In this engaging session with Jenn Glabicky, she shares her innovative approach to collateral organization with an emphasis on the importance of sales and marketing teams working together to enhance the buyer experience.
Together we unpacked:
Jenn Glabicky's background in corporate sales and leadership expands over several industries including healthcare, sports, and finance. She has a proven record of success implementing enablement, marketing and leadership strategies to bolster top-line revenue.
She is passionate about helping her colleagues & clients learn the sales and leadership strategies they need to succeed no matter what this marketplace does.
When Jenn isn’t geeking out about enablement, marketing and company strategy, she enjoys putting her emergency medical technician license to good use by volunteering at large scale events such as hurricane disaster relief and the Boston Marathon.
Please subscibe on Apple, Spotify or Google.
In this engaging session with Jenn Glabicky, she shares her innovative approach to collateral organization with an emphasis on the importance of sales and marketing teams working together to enhance the buyer experience.
Together we unpacked:
Jenn Glabicky's background in corporate sales and leadership expands over several industries including healthcare, sports, and finance. She has a proven record of success implementing enablement, marketing and leadership strategies to bolster top-line revenue.
She is passionate about helping her colleagues & clients learn the sales and leadership strategies they need to succeed no matter what this marketplace does.
When Jenn isn’t geeking out about enablement, marketing and company strategy, she enjoys putting her emergency medical technician license to good use by volunteering at large scale events such as hurricane disaster relief and the Boston Marathon.
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 podcast that is on always has been by practitioners, for practitioners, because we get to bring in sales enablement professionals from all over the world talk about topics that most of us are thinking about and finding out the innovative ways that they are solving for those problems. And sometimes we talk about things that didn't work well and how they adjusted. That can be just as helpful and, speaking of the current environment that we're in, it's a tough one. Everyone's being asked to do more with less, and so the things that we do have have got to be adopted and utilized by the teams that we support, and sometimes marketing and sales teams are not great at playing the same game together.
Speaker 2:Marketing, for example, can create lots of content and it gathers digital dust. Sales gets onboarded with lengthy and boring training. It's an underwhelming buyer experience that the CSMs are maybe offering, so today's buyers expect a lot more time out. To get to that next level, you need a modern approach and with the LEGO Modern Revenue Enablement, the GoToMarket team can unify and synthesize their best stories to delight customers and deliver results. Game over. Ready to up your game? Go to alegocom slash demo. I'm excited to tell you who we have as a guest. Some of you, in fact a lot of you, may know her, but welcome, jen Glebicki. Hello, jen is the Director of Marketing and Enablement at Fidelai. Jen Wanch, tell us a little bit about what you're working on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited. I am, as you said, the Director of Marketing and Revenue Enablement at Fidelai, and this is a Series B fintech company and we make money programmable. So what that means is, let's say, you go to a coffee shop, you buy yourself a latte and, instead of understanding that you've maybe gained some points, you get money back right away, so you're able to not only buy your latte, but those cute little cookies that you also wanted to buy and you're even buying. You can buy those right away as well. So it's about helping out with different loyalty programs and expense management programs.
Speaker 3:So I've been working with that company for a little over a year now and just jumped into the marketing. Back into marketing. They did not have a marketing department, so excited to take that challenge on. I have an extensive background with not only sales but marketing, customer education, comms and you name it enablement, so kind of excited for this. This is going to be a new venture for me to not only put my marketing hat on but also enablement and kind of put those two together. So very excited to chat about that today.
Speaker 2:So when we were talking before we hit record, you were telling me that you are an Army of One, heading up two departments.
Speaker 3:I am yes, yes, and that is the the oh crap. Moment of can I do this, but I'm also very excited. I've never met a challenge I didn't like.
Speaker 2:All right. So before we get into the serious stuff, I want people to get a chance to know you a little more on the human side. And so let's say that Jimmy Kimmel retires and through your amazing network, you get offered his show. You can have anybody you want on the couch, the first show. Who would you bring on and why? Why them?
