Ep. 21: Hold My Pipeline: Sales Enablement Buy-in Secrets Exposed

Celeste Berke [00:00:00]:
Hello. Hello. Welcome to the Sales Edge Podcast. We are here with Candace who's in sales enablement. I'm really excited. I typically talk with either leaders or ICs. So this is my first foray into sales enablement, which has become a very hot topic on LinkedIn. Let's face it.

Celeste Berke [00:00:17]:
But what struck me about Candace and why I reached out is she is active on the LinkedIn platform talking about the misses in enablement, where we need to go as a collective sales community, and so we are going to dive in today. Candace, tell us a little bit about yourself and your role.

Candace [00:00:40]:
Yeah. So, I mean, first about me and, well, my wife and mom and lifelong enabler. And right now, where I'm focused the most is actually sales leadership enablement. So took the opportunity to work with a really great company who had awesome foresight into seeing some glaring challenges that we definitely need to solve.

Celeste Berke [00:01:02]:
Love that.

Candace [00:01:03]:
So Set the leadership level.

Celeste Berke [00:01:04]:
Granicus. Right? I love that nuance there. So, hopefully, the listeners and those who watch us on video from our homes will pick up on that nuance that Candace said. So sales leadership enablement. Candace, tell us about that shift and what you're seeing with most companies, where they're focusing, and where that tiny shift has come in for you.

Candace [00:01:29]:
Yeah. I think, historically, enablement focuses on the sales process, the sale, right, sales methodology, all things I see. Right? Which is which is great. It's important to support. But I think a key element that continually gets left out of that is how are we equipping sales leaders? And a a big portion to that and something I had shared on another podcast conversation was there's kind of a historical precedence of, you know, companies promoting top performers, right, with the idea that it's gonna translate immediately to a successful revenue or sales leader. And then we start to have challenges, and it's always why. And I think a big part of answering the why is looking at, well, how are we enabling our our leaders to lead, you know, especially our sales leaders? If we look at reasons why people leave companies, we know the data points. There's a lot of times they leave poor poor leaders.

Candace [00:02:36]:
And so I think for companies, there's a responsibility going forward to develop mature leaders, but just a responsibility to equip your leaders. You're investing in people and leadership. And to make that full investment, you need to make sure that they're equipped and enabled.

Celeste Berke [00:02:55]:
So something you said, really, it's something that our team, the ASG Gap Selling team has been perplexed about. We recently went up for a huge deal and it became glaring during the sales process that there was well, if we teach the ICs how to do that, everything is magically going to change. The pipeline will get better. Their win rate will improve. In our team, we're really focused on, it doesn't matter who comes in to train your sales team at this point. That's like the minutia. What we are seeing is a complete lack of ownership from the leadership level, enablement, sales leadership to say half of the onus is on us. So we can train a team to a methodology, to a process, but if we don't have any reinforcement and the sales leadership isn't willing to do that, like, heavy lifting every day of let me look at your opportunities, are we having pipeline meeting, 1 on 1 coaching to the skills level? Let me give you some areas of development, now practice, drills, and they turn their nose up late, and we don't wanna do that.

Celeste Berke [00:04:03]:
Nothing is going to stick. So how are you ensuring that you are equipping leaders to understand, like, how important it is to have their buy in?

Candace [00:04:19]:
It has to be we have to sell things internally just as much as we do externally. Right? And so the things that we can't forget, I think we often do, is that we think, oh, this is gonna be great. It's gonna be a behavior change. But if we're not demonstrating or providing the ROI versus, you know, cost of inaction or where the gap is to our sales, they're not bought in. They need to be sold to. They need to know what's in it for them. They need to know what they need to give up or what muscle to flex. Now to the ownership piece, this is really important.

Candace [00:04:56]:
There's this kind of funny back and forth of, like, who's who's coaching? Who's gonna own this? And everyone's passing the ball on the field, but nobody wants to kind of be the quarterback. Some of it's symptomatic of some external fear of not wanting to make a a bad decision, but some of it is about enablement and equipping. Some leaders have to start with some things like an operating rhythm. Like, how are you operating? You got a lot of meetings. But your time has to be spent with your team. So what's your operating rhythm between the meetings that you have and then setting up reoccurring time with your team and then team calls so that you're also even thematically, right, revisiting sales skills because coaching is a collaborative accountability. It's shared. So, you know, hate to spoil this for you.

