EPISODE 3
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[00:00:00] Nicole Ward: In a really short time, we were able to support decreasing new hire ramp time, new hire time to first opportunity by 47%. We decreased new hire time to first win by 11%. Increased average deal size by 34%, increased our win rates by 11%, and this is the one our SVP of Sales loves the most. 28% more sellers are hitting quota.
[00:00:27] Steve Watt: Welcome to The Enablement Edge, the go to resource for enablement and go to market pros. We’re bringing you the secrets, strategies, and tactics that drive meaningful impact. You’ll get valuable insights and expertise from enablement leaders, so you can become an effective change agent, turn strategy into reality, and transform your organization for the better.
[00:00:53] Steve Watt: For the better.
[00:00:58] Steve Watt: On today’s episode of The [00:01:00] Enablement Edge, we’re talking about what it takes to build an enablement function from scratch, to be the first one in the first boots on the ground, building this critical, I’m joined by my friend and colleague, Amber Mellano. Amber, it’s so great to have you back. I know you are an absolute expert in all sorts of enablement related capabilities and conversations.
[00:01:29] Steve Watt: And our guest today is another expert, Nicole Ward, Senior Director of Enablement. At OSV, Nicole was the first one in and she built enablement in really challenging circumstances. She really unpacked for us what the situation was, how she approached it. And she delivered some tremendous results that we’re really excited to share with you.
[00:01:59] Steve Watt: Amber, [00:02:00] having just gone through this conversation with Nicole, what really jumped out at you?
[00:02:06] Amber Mellano: Wow, I mean, she is such a powerhouse, Steve. Like you said, she just walked right into a blank slate and she came away with gold medal after gold medal. We don’t want to spoil the, uh, the amazing story that she can tell you.
[00:02:19] Amber Mellano: But, uh, I think the thing that impressed me the most was her confidence in her plan. She knew, even in the interview she told us, she knew exactly what she needed technology wise to achieve the success that they had agreed on. And sure enough, she walked in and she delivered. And I think, I really liked her, uh, approach to making sure that she was aligning with her stakeholders at every turn and really kind of keeping her eye on the ball, and making But as a team, like in that team environment.
[00:02:50] Amber Mellano: And I think that, uh, that ultimately is what really led to the success that they saw. And it was so fun to hear, you know, a woman in business, we always like to, you know, champion [00:03:00] success, but even better when we get to see. Like a woman truly in her element, she walked in there with a plan. She executed that plan and she delivered.
[00:03:07] Amber Mellano: And it was really fun to hear her story. I’m excited for everybody to hear her tell us about the success that she met and the plan that she put in action.
[00:03:15] Steve Watt: This is a good one. Strategy, execution, collaboration, and tremendous success. Let’s jump in. Nicole, thank you so much for joining us on the Enablement Edge.
[00:03:28] Amber Mellano: I’m so happy to be here. Thanks for having me. We’re super excited to have you here, Nicole. I can’t wait for our, our conversations. I wanted to start us off with just kind of a question that we ask all of our guests about enablement and the enablement space, which we know is, is still a growing, evolving space for sure.
[00:03:45] Amber Mellano: And, and every company does it a little bit differently and they have a little different level of maturity. Um, but I, I think we can all agree that the ultimate goal of enablement is to ensure that we are getting and keeping as much business as possible, right? And so [00:04:00] I’d love to hear more from you just kind of at a very high level strategic perspective.
[00:04:04] Amber Mellano: What do you think is the key to success in that way? And tell us from your perspective what you have found to be, uh, the most important aspect of that.
[00:04:12] Nicole Ward: Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, we’ll get into the OSV story in a little while, but I think, you No matter where you are, no matter how established your enablement organization is, I think the key is to obtain that executive buy in or stakeholder alignment early and continue to check in with them often.
[00:04:31] Nicole Ward: You can build your program, you can present it to them, but if it’s not aligned with their expectations or their goals, then it can quickly fall flat.
[00:04:39] Amber Mellano: Yeah, totally. You’re essentially marching down some separate road. No matter how successful you are, you didn’t ultimately deliver on the business goals.
[00:04:47] Amber Mellano: That’s great. I’m excited to hear you tell us a little bit more about your experiences and how you were able to get such great buy in from your stakeholders. That’ll be exciting.
[00:04:56] Steve Watt: I tell you, there was a lot of excitement a couple of weeks ago when [00:05:00] Nicole spoke at the Seismic City Tour event in New York.
