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ISEs3 Ep9: Dr. Brian Lambert Pt 1 - Co-Founder, Orchestrator, and Value Architect
Episode 9 • 8th March 2024 • Inside: Sales Enablement • Scott Santucci, Brian Lambert, Erich Starrett
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Erich Starrett hosts Dr. Brian Lambert - co-founder of OSC, SES, and co-host of Inside Sales Enablement seasons one and two, back in the Orchestrate Sales Studios, for part one of two.  A treat to have the epitome of past, present, and future enablement back on the property.

And yes, of course he was there at the original founding and one of the ~hundred four founders I'm on a mission to interview over time was right there with @Scott Santucci and the other 99-ish.

And BOY has it grown!  He did a Google search on Sales Enablement way back in 2008 and got a hundred hits. He just did it again in the pre show and ...how about six million!

Brian architected an early "PhD in Sales" building on an organizational behavior degree with an emphasis on sales in his dissertation, and multiple publications in academic journals.  Having also been cited over 200 times he may just be on Dr. Rob Peterson and Howard Dover's heels.

He's been a salesperson with a quota. He's been a sales manager with a team. He's been a sales enablement manager with a team of ~20. And most recently he took on the role of Big Data Value Architect at Elastic, where he is in a marketing messaging role, messaging enablement.

Highlights from the first part of our interview

PAST...

⌛️ Brian's reaction when he first heard the word "Enablement." (hint: it wasn't positive)

⌛️ Brian first crossed paths with @Scott Santucci at a conference an heard him speak about his blueprint. That's where he originally heard Scott share the vision of value architects, communicating value and being orchestrators.

⌛️ When at Forrester, Scott had to do a lot of work to sell this idea that there were people doing "this thing called Enablement." That people where challenging the status quo siloed view and breaking down the walls among sales training, marketing, ops, and other functions.

PRESENT

⌛️ Since corporate silos were born of the industrial revolution, why are they still the status quo and such a massive challenge in a hyper connected digital world where technically silos shouldn't matter?

⌛️ What does it mean to be an #Orchestrator? Why is it important?

⌛️ What if Enablement is not the right home for orchestration?

⌛️ Of the "four flavors of Sales Enablement" set forth at the SES founding, what percentage of each flavor would most who identify as Sales / Revenue enablement be?

💰Pipeline Enablement?

📝 Message Enablement?

👥 Organizational Enablement?

🎓 Talent Enablement?

FUTURE

⌛️ Brian's take on whether or not Sales Enablement will ever become the vision that the SES founders had of a cross-functional strategic function.

⌛️ Was the opportunity Covid presented by accelerating a move from the status quo to digital economy one that has been missed or is there still a hero's call to adventure for enablement?

⌛️ Accountability is not prevalent in most Enablement, or marketing, or operations. Salespeople are grounded in data and accountability. They are the ones that get fired.  When will there be more accountability for the support team?

Mentioned in this episode:

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Transcripts

Erich Starrett:

Hello everyone.

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And welcome the inside sales enablement

season three enablement history.

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And boy, do we have the epitome

of past present and future

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enablement right here with me.

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Dr.

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Brian Lambert, and I

might take up the first.

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15 minutes just introing him

and then I'll let him fill in

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the blanks on anything I missed.

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So he was , of course, the original

co host of Inside Sales Enablement.

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So we've got alumni back.

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He was also the co founder

with me of orchestratesales.

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com.

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Personal history and legacy for me.

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He was the one of the

original Sales enablement.

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In fact, he was number two.

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If you think about it through the

lens of Scott Santucci founding

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the sales enablement practice

at Forrester back in the day.

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The first person he hired was Brian.

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So he was employee number two through

the lens of sales enablement consultancy.

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And back then he was just

sharing a tidbit with me.

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He did a Google search on sales

enablement back in that:

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time frame and got a hundred hits.

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He just did it this

morning in the pre show.

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How about six million?

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So I think we're on to something folks.

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And so he is unique as well in that

when we talk about the flavors of sales

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enablement, and yes, of course he was

there at the original founding and one of

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the Those hundred coveted four founders

I'm hunting down over time was right

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there with Scott in the other 99 ish.

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And he does have in fact a PhD in

essentially sales and that was by choice.

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He addressed it through organizational

behavior with an emphasis on sales.

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Did a dissertation or two

or three academic journals.

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He's been cited over 200 times.

