Episode 5 - How to manage capacity and hold the line with stakeholders in enablement (with Stephanie White).

Speaker A: That moment of connection with another person where you're understanding them and you are communicating and you're aligned. That for me, literally feels like magic. I love it. And so a big part of why I continue to stay in enablement, though I'm sure we all have our moments every six months or so when we're like, do I just go back to sales, right? Do I just, do I just go do it myself? Is because I love those moments. And we are so uniquely positioned to be able to have those moments where we connect people with problems, with insights, and we help make them better at what they do. And I, uh, love that.

Speaker B: All right, welcome back everyone to the Enablement Optimization podcast where we focus less on tactics and more on the strategic decisions and programs behind high impact enablement and how to actually drive results at scale. Chris and I are here today with Steph White, the director of go to Market Enablement at bloomreach. And we'll be discussing things like building and rebuilding teams, aligning to business outcomes, and we'll hear from Steph herself, her why around enablement.

Speaker C: So, as Leanne just mentioned, Steph White is the director of Go to Market Enablement at uh, Bloomreach, where she's focused on turning enablement into a true revenue driver, not just a support function. She's built and rebuilt enablement teams from the ground up five times, bringing a practical operator mindset to scaling programs that improve ramp pipeline and win rates, some of our favorite outcomes. She's gone from bootstrap startups to VC and PE backed. She's built her career across a variety of go to market roles and she deeply believes in enabling people to enable revenue, equipping teams with the clarity, confidence and capabilities they need to perform at ah, their best and drive meaningful business impact. It is brilliant to have Stephen from a podcast today.

Speaker B: All right, Steph, let's dive into the topic of enablement team building. So we've got practitioners of one that have the goal to grow teams and we've got some people that are already leading enablement teams. And you have built and rebuilt, I think five times at lots of different companies. So I'd love to kick off with, you know, some of the best practices that you've learned there, but also some of the things that maybe haven't worked out super well for you.

Speaker A: Yeah, it um, I will say there is not a one size fits all. I really wish there was. There isn't.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Um, it has been five go arounds of building or rebuilding and those companies have varied from 200 people to 2,000 people, bootstrapped PE, VC and everything in between. And there isn't one shape where you can just say, plug this from what I did at this company, do it here. It just doesn't work that way. Candidly. I don't think even if the companies were at the same size and the same stage, that would work either. Because culture and the problems you're trying to solve for is so much of what we need to think about when we structure enablement teams to be most effective in the long term. So at a high level, and I know we're going to get into this, you know, as I come in, I think about first and foremost, this is enablement 101. Right. What is the problem we're trying to solve for with this team? That might be a laundry list. That might be one clear vision. But we always have to start with the end in mind, whether that is building a program or starting to structure a team for the first time.

