Revenue Enablement Society - Stories From The Trenches
The Revenue Enablement Society's "Stories From The Trenches is where revenue enablement practitioners share their real world experiences. Get the scoop on what's happening inside revenue enablement teams across the global RES member community. Each segment of "Stories From The Trenches" share the good, the bad, and the ugly practices of corporate revenue enablement initiatives. Learn what worked, what didn't work, and how obstacles were eliminated by enablement teams and GTM leadership. Sit back, grab a cold one and join host Paul 'Norf' Norford, for casual conversations about the wide and varied profession of revenue enablement where there is never a one size fits all solution.
The wide and varied profession of Revenue Enablement ensures there is never a one-size-fits-all solution to be successful. Amidst constant change the journey to successful outcomes is never the same. Learn from your peers and gain insights on topics like:
-Building strategies and metrics that correlate back to revenue impact
-Gathering requirements to identify stakeholders
-Gaining buy-in and executive sponsorship
-Aligning with sales leaders
-Facilitating cross-functional collaboration
Revenue Enablement Society - Stories From The Trenches
Ep. 79 - Juliana Stancampiano - The Evolution and Future of Sales Enablement
How has the role of sales enablement transformed since its early days, and what does this mean for the future? Join me for my final episode of "Stories from the Trenches" as I sit down with Juliana Stancampiano, CEO of Oxygen and former board president of the Revenue Enablement Society (RES).
We trace Sales/Revenue Enablement's transition from traditional sales training to the more holistic approach of modern sales enablement, emphasizing the diverse backgrounds of professionals in the field. We dive into the critical role of organized processes, clear metrics, and continuous learning in driving sales performance and discuss the importance of educating senior executives about effective enablement and the impact of new technology on the field.
Be sure to subscribe and follow the Revenue Enablement Society on LinkedIn for exciting announcements about what's next for the podcast!
As this is my final episode as producer and host, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to all my guests and listeners. Thank you all for being integral to this incredible journey with "Stories from the Trenches."
Juliana Stancampiano is an author, entrepreneur, and leader helping businesses prepare their people for what happens next. For more than 15 years, she has helped leaders translate their company’s strategy into tangible achievements for their people, creating experiences that help people succeed. As CEO of Oxygen, Juliana has developed a unique perspective around the enablement, skilling and ways of educating the workforce of today. Juliana also held the Board Presidency for the Sales Enablement Society from 2019-2022.
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Welcome to the Revenue Enablement Society Stories from the Trenches, where enablement practitioners share their real-world experiences. Get the scoop on what's happening inside revenue enablement teams across the global RES community. Each segment of Stories from the Trenches shares the good, the bad and the ugly practices of corporate revenue enablement initiatives. The bad and the ugly practices of corporate revenue enablement initiatives Learn what worked, what didn't work and how obstacles were eliminated by enablement teams and go-to-market leadership. Sit back, grab a cold one and join host Paul Butterfield, founder of Revenue Flywheel Group, for casual conversations about the wide and varied profession of revenue enablement, where there's never a one-size-fits-all solution.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome back to another episode In fact my final episode of the Revenue Enablement Society podcast Stories from the Trenches.
Speaker 2:The last four years or so, what we've tried to do is bring together practitioners from all across the globe, talk about the common challenges that we're all facing, the innovative ways they're finding and have found to overcome those challenges, the things they've learned, and we always get some really interesting insights, and it's not going to be any different this time around.
Speaker 2:We have a special guest, and when I say special, there's a reason we have Juliana Stancampiano here. She is the CEO of Oxygen, but a lot of you probably also know that she was the board president, executive board president of SES for several years, and I was my predecessor in that role. And so if I go back four years, Juliana I think it was in March of 20, and I remember being in the parking garage at work because we hadn't been sent home yet, and talking to you on the phone. I think you called me on my morning commute and you asked me about my thoughts on taking over the podcast that you started, and so I guess you probably started it in late 20 or late 19, probably at this point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, yeah, in the summer, I think, of 19 is when, I started doing the recordings, because I remember actually doing some of my recordings in France, ironically and then back in France.
