Arm the sales team by aligning presales and enablement

Adam Freeman: Hello and welcome to episode 79 of two pre sales in a pod and we’re back again. So it’s myself Adam Freeman and Todd. Hi Todd Hello, hello. And we’ve got a very special guest today, the global queen of enablement, I’m going to give you that title. We’ve got Sheevaun Thatcher with us. Sheevaun, thank you so much for joining us.

Sheevaun Thatcher: I am delighted to be here, gentlemen. 

Adam Freeman: Wonderful. And can we just talk about probably the best shirt that’s ever been on this podcast? You know, 

Sheevaun Thatcher: I live in California. I am a transplanted Canadian living in California. I know my family is just about to hit the big snow and I’m sitting here in an avocado shirt.

It doesn’t get more California than this. So I thought I would share it. 

Adam Freeman: Wonderful. So, um, she was kind of bringing a different view point in terms of enablement to our audience. Do you want to kind of just give people a little bit about your background? If that’s okay, before we start. 

Sheevaun Thatcher: Yeah, I mean, I’ve been doing enablement as a full profession since 2008.

That’s when I got my official title, [00:01:00] which was not enablement. Then there was no such thing there. This kind of job didn’t exist. So I was the VP of Global Success Metrics. Kind of gives you an idea about how I drive enablement, right? Uh, but before that, for over 25 years, I ran solution engineering. I ran pre sales global teams and loved it, absolutely loved it.

And I believe firmly that folks coming from pre sales into enablement is one of the best transitions that can be made. And the partnership Between enablement and pre sales is critical in an organization because that is how the truth is held and delivered when it comes to sales experiences. 

Adam Freeman: Wonderful.

I think we’ve probably hit the nail on the head on why we asked you to come on the show, right? Because you just articulate that so crisply. But one of the things that I think many people listening will say is, well, what does good enablement look like? What does a good enablement team do? What do they bring to an organization?

If we could maybe kind of cover [00:02:00] that briefly. 

Sheevaun Thatcher: So. A good enablement team, what they bring to the organization, it is all of the tools, all of the messaging, all of the experience. Uh, I like to think of them as the, um, uh, strength and conditioning coaches, right? You’re not going to see them on the field, but they’re in the back working with everybody.

But the purpose of it is to make sure that our customers. Are having the best, most, uh, aligned conversation they can have with a seller to ensure that their business issues, their challenges, their, their wants, their needs are being addressed directly as opposed to being sold to. That’s enablement does.

Enablement teaches sellers how to ask those questions so that to help customers buy from them. As opposed to the traditional, I have a product, I’m going to, [00:03:00] you know, take this square peg and push it into that round hole, right? It’s subtlety, it’s understanding, it’s curiosity, it’s listening, it’s insight, it’s all of those things.

And not only do I find those in enablement people. But I also find it hugely in the pre sales people, because the pre sales people have to take any single demo and you have to make sure that that demo and how you’re answering those questions are answering the so what and who cares. Not just the here’s a drop down here’s 12 entries I’m going to show you every single entry I’m going to believe me, I’ve had my days, but there’s been, you know, it is how do you take that demo and make it.

So you’re helping the customers buy based on the information you’re giving them. You’re not shoving things down their throat. 

Todd Janzen: You just mentioned, so what, who cares? And whenever I hear that, it just like, that is so pre sale. And if you’ve been doing this for a while, like that, those, those, that phrase means something.

I love that. I [00:04:00] have a 

Sheevaun Thatcher: laminated eight by 11, two sided card that I carry with me, even now, so that when I’m in meetings and somebody is either giving a presentation or they’re talking at the front of the room and they start talking about features and this and that, and they haven’t said. One reason why it matters, I’ll pull that thing out and flash it.

So what? And put it back down. I 

Todd Janzen: love it. I love it. I can just like see myself coming off my next airplane and there you are waiting for me at the guard. So what? Who cares? 

Adam Freeman: It’s not the first thing you want to see when you arrive in an airport, is it? No, no. 

Todd Janzen: You mentioned tools and it really jumped off the page to me.

What did you mean by that? 

Sheevaun Thatcher: Uh, the tools that I mean are not necessarily the software tools. I mean, the tools that somebody has to address the kinds of conversations that they’re dealing with. Um, I talk about the five questions, right? Whenever we think about, [00:05:00] do we have a new program that we want to run?

Do we want to run a new pre sales program? Or do we want to run a new enablement program? Do we want to run a new? sales program, whatever it is, there are five questions that need to be addressed to find out whether or not these programs are even worthwhile. The first is, how is it aligned with the go to market, current go to market?

Does everybody know what that is? Right? So even I guess the point one piece of it is, is your board and your leaders, are they making sure that everybody has got the memo? They all understand what it is we’re doing and why we’re here. So that’s number one, is it aligned with that? Number two is, how is it going to be measured?

