Episode 64: ISE Season 3#1: BSES
Welcome to "season three" of Inside Sales Enablement ...ISE - focused on Enablement History. I'm Erich Starrett. I started out in the ISE audience listening to SES Founding Father Scott Santucci and Trailblazer Dr. Brian Lambert', and then collaborated with them to build OrchestrateSales.com to be the global home for the ISE Podcast and related resources for Sales Enablement #Orchestrators, including Sales Enablement Society history.
It is the week of the seventh anniversary of the official signing of the SES into reality by the ~100 Fore-founders in Palm Beach, November of 2016. We begin ISE Season 3 with a focus on "Before the SES ...and how it almost didn't exist" with SPECIAL GUEST Sales Enablement Society Founding Father Scott Santucci himself.
And THOSE questions don't even yet have us to the Palm Beach MEETING! Enjoy part one! Part two coming soon...
Mentioned in this episode:
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Welcome to the Inside Sales Enablement Podcast.
2
:Where has the profession been?
3
:Where is it now?
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:And where is it heading?
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:What does it mean to you?
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:Your company?
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:Other functions?
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:The market?
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:Find out here.
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:The Inside Sales Enablement
Podcast starts now.
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:Erich Starrett: Man, is it good to hear
that intro music and voiceover guy again?
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:How about for y'all out
there in insider nation?
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:Hello and welcome to season
three of Inside Sales Enablement
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:focused on enablement history.
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:I'm Eric Starrett, and I started out
in the ISE audience listening to Sales
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:Enablement Society founding father,
Scott Santucci, and Trailblazer, Dr.
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:Brian Lambert.
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:And then collaborated with
them to build orchestratesales.
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:com the global home for the podcast
and related resources for sales
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:enablement orchestrators, including
sales enablement society history.
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:Why?
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:Well, the foundation of cross functional
enablement orchestration was established
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:in the three founding positions signed
into existence by the hundred ish fore
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:founders of the SES back in Palm Beach
in:
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:the is the seven year anniversary.
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:So in celebration, after a few
years of hiatus, I'm knocking the
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:dust off of the orchestratesales.
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:com property.
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:As a sales enablement history nerd
with a passion for the continued
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:elevation of the profession, I see it
as the sales enablement Smithsonian
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:and an opportunity to serve you,
the global enablement community.
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:In revisiting the wisdom of the
treasures therein, as well as uncover
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:some new ones with a series of special
guests, which may even include you.
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:Today we begin ISE Season 3 with a
focus on BEFORE there was the SES,
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:and how it almost didn't even happen,
with special guest, Sales Enablement
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:Society founding father, Scott Santucci.
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:Scott, great to have you here.
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:, this Sunday marks the
seventh anniversary of the S.
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:E.
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:S.
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:The founders meeting what I'd like
to do with you today is hop in a time
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:machine and take a look back getting.
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:The straight shooting from the person
who was there from the beginning
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:and founded the global society.
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:By way of introduction, for those who
may not know, Scott Santucci was at
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:Forrester and was part of founding the
core operating group for sales enablement.
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:Scott, maybe we could start there and
just share a little bit about your
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:background pre sales enablement society.
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:Scott Santucci: Sure.
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:in 2008, I had my own business
called blueprint marketing.
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:One of the things that we built
were these sales work benches to
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:help take a lot of complex content
and allow salespeople to sort it.
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:To have very specialized conversations
based on stakeholders or stage in
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:the sales cycle things like that.
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:I sold that business to, to Forrester
with the idea of building out a
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:database based on very specific roles.
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:Like, how would you
navigate, an agreement network
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:inside an IT organization?
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:The very first report that I wrote
at Forrester was called Engineering
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:Valuable Sales Conversations, and
that report laid out just this concept
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:hey, we need to think about sales and
marketing a little bit more differently.
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:And in that role, at the time,
I was an analyst in Forrester's
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:market strategy function.
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:So the way Forrester worked at
the time was all of the products
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:were organized around a role.
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:There was content for CIOs, content for
VPs and networking, content for B2C CMOs.
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:So Forrester's Got tremendous depth
of expertise in B2C marketing.
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:I worked for technology
vendor strategists.
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:What I highlighted was, Hey, there's a
big gap between strategy and execution.
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:And this big gap of strategy and execution
is an opportunity for a new role.
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:So at the time it was very difficult
because Forrester had really
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:just moved into this new role.
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:So they didn't know how to create
new product offerings, new roles.
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:So what I did was I got 20 executives.
