Reena Ambai (Gupta)
Senior Sales Enablement Manager, SalesLoft
How do you define enablement?
The way I define Enablement is multifaceted. Enablement is dedicated to driving key business outcomes for an organization through increasing the productivity of the Revenue function. Enablement also serves as a bridge among departments to help focus on the right initiatives to drive excellence. All of this culminates to ensuring that the team is equipped to best serve customers, and to accomplish this our team focuses on five primary dimensions:
Tools
Processes
Assets
Training
Messaging
This is how I would formally define it, but admittedly, my day to day is definitely not as buttoned up!
Describe your current role.
My role is largely focused on the change management and programs aspects of Enablement for the Revenue org. The Revenue function is impacted by the majority of changes that happen within the organization, so it’s important that the team we support is adequately versed on what the changes are, how they are impacted by the change, and most importantly, what it means for the customer. It’s my job to make sure that there is a holistic approach in place to get the right information to the right part of the Revenue org.
Briefly walk through your journey to get where you are today.
Like many others will tell you, I landed in Sales Enablement by accident :) Before SalesLoft, I worked at both Apple and Capgemini, and with both experiences the part I enjoyed most was being at the intersection of technology and people. Because of this, I decided to start at SalesLoft in Professional Services. When I was training and working with clients, I was able to hone in on my interest further, which was convincing clients to change their behavior to drive better outcomes. This specific realization is what helped me understand that an internal role supporting my teammates would make me most happy. Enablement allows me to achieve all this and more on a daily basis.
What’s your proudest accomplishment?
My proudest accomplishment was being the first Sales Enablement hire at SalesLoft. It was uncharted territory, and I can now candidly admit that I was unsure of what I was doing at the time. One thing I was sure of though was that I knew I had to “keep at it” in order to make a difference. Many times things did not go as planned, so I got used to pivoting rather quickly. The benefit of this situation was that I had flexibility to try new things that others in the industry hadn’t necessarily tried before. Seeing and being part of the transformation these past 2.5 years in Enablement has been incredible - we’ve gone from being a 1 person department that serves 70 reps, to 4 people serving 200+ reps!
What’s your advice to someone getting started in enablement?
My advice would be to think of ramping your role from three different vantage points:
Stay close to the roles that you serve. What I mean by this is to develop mechanisms to consistently learn about the roles you are supporting. Whether that’s interviewing the reps for touch points once a quarter, listening to calls, or even creating cross team committees, it’s critical that you stay connected.
Build relationships cross departmentally. Enablement is at the crossroads of several departments, and if external departments want to work with customer facing reps they will typically approach Enablement first. It’s your job to see things from the lens of what’s best for the business, so you must have strong relationships across the organization and understand each department’s goals.
Rigorous prioritization & communication. In Enablement, you help shape the direction of your organization. Make sure you constantly assess what’s important to the customer, reps, and business to make sure you are focusing on the right things, because if you aren’t, it’s a strong possibility the rest of the organization is missing the mark as well. Once you decide what’s important, communicate it 7 times in 7 different ways so there’s alignment.
What are you doing to develop yourself?
Reading blogs like Enablement Enthusiast! I also listen to general sales/CX podcasts like “Make it Happen Mondays,” ”Sales Pipeline Radio,” etc. Finally, I do my best to collaborate with other Enablement professionals in my network on real world challenges that pop up in my role- this has been the most impactful exercise for me so far!
Follow Reena on LinkedIn!