Are you navigating the complex landscape of tech-driven sales enablement? Join me as I chat with Priya Sachdev, founder of Sprouting Shoots, who sheds light on this often overwhelming topic and how to avoid the pitfalls of "shiny object syndrome." Learn from Priya's expertise on striking the perfect balance between technology adoption and practical application, as well as understanding the driving force behind the advancements in sales management technology. During our conversation Priya shared her insights on:
Priya's “ikigai” (purpose) is elevating the strategic importance of sales. For almost 3 decades she has partnered with business leaders, executives, and entrepreneurs in the B2B space to drive effective sales strategy through customer engagement. She's worked with more than 250 midsize to large organizations, and managed teams from 5 to 1500. Her key projects have been in the industrial, BFSI, tech services, SaaS, professional services, FMCG, automotive, healthcare, and medical equipment industries.
Priya was listed as one of the “25 most influential women in India” by CEO Magazine in 2017 and “The 10 Successful Women to Watch For in 2018” by Insights Success.
Please subscibe on Apple, Spotify or Google.
Are you navigating the complex landscape of tech-driven sales enablement? Join me as I chat with Priya Sachdev, founder of Sprouting Shoots, who sheds light on this often overwhelming topic and how to avoid the pitfalls of "shiny object syndrome." Learn from Priya's expertise on striking the perfect balance between technology adoption and practical application, as well as understanding the driving force behind the advancements in sales management technology. During our conversation Priya shared her insights on:
Priya's “ikigai” (purpose) is elevating the strategic importance of sales. For almost 3 decades she has partnered with business leaders, executives, and entrepreneurs in the B2B space to drive effective sales strategy through customer engagement. She's worked with more than 250 midsize to large organizations, and managed teams from 5 to 1500. Her key projects have been in the industrial, BFSI, tech services, SaaS, professional services, FMCG, automotive, healthcare, and medical equipment industries.
Priya was listed as one of the “25 most influential women in India” by CEO Magazine in 2017 and “The 10 Successful Women to Watch For in 2018” by Insights Success.
Please subscibe on Apple, Spotify or Google.
Welcome to the Sales Enablement Society Stories from the Trenches, where enablement practitioners share their real-world experiences. Get the scoop on what's happening inside Sales Enablement teams across the global SES member community. Each segment of Stories from the Trenches share the good, the bad and the ugly practices of corporate sales. Enablement initiatives learned what worked, what didn't work and how obstacles were eliminated by corporate teams and leadership. Get back, grab a cold one and join host Paul Butterfield for casual conversations about the wide and varied profession of sales enablement, where there is never a fits all solution.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome back to another episode of Stories from the Trenches, the Sales Enablement Society podcast, where we bring together enablement practitioners from all over the globe and we talk about things we have in common, the common challenges and the unique ways that we're all finding to solve them. A lot of times we talk about successes, but sometimes we also talk about when things didn't go so well, because there's a lot to be learned from that as well. So today I'm excited to introduce you to Priya Sashadev. She is the founder of Sprouting Shoots and I will give. why don't you take a minute and tell us a little bit more about yourself and the work you're doing, priya?
Speaker 3:Thank you so much, Paul, for having me on the podcast, Excited to be here. I am a sales practitioner and I have a background of almost 120 quarters in sales, specifically working in the enterprise and channel space, And I set up Sprouting Shoots just about a year and a half ago with the focus on bringing sales practices to small and medium organizations and offering the role of a fractional chief sales officer to these organizations. So I love what I do and it is my icky guy to bring sales enablement to organizations.
Speaker 2:That sounds familiar. I think a lot of people listening can relate to that. So we're going to start off with the Jimmy Kimmel challenge. Are you ready?
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Okay, so Jimmy Kimmel retires. through your amazing network, someone offers you his show, so you get to pick who your first guest will be. Who will you choose, and why did you choose?
Speaker 3:them. I would choose Oprah to be my first guest, and the reason why? because I'm an ageism activist and what that really means is that I'm talking to a lot of people today and I realize that age is a criteria for them to choose capability. Oprah did well. She did 25 seasons. I want to know how did she stay relevant? So that's my reason to invite her.