And by measured, I mean, how is it going to be measured when it comes to productivity or attrition? Because that’s what the KPIs really all lead towards, right? Sales velocity, average deal size, multi product sale. All of that is toward how is this going to advance the company in some way, either through revenue or through number of meetings or however it’s going to be measured.

[00:06:00] And so what is that? What that is not is how many demos did I do? How many people attended the demo? What was the CSAT for the demo? Same thing with enablement, right? How many people attended the training? What was the average score? What was the CSAT? We care about that from our particular places, because we need to know that what we’re doing is actually making sense to people, right?

They’re, they’re getting it. They’re seeing value, but our leaders don’t care about that. They want to know how is it moving the needle? So that’s number two. Number three is priority. How many times have pre sales people and enablement people been approached going, Hey, I got a great idea. Go do this. And without ever pushing back, we go, yeah, because we’re in service.

Right. So we go, yeah. Okay. And we take it on and we just add it to what we’ve already doing. 

Todd Janzen: Yeah. If 

Sheevaun Thatcher: everything is high priority, then nothing is, 

Todd Janzen: and if 

Sheevaun Thatcher: nothing is high priority, then everything is. And so it’s trying to figure out what should we really be working on. [00:07:00] And so a good question there is always, okay, you want me to do this.

What am I currently doing for you that I can either push or stop in order to get this in? 

Adam Freeman: Yeah. Great way of looking at it. Yeah. 

Sheevaun Thatcher: Right. Yeah. And, and it’s a decision on their part, not mine. I’m not making that decision there. What are you willing to let go of? Or to extend in order for this to go in. So that’s really important because what that also does is it honors the teams that are doing a lot of the work and not overburdening, right?

Do we even have the space to do this thing? And if we don’t, something’s got to come out for someone else goes in. The fourth one is what do you want them to do? When you’re doing a demo, what are you trying to do in the demo? Are you trying to get them interested in a new product? Are you trying to get them interested in a new, uh, campaign or a new way of doing things?

Are you trying to get them to add on, right? What are you trying to do? And the last one is, When? How many times, and I know both of you run into this, how many [00:08:00] times have you seen that somebody comes to you and says, we have to do this now, it’s got to get done now, it’s going to get, it’s going to help us close the business at the end of this quarter.

If they’re coming in with a new idea right now to close business at the end of the quarter, that is never going to happen. It’s just not going to happen. Right. And so it is. When does this really need to be done? And if it needs to be done now to close business at the end of the quarter, then that’s a very frank discussion with the person coming to you going, This isn’t going to help you.

Let’s look at what actually has to be done in order to do this. We can do this next quarter. Right? And so it’s those five questions that I ask before I start any project. And that was whether I was enablement. Because if you don’t have that information and it’s not geared towards the business, Then you’re just doing busy work.

And there is no guarantee that any of that will ever see the light of day. And that is crushing if you’ve spent a lot of time doing 

Adam Freeman: it. I had a, a mentor, she just reminded me of [00:09:00] these five questions I had a mentor very early in my kind of leadership career who said, you know, someone else’s priority shouldn’t always be your priority and set your own boundaries because one of the things that I just want to ask your, your view on, Todd and I have spoke to a lot of leaders.

around doing this podcast, but also just speaking to leaders. And one of the recurring things we see, and we see it in our kind of, our industry survey as well, is this increasing rate of burnout. Okay, let’s call it what it is. We’re living in a remote first world for many right now. There’s an increase in expectation that people are going back to the office on top of that.

And so people are still working or trying to work at the pace they did. post pandemic and during the pandemic with back to back meetings and then on top of that they’re putting commuting and traveling in to that now. They’re not getting the work to home life balance correct in a lot of scenarios. Um, how, how do you monitor that as a leader?

You know, just, just to shift gears slightly, how How would you, as a global leader, look at that? Because I think prioritization plays into it in a massive way, right? 

Sheevaun Thatcher: Prioritization plays into it in a huge way. [00:10:00] Because I want to make sure that my people aren’t being overburdened, right? We’re not, you know, I wouldn’t call it work life balance because there is no such thing anymore.

But there is harmony, right? There is harmony in that there are some times where you’re going to be spending a lot of time working and other times where it’s going to be light. How can we figure out how to balance that load, not work life, but balance the load so that they can, over that time, they can have certain expectations that they can live with, right?

I mean, I would be interested to see how many managers actually know, really know, why the people who are working for them, What are they working for? Not within the company. A lot of companies believe that that employers are loyal to them. There are not the days of pensions and all that there. The loyalty isn’t there.

It’s not the word you’re looking for. What we should be looking for is what do they want out of life that they can get by working for your company is have that [00:11:00] question and find out. And that is what should drive. How these folks work within an organization, right? There’s a guy, Phil Putnam, just put out a book called Desire Based, Desire Based Leadership.

