S1E30 | Selen Kartal - Chief Sales Officer at Kolay IK

Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Voices of Enablement by GT Ambadi, an interview series focusing on key issues affecting the enablement community today. It's a tough market right now. Organizations are cutting staff, pausing investments. How do you make a compelling case for the value of enablement is a core question that we're seeking to answer. So our guest today is Selen. Selen was a former VP of Revenue Enablement at Insider and now a Chief Sales Officer at Cole. I am personally very excited for this episode because Salen can give us a point of view both from a revenue leader perspective and a revenue enabler perspective. Welcome, Salen. Pleasure to have you on the show. I'd love for you to introduce yourself.

Speaker B: Thank you so much for inviting me.

Speaker C: Uh, I think this is the last

Speaker B: episode of the podcast, so it's an honor for me to be part of this podcast series.

Speaker C: Uh, so I think you have all made a great introduction, but I can

Speaker B: add that, yes, I was a revenue enabler. I was calling myself a sessionabler as well as a woman face enabler leader. So now I had the chance opportunity to, to become the chief sales officer. So this topic has been very interesting for me since our first discussion. Like a former enabler, now a revenue

Speaker C: leader, uh, what are the expectations and everything?

Speaker B: I hope I can contribute and share my insights today in the podcast.

Speaker A: Absolutely. I'm looking forward to it because I know you would have perspective from both the end. Uh, so you have a vantage point both from being a, uh, revenue leader as well as the enablement leader. So can't wait to get in. Um, cool again, Salem, really excited for this one. I'll kick this off with the very first question that everybody is asking. Um, we know these are tough times for enablement practitioners. A lot of layoffs are happening. Enablement is seen as a cost center versus the force multiplier. So how do you think we can elevate the role of sales enablement with the C Suite when many of the support functions are being cut?

Speaker C: Yes. Um, my answer to this question is very simple. Uh, be a great salesperson. Devon, show revenue enablement leaders. Sales enablement leaders. We are coming from sales mentality, sales background. So we know how to sell a product, right? So this time our product should be sales enablement team. So use your consultative safety kiss, then I guarantee you are going to succeed. What are the. What are these safe skills? Make your discovery, create a positive tension with your C suite and give them the solution and focus on the value and the numbers. So, uh, if we start with the Discovery and our elevator pitch. Uh, we should first make the C suite understand why does the revenue enablement function exist? Is not just training anymore, it's much more than that. So what is its direct impact on the bottom line? Because when resources are limited, it's more and more important than ever to maximize the potential of your sales machine. Right. Uh, so what is your strategy to adapt to the changing behavior of the buyer, economic situations and, and evolving sales landscape. So as the revenue leaders, what are your plans to adapt to this environment? Also another tactic that I use in the sales in the field, like reverse psychology, like help your C suite visualize what happens if revenue enablement does not exist during challenging times. So uh, especially during the times that uh, every lead matters, every opportunity matters. Right. You don't have the luxury to burn the leads, to burn the opportunities. So how are you going to ensure that reps are well equipped to face these challenges? So let's imagine a world that says enablement doesn't exist. How are you going to increase the win rates? What's your plan? So this is about creating the tension, making them understand the need for enablement function, making them question, oh okay, how I'm gonna, how I'm gonna do this, how I'm gonna uh, solve this problem in my organization. Also of course data driven results that show the correlation between the enablement initiatives and key performance indicators should be present during these discussions. Um, we should talk data. When we are doing this like a salesperson, you know, we're doing sales, you talk about roi, you talk about the value, like how much you are gonna have your customer, your prospect that achieve um, or which KPI you're gonna help them to improve with your technology, with your product, your solution. It's the same, same strategy like we do in sales actually. So uh, what I can say this is uh, this is my suggestion. When the enablement leaders are uh, having this discussion uh, with their leaders, act like a great salesperson.

