Dave Lichtman [00:00:00]:
The best enablers have this X factor, and sometimes I call it gravitas, but it’s the ability to respectfully push back and fight for an idea or a priority.
Heather Cole [00:00:15]:
This is Go-to-Market Magic, the show where we talk to go-to-market leaders and visionaries about those “aha” moments they’ve experienced and also the pivotal decisions that they’ve made, all in the name of growth.
Steve Watt [00:00:26]:
And we don’t just mean revenue growth that goes up and to the right.
Heather Cole [00:00:30]:
But that’s nice too.
Steve Watt [00:00:31]:
We’re talking about how they improve their teams, their industries, their careers and their lives because growth isn’t quite what it used to be.
Heather Cole [00:00:39]:
I’m Heather Cole.
Steve Watt [00:00:39]:
And I’m Steve Watt.
Heather Cole [00:00:40]:
Let’s uncover some of the magic that makes it happen.
Steve Watt [00:00:43]:
All right, Heather. Who are we speaking with today?
Heather Cole [00:00:46]:
Well, today’s go-to-market visionary is Dave Lichtman. He is the Founder and CEO of Enablematch, and that’s a recruitment firm that specializes specifically in sales enablement roles. And today he’s talking about some “aha!” moments he had when he realized that CSOs and other go to market leaders were needing to think differently about the criteria for the leaders that they were hiring into their enablement teams. We have a really good conversation today and we go into everything from competencies to charters and a few other surprises as well.
Steve Watt [00:01:19]:
Fantastic. Let’s get started. Dave, we’re going to start you off with a lightning round. Okay? Three quick questions, three quick answers. First off, what is one critical skill that an enabler absolutely needs to have?
Dave Lichtman [00:01:37]:
The biggest thing that I see almost universally is that enablement folks must be relationship builders. And when I talk to hiring managers or CROs, they’re like no about execution. All this stuff that’s table stakes. But when we talk to people who have been in the role and struggled or been fired from their enablement role, we peel back at onion layer after layer. More times than not, the ones who struggled had issues with their relationship building skills. And I feel like at more times than not, it comes down to that because enablement is a team sport. It’s a relationship sport. And if you’re struggling to do that, it’s going to be hard for you.
Steve Watt [00:02:17]:
Your greatest career regret.
Dave Lichtman [00:02:20]:
I think back when I was an enablement practitioner a long, long time ago, my company had been acquired by another company and we were stagnant. Enablement wasn’t a priority for the new company and I think I probably stayed there a year and a half, two years longer than I probably should have. And those were some key years when you can move up and do different things. And I think I was a little bit stagnant for a couple of years and that was a miss earlier in my career.
Steve Watt [00:02:44]:
It’s going to be really interesting as we ask that question to a lot of different guests, how many answers are I stayed too long versus I left too early?
Dave Lichtman [00:02:53]:
Hindsight is an amazing thing.
Steve Watt [00:02:55]:
All right, final lightning round question. What’s your business superpower and what’s your kryptonite?
Dave Lichtman [00:03:01]:
So, Enablematch is a recruiting firm for sales enablement folks. And I think what we do uniquely well is we spent almost five years now getting to know all the enablement practitioners out there. And we’ve invested so much in getting to know them their strengths, their weaknesses, what their dream job is all that stuff really, really well over such a long period of time that when companies come to us, we’re really efficient at helping them. Like, I did a search last month, I filled their job in 1 hour. It took me 1 hour to find their person. So being able to weaponize and really use this history we’ve had is by far our superpower. But I would also say the flip side of that same coin is also a kryptonite in that it’s a very costly way to run a business. It’s very time and labor intensive, but I wouldn’t change a thing.
Heather Cole [00:03:52]:
So, Dave, you are the founder of Enablematch, which is probably the only I think it’s the only and it’s certainly the oldest recruiting and placement firm for specifically enablement practitioners and leaders. And because of that, you have this amazing, unique perspective, and you’re such a champion for the function in the industry. And because of that unique perspective, I’d love to hear a little bit about what you’ve seen going on in the last twelve to 18 months. Because we know twelve to 18 months ago, begging people to think about changing jobs was a thing, and now it’s completely different. What can you tell us about what you’re seeing out there?
