Jen Bullock: [00:00:00] For the longest time when I was working in sales enablement, I thought creating a charter was a waste of time and it was just an academic exercise. But as I spent many, many, many late nights trying to get things accomplished, a lot of battle scars, What I realized is creating a charter to have people within that organization understand what your role is in the company.
Jen Bullock: Where you begin, where you end, how do you interact with all the different organizations, marketing, product, the sales organization. So I think that’s really key when we talk about strategy and tactics.
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.
Steve Watt: You’ll get valuable insights and expertise from enablement leaders, so you can become an effective change agent, turn strategy into reality, and [00:01:00] transform your organization for the better. On
Steve Watt: today’s episode, we’re talking about building a strategic team. Enablement, what that really means and, and, and how you do it and what it means from an org design perspective, from a human talent perspective and more. And we were excited to bring on Jen Bullock as our expert guest. Now, Heather, you know, Jen really well, used to work with Jen.
Steve Watt: Tell us more about her and why you were so keen to have her on the show.
Heather Cole: So Jen has an amazing background. She actually, she and I both worked at Forrester and she is now a fractional enablement professional and she’s worked for these huge global powerhouses like ADP and Motorola and people that had these really large sales organizations and were doing really big things with big organizations.
Heather Cole: But she’s also as a Forrester analyst and as a fractional professional has worked with these medium [00:02:00] and small companies who are trying to either get over the hump of like, we were kind of playing at enablement or we’ve maybe done it and we don’t think we quite have it right yet. And so she’s had that experience of saying, how do I think about enablement?
Heather Cole: How do I structure it for success within these organizations of different scopes, different sizes, different resources? How do I get this done and what are the minimum viable things that need to be in place? What are the most important roles and the competencies? Both ones that you can, you can teach and the ones that people really need to have coming into the enablement role or they’re going to either be miserable.
Heather Cole: or not very good at their job. So we had a really exciting discussion around all of these topics.
Steve Watt: Yeah, fascinating hearing from Jen. I mean, you hit on her, her background, her experience. It’s really impressive. I mean, you think about the bread, the bat, really large companies. Uh, principal analyst, uh, small companies working both in house and fractional.
Steve Watt: She’s kind of seen it all, done it all. And she’s [00:03:00] able to really pull it together into a coherent and, and I believe really valuable worldview that, you know, wherever you’re at in your enablement career, whether you are an established leader or you’re just getting started or somewhere in between, or even, you know, towards the end of the conversation.
Steve Watt: We took it from the perspective of if you’re looking for work now, how can you stand out? So I really think that this conversation with Jen is super important and I hope that our viewers and our listeners get as much out of it as I did.
Heather Cole: Absolutely. And if you are in between those roles and are considering fractional, she drops a few Easter eggs in here to say, these are the things that you should be thinking about as you’re working with customers in the fractional environment, here are the core things that you need to look at first.
Heather Cole: Hint, charter.
Steve Watt: You knew we weren’t going to get through that conversation with, without charter talk. In fact, it came up pretty early and pretty strongly. All right. You know, Heather, I’m really glad. That you introduced us to [00:04:00] Jen, let’s jump in. Welcome to the show, Jen. Really looking forward to this conversation.
Steve Watt: Thanks so much for joining us. Let’s kick off with a question we’ve been asking all of our guests. What’s the most important thing that enablers can do to ensure success?
Jen Bullock: I think, um, what they have to focus on are outcomes. What are you trying to accomplish for the company to drive that revenue? Um, a lot of times we talk about.
Jen Bullock: What behaviors we need to change for the salespeople. But that’s really hard to measure and to understand what sales enablement is really changing. So really focus on the outcomes and what you’re trying to drive and then work backwards. What is your objective and how are you impacting that as a sales enablement?
Heather Cole: So Jen, today we’re going to talk about structure and I know it’s something that you and I have worked with at Forrester and I know you do it a lot in your fractional roles, thinking about. What is the best way to actually [00:05:00] structure the enablement function? And a lot of folks out there come to Forrester analysts and to yourself and say, Hey, how do I change the way I have my organization designed in order to move from a really reactionary tactical function to something that is more strategic?
Heather Cole: And I think first, A lot of people define tactical and strategic in different ways, and they think of a maturity in different ways. When you think about maturity, what do you, what components do you think about?
Jen Bullock: Um, maturity I don’t think is really, uh, a size of an organization or a size of your team. It’s more about are you now sort of have a seat at the table to help make decisions and direction of your programs Really having.
