Educating Teams Effectively

Jessica Ly: I'm here with Terry Turner, Director of Enablement at Reltio. Reltio is a software, a SaaS model that provides a lot of the healthcare providers and retailers online to have a perfect view of their customers by really having those master data sets connected to provide insights. And Teri is in charge of enablement. So, Teri, thanks for being on the show.

Teri Turner: Thanks, Jessica. Appreciate you having me.

Jessica Ly: So talk to us first about the enablement program at Reltio. You have a team of about 30 sales and business development reps who are being trained to make sure they have the right content and provide the right kind of presentation. A lot of that is coming from your effort in enabling them. If you could share with us what was the environment? And then what did you implement?

Teri Turner: Sure, so Jessica, think about a time that you were talking to a colleague about a recent opportunity that you closed and all the blood and sweat that went into the deal. There are so many juicy details that are talked about between yourself and the person. And the issue is only you heard it? So often, enablement comes from employee knowledge and experience, which I call tribal knowledge. And what we were looking for is how do we pull out that tribal knowledge from our employees to be able to share it on a more broad level. And many companies see this as a challenge of pulling that tribal knowledge because so much of it is communicated on a one-by-one basis or in small team meetings or QBRs. So I launched something called field focus. And what it is, is blended learning, which is for sales by sales, with input from the field sales leaders, chooses topics that they feel the organization could get immediate impact from. And we do these sessions and the sessions are successful because we're really striving as much as possible to have interaction among the panelists, and the panelists or the presenters are from all parts of the business. So we're really connecting different parts of the business that have communications with our customers and being able to share those things with each other. So I'm a big believer in conversational versus presentational because I feel it's not necessary, but what participants see on the screen, it's more important than what they're hearing the panelists say and then you're supporting that conversation with some simple ABC 123 slides. So the session contains poll questions, demos of unique features, personal stories, and of course, individual flair. What this does is keep the audience engaged and make it memorable. And the more memorable we can make enablement sessions, the better received they are.

Jessica Ly: Tell us some of the roles, so like sales, maybe sales engineer, technical engineers, maybe Product Marketing, so tell us who were the folks in this, this conversation.

Teri Turner: Sure, it's really every, but all of those different groups are involved at different times. So one session may have marketing involved, it may have Customer Success involved. Most of them definitely have a salesperson involved. And all of the sessions are led by a sales leader. So they're leading the topic. They're having discussions with the sales, people pulling in possibly a technical person to show a demo of maybe something that's unique to Reltio. And something that we provide that our competition doesn't provide. I hope to in the future pull in some partners as well and but engaging different parts of the organization because I feel like everybody in our organization has something that we can learn from.

Jessica Ly: Yes. When you do sales enablement, I always find that they may learn it when you're together. But then afterward, you need to have ongoing enablement sessions or allow the self-pace to continue learning throughout the year and have a way to actually track that and measure that so you can correlate what works and what doesn't work.

Teri Turner: Absolutely, that's really important to have that in place. Both from a sales perspective and a marketing perspective, because they give us a lot of the assets and resources that we use. We want to make sure that they're what the customer needs, what the salesperson needs, and the enablement that we're providing for the sales team. We want to make sure it's top-notch and what they need as well to be successful salespeople in the field.

Jessica Ly: Currently, what challenges are you facing then?

Teri Turner: Some challenges that we are facing, of course, being online is a challenge for everybody in enablement is making that shift of out of the classroom and in-person to online. So we have to make sure that everything we do is more engaging. So keeping them engaged from the beginning of what's in it for them to get them involved. So having them actually do something when you're in a classroom, you can have them give up and give an example or answer a question. So incorporating those things in your enablement online is really super important. Whether it be animation tools while you're in possibly a zoom meeting or having them speak to answer questions, poll questions are a good way to keep them engaged. So how are you going to keep them engaged from beginning to end?

Jessica Ly: Yes. Your thoughts on the evolution of sales enablement?

Teri Turner: I keep hearing the phrase the new normal. And I don't know if I really buy into that. What is really normal about what's going on today? And how long is it really going to be new? I think the environment that we're in today will be ever-changing for quite some time. So as an enablement function, we need to be quicker on our feet and adjust to those changes. We need to incorporate more engagement, as I talked about before, both mentally and physically. And then, we have to mix the format and keep the delivery fresh. For instance, I just started using Kahoot, which incorporates a more fun video format in my enablement toolbox. So being creative and being able to turn on a dime, the different changes that are happening today.

Jessica Ly: Yes, it's true. I think that with this shelter in place, we're all learning, experiencing what it is like to work from home and collaborate from home. And we're finding that actually, our productivity can still be as good as high, and we might not need to travel as much might not need to commute back to work as often. And I feel that with the experience we're going through, we will retain a lot of that, even after this pandemic situation is over.

Teri Turner: I think it's a great time to go back and revisit some of the basics, things like body language and brushing up on your zoom skills and things like that, you know. We have more time because we're not on the road to brush up on some of those soft skills.

Jessica Ly: Yes, I was gonna say that that being at home allows you to have a lot more time to then learn, right and learn new skills, learn about product content industry, that everything is changing so much. But as an SI sales enablement director, you're shifting a lot of your energy into doing those kinds of digital transformations of your own programs, right?

Teri Turner: Yep, absolutely.

Jessica Ly: And one of the changes that you’re probably looking at is how do you scale and make it trackable? Trackable is the way to do it. Because now that you're not in person and everything is online, you have to figure a way to track all of the participants and their effectiveness.

Teri Turner: Yeah, it's not about whether the person's done something and checking the box. It's really are they engaging? Have they absorbed what you're trying to teach them? And can they redeliver it? So it's really important, especially today, to have them practice what they're learning and practicing it with enablement, practicing it with their manager and their peers and get immediate feedback and being able to then have some incremental learning that goes on.

Jessica Ly: Yes, I know some of the enablement tools out there allow you to practice the pitch. And there's AI involved in actually ranking or rating some of those pitches so that the managers can have a quick look to see who's doing well who's not who really needs more help, be able to track back to all the way with that as the sales, the revenue and tie that to how enablement impacts the revenue outcome in the end.

Teri Turner: Yep, we just finished a certification with all our sales folks that we actually recorded them with providing some messaging, and we had a scorecard and we scored them all. We had three people that were peers, managers, executives, that scored them on their pitch, and then at the end of it was able to give them immediate feedback, recorded it so they could listen to it. And then those recordings we're using for future enablement as well.

Jessica Ly: Great. Well, I appreciate you being on the show talking about enablement. Looking forward to hearing more about the transformation to be more digital and having the actual data to show the impact of what you're doing.

Teri Turner: Sure.

Jessica Ly: Thank you appreciate being on.