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He's maybe on Howard Dover's heels

and he's done a combination of

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pretty much all of the flavors.

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He's been a salesperson with a quota.

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He's been a sales manager with a team.

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He's been a sales enablement manager

with a team of, I don't know, 20 plus.

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And most recently, and I'm excited

to hear more, his current title,

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Big Data Value Architect at Elastic,

where he is in a marketing messaging

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role, messaging enablement.

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So all of that said, Brian you would

think I didn't miss anything, but fill

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in the blanks for me before we dive

into the coveted seven questions of ISE.

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Brian Lambert: I appreciate it.

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That's probably way enough about me.

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It's interesting.

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I I don't get a chance to

really reflect on that.

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I appreciate that.

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And enough about me though.

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I think for me, it's,

quite an interesting time.

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There's a lot going on and I look

forward to definitely exploring that.

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And thanks for having me on the show.

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Erich Starrett: Absolutely.

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Brian ecstatic to have you here.

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Question one is almost funny to

ask you, when did you first hear

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the words sales enablement and what

did, or do they mean to you, Dr.

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Brian Lambert of sales enablement,

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Brian Lambert: Yeah, it

was probably:

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The first time I heard it, I was like, I

have a people, a lot of people background.

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So I thought about this idea of

enabling others as a negative thing.

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I like you're an enabler and bad behavior.

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I did read an article on Reddit that

asked somebody posted, Why do salespeople

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all take drugs or drink too much?

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And it's quite an interesting

Reddit thread, last week.

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But

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Erich Starrett: We could go down a

rabbit hole on that one couldn't we?.

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,

, Brian Lambert: So that was the first time, and I remember looking

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at who owns the domain name?

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And somebody did, and I think it

was Craig Nelson and you might

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want to have him on the show and

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Erich Starrett: Yeah, he's

done it on very bullet point.

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You nailed it, man.

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Brian Lambert: Yeah, okay.

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Yeah, so that's how I first

met him and there were a

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couple of like online portals.

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Back in the days of wikis, were big

and people just pouring articles

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out and that's where I found it

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and then I found scott who was at a

conference and I heard him speak about

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his blueprint of sales and Had a really

interesting conversation with him there.

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Erich Starrett: That's awesome.

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So what, was there ever anything

other than those two words when

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you and Scott were talking and

he was developing this blueprint?

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Was it a potential?

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Hey, maybe we shouldn't use

the word enablement or was

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that the thing that made sense?

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And you got on board with him?

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What did that look like

behind the curtain?

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Brian Lambert: Oh, yeah.

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It made sense it because the way

we've always explored it is that

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enablement is, it's a function

and it's a function that drives.

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Sales excellence

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at the time, we didn't really have

everything fleshed out, but it was very

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robust because it covered everything

from, traditional sales training

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behaviors all the way through to

this idea of being a value architect

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and that's where my title

now is value architect.

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That's where I originally heard

that and Scott shared is the vision

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of value architects, communicating

value and being orchestrators,

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which we didn't use that word.

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But the concepts that we've worked

on now for, 20 years or so as

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the first conversation we had

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enablement then was

really not the discussion.

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It was more of the concept

to what could this become and

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let's just call it enablement.

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And when we were at Forrester, Scott

had to do a lot of work to sell

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this idea that there was a crowd,

that there were people doing this

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because they were traditionally.

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A siloed view of the people in

marketing, the people in sales

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training, the people in sales ops.

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And is there really a role?

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And we spent a lot of time

trying to explain to people that

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enablement really is the first

new digital economy role, right?

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It didn't really matter , where it sat and

didn't really matter what it was called.

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It was this idea that was not bound

by traditional siloed thinking.

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And it worked in a way that it

helped people communicate value.

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And the definition of value

is completely changing.

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So that's why you need this role.

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And that idea is, it really

started back in the:

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Erich Starrett: I heard

you use the word role.

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I heard you use the word function.

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In fact, Scott put a poll out.

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I never, I don't know that he came

back and said, Hey, here's what the

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consensus was, but is sales enablement,

a role, a function, a profession.

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Brian Lambert: A process, a technology?

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Erich Starrett: Process?

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Yeah.

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Brian Lambert: Yeah.

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My, my take is well, it's one

of those things where I've

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been in it for a long time.

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And I don't know if it will ever become

the vision that, that we had because.

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I think it is mostly a

role in a technology.

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I don't necessarily see it evolving to

the strategic function that we envisioned.