Speaker 2:So we're doing lots of full cycle things and so I will not rain on anybody's parade because there's an announce. Any changes come to the podcast. There are some exciting changes in the works and you will see all sorts of announcements from RES about that on LinkedIn and on the website. But for my last episode I invited Juliana to join me because she's the one that started me on this path and it's been a fun four-plus years and, as Scott Santucci pointed out to me one time recently, Juliana, we're in a relatively exclusive club. There are not that many people that have been the board. President of SES slash RES.
Speaker 3:So anyway, there are not so many to date, but no, not to date. And not many podcast hosts either.
Speaker 2:I would say no, that's true. That's true For this. Yeah, Bill Ball and I were talking the other day and he said that outside of the conference, this is the longest running RAS SES program. I hadn't thought about that.
Speaker 3:You know, it's super fascinating for me because we first came up with the idea back when sales enablement was still not super well known or in a lot of businesses. You know the role of sales enablement and people were just dying to know what people were doing. You know how they were doing, what it was that they were doing inside their organizations, and that's really where it spawned from was like hey, can we just hear from our peers that are have been doing this for a couple of years? Or you know, there were many that had been doing it for that long. And that's where the idea came from. And it was like how do we get stories out as quickly as we can to our audience? That's grown so fast, you know, in just a matter of a couple of years. At that point, I think it was 2017 to 2019. And that was the birth of the stories from the trenches and the name.
Speaker 2:I was one of your guests? I don't think I was. I wasn't the first guest and I recently stumbled across the old graphic the old lion no, what goes on there? Neon colors. It was in my Google Drive somewhere.
Speaker 3:Luckily we've evolved.
Speaker 2:Yeah, before we get too deep into it, I want to give you a chance to do the Jimmy Kimmel challenge. It's a it's just a fun way for people to get to know you that maybe don't already, and so it's pretty simple. Kimmel announces his retirement and you are offered his show. You may have anyone you want on as your first guest. Who would you bring on and why? Why them?
Speaker 3:This is going to be maybe kind of silly, but I think I would bring on Dax Shepard.
Speaker 3:And I don't know if you listen to Armchair Expert. He has a podcast that's been very long running and he interviews both famous people but then also authors and scientists and researchers etc. But he is like one of the people that Jimmy Kimmel calls when somebody bails. Okay, yeah, so he's been on. Of the people that Jimmy Kimmel calls when somebody bails Okay, yeah, so he's been on a bunch. Yep, he would know how to like, how to make it go Right.
Speaker 2:He could set you up for a really great first show, yeah.
Speaker 3:That's, that's that's a thoughtful choice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, I like it, I like it. So back to the conversation. We're choice. Yeah, okay, I like it, I like it. So back to the conversation we're having. Wow, you know, you rewind four years and look at the state of sales enablement back then and we were right on the cusp of lockdown from the pandemic, which just changed things even more so. So it's been a very wild several years, but when you think back, what really jumps out to you that was happening in the industry, then that has evolved the most. I mean, there's been a lot we could talk about, but what's the biggest one?
Speaker 3:I mean at that time it was sales enablement was still so scrappy and not, you know, organizations full of people like some of our large. You know companies that exist now have groups that are over hundreds of sales.
Speaker 2:Oh, I think IBM's even 200. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Exactly so that just didn't exist. Um, you know, the groups were in for those companies. I think they were in their twenties or, you know, maybe thirties at that time and growing, and there were tons of sole practitioners and there are still a lot of sole practitioners. But we've also seen a lot of maturity happening from an organizational perspective and the growth of more roles, and I think that attributes to the changing of the name for the Sales Enablement Society right over to the Revenue Enablement Society, because there are more roles and more has been asked of sales enablement to continue to do and create in order to support the revenue growth for companies. And I think, from my standpoint at least, that's what I would say has been one of the largest shifts over the last four years.
Speaker 2:I would say has been one of the largest shifts over the last four years. Yes, it's, and certainly as far as it becoming I don't know if mainstream is the right word, but much more prevalent, because I don't remember it was in my first enablement role. You know, it's interesting when there aren't rules, and in September 2012, there really weren't a lot of documented rules for enablement.
Speaker 2:Right, there were a few voices out there from Gartner and Forrester talking about it and starting to firm it up a little bit. But yeah, you know, one of the benefits and I think I may have shared this with you, but I my EVP asked me to leave a sales director role, and he created this new role, this thing called sales enablement. In fact, it was in my one on one in September 2012. And instead of talking about deals the whole time, like I thought we would, he wrote sales enablement on his whiteboard and I hadn't heard the term at that point and he started to tell me what his research had shown and why he wanted me to go and take me home for the weekend and said challenge you to, will you take this on? And if you come back with an answer, yes, wink, wink. Clearly he'd made his mind up.