Speaker 3:I would probably bring Will Ferrell or Steve Carell. Even though I'm the funniest person that I know, they're also funny, so if I'm flopping on the show, they're going to probably save me big time with their funniness.
Speaker 2:They are both funny. I think you'd need to petition to have them both on. Can you imagine that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I think it would be a panel as well, yeah. Well, that, or what about the cast of the office? Just bring them all back and I think that would bring some ratings. So again, if I'm not funny and I'm just tanking, that's that's going to help me.
Speaker 2:If you're an office fan, it sounds like you might be. Did you know that? Oh, I can't remember the actress's names, but Pam and Angela the actors that played those roles have a podcast called the office ladies.
Speaker 3:I did not know that.
Speaker 2:You're worth a listen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, really Okay, they're really fun. If you, I did not know this, but Steve Carell has a general store. I'm from Massachusetts, I'm in Boston, bostonian. He actually has a general store in in the Boston area so and I guess he frequents it.
Speaker 2:I will be in Boston later this year. I'm going to find out where that is.
Speaker 3:Yes, don't check it out.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about collateral and and I want to start that can mean so many things to different people. So why don't we start with your definition when you think of collateral, and then we'll get into how to organize it, best practices and that sort of thing, but what's your definition?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So a lot of people will say content, which isn't wrong. I typically will say collateral. Reason being is because content is what is in the collateral, the collateral piece. My definition of it is either internal or external. Internal collateral is what we're using to prep the sales reps for comfortable and confident conversations in the right sales stage for the right customer. Then that external or customer facing collateral is more so to help those customers make their decisions. We typically will create collateral that we think is necessary without ever gaining feedback. We'll kind of get into this, but I do want to touch upon what the customer thinks, what the customer thinks is necessary or needs. I'll go into a little bit of a rant, shall we say, of what I've run into with customers and collateral creation.
Speaker 2:I would say that's important rant, I mean, if it doesn't resonate with the customer, why are we doing it Exactly? Exactly, there are yeah, let's talk more about that At a high level. What are you doing and what have you developed in your own process to be the best ways to organize and also audit and keep track of the collateral?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think there's three steps to an audit For me. Anytime I join a company, I start with a self audit. So, looking at a self audit what I mean when I say that is looking at content or looking at collateral and understanding what can I find. So how long is it taking me to look for something? Let's say I'm looking for brochures. How long does that take me internally to look for a brochure? How long does it take me to look for it on a website? Is it easy to find in the category I'm looking for? Is it easy to find internally in a content management system, cms? How many people did I have to go to? How many hours did I spend looking for that collateral or, again, touch points am I looking for? So those are those self audit pieces and I track all of that.
Speaker 3:So then when I come to the marketing folks and say, hey, did you guys create this or could you point me in the right direction to who created this? Internally I'm looking to see who's the owner of that. How did they create it? What is that process? And then I ask the sales reps how often are you using this? When do you use this? What is the process for you to look for this or get this rolled out. How often are you getting new collateral like this?
Speaker 3:And then, finally, I do that external audit. So that's the third piece, and that external audit is asking a customer. I've said this before in talks, but when I talk to sales reps and customers. I had a sales rep again in the Boston area. Ask a sales rep. We did this product launch and we gave you this nice glossy. How did it go with the customers and the rep? Kind of the typical Boston attitude. And he had said to me it was great for keeping the snow off of my floor mat in my car, but other than that it didn't really do much for me.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I love that step three, and so I'm curious how do you identify which customers to go to and do you find that that they're excess, make themselves accessible and they're interested in having this conversation? Or is it a challenge?
Speaker 3:Both. I typically will do one on each end of the spectrum, one that's and when I say spectrum, it's a difficult customer, customer is taking a really long time to close, and what I'll do is I'll join in. So I am not afraid to go to a sales rep and say, hey, I'm noticing that we've been having the same exact conversation during pipeline calls week after week. And what is it? You know you're saying you're talking to this project manager. This person's not budging where it's, it's Groundhog's Day every pipeline call. Would you mind if I joined in as a third party just to listen in?