Jen Bullock: Beginning to end program, not just little ad hoc training or content here or there and, you know, help, help the salespeople find it, that kind of thing. It’s really a program of what are you trying to achieve that’s really strategic and understanding the customer’s [00:06:00] journey and how you can help guide the customer, guide the customer through that journey.
Jen Bullock: Whereas tactical, I think a lot of times is a lot of ad hoc, a lot of re, um, requests coming from different people and that you’re just. Um, literally reacting to those, uh, one off requests.
Heather Cole: Yeah, and I think there’s a lot of confusion about, hey, if you’re strategic, you’re, you’re aligning to the big company goals.
Heather Cole: Which is great. That’s what you need to be doing. But the problem with that is you can fall into, uh, The reactionary piece there, if you’re not in front of it, and if you’re not, you know, structured to be able to actually address those and you’re thinking about them, you know, upfront. So when you’re thinking about, uh, when you’re looking at sales teams and from all the conversations that you’ve had with customers, when you hear somebody say certain things like.
Heather Cole: This is what I’m doing. What are the biggest red flags that you see from, that say, A, that person is reactionary, that they’re not where they need to be and they need to do things different? Are there [00:07:00] certain red flags that you look for?
Jen Bullock: Absolutely. I think people will say, well, uh, this sales leader wanted that or they were thinking of going this direction instead of really what is your, Um, destination.
Jen Bullock: What are you hoping to get to? And let’s be honest, no matter what role you’re in, there’s going to be some reaction that needs to be had. So it’s not a matter of you have to be totally strategic, totally tactical, mixture of both. It’s understanding where you’re going and what people understand what you do.
Jen Bullock: And here’s, I’m going to kind of go off on a tangent a little bit from your question, Heather. For the longest time, when I was working in sales enablement, I thought creating a charter, It was a waste of time, and it was just an academic exercise. But as I spent many, many, many late nights trying to get things accomplished, um, a lot of battle scars, what I realized is creating a charter to have people within that organization understand what your role is in the [00:08:00] company.
Jen Bullock: Where you begin, where you end, how do you interact with all the different organizations, marketing, product, the sales organization. for your attention. So, a lot of people come to me and say, we don’t have time for that, that’s just not something we’re going to do, but that’s where you’re going to get in trouble of people defining what your role is instead of you defining what your role is and how you’re going to help the organization.
Jen Bullock: So, I think that’s really key when we talk about strategy and tactics. Um, let’s be honest, you have to get stuff done, so you have to be tactical at some point, but how does that fit within the organization is what you have to lead.
Heather Cole: Yeah, and I think that’s a really good point because the charter is the strategy portion of it saying here’s what we’re in business to do, here’s who we serve, and setting it out, and like you said, the charter itself when you make it and you socialize it and you get all those nodding heads, that’s important, but what is even more important is a year from now when they’re saying, Why didn’t you?
Heather Cole: Or what [00:09:00] happened to the Those are the things that you’re able to say, look, this is what we decided to do, and if we want to do these other things, we need more resources, we need to deprioritize, we need to do things in this way that is much more strategic than reactionary. So I don’t mind that rabbit hole at all, because I think that that’s the basis of, you know, starting to think about how do I, how do I, Behave more strategically in an enablement leader role, for sure.
Jen Bullock: And I think when people think about charter, they say, okay, we don’t need a mission statement. No, that’s not what we’re asking to do, is what is your role and how does your team fit into it? And what are you going to accomplish? Based on the resources I have right now, here’s what we can accomplish in the next year, two years.
Jen Bullock: If you want it to expand, that’s absolutely fantastic, but we need more resources, more headcount, whatever the case may be.
Heather Cole: Yeah, and sometimes it is, I mean, depending on the, the nature and the economic environment, it’s saying you want me to do these, all these additional things. We’ll push it as far as we can, but we have a limit.
Heather Cole: So where is it that we need to put less focus on? [00:10:00] And it’s not like you can’t launch that product or you can’t, yeah. So where is it that you need to, to really pull the resources from, for sure. So it’s funny, um, back in the days when we were analysts, um, One of the hardest things to do was to figure out What are the best structures, um, for enablement organizations depending on where they were in their maturity, what their primary scope and focus was.
Heather Cole: And it was very hard to do without just asking somebody, because remember, we tried to do it in surveys and nobody could articulate it. It’s like, Uh, yeah, we could get who they reported to and the number of people in each roles, but it was very difficult. So what we did was we went to, little plug here for, it was the Sales Enablement Society at the time, it’s now the Revenue Enablement Society.
