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ISEs3 Ep13: Meganne Brezina CCMP™ - Seismic
Episode 13 • 18th April 2024 • Inside: Sales Enablement • Scott Santucci, Brian Lambert, Erich Starrett
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Welcome to OrchestrateSales.com‘s Inside Sales Enablement Season 3 Enablement History. Where we hop in the Enablement Time machine and explore the past, present, and future of the elevation of a profession.

On a superfun ISEs3 Episode 13, Erich Starrett is joined in the Orchestrate Sales studios by Meganne Brezina, CCMP™. Meganne is not only the Senior Director of Enablement at Seismic, she's published Tomorrow's Enablement for Today's Leaders: The Strategic Guide to Demonstrating Value and Driving Outcomes alongside Irina Soriano.

Highlights from the episode include...

PAST:

⌛️ While carrying a bag for the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (in partnership with John Deere) she quickly learned that hitting four or five dealerships and educating their salespeople how to sell to horse people was far more productive than going directly to 50 farms.

⌛️ Meganne's next stop was Exact Target, which was in the process of being acquired by Salesforce. She moved into an operations role and saw an opportunity to educate the customer facing team about the power of their internal "customer data warehouse" and spoke at SKO. That is when Meghan Gendelman came up to her and said "you need to be in Enablement!" And thus it began.

⌛️ In search of "what the heck is enablement?" Meganne searched the company directory and and up popped Brian Noss and Nina LaRouche (who co-leads the Indianapolis Chapter of WiSE with her today!)

⌛️ Her early experience in Engaging the Revenue Enablement Society was being sold by vendors vs. solving problems in community. 

PRESENT

💼 The the RES has evolved into "such an incredible community."  Meganne and I met F2F for the first time last fall at the 2023 Sales Enablement Society Experience conference in San Diego. 

💼 Position two - that in order to be effective Enablement should be run as a business withing a business - is a big part of why Meganne got into Enablement. 

  👉🏻 She is passionate about Enablement teams being grounded in a charter and mission statement.

  👉🏻 Enablement "requires the orchestration of so many pieces within an organization to bring it to life."

  👉🏻 Enablement built with a North Star driving the practice forward results in tangible business outcomes.

💼 The biggest #Enablement opportunity in present day? Putting forth a proper enablement strategy.

💬 "Getting the executive buy-in for it, doing their socialization across the business, and then start to execute on it. That is the only way we're going to get out of the fire department world and into the fire prevention world." 💬

💼 The digital copy of Meganne and Irina Soriano's new book - Tomorrow's Enablement for Today's Leaders: The Strategic Guide to Demonstrating Value and Driving Outcomes - is OUT NOW and available for free from Seismic's site!  Paperback coming soon. 📚

💼 The concept of the EVC - Enablement Value Chain - was born of Meganne and Irina preparing to go in front of their executives to give a semi-annual report and struggling to connect the dots with the business outcome that their Enablement team drove.

💼 The resulting data and analytics report from the EVC empowered them to secure executive buy in and gain the necessary resourcing to effectively enable their organization going forward.  To be seen as part of their company's revenue engine.

💼 RE: the move to "Revenue" enablement...

    💬 "I view the idea of enablement as (serving) anybody who is customer facing. Anybody who is customer facing deserves to be included in an enablement strategy because we are here to service the events that are happening along the customer lifecycle. Customer lifecycle does not start and end with the buying journey. It doesn't stop at the first signature. In fact, that's the first of many milestones that you should be expecting from your customers."


FUTURE

🤖 Meganne and Del Nakhi, CCMP™ see huge opportunity for Enablement to more fully embrace change management.  Meganne just picked up her CCMP. 

🤖 The opportunity *still* remains for many in Enablement to gain the gravitas (shoutout Sheevaun Thatcher, CPC and @Dr. Stephen Timme) of an executive sponsor / seat a the C-table ...AND to equip their customer facing teams to "speak CxO" and gain the same credibility with customer execs.

🤖 AI will fundamentally change everything that we do. Enablement teams will shift from AI education mode to developing and executing on strategy to harness productivity gains. Must have a clear plan for the revenue generating activities for teams to lean into with the time recouped.

