Ivan Rojas,
Enablement Program Manager, WorkRamp
How do you define enablement?
Personally, I define enablement as the function/ methodology to maximize selling and product knowledge with the goal to increase revenue opportunities for your organization. At the organizational level, I think this definition is a 50/50 split. What your stakeholders need of you and what you can bring to the table from there you can define the process together to achieve the needed goals.
Describe your current role.
I’m the new Enablement Program Manager for the GTM at WorkRamp, so I'll be helping refine, scale, and facilitate the revenue onboarding program. My current goal is to be a sponge, soak up the process and slowly iterate and make note of any possible improvements. From there I'll create a revision to the current program from not only my perspective but also my stakeholders and find out what pain points are coming up post-ramp-up and how we can combat any bad habits or practices before they get to the sales floor.
Briefly walk through your journey to get where you are today.
I started my career at CDW as a corporate account manager, loved it. Smiling and dialing, I learned so much through that chapter in my career but what I discovered was a passion to coach and help others. Thanks to leaders over my career who helped push me to not only raise my hand more often but also step up and create conversations that can influence others. I had an opportunity to get certified as a sales enablement practitioner through Sales Assembly, a sales community/ network. I learned foundational skills of what it would take to be a successful enabler. At that point, I was still actively selling, and I decided I was done. I no longer wanted to be an individual contributor and bought into my passion for helping others. I took a chance, I decided to not settle and to believe in my skill set and what I had to offer. Then luckily, I was given exactly what I needed, a chance to prove it. I joined Divvy Pay, LLC. as a customer support enablement specialist. We grew from the ground up, a scalable and intensive onboarding program. Taking tribal knowledge and building that into content that we modularized in an LMS and delivered at a pace that helped the team grow from 20 to 70 team members in under a year. We focused on product knowledge at the core of the program but built spokes for empathy, customer service, and quality assurance to deliver outstanding customer experiences. It was a stellar learning experience and now… still ready to learn but also ready to rock and roll with that same passion to help Workramp build out shareable, best-in-class enablement practices!
What’s your proudest accomplishment?
Getting nominated as the Data Intelligence chair in our shared network the Enablement Squad. Although new and my work just getting started it was a goal of mine to earn recognition outside of my day-to-day work and here we are! It’s a wonderful community and how I learned about my first enablement role so coming full circle is a great achievement for me.
What’s your advice to someone getting started in enablement?
One size does not fit all, your approach may be different, and that's the beauty of enablement, it's not a glass slipper. It’s constantly changing and growing so be patient, and stay open-minded about what may work for your program or stakeholders.
What are you doing to develop yourself?
I try to comb through relevant enablement thought-leadership, listen to the success of others and analyze what could work to my benefit. It could be the approach, an exercise, the framework, or the right perspective. Anyway, I can open myself up to that through podcasts, webinars, and shared blogs. I’m a big believer in the thought: if I don’t have the right answer, someone else might so I need to go out there and find it.
Connect with Ivan on LinkedIn!