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00:00:01
Mastering Go-To-Market Strategies w/Anne Slough
9 Plays1 hour ago
In this episode, Brian Dietmeyer talks to Anne Slough, head of go-to-market enablement at Collibra, about the challenges and strategies of go-to-market methodologies in sales organizations. They explore the frequent changes in methodologies, comparing them to the constant search for the perfect fitness regime, and discuss how these methodologies impact the buyer experience and seller interactions. This insightful conversation sheds light on the practicalities of implementing these strategies effectively and the common pitfalls companies face.
Timestamps:
00:01 Introduction of Anne Slough and the topic of go-to-market methodologies.
00:44 Discussion on the evolution of enterprise selling and the significance of go-to-market enablement.
01:29 Why organizations frequently change sales methodologies.
03:17 The practical challenges of changing human behavior in sales teams.
06:10 The role of coaching in sales and the common excuses for not engaging in it.
09:15 The reality of coaching effectiveness and the challenges faced by sales leaders.
12:34 The importance of aligning sales strategies with brand execution at the deal level.
17:30 Anne Slough's vision for the future of sales enablement and personalized training.
22:28 Concluding thoughts on the need for strategic execution in sales methodologies.
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction and Welcome
00:00:05
Brian
Hello and welcome to another episode of Close Mode, the Enterprise Sales Show. I'm Brian Dietmeyer CEO of CloseStrong the home of Precision Guided Selling. and today, I'm really lucky to be here with my pal and business associate, Anne Slough, who I've known for years. Anne's the head of go-to-market enablement with Collibra. And if you're not familiar with them, they empower, see if this sounds like your your right speak, and they empower data citizens to take command of data and AI.
00:00:34
Brian
transforming possibilities into progress. How did I do, Anne?
00:00:37
Anne Slough
That sounds great.
00:00:41
Brian
welcome Welcome to the show, by the way.
00:00:43
Anne Slough
Thanks, Bron. Pleasure to be here. I was really stoked to spend time with you today. So thank
Enterprise Selling and Go-to-Market Enablement
00:00:47
Anne Slough
you.
00:00:48
Brian
Yeah, you over many years in many different roles for both of us, like we have talked about, you know, an enterprise selling and and it's a subject we both live in and are also fascinated by. And it's funny too, because I i was looking at your title, which I've seen,
00:01:05
Brian
not frequently, but have seen a few times go to market enablement, which I really like because it's like, it screams of execution to me, right?
00:01:13
Anne Slough
Yeah.
00:01:14
Brian
adding Adding the go to market before enablement. And so that's a lot of what we're going to be talking about today. So my my first question for you, and i we were talking a week or so ago and and you said, look, every year in in the companies that you've been with, you said a new methodology gets introduced.
Challenges in Creating Branded Buyer Experiences
00:01:32
Brian
And from from your perspective as head of go-to-market enablement, why do organizations keep pulling that lever? Because I will do a little spoiler alert. You also were frustrated with that. So talk talk to me a little bit about that.
00:01:49
Anne Slough
Yeah, you know, Brian, I think about methodologies like I think about the billions and billions of dollars that we spend on fitness the fitness industry, right? we We pay personal trainers, we want a dietician, we want the latest and greatest workout equipment because we're we're searching like this holy grail for physical fitness or this image of what we think we want our bodies to look like.
00:02:15
Anne Slough
And methodology is kind of the same thing. In go-to-market organizations or sales organizations, we want to create a branded experience for our buyers.
00:02:26
Anne Slough
And the most obvious way to do that, besides in marketing, is the one-to-one interactions our sellers are having with our buyers.
00:02:27
Brian
Thank you.
00:02:35
Anne Slough
The way we interact with us should create or live our ethos as an organization. It should feel different to buy from us at Calibra than anyone else in our space.
00:02:47
Anne Slough
And a methodology seems like a logical path to go down because methodologies basically are teaching your sellers how, the how, not the what, your sales process is your what, but how that interaction is going to feel when you're doing a good discovery call, what the skills are that comprise a good discovery call.
00:03:07
Anne Slough
So logically, it makes sense. It also gives us a consistent language within the sales organization to coach around to gauge performance by.
00:03:16
Brian
Yeah.
00:03:19
Anne Slough
So all of that makes sense. So I think logically as leaders, we think we need this. We need a common language. We need to be able to create this experience, this branded experience, just like all those other things make sense when you want to lose weight or create the perfect body that you want.
