Where Enablement Goes to Die: The First-Line Manager

0:00 If you really, really, really understand how to do true demand generation enterprise sales

0:06 rather than demand fulfillment, and I just kind of fell in love with that vision.

0:10 Allie Combs is the head of GTM enablement at Breton AI, and she has one of the sharpest

0:16 views I've ever heard on why most enablement programs quietly die. In sales, I do feel like

0:23 it's a bit of a tricky role to recruit for. What are some principles that people should

0:28 be looking out for? Because I see people probably misfire on hiring this role more than any other

0:36 role in the organization. You just don't know what you're going to get, because every salesperson is

0:41 going to say that they're the best. I know, it really is a completely different role. I started

0:48 LeanScale in 2021. RevOps essentially meant Salesforce, outreach, gong, if you were very,

0:55 very progressive. Yeah, I would emphasize that 100 times over. My experience over the last nine

1:00 months has been, and I think you'll see this all over the internet, too, but the vibe coding,

1:06 you do have to be really careful with. It can be buggy, it can hallucinate, it can do weird things.

1:23 Allie, you were already carrying a bag and selling when you took a pay cut and several

1:28 demotions to go back to being a BDR at AppDynamics. What did you see there that made that trade

1:35 obviously worth it? That's a great question. Certainly a unique move to make in your career.

1:43 And at the time, it was a difficult decision, obviously taking a pay cut and several demotions.

1:49 What really excited me and made me think that leap was this promise or this idea that

1:56 they were going to invest in me, educate me, really teach me how to do true enterprise selling.

2:02 In the years previous in my career, I had done channel sales, it was a bit more transactional,

2:08 still very in aggregate, large dollar volume of goods sold, if you will. But they painted this

2:16 vision for me of, look, you can own your own destiny and own your paycheck if you really,

2:22 really, really understand how to do true demand generation enterprise sales rather than

2:29 demand fulfillment. And I just fell in love with that vision of being in control of my destiny

2:36 and trusted. I had a good impression and trusted that they would do that and they did. It was

2:45 probably the best career decision I made in my whole life. I think it takes a lot of foresight

2:50 too, but I've always loved having a scoreboard because it's not up to whether somebody likes you,

2:57 somebody has a good perception of what you're doing, or they feel like you're doing a good job.

3:00 It's look at the scoreboard and who's on top and that's it. Exactly. And their whole business model

3:07 on bringing in people who are coachable and really investing in them and teaching them a repeatable,

3:13 scalable system that works is predicated on hiring very high performance, very driven

3:21 folks. And it's a meritocracy that used to say, like your success is up to you and

3:28 the people who are the most successful will be rewarded. And that came to life. It was a very

3:35 much promote from within culture. So you could see the dream happening all around you, which really

3:41 made you believe that you could be that person that got promoted. And that became true for me,

3:48 thankfully, because of all the people that invested in my learning when I was there.

3:54 I know a lot of people that have a tough time breaking out of that DDR role into that account

4:00 executive role. It sounds like one, make sure you're in a place that has the right culture that

4:06 is looking for those opportunities to promote outside of that though. Is there anything beyond

4:13 hitting your numbers and performing that you give as advice to a BDR trying to break into an AE role?

4:20 Yeah. And I've had this conversation many times through the years as I've talked to BDRs or even

4:24 young people who are kind of in commercial roles trying to break through the next ceiling into the

4:32 more of an enterprise space. And I think it always boils down to the person that is doing the

4:39 hiring needs to look across the field and go, I trust them. I want them. It's just like when

4:46 you're selling a deal and you need a champion to take your deal across the line. The hiring manager

4:51 who's going to hire you for the next role needs to want you above all else. So when I was in that

4:56 BDR role and it was a very highly competitive Salesforce, what I started to do naturally was say,

5:03 okay, how do I do the commercial role? And I started putting together, actually this was

5:10 in an office. So there was a printer. So I bought a binder, I bought tabs and I started to print out

5:17 the different templates and the sales process assets that we were following at the time.

5:24 And I started to learn what does it mean to do POVs? What does it mean to put together pricing?

5:31 What does it mean to put together a business case? And I'm a very tactile learner and it helped

5:39 prepare me for that role. But I think it also gave me exposure. So I would go and I would say,

5:45 hey, commercial manager, who's the best person on the team at making business cases? Or who's

5:50 the best person at POVs? And I would just go over to them and try and talk to them and figure out

5:57 what they were doing. And so I think it just goes back to that age old adage of you dress for the

6:02 job that you want, not the job that you have, and you prepare for the job that you want, not the job

6:07 that you have. So in my, you know, I was still doing great in my core job, but trying to prepare

6:12 myself for the next job. And I think that made a big difference. And obviously, through that process,

6:18 I made relationships so other people would vouch for me. And I got to know the hiring

6:23 managers at that next role level. And that was true, like almost in every promotion that I got,

6:30 that it was the hiring manager who had a relationship with who pulled me up.