Dave Lichtman [00:04:32]:
Yeah, it is like you said, it’s a whole new world than it was a couple of years ago. And right now, everything’s been contracted right. People aren’t able to do what they could do before. And so if you’re a company, it’s your choice on who to hire, because for every job that you have, there’s a line of people around the block waiting to take that job. And your point contrasts that to two years ago, when every candidate who has experience could easily have three, four, five offers on the table from which to choose and negotiate against each other. It’s not that time anymore.
Heather Cole [00:05:10]:
Yeah. And are you seeing that across all industries, or is it specific to tech, or is it something that we’re seeing consistently across the market?
Dave Lichtman [00:05:20]:
I think it’s most acute in tech because that’s where we had the rapid rise a couple of years ago, and so we’re having the fall now, I think other industries, it’s happening, but not to the same degree as we see in tech.
Heather Cole [00:05:30]:
Yeah, definitely. Now, one of the impacts that we have seen, we work with enablement, and there was a lot of entry level roles because there was not enough candidates out there to fill the sales. So people were doing buy versus build. So they were buying and training and skilling people up to be an enablement. And we’re not seeing that anymore because there’s so many candidates on the market. Does that reflect what you’re seeing as well?
Dave Lichtman [00:05:55]:
Absolutely. For every job you will find people who are overqualified, who are looking to get a job, because at a certain point, some people have been out of work for a good period of time and they will take a pay cut, they will take a title cut to get something. And I think any important storm, as they say. And so I think a lot of folks are taking roles to get roles, knowing that when things shore up, they might make a change.
Heather Cole [00:06:19]:
And I have to think that this is changing the way enablement leaders are thinking about their strategy. But do you think it’s I don’t know, I think it might be a little bit misguided for the long term. If you’re underpaying and you’re getting somebody who’s way overqualified for a position when the market heats up, what do you think is going to happen?
Dave Lichtman [00:06:37]:
Yeah, I was having the same discussion with somebody, and I think that’s exactly right, that I think I was talking to a candidate and they were saying that they had gotten an offer that was pretty much they knew was below market, but they took it because it was a good job and they would like the company. And I’m seeing a few people where I see the comp they’re getting for the roles that they’re taking, and it’s a bit of a head scratcher. And I compare that to a year ago, two years ago, when people were really getting a premium for these enabled roles and now they’re getting underpaid. And I think it’s sort of like two years ago when people took their pandemic jobs and then all of a sudden when the job market opened up, everyone said, all right, great resignation. I’m going to see you later. I’m going to go find my dream job or where I can do what I want to do and everybody quit. And I feel like the companies who are underpaying now because they can, will come to regret this in X number of months when things shore up, because people are like, I’m out of here because I can make fifty K more and have a job that I like better.
Heather Cole [00:07:38]:
Absolutely. So one of the reasons, not just your unique perspective overall, but one of the reasons we reached out was because of a post that you had on LinkedIn, which was really talking about the competencies that CSOs are looking for versus what they should be looking for. What do you think CSOs are looking for now? And tell me a little bit more about that.