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:Into a room for an entire day, 10 of
them were CMOs, 10 of them were VPs
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:of sales, and we had an entire day's
discussion to discuss what are these
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:gaps, these strategic execution gaps.
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:Because we didn't want to have
the conversation about sales
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:and marketing alignment because
that was dated even in:
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:What we wanted to do is come up
with a new idea, a new strategy.
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:And that strategy became what we
wrote out as the definition of
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:what we called sales enablement.
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:Which was taken from and
agreed to by that group
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:Erich Starrett: was that where it started?
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:Was Sales Enablement
always Sales Enablement?
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:Or was there like a close second and third
on the whiteboard that got crossed out?
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:Scott Santucci: No one really
could come up with a term.
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:So we just said, and the concept
of enablement was way more like an
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:engineer's view or a city planner's
view, not, um, how you enable a
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:drug addict or something like that.
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:It wasn't emotive.
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:It was engineering y, strategic y,
business process y, not functional
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:or what people do or activity based.
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:It had none of those vibes
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:If you have a room of 10 CMOs and a
room of 10, VPs of sales from different
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:companies, so they don't have to
worry about their internal politics
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:and challenge them with gaps between
the business strategy and friction
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:that they have among their functions.
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:You quickly realize that this is a
architectural or it's a design problem.
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:It's not a, who does what I
own this, you own that problem.
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:So because of that, and because the goal
was by the end of the day to come up
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:with a document, a statement that people
could agree with, , it creates that
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:that good forcing function to do that.
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:So we have this document, we
have a whole bunch of energy.
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:We had Forrester executives in
the room like, wow, this is a new
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:thing that we should get behind us.
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:We should sponsor, a role for it.
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:So we did a deep dive.
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:So when people looked at that
inside Forrester, there are people
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:who would say that's already a
job that product marketing does.
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:Look, we'll show you,
look, it's right here.
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:Look at the product marketing,
pragmatic marketing.
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:It says right here, sales
enablements, it's this stuff.
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:And then there are other people say no.
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:That's what sales training does.
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:And we said, look at this
definition that we came up with.
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:It's neither of those things,
though, those things are
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:subordinate to this bigger picture.
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:So yes, it is true.
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:Product marketing needs to
do some of those activities.
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:Yes, it's true.
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:Training need to do some of those
things, but they have to be in
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:service of something much bigger
or else they're not connected.
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:So we did deep dives.
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:We had to go and interview.
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:I think 50 companies, we had
to plot out where they were.
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:And then we had to figure out, whether
Forrester would make money doing that.
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:And if we would, what kind of money
would we make making that a role.
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:And that was the goal.
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:And we had four conferences
with specific themes.
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:The 1st conference theme was
separate ways, world apart,
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:Erich Starrett: sounds like a song.
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:Scott Santucci: It is a song.
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:Yeah.
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:It's a journey song.
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:All of them have songs, right?
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:You have the walkout song
and we connected it to it.
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:And we just did a lot of the
executive decision maker research.
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:To bring to light the research
that we had from executive decision
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:makers and how huge the gap is.
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:And it was getting worse.
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:And I would say, fast forward 2023, it's
even way worse now in:
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:We introduced this whole concept
of working backwards from outcomes.
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:That was our HERO conference.
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:How do you evolve to be
a sales enablement hero?
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:The HERO, who are you a HERO for?
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:You're CEO.
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:And HERO is an acronym.
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:Holistic, Engineered, Reality
Based, and Ongoing Operations.
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:Then the next conference after that was
Accelerating Your Growth Initiative.
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:We had George colony talk about
CEOs perspectives and we had our
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:CFO talk about CFO perspectives and.
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:We talked about how sales and
marketing are becoming complex,
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:adaptive systems, and you need to
have different strategies for that.
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:And then the last conference that
I was there was our growth agenda,
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:where we gave people canvases, actual
canvases to start plot that were done
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:in layers to plot those things out.
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:What was very interesting is by
the time:
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:were two schools, a thought
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:there were director and manager
level people who viewed sales as
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:it sells the name went more as this
job description or role and it was
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:about activities and who does what.
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:And then there was a collection
of people that looked at it more
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:strategic, which was, hey, we do
need to be at that synapse between
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:corporate strategy and and execution.
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:We do need to build strong alliances
with the finance department and we do
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:need to, build bridges between product.
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:Groups who have a number and sales
groups who also have a number, but
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:their numbers are very different.
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:We do need to be able to create layers
in terms of market materials instead
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:of making everything about a product.