Speaker 2:I'd like to see it 30, 60, 90, high level, and so the advantage to me was that there weren't rules that we didn't necessarily know, and so we were free to make mistakes, but we were also free to stumble on things and figure them out, and when I think back on the whole concept of revenue enablement one of the things that I knew from leading a sales crew at that company was that we had far too many deals that either didn't turn up at all or our renewal rate wasn't all that it should be, and a lot of it could be attributed to a very poor if any handoff meaningful handoff from sales to implementation and customer success. And so after we got the core sellers, we had to program some things set up for the sellers. It just sort of made sense to start experimenting. Let's bring in CSMs, let's bring in and start onboarding them together and building those relationships early, and then we took them through the sales methodology. So I've always just been grateful for the fact that it was a little bit Wild West.
Speaker 3:And so you didn't get everything right. Right bit wild west and so, yeah, you didn't get everything right. Like was right, right, right you?
Speaker 2:instead of having somebody say well, that's not how it's done in this profession.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah we're creating this profession, so we're doing the things that we think are just right for the people and the organization, yeah, and I think that's a really liberating space to be in it is especially with, with the right executive sponsorship who essentially said you know, hey, I'm creating this new role.
Speaker 2:Paul's in this role. He doesn't have any director, because I was an Army of One for the first year, I think, before I got to hire somebody, and he's like, never mind, he doesn't have a team reporting to him, he's still a leader on this team. And you know, but I knew these. I knew these folks because we'd been working together for a while. Um, so it wasn't that hard. But when you think about you know was oxygen. What were you working on? You know, I would say, when. What was your backstory in getting into enablement? What was going on at the time?
Speaker 3:Well, so I you know it's interesting because one of the first deals I ever sold into one of our clients was um sales process learning. Okay. Right and it was revamping what they had in place because it wasn't working. That was in 2008.
Speaker 2:Okay, oh, wow, yeah, so really digging in early, yeah, I mean on the learning side, right.
Speaker 3:So I didn't get into the organizational side of sales enablement until later as it. But that's, I think, pretty normal from a consultancy perspective, like you're going to go in and do the work that exists versus creating something net new. You know for for a company they're going to bring somebody in to lead that first. So we got into the organizational side and the technology side later from a consulting perspective. But we've always been in that sales learning space.
Speaker 2:Do you remember when you first heard the term sales enablement?
Speaker 3:It was definitely later and it was probably in the like 2014, 15 space. Okay, similarly, did work with Forrester, and you know so, I think a lot of that spawned from the different research firms that were out there and that were doing the work in that space, um, and I thought, okay, well, that's funny because I've been doing, you know, a part, at least a portion of that for a while, just like you had, and I think they're probably, and we we found a decent amount of people were doing that already because the sales enablement society when it was built, that became the thing. Yeah, sorry about that.
Speaker 2:I remember I wasn't there at that first meeting, were you? I don't? I don't know the names of all the hundred. Okay, yeah, but Jill came back from it and I remember her cause. She and I were working on something at the time and she said you should, you should join this, and so yeah, and, and that was it. That was it at the time. That was it. Actually, we didn't have a chapter in Salt Lake City yet or anything like that. That came maybe a year later, but it was cool to know that there were others out there. There were other people doing the same thing. It's like you kind of knew that, but it was nice to meet some of them and start to understand there was a community growing up and so I've always been grateful for that. Are there any things that, because we were going through so many transitions back then, sales training, what people considered typically sales training where my boss put me in the first row, it's very clear on what he saw as the difference between sales training and sales enablement.
Speaker 2:What was that transition like from your perspective? And fast forward, do you think there's still a lot of confusion or a lot of people using those two terms interchangeably sales training and enablement of any kind?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it continues to happen and I think you know it's interesting and what we talked about earlier with where things have gone. The other big increase that we've seen, I think, is that a lot of people started in sales enablement for the first time at the same level that you started at, which was not a junior level right, you're a senior person. You're a senior person on the sales leadership team is where a lot of people started as well or were brought into the sales organization, and so there were not a lot of young sales enablement people, right, and there weren't a lot of people creating lots of different things from a sales enablement perspective, necessarily because the department was still so small. And so we've seen a huge growth, as you know, in all sorts of roles and levels within sales enablement, and I think that the boom of it has been good in some ways, and I also think it's been really hard, because where do you find sales enablement people? Right, there is no.