Speaker C: And so I love that and I think it's always good. Like, look for the, as you say, the laundry list and then try and work from there as to what are the key elements that you're focused on. But when you're coming into that team, if, and I'm assuming there's been roles and scenarios where you've inherited team members that are there, how do you balance that as well to look at, how do you establish yourself as the leader within that team in order to try and make sure. Because it's almost. You've got to wear two hats. One, you've got to establish life to the business and the role that you're coming into and how you fulfill that as an enablement leader. But then equally to your team, you've got to show that you're there to support and grow and develop the people that you're coming in to manage as well. Um, how do you really focus on that when you make that, uh, that role?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think so. Listen, in some ways it's a lot easier when you come in and there's nothing. It's very much. You're in the dark. You're like, I need a flashlight. Let me just go find all the things and prioritize all the things. And then as each of the thing categories get to a TIPP point, I'll ask for budget for a person to deal with those things. Right. In some ways that's so much easier. I think it's arguably more interesting and definitely more of my personal growth has come from coming into a Scenario where a team exists, where there are experts in the field or there are maybe people that candidly are underutilized and you come in and you inherit a team. And this isn't just enablement, it's any team sales otherwise. Right. And it really has to be a focus, in my mind of being intentional to split your mental capacity to say, half my focus needs to be on the team, half my focus needs to be on the business. And the business part, I think, is the piece that from day one is given to you in a lot of senses, you'll be told from your new hiring manager, listen, Steph, I need you to deliver A, B, C, sometimes D, E, F, G, and onward in your first 90 days. Right? It's more prescriptive. They tell you the pains you need to solve for the people part is where it gets interesting because the business alone doesn't tell you the story of the people. And you really need to spend time to be tactical and go through and actually review some of the work and some of the programs that people have built. Listen to their calls, write your feedback and spend time with them. Talking about, and this is going to sound squishy, but their hopes and dreams and what they like about their job. Because sometimes what you find is someone might be flagged as like, well, they're a mediocre performer. And when you get in and you start working with them in your first few months and you understand, hold up. The issue isn't that you're a B player who's not fully in it. The issue is you don't like content development and course builds. You love live facilitation. That's where you thrive. So now that I'm restructuring the team, knowing that about you, I can start to carve that intentionally. And that's where you can see people who sometimes you come in and they're hovering right here, and you give them more opportunities that they've been waiting for and they just take off and thrive. So it really becomes that intentional focus of mapping to the needs of the business in your first three to six months, but also mapping to the needs of your people.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's so good. Putting people in the right seat on the bus is like the, the best thing we can do for our team. Um, going to the business side of it, have you ever walked in and the objectives that you were given you didn't necessarily agree with? Or maybe you walked in and they said they didn't have objectives for you? Um, do you have any, any examples of that that you can share with us, um, and how you handled them.

Speaker A: Ah, this is tea. This is tea. This is going to be anonymous tea though, everybody. That's how we're going to do this. Well, listen, I think it's kind of that classic problem of people will say we need enablement because sales isn't hitting their number and enablement will fix it. Mhm. Has anyone else heard this story?

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker C: A few times.

Speaker A: Just a few times. And then when sales doesn't hit their number, it's enablement's fault. There's two sides of that coin. When you come in and you say, okay, what are the core problems I'm trying to solve for? And by the way, ask this in the interview process. Don't do this once you get there, right? Why are you hiring for this role? What is the core focus of this role in the first six months, 12 months from now, how will you know this role has been successful? Right. These basic questions, I have heard everything and some of them have been red flags that thankfully I've heard in the interview process and gone the other direction and not engaged of. You know, we only have 60% of our sellers hitting quota sales enablement needs to get them to 80% in the next year. Now it's much easier to run from a red flag when you catch it in the interview process. Right? I'm sure you can both relate to this too. When you get in and you are handed an objective like that, that is where things become much more tricky and where we have to balance the strategy of the new role we're in and the building that we're doing versus the realistic expectations that we can have for ourselves and the team. So let's say I come in and I didn't catch it in the interview process and somebody says to me, so Stephanie, I will determine if you pass your 90 day probation period based on the sales team hitting 80% attainment. What do I do besides lowkeeping?

Speaker C: Take a deep breath. Take a breath.

Speaker A: What do I do besides lowkeeping?

Speaker C: My brain. Yeah, but it's so interesting that if. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. I was just going to say, but it's so interesting that you go into an organization or you have that there is a level of expectation that sale as enablement is the golden bullet. That is the thing that one lever that they're going to turn in order to try and get another 20% of their reps achieving target. And we've talked a few times in this podcast about elevating, um, the expectation of Enablement, elevating the conversation to the C suite, um, to the key decision makers for strategy. But it's so interesting that you've had roles or you've seen examples where they see enablement as that lever, uh, to pull. You already have that. Enablement is the strategy in order to try and do that. When you go and m, you may have dodged these bullets, perhaps, but how have you found that conversation when they have that to almost balance the level of expectation that there is no one thing that's going to fix it. And enablement is a piece of the puzzle, but is a far more complex scenario to deal with.