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:So that's what we did, but that
was, I would say less than 30
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:percent of our customer base.
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:But those people way higher
up in the organization.
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:I left Forrester to join Alexander group
to work with those strategic people.
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:So that's the background.
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:We use the word sales enablement
for a bunch of reasons.
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:One is we Wanted to pick a word
that didn't really have a standard.
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:We had a bias that enablement
is more like architecture.
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:You design something and
you enable stuff to happen.
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:You don't enable by doing
things for people you enable by
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:designing and letting, people
be just paying attention to it.
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:So that's the prequel
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:Erich Starrett: you've created
this title sales enablement.
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:There are things being produced
and sent out into the world.
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:When did it go from what I'll call
behind the boardroom walls out
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:into the place where it started
to be to become a society?
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:Once that information got out, where did
the seeds of this external society start?
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:Scott Santucci: So there were
a collection of tech vendors.
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:That existed that called themselves
sales, excellence, sales,
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:enablement, things like that.
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:Erich Starrett: Like SAVO I
think was maybe one of those.
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:Scott Santucci: Yeah.
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:There were ones even before . So for
example, I met Tim Riesterer, or When
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:he was at a company called Ventaso.
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:And Ventaso was a business, I think in the
:
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:like a database of messages to help match
the right messages to to other people.
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:Jody Kavanaugh had a company
called Launch International that
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:she sold to Corporate Visions.
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:Craig Nelson at a company called iCentera.
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:I think , his tagline was portals for
mortals but there were a collection of
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:businesses that had specialized tool sets.
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:But there wasn't really a formal identity.
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:So I wouldn't necessarily say
that there was one big event.
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:There were these things, people out
in the marketplace to begin with.
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:Forrester is a big name.
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:Forrester says, this is
something to pay attention to it.
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:People do pay attention to it.
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:So the fact that we had a conference
for it, guess what happened.
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:Suddenly you got a lot of people,
oh, we're in that category.
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:We're in the sales Enablement category.
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:That's in the public.
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:It's not in a closed network.
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:Now, a lot of the research is behind a
firewall that you have to pay for it.
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:But there are a lot of
people who pay for that.
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:One of the things that you get as a
Forrester analyst is you do inquiries..
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:We had a policy at Forrester, we'd
take a pitch from any vendor whether
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:or not, you were a client of ours.
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:In other words, there's a lot of myths
about pay to play and everything like
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:that just aren't true or weren't true.
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:I just know that the way that we did
things at Forrester at that time were more
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:above board than people give them credit.
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:So I got, I, I would get presented and
pitched as a sales enabling company.
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:I had over a hundred pitches.
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:And they were all over the place.
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:They said, Oh, we're sales enablement
and they keep trying to narrow
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:the description and make sales
enablement as tight and small a focal
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:point to align to their use cases.
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:So with each one of those
vendors, they would promote ideas.
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:So Sabo got raised a lot of money.
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:They promoted their ideas a lot.
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:Corporate visions promoted their ideas.
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:Sometimes they'd hire us.
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:I would speak at some of these things.
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:, they would create these environments
to have public conversations.
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:aT Forrester, we created councils, which
was a different kind of product service.
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:So that basically, instead of just
getting access to research, we would
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:have quarterly meetings that I would
facilitate we would pick a problem
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:and we would resolve it and then we
would make the resolution of that
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:available to only those members.
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:And then we also had a different council,
which we're trying to create standards.
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:We're trying to say to the vendors, guys.
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:None of this makes any sense.
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:Your success will improve if you
guys can agree on certain standards,
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:the reason I highlight that out is
there was a lot of conversations
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:coming from both of those scenarios.
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:We wouldn't publish it.
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:We wanted to create a form where people
could argue in the safe zone so that they
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:don't look bad inside their companies
chatham House rules, if you will.
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:What we did, though, is when people
agreed, they would talk about it.
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:But, of course what happens is when
you've got a lot of momentum and a
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:lot of people joining it, Oh, yeah,
I've been doing it my whole life.
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:But it was never as agreed
to by, this group of people.
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:So to try to enforce some sort of standard
or promote some sort of standard to get
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:people to follow it was, challenging,
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:Erich Starrett: so maybe a good
next step in this LinkedIn that
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:platform played such a big role.
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:You'd probably give it as a
supporting actor status in
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:the movie, at least I'm sure.
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:But for anyone tuning in, by the way,
I can not highly enough recommend
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:you liking, following, linking.
