What does a typical day in your life looks like?
A day in my life is pretty unpredictable. We are moving at such a great pace, that my focus can change from one moment to the next. But ultimately, my focus is always on finding ways to make the sales teams better prepared to make the sell.
What are the top three projects you are working on at the moment?
I am currently working on crowdsourcing playbooks for our products that will help continue to evolve our resources depending on how they are used.
What is an area within sales enablement where you particularly shine? What are some best practices and resources you use to help you be successful in that area?
I think I shine in curriculum development. I love a well-planned solution that is going to have an immediate impact on the sales team. One of the best practices for creating solid solutions is listening, listening, listening. Although you may have served in a sales position, you aren't any longer when you move to enablement. Business is constantly changing. Listening to your sales professionals and managers talk about their painpoints will help guide your strategic plan.
We are not servants to our sales team. In reality, we are the pit crew that keeps the car running, and the sales professional is driver. But you need both to win the race.
If you could have three wishes granted to make your job easier, what would they be?
I actually love the challenge of the complexity. I'm weird, I know. But to make my job easier, I would love a media studio so I could do more real-time learning. I would also like to have a training center so I could provide the "wow" factor when the sales team comes for learning.
And I would love to have something like a “Room of Requirement” from Harry Potter. Anytime I had a need, it would tell me exactly what was essential for success.
How did you get started in your career? Since then, how has your career evolved?
I got started in my sales enablement career because I knew more about the system than anyone else. When I transferred from sales to sales enablement, I moved into a role that was training others on the company’s backend sales systems. It was rather new, and the company did a horrible job implementing it with the field.
As you can expect, without good training, the sales field just floundered with the applications. I had to learn it through experience. Eventually, I figured out more about it than most of the support team because I was applying it to my business. With low success rate, they needed an "in-field" guy to lend credibility to the program.
As I continued to grow in the role, I also grew my internal network. I was able to turn a program with 20 percent adoption rate to about 75 percent in under two years. But I had realized that I'm the builder of my career, and my work there was done. So, I have moved on to a new role with my current company that is growing at breakneck speed. Our challenge here is to on-board, build, maintain, and grow—all the same time.
What skills or competencies did you need to advance in sales enablement? How did you gain those skills?
You have to be able to be a good instructional designer. If that's not your background, either learn it or hire someone who can do it for you. Sales eEnablement can have all the good ideas, but if they are executed poorly, then no one wins. I gained those skills from my studies as a teacher, and now my doctorate in instructional design.
You also have to have knowledge of how to sell. If you don't understand what happens in the sales cycle, you are not going to be able to assist other do it. I was in sales for six years and I learned sales the old-fashion way—by doing it. My previous company has a very traditional approach to sales. I could not have been more blessed to have that as my foundation as it helped me match proven sales methods to newer ones coming on the market.
What steps did you take to rise in your career? What is one of the greatest lessons you have learned from your career journey?
I am still growing in my career. I have been lucky to have opportunities open for me at the right time. As I mentioned earlier, I am a builder at heart. I look for opportunites to help build an organization with vision and strategy.
One of the greatest lessons I have learned is knowledge is meant to be shared. Hoarding knowledge will do no one any good. And if you are valued as someone to go to for help, your career will take off faster because of it because people trust and respect you in your organization.
Who do you look to for guidance and support? What about that relationship is most valuable?
This field is still evolving, so I find that I rely on a network of professionals across the spectrum. What that does for me is that it gives me such a wide prospective on leadership that I won't get wedged into my field and look at the bigger picture.
Other than the ASTD Sales Enablement Community of Practice, what are your go-to sources for professional inspiration and development? How do you stay current in the field?
I am currently enrolled in my doctorate program at Indiana University, so my world is knee-deep in academia. This is great because I can learn theory and immediately apply it to my work.
To stay current on sales, I read a lot. Currently, I am reading SalesHood by Elay Cohen. It was a recommedation from ExactTarget’s VP of Sales Enablement. But two of my favorite reads for Business are Tribes by Seth Godin and Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson because change is just so hard for people to accept.
How have you seen the sales enablement function change in the last 10 years?
Well, since I've been in Sales for just under 10 years, I have seen it go from just on-boarding and go model to more a career long path for people to continue to learn.
What are you most excited about in the profession today?
The best thing about this field is that it is relatively new—and still nimble. Many people are still trying to figure it out. With that, we are going to scrape our knees. But what is great is that we are the group that 25 years from now are going to be the ones to establish the best practices for the industry.
What advice would you give a young sales enablement professional?
Find someone who shares your style and passion and latch onto them early. We are all educators at heart in this field. I have found that you can learn more insight and skill in 30 minutes talking to a professional than five years in school.
What question would you like to pose to the community?
Like most professionals, my question is how do you measure ROI on what you do?