00:03:36
Anne Slough
But they often, most of the time, fail. You know, every it's like we're on this two to three year merry-go-round buy a methodology, implement the methodology, try to measure the success, realize it's not working or a new CRO or new sales leader comes in. And so he or she brings in what they like from the last company. And here we go again. We do this all over again.
Coaching Challenges for Frontline Managers
00:04:00
Anne Slough
and so I think that's the why behind it. I think the intent is good. There's this deep desire to get it right. It just doesn't happen. so Similarly, you know I can have the training plan for my personal trainer, but if I never go to the gym, probably not going to get that ideal state achieved.
00:04:17
Anne Slough
Right. So i think.
00:04:18
Brian
and That's that's that's a theoretical response, right?
00:04:21
Anne Slough
Right. yeah yeah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and then I think the practical responses, even if we do those things well, we're dealing with humans and getting human beings to change their behavior.
00:04:35
Anne Slough
is really challenging because they have to believe that changing my behavior is going to get an incrementally better outcome than what I'm doing today.
00:04:48
Anne Slough
And so if you have a seller who's successful doing his or her own thing, and then you say, hey, I want you to do it this way, they're not going to adopt it and do it, right? So...
00:04:57
Brian
Well, did you just say caging their behavior? I love i love that statement. I've never heard that. You you said something else, Anne, that I want to react to that that's brilliant. You often say things that are brilliant, but you you you said something about, you know, kind of brand equity, the Calibra brand. and And
Brand Execution and Equity
00:05:15
Brian
years ago, people who who listen and watch the show know I often reference Bill Marriott because he's a hero of mine, Marriott Hotels.
00:05:23
Brian
and And he told us once that every decision we make is a deposit into or a withdrawal from brand equity. And and you you you built on that by, its it's brand execution. Every deal that you're doing, every customer interaction you have. And by the way, when you see my LinkedIn post on this subject, you'll know where I came from. So thank thank you for that. And I completely agree. So something else you and I talked about is, oh, you know, managers, uh,
00:05:53
Brian
should coach more. So you've you've had RevOps and SalesOps experience as well. So, and I'm just going to go direct to a question I know you're passionate about. Is it going to happen? we we We're all trying to get to this holy grail frontline managers coaching this stuff or even coaching deals.
00:06:10
Brian
What's your take on that?
00:06:13
Anne Slough
Yeah, I think, you know, often, often people say, well, I don't have time to coach.
00:06:18
Brian
Yeah.
00:06:19
Anne Slough
I've got so many other things on my plate. I just think it's a cop out. I don't believe it. I know for a fact that human beings have time to do the things they want to do. It's really funny how that works out.
00:06:29
Brian
Yep.
00:06:30
Anne Slough
And I understand as a sales leader that there are incredible pressures on that role, be it an executive or a frontline sales leader. They have a lot of things that they have to do in the organization, but I'm going to date myself, Brian, and I'm going to talk about old Stephen Covey, right? The seven habits of highly effective people. And he often talks about you have these big rocks.
00:06:55
Anne Slough
And if you put your big rocks first, everything else will fall around it. Well, that's kind of how coaching works. It has to be your number one priority and everything else fall around it and you have to make it a priority. But we don't because I do the same thing. We get consumed by the day-to-day activities that...
00:07:12
Anne Slough
or seem urgent and important if we think about those quadrants, right? It seems like they're in the urge urgent important quadrant, but they're just really urgent and and probably not important quadrant, but they require, there's somebody screaming at us for something.
00:07:25
Anne Slough
So I and think we just don't make time to do those things.
00:07:25
Brian
So,
00:07:29
Brian
yeah, it's funny, two two quick reactions. One, i interviewed a CRO on this program, and one of the things we talked about is this subject, and he was like, make the time. So, but it tell tell me if if I have this wrong, when you and I were just offline chatting week or two ago, I thought I heard you say, look, it's it's not going to happen.
00:07:39
Anne Slough
Yeah.
00:07:51
Brian
Did you say that, or did I make that up?
00:07:54
Anne Slough
I think it can happen, but I think the odds of it happening are probably low because first of all,
00:08:00
Brian
Yeah. Yeah.
00:08:02
Anne Slough
For a lot of managers, they've been put in this role not because this is their desired state. They don't really want to coach others. They don't really get satisfaction through others, right?
00:08:14
Brian
yeah
00:08:14
Anne Slough
You either get satisfaction them through others or through self.