Speaker 3:I want to learn, and if I ask that customer and say is there anything you know collateralized, like if we provided a case study, if we provided some sort of a background on this product, is there something missing? We want to make sure that we're serving you the best way possible to provide you everything you need for the decision. I'm not trying to sell anything to. I'm genuinely just trying to learn how we can be a better you know vendor for you or partnership you know to collaborate. And then on the other side of that, it's understanding from the other side of the spectrum of a deal we close really quickly. Was there something that was so outstanding to you that we use during the process that you were like, wow, this is, this is damn good. And those are some of the things that I'll ask during the process and again, I'm not afraid to meet with the customers and have those conversations.
Speaker 2:I don't, just in my experience, I don't think that happens often enough. It doesn't, no, it doesn't. And again, when we we don't have an outside in view, we're just there's no way we're going to get it right enough of the times that we need to.
Speaker 3:So yeah, yeah, um in particular, I would actually ask sorry, but like enablement in general these days I don't see like the field sales trainers anymore. Right, I since COVID, a lot of that stuff's gone away but we don't see those touch points. Enablement has always been the Oz behind the curtain type role, so we don't see the touch point with the customers. We don't see that. I guess I don't know if you want to call it more so the tenacity or the go-getter type for us to go into the field, and I think we need to kind of bring that back or kind of reinvigorate that in the enablement field. I don't know if you agree with that, but if that's something you've seen in your experience.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I do agree. It's I, and I'll be honest right now, in the current environment, I don't know that we're going to see it come back anytime soon, but I hope that once this cycle turns and it will and my, I mean 2008 was terrible, but it turned and turned around and actually a lot of prosperity for a while. So when this does, I think that's something that people should be advocating for and thinking about. I know my own experience on teams. My teams were almost always remote and the the biggest reason was I wanted them in market, so they may, even if they weren't a dedicated sales trainer, just having you know people in various markets, even in the UK, other places. It just helped with our perspective and they just connected with people you know, especially if it's someplace. We had an office really, really good, but that was back and people went to the office. So I think that'll be the interesting thing to see too is, without an office, to for a sales trainer to use. How do they I mean sure they can do it virtually, but how do they have that impact that they used to have by getting to be face to face with reps and customers and all that? But I do agree. I think it's something that people should be thinking about, so thanks for bringing that up.
Speaker 2:When it comes to collateral audits, in my experience, governance that's how I look at governance is one of the hardest things about it, for two reasons. One, the authors of the content are usually really bad about going back and reviewing their content. You get some really old stuff. And number two, there's always some sales reps that download something and two years later they're so using it, so I don't know if there's a way to fix that. Yeah, Talk to us about your best practices when doing audits of collateral and managing that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so this is music to my ears. Yes, so with the audit piece we do, we find that something. A lot of the it's a check the box mentality by marketing. I hate to say that it's like one and done of like. Okay, I created it, but now I have something else on my plate so I need to move on. So I find that a lot of the content management systems, they do have expiry dates on them and a lot of the enablement platforms are starting to put those on as well. They'll get those expiry dates, which is nice to see.
Speaker 3:That when I find that disconnect is that marketing will say we own this, so you can do certain things, like they'll say on the outside for a website they'll call a piece of collateral or something like we'll, we'll, we'll bucket things by brochures, by collateral type, whereas now I'm starting to see a trend where a lot of enablers are saying let's bucket collateral by sales stage or buyer's journey stage and while I don't disagree, it's also not best practice because you need to speak the customer's language, so it makes it difficult. So you may be talking about a buyer stage or a, you know, sales process stage, it's not the buyer's not thinking that way right. They're not thinking like, oh, this is, as I'm exploring my options, I'm looking for a brochure, like that's not what they're thinking in their mind. They're like, hey, I just want to look for a brochure Like that's just, that's just their vernacular. But what?