6:35 And I often got pulled up earlier, I think, because when, you know, you have success and sales,

6:43 you're more likely to, you know, get pulled up. But that personal relationship was a really important

6:49 part of each of those promotions, especially early in my career, trying to break through

6:54 those barriers in a really competitive Salesforce. Yeah. And I think it's a mix of

7:03 absolutely like performing your core job, starting to reach into the new job, and then who you know,

7:08 and building the trust, because it is so much easier if we have somebody on the team, it's like,

7:13 hey, they're already actually kind of doing that job. Okay, if we're gonna, if we're gonna open

7:19 up the role, they're already doing it. So let's just give it to them. Why waste time opening up

7:24 a rack, looking for other people looking outside, you know, they're already doing it. So it, because

7:30 it's, I think a lot of people don't realize it's a big risk to hire someone. So any time you can

7:38 mitigate that risk by somebody already proving that they can get it done, is a huge win for

7:42 anybody hiring a role. I think it's so true. And I know this is a really practical tactical point,

7:49 but in today's day and age, if you're young and your sales career or your early in your sales

7:55 career for a BDR, I would highly recommend going somewhere where you can be in office with people

8:02 so that you can make those relationships and you can learn faster. It is so hard to learn remote,

8:07 what you can learn in an office comparatively. Because you can go sneak in a conference room

8:13 and hide in the corner while, well, while a peer does a presentation. I mean, you just make so many

8:20 more relationships. So I would highly recommend that to especially young career people, BDRs,

8:30 commercial sellers who want to promote quickly, go where you can actually be in an office with people

8:35 and learn faster and make those relationships. I would 100% agree. And I do feel for people who

8:42 are just getting into the workforce right now, because you never know what you're doing, right,

8:48 when you start. And those relationships are everything. And it's very, very difficult to

8:53 build remote. So even, let's say somebody is listening and they are in a remote role,

9:01 at least look for some opportunity. Like is there a customer conference that you can request to be

9:06 in person at? Is there some reason to travel to the home office if there is one? Is there a

9:12 trade show that you can go to like, look for any excuse to go find people in person, even if you

9:18 have to travel to do it. But yes, I agree. Ideally, if you can get in a place that has an office,

9:24 I think that would be huge. But the other thing there, if you're remote, is go ask for a formal

9:31 mentoring relationship with an amazing seller or a new first-line leader. A lot of sellers who want

9:37 to become managers should be, will be encouraged to take on those mentorship roles to prepare them

9:44 to be a manager. Because back to your point on doing the job before you have the job,

9:50 if you're saying a really successful enterprise seller looking to go into sales management,

9:54 how great is it for you to have a roster of mentees that you've coached to prove that you're

9:59 a great coach? So I think that can be a really good workaround to help accomplish some of the

10:07 same as well. And then of course, just being really intentional when you're at sales kickoff,

10:11 when you're at QBRs, don't just stick to the people you know, go get uncomfortable,

10:15 go meet new people, go mingle at the table with all the execs, you know, they, they see that too.

10:24 Absolutely. I am, I would love to hear. So you went PDR count executive, you had an amazing run

10:31 in that position. And then you made a big, a big pivot, a big change into getting into enablement.

10:39 How did that happen? What was drawing you to that role? What did you see where you felt you could

10:45 really add a lot of value making impact? Yeah, there were the sales sort of mentor in my life

10:52 that ultimately sold me on this idea. And the heart of it was, I know how hard sales can be,

11:00 I know how much it changed my life, and my future children's life and probably their children's

11:04 life. And how fulfilling would it be to wake up every day and think, man, if I can just have

11:10 the tiniest bit of impact on someone else being able to provide for their future and for their

11:16 family, and to be able to reach their dreams and goals, that is such a meaningful way to spend my

11:22 time. And so that that's ultimately what got me to make the leap after almost a decade of selling

11:28 myself. And I just fell fell in love with it quickly. I think there's a lot of people that

11:37 maybe don't understand enablement very well. I think it's a really misunderstood department

11:41 in the go-to-market landscape. From your perspective, what is enablement and what are

11:48 the core things that you own if you're in an enablement role? Yeah, I completely agree. I think

11:56 it's very misunderstood. I think a lot of people have had mediocre or bad experiences with enablement.

12:02 I think a lot of places have very mediocre enablement programs. And I think if we go back

12:11 to just fundamentally, what is the job of enablement? It goes back to making sure that

12:18 the go-to-market teams have the knowledge, skills, and resources to do their job.

12:23 The hard part about that is that sellers, and I'm one of them, so I can say this with love,

12:28 don't like to be told what to do. They've got to go on a hit. They've got a paycheck that they want

12:32 to make. They don't really necessarily want someone to tell them how to do their job.

12:39 And so the enablement and the programs and the systems have to be built in a way that

12:47 empowers them to make the right decisions and makes it their idea ultimately. And of course,

12:56 you want to hire people who are coachable. That is an essential part of making a repeatable,

13:03 scalable business is getting people to operate in the same or similar way. But yeah, I would totally

13:13 agree. Unfortunately, a lot of enablement programs can be moderately effective or ineffective.

13:23 I've seen that too. And I think I've seen a lot of people who maybe take the approach of,

13:27 oh, it's a training team. And maybe they put together the training materials and they'll

13:32 go over like how we're doing med pick here or something, and then they'll record some things

13:35 and send it out. I've seen that version of enablement. Then I've seen the enablement version

13:41 where they are deeply ingrained in how we're selling, why we're winning, why we're losing,

13:48 working across sales, marketing, product, and aligning the things that the team really needs

13:55 to win, and even leaning in on some strategy of positioning and where to go.

14:00 Are there any non-obvious things that you have done that have added a lot of value in enablement

14:07 that maybe some enablement people aren't really doing or taking initiative on?

14:13 Yeah, I think one of the most underrated levers, and this is more than just enablement, but it

14:20 certainly should be a really foundational core component of enablement, is investing in

14:26 first line managers. And for anybody who's been a seller, and you think back to that time you went

14:34 to that training session, and they told you to do something, and it felt kind of like work,

14:39 you're not sure you're totally bought in. What do you do? You probably talk to your peers,

14:44 but ultimately you end up talking to your one-on-one and your one-on-one to your manager, and you go,

14:49 "Do I really have to do that?" And in that moment, the change that the business is trying to drive

14:59 lives or dies. When the first line manager is able to inspire their reps to change their behavior

15:11 intrinsically and is able to, just like we do for customers, connecting their pains

15:15 and their goals to our solution, you kind of end up doing the same thing with sales reps to say,

15:19 "Well, look, I know you're trying to achieve X, Y, and Z. Here's how this is going to help

15:25 you ultimately achieve your goals," and then you work on it together. And so I think the first line

15:31 sales manager is the hardest job in SaaS, in my opinion, and is one of the most under-invested

15:43 areas. They just deserve all the love and all the enablement and all the support that they can get.

