Evolvers

If you have a high volume of leads but a low conversion rate, have marketing saying things are great, but sales saying it's a struggle, and have data …

When taking over a new sales enablement program, what do you do first? How do you prioritize and remain not just focused but motivated through what promises to be a lot of trial and error?

This is what we discussed …

How is the role of the Sales Engineer (SE) changing, and what is needed to enable Sales Engineers for success?

These are some of the questions we …

When it comes to what makes a seller and sales leader successful, there is one key ingredient that makes all the difference in today's market, and …

Growing two incredibly successful value acceleration programs, first at Splunk and now at Databricks, Doug May has the success metrics and track …

When you launch a new Customer Success organization, and go from a team of 9 to over 50 in less than two years, you must be doing something right, and certainly have some important lessons to share.

In this interview …

When you develop and launch a value enablement program you want to make sure you value selling, marketing and customer success is done right, and …

I wanted to get a view of what priorities and initiatives the best sellers and sales leaders were working on to kick-off 2022, and who better to tap than the Sales Evangelist himself, Donald Kelly.

Donald hosts the …

As customers want less friction in the buying process and demand more from sellers, what do you need to do in order to meet new buyer needs and deliver differentiated experiences?

In this interview with Lisa Schnare, a …

How effective is current forecasting and how can it be improved with data, insights and intelligence to drive more efficiency, accuracy and predictable revenue outcomes?

In this interview we discuss these issues and …

Well, EVOLVERS, we made it to the end! Please take a few minutes to listen to this years Best Of moments with Tom and just a select few of our …

When you have 20 years of experience in creating and scaling value selling programs, you learn a thing or two. In this interview with Scott Jeffries, …

Post pandemic, most sales enablement teams are leveraging learning management systems (LMS) to help remote and hybrid sales teams become better trained, competent and engaged.

To better understand the best practices …

When you develop a business value program, where do you best start, and what are the exact steps you can use to achieve scale and excellence?

In this …

We all get those presumptive outreach emails or in-mails. Have any of these ever worked on you? So why is our reaction to get our own marketing and sales teams to do these at scale?

In this interview we discuss these …

When you are selling digital transformation to manufacturing, product and engineering firms, it is essential that there be a solid business case made …

When you want to evolve and elevate an existing sales enablement program, or set up a new practice from scratch, where do you turn for a blueprint?

…

How perfect does your ROI business case proposal need to be? How much evidence is enough, or too much?

To answer these questions, we turn to former …

How do you get sellers to do better value discovery, storytelling and quantification? How do you assure rollout, adoption and scale of your new value …

Why should your reps be more Sherpa and less Salesperson?

What can sellers learn from musicians to maintain their groove and up their performance?

…

How do you get sellers best enabled with new selling methodologies, messaging and skills now that they are remote?

To answer this key question we …

What does the journey to leading your own value practice look like, and what does implementing value enablement across the entire customer lifecycle entail?

In this interview, we explore both the personal journey and …

How do you best convince sellers to evolve from price to value? How do you assure buyers trust in you and in the decision to be made?

These are two …

When engaging with new prospects and customers, it's essential to align with business objectives, build a solution transformation journey and know …

If you are in Value Enablement and Value Selling, you are likely very passionate about the topic and practice. And if you are the ROI Dude and the ROI Guy, it's not just in the name, it's in the blood.

In this interview …

Your sellers have more buyers than ever involved in every purchase decision, making it tougher than ever to effectively engage and get new, deals, …

When you want to have a credible, trusted value program it pays to lead with a six sigma and customer success approach, this according to our interview with Rosalie Girard, the Director of Business Value Engineering for …

With so much change in buying processes and digital selling, I wanted to test some theories and bounce a few ideas off a true expert, to understand what is working best and how to improve.

I turned to Lori Richardson, a …

Connecting, engaging and convincing buyers is harder than ever before, but sharing and leveraging insights can give you a significant edge.

Knowing this, we tap THE experts, Dr. Stephen Timme and Melody Astley from …

A remote, and even more challenging hybrid selling environment requires sales enablement to rethink how they enable sellers with the right content, …

As sellers we are often provided with discovery guides and taught about the key questions to ask our prospects, but do we have a guide and coaching on how to provide the best answers, especially responses enabling us to …

In this interview with value expert, "Sales is King" podcast host and top-sales leader Dan Sixsmith, we review some of the pressing challenges he and his team have been addressing over the past few quarters, and why he …

With so many businesses now selling subscription services and relying on recurring revenue, it's not just marketing and sales responsible for …

How important is enabling your partners a key to their success, and how is Partner Enablemnent best accomplished?