Speaker A: Love it, love it. Because uh, I, you know again you are focusing more on the, the fear of uh, probably missing out. Rather than talking about the benefits of sales enablement, you're asking them question. Okay, you know, imagine we are not there. You know, this is a technique that we often use in our sales process. Okay, how do you solve it? Now imagine you don't, uh, you are not using a solution. How do you plan to achieve this? I think that's where they do a lot of self introspection and a lot of selling, you know, self convincing will be done by just asking that question. So I love it. I'm sure you're the enablement who are going to work at your company. They are going to take it as a, as a trade secret on how to convince Helen on any initiative. But I want to dig more on the discovery process that you spoke about. Um, and we'll get to the correlation part. You know, how do you talk about numbers? I think that's a very great point because that's what they care about. So can you dig us more, um, you know, dig in more on the, on the discovery process? Like what do they try to discover? What kind of questions do they ask their cs way to build a business case for any enablement initiative.

Speaker C: Uh, what I can suggest here actually create a ah, enablement journey. Like you know enablement starts with the hiring, right. We first hire and, and then it continues with the onboarding. Right. So let's imagine a scenario. Uh, you are hiring, you're actually hiring. So uh, what would be the main metrics that you need to focus? Ramp up time or, or time to first deal. Right. So even though the definition of ramp up varies to company to company, we can approximately say it's one sales cycle plus three months. So if this is a very optimistic and shiny scenario, believe me. Uh, but, and imagine you had a wrong hire, then what's going to happen? Then you won't be able to retain that salesperson and it's going to uh, be, it's going to cost you time and effort. Uh, so uh, starting from hiring to onboarding, let's make, let's make your C suite. Visualize like which metrics the enablement team is affecting in the enablement cycle. Like start with the hiring, hiring, optimization and retention. Continues with the onboarding, ramp up time, time to first deal. Then continue with the training and continuous learning efforts and performance management which directly affects the win rates, say cycle and other key metrics that the revenue leader want to impact um, and improve. Right. So show this journey and back up this journey with the metrics like each pillar and which metrics in each pillar you are going to uh, improve with the right initiatives.

Speaker A: Right, right. Love it. Again Celine, because I've spoken to a lot of enablement leaders and they all start with Enablement has changed ever since. You know, a lot of changes. Market has changed. It used to be again a lot about training but now every enablement person is trying to work on a spot. You know, they collaborate with their revenue leaders that hey, what is the problem that we are trying to fix? And then they tie all of their enablement initiatives on that thing be training or be it any other initiative that. Okay, this is a uh, metric that we are struggling with, like you mentioned. You know, it could be the bin ratio about the larger deal size. And then create enablement initiatives according to, to solve for that metric. And then you are clearly able to being a strategic partner. And when you are able to clearly show that the impact of their efforts.

Speaker C: Exactly.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: Celine, I have to ask you because I think you can answer this question. I'll try to um, you know, ask this question in a different way. What uh, how do you think can revenue enablement leaders elevate their role, um, in uh, you know, in front of C suite, um, like can you show, can you talk to us a perspective of a revenue leader? Like what do you want your revenue enablers to do so that you see them as a strategic partner or you see value, you know, in their initiatives?

Speaker C: Yeah, of course, uh, if I answer the question from the chief says executive perspective, uh, which is quite new for me, uh, of course I have high expectations from my revenue leaders. Jokes aside, you're coming from revenue enablement. You know, you have high expectations. Naturally. Jokes aside, um, what I expect is a very strong sales mentality because um, sales enablement, revenue enablement exists to solve problems of the sales people, sales organization. So uh, we are not just a function to give uh, them training. We are, we should there uh, whenever they need our support, like even to have some chat about their romantic life. Like you and your team should be there like a friend. I mean if you want to talk about the performance, we should be there, we should be present whenever they need us. So we should also know what type of bottlenecks they are, they have so we can bring them solutions. Right. That is why sales mentality also, you know, like we shouldn't bring unnecessary processes, difficult tools, uh, that will make the system slow down or sad, you know, sales team doesn't like, uh, to spend time uh, on the stuff rather than selling. You should maximize their selling time. So it is why uh, sales mentality is my first expectation. Put yourself into the shoes of your sales team. You react to this initiative. How would this ease your life? Uh, my um, my team should have this sales mentality when they are planning enablement initiatives.

Speaker D: Mhm.

Speaker C: Strategic alignment and building trust with the leadership team is also very critical in an organization because uh, if the leaders uh, don't have uh, the idea, uh, that that initiative is going to work, um, their team doesn't as well. So we should make the Leaders understand why we need that initiative. Um, and we should meet on the halfway, on the same page and get their feedback when we are uh, improving that initiative. And we should also get their commitment. Otherwise one piece of the puzzle will be always missing for the adaptation of the initiatives. You might have great ideas, great initiatives, but what happens if your system doesn't use that?