Candace [00:05:45]:
It's not enablement's responsibility and sales agent's responsibility. As both. You know? And it's working together on that. We're gonna have the ownership, and we're gonna have an operating rhythm to reinforce the things that we see and partner on it rather than try to pull in each direction. That's it's something that I see over and over again. Right? It's this frenemy kind of behavior between enablement and sales. Right? And you even see some of the conversations, like, on LinkedIn that are a little bit wild in terms of either they didn't have an effective enabler or, you know, they had a sales leader who either was immature or didn't have scales and couldn't ask just didn't have the humility to ask.

Celeste Berke [00:06:36]:
The revenue speed model that talks about the importance of this shared responsibility across the revenue organization from it's not just skills development, that common DNA, then regardless of methodology, it has to be carried up through operation or, through the opportunity management and then through the forecast management layer. And that, yes, everybody operating from the same playbook, so to speak, so that one team isn't running off in one direction and another in another direction, but I think there is this, like, finger pointing, and I believe some of our language is like, it's not your fault. And even I think people are wondering, well, what isn't sales enablement? Where's the crossover between the IC and leadership? And if it doesn't work, is this sales enablement's fault? And I love how you said it. It's almost like a triangle, like a 3 legged stool of it's really everybody working together to figure this out, and that may look different from organization to organization based on the strength of the leaders that are in place.

Candace [00:07:40]:
Yeah. And how many leaders you have. Right? Maybe you have couple or maybe you have a larger leadership team. And with your leaders, you're gonna have them at different places in their leadership journey. Right? First time leaders have to get some basic frameworks in place. Right? Starting with one thing that I I think you have to start with is if you were going to step into a role where you're leading other people, you have to unpack your bias, and you have to go through that first, and you have to understand yourself and what your lens is. And listen. The first argument can't be, well, I'm not.

Candace [00:08:16]:
It doesn't always look like that. You know what's another fun word for bias? It's called preference. Right? And understanding how you operate and your lens because when you have a team of people, they've all come in with a different worldview, lived experience, and belief system than you. And so what you have to do when you look at that is meet them where they are, and you cannot do that. You cannot get to somebody else until you get over yourself and understand yourself first to meet somebody where they are. And so I think that's your first responsibility as a sales leader is, okay, this is the first thing I've gotta go through is at least some unconscious bias training. I've got to dig in with somebody about, you know, when do I get frustrated? When do I show up frustrated? What are gonna be some things that I'm going to react to versus respond, and how do I start to to work through that in helping, you know, assess other people's performance? Am I clear about how people are measured? Right, so that I'm not preferring certain people to other people? Right? Am I clear on how my sellers are going to be measured in the expectations, and then am I clear about how I'm going to be measured? What are they looking at qualitatively? What are they looking at quantitatively with, you know, attainment? So those are some of the first things you've got to step into as a leader and say, okay. These are the things I need to uncheck and be prepared with first, and then, you know, go from go from there.

Candace [00:09:55]:
Enablement from that leader perspective then is helping you get those tools in place, getting you a toolkit so you can start to step into that leadership role instead of going into it, trying to figure it out, and trying to do it the way you think you led or you performed as a seller.

Celeste Berke [00:10:18]:
Yeah. And so something I found interesting, I had large organization the other day who's contemplating a sales methodology and and, you know, which way do we go, a lot of misses, Horrible quota attainment. Right? Revenue declines. The pipeline's not there. Things have been in the pipeline for a couple of years years. Seller is not understanding the business problems. They're talking about product, yet there seems to be these silos. There's massive issues with forecasting, lack of adoption of the CRM.

Celeste Berke [00:10:52]:
And like you said, everybody starts doing their own thing. Mhmm. When you start to see that kind of people existing in silos, what is your best advice to kind of take a pause and bring everybody back together to the vision to move forward?