Speaker 2:You mean during the growth at any cost years. That's right, yeah, and so you, you know.
Speaker 3:And then we started to see the like oh, are you sales enablement grown out of the learning space or are you sales enablement grown out of the product marketing space? Because that's where like people were being pulled from, based on what their strengths were. And then there were a number of people but I don't know that they were a majority that were like sellers themselves.
Speaker 2:That moved into sales enablement. Yeah, I'm trying to think back. The earliest Forrester report on enablement that I can remember was probably from like 2014, 2013 maybe. Yeah, and I remember they were starting to track that, where the role reported and sales was either in second or third place, marketing and RevOps were way out in front. So that's the other thing I remember is RevOps people were or at least that's where they had them report to even if they had pulled them from somewhere else. Yes, do you think we've gotten better at identifying the right skill sets and hiring? I mean, right now, sadly, there is a surplus of enablement folks on the market looking, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to identify and go after the right ones. So what do you think? Are we getting better or not?
Speaker 3:I think it is still very fragmented is what I would say. I think people are getting their arms wrapped around it. They're understanding it more than ever, and yet I think it is still really difficult to think about how to enable sales if you haven't ever sold.
Speaker 3:That's my like the empathy for sellers has to be so incredibly high in my mind to be very effective at sales enablement. And one of the best ways obviously to have empathy for something is to have gone through it and done it yourself, right, yeah, yeah. And then you're like, no, that's not going to work. And you can be very clear. You know, it's a little bit like being a coach on a team and if you've never, you know, say you're a coach of a soccer team but you played baseball, you know you're not going to quite be able to relate to what it is that the players are going through and it's hard to say, no, do it this way, not that way, because I know right, cause I I've been there and I can help you get there, or that's a good idea.
Speaker 2:That's not a good idea, so I I think that's a real struggle, frankly.
Speaker 3:It's the Ted Lasso model, right. So you know, never played never played.
Speaker 2:Never played soccer, but I'm going to coach it now.
Speaker 3:So he's amazing, Could be a leader, but I would say you can lead from that perspective, but you need to have some really strong people that understand the game, and that's what he you know he also had that.
Speaker 2:And that's maybe what some people have done. For me. It was the opposite. I understood how sellers think. I understood the pressures, as did you, we, we. We live that life, and it is a very black and white world in so many ways.
Speaker 3:There's no fudging if you're good at your job or not. Yeah, yeah, exactly You're not going to look at something that's not going to help you, right? Right. You're just like, yeah, that's nice to have, this is what I need.
Speaker 2:But what I do remember is the thing that worried me it really did was I knew that adult learning was a science. I knew that there were definite best practices that would, and so I did not wanting to waste anyone's time, I mean I went out and learned it as best I could, joined ATD and went to, did all that Did all that too.
Speaker 2:But as quickly as I could, I also went and hired somebody with that background. So it was sort of the opposite of what you were saying. That was a huge gap in my knowledge and I needed to fill it to make sure that we were getting it as right as we could. But it's interesting what you said about needing a sales background. So I had that bias for a long time. I actually thought that you really needed that to be effective in enablement, except for some, you know specialty type roles and my bias has has evolved over time. I've I've seen examples of folks that were able to come in and and do the leading, but I think to your point, there were always there was always strong sales acumen somewhere on the team that they were able to to tap into. So maybe that's the big thing you know hire to your weaknesses and build a team around you that you know fills those. None of us is experts in everything.
Speaker 3:We can't be, so yeah, I do think the empathy for the role of the seller, regardless of somebody's background, is imperative. I don't know.
Speaker 2:How do you?
Speaker 3:develop that Well. I mean, I don't know how many times I've been in meetings with clients where I hear them just dogging on their salespeople.
Speaker 3:And I'm thinking is it the salespeople? Or is there just some sort of lack of understanding both ways about what is helpful for somebody versus what you think is helpful for somebody? I think that is what kind of shifts for me, as if, if the person's really curious, you know about how the world works for a seller if they go and experience what it's like. You know. You think about the amount of rejection that sellers go through and you think you know. The closest I can tell people is think about giving a presentation to a bunch of people that you don't know on a regular basis. This is essentially what sellers are doing. It's one of the like world's like number one fears. Is public speaking right?