Go get it. It is absolutely phenomenal. Because not only does it talk about what I just said, but it also gives you numbers on how much it costs if somebody leaves. If the attrition within your force goes down, what is the impact of that? He’s got the numbers in it. So it’s called desire based learning by Phil Putnam.

Go, go get it. Go read it. Um, give it to every leader, you know, right? It will change the conversation and the days of heavy burnout and whatnot will start to go away 

Adam Freeman: because 

Sheevaun Thatcher: it changes the conversation and the relationship. 

Adam Freeman: And Todd, this is really tying into something we’ve been talking about a lot recently, you know, in our public speaking, where we’re talking about scaling genius, Sheevaun, you know, and we’re saying that the genius in many people is really hard to bring on board.

And obviously you’re used to enablement where you’re trying to develop that genius and develop that experience. And we talk a lot, don’t we, Todd, about [00:12:00] scaling genius and how to do that. But that really plays into what Sheevaun is saying, right? 

Todd Janzen: Yeah. Yeah, super fascinating. Um, I love those five things you just laid out.

I think they’re so important and I’m going to raise my hand as being guilty here. Um, I loved little experimental projects, like that was my jam as like an SE and I keep them to myself. I swirl them away and you know, when it’s done and I think it’s ready for the world, you know, I unveil it and then like, there’s no one in the crowd.

Um, and to your point, maybe completely disconnected from the go to market strategy. It wasn’t until kind of later on in my career that I kind of realized to your point, you have to do that stuff up front. And maybe the simplest way I thought about it was, okay, you want to go work on something, you got to figure out what marketing is going to be spending money on in the next several quarters, because what would be incredible is if what they’re throwing [00:13:00] money at is building pipeline, which is then going over to reps.

And that’s what they’re selling. And if your project is aligned to that. There’s going to be some real measurable KPIs on that. 

Sheevaun Thatcher: Yep. Ding, ding, ding. That’s it. Like I encourage people taking risk. I encourage them being creative. I encourage them to do exactly what you’re talking about. Go off and work on these little projects provided.

They meet within the five questions, right? You want to go off and work on it. It’s that’s yours on, you know, it doesn’t necessarily have to be on your own time. If it looks like it’s going to fit, it’s going to fit. Something interesting you said, though, is about people finding their genius and and helping them discover their genius.

All too often we treat people like they’re a card in a deck of cards and we simply Deal it out without really figuring out what are they really, really good at like I, you know, I, I’ve talked to a lot of companies and they’re like, well, our neighborhood people, some are really good. They’re inexperienced, but they’re, you [00:14:00] know, they, they’re ready to go.

We’ve got others that are very experienced, but they’re dialing it in. We’ve got to, and I’m thinking, are they in the right roles? Are they doing the right things? Are you, do you understand why they’re there? What their why is? Not just the company, why? Right. They are not there to make your company successful.

They are there to make themselves successful. How do we do that? And are they in the wrong place? And so that is one thing, is finding that genius means you find the genius that they believe they have. Not the genius that you think they have. Right? You have to find that. 

Adam Freeman: Yeah, well, you’re trying to kind of coach into them, you know, it’s very, very difficult.

Um, Sheevaun, kind of, we’ve spoken about this before and probably off camera, but I think it’s a conversation topic that’s worth bringing to here. The kind of overlap between pre sales and EnableWrite and the trans The cross transferable skill set. You’re, you’re obviously, you’ve got a background in pre sales, right?

And how, to what extent do you [00:15:00] think that pathway as a career backwards and forwards is, is, is kind of compatible really? 

Sheevaun Thatcher: I think it’s a super highway. It’s just a try to find a path there. It’s a super highway between the two of them. You know, when people ask me how long have I done, uh, enablement, I became a sales enablement as a role.

We hadn’t defined, we had no idea what it was, but in 2008, it was, Don’t do it just for the pre sales people. Whatever you’re doing, doing it for everybody in sales. That’s when I became enablement. It wasn’t a name for it back then. I was VP global success metrics, right? I knew even then it had to be driven by data, but it was, you know, but I didn’t know what it was.

So I created that. However, I could not have done that without my background in pre sales. I spent a lot of 25 years in pre sales, learning how to make demos effective, learning how to make a proof of concepts really aligned with what the customers were looking for. Learning how presentation skills were critical and how you do [00:16:00] that, how to read body language, how to like all of that stuff.

I learned all of that in pre sales. And because of that, I learned the basis of the five questions. Right. You want me to do this new thing. Do not call me up and say, meet me in the lobby. I’ll tell you about the account on my way up. Right. That’s a big no, no, you don’t do that because number one, the pre sales people are peers to the sellers.

Right. They are not peons, same first letter, different meaning, they’re peers to the sellers, right? They are as invested as the sellers are in this deal, which means they have every right to know more, as much as they can about the deal before they actually get up and in that room. And the one thing, and I, I warned the sales about this when I did calls with them, is like, if I don’t have all my information when I get up there, I’m not starting the demo until I do.