Candace [00:11:09]:
That's a really good question. One of the thing people need a vision to strive for and work to be done. And I think one of the jobs that of bringing people back together is having that vision and the CRO or whoever your sales executive is start getting in on that ground level again with communication. What's our vision here? What's in it for you? What are the expectations? And that starts to be the the verbiage and the narrative going forward, but making sure that you're connecting that vision to field level mission. Right? And field level mission is this is your role as a seller in executing on our vision and how we're going forward as a revenue organization. As a revenue organization, that means we need this and this to happen, and then it has to be repeated. Right? And then there has to be feedback loops around change management and how people are feeling and understanding that messaging. And so there's a lot more intentional communication that needs to happen to start getting that back on track.

Candace [00:12:20]:
And so really important after change has taken place in a revenue or for people or there's been growth and what operations and workflows worked before may not be working now. Right? Usually, what, you know, gets a company from a to b doesn't get you to c, right, when the growth is is a lot larger. You know? And you add people and things. It's just naturally gonna get a little bit more complex and layered. And so you just have to take a breath and and put clarity back into the air. I've

Celeste Berke [00:12:53]:
obviously talked with a lot of organizations who don't have someone in enablement, and it baffles me because I often to look as at enablement is kind of like this plays a mediator role sometimes between the 2. I see your vision. I see this. Let me help you synthesize it so that everybody feels like they've come to the table, they've been heard, and we make a plan to move forward where everybody can be in alignment. In your experience, I know you come from sales leadership. At what inflection point does the company miss out on not having someone enablement? Like, do you have any thoughts on size of the company, revenue, team, leadership when it's like, enablement here before you, you know, add more sales roles?

Candace [00:13:45]:
Yeah. I'm gonna say something probably really unpopular when it comes to this. I think enablement needs to be one of your more, early hires. You usually have people who are really good enablers. There's a couple people I would point to out in the community who are who are focused on who are really understanding of behaviors, behavior change, and change management. And so I think having somebody early on in an organization, also, that gives you leverage to help grow with an organization. Right? But you're gonna have to have somebody who can not only facilitate change, but is also able to spend time building and get some of those things that are needed in place as well. So you may have a little bit of a different skill set initially where their, you know, enablement of 1 is you're a therapist, you're a builder, you know, you're you're you're you're an operations leader.

Candace [00:14:43]:
Right? But I think getting enablement early on helps build more of a strategic partnership, also helping to get clarity. A lot of times what happens in an organization is people are saying the same things, but they're expressing them differently based on their lens and their role. Right? And so I think really good enablers can hear patterns and hear themes and go, this is what we're saying. Right? And just like you said, synthesizing, distilling that information and go, this is about you know, we're if we're in a revenue organization, we have to move a line, right, for it to be successful and to create an ecosystem for our our sales leaders to lead and for our sellers to sell. And so us trying to pull in multiple directions is really futile a lot of times when and, essentially, what is our goal to do as an organization? Drive revenue. Right? Create a customer experience that is important. What gets in the way of that is the self. Right? And The ego.

Candace [00:16:01]:
Not being heard. Yes. And not being heard. Right? And I think really good enablers being in can hear things, can sit and listen, observe really well, you know, behaviors and things that are happening, go, you know what? Here's what this person's saying and this person's saying. We're on a similar track. Let's and and kind of redistill that communication.

Celeste Berke [00:16:28]:
Some conversations I've been having with those in enablement who, in their organization, specifically, appears very reactive. We're seeing this symptom of the team having a low win rate. So I need you to now go make some training around how they can improve their win rate. Now go do that and come back. And to me, that feels like very reactive versus, like you said, everybody coming together to say, what's going on? What are the behaviors? What is causing this? What is this stemming from? Just plugging in a training doesn't mean that our team is magically going to improve their win rates. And so I'd be curious as how do we move away from enablement being, like, very reactive to having a seat at the table and being proactive for the strategic

Candace [00:17:24]:
vision. That's yeah. Proactive is something I think we hear a lot. I've experienced it myself. I think you experience it initially when you're going through change as an organization. You're more reactive. Right? You're focused on lagging indicators instead of getting to that place of leading. And it takes a little it's gonna take a little bit of muscle.