🤖 Practices will be leaning into data and analytics much more to drive their decision making processes.  To make decisions faster ...even in real time.

    💬 "This idea of launching a campaign, launching a program, and then waiting six months to see if anything's happened with it? Done and gone and dusted."


Please click 👇🏻, subscribe 📲, listen 🎧 ...and 🎙️ join the conversation! 


ORCHESTRATE Sales!


Erich

#RevenueEngine #DigitalTransformation #ChangeManagement

#RevenueEnablement #Sales Enablement


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Transcripts

Erich Starrett:

Hello everyone and welcome to Inside Sales Enablement

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Season three Enablement History

we have in the studios today.

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A person that started out selling

tractors in my neck of the woods,

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Salina, Kansas, even knew the place.

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John Deere tractors to be exact,

which is cool in and of itself.

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You still have any of

those hats laying around?

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I'd love one.

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I'm just, maybe you could have a

giveaway for our audience, such a

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hip brand for might be the only cool

thing about my childhood was being

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associated with John Deere, but she's

been a lot of places since then.

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She actually was on the customer

advisory board for Lessonly

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before that Salesforce.

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And then Lessonly, as I'm sure

everyone in the listening audience

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knows, was acquired by Seismic.

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And so she's gone on a journey from

salesperson to being salesperson.

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As senior director of enablement

at one of the enablement platforms.

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So with that, Meganne, I'd love to

hand it over to you to fill in any

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gaps and just say hello to the crew

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Meganne Brezina: Thanks, Erich.

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And I appreciate the opportunity

to be here and have a

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conversation with you today.

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The enablement community is such

a special place and I'm so proud

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to be a part of it and to share

a little bit of my story today.

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It's a very unlikely story.

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I had completed a postgraduate

certificate at the university of

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Louisville in equine business.

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And through those networking opportunities

found my way to the national thoroughbred

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Racing Association who has a very

deep partnership with John Deere.

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And so as a seller for the NTRA,

I had my territories across

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the United States and Canada.

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In fact, lived in three

different cities as I moved with

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them as my territory changed.

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And it was my responsibility to promote

this program and sell the equipment

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to racetracks and horse farms.

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What I learned very quickly in that time

when I was traveling to these places was I

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hit my quota a lot faster when instead of

going to 50 farms over a two day period,

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I would hit four or five dealerships

and educate those salespeople in those

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dealerships how to sell to horse people.

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I've been riding horses since I

was six years old and I have a very

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deep affinity for the industry, the

community, I know these people very well.

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I know what use cases they have and

how the John Deere equipment could

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help solve those problems for them.

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So it's very much a solution sale

approach, which has really served me

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well in my capacity here at Seismic.

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I frankly got tired of

traveling my last trip.

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I took with them I was on the road for

three weeks Living out of a suitcase and

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it was a lot and I was at a time in my

life where I needed And wanted to be home.

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I was newly married wanting to start a

family And so I came back to indianapolis,

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which is my hometown And there was

a little digital marketing company.

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You may have heard of called Exact Target.

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And they were in the throes

of the acquisition process

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with Salesforce already.

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I jumped on board in an account

support role, which was great.

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I was customer facing.

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I really got into the, or dip my toe

rather into what the software industry

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was, because coming from a sale,

which was a tangible, hard product,

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making that transition to a cloud

software company was an adjustment.

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And so this role really enabled me

to learn the intricacies of what

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that buying process and what the

customer life cycle looked like.

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So I rode the wave with Salesforce

for a while did an operations role for

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them for a little bit and eventually

found my way to the enablement space.

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Erich Starrett: So when did you

first hear sales enablement?

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What do those words mean to you?

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And was it when you were out educating

folks about the finer equestrian

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arts or when along the journey?

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Meganne Brezina: I think at that time,

Erich, I didn't know what enablement was.

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I was doing enablement things when

you think about educating on personas,

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educating on that solution sale,

but I didn't know what that was.

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When I was at Salesforce in an operations

role, they had rolled out something

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called a customer data warehouse,

which was great, super helpful.

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I was interested in how all of the

tools work together in the data,

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but my first thought was, we have

to teach people how to use this.