15:53 I think that makes a ton of sense, especially the way you framed it. Your enablement is going to

15:57 live or die with that front line manager, and I do think a lot of enablement teams, and just

16:01 companies in general, they focus on like, "Okay, how do we need to get the salesperson trained,

16:07 prepared? What materials do they need?" And really, really focusing a lot of that love and attention

16:12 on that level of the organization, and then pretty much saying, "Managers, you figured out. That's why

16:17 you made you a manager, right? You just do it on your own. I didn't know you needed help anymore,

16:23 but what are some of the ways that you have enabled frontline managers or given them

16:31 the attention they deserve? What does that look like when you're doing it well?"

16:35 Yeah. I think one, it starts from the top down and it trickles at every level, right? So when

16:40 you have a CRO who's truly passionate and truly invested from the top down in investing in the

16:47 leaders below them, it models that behavior for the entire sales leadership team. So that practically

16:54 can look like the way the CRO talks about, talks to, treats their next level of leaders and all the

17:04 leaders in their org. That can look like how they set expectations in how their leaders treat their

17:13 people. So it's almost like when your kids or your parenting, your kids will do what they see

17:23 more than they will do what they're told. So I think that is an essential part of

17:29 creating that type of culture and that kind of atmosphere is they need to see it demonstrated

17:33 from the top down. And then I think on a practical level, it takes time and money. You pull them out

17:42 of the field, which can feel very counterintuitive, especially to execs who maybe don't quite

17:50 understand the importance or the impact of it. You have to get them away from people. Otherwise,

17:56 they will not take the time to invest and develop their own skills, or they'll be leaving their

18:03 training session to go on to a critical deal call. And they've got to realize, you're a great

18:10 manager if your team can operate well without you. Your job is almost to exist to replace yourself

18:17 and to build up the next generation of leaders. And so one of the things I've been lucky enough

18:24 to experience in my life a couple of times are those leadership trainings. I've worked for some

18:30 amazing CROs before. Some of my favorite career experiences have been those leadership trainings.

18:38 Just to provide a specific example, I remember there was, it was a two or three-day period.

18:44 We rented out a ballroom, and it was just for the leaders. And we spent two or three days

18:51 on two of the three R's. Now, have you heard of the three R's?

18:57 I would love if you can share.

18:59 Yeah, it's a fairly popular leadership framework, but just for anybody who hasn't heard it, it's

19:04 recruit, retain, and revenue. So what that means is you recruit great people who want to learn

19:10 and become better. You retain them by developing them, developing their skill set, helping them

19:15 progress in their career. And then when it comes to revenue, obviously, your job as a sales leader

19:19 ultimately is to bring revenue across the line. So you're in the boat with your team,

19:25 being a value add, actually helping them close deals. In that, I think it was a two to three-day

19:31 training. We actually really only focused on two of the three R's. That's how maniacal we were,

19:38 and how detailed and how in-depth we were. And now, it seems like a simple concept,

19:45 but there is so much skill when it comes to being a great leader. And so I feel really

19:52 fortunate that I've gotten to work for some great CROs who, one, understood the importance and the

19:58 power of investing in the sales leaders, especially the first-line managers. And we're willing to take

20:04 the time and the money and take people out of the field to truly invest in them and their career

20:11 growth. And the fun part about all this is it actually does change people's lives. It absolutely

20:16 does. I know I've been the beneficiary of some fantastic leaders that have invested in me, given

20:22 me a shot. And it has fundamentally changed my life, my career, the opportunities I have for my

20:29 family. It won 100%. And it's so fulfilling when you get to do that for somebody else too.

20:38 Give somebody a chance, coach them up, train them up, and then you see them leading.

20:42 I'm curious, in the ballroom, what were the two R's that the team paid special attention to?

20:49 It was recruiting and retaining. And they used to say, and this might seem counterintuitive,

20:53 because especially for a first-time manager, someone's natural instinct is, "I was a great rep.

21:00 I can make you a great rep." But what ends up happening is they get so involved in the deal,

21:04 so then they kind of, what we have turned before, are super-repping, where they almost step in and

21:09 do the job for the rep. And the rep isn't learned that way, but it's a natural human

21:16 instinct to try and take over, because they know what to do to get the deal done. Now,

21:22 the saying goes, "If you recruit great people and you develop them, revenue takes care of itself."

21:30 So there is a lot to learn still on how do you help someone execute revenue without just doing

21:36 the job for them, so they learn well along the way. That all gets much easier if you've recruited

21:43 someone who's intelligent with great character and hungry for coaching, and you retain them by

21:53 developing them and helping them learn and feel like they're bettering themselves in their career

21:59 every day. In sales, I do feel like it's a bit of a tricky role to recruit for. What are some

22:08 principles that people should be looking out for? Because I see people probably misfire on hiring

22:14 this role more than any other role in the organization. Yeah, it's really hard. I don't

22:21 think there are any silver bullets. There's a fairly well-known popular hiring framework called

22:27 ICE, which is intelligence, character, credibility, and experience. And again, it can be sort of a

22:34 natural human nature to think, "I want to hire someone who has the most experience." Well,

22:40 if you ever ask a salesperson if they're great, their answer is always that they're the best.