In this interview we ask these questions of Murat Guvenc, currently the Managing Director for Accuras …

How do you handle hyper-growth and not just keep the wheels on, but achieve even greater than expected success?

According to this interview with Mark Ebert, the SVP of Sales for 6sense, you have to enable your legacy …

Is closing a six figure deal any different, now that we are selling all / mostly virtual?

This is one of several important questions I posed to the …

What does it take to be in the top 1% of sellers, and what can you learn from the best to enable more of your "middlers" to become top performers?

We tackled these questions with Scott Ingram, the host of the Sales …

With accelerating requirements and over 800 different sales enablement solutions, how do you make sure you make the right choices and get what you …

Buyers say they will do business with a seller that can best:

1) Understand their business

2) Prove value for money

3) Reliably follow-up and …

If you are in sales, without in person trade-shows and conferences post crisis, you don't have much choice but to "cold call" in order to generate …

How do you get that new value enablement program not just off the ground but soaring high?

In this interview with Vikas Mundada, the Director of Business Value for Ping Identity, we explore in detail how he designed, …

Where are organizations struggling the most in their sales enablement and transformation, and what is working best?

How do we get the sales enablement people, resources and budget we need to improve?

These are just a …

It is well known that Account Based Marketing (ABM) can be leveraged for better outreach and generating closable opportunities, but less know how it can also be used to better get new accounts to revenue and existing …

In order to transcend the "Death of the B2B Sales Rep" trend, you have to elevate your sales game with a better mindset, skillset and toolset.

To …

What are the top challenges faced by sales, sales enablement and customer success leaders in 2021?

When you run one of the largest peer groups and resources for these leaders and practitioners, you learn every week …

How do you grow Consumer Product sales despite virtual engagements and a tough business environment?

In this interview with Tom Meyers, he is a Vice President of Sales for Conagra Foodservice, we discuss recent food …

Post crisis, buyers are taking more time, involving more decision makers, more stressed and risk averse. As a result, you may have to rethink and …

As more B2B customers are involved in every decision, engage more deeply, scrutinize the financial outcomes of every decision more thoroughly and …

As a pre-sales engineer would you ever consider becoming a value consultant?

In this interview with Jessica Bell, a Senior Value Consultant for …

Value has evolved from simple ROI and TCO spreadsheets, to interactive ROI / TCO calculators, to now lifecycle management throughout the customer …

As the CMO of Gong, Udi Ledergor knows a thing or two about virtual selling and how revenue intelligence has helped to optimize performance of his and his customer's sales teams.

In this interview we press Udi on what …

What is the difference between a Product and a Success Outcome, and why should you distill everything down to the one success outcome that makes your …

When I came across this research from Rain Group about the growing engagement gap between buyer and seller I was floored, and you will be too.

The …

When selling virtually, sellers are reporting some serious challenges, including the ability to connect, get stakeholders together, gain …

It can be difficult to know where to best start, and what steps to take in the journey to optimize your value consulting group and value acceleration …

What are some of the big challenges facing product marketing post-crisis? How do you end Death by PowerPoint presentations? What is the best way to …

Not only did this value team figure out how to most effectively propose business value improvements to it's public sector prospects, it managed to …

With buyers doing more research on their own, and requiring financial justification for every purchase consideration, value, ROI and TCO calculators …

Now that selling is virtual, one of the biggest challenges sellers are having in connecting with decision makers. Buyers are inundated with too many reach outs, too much noise, and not enough time.

But sellers don't …

From all the potential criteria, how do you assure you are picking the best sales enablement platform?  How do you vet the content and develop the best experience for the sellers? How do you pilot and deploy for best …

When you have tens of thousands of data points on what characteristics make sellers a success, and you are an experienced CMO as well, you figure out a thing or two about sales enablement, content, virtual selling and …

The need for engaging, justifying and proving value with prospects and customers has never been higher, so what should you be doing to address this …

In his 25 years of sales transformation and performance consulting, Mike Kunkle has learned a thing or two (or three).

In this inspiring interview …

Virtual selling is here to stay, and you have to work on your presence and building trust with your prospects and customers in on-line engagements and after each meeting with the broader buying committee.

You may have …

We've seen an incredible increase from buyers to be able to effectively communicate and quantify differentiating value to clients. But how do you create a value program ... step by step, one that uses more science than …

This interview with Omer Minkara, author, VP & Principal Analyst at Aberdeen Group, explores the latest research, insights and advice on Remote Sellers.

In this session Omer outlines three ways to get the most …

When you've developed and launched go-to-market programs for tech leaders like ServiceNow, SGI, EMC, Nokia, and startups such as Clumio, you learn a thing or two (or three).

