It comes in a group of people's

21:43

full-time job to indulge

21:45

this hamster wheel of

21:48

effectiveness initiatives , and

21:51

that's exactly what you don't need when you're

21:53

reaching a crisis point , and so one

21:55

of the things I'm focusing on this year are some

21:57

of those fundamental disciplines

21:59

that I want leaders to focus on , beyond

22:02

just simply training or

22:04

tools , and so for me , these are

22:06

getting very , very tight around how

22:08

you communicate . So , if you think about how

22:11

marketing has this very strategic , repetitive

22:14

way of communicating with prospects , sales

22:16

leaders don't do that with sales teams . They

22:18

tend to say things once or twice , maybe

22:21

at a kickoff , this is kickoff season , maybe

22:24

at a kickoff , but then it gets buried in a

22:26

deck and they move on . But if it was so

22:28

important to introduce it , a kickoff , and put it in

22:30

your deck or at a QBR , why

22:32

are we not repeating it and having a strategic

22:34

way of pushing that out to the sales force

22:36

? Because sales people tend to remember only what

22:38

you just told them yesterday , and

22:40

so that's one of the disciplines that I

22:43

want to help people develop in their organization

22:45

. And there's a couple of others

22:47

, like integrated training , change

22:49

methodology and customer feedback loops

22:51

. So those are the four . But certainly communication

22:54

is a nice sort of counterweight to

22:56

always piling on more plug

22:59

and play type solutions .

23:02

So we probably have two types of listeners right

23:04

now . The first are those

23:06

that really haven't taken the plunge . Maybe

23:08

they've dipped their toe in the AI world a little

23:10

bit , but there may be the easy ones

23:12

. For the next question I'm going to ask , which is where

23:15

should they start ? You're sharing a lot

23:17

of great information , but I could see somebody

23:19

sitting there saying , okay , I don't want to make

23:21

the mistakes Dana's talking about , I don't want us to get into

23:23

that place . But where do they start ? Got

23:26

a couple of concrete steps for them .

23:28

I think two or three Yep . So number one

23:30

sit down and have and this can't just

23:32

be sales enablement doing this and

23:34

running sales leadership sort of do

23:36

what they do . It has to be a

23:39

series of meetings where we sit

23:41

down and we agree on the current state and

23:44

you might have to negotiate what the current state

23:46

is . But I think the number one thing

23:48

is do we have a fully documented

23:51

, fully visualized sales

23:53

process ? And if we do , how

23:55

would we grade ourselves on a scale of like

23:58

ABCD on our ability

24:00

to adhere to this ? Let's just be honest

24:02

, because cheating the system does nobody

24:05

any good . So that's kind of number one . Number

24:07

two if we don't have it , if we grade ourselves like a

24:09

B minus a , c , a , d , what

24:11

is it going to take to get to a B plus or an A

24:13

? And then can we put an accelerated

24:16

60 to 90 day plan in

24:18

place where it doesn't crush

24:20

somebody's productivity but we kind of share

24:23

a little bit of the load to get it up to snuff ? And

24:25

then , what sort of communication can

24:28

sales leadership put behind this newly

24:30

strengthened process so

24:33

that the organization understands ? We

24:35

may have been loosey goosey with this in the past

24:37

, but we are going . Our future

24:39

is riding on our ability to implement

24:42

this and we're going to do it . So I think

24:44

that's number one and then number two

24:46

. I think that we look when we

24:48

have that same kind of aligned conversation

24:50

around the last two or

24:52

three solutions we've brought

24:55

into the organization and we grade ourselves

24:57

how well did we implement

25:00

it ? Was it on time ? Did

25:02

it add too much weight to the cart ? Did

25:05

we achieve the outcomes that we wanted you

25:07

? have an honest conversation about that and

25:09

then going forward , I think we

25:12

say to ourselves before we

25:14

sign for an AI or any type

25:16

of other solution , we're going to have

25:18

a meeting of the minds around level

25:20

of effort for implementation and if it's going

25:22

to crush somebody or somebody's

25:24

, then we have to think twice whether or not

25:26

we bring it in .

25:28

Okay , so the other group

25:30

that's probably listening right now and

25:32

this may be a little more challenging are people

25:34

that have already gone down the road

25:36

you described and they're just

25:39

starting to realize that maybe this isn't working

25:41

the way we thought , or maybe they're recognizing

25:43

some of the things you're talking about is oh my gosh , we're

25:46

already dealing with that . Any advice

25:48

for those that , like I said

25:50

, maybe did rush in a little prematurely

25:53

and now need to fix

25:55

that how should

25:57

what should they do ?