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And so I brought that idea to my

manager at the time and she got me

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a spot on the sales kickoff agenda.

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And so I got up in front of 300 or 400

people and talked about how they could

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use this CDW for their uses as their,

researching account planning, whatever.

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Went great.

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I had a good time.

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I came off of the stage and

Meganne Gendelman, she might

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not even remember this.

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She's now a marketing leader at

Salesforce, but she came up to me and she

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said, what are you doing in operations?

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You need to be in enablement.

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And I'm thinking, what

the heck is enablement?

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I don't even know what this is.

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And I came back to the office the

following week and I typed in enablement

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into our company directory and up popped

Brian Noss and Nina LaRouche, who I

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am both in very close contact with to

this day, Brian and I meet for coffee

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every month and Nina and I Co lead

the wise chapter here in Indianapolis.

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But I went to go to them and I

said, what is this enablement thing?

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And so they really educated me on

what it was about the purpose of it.

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And I remember talking

to Brian's, especially.

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Him talking was like that is my jam.

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That is where I need to be.

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That is my world.

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And so my career then

progressed from there.

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And that's really where I have

found my calling and where my

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skillset has really thrived.

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Erich Starrett: What a great story.

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So you learned about sales

enablement and what I would

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argue is the piece of software or

not software it's in the cloud.

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I remember when that was a big deal

and Salesforce changed everything.

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You learned about it in the mothership.

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Meganne Brezina: I suppose I did.

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Yes.

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Erich Starrett: That's awesome.

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Love that history.

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So what about the society itself?

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I know WiSE, which is awesome.

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And thank you for your service

in Women in Sales Enablement.

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What about the sales enablement society?

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When did you first hear of the

Sales Enablement Society or did you?

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Meganne Brezina: I did.

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In fact, I did.

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In fact, I just looked this week

preparing for this conversation.

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I joined the sales enablement

society in April of:

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So it's just about six years.

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And I was a very frequent,

shall I call it a lurker?

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I read everything I could get my

hands on in those community boards

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and I would post occasionally.

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But what I found really interesting

in that experience, Erich, and

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this will come back later in the

conversation that I would post.

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But the first people that would respond

to it would be people who are trying

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to sell me something and that was,

that has changed that has evolved.

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Erich Starrett: Interesting.

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That's important.

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Meganne Brezina: it is important

because I remember what those emotions

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and what those feelings looked like.

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And I'm very intentional about

how I engage with other people.

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Practitioners in my current role because

I remember what that was like when

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you're really just trying to get to

the heart of I have a problem to solve.

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How do I put together a

mutual action plan template?

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For example, how do I figure

out the negotiation levers I

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need to educate my teammates on?

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All of those things, and it

was not the response that I

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was looking to get originally.

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However, the community

has evolved so much.

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I attended where I met you last fall,

the conference in San Diego, and it's

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just, it's such an incredible community.

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And we've been so fortunate to

see the enablement community

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blossom and grow in these past.

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To call it 6, 10, 12 years with the

advent of groups like Women in Sales

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Enablement, which I'm heavily involved

in Sales Enablement Collective, the

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Enablement Squad, you name it, it's a

wonderful community where people can

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really find their find their community.

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Erich Starrett: I think you were

even doing something a little bit

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with Sales Assembly as well, right?

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Meganne Brezina: I am.

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Yes.

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They reached out so I can connect

with practitioners who are very much

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in their early stages and to help

them scale and grow their practice

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and paint the picture of what that

transformational practice can look like.

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Erich Starrett: That's awesome.

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You're serving on all fronts.

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So , you missed the early days of

the Sales Enablement Society when

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they founded in 2016, but you were

there pretty close to the beginning.

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It's interesting, the original

founding positions of the Sales and

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Enablement Society, aren't even

listed on the Revenue Enablement

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Society site at this point.

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So I'm curious, I know you had a

little bit of a time to look at

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those three, , do any of those

resonate with you still today?

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Meganne Brezina: Absolutely.

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Number two.

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two was really what attracts

me to the enablement space.

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And there are three things in that

statement, Erich, that really get me.

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Number one is this idea of

the needs to be chartered.