Speaker 3:Yeah so you're every day trying to like have conversations with somebody that you don't really fully know, but that you've tried to get to know as well as you can, right, and you're continuing to build that and in order to have something from their world and then something from your world, come together so closely that there's an exchange of money.
Speaker 2:That's a really interesting way to put it and that's hard. No, it is, it is. I heard sales selling described I wish I could remember who to attribute this to but described once as playing draw poker, but only one side has to show their cards. So that's true too.
Speaker 3:And yet sometimes, like, I agree with that and I don't in some ways, because I don't think that that creates a really successful relationship down the road, right, and so how do you get somebody to open up and build trust and rapport within the structure of having sales conversations? And that is an art and a science, you know, it's just it is.
Speaker 2:And you know, you just triggered something in my mind and that is one of the things that I still think sellers really don't have enough of us. But that way is business acumen the business acumen to have business conversations with their prospects and buyers, which means they default to things like jumping right into a demo or a pitch deck and that kind of thing. And if you agree with that, how's enablement can we? Because a great discovery meeting is the basis of a successful sale. It's hard to have a, it's hard to have a successful outcome if you don't start off with great discovery. But how do we help someone who is an AE in their 20s or 30s and is never going to have 20 years experience? That the person they're talking to does, but how do we enable them to get the acumen to carry their own side of the conversation?
Speaker 3:I think it's having as many at-bats for them as possible to practice that. So that right, so kind of what you described, and, and you're right, there's like no replacement for experience. Right, I'm just like failing. I remember walking out of some meetings in my twenties where I was like, oh cause, you're just like, you're anxious, and all of a sudden you just like say the thing that you know you're not supposed to say, or you rush the meeting along because you just, like you know, are nervous about it, or whatever, and then you walk out and you're like, oh, that was so bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hindsight is definitely 2020.
Speaker 3:Totally, and the next meeting goes a little bit better and a little bit better. And then you know there's, there has to be a comfort level with um having a conversation with someone and letting it just be the conversation. And so I, when I talk to sellers, I'm like, hey, success is getting the next meeting, just get the next meeting. Success is getting the next meeting Just get the next meeting. Don't think about getting the deal right, Because then you're going to rush.
Speaker 2:So stop thinking about selling and focus on being in the moment.
Speaker 3:That's right and think about the conversation that you're having and what the person's asking, and know that this sale isn't going to happen overnight, right, that this isn't going to, this sale isn't going to happen overnight, right. So I think it is that like telling somebody that the expectations on them is not that sales just magically appear very fast, because that's not how it works, unless you're, you know, selling a beauty product right now at Sephora. Yeah, okay. Those are flying off the shelves?
Speaker 2:yeah, they probably are. Um, I want to shift gears, um, and talk about something else that I, that we, we and I have talked about in the past, so I want to get your take on it, and that is the understanding of the enablement professional or the profession and professionals by the senior go-to-market executives that need to understand, you know, sales, marketing product and do you still see a gap?
Speaker 2:I feel like I'm walking into a trap here. Well, it's not a trap, no, I mean it's, so it's. I mean back when we talked about changing the society name that board was it 20, I guess late 21?. Yeah, talked about changing the society name at that board was it 20? I guess late 21. Um, that you know, I mean we recognize that that shift was already starting to happen. But when you get outside of the enablement community, I think my, my, that there is still a lot of misunderstanding or confusion about what great holistic enablement should look like. And if the executives that are funding and hiring these teams and these roles don't understand that's going to be a problem from the get. So I guess what? I'm curious do you agree it's still a problem? Do you feel like we're making progress in that direction over the four years ago? What's your take?
Speaker 3:I think that educating executives is an ongoing process. For anybody, that's a support service in an organization, and it's probably the number one thing that is critical to doing in your role, because without it and I'm sure you know this as well you don't get the funding, you don't get the support, you don't get the you know headcount, like, you don't get all the things that you need to actually create the things that are going to help sellers sell, which is why enablements there and so, I think, being able to break that down so that executives can understand what's needed to actually produce the things that they're asking for, because it's very easy to go well, I just need onboarding.