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:With Scott Santucci and taking the time,
not just to pay attention to stuff that's
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:coming out now, but go back and read
the previous articles and posts that's
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:where the sales enablement history is.
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:And I'm going to be quoting
a good bit from them today.
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:This is from one of Scott's articles.
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:The S E S is all of us.
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:Throughout 2016.
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:Which is the 7 year anniversary
where we're at right now, right?
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:We held monthly meetings with
interactive open agendas.
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:We'd pick a theme, have a public
and facilitated meeting and publish
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:what we agreed to on LinkedIn.
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:Only about 100 people
would read our outputs.
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:Walter Pollard and Jen Burns joined
us very slowly in our growing network.
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:In our very slowly growing network
during this finding our way phase,
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:then I started getting calls from
other people around the country wanting
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:to start their version of our group.
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:This was amazing to me because only
about a hundred people are reading
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:the article, but somehow linked in as
a platform was spreading these seeds.
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:whAt did that look like?
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:, those public meetings ? What kind
of format were you using and how did
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:you start to perpetuate that in other
areas in response to that outreach?
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:Scott Santucci: Let me
take this in the chunks.
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:1st, from a context
standpoint when I left.
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:Forrester
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:I joined the Alexander group, which
is a management consulting company.
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:When you work in a management
consulting company, you go way in depth.
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:So at Forrester, I might get.
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:Eight inquiries a day.
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:So an inquiry would be, I'd
have eight 30 minute calls
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:with people all over the world
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:at Alexander group.
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:You'll work on 10 projects a
year with the same company.
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:So the depth is greater,
but the breadth isn't there.
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:So what I missed, what I loved about being
at Forrester is people would, stump the
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:analyst or, challenge you or whatever.
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:And I loved that.
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:So I missed.
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:That interaction of
constantly constant new ideas.
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:so the idea was, what if I
started a local meetup group?
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:At the time.
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:So let's say 2015 period, I
was extremely anti social.
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:I thought social selling was.
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:A bunch of And I'd met Jill
Rowley when I was at Forrester.
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:And I just, I really connected with her.
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:And she was challenging
me, you gotta do more.
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:And I was like, I don't
even understand this.
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:I Was speaking at at a conference
for HP and she said, Hey, let me
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:connect you with Tiffany Bova.
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:And I was like, I don't know who that is.
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:It's yeah I know who that is.
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:So I said, okay, I'll try my
old school way of networking and
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:you use the social social way.
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:And let's see who gets at her first.
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:I got to her first, but the value
of the conversation was way better
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:because Jill was able to give context.
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:So it wasn't like it was in
depth, super, super fast.
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:So that made me go, Holy , this is
way more powerful than I thought.
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:I'm always going to be
biased to one relationships.
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:bUt the leverage that Jill showed me
by me having to experience it myself,
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:because another thing that I like.
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:about Jill is you just got to do it.
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:You just got to do it.
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:Like she, she'll, I'm not going
to say that she pesters everybody,
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:but I like that she does that.
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:Tamara Schenk also like
you got to be on social.
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:Yeah.
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:I don't want to, you got to
love being challenged like that.
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:I love it.
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:And the reason that I love it is
that you always learn something,
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:especially if you do it together.
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:Which happened in like November, 2015
was, , this is a lot more powerful.
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:So what does that have to do with
the Sales Enablement Society?
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:in December of 2015,, I just gotten
back from this really exciting
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:transformation project we worked
on with a manufacturing company.
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:And I was happy about it, but I didn't.
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:Only the people in that
company knew about it.
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:There wasn't any way to share that.
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:There wasn't like the councils that,
that we'd set up at, at Forrester
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:via say, Hey, let's tell a story
about what Symantec is doing.
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:Let's tell a story what
this company is doing.
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:And that made me sad.
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:aNd also I didn't like
being known as an author.
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:I liked, I wanted to have more
closer connections with humans.
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:I got this idea of saying, what if
I started a local meetup group and
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:instead of doing it by calling people,
I decided, Hey, what if I took what I
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:learned from what Jill got me to do?
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:And what if I asked to
create this thing online?
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:So , I wrote up it was a
letter for friends.
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:You can go read it.
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:Cause it's still published out there.
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:I wrote out this this letter for friends.
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:And I looked at my keyboard for at
least two hours before I hit send.
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:Cause I was scared . Cause I was used to.
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:When I would publish something at
Forrester, I'd get 20, 000 views.
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:Erich Starrett: Rockstar.
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:Scott Santucci: Yeah.
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:It's what you think, right?
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:It's the metrics and, the
metrics matter or whatever.
