In this episode, Georgina Beard will uncover just how hard it is to balance the executive suite's desire for rapid change and immediate activity, the requirement to ensure salespeople benefit from change and how to remove friction and keep the numbers flowing. Change can be unnerving at the best of times, and when you are limited in resources, challenged on time and faced with concerned salespeople, navigating everyone's needs is a tough ask, but it can be done.

This week's Guest was -

• Georgina Beard, Head of Sales Enablement at SEON Fraud Fighters

This week's Host was -

• Andy Hough, Founder & Director of The Institute of Sales Professionals

Transcript of SalesTV.live Early Edition 2024-10-22

Andy Hough [00:00:01]:

Good morning, and welcome to, Sales TV, the early edition today in Europe. Welcome wherever you are. I am delighted to be joined again by Georgina Beard. Now Georgina and I have been on stage a couple of times in London, and and I thoroughly enjoy Georgina's personality, her way the way she delivers these things, and answers to things. So, you know, I'm really, really excited to be joined by Georgina. Thank you for coming. Subject today is navigating change while keeping the lights on, and and people are probably thinking you're gonna deliver a pitch about energy pricing and what you need to do about pricing caps. I know you.

Andy Hough [00:00:43]:

Just introduce yourself and what you've been doing for the last few day for the last few weeks months.

Georgina Beard [00:00:49]:

Delighted to be here. I feel like I've, got a lot to live up to with that introduction. So thank you, I think. Yeah. I'm, Georgina. I look after all things sales enablement for a business called SEON in the fraud prevention space, helping protect online businesses from fraud. I support our go to market team. So that is across our sales, our customer, success and success services all the way through to solution engineering, our BDRs, and then working really closely with marketing as well.

Georgina Beard [00:01:20]:

Had a lot of change going on, over the past couple of years, hence the topic for this conversation today, and continuing to go, through more change, I think, both from a the world perspective, and a business individual perspective as well. So, lots of good stuff and excited for our chat today.

Andy Hough [00:01:40]:

Brilliant. So let's dive straight in. You mentioned change there twice. It's unfortunately forever constant. Who knows what the hell are you gonna wake up to in the morning? So with that in mind, what's that look like for you for the last 12 or so months?

Georgina Beard [00:01:58]:

Chaos, I think, is the best way to describe it. I think a lot of a lot of people who are in the kind of tech or SaaS world will will, agree with that and be able to, feel similarly about their own situations. But I think whenever we think about change, it strikes me that there are 2 different, ways to look at it. 1 is those internal factors, and 1 is the external. Mhmm. For us, from an internal perspective, about a year and a half ago, we went through what we've nicknamed our revenue transformation. That is, changing everything. We reevaluated our sales process.

Georgina Beard [00:02:34]:

We reevaluated, who we had in seats, how we trained them, how we made them successful, how we priced our ICP, our, messaging out those ICPs, everything we could, to do with the sales process. And so that was kind of our big internal change. It was very much a let's do everything all at once. Let's make us as successful as we humanly can be, all while all whilst living in a world of constant change externally. We hear constantly how, there have never been more, excuse me, more more people in the buying process, the role of the CFO in the buying process now, and we have previously never known who this magical person is who controls the purse strings, how, so much of the buying journey is now done before someone ever talks to a seller. There are so many things happening kind of externally whilst we also think about, okay. Well, we need a new sales process. We need a new pricing structure.

Georgina Beard [00:03:35]:

We need new messaging. And so that's kind of what changes look like. And I I feel like I'm justified in calling it chaos if I'm totally honest.

Andy Hough [00:03:46]:

Okay. So you mentioned transformation, and, you know, I've I've chatted about that lovely word for a few sessions over the years, which is, you know, everybody wants to transform. Everyone wants to be seen to be doing something different. Obviously, there's a there's a debate of, is it transformational revolution on top of what you already existing doing? When you've got such transformation that you're talking about in a business, what do you see the role of the sales enablement as being in that change process?

Georgina Beard [00:04:20]:

I think enablement is uniquely positioned to sit in the middle. I I kind of have referred to it before, and I think probably will until my dying day as the kind of center of a of a wheel with lots of different spokes coming off us. And I think that puts us in a unique position to have that visibility over lots of different teams, over lots of different priorities, and to be able to see more holistically what is actually going on in a business. I think often when there is the pressure of internal change, teams have the potential or likelihood to sort of shrink back into themselves and go, okay. Like, we have to focus very specifically on the thing that we have to do now because change is stressful, and therefore we need to make it as less stressful as possible. So we're all just gonna come together and do that. And what that means is that you end up with friction between different teams because everyone's just focused on getting their own outcome. Yeah.

Georgina Beard [00:05:16]:

And I think enablement has that view. I could go, okay. Well, actually, you and your 2 teams are doing the same things. You're just not really communicating it to each other. So maybe it would be a good idea for us to kinda sync those, and then you can work together to achieve your goals. So I think enablement has that role, but I also think enablement has the role as the trusted adviser to sales reps. Because we have that kind of overarching knowledge, it means that we we have the responsibility almost to make sure the people are okay and to support the people through and make sure that every time change is happening, we're communicating it out to them in a ignore what's happening around you. Like, why do you, like, why should you care? Why is this important to you? What impact does this have on you? And, ultimately, what impact does this have on you and your ability to make commission? I think it's 2 fold.