Speaker 2:Or I need another one one page. We need another one page, or yeah?
Speaker 3:Yes, can we have another one pager for that? And you're, and you know, and everybody's just like, oh my gosh, what are we doing, you know. And so, organizing, having the conversations and having a very organized enablement, you know, part of the org, I think is critical. So it's like what's your intake process? How do you prioritize things? Um, how do we talk about how long it takes for somebody to learn something? That is a huge conversation that I've had with executives so many times because you won't believe, you know, we all hear like, well, they need to go sell these products now. And it's like, okay, great, who's selling them? Well, nobody has. It's a new motion. Okay.
Speaker 3:What are we doing to support them? Well, you're going to create stuff, right, and it's like okay, sure, and then what, right, and?
Speaker 3:it's like and to get to that level and what you said about, like the younger AE that's in their twenties or thirties, like you need more than just an online learning or a one pager or you know whatever it is. They need practice and they need support and they need specifically like here's the conversation you're going to walk into. Here's some of the things that you can talk about. You know, if they say this, go here. If they say that, go there, and it gets really specific. But it takes time to both create that, because somebody is going to have to be willing to work with you to create it and it takes time to absorb it and practice it and go out and use it.
Speaker 2:So back to my question. Do you think?
Speaker 3:as a group.
Speaker 2:As a group, we're getting better at communicating those things, or is that gap still pretty wide?
Speaker 3:I think that there is a portion that have done a phenomenal job and are doing a great job, and I think the gap is still high. Okay.
Speaker 3:And I frankly my like very undata backed. So you can ask Forrester Gardner about this. But you know, sales enablement has seen a lot of people let go over the last couple of years and tech has been a huge consumer of sales enablement has seen a lot of people let go over the last couple of years and tech has been a huge consumer of sales enablement and they've had the worst couple of years where there have been so many layoffs. And I think that unless we're able to show the metrics and the value and we're having those conversations it gets cut.
Speaker 2:Yes, and the value and we're having those conversations it gets cut. Yes, and I think one of the advantages going back to what we were talking about a few minutes ago of coming from a sales background, especially a deep sales background, is you tend to look at enablement not as its own but only as a means to an end, and that end is increased sales, increased revenues, close rates, shorter sales cycles, all those things, and that's something that's just ingrained in you as a seller that you think you just naturally bring to enable. If we're not measuring, as you said, then we don't know. Back when you and I were doing this, you know, earlier in our careers, it was very difficult to measure any meaningful metrics. We had leading indicators but it was tough to Do. You think that that has gotten better and easier to do, and do you think we're taking advantage of it again as a profession, or is there still room for improvement on measuring?
Speaker 3:Well, I think there's a lot of room for improvement on measuring, and I say that in part because the learning field still doesn't have it, I think as well. We're just getting to a sophistication, so it takes a lot of operational wherewithal to put that in place right, and you have to get your baseline. I think there's still a long way to go. I think we're starting to scratch it and we're getting way better at it and the conversations are happening and people are trying, and that's like the first step right To reporting, and I know we have had some clients that have done the reporting. We've been able to do some of that work. We've been able to show onboarding, ramp decreased by ramp, decreased by many months, and you know quotas going up before they were before. But you have to have the baseline, and if you don't have the baseline and if you don't have the support of your executives which I think in sales of all areas of a business, there's a lot of metrics- yeah, it is like the easiest place to get some data.
Speaker 3:You know, you know when people ramp, you know like so many things yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Just pick one you know and go with it, and it's going to find the right mix of lagging and leading indicators. Absolutely yes.
Speaker 2:Because I think in the past my observation, there was an overemphasis on certification numbers, and you know what I heard somebody call butts and sheets and butts and seats and smiley sheets. Oh, I mean yes, it's important, because if nobody, shows up for class, they're not going to learn, but yeah, but how? But what are the outcomes that are coming from that and how do you tie that?
Speaker 3:that's right you can do. I mean, we've all been in front of a computer doing, you know, consuming, training or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, and if you two monitors, you're consuming that on one monitor, you're doing something else on the other monitor, for honest.
Speaker 3:So that's exactly right.
Speaker 2:The um. Well, I want to wrap up with a couple of things first, Um, you know, and in talking with you I know, that you're very bullish on enablement as a profession. So what, what, uh, what do you see as the next exciting thing in enablement that we should all be looking forward to or thinking about?
