[Podcast] How Qubole Leverages Sales Readiness Technology to Deliver True Value to its Customers (Episode 21)

Shankar Ganapathy on July 24, 2017


In this 20 minute podcast, Brazier outlines:

  • How Qubole uses sales enablement drive productivity per sales rep
  • Why technology is crucial to accelerate sales readiness and bring true value to your business
  • How to leverage sales kickoffs to ensure your reps’ positioning cutting edge
  • His best advice to anyone creating sales enablement initiatives

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Jordy Brazier is Vice President of Sales Operations for Qubole and has been in Sales Operations for over 10 years. Qubole is the largest cloud and diagnostic big data service, providing businesses with a self-service data platform to help them make data driven decisions.
Selling to IT decision makers, they operate in a tough market, releasing new product updates regularly to stay ahead of the curve. This means their sales reps also need to make sure they have a cutting edge positioning.
“Every week we release a new course or an updated version of a course about what products we have? And, how to compete with specific products,” explains Brazier.  “To drive adoption and see who is going through those trainings is, Mindtickle lets us see who are the learners and who needs improvement. It’s great to have this ability. We want to make sure that we have the best prepared reps when we go into the field. So they can be true trusted advisors to our customers and are able to deliver true value. That’s super important and that’s why we take enablement very seriously and really invest in those programs, into technologies that make them the best and put fire power behind them.”
Qubole has also raised the effectiveness of their reps through its comprehensive onboarding program and certifications.
“It’s had a great impact for us as well. We use best practices to take control of the consumer process, bring true value and accelerating productivity,” Brazier continues.

[Podcast] Nancy Nardin on how Sales Technology is a Strategic Differentiator (Episode 20)

Shrimithran R on June 29, 2017

In this 15 minute podcast, Nardin outlines:

  • How the sales industry and sales technology have changed in the past eight years
  • How you can use technology as a strategic differentiator for your business
  • Whether sales technology should influence your hiring practices
  • What we can expect to see in the sales technology landscape in the future

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“How can we use technology as a strategic differentiator to help our organization grow in the fastest way possible and really builds relationships with customers?”

That’s the question every organization should ask itself before adding something to their sales stack according to Nancy Nardin, and she would know. Nardin has worked in sales in the Valley since the 1980s – she even sold the world’s first laptop computer. Eight years ago she founded Smart Selling Tools, a place where sales practitioners can learn about sales technology and stay up-to-date on the industry.
With so many different sales technologies now available it can be overwhelming to know what will help your sales organization.

“I don’t think we really should be thinking about the tech too much,” suggests Nardin. “What we should be doing is thinking about what’s keeping us from being as effective and productive as we can be. What’s keeping us from generating more revenue and from serving the customer better? These are the challenges that we need to break down, and then decide what technology is the best technology to apply to that.”

[Podcast] Do’s and Dont’s of Sales Enablement Hiring (Episode 19)

Shrimithran R on June 15, 2017

In this 13 minute podcast, Harrison outlines:

  • How he tests new sales tools out
  • The three mistakes to avoid when hiring your sales enablement team
  • The best resources to inform your sales enablement strategy

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“CAKE’s at an interesting time right now. We’ve we’ve really established who we’re going after and circled back to make sure the product is what our customers need. We’ve also seen a dramatic incline in sales and now have to build out and establish the process that will cradle that success,” explains David Harrison, Manager of Sales Enablement at CAKE Corporation.

CAKE Corporation is a restaurant technology company that is on a mission to make it easier to run restaurants. Harrison was their first dedicated sales enablement resource and he’s now focused on building out the team and getting their sales stack right.

“One of our big initiatives as a sales enablement team is trying to understand the climate of sales tools that are currently out there, what can help us, and also what can hurt us. An ongoing process for the sales enablement team is to make sure that our sales process is rock solid, and supported by the proper tools because it can really go sideways pretty quick,” he warns.

Another factor that can make or break the impact of sales enablement initiatives is having the right people in place.

“I’ve become a big believer in team dynamics, which has helped mold my hiring strategy. One of my favorite movies is Disney’s Miracle that’s about a 1980’s hockey team that plays the Soviets. In the movie, the coach, Herb Brooks, says “I’m not looking for the best players. I’m looking for the right ones.” I think that applies when it comes to hiring, especially for small teams. There isn’t a one-stop shop for the right sales team, and there’s never going to be one for sales enablement either. It’s unique to what the team needs.”

[Podcast] Why Sales Enablement is a Must-Have for Your Company? : Episode 18

Shrimithran R on May 23, 2017


In this 16-minute podcast, Crepeau and Wolber outline:

  • Why there is a pressing need for sales enablement
  • What industry trends are shaping B2B sales
  • Common mistakes sales enablement leaders commit
  • The key sales enablement initiatives at G5

“Today, sales enablement spans every function within the organization. Let me take a step back, and say why sales enablement is so hot now in my opinion. Having sold enterprise technology for more than 25 years, the reality is it’s harder to sell than it ever has been. Only 60% of reps are hitting quota, leaving 40% of reps unsuccessful in reaching their targets,” explains Steve Crepeau, CEO of True Sales Results.