So it’s up to you. To figure out whether or not I have all that info [00:17:00] because I don’t want to be doing a generic demo. I’m not showing up to do a spray and pray or a, you know, show throw stuff on the wall and see what sticks. That’s not what I’m going to do. I want to be there to make sure that what I’m showing and talking about is exactly what they are looking for with a little.

Do you want fries with that? Right. I don’t want to be scripted in an inside a box, but I want to make sure that what we are talking about is what they care about. Can they get value out of what we’re doing? That’s the same with enablement. Can we help sellers? Make sure that customers see value. If they don’t see value, can we create value?

This is where pre sales was perfect for that. Can we create value? If we can’t create value, can we reset the vision? And if we can’t do that, then we grab that salesperson by the collar and say, let’s get out. It’s not going to work. Right. And that is what I taught all my pre sales people, right? They weren’t there to sit in the corner and be told, okay, go now, go now.

No, they were [00:18:00] invested in the calls. This is why I believe pre sales people are a super highway funnel into enablement, and I think enablement can work really, really closely with pre sales people to make sure they get all the information they need to do their job. 

Todd Janzen: Because 

Sheevaun Thatcher: enablement talks to everybody.

We talk to everyone. It’s pre sales, sales, HR, legal, uh, marketing, finance, we talk to everybody. And so we can help the pre sales people understand why what they’re doing matters as well. And how it’s going to fit 

Todd Janzen: in. Adam and I, we talk a lot about pre sales needs to work more across the entire go to market.

And enablement is square in the middle of that as well. Um, the other thing we’re saying is, You need to go do that because you’re already doing it today. You use software to help you scale your genius, right? Um, and then the third kind of piece of that is, and dang it, make sure you get some KPI credit for it.

So just for the listeners out there, if presales [00:19:00] was going to partner with enablement, what is, what are some of the KPIs that. Both of those parties could share in victory. Um, what might be some examples? 

Sheevaun Thatcher: Some examples of that is where is a demo being done in the process? All right, where is a bit demo being done in not only the selling process, but also in the buyers process?

Are we doing it too early? 

Todd Janzen: Oh, he’s saying 

Sheevaun Thatcher: they only get one, right? Because if you’re doing it right, they’ll likely be multiples. You want multiples because that gives you access back in more times than not. And it shows up, you know, a buyer’s motion. If they want you to come back again, like whenever I did a demo, I never did a complete demo.

As soon as they started talking sales, I closed my laptop and the sellers, well, you didn’t show everything. I’m like, nope, but they’re going to realize that I didn’t. And they’re going to call us back. And they did every single time. And that was the buyer’s. sense, right? They got to know that. So it’s things like that.

It is, you know, what is [00:20:00] sales velocity? Have we helped speed that up? Uh, if you’ve got new hires coming in, can SES help really, really shorten the ramp on new hires? Right? I, I’ve talked to a couple of companies over the last little while who are really, really frustrated because their sellers do a product sale.

I’m like, well, that’s all they know. They don’t know how to have the conversations with the customers. Right? And so it is part of how can you Make sellers understand that they have to have these open ended discussions. If you go in with a product, you are just a check Mark. That’s it. Do they have that one that you don’t want that?

You know, I know back in the days, it was like, you want to build your champion and you want to do all that. I know that’s overused and some people like roll their eyes, but it is true. We’ll call it whatever we want, but you need to be able to understand what they really care about in their business.

Right. Just as I said, employees. You need to figure out what their genius is with your prospects. You need to figure out what their [00:21:00] genius is. What do they believe they’re fabulously good at? And what do they need help getting better at? 

Todd Janzen: Yeah. 

Sheevaun Thatcher: Everybody can help with that. Sales, pre sales, enablement, everybody.

Todd Janzen: Yeah. Two KPIs you mentioned, deal velocity. And the other one was basically how long does it take a rep to put money on the board? Those are two KPIs. That go to the C suite and the board and that is, I mean, I just want 

Sheevaun Thatcher: to, I run it like a business. I run enablement like a business. I ran presales like a business.

I had investors. Who’s anybody who was going to give me any type of resource, whether that was, you know, money, whether that was people, whether that was tools, whether that was access to conferences didn’t matter if you give me money. The quid pro quo is I gave you back performance in some fashion, right?

I was typically dealing with CFO, CMO, and CRO. What do they care about, right? Figure it out. Figure out that. And then I have my supply chain. My supply chain is typically marketing, [00:22:00] right? Or in the case of pre sales, it might be product management. And it is, what are they giving me that they want me to do something with to throw in front of?

You know, my internal customer. So if it’s pre sales, what am I getting? How do I turn it into a demo? How do I make sure that what I’m demoing and my proof of concept and what we’re what we’re targeting on is current is addressing something or some hypothesis that we think is going to. change outcome.