22:48 What? No way. Yeah, yeah. And so when you hire for experience, which again is natural human

22:59 nature to think, "Well, if they've done it before, they'll come here and they'll be able to do it

23:02 again." But ultimately, you just don't know what you're going to get because every salesperson is

23:07 going to say that they're the best. And so I think of those criteria, the focus really is

23:15 intelligence and more than intelligence, character, and credibility. And the really tricky hard part

23:23 about interviewing is you can't just ask someone, "Tell me about a time when you were coachable."

23:32 Or, "Tell me about a time when you showed that you had great character." Because they'll

23:36 just tell you what you want to hear. You almost have to manufacture a situation that tests for

23:44 coachability or for character. And I can give you a funny example. The worst interview I've ever had

23:51 in my life was with that same mentor who I still talk to today and I love and respect so much and

23:59 has changed my life in many ways. But I went to go work directly for him in my first enablement role.

24:06 I would say he's very masterful at this type of interviewing. I remember he at some point in the

24:16 interview was kind of like, "How do you think this is going?" And he had purposely sort of

24:22 thrown off the interview and put me in a situation where I should be feeling like maybe this isn't

24:29 going as good as I thought it was. It was very reasonable for me to go into that interview

24:34 thinking, "I've got it. It's a slam dunk." I was a very successful rep where we both worked together

24:40 at Appianemics before. It would have been reasonable for me to just come in with a chip on my

24:45 shoulder and think, "I got this. You need me. I don't need you." And so I really appreciate that

24:52 he sort of manufactured that system, I think, just to see how I would react. Do I get defensive

25:01 or do I stop and look for coaching and stay curious and stay humble? And I remember

25:13 leaving that interview, writing him an email, kind of like, "Here's what I learned. Here's

25:20 what I think I would do differently next time." And I think, and this is not at all to suit my

25:26 own form, it was just seared into my brain because it was so shocking and uncomfortable for me

25:32 because I would say it took a total turn from what I was expecting. But I think that's an

25:41 interesting example of... How did you respond? How did you respond when he asked you that?

25:47 I've never been asked that in an interview, ever. Yeah. Well, I could feel that from his energy and

25:57 his body language that it wasn't going as well as I wanted it to go. So I just started, I was just

26:04 very vulnerable and honest, which is hard to do when you're interviewing for a job because again,

26:09 the human nature is to say, "I'm great," and to present the best version of yourself because you're

26:15 trying to sell yourself into the role. But what I look for when I'm interviewing people and what I

26:22 think he was looking for in that moment is, "I know you're great, otherwise I wouldn't be at this

26:28 point with you, but I want to make sure that you're still humble and you're curious and you're

26:34 coachable and you're willing to learn because we're going to do some hard things together."

26:41 SAS is a hard job. This is a hard way to make a living. So you really need people who

26:47 are in the boat with you, who are willing to learn, who are humble, who can work through conflict

26:53 and do hard things. And so, yeah, I look for that myself. In fact, one of the best hires I

27:00 made on my enablement team when I was hiring enablement people, I vividly remember

27:07 sort of challenging her in a panel. And her instinct was similar. She just stopped and she

27:15 said, "Yeah," and asked some questions about what we were pushing her on. And instead of getting

27:22 defensive, she just stopped and she truly tried to listen and truly tried to learn. And to this day,

27:31 she's one of the, I think, highest performing people I've ever had a privilege of personally

27:37 hiring on a team of mine and very, very successful in her career too.

27:47 Do you have any other ways to kind of inspect those two things during an interview process?

27:53 I really love that one. I might be stealing that one. Any other way to test those things

28:00 about their character? Yeah, I hope that other people, once this podcast comes out, chime in

28:09 with their ideas on how to do this because I don't have all the answers myself. But some other things

28:15 that come to mind when it comes to trying to understand character and coachability are

28:21 understanding what people's hobbies are. What do they do outside of work? You're A players who are

28:27 high performers in life. Typically are high performers outside of work too. They have

28:33 often unique and interesting hobbies. They have high achievements. I'm thinking back to

28:43 one of the other gals I worked with. She was a peer on an enablement team that I was a part of.

28:49 She was an award-winning mortician. Her father. Yes, that's a real story. She's great. And her

28:58 father was, you know, owned a mortuary and was a mortician. And she thought she wanted to do that.

29:04 But it just goes to show you there's that pattern of high performance and everything that you do.

29:09 I didn't know they handed out awards for that. I didn't know where where's the

29:12 conference and who's judging this? Yeah, it's news to me as well. But when she said that,

29:17 I thought I'm not surprised because it's like everything she does, she puts her heart and soul

29:22 into. She's a very high performer. So I think that's one way is what are your hobbies and

29:28 interests and how do you spend your time outside of work? And are they doing hard things? Are they,

29:34 you know, other examples I remember from interviews and from great, great people have turned out to be

29:40 great are things like sports or marathons, you know, like they volunteer to put themselves in

29:48 uncomfortable hard situations or they have causes that are near and dear to their heart and they

29:53 raise money for, you know, you know, start a charity, you know, start a charity or something

30:01 like that. So I think I think that can be that can be kind of interesting. I want to know that

30:06 you have something else going on other than other than work. No, I think that's really helpful just

30:12 to get an understanding. Hey, what's the full body of work of this person and just unique ways to get

30:20 because when you're hiring salespeople, usually they're they're good at selling themselves. So

30:25 telling you what you want to hear and knowing what the right answer is. So I think some of these

30:29 little like, Hey, let's throw a curveball here or there or kind of get off the typical interview

30:36 script are really, really helpful to help understand like, Hey, is this person going to

30:40 be a good fit here? Are they going to put in the work in the effort? Or were they just

30:45 moving between SAS jobs and bagging their ramp time and moving on to the next one?