Speaker A: Yeah, um, so I have not dodged that, Chris. I have run smack into that, um, where, and I mean it has happened on more than one occasion where enablement is used as a noun and a verb.

Speaker B: Mm.

Speaker A: Here's the problem with that. Enablement, the noun, cool, that's me and my team. Enablement, the verb can mean training, it can mean customer facing assets, it can be talk tracks, it can be marketing speak, it can be demo environments, it can be like full blown advertising campaigns. Enablement as an action word is way too squishy. And the challenge we have with kind of the rise of enablement and the popularity of enablement as a lever to drive revenue is we actually have to reset expectations on what enablement is and isn't. And I come back to in this one and I actually keep a little sign on my desk that says just because I can doesn't mean I should. Mhm.

Speaker C: Yeah, love that. Yeah.

Speaker A: So I think in those scenarios, the first thing we can do when people just generalize and you get the enablement swear jar.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker A: That's enablement. That's enablement. That's enablement is you really do need to sit down with your senior leadership team and reset on what the scope of enablement, the noun. So the team is responsible for, is it sales process, is it methodology, is it go to market tooling, is it field level training, is it manager coaching? And then build your program, your team and your metrics to align specifically to those responsibilities.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm thinking back to, let's say that you do get that message in the interview process of we want you to come in and increase quota participation. Not necessarily a absolute red flag. Right. It's really a tipping point to ask some more questions and to understand like can they articulate to you why they believe that enablement is the key? You know, can we disqualify that it's product market fit. What are managers doing and so there, there could be an opportunity there. But yeah, definitely making sure that you're vetting that and that you're, you're ensuring that you have at least some sort of leadership championing so that when you do get into these conversations of, uh, here is what my noun team is here to verb do, someone is there backing you and, and you're not, you know, an uphill battle because sometimes, like, what if there's a, ah, friction of like the business says, well, that's not exactly what we were expecting you to do. And then you're like, oh dear, like there's, there's some friction there. Um, so interview process. God, we could have a whole, we could have a whole segment on how to vet opportunities in the interview process. Um, but, um, I was thinking like, if you came in and you know, the problems that you're solving for either are incorrect or not clear, like, do you have any examples of where maybe you put you and your team focusing on things for one reason or another and realize, like, that wasn't the right way to do it and like, how did you figure that out and what did you do?

Speaker A: Yeah, this is when everybody realizes these questions were not rehearsed and we're actually in the moment. So I think, you know, sometimes these things can happen because what we thought the need of the business was, in fact wasn't the other time. These things can happen is when the market suddenly shifts or suddenly you have a financial event that is about to happen or did happen and you suddenly need to shift.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker A: So sometimes there's internal controllables and sometimes it's external and you cannot. Um, I mean, I would say one of the great growth opportunities of my career has been, I've been on the acquisition side and the merger side a number of times. And you rarely know about these things when you are planning your fiscal year, right? So imagine a world where you have mapped out, let's just say H. Ah1 let's just say you haven't done the whole year, but you've at least done H1. It is December. You're on a calendar fiscal and you're like, cool, here's all the things I need to deliver between now and the end of June. And you build your team for it. You build your comp plans and your bonus structure for your team for it. You are investing in tools and external trainers to do the things. And then you get called into a meeting at the end of February, which is like, hey, Stephen, we're acquiring a new company.

Speaker C: Hm.

Speaker A: And we're actually going to fold them in. So we need you to be responsible in the next 45 days to review and create a list of all of the assets that are going to need to be updated. M M All of the training that our new sellers coming into the business are going to need to cross sell everything that our existing sellers are going to need to cross sell on the new products. And by the way, we're also going to collapse the entire book of business. So there's going to be a lot of overlapping accounts. So we need you to do an analysis of what some of that consolidation effort's going to be. Right. This is like 90% a true story. And your head goes. And I think the only things you can really do in these moments is honestly get back to discovery. Right. And just reground. So uh, it's like you just have to go back to the. Okay, what do we need to solve for? So sitting in that executive meeting, you need to start going through and getting clarity on what the strategic organizational objectives are. But leaving that room, and this is the part that I think some people know intuitively I had to learn through experience. The number one thing I need to do when I leave that room is actually go spend time with my people and ease them into it. They do not benefit from getting the experience I just got. That's not going to be helpful.