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And there's a lot of things that point

to the fact that it's not making it.

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But most of it has to do with the

fact that the sales enablement folks

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that I talked to, many of them are not

really focused on the same things that

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sales are from a strategy perspective

and a go to market perspective.

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And the challenge that I have

with a lot of sales enablement

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discussions today is they're not

grounded in data and accountability

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salespeople are grounded

in, data and accountability.

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They're the ones that get fired.

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I know in the last year, personally,

at least 20 salespeople who've

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been fired for not hitting quota.

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And they're in organizations that have

sales enablement and it's like when

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do, sales enablement people get fired

and that accountability and that focus

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on the numbers is not prevalent in

most enablement quote unquote teams

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, and that's why I don't think

it'll become a strategic function.

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Erich Starrett: Without that, if,

there's a shot, if we can close that

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gap and be more metric based because

the counter to that is, I would argue

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from what I've seen and heard speaking

of people reaching out to you.

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The profession, the role, whatever

you want to look at it through the

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lens of is taking a pretty good hit.

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Yeah.

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As the economies had its slap or three.

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And as you and I both,

I know vehemently agree.

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There was such a huge

opportunity that COVID presented.

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And we did the first two seasons

the, of the ISE leaned way into that

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and went through the COVID time.

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Is that an opportunity that you

think has been missed or is there

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an opportunity to pull up the ship?

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Brian Lambert: So if you use the

lands of the flavors, which I think

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your listeners are familiar with

the flavors of enablement, if you

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were to use that as a shape sorter,

triangles and squares and circles.

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Those flavors are.

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message enablement, pipeline enablement,

there's an organizational enablement, and

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there's this idea of talent enablement

that are all flavors or pillars of

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quote unquote enablement as a function.

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And I think most of the sales enablement

people would get really sorted

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into this talent enablement bucket.

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And then if you look at what they're

doing, There's quite a few teams

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that are really program management.

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They're basically event planning.

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So they're event planning, sales

kickoffs and sales events, but they

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don't actually do the training.

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Like they don't have the skills

to actually hold the room.

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They don't actually do the sales training.

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So they're really event

planners and coordinators of

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people to show up at events.

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So talent enablement one.

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And then two, when you think about talent

enablement all the way from the hiring

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profile to getting people promoted, et

cetera, are they getting people promoted?

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Because a lot of salespeople

are getting fired.

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So talent enablement angle,

if I sort everybody into

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that, what percentage is that?

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I think it's really high.

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It's probably my guess is.

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85 to 90 percent of sales enablement

is really talent enablement.

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And when you look at what they're

doing I don't think they're actually

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providing that service of what would,

what Scott would call hire to retire.

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So underneath that, if I say 85

percent is talent enablement,

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there's 15 percent left.

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Where's everybody else?

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They're hard to find in message

enablement, which is what I'm doing now.

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I had to, that's a whole other.

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Area of how do you create sales messaging?

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And especially when you think

about the value of cost of

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companies and communicating value.

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And then you have pipeline enablement and

most sales enablement that do pipeline

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enablement close to it are really in the

technology space, working on outreach or

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et cetera, top of the funnel type things.

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They're not full pipeline enablement.

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And then organizational enablement how

many reorgs or mergers have enablement

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people actually been involved in?

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I've been, somewhat fortunate to be in

the room where we're actually redesigning

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a, an enablement function during a

merger and figuring out the roles and

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the processes and things like that.

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And I just don't think there's

many people that have done that.

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That are in the quote unquote

sales enablement space

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They're in other roles and other functions like go to market strategy,

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teams, commercial organizations . They're

considered more of the strategists and

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enablement's, really the tacticians in,

talent enablement or sales training.

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Erich Starrett: Yeah.

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And those percentages are

generally the same ballpark.

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I hear a 70 to 80 percent talent,

a 10 to 15 percent message.

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And then the rest is some

combination of demand and

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administration slash organizational.

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But a lot of folks go, why

are you even bringing that up?

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That's rev ops.

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That's sales ops.

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Brian Lambert: That's it.

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Yeah, I've been in

those conversations too.

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So if you look at, okay let's forget

where people sit and let's forget

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where they report into for a second.

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And let's just look at headcount and let's

just pull them out of an organization and

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give everybody an index card and throw

it on a table and then have the executive

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team come in and say, okay, which roles

do you think is doing sales enablement?

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. That's where things get interesting

because without the org chart and

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that's RevOps or they're over there.