30:51 Yeah, there's probably one more I'd add to that list that just came to mind too is

30:55 that remind me based on something that you said is get them out of the office. It goes back to

31:01 the whole beer test. Like if especially if you have a choice between a couple people,

31:07 this was advice given to me, but pick the person who you'd want to go have a beer with.

31:15 And I think I think just getting someone out of the office is really helpful to just let their

31:21 you know, hopefully let their guard down and see who they really are because you need to get to

31:24 know them as a person. And I'll give you one more random one as these keep coming to mind. I had an

31:31 old stereo talk about how when he's in an interview, he will ask people about their friendships and

31:43 what he's looking for are people who have had same or similar friends from for a long time.

31:50 And he sees that as a sign of character of, you know, I think about my husband, he still has a

31:56 guy's weekend with his friends from elementary school. They're in their mid 40s now. And every

32:04 single year, they make a point to get together and they play golden eye and they go play sports and

32:09 play pickleball and they play poker, you know, and they just have a ball and they've been friends

32:14 since elementary and middle school and now they're all, you know, mid 40s. So I think that's a good

32:22 sign of character too is if you kind of kept some of those same friendships. And then I'll throw

32:27 you I'll throw one more at you and you can edit these however you want to. One more would be

32:34 a COO I interviewed with. And I think this is fairly popular too, but understanding someone's

32:42 why and he, but he specifically had a unique take on it, which was what happened to you when you were

32:49 earlier in life that made you who you are today. And he said, oftentimes there's something that

32:56 happened often when you're a teenager or you're a child, whether it's your parents got divorced or

33:04 they lost, you know, your parent lost their job or you had to move and leave all your friends

33:13 behind. Like there are these really informative experiences that happen in your childhood and

33:18 adolescence that can really shape who you are and your motivations as an adult. And I thought that

33:23 was a really, really unique take. And he said, a really reliable source for him and hiring great

33:29 people is understanding that. And then I'll throw one more. This is especially random at you. Yes,

33:35 one of my, one of my favorite sales leader leaders. And I have, I have a couple, but Josh Reiner,

33:40 who's now the CRO at tactile. I remember interviewing with him. He's the, he's the one

33:46 who gave me kind of my first big job that was out in the field. And the reason I moved from Dallas

33:50 to Kansas city. And I remember him telling me that one of his tall tell signs when he's interviewing

33:56 reps is he will try to take a car ride with them in their car when they drive. And he said,

34:02 he has never hired a bad rep who when they're driving will switch lanes to just get a little

34:11 further ahead. So, you know, when you're, you know, when you're driving and you know, there's

34:16 naturally those types of people who are willing to stay in the long line in the left hand lane,

34:21 even though the right lane is totally clear. And then you have people who can not physically

34:26 stand it. I'm that way. I can't, I can't handle it. I can't stay in the long line. If I can get,

34:33 if I get ahead by going to the right lane to pass people, I will. And so I thought that was such a

34:38 funny, weird, such a funny, weird example, but he said it's never let them down. So there's a,

34:44 there's a bunch of random, random examples for you. No, I think those are great because it has

34:49 to be the non-obvious stuff that they're not preparing for. Nobody was thinking that they

34:55 would have been evaluated based on how they switch lanes or not. And I was wondering,

35:01 did he mention anything about the cleanliness of the car? I know that's one that I've heard before.

35:06 Maybe it doesn't matter in sales. You can have a messy car and still hit your quota. I don't know.

35:11 I don't remember him mentioning that. I do think there's some degree of a reflection of character.

35:19 With how clean, how clean your car is now. I would say that I have toddlers, my car is not that,

35:25 not that clean, but you're not going to see the front seats clean though. That's the front seats

35:30 are clean. There's toys in the back. It's very obvious that I have children. Yeah, but there's

35:34 not old food and there's not, you know, it's not gross. So I, I, I believe he did not mention that,

35:41 but I do think that's an interesting sign of a character and also a little easier to orchestrate

35:47 when you're leaving an interview is like walking someone to their car and getting a peek in it

35:51 versus actually finding yourself writing somewhere with them. But I think that's a good one too.

35:58 No, those are great. Those are great. And I think a lot of people,

36:01 again, they have a tough time interviewing for this role and knowing should I make a decision

36:07 or not? But it's because they're typically staying at the surface level that anybody's going to be

36:12 prepared for and probably give you an answer that you want to hear for. So some of these non-obvious

36:16 things are really helpful. I'm, I'm wondering moving to the retention side. I also, as hard

36:24 it is to recruit a good salesperson, I think it's even harder to retain a good salesperson. And

36:31 there are so many factors that go into that. Is the product good? Is there growth? Do they

36:37 have a good territory? Do they have a team around them? Oh my goodness. To keep the good ones,

36:42 because people will be reaching out to them. They can move on at any point in time. What

36:49 recommendations do you have to maximize retainment of your best reps?

36:55 I actually think it's pretty simple. If they are making money and they feel like they're being

37:01 developed and they're learning and they're growing in their career, they will stay. I think it's that

37:08 simple. Are there certain major mistakes that you think people make that really compromise any of

37:13 those? I mean, I think a lot of it goes back to that relationship between the rep and their first

37:22 line manager. A really, really common mistake is letting one-on-ones turn into deal reviews.