Speaker C: Yeah. And I've seen it where um, mhm. Where cyber attacks have occurred, where large scale acquisitions, where things and strategy need to change and pivot in a moment. And it's not only about how you bring the sales organization along with the business on that journey like you say. So it's about how you bring your own personal team along as it goes. And I think when you are in those moments, when you do sort of have these really challenging times, the culture of the business shines through as much as anything. Because that's the moments in these situations where you go, we're going to have to deal with this. This is coming like a train's coming into the station. We've got not going to stop it. It's coming head on straight for us. What are we going to do? How are we going to do that? And one of the things I would love to ask and understand a little bit more about from you is from that culture side as well. How have you worked with leaders when in those moments when there is obviously a real potential that you just take on far more than you can actually deal with, that you and your team can actually take on and actually Physically achieve in those 45 days, like you mentioned, how have you really worked to balance the level of expectation in those moments against.

Speaker A: All right, so in those moments, there's really a couple of things that we naturally do. Right. We either react, which is typically an. An immediate, uh, no moment, or it's an automatic yes. Because we are typically people pleasers and we want to help and we want to do all the things. And there's also a lot of pressure in that moment, especially when you're in a room with executives. Yeah, but there's a couple of things we want to think about in those moments so that we can respond effectively as a thought leader and partner rather than react. And really, it comes down to, number one, you should always, always have a pulse on what is happening with your team when you lead enablement. And what I mean by that is you need to have a sense of what is planned ahead in your sprints. I use two week sprint cycles. It's a little bit of an agile methodology holdover from a previous life that I like to use. Um, and make sure that I understand if somebody says to me, stephanie, we need this in 45 days. What is my actual buffer? Because maybe I can in fact do some of that. But if I don't have a good pulse and I haven't mapped my team capacity with key strategic priorities and understand where I have flex and where I don't, then I cannot respond in that moment accurately for the business. So, number one, always have a pulse and a good understanding of what's coming on your roadmap. So you've got that understanding of what's flexible and what's not. Number two, introducing the no but right. So no is a sometimes very rational but sometimes very emotional response where we go, no, I can't do that. I can't. I haven't had PTO in six months. All those things, my brain's automatically going tick, tick, tick, tick, tick through all the dependencies that are associated with that. And the key with saying no is we have to be careful when and how we do it.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: So stay with me here. Um, one of the things that I learned is I personally was not great at saying no. Can anybody relate to this? Can you guys relate to that?

Speaker C: Absolutely.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. It's how we prove our value is doing more and more, more and more right.

Speaker A: Because enablement was very much, for a number of years, viewed as a service desk or productivity engine. How many reps went through bootcamp? How many projects did you launch? How many training sessions did you Do. Right? It was all quantitative focus. M. So it makes sense that that's how we feel. And we want to say yes, but the no but actually allows us to be a lot more strategic and potentially prioritize and deprioritize things more effectively. So what that can sound like is, let's say, Chris, you come to me, you are leading, um, this merger, right? You are the VP of sales, and you're like, stephanie, I need you to train my 42 people by next week on all the new products. But no, I don't have that product information for you yet, so just do it. But I don't have that for you yet. Um, trust that it's coming and you'll get it in time. And by the way, you need to run a bootcamp on Monday for three days next week for the 17 new people coming in. Uh, and in your mind, you start going, cool, I'm an enablement team of three, so. So you just told me I'm out of commission for next week.

Speaker B: Awesome.