Speaker 2:Okay, All right. Yeah, she would be a fascinating guest and you could probably cover to spend any topic and she would have an opinion on it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay. Well, we're going to talk about tech, sales, tech, sales enablement, tech, marketing, tech and I love how you put it Boone or Bane I think that's going to end up being the title of this episode, because there's just there's a lot of it available. In some ways, that's amazing the tools that we have compared to when you and I you know we're earlier in our sales careers or sales enablement careers, but it's not always a good thing. What are you seeing out there right now?
Speaker 3:So it's you know that syndrome that when you think of a yellow car, you can only see yellow cars. I don't know if it's that scenario, but anybody and everybody I speak to in the startup world seems to be coming up with a new offering for either sales tech or marketing tech. I was looking at a Gartner report and it reports about $7.8 billion worth of sales enablement tech companies out there, and it's growing at some 11% 7.8 billion with a B. Yes.
Speaker 2:Wow, and you said growing at what rate?
Speaker 3:At about 11% annually.
Speaker 2:Wow, okay, certainly a lot of room for confusion, probably a lot of room for conflicting, conflicting claims. And, yeah, how do you sort it all out? So What do you think? what do you think is the cause? is it, is it because our profession has mature that so many people are developing? or What do you think this is coming from? So much activity?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think it's. It's multiple things. It started from a sales management need, really More than a seller need. I've been a seller and I work with sellers and I don't think any seller wanted technology. We were happy being the free birds who went into the field and nobody knew where we were And what we were doing. So I think most of this has been driven by sales management wanting to see dashboards in terms of visibility, in terms of activity, in terms of measuring quality. And Then came AI and all the other technology updates which Started to make us think about can we automate parts of our very linear, repetitive sales process? So it's not that I'm against technology. I love the tech that's come in and how It's made our life easier in terms of moving up the value chain as a seller. It's just that there is so much of it to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it seems like it's a very Splintered market that that there's not. I mean, there are some large players, of course, but, as you said, there are so many companies and and new ones coming online all the time. It seems like it's got to be a very competitive Market out there for them trying to differentiate, and I think that there is sometimes the shiny object syndrome that that it's, it's, you know. Oh well, if something's not working in our sales organization Must be that you know we need to get some new piece of technology. What can go wrong there? What is, what's the risk with that? because you've got adoption, you've got investment. Let's talk about that for a few minutes. How should people be thinking about it or be aware of it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I think that new and shiny and the squirrel syndrome both have got combined here. Also the fact that a lot of SaaS companies gave awards to organizations for the best sales tech stack, best marketing tech stack and all of that right. So we started rewarding a behavior of buying technology And I just feel that whatever gets incentivized gets done Right.
Speaker 2:So so are you saying that it sometimes is being purchased just for its own sake, without any sort of outcome or Result? player. That's very clear.
Speaker 3:So I think it's new right. So why imagine an outcome? There is a solution image, maybe in your mind, but the reality is when rubber hits the road and We have seen that and SaaS companies have reported that that the number of licenses purchased Versus the number of licenses utilized. There is a big gap in that, and this is true for SaaS companies generally and more so in marketing and sales as well. So many licenses just keep sitting there unused and That leads to churn, because if I spend a million dollars buying technology this year and in the next few years I see only 30% of my people utilize the licenses, i'm not renewing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it sounds like you've got. You've got a problem for both parties. So you've got the customer, who's just invested a lot of money, probably a bunch of time, taking sellers and marketers away from their jobs to, you know, learn or get trained on this new tech. And then you've got the tech companies themselves that are, as you say, seeing too much customer churn because of Underutilization of, you know, either the whole license or maybe it's underutilization of the capabilities. And so, as you say, who would, who would renew in that environment? It there's no business case or business sense for it. And so Who has the responsibility there? Right, is it the manufacturer to find ways to reach out and drive adoption? Yeah, let's talk about that. You're right, it's a problem. Who owns it?