Following on from the previous podcast, where Steve Crepeau and Mike Wolber discussed how G5 built a successful sales enablement team, they share their thoughts on why enablement is a must-have in every company.

In this episode, they also discuss what mistakes organizations commonly make when setting up their sales enablement team. “The biggest mistake is not having executive buy-in. Regardless of how large or small the sales team is, without the support of leadership, it is difficult to execute a sales enablement program,” explains Crepeau.

“The second mistake is not assigning a superstar performer to head sales enablement. I think sometimes you pick someone who seems convenient because you’re afraid of taking such a productive resource out of the field. And then you have the wrong person heading up sales enablement within your organization,” he adds.

[Podcast] How G5 Created a Successful Sales Enablement Team (Episode 17)

Shrimithran R on May 16, 2017


It’s no secret that every company has a unique take on sales enablement – and G5 is no different.
In this 20-minute interview, Wolber and Crepeau outline:

  • The role of sales enablement at G5
  • How to lay the foundation for a new sales enablement team
  • Key goals a new sales enablement team should focus on
  • KPI’s and success metrics that matter

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“As a digital marketing company, we’re really focusing on best-in-class lead generation strategies. We want to help our partners and customers increase the value of their assets and net operating income by investing in the right advertising channels,” explains Mike Wolber, Sales Enablement Leader, of G5. G5 specializes in digital marketing for real estate companies.

Wolber was one of the first members of the sales enablement team at G5. In collaboration with Steve Crepeau, from True Sales Results, they have laid the foundation for their sales enablement function

.

“

I think that you can give five different sales reps the exact same toolkit; computer, documentation, training log and even the same manager But those reps are all going to approach conversations differently. They’ve got different DNA,” adds Wolber.
Just like each sales rep is different, so is each sales team and the team that supports them. That’s why it’s crucial to have everyone involved in the enablement of the sales organization.
“The sales enablement function needs to be cross-functional by design. You really need to work with professional services;  your client success team,  the sales enablers,  the sales reps, the inside sales reps,  marketing,  product marketing,” explains Crepeau.

[Podcast] Handling Sales Enablement? Do it like a Pro (Episode 16)

Shrimithran R on May 2, 2017

In this 18-minute interview Guardia outlines:

  • How to tackle sales readiness for new product launches
  • How to get the buy-in from your leadership
  • Tips to get your own sales enablement budget
  • Which metrics and KPI’s sales enablement managers should track

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“I’ve been actually practicing the sales enablement role for many years. In fact, so many years that I believe I was here before the term sales enablement emerged,” mentions Jill Guardia, Sales Enablement Leader, and Practitioner. She has worked in Sales Enablement for more than a decade, working with companies such as Symantec, Rapid7. She is also currently the President of Boston Chapter of the Sales Enablement Society.
Working with multiple technology firms she has established sales enablement teams from scratch. With this experience under her belt, Guardia has a lot of experience to share with new sales enablement leaders and management on where to start with sales enablement. More importantly, she also has some great advice on how to get the budget approved for your enablement initiatives.
“To be successful as a sales enabler, you need to think about how can you run this mini-business inside your company successfully,” says Guardia.
“We measure a lot of different things, but are we measuring the right things? More than often you’ll find that sales enablement people are measuring indicators with a bias to training. They are measuring a number of people who are trained, the number of hours consumed in training, and the smile sheets. Is that really telling you the success of the sales enabler, enablement team? Probably not,” says Guardia offering some great advice to new sales enablement leaders.

Furthermore, Guardia enumerates important KPI’s and metrics that sales enablement managers should start tracking. Continuing on from the last podcast, where Guardia outlines how fast-growing companies can coach and enable their frontline managers and sales leadership, in this podcast, she takes this her advice a step further advising sales enablers on the nitty-gritty of their role.

[Podcast] Coaching the Front Line Managers with Jill Guardia (Episode 15)

Shrimithran R on April 26, 2017

Listen now, as Guardia outlines how fast-growing companies can coach and enable their frontline managers and sales leadership, regardless of their size.
In this 16-minute interview Guardia outlines:

  • How to coach your frontline managers effectively
  • Ways to enable your sales leadership
  • Tips to deal with managers who are reluctant to coach
  • Best practices for sales enablement and coaching

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“If you just take your reps and you say,

’Hey congratulations! Tomorrow you are a manager, and we don’t provide any support or guidance about how best to do that, or stick with them throughout their journey to becoming the best manager they can be.’

t

hen that’s just wishful thinking, and it is not going to help the selling organization,” states Jill Guardia, Sales Enablement Practitioner and Leader, who is also P

resident of the Boston Chapter

of the Sales Enablement Society.
According to Guardia, “Sales enablement is really about ensuring that the selling organization and the partner community is prepared to do their job. That preparation comes in the form of skills, knowledge, systems, tools, and processes that focus on sales efficiencies and overall improvement of their sales effectiveness. In some cases, people call it an improvement to sales productivity.”

To ensure everyone contributing to sales effectiveness in an organization are on the same page, it’s crucial to enable the enablers.