How do I do that? Where do I tie that in? That’s my supply chain. In return, supply chain wants adoption, right? They’ve done all this work in creating these new products, or these new, uh, advancements, or these, this new messaging, or this new campaign. They just want adoption. Well, you get adoption by working with pre sales and with enablement to ensure that what you’re giving is translatable into a way that that can be used by sellers.

To have those conversations with their customers, [00:23:00] give me the 10 open ended questions I need to ask to get those customers to see value. And if they don’t see value, can we create value? And if we can’t create value, can we reset vision? If we can’t do that, get out. And so that is what we really need. So that’s a supply chain.

And then my customers are really the, the sales managers, not the sellers. My customers are the sales managers, because these are the ones who are going to execute on these programs. 

Todd Janzen: Okay.

They’re the 

Sheevaun Thatcher: ones who are going to keep the sellers accountable, not me. 

Todd Janzen: I think, I mean, Adam, she’s like the OG of working across the go to market. 

Adam Freeman: Yeah. And if you’re a leader of any function listening to this right now, you know, we’ve, we’ve been there. I sit there and listen, I think there’s times where I did this well, and there’s times where I didn’t articulate.

And I think what you’ve just articulated there that I’ve not heard anyone articulate in that way was I ran it like a business. I had investors, I offered them value. And if that was [00:24:00] your. Go to as a leader of any function, whether it’s sales, CS, pre sales, and it doesn’t matter what you’re listening to this product anywhere.

If that is your most operand, you will be successful because 

Sheevaun Thatcher: you’ll be 

Adam Freeman: accountable to something much bigger, right? She won’t on you. 

Sheevaun Thatcher: Yeah. I mean, do you think about what they’re looking for? A CFO is looking for revenue. A chief operations officer is making sure that people are being used, right? And CRO.

Is all, you know, driven by time. And those are three of the major benefits, resources, time, money. And so when you can give them back answers on those where you’ve used either use them properly in the case of time, you’ve either gone to market faster or you’ve saved time in some way, or when it comes to people, are you using people in the right way?

And are they being really efficient now, AI is really having an impact there because what it’s doing is it’s freeing up people to do even more [00:25:00] amazing things and get out of the grunge work. And then the last one, of course, is the money. Are we bringing the money in so that the CFOs continue investing in, in the programs I want to run.

Adam Freeman: Yeah, to that point we had Susan Beal on last week and she said something fantastic. She said, you know, we’re at a point with AI where nobody should be writing a first draft of anything anymore. You know, a great way of looking at how you can scale your genius is your genius is not in the first draft.

It’s in the editing of the first draft to make it, to accelerate, to do all of these things you’re talking about. And I think the role of AI on enablement resources is far beyond what we can comprehend right now. 

Sheevaun Thatcher: Oh, the, I mean, I’ve been playing with the AI tools now for about a year and a half. And the prompting I’m getting pretty good at prompting right prompt engineering and getting deep, deep, deep, deep, deep and having conversations and the things that I mean, it’s, you learn the hard way that hallucinations do exist, right, you learn the hard way that when it comes to imaging.

Some of the images created, look at the number of fingers that [00:26:00] get created on, on, on humans that are drawn to either six or three, right? Okay, guys, there’s five, you know, they, they seem to miss that. Um, and you take a look at, I know it’s, it’s true. And you take a look at how AI can be misused. I know when I’ve got a cold email that’s been written by AI.

Oh, no, because it’s five or six paragraphs long. It sounds Beautiful, but it has nothing to do with what I care about. 

Adam Freeman: Got a rocket emoji as well. It’s always got a rocket. It’s got the rocket emoji. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. 

Sheevaun Thatcher: We’re going to get you. I mean, it is, you know, so what you do is you do that prompt, you get all of that and you boil it down to three sentences.

If you want to get access to executives, if it is over a paragraph, You’re already too late. There’s no way I used to teach my enablement people and, and, and my presales people that think of the hierarchy in an organization, right? Your CEO, your C levels are at the top. And then you’ve [00:27:00] got the foot soldiers down here.

The shape of this triangle is on purpose because the higher up you go, the less you say, it’s like when you get up here, what they’re really looking for is yes. No, give me a number. That’s it. They don’t want to hear the whole story. They don’t write all of that. And that goes with cold emails that goes with all of that, right?

If you don’t have the human element as part of it, number one, you can’t do this, right? The empathy, the understanding, I’m watching the body language of both of you, right? You’re watching mine and it’s a, I can’t do that. It can fake it. I actually had an ebook that I wrote that I ran through this new tool and it created a 30 minute podcast out of it with two different voices.

I was like, are you kidding me? And it was amazing. It was clearly it was AI. But that was a 30 minute podcast that I could 

Adam Freeman: not what we’re doing here, right? No, no, no. One of us. [00:28:00] How many 

Sheevaun Thatcher: podcasts wear, wear avocado shirts? Right? I mean, you got 

Adam Freeman: that. 