Speaker 3:I think that SaaS companies are doing their bit. They are hiring customer success teams. They are hiring people like us who are consultants or practitioners in the market and bringing them on board to help talk about best practices and trends and all of that. But I can also tell you, in some of the projects I worked, i don't see a clear line to accountability. So, after the purchase is made, who owns the technology? Is it the tech team? Is it the sales leadership? Is it sales enablement? Is it revenue operations? There are so many functions that overlap here And we all know if you can't point a finger on one person, nothing's going to get done, because nobody knows.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you get a bunch of departments in a circle pointing at one another. So, before the technology even comes in the door, what is your advice for? Let's start with that selection process. Who should be involved in the selection process? What is a thoughtful way to be evaluating technology?
Speaker 3:I am really biased to field sales or the sellers themselves, and I feel, creating a user group of your early adopters And every team, you have those handful of smart sellers who want new things coming their way.
Speaker 3:I just feel they are the best people to get involved in evaluation, because if your best are not going to use it, forget the rest, and so it really needs to start there. But then everybody else needs to get involved, so it's the ecosystem, and it's just that you can't say otherwise. It becomes that blind man and elephant story. Everybody looks at the product or the technology from their perspective And nobody looks at it holistically from an organization perspective to say how is it going to deliver on my growth objectives? What is it going to give to me that I need to take the organization where I want it in the next two or three years? And I think that needs to be kept in mind when we are making the purchase. And this is where the SaaS companies are really smart, right? Because now we have the premium model. So they come and tell you don't worry about the money, just use the tool And that's the trap.
Speaker 2:It can be And I like the way you do that. It's just like just come use it, don't worry, it's okay, it's safe. So I agree with you about the need to be thoughtful and even a bit strategic in when you're looking at technology. Who really owns that? Is it a group decision? In your experience, is there a best department ie RevOps or enablement that should be driving that sort of evaluation. What's the best practice that you've seen, or does it matter? Do every company do it differently?
Speaker 3:I think different companies do it differently, because that's how the budget sits, but finally it needs to roll up to a chief sales officer Because this is going to impact my cost of customer acquisition. And if I look at who owns that matrix, that's held by the chief sales officer, right? So that's where, in my mind, the buck stops. There, whoever may get involved, but that's the leader who needs to own it. And if there is no chief sales officer, then it's the CEO, maybe, but someone needs to be looking at cost of customer acquisition when we are looking at technology as well.
Speaker 2:I wonder if that's always being calculated in Or because it, depending on how a company's finances and budgets are set up, i could see a potential for technology being paid for out of one bucket if you will and may not be calculated into that cost of sales. So that's an interesting and I think could be really important take for people to pick up on. You said something a few minutes earlier that I thought was kind of funny, that sellers hate technology. Are you speaking from direct experience?
Speaker 3:Direct experience, for sure, but also the fact that I have worked with almost 10,000 sellers globally through my role at Milaheiman Group and being a facilitator there. And it's not that they hate technology, but I think it's just that when a new tool comes in, it's like the flavor of the weak thing there, right, and then you're duplicating your effort, you're putting data in five different platforms, nobody is reviewing you based the data you put in, And you're already struggling to do so many things that you start to hate technology for what it's trying to do for you.
Speaker 2:It sounds like it's creating friction rather than what I'm sure it's intended for. When people buy it is to reduce friction. It may be having the opposite impact on the organization.
Speaker 3:Which is why I think that key point we need to look at is integration. I always if somebody asks me what's the best CRM? I'm like there is no best CRM and I'm sorry to all the CRM companies, but the point is it's the CRM that works in your world, for your systems, for your sellers. That's the best CRM, because you could buy the best. If it doesn't work, it's not the best anymore, right?
Speaker 2:So it's not the best for you or your business. which makes me think of something interesting when we are buying technology, and even when we're buying it smart, maybe it's on us as the buyers to be very specific about our expectations from the implementation and services and CS teams at these vendors where we're buying, and perhaps pin them down, if you will, so that they understand they have a stake in our successful turn up. And I'm not insinuating that SaaS companies just sell their software and walk away, but I just feel like maybe we need to be proactive as the buyers in setting those expectations. What do you think?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think the industry is maturing as we talk as well. Right, we are seeing more consolidation happening. We've recently seen a lot of mergers and acquisitions in this space as well, which is a sign of consolidation, so I think the organizations or the vendors realize the focus they need to have on adoption. I think it's also now up to us, as sales leaders and sales enablement leaders, to be more intentional about the decision we make, and I'm not playing with words, but I'm not saying strategic, i'm saying intentional.