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And I think about that charter

as the mission statement, as the

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grounding for any enablement practice.

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I'm consistently amazed at the

number of people that I speak

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to that don't have a charter, or

they say, Oh, I'm just too busy.

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I can't get to it.

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And 9 times out of 10, dare I say 10

times out of 10, these are often the

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practices that are in the business

of having to put the fires out, as

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opposed to proactively preventing the

fire from starting in the first place.

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The second piece of this is all around

the cross functional business aspect.

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Enablement is a team sport.

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Enablement takes a village.

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Any enabler who's going to go off the

reservation and do their own thing will

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not be successful because it requires the

orchestration of so many pieces within

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an organization to bring it to life.

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The third piece that's really

compelling here is this idea of

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a business within a business.

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So just as you said about the charter

being that North Star or that piece,

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it's really driving the practice forward.

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I have to control what I can

control within my business.

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And if I am doing a good job of that,

we should be seeing the business

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outcomes on the other side in the

larger context of that organization.

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So this second position is something

that intrigued me to even enter

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into the enablement society

or the enablement community.

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And it's something that continues to

motivate me even today after now, I've

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been in the space now for over 10 years.

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So it's something that's really

critical and really important.

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Erich Starrett: And if I may, if

anyone has proven their passion for the

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space, it's someone who has actually

written a book about it, right?

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And so you are officially a

part of enablement history.

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It's on the library shelf.

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So really exciting.

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That's only in the last

really, what, three months.

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Meganne Brezina: It is.

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And in fact, I just got my paperback

copy in the mail for final review.

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So we'll be publishing the physical

book here in the next couple of weeks.

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But I appreciate you saying that.

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I think when Irina and I sat down to

write this book, there were only, dare

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I say, 10 or 11 books on the market that

had the word enablement in the title.

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So we're very happy to contribute

and add to that lineage.

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Erich Starrett: That's awesome.

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That concept, the enablement value chain

diagram that you have . I'm excited to

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explore that further, because I think

in that lies a lot of the DNA of exactly

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what we're talking about in position two.

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Can you unpack maybe just

that a little bit further?

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Meganne Brezina: Absolutely.

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So Irina and I sat down.

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This was about, gosh, this has to

have been almost three years ago.

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We sat down and we were about to go

in front of our executives to give

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a quarterly or semi annual report.

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And we were looking at it and said,

man, we have done so much great work.

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But we were really struggling to

connect the dot with here was the

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business outcome that we drove.

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We had documentation of the metrics

that had improved, but it was really

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hard for us to hang our hat on and

say, we were the ones that did this.

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And I think many practitioners

struggle with us.

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And it was through that

experience that the EVC was born.

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So essentially what we were able

to do over the past three years was

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take that experience, build out a

robust analytics program that we now

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use to drive all of our decisions.

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We also use it to drive a lot of our

cross functional partnerships because

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the data is something that everybody

in the business can align behind.

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It doesn't matter if we're talking

to field leaders, if we're talking

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to operations, teammates, product

marketing, it doesn't matter.

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That data is truly that central force that

all of us can align to and unpack what the

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gaps are and align action items behind it.

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The next step is being able

to secure executive buy in.

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Using this data and analytics report to

help us secure the necessary resourcing

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that we need in the organization.

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Erich Starrett: If I'm hearing

you correctly, all of the verbiage

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you're using is, this is what

we built to do what we do.

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This is our Seismic champagne on

how Seismic does Seismic on Seismic.

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Meganne Brezina: Yep.

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That's exactly right.

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Erich Starrett: There seems to be

such a great opportunity for you to

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tell that story clearly in the book,

but there's a difference between that

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and actually getting out and walking

alongside some of these practitioners.

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How are you bringing that

book to life in the community?

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And how might folks be able

to engage you in that aspect?

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Meganne Brezina: Sure.

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Absolutely.

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So this book is really

about enablement strategy.

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We are extremely fortunate to have

the Seismic enablement cloud backing

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us in our enablement practice.

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And so we are able to do

everything that we need to do.

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I can look at how the initial

enablement engagement translates to

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behavior change that then translates

to business outcomes fluidly.

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Very easy for us to get there.