37:30 If our one-on-ones are just a never-ending deal review, I might be learning a little bit,

37:41 but you're not helping me think like a business person or to learn how to be a critical thinker

37:47 and owner of my own franchise. If you think back to those leadership trainings I was talking about

37:54 is one of the things we would spend a lot of time on is how do you renovate one-on-one and

38:02 how much prep that takes. At First Line Manager, we used to say you spend an hour for each rep on

38:09 your team on a Friday preparing for a one-on-one. We used to describe it as the most important

38:15 meeting of the whole week. If you think about it, it makes sense because if you can empower

38:20 someone to be more effective, if you are empowering them to become a better seller and improve in

38:28 their career and they can really see how that's going to help them make more money and reach their

38:35 goals, then the rest of the week is going to be more productive and you can sort of scale yourself

38:42 in that way. It goes back to the whole, you know, sharpen your axe before you cut down a forest,

38:46 but I think so many people and again it's just human nature. They don't prepare for one-on-ones,

38:53 they show up reactively, they don't truly focus on understanding their sales reps

39:02 wise and what motivates them in order to underpin those development conversations in a really

39:08 positive, effective manner and then it's just so easy to let one-on-ones become just elongated

39:17 deal reviews and I think you got to step back and think, okay, if I'm my sales rep and I'm leading

39:23 that one-on-one, how do I feel? Am I empowered? Am I belittled? Am I annoyed? Did that make a

39:30 difference in their life? You know, so we'd spend a lot of time about on how to do a great one-on-one,

39:36 how to prepare for a great one-on-one and so much of the development starts in those one-on-one

39:43 relationships. How do you have a great one-on-one? In a lot of leadership trainings that I went to,

39:50 we followed a similar formula and it was one, understanding their data, helping them understand

40:00 their data and that is starts with two major sections which is pipeline generation and visible

40:10 opportunities or qualified opportunities is basically just what are the opportunities that

40:14 you have in your pipe and all of that is underpinned by a concept of leading indicators

40:22 which I hope every organization adopts if they don't already. Are you familiar with the leading

40:29 indicator concept? I'm familiar with leading indicators unless there's something particular

40:35 about how it relates to one-on-ones. Not necessarily, I guess just maybe just for anybody who's listening,

40:43 leading indicators as a concept will be pretty simple which is here are the, you know, if you're

40:50 achieving these metrics ultimately over time we know that by achieving these metrics you are likely

40:56 to achieve your ultimate goal. So some examples of leading indicators that we've had in the past in

41:01 a sales capacity are, you know, 10 new business meetings a quarter, two POVs which is proof of

41:11 values or like technical validations, one business value assessment and then two deals in commit of a

41:20 significant size and two deals in upside of a significant size and if you are hitting each of

41:28 those leading indicators quarter over quarter over quarter that ensures you have enough new pipeline

41:34 and that ensures you have enough pipeline qualified opportunities that are progressing

41:40 of a large enough size to help you meet your goal and when I was a sales rep at AppDynamics

41:48 this was a really really really important big concept and they modeled our leading indicators

41:53 off of hitting, you know, if you basically if you hit these quarter over quarter over quarter

41:58 you won't just hit your goal you'll get to 150 or 200 percent of your goal because those at times

42:04 were hard to hit. Now here's where the connection is between a leading indicator and a great one-on-one.

42:09 Now like I talked about before as a sales rep part of being developed by my first-line manager

42:17 is understanding how to think like a business person and an owner of my franchise.

42:22 So rather than just thinking deal the deal or doing deal reviews all the time I have leaders

42:29 who spent time thinking about my business and helped model that thinking for me to say hey

42:35 how is your pipeline generation? I noticed XYZ insights in how your how many discoveries you

42:43 need to do before you can book an MBM or how many MBMs convert to a qualified opportunity.

42:48 Hey you're a little behind on this leading indicator let's figure out why let's get a plan

42:53 together. Okay if we look at your deals let's actually look into you know your little light

43:02 on VVAs or POVs let's figure out why or your POVs are converting like crazy but yet you don't have

43:09 enough and commit everything's sitting in upside let's dig into why. So that leading indicator

43:15 concept and being an owner of your franchise helps that one-on-one become more valuable and more

43:24 developmental when your leader can model for you how to think strategically about your business.

43:32 I think that makes a ton of sense and again going away from hey we're just doing a deal review

43:38 over and over and over and over again but like helping you understand how to coach yourself

43:42 how can I operate a little bit differently not just to meet the goal but there's nobody who

43:48 gets in sales who's not thinking about their paycheck so how do we crush your goal and really

43:54 get you in a position to be successful here. I think that applies that's why I love sales

44:02 because they're just tangible numbers to it but I do think that concept still applies to other roles

44:09 too. For sure and if you think about the whole business model and again this is something that

44:16 I got to live as a sales rep at Dynamics so that was a very formative time but

44:27 the whole concept builds on itself if I'm a sales rep who got to be a part of this

44:32 system and and saw a leader who invested in me and really helped me be better you know I took

44:39 the enablement path but you know probably the majority of people want to go be be sales leaders

44:47 but what have you then modeled for them you have modeled world-class sales leadership

44:52 so now they get promoted and they're a better leader because they've experienced better

44:57 leadership and they're a much better first-line leader because they have the programs and the

45:02 systems and the willingness from the tops down to continue to coach and develop them as sales

45:06 leaders to be better and better better sales leaders and then if you think about everyone

45:12 else in the whole culture in the org when you see people's careers progress you believe and and you

45:19 want to stay somewhere that has that culture and and the you know you know the grass isn't greener

45:26 and and because you see the success of others and the career progression of others happening

45:32 you believe hey this is the right place and and that's going to happen for me too

45:39 and when you can do that it's such an amazing opportunity to pass that baton down I am

45:47 last thing I'm hoping we can cover that I think would be really helpful for anybody who's in an