Speaker A: Um, and my team is now going to be wiped out for next week. So this is where the no buck comes in. And I might say to you, Chris, I cannot commit to do that for you right now. But what I can do is I can go through first thing, when I leave this room, I can reach out to the 17 new salespeople that we have coming in. I can send them our standard welcome package we with our Async onboarding for our company already so that they can start to get oriented with company culture, product portfolio, and be a friendly, welcoming phase for them. And on Monday, what I'll be able to do is send over to you, um, how we would typically need to break this down for new product launches so that while I'm spending next couple of days early next week with the new folks, you can actually already be working ahead and giving us some of the content we need so that when we're ready towards the end of next week, the week after, we can plug and play much, much faster for you. How does that sound to you? Um, right. Couple of things there. One, I'm demonstrating that we're focusing on the right things and that I'm working with urgency. Number two, I'm being collaborative. I'm not saying no. I'm committing to something. Something right. And often the something you want to focus on is either strategic, so revenue, cost or risk associated, or it's a people focus, which is top of mind for acquisitions and mergers.

Speaker B: And.

Speaker A: And then I'm also giving an ask of you yeah. And what I'm doing with that.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Is I'm establishing from the get go that Chris, I don't own training all these new salespeople. I don't own that. I'm going to partner with you on that and we've got this and we will get the things done and I will be with you through it, but that's not on me.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I love that. And I think also it shows that you, you have a great handle on what's going on with your business. You own your area, you know what's going on within your team and you can managing priorities as that come down. As the VP of sales that you kindly promoted me to there, Steph, in that example, I am very happy with how that conversation has gone. So thank you. That was good.

Speaker B: Yeah. And the thing that you're doing in that is you're anchoring to the outcome. You're still providing the outcome that the business needs. And so you even talked about that. When you come into the business, you make sure you focus on what's the problem you're trying to solve for and how do we determine success. And I think that when you show up like that to your stakeholders, it doesn't take one or two like it. You don't have to do that 10 times for them to see how you operate. And you've established this is how we work together. Um, so I really think like for listeners, the, it's, it's broken record from us. But the first question is what is the outcome that you're looking to achieve? You know, and like whether you're doing verbal intake or written intake via ticketing system, um, if they can't explain that then you probably shouldn't give them any of your time.

Speaker A: And I mean the other thing with that is when we say our no, but like you'll notice there was an intentional open ended question. Right. And I made it intentionally about Chris, my VP of sales. In this instance. How does that sound to you?

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Because guess what? Chris is probably feeling really overwhelmed right now and the last thing he does not want to hear come out of my mouth is a no.

Speaker B: No.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: He also doesn't want a no, but that gives him homework.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. But then giving him the opportunity to, to say you're, you're starting kind of a negotiation. How does that sound for you? Maybe it's great, but maybe he's like, uh, can we like meet in the middle somewhere? And, and that's, that's okay too. As long as you feel okay. About it. But, um, I've been in plenty of situations where I'm trying to get something from someone and they seem to be very like in a box of what they can deliver. Maybe they're not even trying to be. But I think if they were asking, what do you think about that? Back to me, it would make the conversation so much more collaborative. So I think that's really good takeaway.

Speaker C: It's that sales transaction, isn't it? Ultimately we're using those skills that have come back in that sales environment in order to do that. I love that. And I feel like that sort of, um, that sort of rounds off the business element of the conversation that you spoke about at the beginning, that 50, 50 balance between the team and the business. So maybe if we just for a moment shift gears back to you as an enablement leader and how you support your team and how you grow your team, um, whether that's coming into an organization as a solo enabler and then looking for those opportunities to do that, there'll be many enablers out there listening to this podcast who are, uh, going through making some of those decisions right now and probably even more so than ever are, uh, balancing productivity with some of the new tools and capabilities that are available to us and are, uh, trying to make the decision of do we invest in some of new tools and AI that can support us to do a lot of this sort of work, or do we invest in people and headcount to try and drive the business forward and the output that enablement can offer? When you think about those sort, uh, of questions, how are you balancing that right now when you think about the longer term growth, uh, of an enablement team?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. Empathy is an interesting thing.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, I know that was kind of like a broad statement, just the conversation. Empathy is an interesting thing. Right. Because I think so. I was very fortunate. I had a VP very early in my career who naturally took on a mentorship role with me. Um, and he was great. And one of the things that he modeled for us was, I will never ask you to do something that I would not do myself.