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So this book is really about

the enablement strategy piece.

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Does it come to life with Seismic?

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100 percent.

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Is our door always open to talk to other

practitioners about how they too can

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bring this reality to life, no matter

what they have in their tech stack.

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Absolutely.

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This book is really also about giving

back to the community, Erich as well.

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Erich Starrett: I love that.

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So back to being informed by your

first experience at the sales

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enablement society, as you shared

was a full on vendor assault, right?

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Meganne Brezina: That's exactly right!

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Erich Starrett: You're like,

I'm making the world better.

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If there's a vendor in the space Seismic

among the top of them, but I'm not

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coming at you with my logo on my chest.

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Yeah, it's there.

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But what we're here to talk about

is elevating the profession.

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I love that approach and I

applaud it wholeheartedly.

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So is that also then, is part of

your model, some of the approach

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to training as well, or is it

more about that core blueprint?

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Meganne Brezina: This is

really about the strategy.

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We do get into the tactics in terms

of the how there is plenty of content

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available out there on how to facilitate

best virtually or how to create a

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content governance process or whatever.

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So we don't really go there.

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In fact, In this book, we talk about that

there is a bit of pre work that needs to

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happen before you crack open this cover.

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We assume that you have the

necessary business acumen to have

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conversations at the executive level.

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We are assuming that you have been

in the enablement space for a while

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and you understand the importance of

things like a customer life cycle.

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For example, so it is very, it's

much more of a strategic focus,

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but we do get into the tactics.

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In fact, we have 26 downloadable

templates and pamphlets and

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outlines and everything to literally

take this EVC and implement it.

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If a reader goes through this chapter

by chapter, there should be no excuses

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for not implementing the EVC in the book

because we even provide things like a

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gap analysis to give you the roadmap of

where you need to begin this journey.

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Erich Starrett: Outstanding.

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What a great service.

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I'm looking forward to

digging into it more deeply.

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I believe that folks can go to

the Seismic site or even from your

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linkedin profile, download the ebook.

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Can you tell us a little bit about that?

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And also when can people get

their hands on a hard copy?

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Meganne Brezina: I'm

so glad you're asking.

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So in order to get the current

book, it is available digitally.

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You can go to Seismic.

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com and download it for free.

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Or if you prefer to have it on

your Kindle, you can also go to

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Amazon and purchase it there for

the ebook, the digital version.

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If you are old fashioned like me, and

you like to have paperback books that

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you can highlight and, fold, dog ear the

corners, that is going to be coming out.

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I believe in the month of May.

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I'm sure that Irina and I will be blowing

up LinkedIn when it does come out because

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we are so excited and so proud to share

this story with the enablement community.

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Erich Starrett: Outstanding.

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We'll be shouting from the rooftops

here on the podcast as well.

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So keep us in the loop.

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If you would.

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Recently, and we touched on this a little

bit earlier, but it was a pretty big deal.

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And last October, I believe we

were darkening the same hallways,

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brightening the same hallways.

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I've never liked that phrase.

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I'm like, what about brightening?

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When the announcement came out that we

as a society, sales enablement society,

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we're moving to revenue enablement.

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Again, notice that you have

just enablement on your profile.

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What are your thoughts and maybe even

some experiences around your clients

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and some of the folks that you're

consulting agnostically outside of the

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platform and what you're seeing in sales

enablement versus revenue enablement.

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Meganne Brezina: Erich, last October

on the last day of the conference,

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I was sitting on the second row

in the front, second seat in.

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And when Paul announced that they were

changing from sales enablement into

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revenue enablement, I literally jumped

out of my seat and threw my hands in

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the air because it was so validating.

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There, yes, there have been a lot of us

in this space that have been servicing

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the full go to market team for years.

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And it always felt alienating for it

to be sales enablement because there's

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so much more to do in the enablement

space than simply focus on our

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teams who are in the buying journey.

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So I was thrilled to see that evolution.

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Absolutely thrilled.

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Erich Starrett: And so by the

way, I was right behind you.

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You're the lady that was

jumping up in front of me.

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I was

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Meganne Brezina: That was me.

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Erich Starrett: It's awesome.