45:53 enablement role in a sales management role operationally how do you like to set up your

46:01 enablement department what tools are you using what processes are you following are there any

46:07 rhythms that you're running that keep you aligned with the sales organization what does it look

46:14 like operationally to run enablement yeah I think there's probably a couple of founding

46:24 principles or elements I think obviously as the company scales and the size of the company

46:30 changes it it morphs a little bit I think it starts with being a really tight-knit team between

46:39 the especially the head of sales enablement and rev ops and coming together looking at the data

46:49 and starting to identify where in our business model are things broken and we're going to

46:57 identify those problems and we're going to solve them together because they're all intertwined

47:03 so in my career I've done a lot of coming in with a new CRO who's who's been hired to scale a

47:10 company a lot of times it was hey come be our CRO we've got great product market set we've got

47:20 great growth but we need to scale to get to that IPO point and so they're they're coming in with

47:26 that sort of playbook formula of a repeatable scalable business motion and you can't flip a

47:34 switch and make that change overnight so there's a lot more to build that culture and that vision

47:44 and it takes some time it takes a lot more than enablement but I would say fundamentally a good

47:50 place to start is what are our you know kind of what's my conversion funnel of my business

47:58 therefore where are the core problems that we need to move therefore across revenue sales

48:04 leadership and enablement we're all on the same page and we're focused on moving a metric

48:12 you know kind of or like one or two metrics at a time

48:16 until you slowly create that system and that culture around you

48:23 now if you want to get a little more tactical on some of those like universal elements I would say

48:29 obviously you need a repeatable sales process that captures data in the right way so that way

48:37 you're able to identify problems more smartly and that again also has to do with revops and your

48:43 sales leader I would say practical things in the enablement world and anybody in enablement

48:51 I don't you know none of this is going to be revolutionary but you want to have you know the

48:57 training experiences and the and the tools that create those high quality training experiences

49:04 you want to make it easy for the sales perhaps and the sales leaders to do the right best thing

49:10 so practically speaking it's having the right content management systems and having helpful

49:18 programming so there's a difference between hey I have kind of like a weekly or monthly

49:25 updates call on sort of lightish change management maybe a pricing quick quick pricing change it's

49:33 not too difficult a system change a tool change things like that versus your larger programs

49:40 so we used to have as part of our rhythm here's an example our regular enablement

49:47 kind of update call but then quarterly we would always have sometimes you know one or two bigger

49:54 programs and we would do a series and there was always you know a we were trying to drive

50:02 behavior change to solve a problem that was in our business and really change change behavior so

50:09 an example one of those was rolling out the concept of a three wise business case

50:14 or you know focusing on discovery to try and move our you know our conversion funnel in the

50:22 right direction for early stage cycles things like that so I'm throwing some random stuff at you

50:29 that's a very very weighty question we could talk for hours about that no I'm sure I think

50:37 I think there's some just foundations and and I think you threw out a lot of them that are

50:43 really helpful that I think some enablement teams just need maybe to know like hey this

50:49 is under my purview this is something I should be doing and one I always just like asking are there

50:53 any tools that you're using that you're a big fan of in the enablement space right now I also

50:58 know this is a very big like build versus buy moment for a lot of people so are there tools

51:05 that you're choosing to build on your own yeah yeah we there man the world has changed so rapidly

51:13 in the last 12 months when it comes to GTM tooling one of my favorites right now is lovable now for

51:20 context I'm in a series B very freshly series B startup with a you know a small team we have

51:29 under a dozen sellers and instead of you know I was the first enablement hire here

51:35 and instead of coming in and buying a typical tech stack which would be something like you

51:40 know an LMS a CMS some BI tools to visualize data some tools like you know people like back story

51:48 to scrape calendars and pick up data and there's so many tools out now that the amount of spam

51:56 that I get for GTM tools is out of this world now instead of spending six to twelve months

52:06 and five different procurement cycles and hundreds of thousands of dollars

52:11 I just vibe coded a simple LMS and CMS and reporting stack I've now also integrated

52:21 we call it the GTM machine and I own it which means I can change the code anytime I love

52:28 having that power I don't have time to wait on answers for someone I don't want to have to go

52:34 to IT or to other teams to wait on answers for anything and so the flexibility that has come from

52:42 vibe coding our core stack has just been immense and it's been it's been really really fun so

52:50 right right now I'm using lovable for that but we do I built my I built our forecasting tool

52:55 I built all the reporting we just built a lead routing mechanism everything's connected to

52:59 Salesforce you know all the other tools that we use I'm building right now a comp intel battlecard

53:10 chatbot that's connected to slack that pulls competitive mentions and auto updates

53:18 you know from real conversations our kill points and our perspectives and our experiences that

53:22 we're hearing from customers to empower reps to have better comp intel responses

53:27 I mean there's there's so many cool things that you can vibe code now

53:31 I know it really is a completely different world like I started lean scale in 2021 revops essentially

53:38 meant sales force outreach gong if you were very very progressive but now it's it's a lot of the

53:48 focus has turned into like how can we create a data model to where ally can build whatever

53:55 tool she wants on top of it so how do we make sure the transcripts are stored in the right way

54:00 the account information is connected in the right way you have semantic layer that can

54:05 help the AI understand what everything means context graph to help make sure all the points

54:10 are connected and everything's connected in the right way that has become probably the biggest

54:15 focus of the work to unlock all of those tools you're talking about where before it was more like

54:23 hey the role is let's go find the tools and then we'll go implement them now it's let's get the

54:29 data model airtight and then let's just go get building yeah I would emphasize that 100 times

54:34 over my experience over the last nine months has been and I think you'll see this in all over