00:08:17
Anne Slough
Those are the two drivers. And good leaders get their satisfaction through others. Peak performers, like peak performer salespeople, they get satisfaction through self. Often we promote these peak performers to be in these leadership roles. And so now there's this there's these competing drivers that we're asking of this person. So I think it can happen. Yes, you can do it. You can learn to do it. You can better time manage. But in general, it's probably not going to happen because it's not my natural state. I'm not driven that way. It's hard. It's squishy. I got to deal with another human and give them feedback and they're going to argue with me and then I'm just going to get irritated. I could be like looking at a pipeline report or crunching numbers instead. That's better and easier and black and white.
00:09:02
Anne Slough
I just think it's hard. And I just think people... path of least resistance and probably won't do it. I mean, I think we've proven over over how many years, 30 plus years, that you and I have been around in the business world, if not more.
00:09:14
Anne Slough
They can do it. They're just not going to do it
00:09:16
Brian
Well, I keep saying this, but you always say interesting things whenever we talk over the years. So well one of the stats that comes to mind based on what you just said is like there' there's there's also there's a timing issue and then there's a skills issue of the frontline manager. And I just read a report recently, and I'm sorry I can't reference the actual report.
00:09:36
Brian
Reps said, I actually want more coaching, which was a little bit surprising to me. And I thought it was like, get, get, I think about, i'm a huge fan of Drive to Survive, the F1 show on Netflix.
00:09:48
Brian
and And some of the drivers sometimes are like, get out of my ear, right?
00:09:52
Brian
When they're driving 200 miles around the track, especially Yuki Tsunoda, he's mean with his handlers. But I thought reps were that way, like, get out of my ear, leave me alone, let me do my job. They said, i want more, but they they double clicked on that and said,
00:09:52
Anne Slough
Right.
00:10:06
Brian
what What I get, however, is is fire drill auditing when deals are in trouble. what I don't want that. What I want is preemptive strategic assistance.
00:10:18
Brian
And and so that goes to that skill issue. It's like, du how many frontline managers? the The auditing for the fire drill is reasonably easy. Hey, and you know this, this or this, but the the preemptive strategy stuff is is is much harder.
00:10:27
Anne Slough
Yeah.
00:10:30
Anne Slough
Well, Brian, I think that's worth sitting on a minute because that's what I was going to follow up with. It's the kind of coaching we give.
00:10:38
Brian
yeah
00:10:38
Anne Slough
And where sales leaders tend to like to spend their time are pipeline reviews, forecasts. When I say like to spend their time, I don't mean they wake up and going, oh, I'd love to do a forecast call. But that's their comfort of coaching in the numbers, forecasting, pipeline review, an urgent call from a rep going, hey, I need to close this deal. Let's talk about it and figure out what levers we can pull to get this deal closed in the next week because the quarter's ending.
00:11:04
Anne Slough
they like They like that adrenaline shot, right? They like the cortisol. They like the hunt. That's why we're in sales. We like the hunt. We like closing it. We like the hit we get from adrenaline. and We like that. We get conditioned to like that. And so listening to a recorded call or ride-alongs or listening with a rep on an in-person call, going to with them to listen Stopping, debriefing, giving targeted feedback, meaningful targeted feedback is exhausting. It requires a lot of mental energy from the coach.
00:11:37
Anne Slough
Right. And so that's the kind of feedback reps don't get. That's what they say they're hungry for. I just delivered a two day boot camp around a new go to market strategy that we're implementing. And part of that was a day and a half of the reps pitching our new value prop and the way we're going to go to market and just pitching, pitching, pitching and getting feedback. And I was giving feedback to a rep and I have a very structured process. It's very specific feedback.
00:12:05
Anne Slough
And I had a rep look at me and she said, that is the best feedback I've ever gotten in my career because you really honed in on the skill part and how I can get better. Now, it's not that I'm all that a bag of chips. I am not. It's just that I had really good teachers and who taught me to put put that energy into the feedback. But it's exhausting. I left that day. I was exhausted mentally, physically, spiritually, intellectually exhausted.
00:12:32
Brian
Yeah.
00:12:32
Anne Slough
It's hard work.
00:12:32
Brian
Well, i that's that's why it was good. But that that you just kind of segued into the next question and that and your issue before about about brand execution at the deal level, which again, I i absolutely love and I'm stealing.
00:12:47
Brian
But he went when you and met, You were at LSA Global and you managed, I think it was the strategy and culture practice there. and And with that experience, with that kind of targeted role that you had, where where does strategy typically break down as it relates to like being connected to the frontline rep and the deal level?