Todd Janzen: That’s the human or AI test right there. Avocado shirt and rockets.

Adam Freeman: For sure. Um, Sheevaun, just as we kind of go on, I just want to switch gears again a little bit. Um, one of the things that Toph and I speak to Leigh’s about, especially because We were leaders that put in new skill set, right? We both put in demo automation and it required a new skill that was Alien to a lot of pre sales people in terms of right you got to get on video now You got to be comfortable with you and nobody got into pre sales A, very few people got into pre sales going into pre sales as a first role But B, nobody ever went into pre sales to start making video like they just they were either good at it or they weren’t Okay, and one of the things I’m really interested in and we’ve spoken about is How do you coach these new skills?

Because, you know, you will have seen over the years you’ve been in enablement, things like CRM systems become the norm. Things like DEM automation now becoming the norm. Things like AI becoming the norm. And people having to learn new skills to move with the times and what great looks like. How as an enablement leader do you [00:29:00] bring those skills into an organization to help someone realize that they can do these things?

Sheevaun Thatcher: So the first thing to do is determine whether or not the skills are even going to have an impact. Right. Everybody says, let’s do video, but do your customers care for video? Who knows? I know when somebody sends me a video message, I rarely watch them. Sometimes I will, because I know some of them are pretty funny and I know they’ve got humor, but a lot of times it’s like, that’s way too personal for me.

I don’t, I don’t want that yet. Right. I just want to know and make a decision first. And so it’s, is it really going to work with your audience? Right. First of all, uh, next is what are you putting in those videos? Are you putting in the videos, the things that should be in the videos? Are you talking deep product technical stuff in the videos?

Well, nobody’s gonna it’s goldfish memory, right? It’s going to be in. out. It’s not going to stick. So maybe video is not the right approach. But if the video is, you’ve already made contact with this person. [00:30:00] Uh, they know who you are. They’ve, maybe they’ve responded to some of the things you’ve posted.

You’ve responded to some of the things they’ve posted and you want to send them a video to say, Hey, you know what? We got this. The holiday’s coming up. It’s Thanksgiving. Just want to wish you a good one. You know, we know you’re coming to the end of the year. We know you’re not going to buy anything new because it’s too hard, but how can I help you?

What can I do to help you? Here are some of the things we’ve done for others, right? So provided the content of the video is something that people care about, then it’s, then it’s really useful. Now, let’s say you’ve got all that figured out. How do you get the video out there so that they can actually learn it right that they learn to do it?

Well, what you do is you video people on your team that are really good at it And maybe it isn’t a seller. Maybe there’s somebody buried in engineering that is has got a side as Second City Maybe you know who can talk about this but be really personable You don’t want a robot. You got somebody who’s got to be able to use their hands, got to be able to talk, [00:31:00] knows to look at the camera and not at the faces that are in the background, right?

Knows to do that kind of thing. You need to have somebody that, that, that’s the person who’s going to do it. You get them on camera doing what you want to do. So you show what best of class is. You do two or three of them, then you make them available and say, we want you to look at these, we want, you’ve got the next couple of weeks, we need you to download them, look at them, comment on them, create a script for yourself.

And then we will work together as a team. And each of us will do our own. Right. Nobody likes doing that stuff alone. They like to do it as a team. And if you’ve got teams doing it together, it removes some of the embarrassment factor. Because nobody loves seeing themselves on camera. That’s perfectly fine.

They just don’t. And so it removes the embarrassment factor. My only rule when I had people doing that was they had to have clothes on. That was the only rule. I didn’t care where they were. I didn’t care what their background was. In fact, the more entertaining the background, [00:32:00] the funner it is. Right?

Wearing these shirts. I did this on purpose. because it makes it more entertaining. I could have been sitting here in a black shirt easily, 

Todd Janzen: but 

Sheevaun Thatcher: then I just meld in. But with this, it makes it memorable. People may not remember what I’m saying, but to remember that, you know, there’s something kind of fun about her and it’s this, and they’ll come back to that.

They’ll remember that. And so it’s make sure the videos. are the right data presented in the right way. You have best of breed being shown, and then you have an ability for them to practice, practice, practice, practice. 

Todd Janzen: Then it 

Sheevaun Thatcher: becomes a norm. Then we need to do when you’re happy with that is then you need to change not their compensation plan, but you need to change your approach and the process going forward.

And when you change process, that has to change at the upper echelons. First, [00:33:00] which means you need a video from your CRO, then you need videos from the next one’s down and the next one’s down and the next one’s down. Everybody has to do it. And that’s how a process changes. It’s a waterfall. If it’s product, you can start down here.

It doesn’t matter. Process has to be a waterfall. 

Todd Janzen: You said something. A couple of questions ago that really caught me, and I just, I didn’t think about it that way. Um, when I was asking you about KPIs, you went right to process right away, right? Like, where are we demoing? What stage of the deal are we demoing?