Heather Cole: We went to their national meeting, they have another one coming up, you know, every fall they have one, this one in 2024 is going to be in Chicago in October. And we did a, an experience room and we laid out. Uh, [00:11:00] the typical structures that we see, and they were, some of them were decentralized with program managers running everything and developing everything, and some of them had centers of excellence.
Heather Cole: And we said, what does yours look like? And we actually had them draw all of the structures, if you remember, and I had a stack of colors. It looked like kids, um, colored paper, you know, and we had stacks. And the one thing that we found was that not one of them. Was identical, not one of them. There were similarities, um, but there was definitely, it was, it was all over the board, um, when we looked at it.
Heather Cole: And I think that finding commonalities in there is that. People tend to focus and prioritize most in the beginning on what it is that they cannot do. So if their leader with a sales background came from the field, they don’t necessarily know adult learning. So the first thing they do is hire people that know that.
Heather Cole: And they inadvertently just start the center of excellence function of [00:12:00] people that know training. Right. And so, you know, From that perspective, thinking about everything that you’ve seen, the customers that you work with now, all of the advisory that you did at Forrester, when you’re thinking about those structures, are there different benefits to different models, how do you think about those models now?
Heather Cole: In the past, we called it like center of excellence versus like a program management, and most everybody was hybrid. Hybrid, right. Yeah, so these days, what do you, what are you seeing, and is that changing, or is that the same sort of structure? That’s out there.
Jen Bullock: I think it is. And I think when we talk about centers of excellence, uh, what that kind of happened was where you grew up in your organization and sales enablement.
Jen Bullock: For example, I grew up in my career in marketing and I’m going to age myself by saying this, but before sales enablement was even a term, I worked with the sales organization to say, you know, what is their biggest need? And it was, we didn’t have the right content and I can’t find it. So we worked on that.
Jen Bullock: So that was the center, creating the right content, the right messaging, getting the [00:13:00] technology that’s going to serve it up to them in the right way. And then we moved from there. What, what now? And so it kind of went along the Centers of Excellence and we built on it. Talking about charter, we expanded our charter and what that meant.
Jen Bullock: But we grew up in Center of Excellence. When we talk about programs, that’s really starting now to focus on, um, Um, a segment, or a product, or, uh, a region, and really understanding what they need, what roles, uh, need. And then when we talk about the hybrid, it’s like, okay, from beginning to end, content, training, what, what is it that we need, and putting a full program together that brings that center of excellence along with that, uh, go to market or program management.
Jen Bullock: And I think at each of those models, there is going to be some very great benefits and then there’s going to be some, um, some, some cons to that. And I think when you get to the hybrid model, you get to an issue of, you know, Are you spreading yourself [00:14:00] too thin? Uh, do you have all the right resources to do all the things that you’re going to say you’re due, even the things that kind of pop up?
Jen Bullock: So that’s going to be one of those challenges there is that pipeline. Um, with the Center of Excellence, it’s, you run the risk of, um, focusing on one of too many, one thing out of all the possibilities that you could do so that, you know, you could be an expert in the content, but are you leaving out Uh, learning, are you leaving out the, uh, RFP process, whatever the case may be, there’s other processes, are you not paying enough attention to the, um, technology that they’re working with?
Jen Bullock: So, um, understanding all the things and what’s the hot buttons right now. I think we’re still in this, the phase where we’re proving ourselves. I think everybody’s understanding what sales enablement can bring to the table or they’re starting to understand that, but everyone has a different definition and like, you know, we started this.
Jen Bullock: Uh, question off of there’s so many different ways you can structure your team. So really understanding what is it [00:15:00] that you want to want to achieve with your team.
Steve Watt: More now than than I’ve ever seen before, we’re seeing fractional professionals come into this equation as well. And, uh, sometimes fractional leaders, sometimes it’s, it’s a full time leader with fractional experts brought in for various pieces of it.
Steve Watt: How do you navigate that? Is there a particular time and place, a particular stage in the maturity of it where fractionals are required? More or less valuable. How do you think about that? And also the difference between a fractional enablement leader Versus a full time leader with fractional support people.
Jen Bullock: Yeah, I think that bringing a fractional leader in It’s really helping to establish that strategy and what is it we want to accomplish a lot of times You’re going so full force on the tactics that you’re not stepping back and going What is it we really want to achieve coming up? So that’s why I play a lot of roles of where do you [00:16:00] want to take this next, so that I can be working on that, of where do we want to go next, what is your team going to look like in the next quarter, in the next year, and then you can still have the people at the organization.
Jen Bullock: Still working on what they, their charter or whatever programs that they’ve already, they promised in the beginning of the year or beginning of the fiscal year. So as far as bringing in fractional people within the organization under, underneath the leader, it’s okay. We know that we have to get a better message or a better way to organize our sales content system.