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That's an internal lens.

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But when you take a external lens and

say who's responsible for really helping

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salespeople sell, you're going to end up

in a really fascinating spot, which is.

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Let's say you threw out 300 index cards.

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And there are people that

technically sit in marketing.

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There are people that sit in rev ops.

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There are people that sit

in, go to market teams.

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And then there's these enablement index

cards that are labeled enablement.

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There's quite a few people.

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That help sales people sell that

leaders would consider quote unquote

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sales enablement in that definition.

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So that's the upside of that we

envisioned for enablement was to

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orchestrate all those resources.

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But I think what's happening is

the org chart is getting in the

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way and our kind of our siloed

thinking of who reports into who and.

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And all that, and it creates

this redundancy, right?

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That's why you're seeing so many layoffs.

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Erich Starrett: So really, Brian,

we've covered off on position

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one from that founding meeting.

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Enablement is a strategic approach

with different flavors aligned to

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eliminating the friction in each

of those parts of the system.

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Position two is to me what you just

described to accomplish the sales

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enablement needs to be chartered

and run as a cross functional

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business within a business.

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And what that means to me, and I'd

love to hear your take and again,

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this, is there a remedy, right?

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Is there a path forward for sales

enablement, revenue enablement,

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and we'll get to that in a minute.

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As a profession, It might it be to

look at it as exactly that a cross

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functional business within a business.

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Where not necessarily everyone has a

sales enablement title and definitely

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doesn't directly report but might

dotted line and maybe it's to a CRO

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that has both marketing and sales.

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I'm seeing more and more of that.

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And getting some traction talking to CROs

who are like, yeah, I love enablement.

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And my team is in enablement

whether they have a label or not.

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What's your reaction to that?

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Is that in line with kind of your

thoughts and where you were headed?

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Brian Lambert: As a new digital economy

function, the silos should be reorganized.

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By different types of silos

and we should be thinking

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about the value we're creating.

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Let's not run around and

espouse massive reorganizations.

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Need to happen.

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If you move beyond that and

say where is the value created?

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How do we do this?

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There's definitely room to

work cross functionally.

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And absolutely, we should be doing that.

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And there's a lot of leadership

in that when you do that.

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And there's a lot of

influence that you can wield.

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It's just, do you have the logic?

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Do you have the structure?

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Do you have the discipline?

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Do you have the presence?

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Do you have the, Sheevaun would

say, the gravitas to do that?

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And that's where I think

things could be a lot better.

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And I think, for example,

what I've done is.

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I put a lot back out to

the community, right?

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Very few people have actually engaged

me on the things that I've put out.

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I know you have, and we built the whole

Orchestrate sales site, but if you

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look at The product market fit, so to

speak of this we don't have it, right?

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So this, in other words, the

things that we're talking about on

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this podcast are not mainstream.

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We are, we don't have the mass mindshare.

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Now we have other groups like Sales

Enablement Collective which have

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better product market fit, which is

around more tactics and things like that.

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So there, there is a whole

MBA around orchestration and

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a whole MBA around enablement.

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And, if you look at that as course

material and a profession who's going

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to participate in that and want to

spend the time, that investment.

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And that's where I've always.

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Had in the back of my mind that there's

a lot of upside and a lot of possibility.

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But, over the last, 20 years or so it's

been a tough pill to swallow that, that

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folks don't necessarily want to do that.

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They don't know what they don't know.

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They're not curious.

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They don't want to.

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If they are curious, it's, it creates

a lot of friction for them and

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others internally to get outside of

their traditional siloed swim lanes.

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These are all things that I've gone

through and I know it's not comfortable.

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Erich Starrett: yeah, Brian.

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You know what?

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I love talking with marketing hat

Brian through the lens of message.

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Now that's where you're sitting

in your world view because.

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When I hear you say, Hey, Erich,

there's not a product market fit

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necessarily for orchestration.

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There might be a 1 percent if you're

lucky right out there that truly want

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to embrace that and get that MBA.

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And the reason why maybe some of

these more tactical approaches

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out there are working Is that's

more what the market's hungry for.

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Is me the things that I can do to

be relevant to maintain the job

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Luckily, I think where those two

things meet is what you were alluding

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to earlier help me Show my value,

help me show my impact as a function.

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And I would argue that's the one

place where we have some traction.

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And I do see a future.

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The more that we're able

to get that foundational.

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Here are the metrics.

