#221 – From Sales Enablement to Revenue Enablement w/ Jaren Krchnavi

Full episode transcript: 

​Please note that transcription is done by AI and may contain errors.

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Phil: Hi. Well, it's a huge welcome, to Jaren Krchnavi to join us on this next episode of the Sales transformation podcast. we both attended the same conference in Italy back in June, which was the GSSI conference, which is where groups of academics come together to share their research about sales and sales performance.

Jaren was there in the capacity, I believe, of a practitioner, giving input to one of the sessions. We actually missed each other at the conference, but we connected afterwards. and I just thought given Jaren's background and his interest in the topic, also the fact he was at GSSI, for me, showed someone that was really interested in the research side of what's happening in sales as well.

I just thought he would be a great person to invite onto the Sales Transformation Podcast. So on that note, I'll say Jaren, welcome and, um, I'd love you to introduce yourself, uh, to, uh, the listeners.

Jaren: Thank you, uh, Phil for having me. And, uh, as we both talked about, it was unfortunate that we missed each other.

Um, like you said, I think we were on different tracks. I was, um, part of a fireside chat on ai, um, and was talking about our recent, um, launch of AI in Siemens. So a little bit about myself. Um, I am originally from California, from, uh, the United States, but I've been now living in Germany for about 20 years.

Um, I've been coming from a background in sales and retail, and then I got my master's in international business and started working at Siemens, so a global technology company. And here I've worked in communications and marketing and then found my sweet spot and my passion, which is sales enablement. And I've been working in the sales excellence, sales enablement for over 10 years now.

Um, about eight of those years in, in leadership roles. And currently I am heading sales enablement for Siemens Smart Infrastructure, um, say around 80,000 people globally. Uh, multi-billion dollar, uh, business. So very large, very complex. And I think we're here to talk about, uh, a little bit about that today.

Um, in addition to that, I do have a few, um, other roles. So I'm also the president of the Revenue Enablement Society for doc, so for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. And I'm also a guest lecturer at the University of Kempton in Germany, and a sales enablement ambassador for the sales enablement collective.

So, uh, passionate about sales and enablement and sales excellence and very excited to be here with you today.

Phil: Well, it's great to have you here and it's amazing the kind of journey that you've taken. So can I ask a question about where this passion you, you know, what, what, what for you has made you so passionate about the whole area of sales and sales enablement?

Jaren: Yeah, maybe. I think it first started when I moved into the role of sales excellence. And although I had worked in sales before, I hadn't worked as much in sales in the B2B environment. And everything was so mysterious for me. I was like, how can, how can people do this forecasting? How can we, you know, get multi-billion dollar deals with these customers?

And so I'm very curious. I love learning. So throughout the years I learned an incredible amount. And at the same time, I love helping people and I think in sales enablement, you know, you're trying to support the, the sales organisation, the market organisation, making them successful. So if I can, you know, help other people succeed, that makes me have, you know, a fulfilling, fulfilling, uh, profession.

Phil: Ah, yeah. Well, it's fantastic that you've taken such a, a deep, uh, interest in sales and sales enablement in, in, uh, your career. So you haven't, I mean, it sounds like you haven't come into this from a traditional sort of account management sales background, or have I mis misunderstood what you were saying earlier.

Jaren: Yeah, exactly. Working more in sales in the retail environment. But then when you go to Siemens, this is, uh, you know, B2B long sales cycles.

Phil: Yeah.

Jaren: And a lot of our people starting within sales within Siemens have a technical background. Um, okay. So I didn't go the route of starting in sales at Siemens working, um, you know, as coming with a background in engineering, working in tech sales or anything like that.

I came more from the communication side, so comms marketing, and moved into sales excellence and also used those skills that I had built up over my years in marketing communications to then really be a strong communicator and, you know, explainer of topics, uh, tools and methods and doing training to the sales organisation.

Phil: Yeah, I would say that that sort of entry point into the whole sales enablement space enablement is, is, is quite, uh, is quite unusual. You know, most people I think probably come into this sort of role from a sales, uh, more a sales background, more than marketing and comms background. But I think that will give you a distinct perspective of, um, of cells, which I imagine is incredibly interesting.

Um, as well, you know, a slightly different perspective 'cause you're probably coming into it with a more objective kind of overview of some of the challenges, uh, some of the enablement challenges that need to be faced. Um, uh, and approaching, uh, the task from, from a, a different way to someone who's been in sales perhaps for many years and have got rather preformed ideas about what they think should happen or shouldn't happen.

Jaren: Yeah, I, I would agree. Yeah. I mean, you think what we talk about in sales, you know, not every seller would become a good sales manager. I think also just because you're in sales does not mean that you are, you are gonna be the great, you know, enabler. So I think, um, you have to have the passion, you have to have, you know, certain skills, uh, to be successful in enablement.