Speaker 3:When I'm thinking of this and how we're talking about auditing and looking at that, I get a content governance committee together collateral governance committee. So what I do is I find that partner. I become BFFs with my comms and my legal people first off. So when we create new things, it's easier and smoother for the process. I find my marketing person might go to there and that person. We start this collateral governance committee and we always have action items. I've never had a collateral governance meeting where people are just sitting there. They don't just show up to show up. Everyone always comes with some sort of an action item. So whether it's someone from our scientific if I'm working for a scientific testing company I've done in the past that person comes and says, hey, this is what we're going to do with this collateral type, so case studies and the number or space of it you know legal shows up in, says, hey, this is how long it would take for this to get approved, you know, based on legal parameters. So we really make sure that everyone has a role. We don't have too many cooks in the kitchen.
Speaker 3:We make sure as we audit, we look at every single piece of collateral we have. I think I've mentioned this at our last at the Vegas summit, but we had over 10,000 pieces of collateral at a company that I worked for before, which is just insane. Again, that's that check the box mentality, create it like, set it, forget it type thing. Go back and look at that collateral, see what you have constantly make sure, set guidelines with naming conventions, set expiry dates. Make sure that again, this is you know people go back and forth on this Do you download or do not download? If it's something that's downloadable on the website, should it be downloadable via your sales enablement platform? These are all things and I say this, paul, because as you're auditing, you need to make sure that you're following the same rules, both for your sales reps and for your customers. But these are part of the audit pieces that I definitely make sure come into play.
Speaker 2:There was something in there that I'd like to unpack for just a minute when you said that you don't agree that organizing content by sales stage and I know that happens a lot Could you just delve into that a little bit? You did mention that that's not how the customers are thinking, but I'd like to unpack that for a minute and help people understand what you mean.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I'm glad we're stepping back for this. So right now, in my current role, stepping in with marketing and enablement, what we're doing is we're providing all of the stages for the buyer's journey, all of the stages for the sales process in which pieces of collateral can be expected through each of those. So that way it's not a I need a case study now. It's in this stage. You should expect this. So that way we start getting more in a rhythm and it's a fluid motion.
Speaker 3:But we don't put them on the website like I'm not listing a case study in your Explorer options stage on our website. It's here are your, your collateral pieces. So if a customer wants to look for a case study or they want to look at brochures, they can do that. When it comes to the sales reps, we make sure they have those and we make sure that they know in that stage it's available. But we don't list them that way, like we say it's a brochure or we say it's, you know, it's a case study and it's available in those, those stages. So we don't just list it as an Explorer options, it's that name, we still say case study, if that makes sense. Does that clear it up a little bit?
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. So when it comes to organizing the collateral so you've talked a bit about governance, but but when you start to organizing it, what have you found that works well? And maybe some things that you tried that really didn't.
Speaker 3:Yes, I. Something that didn't work was not being flexible. I was very dead set on this is the way it has to be done and there's no, you know, wiggle room here. Things change right. So if you don't have a CMS like a set CMS that everyone has access to, then you're going to run into some big issues. So we didn't have that set CMS.
Speaker 3:If you have, you know, Adobe experience manager I mean, there's a ton of them that are on the market. I'm not going to go through all of them, but whatever you're using for your CMS, make sure everyone has access to it. So if you have your enablement platforms, if just sales has access to your enablement platforms, that can be an issue. You don't want things living everywhere. You know, SharePoint, Google Drive. You want to make sure you have really that one central area. So, making sure you have that set. You need to be aligned Like that. Cross functional alignment is just so critical.
Speaker 3:And whether you're an enablement, whether you're marketing, making sure that you have that strategy to say who owns what and starting off with a minimal, viable product. Your content MVP, your collateral MVP of hey, listen, yeah, we want all these different types of collateral, but not trying to boil the ocean when it comes to creating every piece. So, starting off and then tracking that, what are the metrics? Why are we starting with these pieces of collateral? Is it the case study so we can do brand awareness? Are these brochures so that we can make sure we start understanding in its market, or segment awareness? Those are things that you want to make sure you have straight out of the gates so that we don't, to the beginning of our conversation, just create collateral to create collateral.