Dave Lichtman [00:08:02]:
I’ll put into three categories, so two very concrete ones and one catch all. So the first thing that I hear a lot is must have sales experience. And this for a lot of listeners. This might be a controversial thing is I don’t think that a sales experience should be mandatory for an enablement person. And there are many, many enablement folks out there who are some of the best folks out there who have never carried a bag, never sold a thing in their life. But those who haven’t carried a bag, they must become a student of sales. They must become intimately involved in everything that the sales team does and have this insatiable curiosity about the sellers, the sales leadership, the selling motion, about the product, about the industry, about your customers, this endless thing. And so they should be doing ride alongs. If you have ride alongs or co located sitting amongst the sellers or listening to gong or chorus calls going to QBRs, like all those things, they must become a front row student in the class of sales. And if they’re not doing that, then it’s going to be hard for them to do it. But I think if they can do that they’ll be okay. So I think sales shouldn’t be mandatory as long as they have this other thing. So that’s one thing I hear a lot and my advice is always I wouldn’t exclude somebody who has everything else that you need them to have with curiosity. That’s one thing. The second thing that I hear a lot is if you’re a B two B SaaS company, you want somebody who has B two B SaaS experience because B two B is materially different than B to C and SaaS is materially different than non sales. And so both can be overcome, don’t get me wrong, but I think a lot of them anchor on that point and then there’s some validity to that. So if a person doesn’t have B to B SaaS experience, they need to have a plan to overcome that gap. So those are the two most concrete ones. The thing that I think triggered my post a couple of months ago was a lot of CRO CSOs. They have a thing they won’t let go. So for example, it might be we’re a medic shop, therefore I want my head of enablement to be certified in medic or having delivered at X number of times or we’re in the cybersecurity space, I want somebody who has cybersecurity experience. That’s a must have. And my point to them is I think they’re over indexing on that thing at the expense of other things. I give a crude silly metaphor that I think kind of makes it clear, at least to me. If I had a heart condition for my family, like I have a concern about my heart making it past age 55, whatever, I’m going to say my primary physician, I want to be a cardiologist because that’s my biggest concern and that makes perfect sense, right? That’s my biggest concern. However, in six months if I have a rash under my arm and I would say, hey, doctor what I do about this rash? And he’s like, I did a derm rotation, med school 20 years ago, and I’m not really sure he’s struggling. Or I’m like, hey, I’m a runner. I have shin splints. And he’s like, yeah, let me Google that. Or I’m a little bit depressed. I want to talk about some anxiety. I have all those things he’s a little bit on his heels of like, that’s not my thing, versus a primary care physician who’s used to handling all these various problems. And I think that’s, again, if you over index on the heart thing, it’s at the expense of these other things. And I think that kind of metaphor holds true for what you do. If you say this person must have medic, it might be at the expense of how well they run systems or how well they build teams or no content or no coaching. It’s definitely a nice to have, and if you can get it, great. But I wouldn’t over index on that because it could be a costly thing for you.
Steve Watt [00:11:58]:
Dave, further on aligning with the CRO or the CSO, I’ve heard you speak before about the critical importance of the enablement leader. Being very tightly aligned with that leader makes sense. How does one approach the potential trade offs and tensions? You may have a revenue leader, especially in tough times, who’s very fixated on this quarter’s numbers, next quarter’s numbers. Meanwhile, you as the enablement leader are probably thinking longer term. You’re thinking about fundamental skills and fundamental processes that need to be nurtured and trained and embodied. How do you deal with that tension? How do you push back without losing the trust of that sales leader?
Dave Lichtman [00:12:45]:
That is a very big question and it’s a hard one to answer. And the only way I can answer that is to say the best enablers have this X factor, and sometimes I call it gravitas, but it’s the ability to respectfully push back and fight for an idea or a priority. And the head of enablement and the head of revenue must be able to sit down and come to an agreement on the priorities that enablement is working on right now. And you have to agree as a group that the long term parties are important to be working on now, or they’re not. We have some near term fires we’ve got to put out, but I think whether you use enablement charter or use more something more informal, there’s got to be that consensus. And to your point, it is not easy when you have a CRO who’s fighting for their job and trying to make their number. And it could be an existential crisis for a company. So the stakes are very, very high. But the good enablers can be the calming effect. It’s like, as a parent, we’re always taught to be like, we’re the calm when the kids storm. I think sometimes navel needs to be the ones who said, I hear you, Heather, that we’ve got to do a certification next Monday, however, and let’s talk about that. And I think being the kind of sense of calmness around them, it’s a hard thing to do, easy for me to say, but I think it’s that X factor that separates the good from the great.
Heather Cole [00:14:10]:
Yeah. The easiest way I found for enablers to lose their job is to say yes to everything. And you try to take on too much and you fail miserably in too many things.