And I think communications is definitely one strong, yeah, it's huge. Strong skills there.

Phil: It's massive. Yeah. And, and marketing as, as, as, as well. That's great. So, I, I, I guess the fir, you know, you've been in, in, in this sort of role for some time or the sales excellence role, sales enablement role for some time.

Have you seen, um, enablement change over that period of time?

Jaren: Yes. It, uh, kind of from two different perspectives. One is if you just do the, the research around sales enablement, where it came from, um, really driven, I think, by the technology, um, vendors in the United States and using sales enablement to also help them sell their technology, bridge the gap between marketing and sales.

Also the work done by Scott Santucci with Forrester and really defining it and making it more of a, you know, a profession. And I think then it was defined in a way that was really broad. Um, and with time, I think some people lost a little bit the, the original definition, and they started to see sales enablement just focusing only on sales or sales and sales managers.

Um, and then came the right, you know, evolution into revenue enablement to try to win back the, like, this is really a, a broad role and we should be looking at the go-to market and the buyer's journey and really supporting it. Um, you know, from that perspective. But also if I look at my own journey, when I first started in, in sales excellence and sales enablement, yeah.

Then, um, also because I didn't have the standing, I didn't have the experience, and I, a lot of times would be asked to do a training. Um, and so you'd, you'd become approached by management, uh, or another department, and they had some type of issue, some type of problem, and they thought it could be solved by doing a training.

So in the beginning it was a lot of just, you know, training, uh, creation. And then over time with experience and, uh, you know, discussions with sales, sales managers, working with different vendors, you know, my, my horizon started to broaden. Then you, you see the, the bigger picture that, of course, training can be one element to help drive change in the organisation and get certain behaviours, uh, uh, to be understood and, and applied in the field.

But there's, uh, just so much more. And, uh, yeah, through the years I've, I've developed a more, a much more holistic approach to enablement.

Phil: Yeah. So could, could you gimme an idea of the sort of levers that, or the plates that, that you think are important to spin? Um, when you start to look at, you know, all, all the levers under sales enablement, which can enhance sales performance, do you, do you have a way of sort of categorising those levers into, into certain buckets hits?

Jaren: Yeah, so I mean, there's different aspects that you can look at this. So you can look at, um, when people first start in sales, the onboarding lever to make sure that people ramp up quickly so that they can hit their quota. Um, you can look at the, the training aspect. You can look at the sales manager coaching aspect of things.

Um, you can look at the tooling. So do we have the tools in place? The sales are leveraging to be more efficient and effective. Um, of course our sales kickoff events, uh, very important lever that you can use to bring, you know, new products, the business strategy, sales strategy to the sales organisation.

Mm-hmm. Also, it could be a platform for, for change, for training, for rolling out a, you know, a, a programme, a campaign for the next, uh, you know, fiscal year. So there, there's these multiple different, you know, streams that you could look at. Um, skill assessments of course could be, um, an aspect of it. Um, and really targeted training, looking at specific job roles.

So working, making sure you have the, the corrected job roles mapped and people are, um, currently developing in their job roles, uh, following a certain structure. Um, so many different lever levers in that aspect. But of course, you can look at all the levers around to make change happen and make things stick.

Phil: Yeah. And, uh, so, so that's, uh, yeah. That's interesting. So now you've got this, you know, highly responsible role, um, providing sales enablement for an organiz, you know, the smart, uh, technology side of, of Siemens. Uh, um, 8,008, was it 80 thou? 80 billion,

Jaren: yeah. 80,000, approximately 80,000 employees from that one division.

Um, and thousands, thousands of sales globally across many different regions.

Phil: Thousands. So, uh, yeah, so it must, you know, it must be quite a complex amalgam of, you know, different geographies, different cultures, and, um, I guess you may be fighting in, and not fighting maybe is the wrong word, but you've got people having sort of local resources versus global, uh, sort of input.

I, I'd be quite interested in how you sort of navigate the complexity of working. With an organisation as complex as Siemens in, in the role that you currently have? How, how do you make it work?

Jaren: Yeah. It is, uh, very, very complex. And luckily because I've been with Siemens for, for 15 plus years, it's, you know, less, less complex for me now.

So I have, uh, a good network. I have, uh, God gained a lot of experience, but in my current role, I am sitting at the division level and below the division you have a separate running business units. So you have to also interact and work with, collaborate with the enablement responsibles in those business units.

Some business unit might have a whole enablement team, some business units may have people doing enablement, but it's not, you know, formalised under an enablement team. Yeah. so you're working across those business units, but then you have your regions. So we have, uh, in Siemens as business in almost every country of the world.

Um, so we have those, you know, clustered, uh, to make it easier to, to interact with. And so I would also be interacting directly with the enablement responsible in the region. Um, some regions, again, of course, uh, let's take the United States. Very, very big country. Um, and just that alone is, you know, considered one region as just, uh, a massive market and they have resources for their own enablement team, whereas you could look at another, uh, country or region and it's smaller and they do not have any enablement resources, let's say dedicated enablement resources.