54:42 LinkedIn and the internet too but the vibe coding you do have to be really careful with it can be

54:46 buggy it can hallucinate it can do weird things so I have I have spent and continue to keep an

54:54 eye on you know sort of babysitting things one thing that we're working on like you said is

55:03 my revop scale is actually building kind of that in between layer you're talking about

55:07 because part of the way that you de-risk a vibe coded app is by having that data layer in between

55:14 so my vibe coded app doesn't need to do the really complex logic that I that I'm trying to get it to

55:19 do because I'm trying to report on specific behavior or activity or metric results when you take

55:26 the the complex reasoning out of the vibe coded app and put it into something that's really solid

55:31 like I think we're gonna do you know like sales like sales like it basically becomes sales like

55:38 because it's Salesforce to Snowflake to then whatever you want to attach on the other side

55:43 that's essentially what they've turned themselves into is just a massive data warehouse

55:47 that everybody just already has in their company but people aren't even logging into Salesforce

55:51 anywhere so it's essentially Salesflake I love that it is so so yeah so that's our that's kind

55:57 of our next iteration is that data layer and there will be more more to it than than just that

56:04 you know I want to be careful about what I what I share but but I completely agree with with with

56:11 what you're saying the amazing part about vibe coding apps is the usability and the UI and the

56:17 flexibility and that you know the the freedom and the power that it gives me but you do have to be

56:21 so so so careful especially if you think about you know the stuff that we're collecting and

56:28 reporting on in there will be a part of board presentations that you know there's a zero

56:33 tolerance for error so we're doing some cool things in that data layer like you said to

56:37 tighten up some of those vibe codey issues that those apps tend to have yeah no and there's

56:46 definitely a point where it's like hey we need a level of governance and you know security

56:52 and when all the boring stuff starts becoming important that's when you should just go buy

56:56 something but if it's a fun UI layer workflow then I think I have a good time with those

57:02 yeah I will say though that I never want to buy another SCORM tool ever

57:06 for all my enablement people that are listening I bet they're cheering or giggling to themselves

57:11 we used to pay a lot of money for all the people on my team who are building coursework to have a

57:18 SCORM tool for anybody who doesn't know that's a really popular file type that typically your

57:24 learning management systems will use so you use your SCORM tool to create the course you upload

57:29 the course to your LMS like a mind tickle or something like that it takes hours days of course

57:39 building coursework is takes so much longer than than than most people realize in the LMS I'm able

57:46 to vibe code the courses and it's so much faster than than using these old old traditional SCORM

57:55 tools and it is just pennies on the dollar so that that's one thing that I think um you know

58:02 they might SCORM tools might be dead no don't don't don't come at me on that there's probably

58:07 other people who would disagree but but I'm interested some some of these tools deserve to

58:12 die so I'm not I'm not uh I'm not sad about it anything that you think is gonna be a trend in

58:20 the future of enablement any foundations you think will carry along no matter what AI happens to

58:26 become where do you think this is all going more and more people are going to need to experience

58:35 the learning and be empowered to come to the right conclusions rather than you know in the

58:44 past it was it was pretty simple it was just simpler times were simpler you know you had

58:53 a template for your business case that's all you had well now people are it's so easy to make

58:59 templates all the time I think one of the challenges that we're going to have as an

59:06 as an enablement team is how do you sort of rein in and still create consistency that creates

59:12 a repeatable business model when it's very easy now to go rogue and go build your own resources

59:19 and build your own build you know almost build your own sales culture and sales sales methodology

59:28 and and so I think in large companies that's going to it's going to get harder and harder

59:33 to do that but I also think the way that people experience tools and want to learn and want to

59:40 operate has changed immensely gone are the days of here's a acronym for how you write

59:49 a a really good email to an executive prospect they don't want that they want a tool that does

59:57 it for them so I think I think there's going to be some fundamental questions of how how do

1:00:06 you enable them to be effective and where do you start to do work for them and then at what point

1:00:12 is that too much that you've done and you've taken away all the thinking so you know I'm

1:00:18 super eager to super eager to see but people's expectations are certainly changing on how they

1:00:24 learn what they learn the tools that they use what's done for them and what they have to do

1:00:29 and I think a lot of that is good and I think some of that comes with some inherent challenges

1:00:33 that are going to be tricky to figure out I agree well I think with everything else in GTM

1:00:41 six months 12 months from now we probably won't even recognize half the stuff we do

1:00:46 and I think it's changing so fast and it's just really important to be to be up to date but

1:00:50 I really appreciate everything you shared on the podcast today I think so many people

1:00:55 have a real tough time understanding exactly what an element does and I appreciate the depth that

1:01:00 you've taken the function and how you've helped the companies that you've helped I'm also a big

1:01:05 fan of the 3R system that you went through especially focused on recruitment and retainment

1:01:10 and exactly what to do with those I am stealing half of those interview questions and techniques

1:01:15 I don't know if I'll be able to sneak into somebody's car but I'm gonna do my best and also

1:01:21 I really appreciate the formula for a one-on-one and how to manage and bring up the next generation

1:01:28 of leaders so Ali I appreciate you being on the podcast everything you shared and I can't wait

1:01:34 to see what you do next in your career thanks it's been it's been a pleasure to be here I really

1:01:40 appreciate you having me and for anybody who's listening please don't be shy reach out tell me

1:01:44 what you think tell me where I got it wrong tell me tell me your perspective on things I'd love to

1:01:49 you know meet everybody and so don't be shy please look me up on LinkedIn send me a message and

1:01:55 Anthony it's just been it's been a pleasure working with you think

1:01:58 real highly of you and your team and excited for everything that you're doing too