Jen Bullock: Uh, but we don’t have time to, you know, we’re flying the plane right now and we’re building at the same time. So fractional. So leaders or fractional employees come in really handy to work within the organization to say, here, let me work on this and really get it up and running in a, in a strategic manner while you’re still working on the things that you promised that you would do.
Heather Cole: So that’s fascinating because you do that now. And it’s funny. Um, back in the day, prior days before [00:17:00] Forrester, you actually were doing fractional before fractional was a thing. So you were like one of the pioneers in this. And I think that I think, and you tell me, it’s probably changed because back then, it was more like, we want to do this enablement thing, but we just kind of wing it right now.
Heather Cole: Can you help us put together, you know, a centralized enablement? Versus now, my guess would be is like, we’ve done enablement. And we failed in the way that we’re doing it now. You’re an expert. Come in, help us develop it, help us, you know, put the right strategies in, look at it from an outside perspective with those best practices, and help us hire the right person to run it.
Heather Cole: And I would guess that it’s a shift from like, we’ve never done this, to help us be successful in it because we’ve failed maybe one or two rotations with the leaders that we’ve had in place.
Jen Bullock: And, and I agree with you. I, and I say those organizations that are like, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Jen Bullock: We know sales enablement is a key component of our organization, but it’s not really as successful as we think it could be. Bring a gen in to [00:18:00] really say, okay, what do we need to focus on? How do we need strategically to put this together? Um, when I did first start, it was interesting where I, one organization that brought me in to run the technology side of it.
Jen Bullock: And I said, okay, great. What’s your sales methodology? We don’t have one. Um, where does your content live? Well, in about 10, 000 Wikipedia kind of portals throughout the company. So they didn’t have the foundation of what you need in order to align your programs, in order to align your content. So where do you want to start?
Jen Bullock: And so I, when I was pulling at that thread, it was like, oh, that’s what it is. And it was a lot of split spinning plates too, is what the people who hired me. Thought sales enablement was and what they were going out and telling the organization and what the organization interpreted that to be. So there was a lot of Okay, I think you got it and then you go back and go.
Jen Bullock: No, they don’t got it So you had a lot of spinning plates right now. I think people get it to the most Mostly, um and understand the role. So they’re like, okay, [00:19:00] you know this Technology isn’t working or we have too much technology or where are we going after this or? Um, you’re requiring us to take three hours a week of training, you know, is that the best way to approach it?
Jen Bullock: So it’s really taking what they have and saying, maybe there’s a better way to do it, how are we going to do it going forward? And, and to be clear, just by bringing in a fractional leader or, it doesn’t mean that you’re giving all over to that fractional person. It’s just that they are now having the opportunity to take a look at your program, because I’ve been there, done it.
Jen Bullock: Bought the t shirt. So, it’s helping to make it better, and then, you know, when the contract’s up, I go to the next opportunity, or whatever the case may be. But, it is that people know. Sales Enablement, a lot more so now.
Heather Cole: Yeah, absolutely. And the interesting thing, you brought up a bunch of good points there, which is first of all, the, one of the biggest things is they haven’t taken the time to look at their content in context of the role and how they’re using it [00:20:00] and what is going on and do they have a methodology?
Heather Cole: Do they have a process? All of those things align to the interactions that are happening for that particular role. And then the other big one that you, you alluded to is the foundationally, and we used to hear this all the time, We’d say, what, what competencies, what skills, knowledge, process, expertise have you defined for each role?
Heather Cole: And they’d say, I don’t want to do that right now. Let’s do the onboarding program first, and then we’ll talk about competencies. Or that’s HR’s role. Yeah. So I think that’s another one that’s really overlooked. And also just like charter, it’s like, we’ll get to that. Yeah. But that’s the baseline.
Jen Bullock: That is the baseline.
Jen Bullock: That’s a foundation of what is it that makes a successful person in that role? Yeah. So, it’s going to be all the programs are aligned around that. What do they need to know? What do they need to show? What do they need to do? And we’re going to put our training around that. We’re going to put, or learning, I’m sorry, training, bad word, um, or we’re going to put our content around the, you know, the processes, the methodologies so that they all align.
Jen Bullock: [00:21:00] The messaging is the same. So that it’s all, um, an integrated ecosystem. Rather than, oh, sales enablement is doing this over here, marketing is doing that over there. It’s really bringing it all together and saying, how are we helping the customer through their journey and the sales people lead, or customer, uh, facing roles, lead the customer through that journey.