So you'd be working with somebody from business development, from marketing, from your human resources department. So again, you, you need to be able to work in this matrix organisation Yeah. And bring all these people together to, for example, make standards. How do we do account management? Um, what are certain, uh, approaches to the way we develop training?

Um, what are standards around, uh, job roles? Do we all have the, the same terminology for job roles? Do we also understand what each enablement programme that we have actually means and what it's used for? So again, very, very complex environment. Um, takes a lot of, uh, you know, structuring, uh, building up communities.

Uh, so I would run my quarterly, yeah. Quarterly community calls with the regions and, you know, share with them centrally the programmes that we're developing and that we're trying to roll out with them. And then you actually bring them back onto the stage when they actually did a programme to talk about it, success successes, and so that they can hopefully influence their peers and get some momentum going.

Phil: Yeah. So imagine there's sort certain strategic initiatives that are taken at a global level about, you know, sort of prioritising things that need to happen. And then you've also got, uh, the local needs. So, uh, I can see you've got this sort of top down, bottom up type of, uh, sort of approach to sort of trying to, to, to, you know, in a matrixed organisation to try and sort of connect the dots.

'cause I doubt you could cover all of the enablement needs at a local level, uh, which is why they've got local teams, some of the countries Yeah. As well. So it's, it's, uh, it's quite interesting. Um, I'd, I'd just like to come back to the question about if, if, you know, the, so the enablement, uh, role of enablement has changed over time, quite significantly to cover, you know, a wide range of different topics, which I, I think you sort of mentioned.

Yeah. You've mentioned that earlier. Is there, is there any one particular sort of dramatic change that you've seen happened that's really shifting the perspective of what enablement can do to enhance performance?

Jaren: Yeah, I think, um, again, the, the more dramatic change recently was, you know, coining, sales enablement to, to revenue enablement and Right.

Whereas again, in the recent years, some people, again, not saying that all enablers did it, but some people in sales enablement roles would be more focused on just the, the sales or sales managers. Yeah. And I think it was a time for the community to try to take the reins on the wording and take ownership of it again and say, no, you know, we're, we're not just like this really focused

Phil: Yeah.

Jaren: You know, discipline for, for sales and, and sales managers. We are much more than that. Um, there was also a movement because people in enablement got, uh, unfortunately laid off, uh, many of them some years back. And there was this movement to try to again, reposition I think enablement as not being a cost centre, but actually something that's providing, uh, you know, incredible value, um, to an organisation.

So there's been a lot of work, um, in the sales enablement collective in the revenue enablement society, on making sure that people understand how enablement, get a seat at a table, how can we prove impact? So again, I think that that major shift was recently, again, taking control of enablement, saying, no, we're much bigger.

We, we deserve the seat at the table, and we can actually support, um, marketing, sales account managers all the way over to when there's a handover to customer success. So really seeing things more broadly end to end the customer journey and then seeing how can we really support that, that whole ecosystem.

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Phil: so the, you know, we're talking about, you know, some of the biggest changes and you talk about the role of sort of revenue, um, uh, revenue ops and, uh, as being the biggest change, which is which, which is very much about positioning, enablement in, in a more strategic sense, you know, for organisations.

Um, the way that you work is in a very ma in that matrixed organisation must be very difficult, I would guess, to sometimes get acceptance from all of the different parts of the organisation around sort of implementing things that may come out of the, um, the central office. How, how, how do you work with your colleagues across the organisation to, uh, to get buy-in?

You know, how, how do you approach that winning of hearts and minds, I guess, around the different initiatives you want to run?

Jaren: Yeah. So there's a lot of, uh, leading without authority that's, uh, that's needed here.

Phil: Yeah.

Jaren: I've worked in different, uh, sales organisations. Sometimes you, um, can be in a sales organisation where you have a very strong, you know, sales leader or, um, you know, revenue leader, and it makes it easier because they kind of paved the way and they fully support what you're doing.

And it's, you know, it's part of the culture and everyone understands the role of enablement. Um, but sometimes you can be in an organisation where you don't have that, uh, that strong backing, strong strong leadership.

Phil: Mm-hmm.

Jaren: Um, so I've worked in both. Um, and if you're in a, in a situation also the current situation right now, this matrixed organisation, very, very complex.

Um, I cannot go to my regions and, you know, tell them to do any of these programmes. I can also not go to my business units and, and tell them, you have to do, um, this account management, uh, training or this, uh, using this, uh, certain tool That, that we have, um, in my role. So what we do is we have to do, um, you know, vision setting.