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:And even after I left, when I would
write an article on LinkedIn, I
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:get 5, 000 views, 10, 000 views.
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:So I'm like, okay I'm relevant
and all that other stuff.
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:But I knew that this letter Probably
would be the end of all that.
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:So
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:I thought really deeply about
whether to do it or not.
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:I hit send.
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:And I think to this day, even all
these years later, it's got a whopping
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:total, like 300 reads so I was like,
I really screwed up my career.
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:Erich Starrett: Was
Jerry Maguire out then?
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:It was like the, I published my manifesto!
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:That hit send part, when he's
up all night putting the...
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:Scott Santucci: You're right.
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:That was a Jerry Maguire kind of thing.
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:But what happened was so interesting.
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:Because it got engagement.
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:And by engagement, people would call me.
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:And Or people, sent me direct notes.
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:So this article just asked, Hey, is
anybody interested in forming a group?
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:And I thought it would be
successful if I had five,
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:I called Brian Lambert, who
lived in the area at the time,
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:said, You're one of them.
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:You're going to go.
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:So there's four now.
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:The very first meeting we had 16 people.
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:We had to change venues twice.
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:And that's how it got started.
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:So the very first meeting that we had
was just a meeting to discuss whether we
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:should have our other meetings or not.
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:And people went around the room and said,
this is what sales enablement means to me.
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:And it means something
different to everybody.
391
:It's wasn't that interesting?
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:What if we texturalized it?
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:And then we started
having monthly meetings.
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:I'd call people, I'd send emails to
people who, had sales enablement or sales
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:leadership or whatever in the title, in
the DC area and invite 'em to participate.
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:What?
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:Do what?
398
:Why am I coming?
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:It's I don't know.
400
:We're here to figure it out.
401
:And we had a theme, but
it wasn't a presentation.
402
:It was Hey, let's see if we can plot
out what the problems are or I presented
403
:something that I did way back in
the past and I didn't tell anybody.
404
:It was my own work.
405
:And I said, let's critique it.
406
:We beat that up.
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:.
Everything was conflict oriented, but in a positive way, the goal of
408
:figuring out And one of the rules was I
published something after each meeting,
409
:a standard format which says,
here's a topic with , a 20
410
:minute overview, a frame.
411
:Here are our roles and responsibilities.
412
:Here's how we're going to attack it.
413
:And here are the, group
activities that we need to do.
414
:And we do the activities and
we read out the feedback and
415
:then, argue it out from there.
416
:Erich Starrett: So when those folks
were reaching out to you and going, hey.
417
:That meetup thing you're doing where
you're using that model and people aren't
418
:just showing up with PowerPoint slides,
but you're getting actual work done and
419
:there's stuff coming out of these things.
420
:Did you share that same format out with
the other groups that were reaching out
421
:to you or what did that package look like?
422
:Scott Santucci: At this point in
time, no one's reached out to me yet.
423
:That's never been asked for.
424
:So there's no reason to
document or anything like that.
425
:Erich Starrett: I'm asking.
426
:You know what I want for Christmas, scott.
427
:Scott Santucci: Deal.
428
:And what would happen over a period of
time is people saw these outputs and
429
:go, Hey, I want to set up a meetup too.
430
:So I got a few of those
diRect messages on LinkedIn.
431
:None of this is visible.
432
:All of this is behind the scenes,
which is another . Interesting
433
:thing that I learned from Jill.
434
:Hopefully it's super clear.
435
:It took Jill Rowley pushing
me to get on LinkedIn.
436
:And then I'm eternally grateful for it.
437
:Erich Starrett: By the way, I just ran
into her in Nashville, a few weeks back.
438
:This is the hug she
said, pass along to you.
439
:I love that connection.
440
:Scott Santucci: Huge fan of her.
441
:. I think the key, the thing that focus
in on is that most people pay attention
442
:to the metrics and the clicks, but what
is really powerful about social media
443
:are the things that people don't see.
444
:It's the questions and the
engagement that you get from that.
445
:So I'm getting these, hey,
What are you doing there?
446
:Hey I want to say how should
I set up a local meetup group?
447
:I'm like beats me.
448
:I don't even know what we're doing.
449
:I really don't.
450
:, here's my paper trail.
451
:I'm publishing everything along the way.
452
:You want to follow along?
453
:and help me figure out what I'm doing.
454
:I just set out with this goal and
I want to find people who are like
455
:minded that are willing to discuss
these things and be curious about it.