[00:05:04] Steve Watt: She was main stage alongside our CEO, Doug Winter. And I tell you, it was, it was a great story, Nicole, sincerely, I knew in that moment, we had to have you on the show, the challenges you faced, the solutions you brought, and, and probably most impressive of all, the outcomes you achieved were, were true mic drop moments.
[00:05:28] Steve Watt: And yeah, in that moment, it was like, okay, we’re getting Nicole on the enablement edge and we’re going to be able to take a little more time than you had in New York. To unpack this. So let’s dig right into that. Tell us about OSV and your role and, and what you walked into when you started there.
[00:05:48] Nicole Ward: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:05:49] Nicole Ward: So I am the Senior Director of Revenue Enablement at OSV. I was hired in November of 2022, and I was the first formal enablement role at the company. So needless [00:06:00] to say, there was a ton of runway for enablement to make an impact. And I started as a one woman show and thankfully was able to hire a team shortly thereafter.
[00:06:09] Nicole Ward: Um, but I came at a time of immense transformation. We had just sold off our professional services organization, and for a very long time, since the inception of the company, that was what we led with. We led with professional services within our customer’s workday environment. We would implement workday for them.
[00:06:28] Nicole Ward: That was our land strategy. And then we would expand into our BPAS, business process as a service solution. So Our customers want to outsource payroll or benefit administration accounts payable to us. But we were basically flipping that entire go to market strategy on its head. And that announcement came the week before I joined.
[00:06:47] Nicole Ward: So that’s what I got to walk into.
[00:06:49] Steve Watt: So a complete change in the go to market strategy. And am I getting this right? That some of your, you know, your most [00:07:00] significant competitors previously were now potential partners. 100%. This is not just about changing your messaging, changing your website, changing some talk tracks used by sellers.
[00:07:11] Steve Watt: This is a fundamental change in your go to market.
[00:07:14] Nicole Ward: Yeah. A hundred percent. We, we were going to market against certain competitors and now they were potential alliance partners. So at the same time that I joined, we had new product marketing leadership. We had new alliances leadership. So we’re all coming together at the right time to really take the company to the next level.
[00:07:30] Steve Watt: And there was no existing enablement team or function?
[00:07:33] Nicole Ward: Absolutely none. No.
[00:07:35] Steve Watt: Wow. And did you know this? I mean, is this what you signed up for? It was, was this a surprise when you walked in? Oh, hey, Nicole, guess what? Or did you know this and welcome this and was this part of why you wanted to go there?
[00:07:48] Nicole Ward: Yeah, I’m not crazy.
[00:07:49] Nicole Ward: I swear. Um, I, I was excited. I’d spent nine years at Citrix. Very established enablement organization, 2, 000 enablement customers in quota carry roles. [00:08:00] I was one leader of many within an established enablement team, and I’d feel like I’d hit my, my ceiling there, and I was excited when I saw the opportunity to build an enablement program from the ground up and really make an impact with a smaller team.
[00:08:14] Nicole Ward: So yeah, I signed up for it.
[00:08:16] Steve Watt: How small was that team?
[00:08:18] Nicole Ward: Um, our team at OSV, our quota carrying customers, uh, on the sales side and the customer success side would be about 150 enablement consumers at OSV.
[00:08:29] Steve Watt: And one enablement provider, you.
[00:08:31] Nicole Ward: At the time, yes.
[00:08:34] Amber Mellano: Before we go any deeper, I want to just get your take on, you are ahead of the curve and, uh, and much like we do at Seismic as well, you’re supporting not only the sales engine, but the customer success engine.
[00:08:45] Amber Mellano: And that’s kind of a, an, a growing arena. We even see that the, the Sales Enablement Society has renamed themselves to the Revenue Enablement Society. Tell me a little bit, is that a change from what you came from Citrix with? Was that part of one of the, you know, [00:09:00] the genius of your approach to enablement at OSV?
[00:09:03] Nicole Ward: Yeah, when I was at Citrix, they were completely separate organizations, and I actually got to bridge those gaps because we leveraged the same enablement tools, and that was my niche at Citrix. I was the leader of the enablement tools function, and so I actually got to see both sides of the full revenue enablement picture.
[00:09:18] Nicole Ward: And so when I came to OSB, my title was actually Senior Director of Sales Enablement, but very quickly after I joined, people started to sniff around the programs that we were rolling out. And we extended some of that to the customer success team. And it’s been awesome. And now that we have these new partner alliances, we’re extending some of that enablement out to our partners as well.