So really setting out a, a clear vision where we're heading, making a clear messaging around the why. So why is it important that we, you know, look at doing more value selling instead of pushing products onto our customers? Um, why is it important that we're more strategic in the way that we approach our accounts and that we're not, you know, being reactive and just waiting for the customers to come ask us for offers?

Phil: Yeah.

Jaren: Um, so really understanding that why the market dynamics, the competition, so building the storyline around that and then going to the sales organisation and saying, this is, this is the current situation and we need to make a change and we need to have a certain, you know, behaviour change, a certain methodology being, uh, run out in the organisation and this is the approach we need to do.

And then of course, once you get that, that initial buy-in, you also need to look at how you can actually build momentum. So what we do is we, most of 'em, you'd have that bell curve where you'd have the first 1, 2, 3 regions or, you know, the one business units who's just more interested in the topic. They, they clearly see the need, the why, and they're the first, uh, you know, runner on this.

And then it's basically like if you're in sales, so you, you have to do a really good job, uh, in what you're doing, prove its value, um, turn those into references, um, get the people also to, you know, speak up and talk to their peers in the other regions and business units about what's working. Also being honest.

And sometimes some things don't work, uh, you know, so well. So just having an open discussion there. And then once you start, you know, doing that, you start again seeing that momentum build up. Um, and it was really great to see that, for example, in our vertical enablement programme that, you know, they had that first person from, from Canada who raised their hand, like they did it, and then another region decided they're gonna run the, the programme that we developed.

And then another, then suddenly you had reached around 600 people globally. You had, you know, hundreds of people coming together and doing role plays after they've, you know, watched their web-based training, um, practising what they learned. Um, so again, this, this change mass, you know, momentum building, really focusing on that, why getting people to buy in, um, you know, influencing without authority.

Those are really key, key skills that you need there.

Phil: Influencing without authority. Absolutely. Yeah. Um, so, um, I think that your, that's the skill that you've learned, I guess, is to be able to influence without authority in order to sort of get by in, of the global programmes. And obviously you've got a lot of political awareness about the organisation 'cause you've worked there for, for many years and you probably know you've got the relationships.

You, you know, that, that the, the key, um, uh, uh, stakeholders. You must have, uh, a lot of insight into, the magic ingredients for running a highly successful sales team. I'm not talking about from an enablement point of view, um, but what have your observations been about what makes a great, um, sales team perform at its highest level?

Jaren: Yeah, so. Where I've seen, again, I've been around for quite a ti time, so, so I've seen good and bad, uh, sales organisations. Um, I'll start with the one that I saw as being, uh, less successful.

Phil: Okay.

Jaren: And sometimes, to be honest, sometimes there's, they can still be successful because the demand is just so high.

But the danger there is that if the demand, you know, suddenly starts, you know, going back then, then they get exposed. Then the, the reality hits, which is they didn't have, you know, a, a, you know, a really good functioning sales organisation They were just basically leaning on the really high demand. Um, whereas you can have other sales organisation where there's not as much demand, but they're just so high performing and so well smoothly, you know, oiled that they're able to still, you know, be successful in, in such a market.

So again, some, some of the more challenging sales organisations that I've seen, um, not just within, within Siemens, but also working with other companies, uh, discussing with my peers is when you have a, you have a strategy which is at the top, and this, this strategy is understood by very few people. So it's, uh, really like this, this ivory tower, and it doesn't make its way down to the middle management and to the field.

Hmm. Um, it looks good on P paper. And then what the management ends up doing is they really, uh, put a lot of pressure on the, on the sales organisation to hit their numbers. But it's more this, you know, pressure and, and demand to hit your numbers and less of, you know, these are all the resources we're gonna give you to hit your numbers.

This is, uh, the structure, the, the methods, the tools, you know

Phil: Yeah.

Jaren: The incentives. So all that around that. So, and again, the, the good side again is when you're working in a sales organisation, when there's a very clear strategy for the company, also at the CXO level, you know, the sales leader is, is dialled in there and they can translate that strategy into the operationalizing it in their sales team.

And they not only do that by communicating it very clearly, and they also communicate it to their, you know, their next level. And these people feel empowered and they understand the strategy, the why they buy into it, and that they translate that into, you know, bring it to their people, the, the, the feet on the street to the sales organisation.

Phil: Yeah.

Jaren: And as part of that, you are also building all the different, uh, mechanics to make sure that that strategy is a success. And that's again, where enablement comes in. You look at, uh, are the people having the right skills? They have the right job roles in place. Are they being proactive enough? Um, are we incentivizing people correctly?

Um, you know, all those different elements, uh. Again, that's the, the high performing sales organisation versus the, the less, uh, high performing.

Phil: Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's really interesting. I mean, you, you must have such interesting insights across, you know, the different sales teams to have a, a quite strong, strong point of view.