25:59

Well , I'll give something . I'll give a bit of advice

26:01

. That may be unpopular , but I

26:04

try to put it out there as an option

26:06

for people . Give them permission to at

26:08

least consider the option . And that is what

26:11

about cutting your losses ? I

26:13

mean , at a certain point you may have invested in

26:15

something , but a lot of times you haven't signed

26:17

a lifetime contract with one of these solutions

26:19

. Maybe you're three or six months in and

26:22

it just is not . It's

26:25

not meeting expectations or

26:27

people aren't using it the way they

26:29

need to and it's going to require way too much

26:31

training to get them ready . Maybe

26:33

have an exploratory conversation around

26:35

number one , pumping the brakes on

26:37

continuing to sort of roll the boulder uphill

26:40

. But number two , like what would

26:42

it cost our organization if we just sort of readjusted

26:45

priorities and de-prioritized

26:48

this ? You know , I think that's

26:50

sort of the first thing . I don't think we have to be compelled

26:52

unless there's a good reason

26:54

to be compelled , but I don't think we have

26:57

to be stuck with something that just isn't working

26:59

. So I think that's number one

27:01

and we learn from it . Right , I want to always

27:03

document the lessons learned so that we have a

27:05

better . So one of the other disciplines I

27:07

was mentioning to you , change methodology , and this

27:10

is having a way of evaluating

27:12

in an objective way what

27:14

we bring into our organization . So

27:17

, to help you know support change

27:19

methodology within your own organization . What

27:21

lessons learned could we gather from

27:23

this sort of swing and a miss , to

27:26

make sure that we don't do it again ? So that's sort of

27:28

my thing . Now . If that's not an option

27:30

for you , then I always say scale

27:32

it back . You know , if you've rolled

27:34

it out to an entire team of 10 , can

27:37

you work with one or two people to

27:39

kind of perfect ?

27:41

the process . That's a good point , right , yeah

27:43

, and it grabbed

27:45

it and have actually been doing

27:47

what you were hoping with it . Because

27:50

, again , that's just how they're wired they're good at visualizing

27:52

and just without a ton of direction , you

27:55

know doing it . So you're right . So

27:58

refine it maybe it's the right word with those

28:00

people that are already finding success

28:02

, and then how do you bottle ?

28:03

then figure how you bottle that and take it back to the rest

28:05

of the , to the rest of the team

28:08

, and really Paul , the number

28:10

one reason why people don't start the

28:12

conversations at the front end

28:14

around implementation concerns

28:17

or lack of strong process

28:19

or hey , it's not working

28:21

. Should we cut our losses or should we descale

28:23

is really fear . I mean , people

28:25

don't bring these things up because they're afraid

28:27

of being perceived as a failure

28:30

, you know , or being part of a

28:33

failed initiative , and they don't want that tag

28:35

on them and I understand that

28:38

. But you're going to pay the price

28:40

for that , you know , a thousand times over in

28:42

personal stress and

28:44

, frankly , you're probably still attached to it anyway

28:47

, even if you try to distance yourself .

28:49

So you may as well .

28:50

Get in front of it and sort of lead

28:52

from the front on , acknowledging like , hey

28:54

, we can't take this on just yet , we're

28:56

not ready . And these are the consequences if we do

28:58

or we took this out . It didn't

29:01

meet expectations , we were eager

29:03

but weren't ready . Here's

29:05

what I suggest is the next .

29:06

I like that Eager but not ready . Probably a lot of that

29:08

. Probably a lot of that , all right

29:10

. So our time is just about up . This

29:12

has been a really fun conversation , but

29:16

before I let you go , I want to give

29:18

you a chance to just drop some life

29:20

knowledge on us all . Is that all right ? Of

29:23

course , all right . So

29:25

you've been given the gift of time travel , with a couple of restrictions

29:27

. One the only person you can talk to when you go back

29:30

in time is some younger version of yourself

29:32

, and you don't want to screw up the space

29:34

time continuum , right , so you can talk

29:36

to yourself . And number

29:38

two you can only coach yourself

29:40

on one topic or in one

29:43

area . So what is that thing

29:45

that you really wish you'd understood earlier

29:47

in life , that you understand

29:49

now ?

29:50

Yeah , I would say it's sort of a mindset topic

29:52

, Paul , I would say that I tended to

29:54

, as a sort of a type A personality , I

29:57

tended to take everything so

29:59

seriously and absorb stress

30:01

and get all wound up about . You

30:03

know , sometimes it was legitimate things , but other

30:05

times it was like goofy or silly and

30:07

nevertheless it didn't matter . It was

30:09

everything registered as stress and

30:12

what I would tell myself is hey , listen

30:14

, like the thing that is stressing you out now

30:16

, is it going to matter six

30:18

months from now ? Is it going to matter three months

30:20

from now ? Is it even going to be in the back of your mind

30:22

? And nine times out of 10 , the answer

30:25

is no , and so I think the lesson

30:27

there is that you know time circumstances

30:30

, they resolve themselves , and so

30:32

, while we need to take our work seriously , we

30:35

need to modulate sort of the

30:37

extent we allow ourselves to become

30:39

overwhelmed by stress because

30:42

we're not working at our most effective , best

30:44

when we're operating from sort of a stress

30:46

slash , burnout perspective . So

30:48

that's what I would tell myself if

30:50

.

30:50

I come back in time . That is really

30:52

good advice . Well , thank you again

30:54

, dana . Thank you for taking the time with us

30:57

and your thought leadership

30:59

on this topic . If a folks , one who

31:01

reach out and connect with you one on one

31:03

, is LinkedIn the best way , or is there a better

31:05

way ?

31:06

Yeah , I'd love to be connected on LinkedIn , or

31:08

you can email me directly at Dana

31:10

D-A-Y-N-A at thediligencefixcom

31:14

.

31:15

Okay , sounds good . Thank

31:17

you for your time and thank you to

31:20

everyone else who's invested another

31:22

half hour or so of your time with us . We

31:24

couldn't do this , we wouldn't do this

31:26

if it weren't for all of you . So stay safe

31:28

, stay warm , and we will see you in another

31:30

two weeks .

31:31

Thanks for joining this episode of Stories

31:34

from the Trenches . For more revenue

31:36

enablement resources , be sure to

31:38

join the Revenue Enablement Society

31:40

at resocietyglobal

31:44

. That's REsocietyglobal

31:47

.