[00:09:37] Nicole Ward: So it really is that full revenue enablement picture.
[00:09:40] Amber Mellano: Nice. I love that. Well, that said, let’s get into it. Tell us, what did you do on day one when you landed at Feats on the Ground at OSV? Talk to us about what your vision was for enablement there. Actually,
[00:09:52] Nicole Ward: I can speak to what I did in my interview process at OSV.
[00:09:56] Nicole Ward: I actually sat in front of the interviewing committee and [00:10:00] I talked about how I needed an enablement platform and it would be Seismic. I wanted the foundational platform that I knew and loved from my Citrix days. I trusted that this was going to be a great Foundational program to roll out new programs through and so I started talking about that very early on and more so I was just kind of trying to understand is this company willing to not just make an investment in me, but in the technology and the programs that I want to deliver because so often people get into these roles and they end up being a jack of all trades, master of none and enablement professionals find ourselves doing all kinds of stuff that maybe isn’t actually enablement or at least how some would define it.
[00:10:39] Nicole Ward: And so I made it clear very on, very early on that I wanted to see an investment around a platform like Seismic to build and deliver all of our programs through. And fortunately, I was successful with that and was able to obtain budget to implement that program very early in my time at OSV. Within two months, we implemented and rolled out, so it [00:11:00] was quick.
[00:11:00] Nicole Ward: Um, but yeah, I kind of came in and said, let’s start with this. We need to build something from the ground up. It’s all about building that foundation. If you think about the house analogy, and I established what I call kind of my pillars of enablement, you know, what does that look like? And these are the pillars of your foundation and then any projects or initiatives technically have to fall within one of those pillars.
[00:11:22] Steve Watt: What are those pillars?
[00:11:23] Nicole Ward: Yeah. For, for my team, the pillars are, uh, tools, training, content, and I have a readiness pillar. And that kind of captures a whole bunch of different things. So how do we communicate out? The established content training and tools, how do we drive adoption around those things? And how do we measure that to make sure that we’re iterating and never just setting and forgetting it?
[00:11:44] Nicole Ward: So yeah, tools, training, content, readiness.
[00:11:47] Steve Watt: And in those early days, did you start with a focus on all four pillars or did you start with one or two of them and grow from there?
[00:11:55] Nicole Ward: All four. We had key initiatives within each four and when I say key, I mean one big [00:12:00] thing we wanted to knock out in the first six months and then a couple things added on from there.
[00:12:03] Nicole Ward: But Yeah, I think, obviously, starting with that foundational platform in the tools category being Seismic, and then we needed a new higher onboarding program. I mean, we didn’t have one. People were coming into a sales role or a customer success role at OSV and they were getting that day and a half with HR.
[00:12:20] Nicole Ward: How do you use your laptop? How do you submit your T& E and your vacation time? Who you need to know at the HR department essentially, but really no role specific onboarding. And so we had to build that from scratch and obviously leveraging Our tools to do that. We had to develop the training and the content and the readiness to roll them out.
[00:12:40] Nicole Ward: So we had projects within each of the pillars, but we weren’t trying to boil the ocean.
[00:12:45] Steve Watt: And given that you were a one woman team at the beginning, I know it grew from there. Surely you couldn’t have done all this on your own. You must have enlisted the support of some other individuals and some other teams.
[00:12:59] Steve Watt: What did that look [00:13:00] like?
[00:13:00] Nicole Ward: Absolutely. I think in enablement, we are bridge builders. And we are kind of serial collaborators. So I got in there very quickly and booked meetings with people across the organization to understand what they do. How can I learn from them? What can they learn from me? How can I support them?
[00:13:18] Nicole Ward: What are their goals? Can I attach myself to their goals, especially if they were key stakeholders in enablement? Um, so yeah, it’s all about building your internal network. And once I had established that building little tiger teams to help me get my project projects across the finish line. So.
[00:13:33] Nicole Ward: Essentially, rolling out Seismic was huge. I don’t own all of the content that the field’s going to use, so I was attached at the hip with, with marketing and with some of our other field teams that were producing content and trying to kind of reign it all in to one place.
[00:13:49] Amber Mellano: That’s interesting. That kind of makes me think about the process piece that you were, especially at the beginning, you were now effectively imposing a process.[00:14:00]
[00:14:00] Amber Mellano: I love that serial collaborator term, by the way, that’s spot on. How did that grow? Did you meet any resistance? Were they like, Oh, let’s do this. And how did you kind of win the hearts and minds of these teams that were now having to interact with you in a new position they hadn’t previously really been in?