You mentioned, uh, earlier about the different, um, plates that you spin and what one of which was sort of, uh, audit type work. Do, do you get involved in sort of auditing in a way the performance of the country, which may not be performing to the level it needs to, audit may not be the right word, it might be sort of needs analysis, but, um, you know, do get involved in that stage of going, in, doing an assessment of the different, um, approaches to the market and then giving feedback or is that done by a sort of the local team?

Jaren: Yeah, so there's a couple, couple elements there.

So we do have, a, you know, sales performance organisation in some of our business units where they are working with our countries and they're really looking at the exact, uh, metrics, and they're looking at whether a, a region or, you know, part of their business is struggling, and they can see the exact metrics where they're struggling.

And this is a great opportunity because then we can work with those organisations and really see the clear gaps and then work with them on how to close them using our enablement services. So again, I was not as involved in, in that, you know, analysis, uh, of the, the metrics. This is more like a performance teams, operations teams.

What I've been doing is I am consulting our business units and regions, um, so this would entail doing an as is analysis. So where are you currently right now? Where's the north star? So we know that we need to do a transformation and we, you know, clearly describe what the high performing sales team organisation looks like.

Um, and then we work together to understand where those gaps. And once we identify where their gaps are, then we need to prioritise. And then we also can look into our enablement services and other, other levers as we're talking about early, earlier, to see how can we help them close those gaps.

Phil: Yeah. When, when, uh, when we look at, um, sales transformation, you know, I think sometimes, sometimes people, uh, misrepresent that word.

It, it, um, but the way that, uh, that the, the framework that we often use when we're looking at transformation, it says it, it requires, um, an alignment of a number of different things. And, and you've got, uh, you know, vision of course is, is a key starting point. You talked about purpose, you know, the, your North Star is terribly important, and then around that you have a sort of mission, uh, that, um, may be a way of expressing that North Star, you know, what is, what is the mission of the organisation?

Then you've got values. Beliefs. Yeah. What, what sort of values and beliefs do we need to have in order to make, um, the transformation successful? And then around that, you've got competence, knowledge, and skills, and then, then that leads to behaviour. And then processes kind of run all the way through, you know, those, those different elements.

So you may have the right vision, you may have the right mindsets, but if the processes aren't there to support where you want to go, you're gonna have a problem. Um, but equally, you could have the right processes and, uh, you could have the right vision, but you just don't have the right values and beliefs in the organisation because they, they haven't mentally bought into, you know, the new direction that needs, uh, needs to go.

And, um, I'd just like to put a question to you. When, when you, when you reflect on the very different sort of performance levels of the different organisations, that you, you deal with, what do you think is more important? Is it, is it having the right processes in place with, with, you know, the right vision, you know, the right skills, uh, in place?

Or is it having, uh, some of those elements, but, but the right mindset now, I suppose I'm, I'm asking the question, what, what view is more important? Mindset or, or skills? What would you, what would you put, you know, would you rather have a highly skilled organisation but not the right mindset or an organisation that's got the right mindsets but not necessarily the right skills?

Jaren: Yeah, I find it, uh, very, very intriguing. Also, um, I, like you mentioned, the part about values and beliefs. Uh, that part is so, uh, essential because I've experienced that with people where, um, you're trying to get them to do something, even an individual, of course, it could be also, you know, a group of people, an organisation, and a lot of times you can be talking with that individual or.

Underneath the, under the water, you know, the, the, the iceberg, the, the beliefs and the values is, is so critical. Um, because

Phil: yeah,

Jaren: again, if they don't actually believe in something, um, then if they, even if they have the skills, you know, you've trained them on it, they, they won't do it. So I would say again that, that the beliefs, the values is so foundational, like the really, the, the basis.

I would more want that first and then I could build the skills of easily. Yeah, it's, I think it's much more difficult to change somebody's like belief and value system because it could be then, you know, they had very bad experiences in the past, you know, things that are difficult to, to mend and to change their, the way they see things.

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Phil: Jaren, it's so interesting to hear your point of view about the importance of, of values, uh, and beliefs and, and it's a topic that's enormously close to my heart as you, as you may know, or I'm not sure that you do necessarily know the focus of my, my doctorate research and to this topic, uh, in, in sales, but we can certainly talk about it.

But I'm interested that you have obviously picked up upon it because you, uh, must have had a sense of, uh, again, you know, what needs to be in place for something to happen once post, um, training or development or, or whatever, which is, which is around people really wanting to do something, really believing it to be important Yeah.

As well. So, and, and, and it sounds like that is for you, one of the, one of the most, is it most difficult things to get to see underneath the surface of the values and beliefs layer or, or to change, you know, if they're very rigid and you Yeah,

Jaren: yeah, exactly. I, I can't remember the exact technique, but I, I remember researching it.

I remember, um, you know, 'cause I've been working this, you know, change management, change, uh, environment and, and how to get large groups of people or even individuals to, to change their behaviour. And I think there's some technique where you can, uh, you know, do a certain set of, uh, questions to actually uncover really those values and beliefs.