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Now we've connected the dots officially,

but along those same lines, what I

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heard was, Hey, Erich, I jumped for joy

because it's not just a sales focus.

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Now we can encompass these

other areas of the business.

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What are those other areas of the

business that you've been thinking

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about for a long time hey, y'all, when

we say revenue enablement, we're also

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talking about groups, A, B, C, D, E

what, who are those groups in your mind?

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Maybe some of the folks in sales

enablement are still missing them.

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Meganne Brezina: So I view the idea

of enablement as anybody who is

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customer facing, anybody who is customer

facing deserves to be included in an

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enablement strategy because we are

here to service the events that are

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happening along the customer lifecycle.

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Customer lifecycle does not start

and end with the buying journey.

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It doesn't stop at the first signature.

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In fact, that's the first of many

milestones that you should be

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expecting from your customers.

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And so the validation of moving from

sales enablement society to revenue

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:

enablement society is what I hope will

be a good nudge for folks who might

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be still practicing buying journey

only to be expanding their horizons,

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:

to looking at the value journey.

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I think it was Gartner that talked

about how teams who have enablement

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support on the value journey are

something like 70 or 80 percent more

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:

likely to hit their cross sell targets.

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And in a world where it's, we all

know that it's more beneficial from

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an economics perspective to retain

the customers you have, as opposed to

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:

acquiring a new company or a new customer.

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So why aren't we enabling those

teams who are servicing customers?

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Like it doesn't make any

economic sense either.

368

:

So the evolution of the space,

and I've seen this in my time too,

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I started with SDR enablement.

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That was my little narrow remit.

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And now here we are, my team is servicing

everybody who's customer facing.

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:

So there, there certainly is an evolution.

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There certainly is a reason behind it.

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And it does drive business outcomes.

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Erich Starrett: Great take.

376

:

So this is where we generally

shift into the present, which

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:

were already there, right?

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:

You're talking a lot.

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And in fact, a little bit about the

future when the hard copy comes out.

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Anything else in this moment in time

where we have this revenue enablement

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move, what are the, maybe top couple

of things that you think Enablement

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:

folks listening to the podcast

should really be taking advantage

383

:

of and leaning into in the present.

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Meganne Brezina: Great question.

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So there are a few things that I

think people need to be leaning into.

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:

Number one is this idea of strategy.

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I talked to my team a lot about

the difference between being

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tactical and being strategic.

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Both have a purpose in an enablement

practice, and you can't have all

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:

strategy people or all tactical people.

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:

You've got to have a good mix.

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:

But I think this idea of truly putting

forth a proper enablement strategy.

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We are way past random

acts of sales enablement.

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:

A lot of people are living that reality,

but in order for this industry to really

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:

thrive, more and more practitioners have

to step behind this role of building

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out a proper enablement strategy,

getting the executive buy in for it,

397

:

doing their socialization across the

business, and then start to execute on it.

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:

That is the only way we're going to

get out of the fire department world

399

:

and into the fire prevention world.

400

:

That's what it means.

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Erich Starrett: Going from in case

of emergency break the enablement

402

:

glass to bring enablement in early and

often, So there isn't an emergency.

403

:

Meganne Brezina: That's exactly right.

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:

That's exactly right.

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:

And give us the autonomy to say no

or to say yes, but you need to wait

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:

six months for these reasons, right?

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:

The other thing I think people

really need to start focusing on

408

:

is this idea of change management.

409

:

I am very interested in this field.

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:

I earned my CCMP last year,

so I'm a certified change

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:

management professional now.

412

:

I was so curious about this

space, I wanted to learn more.

413

:

This is something that is becoming

more and more of a conversation piece.

414

:

Del Nakai and I talk about

this on a regular basis.

415

:

Hi Del.

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:

Where we, it's really important that

The enablement team are the ones driving

417

:

transformation in the organization.

418

:

And whether that's something tactical,

like a new field in Salesforce, or that's

419

:

something more robust, like a product

launch, if a practice does not have a

420

:

dedicated approach to the way that they

manage change, It's going to fail or it's

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:

not going to be as good as it could be.