456
:So along the way, Daniel West, who
was a Forrester client and also a
457
:Serious Decisions client said, Hey,
I want you to meet this guy, Jim.
458
:Jim Nenevaji.
459
:And I said, no, I don't want to.
460
:He was the competitor and they
were trying to rip us off.
461
:Cause serious decisions started their
sales and annual practice afterwards.
462
:And I heard from our clients that they
were going after our marquee clients.
463
:And I'm like, why don't they come up with
their own new idea was like my attitude.
464
:I'm not meeting him.
465
:All right.
466
:And then Dan is like, what are you doing?
467
:What are you doing?
468
:Are you going to be that kind of a baby?
469
:You don't even work there anymore.
470
:It's he's a good guy.
471
:And I'm like, I don't
care what good guy he is.
472
:And Dan is you gotta do it
for me, so I'm like, okay.
473
:So there's that theme, right?
474
:I, I need you to challenge me on it.
475
:And, I met him and we were
like brothers in ten minutes.
476
:I didn't want to, it took about , 10
minutes to where we were like.
477
:Long lost best friends in
that first conversation.
478
:He's Hey, why don't you
I'm going to go do this?
479
:Council to promote brain
shark, but I want to promote.
480
:I just want to get people
talking about, sales enablement.
481
:wHy don't you show up?
482
:I was like, yeah that'd be awesome.
483
:I'll do that.
484
:So I flew out.
485
:We were like kids in a candy
store, planning that I told him
486
:you to just show up at the local
DC area sales and marketing
487
:meetup group, which was my title.
488
:It's super, super clear.
489
:I'm a great marketer.
490
:So we show up and it was like
improv night between Jim and I.
491
:Highlighting the key points, and I
decided that I was gonna just try
492
:to make Daniel West uncomfortable.
493
:Because, he put me on the spot
there, so I'm gonna just, I'm
494
:gonna put him on the spot.
495
:And he's a good, he's such
a good sport with that.
496
:So anyway we wrap up this meeting, and we
challenge them to start their own chapter
497
:of the San Francisco blah blah blah blah.
498
:It's your group.
499
:Come up with your own
name . And it's Daniel.
500
:You're the president.
501
:YoU figure it out.
502
:And that's how that's how
the first chapter got born.
503
:It was in the same spirit how I got
into social by Jill challenging me.
504
:By first Daniel challenging me.
505
:And me and Jim, deciding, Hey,
we're going to challenge him.
506
:And then we challenged that
group of about 12 people there,
507
:which Sheevaun was there too.
508
:So you can probably get some good
stories from her perspective.
509
:Erich Starrett: Love it.
510
:It was all started on a
dare is what we'll call it.
511
:Scott Santucci: I guess a triple dog dare.
512
:I just skipped formality and
went right to triple dog dare.
513
:I came back and I, we had our local DC
so we have a San Francisco chapter, but
514
:maybe they won't be affiliated and, I
can be part of that 1 and part of this 1,
515
:if we don't want to try to link them up.
516
:We said, we, try to link them up
and in doing so Raul Gupta just ran
517
:with it and he made his own website.
518
:So the lion logo, , Raul did that.
519
:He did it all in like a weekend
to say, look, if we're going to do
520
:this, it can't be as embarrassing, no
offense, Santucci, but DC local area
521
:sales and marketing meetup group.
522
:Isn't, really that great.
523
:I was like I agree with you.
524
:I'm open to change the name.
525
:So SalEnablementism Society, he
came up with the, with the lion.
526
:He came up with the first, website.
527
:It was amazing.
528
:And he did it like in a weekend.
529
:So we had that and then at the same
time, one of the people been contacting
530
:me about a local group was Jill Guardia.
531
:How would I set this up?
532
:And I said do you want to
set up just as a local group?
533
:Or do we have this DC one and
we've got the San Francisco one.
534
:Do you want to be part of that?
535
:Oh, I want to be a part of that . I
said, okay we'll have a meeting.
536
:We'll go and get it kicked off.
537
:In either September or October, we had
a meeting there, and their mission was
538
:to come up with what's the end game.
539
:We co wrote in that meeting what the end
state of Sales Enablement should be.
540
:We called it the Chief Productivity
Officer, and I was, writing down
541
:on the screen what people were
agreeing to as we were there.
542
:. There were a lot of people
in that that meeting.
543
:So Lee Levitt was in that meeting.
544
:Mike Kunkel was in that meeting.
545
:The founding of the Boston chapter.
546
:Erich Starrett: Timeline wise,
are we in mid:
547
:Scott Santucci: Yeah.