00:13:08
Brian
And as we say, turning turning turning like your brand execution and into behaviors by reps, where
Breakdown of Strategy in Organizations
00:13:14
Anne Slough
no Well, what I love about what I think you're doing and you're tackling this this problem it is that execution gap. So, you know, executives sit in a room and they talk to consultants and they do market research and they they look at their product or whatever they're delivering to the market and they say, okay, we're going to create this strategy because this is where we think we can win right this is the niche space where we think that we can do this better than any of our competitors and where we can win and they craft this strategy and then they start to cascade the strategy down so that's failure part number one point number one because every time you cascade the strategy down level research shows that we lose about 50 percent of the messaging so when an executive communicates it down to the senior leadership team about 50% of the messaging is lost because we as executives created the strategy.
00:13:14
Brian
does that break down?
00:13:56
Brian
Okay.
00:14:04
Anne Slough
We know it inside and out. But when we verbalize it down, that's getting it down, there are parts we may leave out or just assumptions that are made. And so the message gets diluted, level it goes down, number one. So that's one point of failure.
00:14:19
Anne Slough
Second point of failure is we don't do a good job in general of helping each role within the organization understand where they plug into the strategy. What is your piece of the pie that's going to be able to execute on the strategy? And how does that fit into the overall strategic picture? So we don't make good students of the business and organizations and helping people understand. The third failure point is around the culture, right? We don't judge culture, good or bad. We just ask one question.
00:14:50
Anne Slough
Have we created the culture that is able to implement the strategy, right? So and so that's the third point. So you have these three major points of failure, I think, and this and that execution gap, Brian, which is I think what you're really trying to tackle as well, is how do I as an individual seller understand the strategy of the organization, create the right culture, and then day to day when I'm interacting with a buyer and the sales role, let's take that role,
00:15:18
Anne Slough
How do I live that? How do i make it happen? It's really, really hard for those reasons. And so you need a scalable, like fail-safe automated process that's aligned to the strategy that we execute against.
00:15:32
Brian
one Yes, yes to all that. One thing that comes to mind, again, when you're talking about this is is like the, you have your strategy and then we have the messaging. Where does the messaging fall down? One of the things that we're seeing, because you're right, we're deep into this and trying to figure out how to do it, is that Beyond messaging, there's there's a bunch of other smaller increments. When you look at your strategy, it's just like, okay, how how should we be qualifying opportunities that are in line with what we want our folks doing, right? And what what what new stakeholders do we need to be talking to and about what? Like given our strategy, what KPIs should we be talking about? what let's Let's get much more dialed into discovery. How do we find problems that are in alignment with our brand that that we want to solve for and even solution configuration? and And that's where I see some of this falling down is is not breaking, netting out the strategy to say, all right, what pieces require a behavior change at the front line? And then let's track it with the deal cycle from qualify to close. What should we be doing at every stage, not just messaging? So and another question for you, kind of back back to methodology, you had mentioned that there's a belief that it it's it's table stakes. And and and yeah and you said it even for reps with tenure, it's people see it as table stakes.
00:16:56
Brian
So what what should the next layer of enablement look like? We've talked about the problems with methodology and why people pull that lever, but if you could design a modern solution, what what what do reps need today that either you're using or doesn't doesn't exist that you would design?
Future of Sales Enablement
00:17:16
Anne Slough
Yeah, well, I'm designing, i hope what I'm designing right now, my current role is kind of what I would like to think is the future of enablement. And it's got a couple of components, right?
00:17:24
Brian
Okay.
00:17:26
Anne Slough
So number one, I believe that, and let's just stick with the sales role, like what sellers need. We could talk about the whole go-to-market organization, going stick with sellers.
00:17:36
Anne Slough
I believe they need a personalized, curated experience, just like in marketing. Marketing talks about personalization, right? Like you can't do mass marketing. have to personalize the message. It's got to really resonate with that particular buyer, not even persona, but that particular buyer. Well, I think sellers are the same way.
00:17:55
Anne Slough
when When we have sellers come into the organization, the vision that I'm trying to create is,
00:17:55
Brian
Okay.
00:18:00
Anne Slough
Hey, Ann, tell me about your experience. Tell me the markets you've been, the verticals you've been selling to how long you've been selling, where do you think you're really good? Where do you think you need some reinforcement? And let's us assess the seller, number one. Then let's create a curated experience. So, you know, if you are a, let's just, I'm not a golfer, but let's take off. If you're a golfer And your long game is really good. Do I need to spend hours and hours with you teaching how to drive the ball? No, i probably to focus on your short game. Well, sellers, that's the kind of experience i want to create for them. Number one, a curated, personalized experience.