Speaker 2:Interesting. What's the difference? Yeah, yeah, why are?
Speaker 3:you using that word, you know, because strategically there can be. I could have 100 alternatives available to do that same thing, because strategy tells me, okay, i need to get better at outreach and I need to bring in technology. But when I'm saying intentional, it is to look at what is the maturity of outreach in your sales team today. Right, if your team is not even running an email campaign, then the tool you're buying should first inculcate that behavior that you feel confident of doing that. Now, if you buy a very sophisticated tool and the team doesn't have the behavior, it's like we've done that as parents. Right, you first bought the cheapest toothbrush to teach your child to get up every morning and use a toothbrush. Not that you don't love your child anymore, as he, you know, starts to brush his teeth or her teeth but you just wanted them to first get used to brushing And you said use the cheapest one. They're going to throw it in the dustbin. They're going to clean the sink with it and do other toys or who knows?
Speaker 3:Who knows? And then when they get better and they have the behavior of waking up every morning, going to the washroom and brushing their teeth, i will get them the better one right And it's a maturity. I think that's where I'm saying. Intention is about understanding the maturity and saying what's going to work for my team right now, and I can tell you this is a struggle we had in methodology as well, that you know. Some people want to get a Ferrari and I'm like do you have a garage to keep your Ferrari first? So let's not put step three before step one, and I think same things happening with technology. Today We are I'm going in as a consultant and telling people to put some of their tech stack on the back burner for now and let's first focus on what is critical for the team, which they understand, where they are in their maturity. So sometimes I help them sort it bases what is a need to do and what is a nice to do, and let's just keep the need to do first.
Speaker 2:You said a couple minutes ago. You talked about integrations, the importance of integrations. In my experience, that word gets thrown around a lot. I think if you talk to most tech vendors and more tech and sales tech vendors, they'll tell you that they integrate. But I've just found that that could be. You know, there's a whole spectrum of what that could mean. So how, how can our listeners and all of us be smarter about? right? So we agree, yes, we need to have integrated stack. But what should we be asking or probing for to find out if it really is going to integrate the way we think or we need it to?
Speaker 3:Yeah, So you know, this is where technology has introduced a new language to us. Now integration can be a tech language or behavior language.
Speaker 2:That's an interesting statement, so I just want to emphasize that everybody. So you say integration can be tech, language or what was the second part, sales language. Sales language. Okay, explain that. That's intriguing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Let's say tech language. I have a tool which has an open API. You can use a Zapier. It integrates to HubSpot. It's technology integration, Right? Sales integration is about how does it work in my sales methodology? Now, if my team doesn't use LinkedIn sales navigator or LinkedIn at all for prospecting today, even if you give me a tool that integrates LinkedIn to my CRM, the team's not going to use it because the behavior of using that platform is missing, Right? So it's not. When I'm saying integration, I'm not saying tech integration, because every SaaS company knows this that they need to create a tool which can integrate to as many other platforms as it can, and they do that. However, when we start thinking about again the sales ecosystem in the organization, how well does the tech tool integrate into the? it's like you know, if it was a puzzle. Does it fit perfectly into your sales ecosystem puzzle or does it stick out like you fit a wrong piece in?
Speaker 2:And you keep trying to push it down. it just won't fit Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, exactly So. We've got people listening right now, probably in a couple different stages of maturity with their tech stack. We've probably got some thinking wow, i'm a little nervous now because it sounds like there's a minefield you know to be aware of when I'm navigating. And then I think there could be some that maybe have made some purchases and are having some adoption struggles or concerns. So let's start with the first group. What? Because we always like to send our listeners away with actionable, you know, things that they can do. So what would your advice be to someone who's just starting to evaluate and look at tech for the first time? Maybe they're just now getting their first budget for it? younger company, that sort of thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think my first thing is to say why do you need technology? What are we trying to fix, accomplish or avoid by making this purchase today? If it is to free up my seller's time to do something else, then let's look at what are those activities that I'm happy to automate and bring in that technology first right, so it's somewhere needs to. it needs to start with thinking about your customer at the core of whatever we do. There is a time and motion study which says that a seller spends only 36% time in customer conversations today. 64, 65% of their time goes into everything else that they do. So I can have two approaches Either I make the 36% time more effective or I reduce the 65% time and give them more time to do what they were doing in 36%. And this is the first decision for me. Where are we focusing?