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Here's here is the foundational

charter that includes alignment with

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executive objectives that are all, if

you're doing it right, metrics driven

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where you can see that value and

impact and then elevate and hopefully

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become even more cross functional

even if you have to start at talent.

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Brian Lambert: that's right.

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Absolutely.

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And there's a way to do that.

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It's a bit uncomfortable admittedly,

because it's outside of traditional roles.

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It's outside of what

everybody else is saying.

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And that's where you have to have.

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This forward lean and you have to, think

a little bit differently around what is

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your value and then more importantly who

are you helping and who are you serving?

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And are you trying to be comfortable

and do you view your job as, the nine

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to five or when it comes to serving

salespeople, is it really about.

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What the organization is telling

you they want, or is it really

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trying to find a way to get the

organization, what it really needs?

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And that's two different things.

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That's sales, right?

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There's a difference between what people

say they want and what they really need.

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And that's where I scratched my head.

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Enablers, which I'm I chuckled that word.

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Hey, I'm enabler.

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And I'm like, okay, what are you enabling?

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And I get back to most sales

enablers are not in the numbers.

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They couldn't tell you what the

pipeline activity was and all that.

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They're not able to get into and

view the same day-to-Day reports

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that managers are, some of them

don't even have access in Salesforce.

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And then you get to we're gonna,

we're gonna actually, we need to

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get outside of our comfort zone.

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We need the business to

do things differently.

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That's called selling.

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That's sales skills.

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That's literally selling.

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That's what salespeople do.

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So if you're feeling, boxed

in, or you feel like you don't

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have what you need, go sell it.

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what salespeople do.

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That's how innovation happens.

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That's how evolution happens.

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And, that's where I encourage folks

to really step into and try to make

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things happen and be a salesperson.

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Get, closer and actually

have you done sales training?

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Have you taken sales training?

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Have you actually tried to pitch

the solutions at your company?

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Have you tried cold calling and

getting a meeting with somebody?

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A lot of sales enablers haven't done that.

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They would rather, unfortunately, they

would rather should on people, you

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should do this, you should do that.

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And we're over here and let's track

your adoption of things and let's

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track how many things you went to.

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So we can wield that power and feel

good that we got people to show up.

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And, meanwhile, they

miss quota, get fired.

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And, we're wondering why we're.

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You know what we're going to be eating for

dinner at sales kickoff when we show up.

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There's this disconnect between

reality and what the role

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could be and should be to me.

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And reconciliation, I think

everybody has to do that.

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That's something that

I've certainly had to do.

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Erich Starrett: We're pretty

deep into the orchestration

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thing, which is a rarity for me.

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So I'm going to go ahead

and go and click deeper.

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And with you and Scott and the concept

of this commercial orchestrator.

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That is truly orchestrating a

cross functional business than

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a business to in my mind, put

a bow around this whole thing.

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I'll just throw out a what if, and I'd

love to hear where it lands with you.

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What if.

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Sales enablement was modeling what good

looks like in how they, interact with

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the C suite are able to have the gravitas

to get that seat at the table in order

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to think in cross functional alignment.

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And by the way, in doing all

of that through the lens of how

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do I empower my customer facing

frontline to be able to do the same.

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If I am modeling internally, Hey,

I've been able to, I have a seat with

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our CRO CIO with even the procurement

internally, to learn from what,

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and that's one of the things that

Christopher Kingman was talking about,

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he's Erich, I spent some time internally.

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Getting the seats at our own table to

better understand how we do things as

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a company, at TransUnion in his case,

so that I can turn around and help my

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enablement team enable our folks how to

speak to those folks, and I'm modeling

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it, and it's like a three for one.

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To me, Brian, that's the spirit of

orchestration, and as the co founder,

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I'd love to hear through your lens

whether or not That, what you were

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thinking, when you and Scott the ones

that came up with this and Scott, I

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know did a ton of deep and wide research

that I still have yet to tap into.

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So what is orchestration to you

and am I on to something there?

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Brian Lambert: Yeah, absolutely.

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I believe that orchestration is, and being

an orchestrator, it's in the continuum

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of evolving to a digital economy.

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Businesses are moving from siloed

organizations to eventually some sort of,

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interconnected web Of an ecosystem, right?

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So , if you step way out and say,

look, in the late:

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and that's the industrial revolution.

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Technically, we're in the fourth wave

of that, which eventually will become

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the first wave of this idea of being

a digital economy and a digital era.