422

:

And so I think this idea of focusing

on a change management strategy,

423

:

which frankly is probably going to

look a little bit different at every

424

:

organization, depending on your players,

the size, the maturity, there are

425

:

a lot of factors that go into that.

426

:

But I think focusing there in concert

with your enablement strategy will

427

:

pay dividends if it's done correctly.

428

:

Erich Starrett: great.

429

:

And all founded in having that

baseline blueprint and charter, right?

430

:

Meganne Brezina: That's correct.

431

:

Erich Starrett: One of the things that's

come up a good bit of late is in fact,

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:

coming out of, I was a digital now last

week in Chicago land this whole idea that

433

:

we need to elevate the value conversation.

434

:

And one of my big a-ha's is if you,

as an enablement practitioner, don't

435

:

have a seat at the executive table,

which I think you and I would agree

436

:

that a big conduit that is building

and getting that executive sponsor,

437

:

the business, but what your experience.

438

:

What's the percentage of enablement

folks that you feel like really have

439

:

the gravitas borrowing from Sheevaun

of a seat at the executive table

440

:

and maybe in general as well, the

opportunity for sales to address.

441

:

That same issue and how they're

approaching the C suite out in the

442

:

real world, because a lot of those same

Forrester, Gartner, you name it reports

443

:

are coming back and saying the executives

don't feel like the folks that are

444

:

showing up are speaking their language.

445

:

Meganne Brezina: Let's unpack

that one a little bit, Erich.

446

:

I think from an enablement perspective,

the number of practitioners who have

447

:

the gravitas or have the credibility

to really have that seat at the

448

:

table, it has grown in recent years.

449

:

I'm really happy to say that.

450

:

However, I do think that there is A

large opportunity to bring up the rest

451

:

of the 80, 90 percent of the community

to be able to activate in that way.

452

:

Sadly, when you look around with the way

the market conditions have been, many

453

:

people have been affected by layoffs

and that kind of thing in recent months.

454

:

And that is that's hard.

455

:

That's really hard for all of us to

see, but I do think that there are

456

:

more resources available to help people

lift their enablement practice up,

457

:

but it's not just on the shoulders

of the enablement practitioner.

458

:

It's also a responsibility of the CRO.

459

:

The CEO to understand truly what a

functional enablement practice can look

460

:

like and to know the value it can drive.

461

:

I think there's still some education

that needs to happen there.

462

:

And the second part of your

question was around how we can

463

:

level up our field teammates to

speak that executive language.

464

:

And I think Sheevaun has actually done

some work on this as well with Dr.

465

:

Steven Timmy.

466

:

Around financial acumen and educating

sellers on how they can take advantage of

467

:

the available resources that they have to

develop a point of view to bring insight

468

:

to that executive level conversation.

469

:

No executive will show up

and have a conversation about

470

:

a feature dump or, Hey, Mr.

471

:

Erich CEO, tell me what your

top priority is this year.

472

:

They're not going to sit around for

those conversations, but they will

473

:

stick around for those conversations

when a seller can come to them

474

:

and say, here is my observation.

475

:

Here is my hypothesis.

476

:

Can you gut check me on that?

477

:

Can you correct me on that?

478

:

What is your perspective?

479

:

They're much more likely

to engage in that way.

480

:

And I do think that there is a big

opportunity for our selling teammates,

481

:

anybody who is customer facing to have

that ability to have those conversations.

482

:

Erich Starrett: Couldn't agree more.

483

:

So we've covered the past, we've

spent some good time in the present,

484

:

and we've peeked into the future.

485

:

But let's maybe open it up to

land on, what do you see the

486

:

biggest opportunity going forward?

487

:

And if it doesn't involve AI in some

way, shape, or form, I think the

488

:

listening audience might be disappointed.

489

:

Meganne Brezina: That's a

subtle hint to talk about AI.

490

:

Erich Starrett: It's just, it's

funny, the future, and it's that's

491

:

actually the present, right?

492

:

Meganne Brezina: Yes it is.

493

:

Isn't it amazing?

494

:

The productivity gains are

just it's just phenomenal.

495

:

I was actually listening to

a call with our VP product.

496

:

One of our product VPs here at

Seismic, who's focused on the

497

:

development of AI and he made the most

interesting comment where he said.