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And that would then lead to that second point, to say, all right, what is my technology maturity in the organization today? What are my people used to? If you're not used to running five kilometers, i can't give you a tool to prepare for your half marathon. Let's get you to 5K first, right. So the second thing is to look at your technology maturity in the organization and say are we using tech for? do we have an ERP? Are we using it for HR? Are we using it for payroll reimbursements? You know so many other things that we do on technology And then kind of look at where does that sales thing match up? And I find that's a good kind of a barometer to see if this is going to get utilized or not.
Speaker 2:You've probably heard the expression that a fool with a tool is still a fool, always, so yours is a nicer way of saying it. But yeah, just buying the tools, not going to solve underlying problems. And if you're not ready for it, what about any of our listeners that maybe have already invested, or their companies invested, in stat and tech but they're struggling with adoption? or they're struggling but they've just signed a one or two year contract? They can't. They can't throw up their hands and and in a walk away. What are some ways that they could maybe start to tame that problem? Any recommendations for them?
Speaker 3:Incentivize the behavior you want to see, And I'm not saying throw money at it. Incentives could be rewards and recognition as well. But it's really to think through that, to say if this is the behavior I need my sellers to do on a regular basis, what's going to move them in that direction? How will I bring that behavior in And then create a plan for it? It's you know, there's going to be no perfect Monday morning where everybody's going to come to office and start using a tool because you stood in the town hall and said, guys, we've spent money on this, you better use it.
Speaker 3:Right 30 years Never seen that magic happen. yet. I think that's for me the main one prioritize and incentivize.
Speaker 2:This has been a good topic, because I'm sitting here wondering, you know, if they're back to your $7.8 billion in in startups in the space, how much in revenue, excuse me, how much money rather are in customers spending globally on this stuff And you start to think about the loss of productivity. So you've got a double whammy. Potentially, you've spent money on this, but then it also turns out that it's making your team less productive, so you've got a loss of productivity. So I think it becomes clear that it's really, really it's critical to get this right and be thoughtful Absolutely Before we do our final question of the episode. If any of our listeners are interested and maybe have some questions for you, as LinkedIn the best place to contact you, Absolutely, i live on LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, all right. So, before you, before you go, i want to give you a chance to drop one more nugget of knowledge on us, and this is this could be from anything in your career. Enable me later or not, but you've been given the gift of time travel and you're allowed to go back and coach yourself at a younger stage in your life, but only on one thing. What is that? one thing that you wish you'd understood early.
Speaker 3:Focus on the process And it sounds philosophical, but you know it's very easy to focus on outcomes and then to realize, with the wisdom of experience and age, that you can't control the outcome And the only thing you can control is the process, it's the experience, be it in parenting, be it in leadership, be it in sales. I can only control my process and the experience I will create. I can't control the outcome. So I wish I knew that earlier, i wish I recognized that earlier And if I could, that's one thing I would change.
Speaker 2:Well, Priya, thank you Really appreciate the time you spent. This is a topic we haven't really. I don't think in the three years I've been doing this, we've never had a conversation about it, So you're bringing your expertise and bringing us something new. Thank you for that.
Speaker 3:My pleasure, absolutely, and as a seller and as a sales leader, it burns my heart to look at the amount of dollars we're spending on technology And it sits there underutilized, because there is power in it. Every tool that gets launched in the market brings value. We just need to understand the value it brings to you, and that's important I love that They all bring value, but you need to understand the value it brings to you.
Speaker 2:That's a great one to go out on, so thank you again, and thank you to all of you who've been listening, who just spent another 30 minutes with us. It wouldn't be here if it weren't for you and for your support. So stay safe And I hope you'll be back in two weeks when we'll have a new guest and a new topic.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining this episode of Stories from the Trenches. For more sales enablement resources, be sure to join the Sales Enablement Society at SESocorg. That's S-E-S-L-C-I-E-T-Yorg.