Speaker B: Mm.

Speaker A: So translate that, you know, 15, 20 years later. And how that shows up is I build courses, I struggle with tagging the lms.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: I am dealing with tool integration issues. I am going looking for trouble that I am asking my team to have the mindset to do. Mhm. The key there is we can never be above it.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And I, we all have different opinions on this. Um, and it's no shade to anybody else, um, at all. But part of my challenge that I see is sometimes as people elevate and they become more established leaders, they start to distance themselves from the day to day work. Now, to be clear, when you are a CEO, coo, any kind of elevation like that, or in a super large organization, it is not your job to know what's happening in the weeds.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: It's not your job. It is absolutely my job to know what's happening in the field, in the tech stack, in onboarding, in ramping, all the things. It does not mean that I have to be the one to do it, but it is my job to know and have insights for the C suite. Whether anyone's told me that or not, that is my job. So being able to, as we think about balancing, right, and we talk about how do we partner up and down, and somebody said this to me earlier this week and I loved it. An executive said to me, stephanie, this actually feels like two way enablement. And I was like, hold on,

Speaker B: what

Speaker A: just happened in this conversation? Because I think the really cool thing about when you're leading enablement teams and you have a good pulse on what's happening with your people and you can hop in and deal with the course tagging and the integrations and lead the sessions and all that jazz is you become this resource or this thought, um, partner that can scale between the new IC who's struggling with onboarding and maybe needs a coaching session at a slightly more elevated level, all the way up to that C level. And you can say, so I know our product roadmap has us looking out at the next 18 months. Or what I'm actually seeing and hearing from the field based on customer conversations is have we thought about X, Y, Z? This is when, you know, I'm Canadian, I say zed, um, and so that starts to be able to allow you to be that bungee cord.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Of enablement, which to me is where the magic happens. You can be down in the weeds and then right back up to the strategy and then come right back down and right back up. And that's what can make it a superpower. Or that golden lever that we were talking about earlier.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's so cool. It's kind of managing up and down all, uh, at the same time.

Speaker A: Yeah, but it's not even managing. It's true partnership and collaboration.

Speaker B: Yeah, for sure, for sure.

Speaker A: Um, and to me, that's really cool. And I think, you know, 2ish years ago where we had organizations saying proveit for enablement. And Siobhan Thatcher. Hi, Siobhan, um, had this great acronym that she came out with years ago where it was like, responsible to not for. And how do we define who we are and how do we earn that seat? Guess what? A lot of people have started earning it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Their, uh, title may not reflect it, but they are getting the CEO or somebody else messaging them and saying, what are your thoughts on this?

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: Mm.

Speaker A: And if we think about that for a second, like five years ago, I don't know about you guys, five years ago, I would not have imagined C level reaching out to enablement and saying, what are your thoughts on this?

Speaker B: Yeah. To the point where we went through this whole, like, should we be calling this something different completely so that we can be seen in that way? Um, and my thoughts always been back to like, no, like, this is what it is, but it's our responsibility to earn that, you know, not, not even respect, but like earn someone reaching out to us and saying, what do you think about this? Because we've exerted ourselves in that valuable way. And I kind of think that that's the biggest thing that we as enablement leaders can do for our, our folks. Right. Like, how does someone go from being a content creator in an LMS on an enablement team to the enablement leader that can be that person to this C suite? Like, we really have a huge responsibility to help mentor them. Um, especially those who, like our generation had time in the sales seat, made the transition, or most of us. Right. But the coming up, they may not have had all that sales experience and so they don't think like that and, but they have to. Right. And we have to teach them. Yeah.