Dave Lichtman [00:14:21]:
I talk about this all the time, Heather. It’s such a good point. I think number one is when you say yes to everybody, first of all, you don’t earn the respect because you’re just the go to person. You’ll do whatever they ask you to do. It’s a phrase I learned a long time ago in my career. If everything’s important, then nothing’s important. And so if you have 10,000 priorities, then we don’t really agree what a priority is, because you can’t and I use metaphors all the time. The metaphor, I think about it, it’s the proverbial lifeguard who tries to save everybody, then they end up drowning. That’s what the enablement leader can be if they can’t say no to certain requests.
Heather Cole [00:15:01]:
I love that analogy. It’s like, put your mask on first. Yeah, absolutely. It’s interesting because you mentioned charter and it’s been such a push in our industry over the last, I don’t know, five years, probably, and people saying, you have to have one, have to have one. And so many enablers, I see, kind of respond to that negatively of saying, it’s too formal for our organization or it’s not what we need. You only wish you had a charter a year later when somebody says to you, why didn’t you do this, that and the other thing. Because you never actually sat down and had that formal conversation of that, hey, this is what we’re here to do. Here’s who we’re doing it for. Here are the results that we can expect, and here are the resources we need to be able to do that. And just having that conversation, whether you write the charter or not, is so absolutely critical to be able to go back and say, here’s why we didn’t do those other things, because this is what we agreed to do.
Dave Lichtman [00:15:55]:
I view it oftentimes it’s more than the paper that it is. It’s more of the forcing function for the conversation and the alignment. And so it’s just an excuse to get in the room and make sure we’re aligned. And it’s your point, making sure that we’re all agreed on the priorities. It’s like insurance. Like, no one likes paying premiums, but you’re really glad you have it when you need it. And so I think having this as almost an insurance policy that we’re aligned, that we had agreed on these priorities, and it’s the way to go. And then as people come at you for additional requests. You can say, cool, now let’s figure out what has to come off of this list if that’s going to come on the list. And so it becomes a tool you use to not be the drowning lifeguard.
Heather Cole [00:16:37]:
Yeah, absolutely. All right, so back to thinking about what those it’s competencies but you also traits. I mean, I don’t know that you can teach anybody curiosity. You can tell them to be more curious. But people who are naturally curious, who have an intrinsic motivation to learn things and get things done, those are two things that I think for any role outside of enablement or in enablement are important, but they really bubble to the top when we’re thinking about enablement. It’s funny, we did a survey about a year ago and curiosity was one of the things that we listed, said what are the highest traits? And curiosity actually was not in the top three. And I thought, well, that is a shame, it makes my heart hurt.
Dave Lichtman [00:17:22]:
Yeah, I’ll say, Heather, to your point, I’ll generally disagree on one point. I think curiosity can be taught as an approach, a way of thinking about things in hearing phrases and saying I didn’t fully understand that. I got to pull that thread because there’s something behind that that I’m not getting. And I think exercising that muscle is something you can learn through repetition and practice. I went through, Barry Rhein does a thing called “selling through curiosity.” It’s a methodology and framework. I did it when I was at Salesforce, and when I was at Salesforce, I’ve done a bunch of times and it changed my thinking about everything. And it taught me to use those muscles that I had never used before. So I think it can be learned and I think it is to your point, it is such an important skill.
Heather Cole [00:18:09]:
If you have something in you that naturally does that to some extent, you’re going to be much better at it, for sure.
Dave Lichtman [00:18:15]:
Yes, some folks can do it naturally and it’s effortless. It’s like selling for some folks, it’s effortless. Some folks have to work at it and work at it and work at it. And so either way, as long as you’re doing it, it doesn’t matter how you get there.
Heather Cole [00:18:25]:
And one of the things you mentioned about understanding the salesforce, I think one of the things with what we used to think of as ride along or listen ins with those two things, it’s coming from sales. One thing, and I’m a little biased, I did come from sales, but I think what it does is give you empathy for the role so you don’t become an enablement inflictor. And the worst thing that you can do is kind of get in that inflictment mentality of you must do. We’re going to give you what we think you need without really thinking about the true nature and reality of the job and what we’re asking them to do. And that empathy though, I think listening in and riding along and making connections and networking with the folks that are doing it will give you the empathy that you need to develop better programs.