00:18:39
Anne Slough
Then i want to be able to use technology in order to amplify their ability to be successful. That can make them more efficient. you know Maybe it frees up time. We use technology and AI to do research and automate and right back to their CRM.
00:18:57
Anne Slough
And we can also use technology to enable them to have better conversations, what whatever that looks like for that seller. So personalized, curated technology is an amplifier.
00:19:08
Anne Slough
I also think we need to deliver enablement just in time and in the workflows where they work. So if I primarily use a CRM or I'm using conversational intelligence or I'm using a sales engagement platform, whatever tech I primarily spend my time in based on my sales role, that's where enablement needs to be delivered.
00:19:15
Brian
Yeah.
00:19:29
Anne Slough
Just in time, I'm in stage two of this deal. What are the skills, knowledge, processes, and tools that I need to implement to move this deal from stage one to state three based on my experience. So that kind of enablement, I think is the future. And I think finally technology is catching up and let to allow us to do that.
00:19:49
Anne Slough
And I think that's really where we need to go instead of this sheep dipping, everybody gets the same thing. We spend three days teaching a big sales course and then off you go.
00:20:01
Anne Slough
Like, I think those days are gone or should be gone rather.
00:20:03
Brian
Yeah.
00:20:04
Anne Slough
I would like this new vision.
00:20:04
Brian
Yeah. But i love I love what you just said and I would add a piece to that about like, how do we do all those things in line with strategy? and And I feel like that that's been the missing link. It's like, how how do we do those things generically, right? But no, given given what it is we're trying to get done here, how how do we do those things?
Failures in Strategy Execution
00:20:24
Brian
So have you seen any data, again, RevOps, SalesOps, GoToMarketEnablement, any data to to point to how well we're executing strategy or how well it's being communicated to reps, or is it mostly just kind of what you've seen and been frustrated with?
00:20:42
Anne Slough
Well, I know there's a ton of like the McKinsey's, right? The Deloitte's, I know Gartner, Forrester, they consistently put out data that I think is somewhere between 75 and 80% all Or the execution of it, rather. I shouldn't say the strategy fails, but the execution of the strategy fails. And I think it's consistent around that for the many of the reasons that we've just talked about.
00:21:06
Anne Slough
you know You either don't have the right culture, you don't have the right talent, you don't have the right systems, you you don't have the right change management in place. I mean, i think strategy, typically, that's why it fails.
00:21:19
Anne Slough
I mean, that's why we have big that's why we have the big consulting firms that make all the money because they can come back in and say, oh, I have the right strategy.
00:21:19
Brian
Yeah.
00:21:26
Anne Slough
But they they typically fail.
00:21:28
Brian
Yeah. Yeah. you And thank you for reminding me, you do have that Forrester experience as well, which is, and I think what what was your what was your vertical expertise there?
00:21:38
Anne Slough
So I was in the RevOps service at Forrester.
00:21:40
Brian
Right. Yeah. Yeah. So you you have that question I just asked. Now I remember why I asked you that question, because you have some insight into that given
00:21:48
Anne Slough
Yeah.
00:21:48
Brian
given what what your role was.
Conclusion and Gratitude
00:21:51
Brian
So I really, man, i feel I feel like we could go on forever, but I know people don't watch forever. But I'm um'm glad to have this conversation with you and a couple of professionals in your role where this we're beginning to look at this kind of execution layer of saying, all right, how how do we go make this transition from methodology, which is generally how to sell, to Maybe the next leap and enablement is how do we execute our strategy one deal at a time?
00:22:21
Brian
Like let's let's train people in how to do that. And and and it's tricky too because our strategies are shifting. But that I think, and I know you and I agree, we've talked about it, that's like the next level is, yeah, yeah, yeah. Enough with generically how do we sell? How do we get this done?
00:22:38
Brian
You know, so...
00:22:38
Anne Slough
Yeah.
00:22:39
Brian
Yeah, I'm really happy to to hear your insight on that. You've been super generous with your time and your ideas and and planning for folks who watch this show. We spend time upfront getting ready for this and you spend time on your own and it's appreciated. I think of closed mode as this body of knowledge for those of us who live in this space. And and and I love continuing to add to this so people who are in in roles can say, hey what are my peers thinking about? so you're You're awesome, as usual. Thank you so much for this.
00:23:12
Anne Slough
Well, thank you, Brian. It's always a pleasure to spend time with you and just trying to figure it all out, right? We're all driving to the same goal. We want people to be successful what in the roles, companies to be successful, but also do meaningful work. And so I think if we can figure that out, executing the gap between strategy and just day-to-day what we're doing to align to it, I really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you, my friend.