In this interview with product marketing …

There are six big trends driving sales transformation: the rise of virtual selling, a new generation of leaders and new buyers, the need for integration and measurement and the explosion of AI,

With these trends in …

Tom Stubbs, is a Sales Transformation leader at PepsiCo where he has led CPG sales knowledge management, enablement and transformation for over 25 years.

In this interview we got his unique perspective on this dynamic …

B2B buyers indicated just how important selling experience is in creating customer loyalty, far more than brand, delivery and price, and those sellers who create a better experience are leverage these five key traits.

…

The buyer's decision making process has become much more complex, and too many decisions are ending up at "No Decision". This is a challenge, but also represents an incredible opportunity for the seller who knows how to …

When you are running a business value practice that is 12 years in the making, and has been optimized so that 5 value consultants support over 1,000 …

Before early 2020, we saw the majority of sales and marketing teams focused on new account acquisition to fuel growth. Then the crisis hit, and many companies “circled the wagons” around existing customers, and all of a …

When it comes to Marketing strategy, one of the go to researchers and consultants has some special insights and strong opinions on how to become more …

Getting pre-sales enablement right when buyers are more digital and all remote is a challenge, however, these two professionals know a thing or two (or three) about best practices, especially when it comes to …

What is Design Thinking and how can you apply it to make your next virtual sales engagement collaborative and amazing?

We explored how to leverage a …

Well, 2020 has been a year for the memory books, that’s for certain!

We are so grateful to you, our EVOLVERS family. We have created almost 90 …

Checkout a typical sales presentation or Success Story and you'll notice the solution provider is often the center of attention, but this is not what …

In this interview with Ryan Rhoten of brand messaging consultancy Careerbrand, author of the book CareerKred: 4 Simple Steps to Build Your Personal …

There is a big question looming over b2b sales into 2021. With most  buyers leveraging digital and engaging remotely, do we even need sellers at all?

This question is one we posed to the VP of Global Sales Development …

What are the most important strategies and tools to implement for sales enablement going into 2021?

In this interview we talk to Clark Green, …

A CMO who continues to rely on spam, forms and cold calls is so yesterday. Buyers demand more, and there is a better way to connect, engage and sell …

Why is the Chief Customer Officer so important now to growth success, and what should your strategy focus on for 2021 sales, marketing, customer …

Virtual selling is here to stay, it is certainly not new, and there is no excuse for poor virtual engagements any longer.

This according to my …

When the crisis first hit, many companies realized that their best strategy was to circle the wagons, focusing on existing customers and key accounts.

Some of these key accounts are at risk, with many facing budget …

As a front-line marketer, what should you be doing now to be ready for a better 2021?

In this interview we connect with Shannon McNealy,  a rare mix …

Now that we are mostly remote sellers, how do you maximize your time, optimize your sales performance, all while keeping your sanity?

In this interview with CRM expert Jeroen Corthout (co-founder of SalesFlare), we …

The ability to communicate and quantify your unique business value to prospects and customers is essential with today's economic-focused buyer,, and getting a value program developed, launched and scaled is an …

Having the right sales content solution can make all the difference to transforming your sales capabilities and dealing with change. According to a …

How do you build rapport with prospects, even though you are now limited to a 13" virtual meeting screen?

How do you make sure you are not losing buyer engagement?

How do you pivot from pitching to blueprinting business …

Sellers are facing a tough go-forward environment. Spending freezes, lower executive clip levels, and the dreaded cross functional approval board, …

Now that our customer conversations are remote and virtual, how do you engage as effectively as you did when in person?

For answers, I turned to …

As organizations look forward to 2021, getting sales quotas, compensation and enablement right is essential, but difficult with accelerated …

Doing a good job of discovery and listening are so important to buyers, yet so many sellers are struggling to get this right, especially in today's now digital and remote selling environment.

In this interview with Deb …

Sell More with Better Value Communication and Quantification

Right from his LinkedIn profile you can tell John Bossong is different. He's a seller that clearly takes a value-first approach, has created a podcast and …

When you were the VP of Global Enablement for Marketo, Head of Global Sales Enablement for Oracle Marketing Cloud,  and  had key sales enablement and training leadership stints with Salesforce, 3PAR, PayPal, NetApp and …

Now that selling is more digital and remote, how do you better connect, build trust, and win the business?

My interview with author, podcaster, keynote speaker and selling expert David Fisher has so many gems of advice, …

Shimon Abouzaglo, is the founder of the Value Selling & Realization Council, an organization dedicated to the practice and practitioners of value, and has had a long career as a business value practice leader and …

Being a hunter sales leader in these times is not easy.  One way to outperform the competition?  Think about your next on-line meeting less as a …

Where are sellers and sales leaders falling short today, and what are the new skills you need to thrive and accelerate into 2021?