What are we demoing? And it just dawned on me what you were kind of just saying was, um, if you’re upset with the sales process, Don’t go head on with the sales leader, which I think we all have done, right? We’ve all made that complaint call being like, Hey, your reps are doing this. We shouldn’t be doing this typically goes nowhere.

But what was amazing, what you said was go work with enablement because they can actually go [00:34:00] really influence it. And that’s kind of what you just said as well. 

Sheevaun Thatcher: That’s exactly it. When enablement is a true strategic partner with the sales teams, that is where enablement is the most effective people think, well, enablement does great courses and delivers and all of that.

That is a delivery mechanism. That is not what we are and should be known for. We should be known for the partnership, the understanding, the business, this, you know, this, this strength and conditioning coaches, all of that. You’re never, ever going to see us on the pitch. But if we’re not doing strength and conditioning, folks on the pitch are going to be tripping over themselves.

And, you know, those, those balls are going to be flying all over the place. They’re not going to be going, they won’t be able to pass. They’re not gonna be able to do any of that, but we’re in the back and, and teaching them how to do it. That’s where it works. And then the execution is that middle layer, which are those coaches, which are the managers, we teach them how to do the work.

We hand it over to the managers for execution, and [00:35:00] they help these people execute the things that they’ve been taught. So that’s how it all works. So you’ve got enablement here and pre sales together. You’ve got the sales leaders and their managers front lining up here as the coaches, then you’ve got the sellers.

And the pre sales people again out here, pre sales people are typically defenders, right? And the sales people are the forwards. And the wings and the strikers, they’re all up here. And so that is how that works. And if you get that working well, you got a winning team. 

Adam Freeman: Yeah. 

Sheevaun Thatcher: You’ve got the rexum, right? 

Adam Freeman: There we go.

Well, great. Now that we’re coming to kind of the end of it, I think we could talk to you. All day. I think you’ve got so much knowledge so much experience. We’d love to have you back on because I think we are literally love to be 

Sheevaun Thatcher: back. I can talk about this for days to 

Adam Freeman: iceberg and but we guarantee that you’ll have to have a probably a different louder shirt on next time.

That’s the only thing. So those of you listening on. Oh, you have 

Todd Janzen: no idea. [00:36:00] 

Adam Freeman: Go watch the video because we got 100 

Todd Janzen: of these all challenge 

Sheevaun Thatcher: accepted. 

Adam Freeman: So where we kind of end, Sheevaun, we’re going to come to it like a golden takeaway in a minute, kind of, you know, encapsulate the best of what we’ve just spoken about.

But before we do that, well, I’m going to give Todd time to think about, about that. Um, we have two rapid fire questions for you. Number one, your favorite pizza topping? 

Sheevaun Thatcher: Uh, green olives. 

Adam Freeman: What? Well, did not expect that in an avocado shirt. I’m not going to lie. Yeah, green olives. Green 

Todd Janzen: olives. And, and just while we’re there, what else pairs with those green olives on the pizza?

Sheevaun Thatcher: Uh, pepperoni and bacon. 

Todd Janzen: Oh, 

Adam Freeman: wow. Solid red wine. White wine. 

Sheevaun Thatcher: Oh yeah. But a dry red. Not a sweet red either. Um, sometimes I like the cabs that will punch you right in the face and other times, uh, I’m more, I’m leaning more towards the pinots, but it’s, you know, depends. I love the, um, I love the [00:37:00] Oregon Valley wines.

Uh, I’m not a big fan of California wines, partly because they give me headaches because California wineries are destinations and there’s flowers everywhere. So all of the grapes are full of pollen. And so when they make the wine, the wine is also full of pollen. And so I don’t, I’m not a big California wine.

Oklahoma Valley and some of these other places, love them. Australia. You did not 

Adam Freeman: expect the turn up to two pre sells in a pod this week and get some California wine advice. But I love it. That’s what’s great about this. Second rapid fire question then. Favorite piece of tech in your tech bag. Like what is your go to?

What can you not live without? 

Sheevaun Thatcher: What can I not live without? Um, it would have to be what we’re using right now, right? This, this video live video technology. 

Todd Janzen: I have 

Sheevaun Thatcher: learned over the last, you know, since before the pandemic. I mean, I’ve been, I used Webex for many, many years and, you know, all of those competitors, very clunky, hard things, but I have learned that If you [00:38:00] treat the technology properly, again, you’re looking at the camera and not looking at all the faces that are on your screen, if you’re looking at the camera, you can actually, it’s almost like you’re there, right?

I’ve learned things like here’s a little, here’s a quick one for you. When you start doing it, it’s really important that people see your hands and especially your palms at least once. You know why? Because this is, this goes all the way back to the lizard brain. When you show up, if they can see your palms and there’s nothing in their palms, they’re safe.