548
:. It's August, September
timeframe So we go, Huh?
549
:We got these three.
550
:I say to our group, What should we do?
551
:Alexander group.
552
:We have this conference coming up.
553
:I can ask my company whether
or not we could get space and,
554
:try to have a national meeting.
555
:They're like the the
Continental Convention.
556
:Should this be a national thing?
557
:If so, it should be not us running
the shots, that's like the central
558
:command and control thing that I'm
not a part of, so we should do that.
559
:Will you guys commit to help?
560
:Let's agree on what a number would look
like, because the optics for me are going
561
:to look terrible if no one shows up.
562
:So will we commit to try
to get 20 people there?
563
:We thought 20 people to show up.
564
:On a Friday afternoon in Palm Beach,
if you've ever been to Palm Beach,
565
:Florida, it's not easy to get to
could we get 20 people to fly in to
566
:Palm Beach from, around the country?
567
:To, have a meeting and set this up.
568
:Our goal was 20.
569
:yEah, we'll do that.
570
:We're going to commit to do these
kinds of things, and that's when we
571
:decided at that moment in time, we're
going to explore whether or not to
572
:start the Sales Enablement Society.
573
:So the founding meeting that happened
in Palm Beach, November:
574
:meeting to decide whether or not the
Sales Enablement Society should be born.
575
:That's the backstory.
576
:So to to promote that, we
just did the same thing.
577
:Hey, I'm going to go back to
what I learned from Jill Rowley.
578
:I'm going to go back and say, I'm going
to write, this is what we want to do.
579
:So the first thing was I
put a mission statement out.
580
:Instead of taking a report that people
expect from me, I'm going to make an ask.
581
:But instead of making an
ask to one person, what if I
582
:did it to a group of people?
583
:I try to extend Jill's idea from one to
one to say, what if I did one to many?
584
:What if you do it this way?
585
:What if you do it that way?
586
:So we picked on those nuances and
along the way, just by publishing
587
:things and using more of the
feature set of of LinkedIn.
588
:The more you use it, the more it
gets difficult to talk about what
589
:it is because it's so experiential.
590
:So you get you push more of those
things out and more people engage.
591
:We said, okay, we're going to do the same
thing to promote the national meeting.
592
:So I wrote a letter
593
:If I were to paraphrase the 1st letter for
the local meetup group was hi, I'm Scott.
594
:I'm looking for business friends.
595
:It's, are you not only looking
for business friends, but do you
596
:think that things could be better?
597
:Do you want to make a difference?
598
:If so, we're going to convene this
we're going to run it like the
599
:continental convention, here are rules,
and you even wrote up all the rules
600
:to follow and everything like that.
601
:How did it happen from
there to November 19th.
602
:A lot of interesting stories behind that.
603
:And then what actually happened in
that is a lot of interesting stuff too.
604
:a
605
:Erich Starrett: That
was an awesome flyover.
606
:We went from Jill Rowley to Ninivaggi.
607
:Then we went to Boston with
Guardia and we touched on Sheevaun.
608
:But all the way back to that
original meetup, I really
609
:want to get inside that room.
610
:Were there key players?
611
:Were there key moments,
612
:Scott Santucci: I'd love to tell
you a story, like a, just a whole
613
:thing, just about Walter Pollard.
614
:Erich Starrett: Awesome.
615
:Love Walter.
616
:Scott Santucci: But I his shining
moment is way, is more when you
617
:get to the conference in 2017.
618
:This event could have gone either
way, I almost quit doing it.
619
:The meetups.
620
:So we started out like our first official
meetup, that first meeting to decide
621
:whether we should do meetups or not.
622
:That had 16 people, That was in February.
623
:We had our first official meetup in March.
624
:And then we had monthly ones, March,
April, May, June, July, August, September.
625
:Most of them were at my country club.
626
:So we go from, 16 30.
627
:So we're getting about 40 people,
coming to these things that
628
:no one can really describe.
629
:And it was a lot of energy.
630
:We had very formal ways about
making people comfortable.
631
:I reached out to each individual person
beforehand and talked to them, to
632
:say, you know who you should talk
to, you should talk to this person.
633
:And I made sure I made
introductions, all those things.
634
:So one of the people that
came to the meetings, there's
635
:a guy named Brian Murphy.
636
:Got a sales background
that I just love to death.
637
:And the topic that we were discussing
were charters and how important they were.
638
:we basically had two camps, one camp
saying that they're super important.
639
:Other people are like, look,
they're just forms we fill out.
