On the eve of the Sales Management Association's annual Sales Force Productivity Summit right here in the ATL at Emory University (NEXT week! March 12-13th ...use promo code TAGFAM for nearly half off at salesmanagement.org) SMA founder and commander-in-chief @Bob Kelly joins me to discuss the past, present and future of enablement through the lens of a globally recognized ambassador of Sales Management.
HIGHLIGHTS from the SHOW:
- The first time bob heard Sales Enablement was from John Aiello and his partner Drew Larsen at the Savo Group in the late 90s/early aughts. They had created a system for distributing content, they called sales asset management. Craig Nelson of iCentera was doing this as well.
- At that point Bob saw Sales Enablement chiefly as a solution for marketing. Due to Sale's uncertain agency marketing couldn't really see nor control what the sales force was doing with their content and feared much of it was going to waste.
- The Sales Management Association tends to be more broadly sales effectiveness focused, but they have had sales enablement sponsors / underwriters co create content with them including Brain Shark, Highspot and Seismic.
- Bob's appeal on behalf of the SMA to those who have a niche focus in sales enablement / supporting the sales force is to learn about the bigger, broader issues affecting sales leadership, sales governance.
- "(At the SMA) we try to put our arms around a very diverse membership with that basic proposition, learn about the big ideas and get a broad understanding. A liberal arts education about what it means to work and to manage the sales function."
QUOTES of NOTE:
- "A criticism of sales enablement that I have that it's too overreaching in its scope and definition. Only because it's poorly defined."
- "I would like to see sales enablement making better managers. That should be the charter."
- "The traditional function of sales management, a nanny function of supervising, making sure people are doing the right things in the right spots, it's largely a problem we automate now. So this has at least in theory, freed up some capacity to focus on more substantive things like making the sales organization better."
- "Our research shows on average, large sales forces reorganize every three years. And often that's in response to this fundamental need to change how the sales organization delivers value."
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Erich
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