Jen Bullock: Yeah. That’s absolutely it.
Steve Watt: Jen, I noticed your little quip there about training. There’s a big ongoing debate. I knew you’d pick up on that. It usually starts with someone saying, you know, training is for dogs. You know, humans are educated, they’re coached, they’re mentored, they’re not trained, but then other people say, no, training’s a really good thing.
Steve Watt: It’s, it’s, you know, athletes go to training camp. Training is investing in people. Uh, what’s, where are we at
Jen Bullock: in language here? Um, I think. First of all, there are different philosophies, as you pointed out, and I don’t want to go down too much of that rabbit hole because we know what we’re talking about, [00:22:00] you know, when we say training or learning.
Jen Bullock: However, when we say athletes train or, you know, they go to training camp, whatever the case may be, they’re reiterating a process. Are you doing it the best you can? Are you being the most efficient? And that’s great. However, humans learn, and when they learn, it’s sort of that teach someone to fish. It’s then, oh, I get it.
Jen Bullock: I see how this can be better. I can see how I can do this in a different way. So, you’re almost educating them on, you know, here’s, you know, the, the world of possibility and where do you fit within it? Are you having the right conversations, etc., etc.? If you train them on one conversation, then it comes out script like.
Jen Bullock: I don’t know, Heather, if you want to expound on it. I think
Heather Cole: one of the biggest mistakes that you make as an immature enabler. Is that you think that I am going to give them a script. I am going to tell them exactly how this methodology should align to their [00:23:00] customer’s journey. Um, I’m going to make sure that they are using.
Heather Cole: Every single keyword I said that they should use and I’m going to measure and monitor that and if they’re not doing it I’m going to scold them and retrain them and have them do it and literally retrain them to do it in one way and One of the most interesting things processes that I went through is I had to to Execute Challenger, and you and I both know that one.
Heather Cole: And the problem, Challenger is a very interesting kind of conversational and, and, and method, like a messaging methodology where you are getting people to think about something differently. If you’re not familiar with the, the approach, the problem is you’re delivering commercial insight where people go, gosh, I’ve never thought about it that way, and that is great.
Heather Cole: And you can get people to go, I want to go further. I want to learn more, et cetera. But one commercial insight is good for one conversation with one customer. And unless you have reps that can actually think and they’re trained in the [00:24:00] Challenger methodology. But what the learning does is gets them to recognize Those opportunities to develop additional insights that are not what marketing handed them.
Heather Cole: It’s what they’re seeing and iterating on either in a specific situation or across a group of customers. So unless they’re learning and iterating, it falls flat. It fails. So, it’s especially, you know, Um, true in methodology because you have to take the baseline that you’re trained in and leverage it for what works in your situation.
Heather Cole: And that’s the learning process versus the training process. And I think that’s the clearest example of it, which is exactly what you said. Yeah.
Jen Bullock: It’s a great example.
Heather Cole: So when we’re thinking about the structure, and I want to think a little bit about this when we talked about the like program management piece.
Heather Cole: So when we think about. Centers of excellence. It’s, you can have a center of excellence for learning that creates all the wonderful learning programs. Center of excellence for content that creates like minimum viable content for a launch or whatever it is that you need. Those centers of excellence are [00:25:00] great.
Heather Cole: The program management piece, I think, has changed a lot too. Because when we used to look at it, we’d say, oh, it’s got to be role based, you know, it’s got to be based on the role. Which is, yes, but what I started seeing, and maybe you saw it too, is that it doesn’t have to be, and you alluded to that before, which is.
Heather Cole: Program management can actually be around, we do a ton of launches, so I’m the program manager for launches in this category, and I know how to develop programs for launches for multiple different roles, versus I am developing only for the solution engineer or for the AEs. Are you seeing that as well and is there any best way or pitfalls or is there, does it matter, I guess?
Jen Bullock: Yeah, um, you’re dead on and when people, um, create sort of, you know, learning and I know how to make it different for roles or whatever the case may be, it’s the same thing with assets or messaging, whatever the case may be. It’s having that expertise to understand the changing of the [00:26:00] customer, the changing of sales and whatever the case may be within the industry and it’s really Not so entirely role based, but understanding, um, the needs based on the program, that you can really get that done.
Heather Cole: So, yeah, and I think it’s also shifted a ton because where onboarding was a, always a huge ongoing problem. Still there, but people aren’t hiring as much. So, we’re seeing, we’re seeing a total decline in the, the conversations around that, and more of a conversation around, How do we get more out of the people that we’ve got?