And then I tried it one time and it was just so revealing to me because I, I just said with an individual, um, in my team and I asked some questions. Then I, I, I realised, okay, now I see the real issue. It's, it's because this person doesn't believe, for example, that it's their responsibility or their role to do X, Y, Z.

And it, you know, if, if we can do more of that, um, it makes our lives a lot easier to then, 'cause then you can really then try to, you know, work on that and try to see if you can possibly get them to think about it differently.

Phil: Yeah. yeah, it's, it is very interesting. There's, I, there's, um. There's a Jack Nicholson film, um, I can't remember which one it, one it is, uh, where he asks, he, I think he's a teacher, and he, he has a student in his room and he's, he is asking the question, uh, sort of, who are you?

And this person says, I'm, uh, well, I'm a, uh, sort of a manager working at, you know, this particular company. And, and he stops at me. He said, no, I want to know who are you? And, uh, you, he went from this and this person said, well, I am, um, yeah, I think I'm quite bright. You know, I've, you know, he went into one thing and, and he repeated the question and he said, no, who are you?

You know, and, and he, he, he does this over a couple of minutes conversation, but makes a point quite clear, and this poor chap who's on the receiving end, um, is, is really perplexed by the question. Um, and, and, and, uh, and, but I think your point is just so true. Um, you know, that if things are not in the right place at the values and mindset, you can have all the processes, all the tools, all the training, but nothing, nothing's going to change or transform or the chances of it happening, uh, are much reduced.

Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure how familiar you are with the research that, that I've done on this topic, but, um, it was quite, uh, quite interesting, uh, for, for, for me to, um, I mean it started with, uh, it's, it started with interviewing customers about what they look for in salespeople. And so for, uh, two, two years, um, in fact, Siemens was, was one of the sponsors of the research, but it was their mobile phone division, which they had some years back, but it was Siemens and Tetra Pack, and HP invited me to go and interview their customers.

And I was trying to, uh, I was trying to understand, What, what they liked and disliked about the way in which people sold to them. So it was not an NPS type survey. It was really looking at that whole sort of interpersonal relationship. And, uh, I remember because I was, I was so, um, I didn't know if the right word is indoctrinated myself with what I felt to be the right way to approach the topic of sales performance, as I could only really see it through the lens of competence and skills and behaviours.

And

Jaren: yeah.

Phil: Um, it was very eye-opening at one stage when I was challenged in the way I was interpreting the data of all the research, about a hundred interviews took place. And, and, uh, I was challenged around the lens through which I was looking at the data and, and they basically got me to question my own values and beliefs.

And once I did that, once I really understood how I was looking at the data, I then was able to look at the data that I had in front of me. And it was so obvious, um, that a lot of the commentary made by customers was, uh, about, uh, connecting with the right values of the people that were selling to them.

So, of course they're not interested in medic or spin or any particular technique that, that, um, sales teams might feel they need to have to improve sales performance. Of course, customers don't care about that. They don't care about your remuneration systems, they don't care about the processes, but they do care about the values that people have.

And if they're misaligned, they will mistrust them. And there were four values that that really surfaced as being, um, really important. And, um, there were four values. I used values and mindsets interchangeably, um, for values that they often saw. Um, and so that, you know, that once you, once you sort of start peeling away the layers of the onion, you know, you're going really quite deep.

You, you, you then say, okay, we've identified the values that customers want and, and don't want. How can you connect that with sales performance? You know, that you've had the customer perspective. And we then had the couple of, uh, so half of my four year doctorate was spent sort of getting to, defining what they might be.

And then half of it was then working with pilot groups of salespeople to see to what extent can you embed the values as lived values. So we came up with this term of lived values. Um, things could be evidenced through behaviour and then on, on very specific opportunities working with the whole VAT team, you know, the whole team to see if every step of the way living these values, would it lead to higher or lesser degrees of success.

And, um, we had an extraordinary two years with HP actually, um, working with a large deal bid pursuit team, uh, just working around the values framework and then what tools can help bring the values out. I was just incredible. And so, It was, uh, it was nothing to do with methodology, actually methodology.

It doesn't matter what methodology you have, you know, so I see it a bit like the operating system of a computer. The values of the operating system, the apps that run on the system are important. Um, but the operating system needs to be in the right place. So I completely, it was so nice to hear you talk, talk about it from your perspective, that for you is one of the most interesting topics.

Jaren: Yeah. Very well, well, well said. And I would be very interested in hearing, uh, and, and learning more about your research. And, uh, just wanna pick up one thing that you said. 'cause we were talking also about like lower performing sales organisations, high performing sales organisations. And I remember working for one, and that there was a lot of, uh, time and effort placed on, you know, creating a culture, um,

Phil: yeah.