Speaker A: And that's almost a spicy conversation right there of this debate of enablement. What background do you come from professionally speaking?

Speaker B: M. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: And this is where I can turn the table. Can we do this?

Speaker C: Go for it, Steph. I would give us your 30 second answer on whether or not you need to have a sales background to be an enabler.

Speaker A: I was going to ask you guys to share.

Speaker C: We've shared. You can listen back on other podcasts and hear our view on it. But come on, Steph, where do you sit on that one then?

Speaker A: Um, okay, obviously here's my caveat. It depends what industry you're in and the type of company culture. For sure. Okay. Um, there is a lot of value in coming from a go to market, customer facing role. Now, whether that is am, csm, tam, M K A M A E B D R, SDR doesn't really matter. Have you been in a situation where you've had to have commercial conversations of some kind and felt the pressure of some kind, quota or not, to be able to effectively negotiate, communicate, convey value, uncover pains, some of those core skills that we get in sales roles. Right. Um, I do think it's a huge, huge benefit in terms of how you can socialize and operationalize your programs. It is not to say that somebody with, let's say a, uh, Master's in instructional design does not add value. However, if your organization is structured and is a size that you need enablement to function, um, as Swiss army knives, if you will, where you can do a bit of everything, you will likely ramp a lot faster if you've come from some kind of sales or field role. That's, that's my not so hot take. That's like vanilla down a little bit.

Speaker C: No, go on. I was going to challenge Steph to check whether or not she listens back to the podcast to find out our view on this from some of the previous ones. So that's your challenge. Back to you, Steph, is you've got to come back to us and let us know that you've listened to some of the other ones to hear our take on that. Um, because it is. You're absolutely right. It's such a hot topic and I think you articulated it so well that there's so many, um, transferable skills that come from a variety of different roles that can really help. And I hear a lot at the moment about, um, the way in which enablement is fundamentally changing. I was looking at a, ah, report the other day from Gong and they were talking about how the way in which they're looking at enablement and some of the skills that those enablement professionals are having in that business are ah, so far away from what the traditional enablement role has had. Based on the quality of the data that can be achieved and the way in which they're using that data to build in the moment activities and all of that, it really sort of highlighted to me that even as enablers, we have to continue to evolve, we have to continue to, uh, educate ourselves. And as a leader of an enablement team, that's as much of a responsibility on the leader to be able to provide opportunities for individuals in your team to do that, to get out there and find those ways in which they can upskill, reskill, retrain, et cetera, et cetera. Because our role is going to look fundamentally different in the next few years in certain areas. And unless people are taking the time to learn and practice and play and doing that now, it's going to be far harder to try and make those changes in the future.

Speaker A: 100%. I think too what's cool is when we don't have to be this. Well, I have a certificate in adult learning theory and I follow Kirkpatrick perfectly and I do this. Which it was, to be honest. There was a lot of pressure to do that three, four years ago. Now our sellers are interacting differently in the workplace. Our uh, buyers are interacting differently. I mean there's all these tools and things are changing, but socially things have changed a lot. And so now, you know, you could hire somebody who let's say has very theoretical and academic experience with how to effectively train a 35 to 40 year old in an async format.

Speaker C: Cool.

Speaker A: And have knowledge retention stay. Or you could bring somebody on the team who let's say was an AE for a year and a half, spent a year and a half in enablement and on the side in their personal life. They're a content creator.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And then you go, hold up. What skills does this person also have? What passions do they have? How do we leverage that? Because it's no longer about if we talk about content. Content being like perfectly. Is the color contrast right? Is the font size right? Did we have more than three sizes? And now it's about how do you make it engaging, how do you pull people in and make them stay?