Jen Bullock: Yeah. And I think it’s gone from the discussion of onboarding to more like everboarding. How do we continue to involve, evolve the people we have and their knowledge and get them the skills to go to the next level or whatever level that they want to go to. Not all sales, uh, people want to become managers.
Jen Bullock: So what is it, again back to that competency, what is the competency to make [00:27:00] them successful? So that’s sort of an ongoing continuous learning process. Everboarding versus onboarding and you’re good to go. Exactly.
Heather Cole: Okay. So let’s talk about specific roles within the enablement function. Um, like I said, when we did that whole exercise in that experience room and gathered, you know, dozens and dozens of those charts, we saw all sorts of different titles, all sorts of different roles.
Heather Cole: Some of them we’d never heard of. Um, but when you’re, you know, the conversations that you’ve had, what are the most important roles that. That everybody should be considering for success within the organization. Now we are understanding that sometimes you have one person and maybe the role is finding somebody in the organization that you could leverage to do this.
Heather Cole: But for organizations that are thinking about what do I need, how do I need to rethink my, my org structure? How do I need to think about it? What are those roles that are absolute must haves?
Jen Bullock: Um, I think one of the really important roles is that [00:28:00] interface with, um, the leader or the business unit. So it’s, I call it that secret sauce that is going to the regions or the business unit, whatever the case may be, and bringing that knowledge back of what’s working and what’s not working.
Jen Bullock: Um, so it’s that, get back to that strategic word, but it’s that strategic, like, here’s what they’re. Challenged with how can we create something to help them through it so that the outcome is better? So I think that’s a really critical role and again It depends on the organization and your maturity and where you’re growing up from so is the next one understanding all the technology that the Salespeople have to kind of migrate through and, and leverage and are you using that to your best ability again?
Jen Bullock: It goes into how are we helping them? How are we serving up content? How are we serving up learning and things like that? So that Um, it’s most efficient in helping take away some of those manual processes that they have.
Heather Cole: Absolutely. So, there’s that quote out there, and of course we have to say the word AI, um, [00:29:00] there’s the quote out there that says, AI is not going to take your job, it’s the person that knows it that will.
Heather Cole: So, how do we see this, when we’re talking about the kind of the technical role, we used to think of that as administrators, but are there additional technical roles that are not about making the platform? More effective and more heavily leveraged for success. Is there a role or an opportunity for a role that you’re starting to see that is somebody that is focused on AI, not only using it with an enablement, but understanding AI and being able to be the guru for the organization as well.
Heather Cole: And does that belong in enablement?
Jen Bullock: Uh, yes, I believe it does. And not from a technical point of view. What we need to understand is that this is not the shiny new object. That people say, we need AI. Versus, you know, what is it you’re trying to do? Even when we talk technology, what are you trying to do and how are we going to answer that?
Jen Bullock: So with AI, I do think someone needs to understand What you need to use it for and how to [00:30:00] implement it with your organization. Because I see the biggest thing coming out of that is a data governance. And when I say data, it’s not just, you know, numbers and things like that, but it’s understanding the content that you have.
Jen Bullock: So what is that data like that you’re pulling from using AI? So that understanding that you have the latest and greatest, and someone’s not inadvertently getting the wrong information pushed to them, whatever that they’re trying to do. But so it’s really someone who understands the technology. Yes. But then understands what we want to do with it and make it better and govern that behind the scenes because that’s going to be critical going forward.
Heather Cole: And I think part of that is the AI that you’re, how are you using the AI and enablement? Are you pointing it at internal resources or are you pointing it at the scary world wide web that is pulling anything and is going to hallucinate on things that may not be, you know, correct? So, yeah, good point. Um, so, got to bring it up.
Heather Cole: Field coach is a role that a lot of progressive organizations have implemented over the years. Um, I loved [00:31:00] it. I did it as an enabler, I recommended it as an analyst, um, but there’s controversy over it because what a field coach does is sits, resides in enablement, usually comes out of a sales manager role and it’s kind of a developmental role for them to go to bigger and better things.
Heather Cole: But there’s been a lot of debate over it lately of a field coach that sits in enablement and is actually Coaching people on their calls is coaching people on how to be better within their role. Isn’t that just the manager’s job? And with all of these advances in technology and ability to make it more efficient in the sales manager or customer success manager role, isn’t that the role of the manager and is the field coach going to go away?
Heather Cole: Is it no longer a relevant role?