498

:

I don't even go to Google.

499

:

I never go to Google anymore.

500

:

Everything I do is in an AI tool

because where I used to go to Google

501

:

to get code and I, I'd put it in and

I'd have to sift through content.

502

:

Now I ask, name your AI tool.

503

:

Now I ask AI the code and I have it

right away without all of that sifting.

504

:

And just organically in that one single

example, the productivity gains that

505

:

just, Go through the roof on that.

506

:

I think we're in a moment now where

we're trying to figure out how to

507

:

harness those productivity gains.

508

:

We're still in education

mode, no doubt about it.

509

:

I think about my sellers and the simple

prompts of what you can use when you're

510

:

just preparing for your initial call

with a prospect, for example, like

511

:

harnessing what that needs to look like.

512

:

But then also teaching people

what is the best use of your time.

513

:

After you have gained that

time back, what are those other

514

:

revenue generating activities

that you should be leaning into?

515

:

I think it's that moment of

education that we're in now.

516

:

But when I think about enablement,

enablers and the leaders in the

517

:

space, AI will, it'll fundamentally

change everything that we do.

518

:

But.

519

:

I think some of the things that we already

have in place, like this idea of an

520

:

enablement value chain, only get enhanced

and further evolved with the use of AI.

521

:

So I think there are already some

things in place that are scalable,

522

:

that are standard, that can adapt

and evolve with the expectations

523

:

that are in the space now.

524

:

It'll just further be enhanced by AI.

525

:

Erich Starrett: 10 years from

now, what are your thoughts

526

:

on the enablement profession?

527

:

And what will it take us as

a community to get there?

528

:

And maybe we can land on that.

529

:

Meganne Brezina: 10 years.

530

:

Boy, you're really asking me to

get the crystal ball out here.

531

:

Erich Starrett: You know what?

532

:

The pace we're going two and a half,

533

:

Meganne Brezina: Thank you.

534

:

Yep.

535

:

I was just going to say that,

10 years ago, I don't even know

536

:

that you and I would have been

having this conversation, right?

537

:

So who knows what will happen in 2034?

538

:

But I think in the next couple of years,

I think we will start to see practices

539

:

really leaning into data and analytics

much more than they have in the past to

540

:

drive their decision making processes.

541

:

Layered with that, this idea of AI

to make those data driven decisions,

542

:

A, much faster than they have been

before, but B, also having the ability

543

:

to make decisions in real time.

544

:

This idea of launching a campaign,

launching a program, and then

545

:

waiting six months to see if

anything's happened with it?

546

:

Done and gone and dusted.

547

:

As we think about the future of a I

practitioners are going to have the

548

:

ability and frankly, they already do today

to make these decisions in real time so

549

:

that they can course correct in real time

and make those adjustments to gain more

550

:

progress against the goals that they have.

551

:

Erich Starrett: And your book all the

stuff you're giving back to the community.

552

:

I like our chances in two and a half to

10 years on out there, Meganne, for sure.

553

:

Meganne Brezina: I'd say say so!

554

:

Erich Starrett: To everyone in

the audience, make sure you like

555

:

and follow and get the book.

556

:

Whether your penchant be PDF or

Kindle or Dead Tree coming soon

557

:

to a distributor near you, right?

558

:

Final word, Meganne, it's yours.

559

:

Meganne Brezina: Oh, Erich.

560

:

Thank you for the opportunity

to be here to all of my fellow

561

:

enablement practitioners.

562

:

One of my favorite things to do in life

is to brainstorm challenges and figure

563

:

out solutions to those challenges.

564

:

So please reach out.

565

:

You can always find me on LinkedIn

and I hope to see everybody at the RES

566

:

conference in Chicagoland this October.

567

:

Erich Starrett: Great

way to land the plane.

568

:

That's awesome.

569

:

Thanks so much for your time,

Meganne, for your service in the

570

:

RES, and in WISE, and for the book.

571

:

And for giving back to the

community in all of those ways.

572

:

So great to have you on the show.

573

:

Hope to see you again soon in Chicago.

574

:

If not before

575

:

Meganne Brezina: Thanks, Erich.

576

:

That was fun!

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