Speaker 2:Ok, so you've mentioned two things CMS versus enablement platforms.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I'm really curious now is there a best choice between those two, or do they both bring different strengths? What do you recommend?
Speaker 3:I wish there was a way there's. There's different enablement platforms that will market themselves as a CMS, more of a CMS platform, which is great. Anytime I go into a company and I audit like tech stack platforms whole different conversation but when I audit that and look and do a vetting, I will look and see like what's best Do we have a CMS platform, yes or no? And then I'll look for any moment platform that has a CMS capabilities, for example. I say that because a bigger company will typically have a CMS and then they'll also typically have an enablement platform where they'll look for one. I don't think there's a better way, one way or the other. Why I like an enablement platform is because there's that element of an LMS with it. So that's why I'll look that way as well. But the CMS piece it has to be really, really well organized and really really well managed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it can't be an afterthought, a bolt-on function.
Speaker 3:Correct yeah, and I know typically it's not always that and then finding that way to govern that to your point right Of making sure that we're not having old things in there. It's going to be replaced. A lot of the enablement platforms now are able to integrate, obviously, with CMSs, which is nice. So if you have an older version, it keeps up with version control. It keeps up with that download, whether you can or can't download. So that's been helpful.
Speaker 2:So A couple of comments you've made in other things you were talking about Sound to me like you have found that, although enablement is partnering with you know creating these committees, things you talked about ultimately they're responsible to help get it right. Am I off on that?
Speaker 3:Tell me more when you say that.
Speaker 2:So you're working with marketing but, for example, when you said, become besties with comms and legal, find your marketing championship, that felt to me like as an enablement person. You are having to go build those bridges and relationships. And, yes, you're creating committee, but you're probably the one that's maybe setting those committee meetings and things like that. That's what I'm trying to validate.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And the reason why is I think enablement is kind of a newer type function in companies and because it is, I think it's more of an uphill battle to kind of validate what we do and end in our functionality within the company. So there's typically, I like to see marketing and enablement work more on a peanut butter jelly type fashion, not oil and water fashion. So I think that's where that comes from and I do. I'm usually the one that's pulling that together because I understand both sides of it, whereas typically there's some sort of a friction of people kind of, you know, butting heads.
Speaker 2:Yeah, makes sense. How did you learn, you know? How did you get into this whole collateral side and become, you know, somewhat of a, an expert, or at least a thought leader in that? What's your journey?
Speaker 3:I was a volunteer at first. Well, my first, my first role with enablement. I had an awesome opportunity with the scientific testing company. Awesome opportunity to jump into enablement where I owned our enablement platform and my role was not only the enablement platform but it was also to do sales communications. So to communicate out to the sales reps like what's happening, what new collateral is coming out or are we creating or what are the needs, and so, learning a little bit about that, I realized really quickly I had to be very friendly with marketing and understand more about collateral from their side. So it was an interesting role I had. That's again, I mentioned that 10,000 pieces of the 10,000 pieces collateral that's where that was Imagine where you'd start with a mess like that.
Speaker 2:Thankfully we had a audit 10,000 pieces would be a lot.
Speaker 3:It was a lot. They kudos to that team because they had an awesome team. But yeah, it was a. It was a big challenge and that's kind of where I started. But a lot of people that if you are an NM one or if you are, you know you don't have a team. It's something that, again, just exploring, going back to that self audit, the internal audit, the external audit, that's a great place to start and try and understand and really be curious, really ask a lot of questions, document that ask why a lot become a toddler of every. Every question is why, why, why, and really seek to understand. It's something that don't try and boil the ocean in terms of doing all of it. Just make sure you pick your swim length. Like I've chosen, collateral and tech stack is my area to kind of look for an expertise and that's been something I just constantly try and learn and grow as I go along.