Candace [00:17:47]:
It's gonna take saying no. It's also gonna I ask really hard questions, and I'm and and so I I put a lot out there to go, are we answering this? Because one thing I think is the miss on that and why we get reactive is because we don't agree on the problem first. Right? And I think the first responsibility is we've gotta come together and go. Are we identifying the problem? Right? People are really solution focused. Right? We talk about all the time, like, in the greater sales community. Product, product, product. Right? Slap some technology on it. Right? You know, it's it's kinda like if you've ever it it's just like that's gonna be the the catchall solution.

Candace [00:18:35]:
Right? Instead of a Band Aid, it's like slap some technology on that baby. Right? And we're but but we're trying to say, you know, do some technology when we have people issues. Right? And the core of the people issue is, are we clear on the problem? So really good training, really good enablement, really good sellers are fixated externally on problems in other people's businesses. But internally, we've gotta exercise the same sales acumen. Are we clear and aligned on the problem? Right? Now we can execute whether there's really a need for training and whether or not this is a fix, you know, within our own ecosystem before we're requiring a change in behavior. Right? We don't we don't do that. A lot of times, we just go fix the behavior. You know? We want other people to change.

Candace [00:19:29]:
I don't need to change, but I need you to change. Right? We do so hard.

Celeste Berke [00:19:34]:
We had a team meeting on Monday, and it's funny for as much as we talk about problem centricity, we too got caught up in the, like, well, here's all the ways that we can fix it and what we can do. And Keenan kept honing us back like, okay. What problem are we trying to solve here? Like, what is the problem? Speak to me in the problem. And we're all like, oh, we just all jumped to the solution, like, trying to fix it. So I think you're spot on that Mhmm. Get really good about doing that externally, but internally, we forget that just because we make a change here, it doesn't really mean it's going to really impact what's going on. It becomes that Band Aid. Mhmm.

Celeste Berke [00:20:14]:
And I think that's why we hear a lot of times like, well, sales training doesn't work. A methodology, like, a checklist, it doesn't work. And it's like, well, it doesn't work because maybe we didn't address the the problem that actually was at hand, but We don't understand the problem. There is an alignment on the problem inside the organization, and thus, it's just we just added more. We just clapped some some lipstick on on the pig like like the Band Aid. Where being a sales leader and then you went into enablement, like, where did you learn this? What was your inspiration? Where did you get training from that allowed you to move to where where you are today?

Candace [00:20:58]:
When I so the first time I was promoted to a sales leader, I was really terrible, and I was in my early twenties. And before that, I was actually a really terrible seller, and I was put on a pimp until I got some coaching. Right? But then once I got some co like, coaching, and I understood what I was doing, like, I ran with it, and then I got promoted because the one thing that's at my core is I truly love people, and it's in what I do, and that's just how I show up. But when I stepped into that leadership role, I managed to activity, and I drove my team, you know, bananas because I was like, how many dials did you make today? You know? And I was really fortunate because at the time, the the I start off in in higher education on in online. Right? Asynchronous learning, like, before it was cool, before. And, you know, the company had a the foresight then to hire a really phenomenal performance management team of just powerhouse women. And I had a performance management coach make some time with me and took me off campus to have a conversation, a real conversation, and asked for permission first. Like, do you want some feedback on how you're showing up as a leader? And at first, I was really kind of a jerk about it because I was like, I got promoted.

Candace [00:22:34]:
I'm here. I'm doing the thing. I'm the only, you know, I'm the only female with all these guys around. I'm doing it. And she was like, you're not doing it. I mean so she was like, but she was like, but I think you can be a really great leader. And she's like, it's not something that you have to know naturally. She's like, you gotta make a choice to learn it.

Candace [00:23:02]:
And that was everything for me. That literally changed a fundamental shift in I wasn't someone who knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. You know? I ended up in sales because I like to talk to people and you know? And it it's one of those things that kinda happened. But her mentorship was everything to me. I did turn things around, and then what we discovered was that I had a love for training, that I would lean in with my team. I would focus on, you know, giving them space to learn and then became more of a you know, my style of leadership is always training and an environment to learn. And then my team started doing really, really well. And it's because I had to demonstrate better behavior first.