In this interview …

Cold calling is dead, this according to Colleen Francis, a #1 LinkedIn Sales Influencer, renowned author and sales consultant. In this interview, we …

If you get your new sales hire right it can mean great things for hitting your growth targets. But get it wrong, or worse, hire a toxic troublemaker, and the costs can be over a million for each error. So, how do you …

Imagine you are a sales leader responsible for selling leading apparel, footwear and sports equipment brands such as Salomon, Atomic, Wilson, Precor and Louisville Slugger. Now imagine how you and your team's world was …

Many of you have heard about Revenue Enablement, and might be wondering what it is all about, and why we need another type of enablement beyond just Sales Enablement?

Who better to explain than Stephen Diorio, creator …

When you've cut your teeth at, run and created value consulting and selling programs at companies like Salesforce, Adobe, Deloitte Consulting and …

What is a trusted advisor, why is becoming one to your customer so important, and how do you achieve it?

According to sales veteran Greg Brown (Salesforce, Peoplesoft, E.piphany and Apptus)  it comes down to a simple …

In times of uncertainty, emotions are charged. This can lead to indecision, not a good thing when you are trying to move a buying committee and your champion through the buyers journey to "Yes".

So why does this happen, …

Where are customers seeking value from their Cloud investments? Have the value priorities changed post crisis? And how do companies like …

What is the secret to selling? David Priemer says it's simple. Just sell the way you buy.

David is an expert in the neuroscience of selling, and he leverages his background as a research scientist along with his …

Focusing on existing customers is key to success for many organizations through the crisis. How do you optimize your growth sales and customer success teams to better engage with existing customers now that all meetings …

If you have a start-up or early stage company you know how hard it can be to get to "Yes" in normal times. Throw in a health crisis, economic shutdown and a bunch more uncertainty through recovery and "good luck".

Well, …

When the next billion dollar SaaS company for investment firm Emergence Capital needs to redo their strategy and playbook, Doug Landis is the growth …

Unless your deal is tied to support both strategic objectives and tactical priorities, unless it is tied to tangible value and business outcomes, it won't get considered much less approved. This according to sales and …

In this interview with marketing and channel expert, Lorin Coles, we tap into his experiences developing major go-to-market strategies and campaigns …

If you are in Consumer Product Goods, your world has been turned upside down with stores and establishment closures, and permanently changing consumer preferences and behaviors.

As the leader for sales enablement and …

Uncertainty can create opportunities. Those that are able to use this time to self-examine and reinvent their offering, positioning, marketing and …

Although most sellers try to present your organization and solutions as perfect, with a "we can solve all your challenges" approach,  research …

Paul Liberatore is the Director of Sales Enablement for Tricentis, and a practitioner and consultant in the space for 30+ years. He knows a thing or …

How do you make the best choice when you are looking at over 600 different sales technology providers?  This is where Dan Cilley and Vendor Neutral …

As a tech entrepreneur, field sales expert and sales leader with Google, Autonomy and IBM, Steve Benson has run some amazing sales teams, and weathered a storm or two.

In this interview we discuss the keys for field …

Getting through and flourishing through uncertain times may all come down to one thing, having a winning mindset.

In this interview of author and sales performance coach Michael Sadeghpour, we discuss the key elements …

Why is it so important to move from sales enablement practitioner to strategic leader? In this interview with Dr. Brian Lambert, author, co-founder of the Sales Enablement Society, and Inside Sales Enablement podcaster, …

Customer Intelligence, Machine Learning and AI are all important considerations for sales enablement practices.

In this interview with Pete …

What does it take to migrate your sellers from using a spreadsheet to leveraging an interactive value assessment tool?

In this interview we talk with …

What is the state of Sales Enablement today?  Is it thriving as a healthy practice, or faltering post hype-cycle?

Ever the protagonist, this …

Digital selling is now a requirement, and you have to grab and keep a buyers attention, made more difficult that many in person meetings are now …

As buyers become more budget constrained, risk averse and economic focused, the ability for sellers to communicate and quantify your differentiating value is important to getting your proposal considered, and vital to …

Tanya Carpenter is the Chief Revenue Officer at Leapgen, a Workforce Management Consulting Firm focused on Digital Transformation.

In this interview …

The Death of the B2B Sales Rep, key research conducted five years ago under Peter O’Neill's tenure as Vice President & Research Director for Forrester.