Speaker 2:I imagine there are people listening right now that are in one of a couple situations. Perhaps they were the original enablement hire. Now they've gotten resources, they can hire a couple of team members, and so being able to do this kind of collateral work is just now becoming their, you know, a possibility. I could even see some teams that maybe just didn't think it through. They were, you know, very focused on other things and working hard, but they just didn't really see themselves in this role. So for, you know, anyone that's listening and wondering okay, this sounds cool, but it sounds maybe like a big, a big step up or big step to do it. What are some steps, baby steps, maybe even that you recommend that people can get started in this path.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so for me, baby steps. And I'm just going to pause, Paul, because you're frozen.
Speaker 2:You're frozen, can you hear?
Speaker 3:You were just frozen yeah, can you hear me now?
Speaker 2:All right, yeah, I can. I'll just make a. I'm going to mark that we went right there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, the last thing. Did you hear the question?
Speaker 2:The last thing that I heard are what are some baby steps and then it froze, okay, yeah, some baby steps that you would recommend to someone who's realizing this is important and wants to start incorporating into their enablement function.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so some baby steps for anyone that's trying to incorporate this. I would learn about the different pieces of collateral. So start getting curious about the different collateral types that marketing is rolling out right. Typically, bigger companies have their marketing department collateral. They have a social media function. So there's the blog post, the social functions. Understand a little bit more about that. Understand how you can collaborate. We've talked about different podcasts that enablement can do. We've talked about different things that we can do in terms of sales playbooks. What are those internal versus external collateral types? And then understand how we can collaborate to make sure that internal and external line up and match up.
Speaker 3:Somebody had that might have an English background or English major background. Here's where you start putting that to use right and start writing that and just just get curious with it. This is that chat GPT. It's something that a lot of folks are. Well, how can I make this work for me? Do you need a person or can you use this as a function? This is where you can start using chat GPT. In the beginning, if you don't have an actual resource, but then, as you start getting resources for an actual headcount, you can pull this in.
Speaker 2:Great, I've learned a lot, so thank you for that, and I always like to give guests one more chance to drop some knowledge, and that maybe to do with enablement. It may have nothing to do with enablement, and so my question is if you had a chance to go back and coach some younger version yourself you know, whenever, it doesn't matter, but you're only. You can only coach yourself on one area what would you wish you'd understood back then?
Speaker 3:I wish I had advocated for myself, knowing no one else would advocate for me, meaning it's something that just continually learn, continually be curious, continually push, go outside your limits, take chances, raise your hand. It doesn't matter what it's for, Because you're setting yourself up, you're setting your career up for whatever is going to come tomorrow. There's so many things that people say how did you get into that? How did you end up doing that, Jen? You look at my background. It's so different, so diverse, and I love when people ask me what do you want to be when you grow up? Because you've done so many different things in your background and it's because I've taken chances, because no one else would have done that on my behalf. So I highly recommend, highly encourage that Anyone going to college pick a major where there's a job attached to that major, but definitely, yeah, yeah, for sure. So, but take chances, be bold, and if anyone ever has questions or wants to chat more about it, I love it like connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm always open for a conversation.
Speaker 2:And that was the next thing I was going to ask you.
Speaker 2:Yes or not, working people best connect with you. So thank you for answering that or mentioning that. Absolutely, this half hour has gone by so fast. So thank you very much. And I've seen Jen talk about this live from platform and, if you ever have a chance to go to a session that she's delivering or if not, take the time to reach out to her Because she I know you do mentoring and I just found that there's just a lot to learn in this area and I've been doing enablement for a long time and, like I say, you're teaching me stuff.
Speaker 3:Yes, and I look up to you, paul, so thank you. This is a huge compliment for you to say that, so thank you.
Speaker 2:So we're done, folks, again, remember, I want to say remember to say thanks to our sponsors. Alego, we are nonprofit and so we definitely depend on the kindness of our friends. So appreciate all that they're doing to support the community and appreciate everyone spending a half hour with us again this time. We appreciate that, we value it and we hope you'll be back in two weeks to hear from another guest.
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 sesocietyorg. Thanks Se. S-o-c-i-e-t-y dot. O-r-g.