Speaker 3:Well, I think you know everybody's talking about AI, and it's very prevalent, and we've done some work on it with some of our clients. Um, what I would say, though, is we all have to learn, and, and we're all in it together. In fact, I just listened to an amazing woman, amy Webb, who is a futurist, that spoke at South by Southwest, and I would recommend people going out and listening to her talk. Um, she talked about us all being in it together, about the executives not knowing a lot more than anybody.
Speaker 3:It's new, and there's kind of a trifecta happening, and so we can't pretend it's not going to happen because it's going to happen, but what we can do, and what I would say, in our control, is to just go out and start like, using it a little bit. You know, finding a platform that you like you know seeing how it works, seeing how it can make things efficient in what it is that you like. You know seeing how it works, seeing how it can make things efficient in what, what it is that you do. I mean, we've used it for titles of things and summary write-ups, you know, just like some of the more mundane parts, um, of our job, or like some of the writing. That happens and we feel like it's not very good put it into um one of these tools.
Speaker 3:I love Grammarly Like it's not very good to put it into one of these tools. I love Grammarly. Yeah, a lot of people do so. I think that's obviously going to be a big component. We are going to need people, but what the need is is going to shift, and what I think is great for sales enablement is a lot of people. Some people have now started in sales enablement specifically, but we change and we flex with what the business needs and I think that, um, also consuming and learning and understanding how this is going to be used is going to be really important as it comes up and a lot of you know a lot of companies are selling it into the companies in which you work for efficiencies and different, you know, engineers, marketing of that.
Speaker 3:I don't even know if it's ahead of it, but just you know stay current, it doesn't exist and don't like try to actually be like oh, I've got it all because nobody does and it's okay to say that because it is okay to say that. It should always be okay to say it, but in this case especially yeah we're taking it one step at a time right now with clients, because you know, the really large companies are actually very thoughtful about this and they know it's not going to be an overnight solve it, but they're picking away at it and that's what I think everybody needs to do.
Speaker 2:One final question for you, and we'll wrap up, and that is this may have nothing to do enablement, it may be a hundred percent enablement, but you've been given the gift of time travel. But a couple of things. You can only talk to yourself. We don't want any butterfly effect going on right. You can only talk to yourself and you're only allowed to coach yourself in one area. So, given that, what is the thing that you wish you'd understood earlier in your career or your life? That that you would want to know?
Speaker 3:Go teach yourself understood earlier in your career or your life that that you would want to know go teach yourself. I think that I wish that I had known that there were a lot more professions to choose from than the ones that we get told about at school.
Speaker 3:And even all the way through college. You know I'm not doing. I did take an entrepreneurship class. I will say that. So there was some bent there. But I don't think I knew what was possible when we graduated from these institutions and I wish I'd had more confidence in myself to just explore more, versus feeling like I. You know, I was still in that, I'm in that age group still. That's like you needed to be, like I'm going to be at this and or I'm going to be at that, right, and what do you want to be when you grow up?
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh man. And you had to have the answer and I wish that I had given myself more grace in figuring out what my passion was. I got there, but I was like so driven, you know, to figure that out.
Speaker 2:We're in the real world now. You got to go fast. Yeah, no, I could have benefited from that as well. Definitely, definitely. So well, juliana, thank you for your time, thank you for sharing all of this, thank you for all that you have done for the society, for the profession, for me. I've learned a lot from you over the years. Our friendship's been valuable, so appreciate that.
Speaker 3:I appreciate that and congrats on all the podcasts. It was so amazing to be able to hand it off to you and you made it so much better immediately. And I was like oh, thank goodness.
Speaker 2:And I have no doubt that there's more to come.
Speaker 2:There's always right. None of us is as smart as all of us. So I mean, I'm excited to see, I'm a little sad, but I'm excited to see what the next host brings to it. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and wrap up. Thank you to all of you who have tuned in every two weeks for the last several years. We wouldn't be doing this without you. And again, stay tuned. Watch the RAS page. Follow it if you're not already, because there are some big announcements coming. Otherwise, stay safe and we'll see you at the conference in the fall.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining this episode of Stories from the Trenches. For more revenue enablement resources, be sure to join the Revenue Enablement Society at resocietyglobal. That's resocietyglobal.