Speaker B: Yeah, you hit on it. Steph. It's, it's, it's the transferable skills is why we keep coming back to this. It's not necessarily. I mean, yes, you're right. Like did you live in a go to market org and can you speak the language from day one? But we could probably teach you that it's gonna take a little bit longer. But if you're not agile, if you're not an effective communicator, if you can't do good discovery, identify a problem, pain, impact, the things that make you a good seller. M. It's, it's the transferable skills. And I think that will probably remain as time goes on and as more people come up through the ranks that maybe they didn't spend as much time in a sales role but like they probably could have because their skills are so transferable.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker A: Yeah. I think it's neat too as we just think about how we all learn and grow. One of my favorite questions to ask people in the interview process is why do you do enablement yes. Because like, let's be real, our job is never done, ever. And one day to the next, you do not know what you're going to get in a lot of high growth tech companies especially. So why do you do what you do? And that understanding, let's say for you, lant, like that inherent motivator, why you love enablement, both as a noun and a verb, um, swear jar for that one. Um, that helps understand how is the person going to show up? Because I think the alternate magic is when people love what they do, bad days always happen, frustrating calls always happen. When you love what you do and you are fueled from here to show up at work, your stakeholders are going to see and feel that your team members are going to like. And that just helps lift everybody up and doors open for you in such a big way. So what is your why?

Speaker C: Yeah, so maybe this is the way to bring this conversation towards a conclusion. Steph, why do you do enablement?

Speaker A: Why do I do what I do? Um, by the way, I love that little did we have to. That was cute.

Speaker C: This was.

Speaker A: I have had a lot of different answers to this question over the years. Where I ultimately have landed on why I do enablement is I love people. That sounds super cheesy, but one of my favorite feelings in the whole world is when you are in a busy room, there's chaos, there's all these people, there's all this noise and you are connecting, having a conversation with someone and for a moment or a few minutes, it's like no one else is there. That moment of connection with another person where you're understanding them and you are communicating and you're aligned. That for me literally feels like magic. I love it. And so a big part of why I continue to stay in enablement, though I'm sure we all have our moments every six months or so when we're like, do I just go back to sales, right?

Speaker B: Do I just.

Speaker A: Do I just go do it myself? Is because I love those moments. And we are so uniquely positioned to be able to have those moments where we connect people with problems, with insights, and we help make them better at what they do. And I, uh, love that, Steph.

Speaker B: Awesome, awesome conversation. We could go on for hours, days even, and so many topics that we could just unlock. So hopefully we can have you back on and, and um, dive into some of those. But really good stuff. Thanks for joining us.

Speaker A: Thank you guys. Really appreciate it.

Speaker B: All right, as always, amazing conversation from another enablement leader. So, uh, listeners, if you take away anything from this chat with Steph, uh, let it be number one, to focus on your team. While you're focusing on the business priorities, make sure you're also keeping a pulse on your team's strengths, motivations, capacity and serving them as well. Uh, secondarily, when responding to requests for your team, try staff's no but technique. So instead of reacting with a quick no or over committing yourself, you're responding, uh, with what you can offer and negotiating with your stakeholders. And then also make sure you have a really clear purpose as to why you do enablement, because that is where, uh, your passion is going to turn into your productivity.

Speaker C: So just before we wrap Leanne, we want to make sure we hear from you, our, uh, audience. Do you agree with some of the things we've talked about today? Or where do you think we've got it wrong? Or what you want to offer a slightly different opinion? Make sure you drop your thoughts in the comments and, and if there's something you wanted us to dig into more, tell us about that. It genuinely helps shape where we take future episodes of the podcast. Make sure you, like, share and subscribe on the podcast on your preferred platform. And reach out to us@contentsalesenablementcollective.com if you'd like to join us as a guest on the show. Thank you again, Leanne. Um, fantastic to share this conversation with you today.

Speaker B: Same to you as always, Chris. We'll do it again soon.