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker C: So when you create initiatives, um, adoption plan is also very critical. And to be able to create the best adoption plan, you should get the buy in of the leadership team. So you should have a good relationship, strategic alignment and uh, trust with your sales leadership team.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker C: Third one is of course data

Speaker B: sites

Speaker C: which I also mentioned uh, recently and identifying the bottlenecks in the sales funnel and creating um, initiatives accordingly. Because let's say in your sales funnel you have a problem, uh, you have a low meeting down to demo ratio. So enablement team should identify this, why this is happening and they should create the recipe accordingly. The bottlenecks of the organization and of course cross functional collaboration and agility act fast because when you implement an initiative you won't get the results at the moment. Right. So maybe uh, you will get result after 1/4. So we should be quick, we should be adapt. They should be adaptive to changing buying behavior, changing economical situations, changing sales methodologies. So there is not such an approach. Like okay, we had this m, we have this methodology and that's all. No, you should always look back and renew your sales methodology, your sales strategy. You should be awake and uh, looking around you like what's going on? Like, oh, let's try this. Yeah, oh, let's change this. You should be very adaptive and of course roi, roi, roi. Focusing on the roi. Maybe I know this is not an easy part, uh, but uh, we should always uh, be focusing like what is the result of this initiative? What was the impact of this initiative? How can we measure it?

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: I think these are some great points, Elen. I think the answer to the ROI question will become easier if we are doing the first four points like you said are right. Right. If there's no adoption to the enablement initiative, if this revenue leaders are not aligned with the uh, revenue, uh, your initiative, sales people are not going to use it because it takes a tripod approach. Uh, somebody said it to make an initiative work. Enablement themselves, the frontline sales managers who are going to reinforce and then the salespeople. Salespeople are only going to do something if their managers are reinforcing that information. So it's very critical to get their buy in. And then like the third point that you mentioned is find out what is the bottleneck. If the sales managers are aligned on the bottleneck and they know this is the enablement initiative that we are running to solve for this bottleneck, I think ROI and all these discussions will become um. Seamless.

Speaker C: Exactly.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Um, I, the other question I have is um, Selen on this one is because you mentioned the importance of getting a buy in from the front end sales managers. And this is where a lot of enablement leaders, they struggle. Um, you know they, the conversation that I've had, they say okay, frontline sales managers, a lot of times they feel okay, the enablement is team is taking the time away from the selling time away from the. So from the sales reps. It's very hard to get their buy in. Even if you know they do it, they don't reinforce that onto the sales people. Do you have any um, ideas or how do you get there buy in? Where does the process start from? I'm sure a lot of other enablement leaders would love to know more on this.

Speaker C: Mhm. Um, what I can suggest there like a very close relationship with this uh leadership team and creating platforms to meet them, um, and to get their uh, insights and also share your insights. So let me give you an example. Like organizing a quarterly sales performance reviews and there is the enablement team and get the numbers together with the leaders and help them uh, to analyze why, what is the reason of those numbers and what are the sales core competencies. Creating a core competence framework and making your leaders understand like what are the reasons behind this numbers in terms of competencies. Yes, numbers shows us a lot of stuff but m how we can deep dive into numbers like witty core competency framework. When you provide useful tools to your leaders they, if they benefit from that, they will understand like okay, enablement is a good thing. So you should show them the benefit by creating platforms they can observe. You should sell your you know, activities as well to the leaders, show them the benefit. Like uh, what happens? Maybe they might be uh, resisting at the beginning but after they show them demo to them. Look, we are having this competency framework to make you understand where your sales rep is struggling, is struggling. And then we are going to help you to create the best solution, the best development plan, you know, to improve this. Like help them like if they have a problem with the objection handling skills, then help them um, with the objection handling roleplays or objection handling uh, sheets and documentation, um, and help them with these Ideas love this example if you help them. I know I'm giving some practical examples but you know um, if you show them the benefit of your processes, your frameworks and why it's going to help them, they are going to love it actually.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: These are some golden nuggets, uh, Selen for an enabler because like you said you know data because all these insights enablement team has a uh, revenue leader or probably front end sales managers. They don't do a lot of analysis on the deals or everything because they are focused on other things. That is where enablement team can go with them with the problem that hey, these are 10 reps who are not doing multi threading right or not doing. Objection. Handling right. If we run an enablement program and we are able to make them better. Um, you know I've again I can speak to so many people. I think somebody said that competencies are like the connective layer between your enablement initiatives and the sales velocity outcomes and that is how you are able to measure the ROI of your efforts. Obviously they will be able to give your, give the buy in because they can see the problem that you presented and they will obviously see you as a uh, as a strategic partner and then they will be bought in with the, with those initiatives and will be able to reinforce and I think that kind of enablement initiative would have a much larger impact than somebody enablement team is doing on their own without involving the revenue leaders. So I think it's a great example that you gained.