Jaren: Least stating the values of that sales organisation or the business in general, which was of course trickled down into the sales organisation. And of course, I think when they hired people, they were then started to look for people that would fit into those, those values.

Phil: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Because once you have a clear idea about the operating system, if you like, if I can use, I, I find it quite a useful metaphor because, uh, you know, sort of people get that, but once you've, once you know what the operating system is.

Yes, you're right. It, it affects recruitment strategy and, uh, it affects, well, just affects so many different things. Um, and so an interesting journey, uh, then it, and then it was in, and this wasn't part of a doctorate programme, but if you then transcribe, um, if you then start to think about leadership and what values are important for sales leadership to manage high performing teams, um, you know, again, we did a, an interesting exercise.

Wasn't a an academic exercise, but just trying to define them. Um, again, it, it, it, it, it come, you know, you sort of come up with a slightly different way of thinking about sales leadership based from a values perspective rather than a, I dunno, competence perspective. Because often if the values are right, the competence will follow.

You know, if someone. If someone is driven to lead or sell in a certain way, they, they will go out of their way to make something happen. Or, you know, to get higher degrees of creativity in a way they put deals together or that, you know, I didn't know. But it's, uh, it's, it's, it's very interesting. We've got this sort of push pull, so the values in the right place, the, the rest of, uh, you know, many things will follow.

Yeah. But if they're not in the right place, you have to push.

Jaren: We, we've also made, uh, hiring decisions based on that, where we

Phil: Yeah.

Jaren: We knew somebody didn't have the right mindset, the right, right values, and we decided we're not gonna hire that person even though they had, you know, a good skillset.

Phil: Yeah, yeah.

Jaren: Because we thought it's just gonna be too much of an effort to try to change the way this person sees the world and thinks and believes

Phil: Yeah. Yes. And then you get into that interesting argument are, uh, can you change values? Because that's the, the other thing is that, you know, sort of, we are not born with values.

We acquire them through the process of, of growing and experience and, and, and work. Um, you know, all so many factors influence our belief systems and our values. I believe it is possible to change, but I, I think some people, it's so fixed you can't change, you know, no matter what approaches you take, they simply can't change.

And of course you have to make a decision at that point. You know, are they right, are they right for you or not? Um, but so, but it's so interesting. Can I, can I, I know that time is, is moving on and I'd be so interested to get your thoughts about the future of the whole area of revenue ops or sales enablement.

You know, I would say that, you know, really since the automation of many of the CRM type tools in sales, we've been experiencing a huge amount of change. And of course, ai, which we haven't really spoken about, uh, on this call so far. Um, but how do you see the future of sales? I know it's a very big question and, and I, I suppose, and therefore, how do you see your role within it?

Jaren: Yeah. So I mean, if you can look at, um, the work, uh, of Forrester right now, a lot of discussions taking place. They're talking about, you know, go to market enablement, uh, revenue enablement. So looking at things more, more broadly, um, that, that's that development that's taking place. Although I, I still see that in some organisations, like thinking about Siemens, it's so complex.

There's, uh, so many thousands and thousands of people. It's difficult to have really somebody who would be in a revenue enablement and really enabling across the board.

Phil: Yeah.

Jaren: So I think that model has its limits, uh, especially in these really big global organisations, like a, like a Siemens. Um, but still the, the framework, uh, I think it's, you know, in general it makes sense.

Um, what I think we also need to do is be careful, uh, with enablement that we, um, you know, we don't get, get lost in, in the definition and, and, and lost in trying to do too much because under revenue enablement or sales enablement, you, you could be asked to do anything. And ever, everything I've, I've already explained to you all these different levers you could be looking at.

So I would, I would also welcome if we would in the future, be more specific about what we're doing. 'cause sometimes I think that word enablement is kind of hijacked also within, uh, big companies like Siemens, you'll see enablement team here, enablement team there, and they're all doing completely different things.

Phil: Right.

Jaren: I think you could just explain more clearly what your team is doing and what your focus is instead of just calling it enablement. So I think that, again, I'd also welcome if we could be more specific and, and, and focused in, in the terminology of the different roles and, and people and teams around enablement.

And then, as you mentioned, we haven't talked about ai, but AI is going to, uh, affect, um, everyone and, and especially people in the enablement roles. A lot of times we're tasked with doing more, with less. So there's also a lot of opportunity here

Phil: Yeah.

Jaren: For us to, you know, do more with, uh, with ai. Um, and, you know, we, we don't have the time, but I did also a lot of, uh, work around this.

Also did some, some speeches around AI enablement, uh, around all the possibilities that there are also the limitations. Um, also leaning on the human aspects and the skills that are still there. Empathy, ambiguity. Um, so also just differentiating there. And again, knowing the limitations of, of ai, what it can do, what it can't do.

Getting people to get out of their comfort zone and, and use that, uh, technology, but don't overdo it. And, you know, lose out on this, this human element.