[00:14:16] Amber Mellano: Mindful of, I bet.
[00:14:18] Nicole Ward: Yeah. I mean, that’s a great question. I think coming in with proof points from my time at Citrix and from leveraging a platform like Seismic that I was planning to roll everything out through, a lot of people didn’t have similarity with it, especially we had a lot of people who’d been at the company for a long time.
[00:14:33] Nicole Ward: And then we had some new people that came and they all have different tools that they’ve worked with and different programs they’ve supported. So coming in with conviction. And I, I really truly believed in what I was putting forth as the right steps to take building an enablement program. And I think, you know, I put my sales hat on and I sold it to them and made sure that I had proof points to back it up.
[00:14:54] Nicole Ward: Like, this is how we were successful at Citrix and this is why we rolled it out this way. And this is what I learned, [00:15:00] this is what I wouldn’t do, this is what I would do from those learnings. And so having that kind of real talk with them, got that early buy in from various stakeholders as well as the leadership team.
[00:15:10] Nicole Ward: And then obviously just maintaining that partnership and constant ongoing open communication.
[00:15:15] Amber Mellano: It sounds like communication is, is really your superpower here and being able to level with everybody. This is, this is what I came from, this is the experience I’ve had, it’s a great way to win them over and, and data.
[00:15:28] Amber Mellano: We all love data, essentially. Absolutely. Speaking of data, we have some very exciting statistics. We’re excited for you to tell us about all of the success that you found. By winning all of these hearts and minds and really you arrived with a plan and you planned your work You worked your plan and you saw some really great results.
[00:15:46] Amber Mellano: I’m excited to hear a little bit more about that
[00:15:49] Nicole Ward: Yeah I mean in a in a really short time as I said, we we rolled out seismic in May of 2023 and so the numbers that I’m about to share with you were at the year [00:16:00] mark so one year of seismic and the platforms that we rolled out through it and Programs that we rolled out through it We were able to support decreasing new hire ramp time, new hire time to first opportunity by 47%.
[00:16:15] Nicole Ward: We decreased new hire time to first win by 11%. Increased average deal size by 34%. Increased our win rates by 11%. And this is the one our SVP of sales loves the most, 28 percent more sellers are hitting quota.
[00:16:32] Amber Mellano: Amazing. Talk about every one of those stats is a drop the mic stat. I love that.
[00:16:37] Nicole Ward: Yeah.
[00:16:38] Amber Mellano: It
[00:16:38] Nicole Ward: feels good.
[00:16:39] Steve Watt: Those would be incredible numbers in any environment, in any situation. I think even more impressive given what you came into, the fundamental changes going on, the complete reorientation of the go to market strategy. And you are also moving up market from a SMB [00:17:00] focus to an enterprise focus. Am I right about that?
[00:17:02] Nicole Ward: That’s right, actually. We’ve been kind of a, actually a medium enterprise business for a majority of our time. And now we’re kind of dabbling in the opposite ends of it. So we’re going emerging enterprise as well as large enterprise for the first time. And so we’ve got new sales teams to tackle those markets, new go to market strategy, new partners, new enablement, new marketing, new messaging.
[00:17:24] Nicole Ward: It’s all coming together all at once. And a lot of that comes through the enablement function.
[00:17:29] Steve Watt: I mean, that’s a hard challenge. I mean, there are countless firms that built a degree of success in, in SMB and mid market and then aspired to go upmarket and failed, or maybe didn’t fail, but it took them substantially longer than they anticipated.
[00:17:47] Steve Watt: It’s really quite remarkable that you Managed to do all these things all at once and had like real mic drop statistics and [00:18:00] outcomes after one year. Now, as amazing as your enablement function was, and is, I know you made it really clear when you were speaking in New York. You didn’t do it alone, but this truly was.
[00:18:12] Steve Watt: Department. Tell us about what a few of the key other contributors outside of enablement were that helped this tremendous success story come together.
[00:18:22] Nicole Ward: Yeah, absolutely. I know you said outside of enablement, but I am going to shout out to my team of rockstar enablers that I was able to bring on board within six months after being a one woman show.