Speaker C: Thank you.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um Celine, the other question that I have is again uh, this is something that you touched upon and said okay, make them visualize what will be the life or how will you achieve your goals without the sales enablement. Um, but the question that I have is you know we all know why revenue enablement is critical uh for the, you know, for the sales, for this revenue for the sales teams in this market. Like what is your take on this one? Why do you think I think selling is tougher more than ever. Why do you think is the revenue enablement critical for the organization success in this current economic time?

Speaker C: Mhm. I think I have a partially answer to this question. Like in this current situation, ah, we should focus on the current resources like current uh challenge like how we can increase the potential of our salespeople sales team, how we can increase uh their performance and create a uh high uh performance culture in the company or how we should scale our best practices, how we should automate the tools and the processes so we can create More time for our sales team to sell so we can decrease the customer um, acquisition costs. So whose job is this?

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker C: How we can utilize our current tenured sales reps by looking at the performance with the right performance management structure. Analyzing the gap, uh, analyzing their core competencies and focusing on top 3, 4. We are human being. Right. We are not a machine. We can improve everything at once. The critical competencies and providing the right development plans to improve those competencies. So we can increase in rates, so we can increase the revenue. Or how huh? We can make the benefit all of the whole company from one region's resources.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker C: How we standardize the processes or how we can automate we, how we can implement the right tools like all these approaches comes from the enablement teams. And it is what it during the time of the session, you know, uh, the current economic environment.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: And I think you said it um, uh, said a great thing that don't focus on too many things. And that's where a lot of implement initiatives fail. When you try to improve 20 things at once again sales people will not have that much time. You will, you are spreading yourself too thin. Rather focusing on the most impactful two or three enablement initiatives. Get the revenue. I know, I'm just paraphrasing but for the audience. Get the revenue Leaders buy in that. Hey, these are the two, three things again. Uh, the strategic alignment and then spend more time on this one that will have a better outcome versus running 10 parallel initiatives because we know that all of them are not going to get successful. So I think that's a great point that you said.

Speaker C: Yeah. What you said is very important because there are too many things to do.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker C: As an enabler. Too many things to do. You know, uh, so what you need to do, you have a scary source. You should always focus on the high impact projects.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker A: And I think you figure that high impact project coming back to what you said by doing a deep discovery with your sales leaders or the revenue leaders that where are the bottlenecks? And once you get to know the bottlenecks, that's where the high impact projects will come. You know it will not go come with you suggesting them something or that hey, these are the project that we think I'm um, great at. It always come from that great discovery. So coming back to what you said initially. How much discovery is an important part of you know, making the sales enablement initiative successful.

Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Yes. Data is important, but data cannot tell you the whole story. There is always another you know, part of missing piece of that story, how you can learn that from your sales people by observing your sales people. But in a, uh, if you're working in a big organization, it's not easy. So you should um, cooperate with your sales leaders who know their, you know, sales people. So you should get to know your sales people so you will understand how you can help them.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Selen, the other question that I have is again, you have partially answered this. Enablement is not just training. We know it is much more, more than that. Um, how again, in a time like this, I think not many, not a lot of companies are hiring a lot of reps. Um, how do you think can sales enablement help when you're not hiring a lot of reps today? Like what kind of initiatives can you provide to the tenure reps?