Phil: Yes, in, in the recent research we did, Jaren. Um, so I went back to the research that I did 15 years ago and we defined, um, I mentioned we defined a construct of, of, of, of values that, that customers were looking for from salespeople.

And they were, there was, one of them was around authenticity and uh, then we have client centricity, proactive creativity and ful audacity. Those, those, those were the four sort of positive differentiating mindsets. the next generation of the survey, which lit was completed at the end of last year. Yeah.

we asked similar questions to see whether different outputs would, um, would, would come about. And I would say that 90% of the feedback we've got from customers about selling organisation salespeople, um, was quite similar to what we did 15 years ago. Uh, but there was a very important nuance and we had, uh, we had, uh, you know, one, one customer was talking about what they dislike.

They used the term intellectual dishonesty. And we also had a completely different person use the word intellectual, honest, uh, intellectual honesty, or au in fact, it could have been authenticity. And I wondered why this word intellectual has come in, because it wasn't a, it wasn't a word that surfaced 15 years ago.

And it led me to, uh, explore a lot of the comments within the context of artificial intelligence. So on the one hand, you've got artificial intelligence, and yes, on the other hand you had the word intellectual used in a positive and negative way.

Jaren: Mm-hmm.

Phil: And to your point about human in the loop, you know, the, the human component and how its relationship with ai, it, it occurs to us that one of the four positive differentiating values is, is built around intellectual authenticity, not just authenticity.

So you're adding a layer of reflective reflection and sort of the ability to synthesise information. Um, and that could be informed by curiosity and, and other things, which is a sort of counterbalance to artificial intelligence. and you know, it's how you, how you leave a both, but the intellectual authenticity is really what customers are looking for.

That ability to use AI, of course, but, you know, uh, you know, add, add, add your own original thought to it. Uh, and uh, it, it was just a very interesting nuance. You know, for us it's quite a subtle change, but I think quite a profound change from 15 years previously.

Jaren: Yes, I'm, I'm getting feedback from our, from our sales that some, on the one hand, some of 'em think, uh, are saying that they're getting sometimes less interaction with their customers.

So their customers are using more AI and, and doing research online. But at the same time, once they do interact, then they really lead on the sales to help guide them through all that information. And they want to lean on somebody that they can trust and who can help, you know, give them some direction in the overwhelming amount of information that they're receiving.

And again, using AI for research, but sometimes they still don't fully trust what's coming from AI with, with

Phil: Yeah.

Jaren: Reason because it's, yeah,

Phil: yeah.

Jaren: Basically, you know, guesswork and algorithms and, uh, so they need that human to give that last interpretation and approval and say like, this is the right way forward.

Phil: Yes. It's interesting. One final, one final point is that we asked a question triggered by a McKinsey report that, uh, said that even for high value capital items, um, procurement directors can envisage a scenario where there's no interaction at all with salespeople. It would all, all be done. And I wasn't sure if I believed this research.

And so, as part of our research, we asked the, you know, heads of procurement and, and others about could you ever envisage a situation where you had no interaction with salespeople? Like, in 10 years time from now, would you, would you think this? And everyone, uh, could not imagine a situation without some degree of conversation with a person?

Uh, and so they still saw that as being essential, and they still talk about the importance of relationships. And I think it comes back to what you were saying about trust, but who knows? It might change again in a few years time, but

Jaren: anything's possible.

Phil: Yeah. It, it certainly, I did not believe in the story I was hearing from McKinsey, and I have to challenge them on it because I, I completely disagree.

They're basically, they're basically, um, saying the way procurement's going, you know, there's not really a role for sales in, in, in this sort of moving forward, but, um, but we shall see, uh, yeah, we shall see in time. Okay. Well, I think we're getting to the end of the, the allocated time, uh, for our podcast.

Jaren, it's been so interesting talking to you and hearing about your experiences. Really enjoyed the conversation. Um, fantastic. The work you're doing with the Sales Enablement Society.

Jaren: Yeah. Revenue Enablement Society.

Phil: Yeah. And others. So clearly you're going to play a role in sort of shaping, um, perhaps the, the way in which sales and revenue ops is being perceived inside organisations moving forward, which, uh, which I think is great.

And are you going to connect with the great initiative, um, that's happening in Europe on the sales side? That's come outta GSSI, I dunno if you, you're familiar with some of the research projects?

Jaren: I, I have picked up here and there. Uh, and I always tell, um, everybody that I'm meeting from that community, um, if, you know, if, if they're interested, please get in touch with me and, uh, let's, let's see what possibilities are around the corner.

Phil: Yeah. Okay. That's brilliant. I'm certainly interested in what they're, they're doing. So, uh, that's, uh, that's again brilliant. Okay. Well, Jaren, thank you very much. I'm sure we'll be in contact and I'll send you some more information on the values as well, the, the research at some part. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.

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