Jen Bullock: Um, I think from what I’ve seen is I too really like that field coach. Um, it’s a great position. It really gets, you know, your hands dirty working with the customer facing teams. To the point of, isn’t that a manager’s role? I think that kind of was, whereas a lot of organizations are having great success [00:32:00] with field coaches, I think it was kind of taking the place, I might get shot for this of, you know, uh, wrong, wrong direction of, of what I’m thinking, but I think that so many enablers were focused on the individual contributor and that the managers got promoted out of that role because they were great salespeople.
Jen Bullock: So put them in a role and then maybe the, the dust will rub off on their team and they’ll be all be great, um, sales people. But what we forgot as enablers is that, again, competencies. What is the competency of a manager? What should they be doing? How much time should they be spending on something? So we forgot the competencies of the manager and so I think there was a lack of some of that coaching ability, um, the active listening that goes with it, etc.,
Jen Bullock: etc. So I think that was a, um, a level. Did the managers have that skill? And if they did have that skill, do they have the time to go really deep? So it’s, uh, it might evolve, but I think that’s where it kind of [00:33:00] grew up is that the, um, manager was lacking a little bit. Either time or skill.
Heather Cole: Yeah. And I think you’re right that a lot of organizations used it as a patch for, because their, their managers weren’t what they should be.
Heather Cole: So instead of using it as a really strategic rotational role to develop people into managers, they were using it to compensate for the fact that they had bad managers. Yeah. So got a rad rap. Okay. So last question on this topic, enablers from a roles perspective. There’s been debate and we did in, in one of our, uh, experience rooms, in fact, many of them, we asked, what is the best background for an enablement leader?
Heather Cole: And there’s been, a lot of people have a lot of opinions. What do you think?
Jen Bullock: A lot of people say they must have a sales background. And I would change that to say that you must have empathy for the sales role versus do I need to have been a [00:34:00] sales person to do this role well? Because what I have found is.
Jen Bullock: Do you know how to do some of the things and what is the best practice for Learning, what is the best practice for messaging, etc, etc. Coming from a sales role, do you have that? You have the empathy, you might even have the strategic focus, but can you actually get things done and bring a team together to, to get it done?
Jen Bullock: So I think there’s a lot of backgrounds that people can come from. I am not the one that buys into they have to come from sales.
Heather Cole: And I think sales leaders are more likely to say they have to come from sales, but I think you’re absolutely right on the, The empathy and understanding so that you’re not inflicting, you’re enabling is so absolutely critical for the entire organization.
Heather Cole: And I would
Jen Bullock: say one more thing too is that a lot of you, if you’re coming from sales, you have the perspective of sales and let’s not forget about the customer and their journey. And as an enabler, you can kind of [00:35:00] be that, you know, Uh, buffer in between to say, I get it, but we need to evolve our organization from a sales perspective to be better in line to customer expectations.
Jen Bullock: And sometimes you can’t make that shift if you’re, you really understand the sales organization as you know it within your organization.
Heather Cole: So if you’re thinking about that like far into the future, and this is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, is, is it really going to be With all the technology advances, with everything that’s going on, and they’re saying the rep is going to become less and less important because technology can do their job.
Heather Cole: Don’t necessarily buy into that, but is this really going up the stream of buyer enablement because the buyers want to do more and more of their journey self served. So how do you make the rep a Sherpa? But, in reality, you’re enabling the buyer and not the go to market teams exclusively. Do you think that’s going to come to fruition anytime soon?
Jen Bullock: That’s, uh, very interesting. If it [00:36:00] does come to fruition, I think that’s going to be a number of years out. But I, I have been saying all along that it is the customer’s journey and, to your point, the salesperson is that Sherpa. You always hear the stat of, you know, customers. Do 70, 80, 1000 percent of their own learning before they even engage with a salesperson.
Jen Bullock: I don’t think that that’s a matter of they don’t want to engage with a salesperson. What they want is an objective understanding of what need that you’re filling. So the more that a salesperson, getting back to that training versus learning, the more the salesperson is adapting and understanding what that customer is looking for, that makes the better salesperson.
Jen Bullock: Absolutely.
Heather Cole: Okay. All right. So you said empathy. And so quick. Quick hit here. You and I have done a ton of research on like What is it that reps need to know and what you can, you can help them learn? We’re training them. And, or what is it they need to come to the [00:37:00] table with that are innate characteristics that you just can’t teach and you need to look for?
Heather Cole: What, if we turn that onto the enablers and say, what are the things that need to be innate within those enablers to make a really great enabler, either at the doer level or the leader level, you know, quick hit, which ones are the most important in your mind? I
Jen Bullock: think, um, adaptability. Um, and agility to be able to see what’s changing, what’s coming, whether it’s salespeople, whether it’s the market, product, whether it’s, um, the customer.