Speaker C: I mean, if you are not hiring, uh, still there are a lot of stuff that enablement team can do. Um, yeah, I know hiring and onboarding is very important two pillars. I accept that onboarding is very important function, but it's not the enablement itself. Uh, in my opinion, enablement teams definition should also be adapted to current economic environment. Ah, why not hiring do reps? Why you freeze recruitment? Um, possibly for the cost cutting. Right, right. So to make your operation more profitable. So how you can do that again, optimization of the existing resources, reducing turnover rates, scaling the best practices inside the organization. Uh, first of all, you should understand why you're not hiding specific reason behind that. So you should adapt to that. You know, your structure, your instance accordingly. But let's say you are, uh, yes, let's say we are not hiring. But you still have your sales reps, right? And you still need to increase the performance. So you should focus on that. How you can do that. You should provide recurring sales training. You should provide a continuous learning framework. That is how I call it. What does continuous learning framework include? First of all, recurring sales training. Create your own sales university or sales academy, how you are going to name it. Um, and has a curriculum which focuses on the improvement areas of your sales team. Your people looking at the data. Watch the meetings of your sales team to understand their patterns. Talk to the leadership team and come up with it like a school, like a, you know, college. Come with a curriculum and train them regularly. Other than that, create leadership enablement program to drive the coaching culture in the company. Because as we discussed in uh before, um, if they adopt, their team is going to add up as well. So, um, if you want to scale your resources as the enablement Team. You should create ambassadors in the teams. Like there should be enablement team ambassadors. Or you should, uh, empower the leaders to become great coaches, uh, great trainers. Uh, because training is not just the job of the enablement, it's also job of the managers. Right. Leaders, like they should coach their team. So. But if they don't. Cause if you don't create this culture in the company. And third, you can create certification programs. Again, other than, uh, you can create, you can focus on a team. It might be a new product launch, it might be a skill set of your team. Analyze and organize the certification programs. Also maximize the selling time of your team with the injection of the right tools, automation and easy access to content. Create sales decks and collaterals that will ease the life of your sales reps. For example, sales meeting, presentation. That's a material that should be the compass of your reps to become the great storytellers. Right? Create that deck. Give them that, you know, tools and let them sell.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Again, selling. Great point on the coaching. Uh, create a coaching culture in the organization. It's not just about enablement and salespeople. You know, there are a lot of other people that are required, um, you know, to run a successful program, uh, especially the managers. Um, you know, again, like you said, um, enablement is not always going to be with the sales reps in order to, uh, you know, train them or coach them. That's a manager's job. Uh, it's very important to involve them. And I remember somebody saying that enablement is not responsible for sales, but they are responsible to sales. So they can provide you all the right information, right resources that you require. Like, it's like going on a war. They're not going to shoot the bullet for you, but they can provide you with all the things that you need to, you know, go out on, on the field. And that's where the managers can help, uh, in, in order, in, in terms of reinforcing that same knowledge and again, right. Providing the access of all the knowledge that they, uh, that is required, uh, to do a better job on the sales calls.

Speaker C: I agree.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, great challenge. I think that was a very insightful session. I know we digressed a little bit, but, um, great points. From a revenue leader perspective and from a revenue enablement perspective. And one thing that I, that I loved is that be a salesperson, try, uh, to put yourself in front of the shoes of this, your salesperson. A lot of your enablement initiative when you try to run or any extra processes that you would like to add, you know, you would be able to understand, okay, will I like it if I was a salesperson? And then, you know, I think the adoption will become, uh, or salespeople will love you because you are only forcing the things that are critical and then doing a lot of discovery with your, uh, revenue leaders, going to them with a lot of data insights that will help you to run a better sales enablement initiatives. So I'm sure the audience, uh, is going to like this a lot and they always have this question, okay, what does my enablement. What, what does my revenue leader wants? And they might not have had a chance to have a one on one conversation with their CRO, but I'm sure this podcast will help them get some things on. Okay, how do, how can they sell their initiatives internally? So thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your perspective.

Speaker C: You're welcome. I think it was a great conversation.

Speaker A: It was.

Speaker C: Thank you so much about enablement. I love talking about enablement. So much.

Speaker A: So, yeah, so we'll come with the second, um, series as well with the kind of, uh, response that we have gotten. This was the last episode of our first season. So pretty sure there are a lot of other topics to touch. And since, uh, you love talking about enablement, I know you will be able to add perspective from again, both the, both revenue leader and sales enablement, uh, perspective. So looking forward to having another one very soon.

Speaker C: My pleasure. Yeah.

Speaker A: All right.

Speaker D: Yeah. By.