[00:18:31] Nicole Ward: So to Stephanie Aylward and Mackenzie Wilson. They are my enablement team. Um, but outside of enablement, I think the partnership is so key with product marketing. And our product organization as we try to get our sellers to be able to articulate Going to market with our solutions our BPAS solutions instead of just professional services Which is what again they were so used to leading with Um, that was a that was a big big [00:19:00] part of the first six foundational knowledge about speaking the language of OSV And then again, as new marketing comes in, we have new brand messaging.
[00:19:09] Nicole Ward: We all have to align around. So I’m attached at the hip with marketing and it’s been a growth, uh, experience for both of us as we’re kind of learning about these new products and our new go to market strategies together, but it’s, it’s been a great partnership and we’ve seen obviously the fruits of that labor.
[00:19:26] Nicole Ward: And then of course. You know, I have to be in touch with the sales leadership team on a regular basis. So those relationships are so important. These are your customers, the sales leaders, the customer success leaders, the people who are actually in the roles. So I have a steering committee around enablement.
[00:19:43] Nicole Ward: I make sure I do a quarterly readout of our enablement programs, the metrics related to them. And keep everybody kind of marching to the beat of the same drum. So again, we really are those bridge builders and the glue that keeps everything together.
[00:19:56] Steve Watt: And how about the individual sellers? How welcoming [00:20:00] were they?
[00:20:01] Steve Watt: There’s a big change for them. Some of them were probably very successful selling what you used to sell in the ways you used to sell it. And now you’re saying we’re selling something different. And we’re selling it differently. Uh, did you face any resistance from sellers themselves or were they enthusiastically, uh, you know, pulling on the same oars?
[00:20:23] Nicole Ward: I think around the transformation of our go to market strategy, there was a little bit of anxiety, but people were kind of excited. Like, Hey, we’ve been coming up in this BPAS space for a while. And now we’re ready to take the bull by the horns and drive with it. And I think they were excited, but obviously cautious.
[00:20:37] Nicole Ward: Okay. Like we are not able to do that former land and expand strategy and these competitors are now partners. But, uh, I think they were excited, but a little anxious. And so when enablement came in, I was expecting to be kind of viewed as that big brother pushing training. You know, sometimes we get a bad rep, but it was the opposite of that.
[00:20:55] Nicole Ward: And, and I think I was able to gain that confidence quickly by giving that one-stop [00:21:00] shop for content and training with Seismic. They were all over the place for content before. So. That was just that quick win out of the gate for me. Okay. Now you have this one place to go. And by the way, there’s great engagement tools within this that you’ve never had before, and we’re just going to keep expanding on this amazing platform.
[00:21:16] Nicole Ward: And so I mean, open arms, honestly, like people saying things to me about what were we doing without you? What could we do without enablement? What was life like before seismic? Like so many great quotes that I can keep on my resume and my team’s resume and Just, again, like, astounding warmth around enablement, which has just been all the better for me.
[00:21:38] Amber Mellano: That’s amazing. That’s such a great story. I wonder, I feel like we’ve gotten from the beginning to the end. Tell us a little bit about the Juicy Center, if you want to share some of your, maybe some of your trade secrets. Give us a sense of, like, what was, what was the first initiative that you rolled out?
[00:21:54] Amber Mellano: Like, tell us a little bit about the tactical side of it. What did you include in that initiative? Where did the enablement [00:22:00] Kind of flavor get put in. Talk to us a little bit about that process side of it. Sure.
[00:22:05] Nicole Ward: Uh, well, they threw me into the eye of the tornado and in my first week on the job, they gave me SKO to plan.
[00:22:11] Nicole Ward: And by the way, it’s eight weeks later. So that was, that was my first big initiative at the same time that I was negotiating contract with Seismic and trying to roll out that and plan for that implementation. And so, yeah, I mean, SKO was, I think the first time that I was able to show my stripes at this organization and really show them what kind of.
[00:22:29] Nicole Ward: communicator that I am. So getting the key stakeholders on calls on a weekly cadence to talk through what do we want to get out of SKO? What sort of sessions are important to different roles within the sales organization? And, and just being that project manager around a very critical event, especially at such a critical time, like this was the first SKO since we sold off professional services and people were buzzing.
[00:22:55] Nicole Ward: And so how do we keep that momentum going and also keep it positive? We [00:23:00] don’t want people to get negative about, you know, what happens if, and so it was a, it was a really great project for me to sink my teeth into and. Getting to meet everybody in person within the first eight weeks of my job, especially as we’re so remotely dispersed, was really cool.