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And that's all happened in our

lifetimes, it's been exponentially

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fast you and I are in the age of

we didn't even have iPhones growing

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up and our phones were on the wall.

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Erich Starrett: With a chord!

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Brian Lambert: with a cord!

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So the exponential speed of that.

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And if you look at.

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Why and I know I'm going to get a

little, historical, a little zen,

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but anytime that there's massive

advancements like that there's upheaval.

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So you end up in the space of

social unrest, civil unrest,

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this happened in every age.

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It's a repeatable pattern.

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What we're going through.

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And when you start looking at the

repeatable patterns, you're going to

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see, businesses having to, their laws

are not keeping up with what's happening.

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That's why, back in the industrial

revolution, they put kids in factories.

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Oops, that's a bad idea, right?

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The laws were not caught up

with factories back then.

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So that's happening now.

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So the reason why I'm bringing that up

is, If you look around at what we're

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so attached to, whether it's the school

systems or the business, systems those,

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:

the elements are not, capitalism, the

elements are like the idea of how you

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organize an entity for example, silos.

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So let's just pick on silos are

from the industrial revolution.

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I think everybody knows that, but,

why is it so hard to get rid of them?

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It's because everything is built around

them and you can't even function from

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:

a finance perspective to a product

launch perspective, et cetera.

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But if you look at it, we

really don't need them.

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We're all in a hyper

connected digital world

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The work from home thing, et cetera.

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where technically silos shouldn't matter.

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Should they?

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:

But when you look at fast forward there,

there needs to be eventually a way

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in which we don't have silos and they

don't become the organizing structure.

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Silos are impeding our

ability to communicate value.

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They're impeding our

ability to be productive.

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They're impeding our ability to actually

have a coherent conversation internally.

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There's a massive challenge with silos

that everybody looks the other way

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on because it's part of the the norm.

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So that's why orchestrators

are so darn important,.

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When you remove the siloed fabric of

a company, they become a new glue that

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brings people together to achieve, the

mission to achieve outcomes and objectives

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to be a catalyst and to make things happen

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So it's more about the team

that gets created on the fly

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than it is about where you sit.

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That's why it's valuable and

critical for companies to figure

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out how to do this and orchestrators

are the first through the wall.

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Erich Starrett: Orchestration is

dead, long live orchestration.

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And here's where I'm going with that.

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What if, and this is total

blasphemy enablement is not the

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:

right place for orchestration.

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:

What if it is?

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The CRO role, like as a, for instance,

where what I'm seeing again, a lot of is.

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Hey, I want to be a CRO through

the lens of now I've got sales

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:

and marketing reporting into me.

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I can help them play nice.

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I can align everything.

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:

I can drive the metrics.

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I'm leaning more maybe rev ops

than sales ops and how I'm got

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a partner in those metrics.

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:

Is orchestration maybe where

enablement moves into a CRO,

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CMO, CSO, strategy, officer?

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Brian Lambert: Yeah, I think

it's closer to there today.

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Sales enablement has been

recast as the training.

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Function and the event planners,

if you will of the sales org.

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:

So I don't see it suddenly.

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:

Like you said at the beginning,

there's 6 million pages right now.

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:

When you hit it what those are about

is going to largely be training

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:

and "shoulding" on salespeople

and telling them what to do.

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:

And and it's going to be about

sales kickoffs and new hire

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:

training and onboarding, et cetera,.

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:

Erich Starrett: Which is important.

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:

It's just not all of it.

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:

Brian Lambert: And it is, I'm not

going to say it's not important.

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I would just question how valuable it is

to, to the company and to the people in it

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:

again, I have a very visceral reaction

because I've seen salespeople get

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:

fired from having, enablement teams.

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:

So if you have an enablement team,

then why do sales people get fired?

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:

And then where's the accountability . But

I could also say that from marketing, I

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:

could say that from messaging enablement,

I could say that for sales operations.

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:

So what I'm saying is not, I'm not

just picking on sales enablement.

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:

To me it's everybody that

says they try to help sales.

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:

And that's why I think the org charts in

the way., we have to figure out how to be

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:

orchestrators and be more strategic and

figure out how to provide services and

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:

less about where we sit on the org chart.

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:

So I think that's definitely

a, path to, to more value.

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:

And so there's, a place for orchestration

to step up, whether you're from

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the enablement lens, a CRO, a CMO.

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It is a gap.

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It is a strategic gap that

can be filled and can thrive.

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