Dave Lichtman [00:19:17]:
I completely agree. If you’ve done enough customer meetings with one of your AES and you hear them going through the boilerplate slide deck, then your CMO next week says, hey, I got this new brand new 64 slide deck. I want to certify the whole team on you’re. Like, I heard how the four slides went. They’re in no way ready to tackle 64 slides, much less would the client tolerate 64 slides. Maybe we pare that down. And I think to your point, it’s the empathy of like, that won’t translate to sales. And so, again, going back to the gravitas and pushing back on the CMO or the marketing side of like, that might not be the best idea for them because it’s not going to translate the way you think it’s going to.
Heather Cole [00:20:01]:
So you mentioned a couple of things where the competencies and traits that you’re hearing when you think about the CSOs, if there’s like one thing you would want them to know and think about with their requirements when they’re hiring, what would it be? What would be the best piece of advice you’d give the CSO when looking to hire an enablement leader?
Dave Lichtman [00:20:21]:
A lot of it has to do with that relationship building skill and the experience I talked about before. But I think there’s also a strategic component of that leader and also of this Chief sales officer hiring that person. And I think my biggest coaching to them would be start to think about the complexion of the team differently. And I would start to say, like, thinking about a hybrid enablement function. When I say hybrid, I don’t mean work from home, work from the office hybrid. I mean FTEs (Full Time Employees) and hyper-specialized contractors who you bring in there for discrete jobs, discrete projects that they do. Because my thinking is that type of approach. It’s a whole new way of thinking about enablement as emotion and it unlocks a lot of doors.
Heather Cole [00:21:12]:
It’s huge because we’ve seen gig work and what fractional leaders and fractional positions really work well, especially in marketing and other pieces of the go to market engine. We’re starting to see that rise up. You’ve been dabbling in it a little bit yourself with your organization. And is this really a strategy that we think can work for enablement? Is it something where you can bring in a fractional leader that might help set up or help even hire the next leader? There’s pieces that they can do when they couldn’t even afford maybe a really powerful leader. What are the applications that you see here? And do you think it’s something where it will help the enablement community or will it not, meaning it’s going to become more fractional and more gig based and that’s not necessarily the best thing for it.
Dave Lichtman [00:22:04]:
So a lot to unpack on this because it is absolutely applicable to enablement. And I’ll give you a lot of examples, but I’ll take a step back and say I was really inspired four or five months ago for my business. I had two projects. One was a QuickBooks reconciliation project and one was a Zapier integration project. Just boring stuff, right? And in the past I’ve done the work and it’s painful and I scream at my screen and it’s frustrating and it takes me a lot of time. And I even have a systems guy who helps me with certain projects. He’s super technical and really smart. He can do anything. He could have fumbled through it and figured out Zapier and figured out QuickBooks for my stuff. It all could happen. But instead I went to Upwork and I said, well, can I find a QuickBooks expert? Yep, there she is. $50 an hour. Hired her for 3 hours, knocked out and a Zaper expert for, I think, two to 3 hours and hired him at $70 an hour and he knocked it out of the park. And my point was I could have done both, my guy could have done both. But it was so much more efficient to hand that out to an expert who could come in there lightning fast, so efficient and crush that project. And that really got me thinking about enablement, that we should be doing more of that stuff. Like yes, when people have been going on a maternity leave and we backfill them with a temp, perhaps that’s been happening for a while. But I’m thinking differently. I’m thinking about how do you bring in that expert for a certain thing? And it’s like if I’m having heart surgery, do you want to fly in the guy who’s the world’s best cardiothoracic surgeon in the world or the guy who’s on staff at the hospital that night? Like you want the best? And I think that type of mentality is so applicable to what we’re doing. If you have a team who’s struggling with discovery skills or not, curious enough, bring in an expert who has that turnkey and knock that out of the park. It’s a discrete project. If your onboarding program is so so, bring in somebody who can do the strategy for that. Teach your team how to up level that it makes a lot of sense and make it better. It’s