[00:23:14] Nicole Ward: And I think that was the, the way that I was, again, able to gain that confidence quickly. They’ve, they said it was the best SKO they’ve ever had. And this last year, they just, we topped it again with the next best SKO they’ve ever had. So, um, we just keep learning. And I think the key for me has always been just being a very open communicator and getting a variety of voices on meetings to make decisions collectively.
[00:23:37] Nicole Ward: I’m about
[00:23:38] Amber Mellano: smashing silos. I love that. Smashing silos. I think it’s such a great story. You’re talking at the beginning, we were talking about how important it is to align with the leadership of the organization to understand. What their goals are, but you’re also reinforcing that it’s not just the organization, it’s the key stakeholders at every level.
[00:23:56] Amber Mellano: And also not just the leaders, but also the independent, you know, the feet on the [00:24:00] ground individual contributors as well that you’re aligning with and ensuring that you’re delivering what they need and asking for what their needs are. That goes such a long way. I know, I’m sure that’s a big key part of your relationship building is staying in touch.
[00:24:12] Amber Mellano: Tell me a little bit about your steering committee. You mentioned that you have a, you kind of report back to them quarterly about how things are going. Talk to us a little bit about what do you report back to them?
[00:24:22] Nicole Ward: Yeah. So I actually have two quarterly cadences that I maintain. The first is that field level steering committee.
[00:24:28] Nicole Ward: And this is when we get that cross section of field facing roles on a call together. So we have representation from our solution consultants, our AEs, our business development reps. Our sales managers are on there. Just a cross section of field facing roles are on the call. We also have a few folks from marketing, and then we dig into, you know, here’s what we delivered for you over the last quarter since we met last, and we want your feedback, and we open it up.
[00:24:54] Nicole Ward: We ask them, you know, how did this work for you? We can see the data. Here’s some of the data, but let’s get that [00:25:00] anecdotal feedback from you. Like, how did you feel about this? How did this work in the field? Can you give us some stories? And then we sort of shift gears a bit and talk about what we’re planning to do over the next few months, you know, what’s on our roadmap, how would we prioritize these things, hey, we have a few too many things on our plate, how would you ask us to prioritize them, and really making them feel like they’re bought into or part of the decision making process and the enablement that we’re going to deliver them over the next quarter.
[00:25:27] Nicole Ward: And by doing that, we establish champions who are going to absolutely drive our programs amongst their peers. So that’s the first one that we do. And then the other one is my head of my stakeholder reporting cadence. And so on a quarterly basis, we pull a ton of data. Thank you, Seismic Insights and Salesforce.
[00:25:46] Nicole Ward: And we get that enriched business data and we talk about, Hey, how are we actually doing from a data perspective? And we present this to our sales leadership, marketing leadership, alliances. Again, a cross section of stakeholders, not [00:26:00] necessarily in the field, but the business stakeholders. And we leverage that to, again, make decisions on our roadmap and what we plan to present next and how we can address gaps, okay?
[00:26:09] Nicole Ward: Like, content marketing has spent a lot of cycles building, hey, it’s not being used, why is that? Should we address how and when we position this content? You know, so that data is so key and it not only informs what I’m doing, But what my other teams that I work with are going to do next.
[00:26:26] Amber Mellano: I just wanted to tease out something that you just said that I thought was terrific, in that the efforts and the success that you’re seeing in enablement, is very much related to the marketing team that’s supporting you and even the product team that’s supporting you and you’re able to offer feedback to them that helps them also level up what they’re doing and that, that team effort just to keep reinforcing that message of how powerful your approach has been and pulling these people in as your partners is a great thing and I think sometimes that gets missed with enablement teams are kind of to their own detriment whether it’s their fault or the organizational culture [00:27:00] they end up in this like ivory tower and they don’t end up there.
[00:27:02] Amber Mellano: Having those broad, the depth of relationships that can impact positive across the board, not just the enablement team. Really cool. Great story. Thank you.
[00:27:13] Steve Watt: Being first one in and building any function, but let’s focus on enablement, building a function from scratch, that can be a transformational career opportunity that can absolutely accelerate you like nothing else.
[00:27:31] Steve Watt: It can also be the opposite. I mean, it can be extremely hard. First one in pulled in a lot of ways, a lot of potentially conflicting objectives and beliefs and biases about what this function ought to be. And you’re this one person trying to tame that chaos and build something of, of real consequences.
