Sales Enablement's Critical Role in Solving the Sales Talent Gap

Dheeraj Prasad: We have Nicholas Gregory in our show today. Nicholas has been a sales enablement leader. With over 12 years of experience having worked at various technology companies, like Veritas, Semantic, Sabre, and more recently at Automation Anywhere, he is very passionate about technology and how sales enablement is leading the way to drive business growth. So, Nick, if I can call you and address you like that. Welcome to the show. Wonderful having you be with us today. Talk a little more about yourself, what you're passionate about, and how are you living these current times?

Nicholas Gregory: Yeah, Dheeraj. Thank you so much for having me on this episode, coming to you from Dallas, Texas. And you know, this is interesting times, of course, you know a little bit about me, my hobby, my passion right now is definitely our two young boys, we have a three and a half-year-old and a two-year-old. And so as many parents know, that keep us quite busy. But it's so amazing to see the world through their eyes and to teach them as well as they've been growing up. And of course, they're both now talking and exploring the world. And it's just amazing to see these two little boys grow up before our eyes.

Dheeraj Prasad: Fantastic. Excellent. Okay, so the first question that I'll have to also put to you, Nick, is about a study, which was done by CSO insights, which states that only 16% of the leaders believe in the current sales talent that they have to achieve the overall business goals. How do you see this to be an opportunity for strategic sales enablement?

Nicholas Gregory: Yeah, Dheeraj that, you know, if you look at the headline there, it's quite staggering, right? The lack of confidence in sales today by their own sales leaders that participate in that and report. The opportunity, though, on the other hand, is a big one, right? for sales enablement. In general, it's a big opportunity for even though we're already aligned with cross-functional, there's so much across an organization from sales and product and marketing. There's an opportunity for us to expand those horizons and look at HR, look at talent acquisition, and really formalize and partnerships with them. Plus, of course, the hiring managers and sales executives, etc. To formalize sales competencies, if we don't have those already, the hiring profiles that aligned to who we should be going after and targeting, and really take an internal look and look at ourselves in the mirror as an organization to find out, you know, we may not know why our top performers are the top performers. This is the time now to better get to the crux of what is making those sales reps internally so successful within our organization. So then that we can hope and aspire to hire those to replicate, potentially replicate that success. There are no guarantees and in sales and hope is not a strategy. But we can further drive ourselves strategically to find that top talent out there.

Dheeraj Prasad: Absolutely, and how do you also see some of the digital formats of sales enablement, specifically in the virtual context now that we are in, given the covid 19 pandemic? Is this now the moment to actually make the big shift to drive the adoption of digital technologies for sales enablement?

Nicholas Gregory: Absolutely. I'm a full believer in that. I mean, first and foremost, we're in this forced experiment to explore those options. And as we look at the benefit, and also not only the cost-benefit but also the benefit from the standpoint of what digital capabilities can bring to bear for sales, it really is a no-brainer to tell this look. And maybe I'll be able to invest in them right now due to the current situation and budgets are tight and squeezed and put on hold. But that being said, this is the time to evaluate what makes the most sense for us to bring on a potential partner from a digital SAS solution, let's say to help sales to guide them through their sales process. And in support of our company supported the sales strategy. The corporate strategy over all the time is now. Obviously, we're not sitting on our hands waiting for things to get better. We have to look at the current landscape. The challenge here is that there are so many out there that there have never been more offerings from a tech stack perspective to support sales, support us in sales enablement to support sales as well. That it's hard to make a choice and you know, I'm sure you can relate to this. It's just getting so many different calls and emails about a new player that can solve this particular niche problem. It's hard to kind of weed through all that right now. So it's you have to do due diligence, for sure. But to summarize, time is now.

Dheeraj Prasad: Absolutely. How do you measure ROI on this Nick? for companies that are now looking for every dollar spent based on return on investment? How do you see the ROI coming out of some of these investments?

Nicholas Gregory: Yeah, that's the biggest thing, not only for when bringing on a new supplier or new vendor but also for sales enablement. Overall, I wouldn't. My suggestion was not to go out and jump on a piece on a supplier right now before you get your bearings straight on what you're measuring internally. If you were not to bring on a new player, digital vendor to support you get what you want to measure internally first, right, then you can entertain bringing on, you know, through this particular buying cycle, let's say a couple of the key players that solve for particular challenges you're having currently, that can then either align to those KPIs or leading or lagging indicators, or give you some new perspective to measure some things that you hadn't thought about before that are enabled by bringing on a particular vendor to help you out or a supplier to help you out, they can give some unique perspective on things to measure they hadn't otherwise thought of. And you can only get that measurement through the particular capabilities that they have through a piece of technology that they offer. But it's taken care of home base right now take care of, of what you're going to measure internally before you can bring on another player to add to the mix.

Dheeraj Prasad: Absolutely. Given that now, sellers are in a virtual context, what are the tools that will help them to drive a higher level of buyer engagement when they are not in a physical context, talking to customers and know how to look at the entire experience to be the same as they were having earlier and even better? So what have been the key advantages that people are now getting as sellers while working virtually and engaging with customers?

Nicholas Gregory: Yeah, well, as some reports say that, those sellers spend about 10, 15% of their time at their field-focused traveling, right? That’s now been reduced. So if I'm home, I'm not spending a day traveling to a destination at a day back. And what I'm getting to is I have more time in the day to actually meet with more customers on a given day than I had before. So first and foremost, I get time back. That's one thing, so I'm able to engage. Now, the flip side of that is that, you know, some of the latest data points that are coming out is that obviously under the current circumstances, a lot of those buying influences aren't making the time of day to take meetings virtually, obviously in this in this current time that we're living in. So there is that that balance there. But it so what I'm saying by that is you have to find, you know, those that you're already engaging with, right, that potentially could help, you know, bring in that much-needed business. But on the flip side, what are you doing to offer your support during this current time to get really down to it is the selling activities really haven't changed? By nature, right? You know, it's human-to-human sales. It's just now a platform that I'm going through, rather than maybe sitting across the table from you. This is the time to really hone in on your skills. What has made you a successful seller leading up to this point? And what are you doing now that maybe you've you didn't do in the past and vice versa? What should you be doing now that you were doing in the past, and dust off those skills, invest in yourself so that you can be more valuable to your potential customers. And I'm not saying going back and reading up on product training or taking courses in product training, talking about the art and science of sales and that human-to-human engagement. Those are some of the things that we're seeing right now.

Dheeraj Prasad: The art and science of selling are so very well put. Later next. So thank you so much for being on the show today. Some very, very valuable insights and I hope to stay connected with you and take care of yourself and stay safe. Thank you.

Nicholas Gregory: Thank you very much, Dheeraj. Take care