a discrete project. And to your point, Heather, a second ago, if you have a mid level enablement leader and maybe their first time running a team and they’re good at the tactics but not the strategy, bring in a very senior person. Who coaches them x number of hours per week or per month on the strategic stuff on the team how to manage the team and upskill them as a leader and help them upskill the team. That’s a great use of a couple of dollars to get the team up running because this mid level person is the one you can afford. But for a couple of extra dollars, you can get the expertise to turn the dial on that person. Makes perfect sense. To the other side of that same coin is at lower levels you can have discrete projects. I was approached by there’s two people. One was saying, I have all this content living on SharePoint. I want it chopped up and stuck in Lessonly. Give me a Lessonly expert, fine, very discreet thing. Give it to a person who knows Lessonly. Or we have force management. We rolled out a year ago. We have their IP, the content we need to chop it up and relaunch that. I need a person who knows force management. So again, the people who are coming in there doing this can be experts at this specific thing. They’re scalpels, not Swiss army knives. And I think there’s all these applications and my biggest piece of coaching for CROs and CSOs is rethink how you use expert labor because there’s so many applications here.
Steve Watt [00:25:36]:
Is that a short term play while full time headcount is scarce and available talent is plentiful? Or is that going to carry us forward? Hopefully soon, but before too long down the line in a stronger economy and stronger full time headcount growth? Do you see that model continuing to work or is it going to tip back the other way where the most skilled people are going to be looking for more of a permanent home?
Dave Lichtman [00:26:03]:
Yeah, I think both will happen. I think skilled people will have some permanent homes. Some folks will stay in the consulting side. I think this as a model will stick around. If you’re a CRO who started bringing experts and you see the efficiency and frankly, the cost effectiveness of doing this way, you’ll never say, all right, Heather, go out and learn good discovery skills and build a class on this and then roll it out. It’s not the efficient way to go. So I think this hybrid model for those who start to experience it will stick around and there’ll be those who will who are still think talent acquisition and the traditional model and they won’t go there. They’re the people at Blockbuster holding on to their tape saying, “be kind, rewind.” This is our model forever. People will still be traditional and that’s fine. But I think those who start to experience it, much like I did as a business owner, never going back.
Heather Cole [00:26:58]:
Yeah, I think there’s a commercial, I think is it for Upwork or WeWork? Where it’s got the old guy who the old way of doing business and he’s constantly talking about you don’t need to hire, you need to fill the gap. And it’s kind of the same sort of thing. So I think there’s a huge opportunity here for, I don’t know, somebody like yourself to have. A platform where people can source for it easily too, because I think that’s been the gap in the past, too, is that how do you find these people, besides word of mouth? And there’s a couple of organizations out there, but it’s not the ease of use on it. I think it needs to be an easier process. What do you think about that?
Dave Lichtman [00:27:41]:
Yeah, I agree. I think there’s traditionally been a trade off. Like, I was talking to somebody maybe six weeks ago or so, and he was saying for their bigger company and for their contract workers, they go to Robert Half, which is a great organization. They’ve been around forever, but they don’t know enablement. They’re just workers. They’re bodies, and they don’t have the expertise that we necessarily need. And so we need to happen to people who are enablement people. And again, my perspective comes from the guy who started a successful business placing full time people, and that still will persist. It’s a big part of it, but I think the combination approach is where it needs to go. And so for me, all these folks that I’ve gotten to know for almost five years now, I’ve gone back and said, hey, Heather and Steve, where are you an expert? What specific things are you a rock star at that you’re like, you’re just a ninja? And knowing those things, then when people say, hey, I need that force management expert or that lessonly expert or onboarding expert, I know who those people are. And so this is not a plug as much as to say you want to tap into those ninjas, those experts for these projects. And so, however you do it, that should be your flexible way of moving forward, because, A, it’s more effective, and B, it’s more cost effective.