640
:Our company gives us a form and
we fill it out over the weekend.
641
:And at, in the middle of the table, I had
my computer and it was a projector up.
642
:And Brian Murphy got really frustrated
at that whole attitude of we just
643
:fill it out and he got up And he
took control of my computer without
644
:asking me, which I loved so much.
645
:I'm like, huh, I wonder
where this is going.
646
:He googled the Magna Carta and he lectured
us how this is a charter and how important
647
:they are and they change history.
648
:And if you don't take it seriously,,
you're an imbecile or something.
649
:He was so passionate.
650
:And I'm like, thank you, man.
651
:That was great.
652
:And the reason he's frustrated is
because the guy's a sales leader his
653
:whole life and he's sick and tired.
654
:Of these half assed efforts.
655
:Is that right?
656
:It's absolutely right.
657
:It's okay, so somebody's just got to be
able to translate for him when they're
658
:when people, so oh, I understand.
659
:He's not actually attacking me.
660
:It's like, how could
I don't even know you,
661
:you have to create that
forum to let people.
662
:understand where their passions come from.
663
:That was such a huge deal.
664
:I was smiling so much to get that
kind of creative conflict and passion.
665
:I was happy that I wasn't having to be
the one to push it because if I can be the
666
:good cop and make sure everybody gets on.
667
:And I said, one thing that I'm going
to ask you guys, can we have that
668
:actually be at one of your locations?
669
:Yeah, because I'm picking up the
tab for these so Lisa Pitner says,
670
:yeah, I, let's have it at our place.
671
:And she worked at Cisco has this
amazing facility in downtown DC.
672
:We could go do a happy hour.
673
:.I'm thinking, Hey, if I can get 40
people to all the way out in Ashburn,
674
:which is in the suburbs, we should
probably be able to get 50 people.
675
:At Cisco's headquarters downtown
with a happy hour afterwards.
676
:So I'm like, all right, let's test this.
677
:I'm thinking, what can I do here
to put more skin in the game?
678
:. And I'm like, okay, let's see what else
we can do with the social media stuff.
679
:So I called up the CMO
at the time at seismic.
680
:And I said Hey, Daniel
we've got this thing.
681
:You guys have this podcast.
682
:You should do a podcast live.
683
:And watch this organic thing happening.
684
:Cause I'm thinking, there's going
to be at least 25 people there.
685
:So we had this meeting.
686
:It turns out it's hard to get the DC.
687
:It was in the summer.
688
:People wanted to go to the beach or
whatever, but only six people showed up.
689
:So at the happy hour, I was just
pouting and I was stewing and
690
:Lisa came up and sat next to me.
691
:This was so smart of her.
692
:And she said, what's up?
693
:And I said, eh, I don't
want to talk about it.
694
:Are you mad about something?
695
:Yeah, I'm super pissed.
696
:Like we've only got six people there
and she's, she looked at me and she
697
:said, get over yourself, unquote.
698
:And I looked at her like, strangely,
she said, look, is everybody having fun?
699
:Did you care to even ask whether I
thought it was a great meeting or not?
700
:I got six other people here to
give me new ideas on my own turf.
701
:And you're over here moping
702
:.
And I'm like, . You're so right.
703
:What I was, I said, , why
am I embarrassed?
704
:I'm embarrassed for me.
705
:I'm embarrassed because, I was trying
to promote all this stuff up, probably
706
:did it a little bit too early.
707
:And then Lisa and Nicole O'Brien and I
had drinks and had the most fun, funniest
708
:conversation I think I've had in my life.
709
:Afterwards.
710
:If Lisa wouldn't have come to me and
told me to literally get over myself.
711
:What's wrong with you?
712
:How come you didn't ask me whether I
thought it was a good meeting or not?
713
:I would have stopped doing it.
714
:The whole way that all this
worked was people challenging
715
:each other in a very positive way.
716
:So that would be the one thing that
I think is incredibly important
717
:that in all change initiatives.
718
:you're going to have those pivotal
moments and either you stew on it and
719
:don't talk about it or you confront
it and go, hell are you talking about?
720
:Erich Starrett: And that's
one I've never heard.
721
:I love it.
722
:I love it.
723
:That was a great story, Scott.
724
:, but let's get in a time
machine and head to Palm Beach.
725
:... which is exactly what we will do.
726
:And part two, please tune back in.
727
:We'll see you soon.
728
:VoiceOverGuy: Thanks for
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729
:and amplify your journey.
730
:Please make sure you've
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