Many managers don’t know how to coach well. They may have been great sales reps, but just because they’ve been promoted into a management role doesn’t mean they’re equipped to perform it.

[Podcast] How FMCG Giants Coach their Sales Teams (Episode 14)

Shrimithran R on March 22, 2017

 

In this 12 minute podcast Singh outlines the k

ey skills that a sales rep in the FMCG space should possess:

  • Different long and short-term initiatives that Dabur has implemented to achieve sales excellence;
  • How to leverage technology to overcome the challenges that field sales teams face; and
  • Key metrics to assess a sales rep’s growth and measure the outcome of your sales enablement program

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“Dabur is a large and diverse organization, so it became essential to have a standard onboarding system in place. To address this diversity we use an online tool. It has helped us introduce visibility into who the new hires are and whether they are trained on basic sales techniques that they need to know as part of the sales team at Dabur,” explains Chirag Singh, Sales Capability Development Manager at Dabur.

Dabur is a pioneer in the FMCG space, the world’s biggest ayurvedic and natural healthcare company, it has been in existence for 135 years. In this episode of the Sales Excellence Podcast, Singh explains how sales excellence is perceived in an FMCG business and how sales enablement initiatives are executed in a large organization like Dabur.

“

Like any other business, there are a lot of internal and external factors that affect sales performance. We decided to edify our reps’ process knowledge leading to increased process adherence, using an online platform has helped us achieve that. Process knowledge has gone up big time, leading to process awareness and adherence,

” claims Singh while talking about factors that impact sales excellence at Dabur.

Listen now to learn how a large and diverse organization like Dabur manages its sales organization and leverages technology to achieve sales excellence.

[Podcast] How MongoDB Reduced Ramp Up Time with Effective Sales Onboarding (Episode 13)

Shrimithran R on March 11, 2017

Listen now to learn how Powers deployed a successful sales onboarding program and maximized value from their boot camp experience.

In this 16-minute interview Powers outlines:

  • How onboarding helped MongoDB’s sales reps achieve sales excellence
  • How you can reinforce information after your boot camp
  • The key metrics that determine the success of an onboarding program
  • How sales enablement is structured and who owns it at MongoDB

“At MongoDB, we have a pretty thoughtful and structured approach to our new-hire onboarding. The goal is to provide the sales team with an in-depth understanding of the industry, our customers, our technology and solution sets. The second step is to build upon that baseline and knowledge to equip our reps to consistently qualify their opportunities, setting great meetings with the right people and then ultimately prepare them to engage in highly effective, highly valuable conversations with prospects.”

That is the vision behind the sales onboarding strategy at MongoDB. MongoDB is a leading technology company who spends nearly six times the industry average onboarding their sales reps. In this episode of the Sales Excellence Podcast, Jeremy Powers, Senior Director of Sales Enablement, shares how they structure their sales onboarding and boot camps to maximize their results.

“I think we took somewhere around 11 months before a rep was productive. In the last six to eight months we have really fine-tuned this onboarding program using Mindtickle from the boot camps to advanced sales training. And what we have seen is very consistently our people getting ramped in about five months. So we’ve gone from 11 plus months down to five which is just tremendous,” exclaims Jeremy.

[Podcast] What Enablement Means to Ray Carroll – A VP of Sales’ Perspective (Episode 12)

Abhinav Guru on March 5, 2017

In this 18 minute

interview Carroll outlines:

  • How to drive repeatable and predictable revenue
  • When it’s time for your sales organization to invest in sales enablement and productivity
  • How to enable your sales managers to perform at their best by shifting their mindset
  • How to prioritize and continuously improve sales enablement and training initiatives

To download or subscribe to the Sales Excellence podcast login to

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Engagio_sales_enablement
“If you’ve got to double your revenue to stay on track with your projections, you can’t do that on 30k deals. And if marketing is doing great things and attracting really great logos, but sales aren’t doing the right things, you’re not going to get what you’re looking for. And if sales is doing a really good job targeting their accounts and they’re motivated to hit the phones, but marketing isn’t giving them any air cover you’re not going to get the lift you’re looking for.”
That was the problem the Marketo was facing by relying on inbound marketing for its sales leads. So it decided to find a new way to scale, and leveraging the power of Account Based Marketing Engagio was born. Ray Carroll moved to Engagio as VP of Sales and was tasked with the job of building and scaling this next generation marketing technology company. As the business grew the issue of sales productivity became more apparent.

“The incremental efficiency on the average sale price, the time it takes to get a rep to productivity, the average sales cycle; you get those gains through having a first-class sales enablement function. And that’s why you see companies like Box, Zendesk, and HubSpot have Directors of Sales Productivity. Because if you can get 500 people with all deals at a 1% more close rate or making their deal cycle less, that is a significant uplift. That’s bigger than any single deal which you close for half a million dollars,” explains Carroll.

Thanks to sales enablement the role of the sales manager is also changing. “Managers have to realize that your job no longer is having your name in lights or closing the deal. It’s helping your team be as good at their job at scale, and only when you do that will you win as a team. It’s shifting from tactical to strategic.”

Listen now

to find out how Carroll has helped Engagio make the transformative shift from tactical to strategic sales.

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