[00:27:55] Steve Watt: Potentially extremely rewarding, potentially Extremely hard. Having [00:28:00] done it and having been so successful at it, what advice would you offer to someone walking into a similar situation, even if it isn’t with all the go to market changes and partnership changes, just being first one in to build enablement?
[00:28:15] Steve Watt: What, what would you advise them to focus on and what landmines would you avoid, would you advise them to avoid?
[00:28:25] Nicole Ward: Yeah, absolutely. I think I would start with don’t boil the ocean. I mean, if you’re, if you’re building an enablement function from the ground up or just entering in a new enablement team and want to make your mark, you know, drive strategically towards a handful of goals that again, align to leadership and stakeholder goals.
[00:28:44] Nicole Ward: I think you’ll be a lot more successful if you don’t try to do it all at once. I mean, for me coming from an established enablement organization, it was really easy for me to want to try to do everything that I’d seen done before, but I had to remind myself on a regular basis that [00:29:00] OSB is a lot different from Citrix, different industry, much smaller organization, different go to market strategy, different people.
[00:29:07] Nicole Ward: How do I, I got to connect with their culture and their expectations and their pace And so I think it’s really important, again, to remember a handful of things that you want to do. And then once you’ve checked that box, check back in with those stakeholders. Ask them, how’d I do? Here’s the metrics I have, but what’s your feedback for me?
[00:29:25] Nicole Ward: Okay, let’s look forward to the next set of goals. Are we still in alignment with what we talked about previously? Alright, I’m going to go to work and engage the right people now. But those executive and stakeholder check in points are so key. And again, I would say don’t fall into the trap of trying to do too much all at once, and what happens in enablement, this happens to all of us, we do find ourselves in situations where a lot is coming at us all at once, and I refer to them often as my dumpster fires, and so, like, we have to, you know, rein those in and control them and say, [00:30:00] Does this new thing that’s come across my desk, and they inevitably do on a regular basis, align to one of those pillars?
[00:30:06] Nicole Ward: And if it doesn’t, can we, can we kind of finagle it too, so that we can support the business? Or then we have to have that more difficult conversation, what projects have to drop, so that we can pick this one up? And not be afraid about saying, Hey, we can’t do everything. We can’t do everything well. We have to just pick a few that we want to do very well and make an impact.
[00:30:28] Nicole Ward: And that’s when we’re able to get to those impactful numbers that I shared earlier by being selective about what we do.
[00:30:34] Amber Mellano: All right, Nicole, let’s, let’s wrap up with a few lightning round questions for you. My first question for you is, what do you think is going to change in our enablement worlds over the next 18 months?
[00:30:46] Nicole Ward: Yeah, I think you’re probably going to hear this a lot as you ask this question, but AI is going to change things over the next 18 months, I think. In a good way for me. I’m excited about the ways in which AI can alleviate some of the [00:31:00] more administratively burdensome tasks that my team has to undertake on a regular basis and also our, our sales customers of enablement, how can we take some of that administrative work off their plate through AI?
[00:31:12] Nicole Ward: So I’m very excited about the future supported by AI.
[00:31:16] Steve Watt: What’s not going to change?
[00:31:20] Nicole Ward: Unexpected pivots in enablements. This is the story of our lives. Unexpected pivots come and go on a regular basis. How we handle them is key. So for me, I go back to what I was saying earlier about always going back to those enablement pillars, checking in with our executives and our stakeholders, but I think we can expect pivots and chaos from time to time and just being that glue that gets everybody on the same page.
[00:31:47] Nicole Ward: Bridges up, builds the bridges between teams to communicate is where we’re going to come in handy.
[00:31:53] Amber Mellano: Awesome. All right. Our last question is, what do you, what would you say is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received? [00:32:00]
[00:32:00] Nicole Ward: That’s a great question. And I go back to a small coffee table book that was on my parents coffee table growing up and it was called Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff and it’s all small stuff.
[00:32:10] Nicole Ward: And I referenced that so often in my personal and my professional life. You know, uh, fortunate that I’m not in a job where I’m under fire or saving lives, you know, we have to put that perspective in place all the time and in enablement, again, I spoke about those dumpster fires and the pivots and the chaos, people come at us with things that they are fired up about and how can we help them.
[00:32:34] Nicole Ward: So I think it’s just reminding them that, hey, let’s see where this fits in our current list of priorities and goals. Let’s talk to the right people to see when we can get this project going. But don’t sweat the small stuff is absolutely the best piece of advice I’ve ever received. I love that. Awesome.