In this session we interview Peter to learn more about these …

Chris Holgate is the Founder & Managing Director of Success in MPS a provider of Worldwide Managed Print Consulting and Sales Training, and a …

Gregg recently joined Citrix as the Global Head of Value Engineering, chartered to build a worldwide team to help prospects and customers assess the …

Sales Enablement has quite a history. And what better person to interview on this topic than Craig Nelson. Currently, Craig is  the VP of Global Training and Enablement for SAP, but his roots in Sales Enablement go way …

Many of you have read her articles or watched her videos about sales technology. Nancy Nardin is the founder of the valuable sales tech resource site …

She's a sales coach, keynote speaker, social personality and author. In this interview we speak with Tanya Kunze, CEO of SWIFT Coaching on how to optimize sales performance through self awareness, neuroscience, seller …

When you have over 40 years of  high-tech sales performance, CRM application consulting, alliances and business development experiences, you know …

The best sales leaders have a performance mindset: A different way of thinking. A way to make it happen no matter what. A way to more quickly transform, scale and grow.

Jason (Jay) Lovelace has such a mindset, and he …

Not too long ago, Total Cost of Ownership was pronounced as a dead method to analyze, compare and select amongst different solution options. So to …

Bryan Naas is the Director of Sales Enablement for learning management system company Lessonly, and a veteran of Salesforce, where he served as Director of Product Enablement and Readiness for the Marketing Cloud. In …

The integration of CRM and sales enablement is essential to improved sales success, according to this interview with integration partner expert Tony Kavadas, but all integrations are not created equal. There are several …

As a VP of Marketing for the leading provider of natural flavors worldwide, one of Eric's first tasks was selecting and rolling out a new sales …

Although most organizations achieve their sales revenue targets, why does individual sales performance continue to struggle, with almost half of sellers still not meeting quota goals and less than half of deals …

You started selling when you were a teen. You cut your teeth at Ingram Micro, Egghead and Aldus. You led a team responsible for $350M in revenue at Microsoft. You write the first book on Social Selling,  create and run …

Upwards of 70% of global revenue comes from third-party channels, making channels incredibly important, However, most organizations haven't reshaped their channel programs to meet changing buyer trends and the need for …

When it comes to optimizing sales performance, the often overlooked front-line sales manager is key to achieving goals, this according to David Brock, author of the: "Sales Manager Survival Guide,"  a veteran sales …

Clive Miller is the founder of sales consultancy SalesSense and a veteran sales leader for Blackboard, SGI and SUN. In this interview we discuss the …

In this interview we talk to successful financial services sales leader turned entrepreneur Stan Carpenter about his experience going from tennis …

As the former director of WW channels for Microsoft, a leading indirect sales expert at KPMG, and a co-founder of a channel recruiting and optimization startup, there aren't many who know more about what it takes to …

This important interview with Forrester analyst Mary Shea discusses the latest Sales Enablement research, revealing the latest findings on the Death …

Starting a new Business Value program from scratch isn't easy, but when you are able to pull one together, the business impacts can be substantial. …

Latane Conant is a CMO extraordinaire for 6Sense, a leading Account Based Marketing platform provider. In this interview, we discuss Latane's new …

In this interview with Liz McChrystal, VP of customer experience with Accent Technologies, we discuss how the first wave of Sales Enablement, a world …

What do ultrarunning and value consulting have in common? In this episode, we interview Zach Rickenbach, a value consultant for identify and access …

As more solution providers move to a subscription model, securing that next renewal and figuring out how to up and cross sell to each customer …

Kate Migon is a successful leader, honing her sales craft since her first sales job in high school. But every once in a while, you face that …

When a B2B company's sales and marketing are misaligned, it can cost 10% of revenue or more per year. What is misalignment, how do you know you have the symptoms and how do you avoid this huge cost?

In this podcast, I …

This episode features Carson Conant, the CEO of sales enablement firm Mediafly, and a lively discussion where we pull the covers back on four Sales …

You have to get over a thousand sellers and partners to evolve from pitching products to selling with value, all with a three person team. This was …

When you're a sales leader for some of the best, like Oracle, Ariba, and GE, you learn a thing or two about engaging prospects and enabling sales teams. In this session with Matt Suggs, EVP of sales for sales enablement …

When it comes to successful sales leaders in financial services, it's hard to beat Neil Menard's track record. In this episode, we get to learn from …

In this inaugural episode we feature Dan Sixsmith, sales leader, consultant and host of the Sales is King podcast. Dan and I discuss one of the big …

The Evolved Selling institute is an independent community of analysts, thought leaders and practitioners, assembled to collaborate on the people, …