Steve Watt [00:29:00]:
I thought it was great. I’m so glad we had the opportunity to speak with Dave. He he brings such a fresh perspective and and so much experience in this space.
Heather Cole [00:29:10]:
Yeah, he really does have a unique perspective because he talks to literally hundreds of people in the enablement function every year, and he sees the whole spectrum. He sees it from a leadership perspective. He sees it from an enabler’s perspective. And I always loved to talk to Dave. One of my biggest takeaways here, and one of the things reasons we had him on was because of his perspective on hey, CSO, you might be looking for the wrong thing. You need somebody who is a general contractor that understands the big picture, that can bring it all together and bring those specialists in as needed and make sure that the folks that they have on their team either have the skill set, they can upskill them, or they can bring somebody in. And that fractional piece of it was so interesting, don’t you think?
Steve Watt [00:30:00]:
Oh, absolutely. That jumped right out at me. I mean, I’m more a marketer by education and by profession, more so than an enabler. And that’s so true in marketing. I mean, there is just so much you need to know and really it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to be great at everything. And that idea, I love your general contractor perspective. I’m going to bring in the plumber, I’m going to bring in the electrician, I’m going to bring in the carpenter, I’m going to bring in the waterproofing expert. I don’t have to be the expert at everything. I just need to understand the needs, understand the business needs, and then, as Dave said, have a way to tap the right person at the right time to deliver that expert skill. I think it’s a really interesting way that I think we’re going to see a lot of business functions moving that way going forward.
Heather Cole [00:30:55]:
Yeah, definitely. And I think there’s also an opportunity. I mean, you’ve seen really, the growth of the fractional CMO business, where people, the companies are maybe too small to really have a CMO yet, but they need to start building that foundation. And what we’ve seen in the past is when especially high growth companies that get an influx of capital and they say, oh, we need to go out and hire all of these people, but we don’t even have a leader yet. We need the foundation in place and we need to source somebody really good. We don’t know if we can afford quite yet that high caliber person. Bringing in that fractional leader like they do on the CMO side, really might have a lot of opportunity, and it might also be something that people want to do as a career, not just as a placeholder. Oh, I’m going to be a fractional, because it’s so interesting going into these different organizations and kind of setting it up for success.
Steve Watt [00:31:47]:
Oh, absolutely. Being the right person with the right skill at the right time can be very lucrative. The economics can work very well for the organization, but also for the individual. Another thing that really got me is the importance of the enablement charter as a way of managing that friction between short term needs and long term needs, as we discussed, and to give you the backbone with which to say no to things that are not mission critical and to really help your enablement function truly stay focused. Is that something in your experience, Heather, that a lot of companies have, or is that a gap?
Heather Cole [00:32:29]:
So it was, I would say, Sales Enablement Society probably four years ago at their conference, three or four years ago, had a really big push on this charter piece of it, of building a business inside of a business and making sure that you have the expectations set. And some people really bought into it and said, yes, you absolutely must do this. And the people that did it were the ones that a had done it in the past, or b hadn’t done it and realized that they really needed one in retrospect, because nobody’s going to go out and say, I’m going to spend all this time doing this charter and put it in a drawer. It has to be something that’s kind of living and moving and working and oh, by the way, it is your best friend a year later when you can take out and say, this is what we said we would do. This is what we did. Here are the other things that we did on top of that. And you’re not in a defensive position to say, here’s why we didn’t know do all these things, but here’s why. Because this is what we agreed to. This was our charter and this is what we got done. It’s also something that is a little bit scary when people are too black and white about it and they say, no, not doing it. It’s not on the charter. That’s a recipe for disaster as well. But we are seeing it definitely as a foundation of enablement organizations, especially after they become like more than one or two people. But they’re very, very useful in making sure that you’re also looking and saying, hey, I want to do all these other things that you want us to do. But to be able to execute on this and also do that, I need more resources. And here’s what that looks like. So I found that people that have charters have a much easier time making the case for more resources.
Steve Watt [00:34:14]:
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Heather Cole [00:34:20]:
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