[00:32:52] Steve Watt: Nicole, thank you so much for joining us. You are an absolute star in your space. You, you are a [00:33:00] incredible evangelist for the profession and, and for the function of enablement, and you’re also really inspiring. You just have a, there’s a certain calm to you. I don’t, I don’t know if Amber, if you get the same thing, but I just get the sense that Nicole’s got it all managed, and you know what?
[00:33:18] Steve Watt: I think I could too. I could say, it’s like, I think that if I kind of follow Nicole’s lead, I could have it all managed as well. You’ve got a very Thoughtful, strategic, collaborative approach, and you’ve got the results to back it up. And we really appreciate you taking some time to share that with our listeners and our viewers.
[00:33:40] Nicole Ward: It’s been a pleasure, and I appreciate your kind words, Steve and Amber.
[00:33:46] Steve Watt: Thanks for joining us on the Enablement Edge. We’re on YouTube and all your favorite podcast providers. See you next time.
[00:33:54] Voiceover: The Enablement Edge is brought to you by the team at Seismic. Seismic is the global leader in [00:34:00] enablement, keeping organizations on the cutting edge of engaging customers, enabling teams, and igniting revenue growth.
[00:34:07] Voiceover: You can learn more at seismic.com.
In this episode, Steve Watt and Amber Mellano are joined by Nicole Ward, Senior Director of Revenue Enablement at OneSource Virtual (OSV), to learn why she joined the organization as their first enablement hire and how she and the team found so much success.
Nicole is an industry expert and thought leader who joined OSV after a decade of managing an award-winning team of enablement innovators at Citrix. Today, you’ll hear all about her remarkable achievements with OSV. Her highlights include a substantial reduction in new hire ramp time and time-to-first-opportunity, along with impressive improvements in deal sizes and win rates that she attributes to her strategic approach and collaboration with various business functions.
Throughout the interview, Nicole emphasizes the importance of obtaining executive buy-in and stakeholder alignment early in the process to ensure success. She advocates for focusing on a few key pillars and avoiding the temptation to “boil the ocean” when first starting. Nicole’s emphasis on leveraging data, maintaining ongoing communication, and building cross-functional relationships demonstrates how critical these elements are for effective enablement.
By sharing her experience and practical advice, Nicole provides a clear roadmap for building a robust enablement function that can adapt and thrive amid organizational change.
Jump into the conversation:
[04:31] Nicole’s key to enablement
[05:56] Coming in as the first enablement hire
[07:52] When do you know that you’re ready for the next opportunity?
[09:56] Building out the enablement function before day one
[13:01] How to leverage the greater team around you
[15:50] The data behind Nicole and OSV’s success
[18:40] Why you need to partner with your fellow business functions
[22:06] Being thrown into the deep end
[28:25] Nicole’s advice for others
[30:45] On the Edge
Nicole Ward is a passionate and technology-forward global revenue enablement leader with over 14 years in the field. She is currently the Senior Director of Revenue Enablement at OneSource Virtual after a decade of managing an award-winning team of enablement innovators at Citrix.
Nicole believes that a successful enablement program must be centered around empathy and be inclusive of all customer-facing teams. Nicole is a bridge builder who will work cross-functionally to drive productivity and ensure satisfaction with enablement programs. She is data-driven and process-oriented with a laser focus on bringing enablement into the context of actual opportunities with CRM integrations.
On the personal side, Nicole is a multi-tasking mom who resides in London, Ontario, Canada with her husband James and two small children. She enjoys cooking, cycling, traveling, and she dreams of pursuing a sommelier certification someday. Fun fact: Prior to starting her family, Nicole was one of Canada’s early lifestyle “influencers” and launched Canada’s first conference targeted to style influencers in 2013.
“In enablement, we are bridge builders, and we are serial collaborators. It’s all about connecting with people across the organization to understand what they do, how can I learn from them, what can they learn from me, how can I support them, what are their goals, can I attach myself to their goals, especially if they were key stakeholders in enablement. It’s all about building your internal network.”
A clear charter turns enablement from a "nice-to-have" into a strategic driver. In this on-demand webinar, Seismic experts walk through our proven framework for building a charter that aligns teams, earns buy-in, and scales with your business.
See how OneSource Virtual shortened time-to-first-opportunity by 47% by centralizing enablement with Seismic. Faster onboarding, stronger execution, and smarter coaching—all in one platform.
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