Candace [00:23:49]:
And that's why I think enablement for a leader is so exponentially important because you demonstrate the behavior, and that always comes from leadership. Right? Like, you know, people just a lot of times in organizations, they see behaviors, and then they navigate them.

Celeste Berke [00:24:09]:
Like our kids.

Candace [00:24:10]:
And that's a really common You

Celeste Berke [00:24:13]:
see our kids. 100%. I say shit, and then my daughter's like, mommy said shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

Candace [00:24:21]:
Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Right. Right. I can't I can't tell my son, no. You can't have that brownie, and then I go and eat the brownie because I want him to be better than me.

Candace [00:24:35]:
That doesn't work with any human ever. Right? Like, we just get we'll just get mad and resentful, and then we, you know, we rebel in our natural human so there's a whole lot of, you know, sociology and psychology to that. But at the end of the day, it boils down to, as a leader, what kind of behavior do you demonstrate to your team? And that's where enablement matters for a leader is how are you showing up day in and day out, how are you responding, and how are you treating each and every individual that is on your team.

Celeste Berke [00:25:12]:
I love that. And I love that someone took time out to help you versus going in the other direction of, like, you're not doing this. These are all the things that you're missing, and if only more people did that, you know, what what would this world look like? And I appreciate you sharing that. It's never easy when we have to peel back the layers of our similar to you, I was the first time leader, and I say, you don't know what I'm doing. You have to find your community of people who are gonna help build you up, and we're still learning every every single day. As we wind down, I always love asking guests 2 questions. 1 being, what's your sales edge? It's like, what what is your sales enablement edge? I think you've alluded to it, but I'd love to know in your in your own words, like, what's kind of that unique factor about you?

Candace [00:26:06]:
I would say I'm very observant. Like, I'm really keen in identifying behaviors, and I can unpack people and things really fast because I am insatiably curious. I have you know, asking hard questions and being able to I did talk a lot through this. You asked me questions, but, typically, I love to have conversations where I get to ask a lot of questions and learn about you and learn about people's stories. And so I think that me being observant and really listening to people and meeting them where they are has kind of helped me learn how to navigate business to where I'm observant, and I can pick up on things that people aren't paying attention to.

Celeste Berke [00:26:47]:
Well and I can tell just from this conversation, which is was all about you and your expertise as it should be, is just your level of, like, empathy, understanding, like, of human behavior, and then how do you meet people where they are in order so they feel heard, which is, we often talk a lot about of, like, don't lose your human in sales. Right? People wanna be heard, and when we go into that robotic behavior or we start doing things that we don't understand what the implications are. For example, I went a couple of years within an organization of having my 1 on 1 canceled for years every single week. Like, after a while, the story I told myself was, like, I'm not good enough. This isn't I'm not worthy of a conversation. Like, there have I learned everything I can? And I think that really shows, like, how much you truly care about people, but your willingness to also ask tough questions that may push people to grow. Because when we're really uncomfortable, hope that's typically when we accept it where growth happens. So what is one sales myth as as we close out here that if it could go away or you could bust, what would that sales myth be?

Candace [00:28:15]:
I would say that you have to be a certain that you have to be a top performer to be a good leader. I think that's definitely a myth. I think you have to now let's not make sure we twist something. I think you have to be able to be a good seller if you're gonna be a sales leader. Right? But I don't think you have to be a lone wolf, top performer. Right? And then that's gonna translate to success. Leaders are not born. They are learned.

Candace [00:28:46]:
And so I think that's really what it boils down to is that if you wanna be a good seller, it's a decision. It's a choice that you decide to make. The same applies for leadership. If you wanna be a good leader, choose to be 1 and do the work.

Celeste Berke [00:29:02]:
Well, on that note, that was like a a mic drop. It's been a pleasure. I hope for those who are watching this, you connect with Candace, and she puts out content, is very active on LinkedIn, sharing and in communities. And I'm sure if you are in sales enablement or are struggling in an organization and want to ask her a few questions, she will happily share her experience or how she does things. So it's truly been a pleasure having having you on, and I look forward to staying in touch.

Candace [00:29:36]:
Yes. Thank you, Celeste. I appreciate you inviting me into your space for the conversation, so thank you.