And they’ll listen. Right? It’s really, it’s a subconscious thing. You don’t have, you’re not a threat. My palms are empty. Hey, just do it once and then you don’t have to do it again. But it’s just this little trick on video to do that. So I would say video, good technology for speaking. Like I’ve got a, you know, a very fancy microphone that I use.

I’m not using. earbuds or any of that, because I want to make sure that it’s, it’s, the sound is good, [00:39:00] right? Cause even if the picture is bad. The sound must be good that of all things, I don’t care if the, if the image is breaking, if you’re pixelating, you can hear me. That’s what matters. 

Adam Freeman: You do sound wonderful.

Um, and you’re giving a lot of great advice and we thank you for that. So we’ll go around the tool and we kind of went in with you, she wants in, it’s your episode, but Todd, what’s your kind of golden takeaway today? What have you taken from today’s episode? 

Todd Janzen: One of my takeaways was if you’re unhappy with what your sellers are doing or the selling process.

Go work with enablement as your partner, cause they can actually make the change. Um, and I’m kind of embarrassed to just like, I don’t know why that didn’t hit me sooner in my career, but that’s huge. And, and Sheevaun to your point, don’t just look at it like the team that does the trainings, right? Like there’s so much more strategic.

Um, so that was one of my big takeaways. And the other one was kind of your five criteria before you work on [00:40:00] something. Um, and I love that it started with what, what did the go to market need? And the second one was around, you 

Sheevaun Thatcher: got to dig in on the current, make sure it’s current go to market, right? Make sure that you know what that is.

A lot of times it doesn’t get past the upper echelon. 

Todd Janzen: Yeah. And what I thought about when you were talking about that is. How often maybe we don’t know what the current go to market is, especially in a large company. Like that stuff doesn’t trickle down very well. So, you know, maybe a takeaway for our listeners is go hunt that down.

Adam Freeman: Yeah. What a great. I think 

Todd Janzen: I’ll stop. I’ll stop there. Yeah. 

Adam Freeman: Are you stolen? What am I to actually? So I’m gonna have to think again, but I always think of two because we sometimes are too much on the same wavelength. And I know that you’re probably going to steal on. So one of mine, um, definitely, definitely was.

This plays into my role as an accountant by nature. And, you know, I often, I often present on KPIs. And one of the things I’ve never articulated as crisply as, as you, and I am going to democratize your, your saying here is [00:41:00] that, you know, thinking like a business owner and thinking like you’ve got investors.

And I don’t care whether you’re at IC level or a leader level, even at IC level, you’re given trust and responsibility. And therefore your currency back is what, what, what are you bringing to the table? And I think if more ICs did that, we’d have such a wealth of emerging leaders that we don’t currently have.

And if the leaders did that, they’d create new opportunities for people to grow because they would elevate their careers. And I think if I was having a call to action, I’d Anybody, at any level of an organization, whether you’re C suite or IC, and I’m going to go do this after this podcast, is go and maybe write down on a piece of paper, crisply and articulately, what the resources I’m getting and what am I giving back and holding myself accountable for.

And make sure it’s balanced, make sure it’s not, I’m getting these seven things, but I’m giving this one thing back. You know, if I’m getting a lot of resource, am I showing value in all the areas I want to? And I think, You summarized it more beautifully than I can in this closing comments when we did the recording, but I thank you for sharing that because I think you are, you just encapsulate in such a lovely way [00:42:00] that it made it really easy to go do that.

So yeah, very, very sound advice. 

Sheevaun Thatcher: Yeah, that’s, that’s awesome. And I guess my, my last piece of advice for your, for your audience. is don’t trade innovation for increment. You can just take baby steps and go forward and and go forward and go forward. That’s not going to get you to where you need to be. You have to think about where you want to go and transform.

You’ve got to make the leap. Increments are not going to do it. This is why there are so many artifacts in, uh, software tools and things like that that are like, we’ll just add this little, we’ll just add this thing. Like, no. Rethink what it is you’re going to do. Right? Break the status quo. Do something different.

But be innovative. Take risk. And you as managers, you two guys, you’ve got to make sure, if they’ve answered the five questions, Thank you. And they’re taking risk, you’ve got to make sure that if it doesn’t turn out the way you expect it to, I don’t believe in failure, I think you [00:43:00] just wound up where you didn’t plan on being, it’s up to you to and managers of your level to go, you know what, that’s on me, I agreed that they could do this, and no, it didn’t end up, but what do we learn from it, what do we learn, right, and so that’s how they take risk, that’s how they innovate, that’s how they do that, and a lot of it is because of air cover that comes from senior leaders.

Adam Freeman: Yeah, senior 

Sheevaun Thatcher: leaders have to do that. 

Adam Freeman: What a great note to end on. So with that, we’re going to wrap this episode. She won’t just thank you so much for coming on and joining us, you know, taking time out of your day to join us. I do hope you’ll come back and join us again, but thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and advice with everybody.

And thank you all for listening and we will see you soon. Take care. Bye bye.