Jen Bullock: So how can you be agile enough to say, well, that we didn’t plan for that. Um, certainly that strategic thinking and how does your programs fit into the overall business objectives of an organization I think is key is really understanding how you can get to the outcomes. Okay. That the organization is looking for.
Jen Bullock: ’cause let’s face it, if the outcomes aren’t there, if the revenue isn’t there, we’re not there. Um, and then I think another one is really strong collaboration and communication skills. [00:38:00] So, and, and that with communication, that also includes like a feedback loop. So what you’re doing, how you’re communicating it, getting ahead of the game, and then how are you getting feedback to make it better the next time?
Steve Watt: Yeah. The other side of that coin, Jen. Uh, it’s a tough job market out there. I know that some of our regular listeners are between jobs right now, and it’s tough. What can people do to stand out in positive ways, whether they’re an enablement leader with a strong track record, maybe their earlier career, mid career?
Steve Watt: What can they do? What can they show? What can they say to stand out in positive ways in a really competitive job market? I want to say one
Jen Bullock: of the I don’t know if it’s the easiest, but a slam dunk, low hanging fruit would be get in the conversations on LinkedIn. Weigh in on some of these things and get your perspective out there and how you’re thinking about it.
Jen Bullock: And whether someone agrees with you or not, they know that you’re thinking about it and the [00:39:00] future of things and how I’ve done it before. Um, and, and that’s how I, you know, bring it to the table. So you’re, you’re showing your strategic thinking or the skills that we would call soft skills but are really needed, you’re showing, um, how you can think something through and how you would approach it.
Jen Bullock: So I think that’s, that’s a, a really easy low hanging fruit.
Steve Watt: I completely agree as a big LinkedIn advocate and proponent myself, uh, most people don’t do that though. Yeah. They don’t. Why don’t they? What’s holding them back? Why, why are people afraid to get out there and do exactly what you just said?
Jen Bullock: I think a lot of it is people get wrapped up in their jobs and then when you’re in between you get wrapped up in your job search.
Jen Bullock: I don’t think, um, in today’s market that you’re going to find your job just by applying to POST. Posted positions. You’re going to really have to get recognized. Whether someone has an opening or not right now, they’re like, man, I see Jennifer all [00:40:00] over the place on LinkedIn. Let’s have a conversation with her.
Jen Bullock: We don’t have an opening right now, but maybe in the future. And that’s how you get your foot in the door with a lot of different areas. Even, even fractional enablement and leadership is to get in there and say, yeah, this is an organization I’d really like to work for. Can we make it more than contract?
Jen Bullock: So I think, um, those are different ways to get to the end goal of Landing that job.
Steve Watt: Sage advice, I hope.
Heather Cole: So that’s the core of our interview, and we always do some certain wrap up questions at the end. Are you game? Oh,
Steve Watt: yeah, I’m game.
Jen Bullock: I’m
Steve Watt: nervous, but I’m game. All right, let’s do it. Okay. First, I’d like to ask you to look into your crystal ball and tell us what do you think is going to really change in enablement in the next 18 or 24 months?
Jen Bullock: Interesting. I think a lot of the capabilities and personalization that we’re going to get through AI is really going to change the direction on, uh, how we think about servicing up content and those kinds of things. Um, it’s going to change really rapidly, so I [00:41:00] think that’s really going to, um, change things as we go forward, so.
Jen Bullock: What’s not going to change? I think sales enablement teams and leaders really need to understand the customer’s journey. And I don’t think that’ll ever change. It’s not just about the sales process, but it’s the customer journey that you really have to be close to.
Steve Watt: All right. Final question for you today, Jen, what’s the best piece of advice that you’ve ever been given?
Jen Bullock: Uh, my dad has given a lot of advice, but the one thing that kind of sticks in my mind is that always be decisive, right or wrong, make a decision. Because after all, The path of life is filled with a lot of flat squirrels who could not make a decision. I love it. I love it.
Steve Watt: What a fantastic way to end Jen.
Steve Watt: Thanks so much for joining us today. Thanks. It’s been fun. Are you ready for the enablement event of the year? Come to sunny San Diego, California, October 8th [00:42:00] through the 10th for three days of innovation, inspiration, and camaraderie on a Seismic scale. Join the best and the brightest go to market leaders as we push what’s possible for our teams, customers, and organizations.
Steve Watt: Experience it all at Seismic’s annual enablement conference, Shift. Register today at seismic.com. Thanks for joining us on The Enablement Edge. We’re on YouTube and all your favorite podcast providers. See you next time.
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