Andy Hough [00:06:13]:

Yeah. I was just picking up, on on the fact that you you really are driving home the fact that you're there to care for people. You're there to be that person to trust because change can be difficult. I think we mentioned last time in in a good old days when I used to say, okay, we're gonna go over here to, like, a 1000 people. You'd 500 would all go, yeah, okay. And the other 500 would be going, yeah, okay. But I have no idea what you're talking about and certainly no idea of going in that general direction.

Georgina Beard [00:06:40]:

Yeah.

Andy Hough [00:06:40]:

Because they didn't trust, and it was a scary thing to do. And we know that that change or transformation is obviously driven by senior leadership. They're the people that get up at some point and go, we need something different to happen. And it's often, as we've discussed before, all at once and right now, please, Georgina, if you could possibly do that whilst you're doing the other stuff. How have you managed your way through that somewhat impossible request of everything today, please?

Georgina Beard [00:07:12]:

Caffeine. I think that's always my answer to questions like this. It's just I I'll be honest with you, like, caffeine. I think I think with, senior leadership, depending on who the request has come from, it's normally someone who's slightly further removed from the day to day sales process than than you are kind of on the ground. And so you've got someone who is normally facing pressure from somewhere else, and then making a decision that maybe doesn't make a huge amount of sense or feels very, to your point, like, everything all at once right now. And I think there are a couple of things that I always think about, and the first is to remember that you are actually not a superhero. You might like to think you are, but you actually physically cannot get everything done all at once right now. It just doesn't make sense.

Georgina Beard [00:08:03]:

The second is that testing and iteration is gonna be the thing that makes you most successful, and it's communicating that to senior leadership. There is absolutely no point in us doing all of these things all at once and them all sucking. We might as well do one, test it, see what we need to learn, and then roll it out to everything else and make everything else successful. I think the other thing is identifying the priorities, making commitments of what you can do, and making apologies to an extent, but kind of reasons as to why you can't do the others. There are always going to be people, and I'm really lucky that we don't have any, but there are always gonna be people in business who will certainly go, yeah. I hear all of that, but I don't care. And those are the really tricky ones. And for those, it's what is the thing that's gonna have the most impact right now to make them happy and to keep them quiet for a bit while I can focus on the other things? I think for everyone else, it's a case of how many projects actually are there, what can be combined, what's gonna be the thing that allows me to jump off to multiple different points, what is the thing that makes the most impact? Because, ultimately, even if you don't deliver exactly what they want, no one is gonna turn around and be irritated if you say, I've moved a key metric.

Georgina Beard [00:09:24]:

We've got more revenue. We've got happier people, and our processes run smoother. No one's gonna be mad about that. So I think it's about identifying those things and then communicating the can dos and the can't dos.

Andy Hough [00:09:39]:

I think it's interesting as a a slight aside. I mean, obviously, as a leader, you're gonna be, yep. Brilliant, Georgina. You've moved my revenue metric forward. All happy. Just as a general viewpoint, do you think leadership really are that worried about having happier people, though?

Georgina Beard [00:09:59]:

I think it I think it depends on who you're talking to, what their role is in the business.

Andy Hough [00:10:04]:

Okay.

Georgina Beard [00:10:05]:

I think it depends on things like, do you have an internal NPS? Are you about to go for funding, or do you have a board that cares about people's happiness? I think it's, have you historically had some maybe questionable glass door reviews? Have you struggled with hiring? I think if I'm honest and maybe I have a cynical view, I think a lot of the time it's reactionary.

Andy Hough [00:10:31]:

Mhmm.

Georgina Beard [00:10:32]:

Like, oh, I I care right now because the last 12 Glassdoor reviews have been terrible, or I have to report on the NPS. I think generally, people in innate human nature care about the happiness of others. I think sometimes it just gets a little bit forgotten in the kind of end goal, especially when results are down or pressure is high.

Andy Hough [00:10:57]:

The reason I ask, and it was obviously not one of the questions we had slated, but there's a great author called Sean Aker who's at Harvard, and he wrote a book called The Happiness Advantage. And he actually we looked at it from a sales perspective to try and see if we could see, is there anything that says happier salespeople sell more? And, a friend of ours at, is now in Rotterdam, but he was at Aston and, at Delong. He actually did a study with BT, and they found that actually happier salespeople were 13% more productive in terms of revenue achievement and goal. So I think to your point, yeah, it wasn't a a trick. The metrics get lost, don't you? It's very few times you can actually connect happiness to a an outcome in sales, but possibly if we could could do that, and there was, some great work that, doctor Ram Raghaven did with, somebody else who's been on this, Jeremy Moore, was to talk about asking the connection between happier employees and customer engagement. And they found a direct correlation between happier employees and happier customers and henceforth, then revenue moved to surprise surprise. So I think it's there, and I think, you know, potentially is a future for companies to go, no. We do we do want to to look at that as a key thing because it will drive greater attention, drive better recruitment, and that's as much of a role for, for enablement going forward as it is to talk about the, you know, product price and and and the processes.

Georgina Beard [00:12:35]:

For sure.

Andy Hough [00:12:36]:

But back to the original questions. What resources have you been able to leverage in order to help you execute successfully on embedding the changes that you needed to do?

Georgina Beard [00:12:49]:

I think the first thing is, I think enablement sometimes in business, if you're a team of 1, can be a little bit lonely because you are both the best and worst person at your job. And if you have never done it before, never gone through the type of change that you're going through, it can be tough because you're kinda going, okay. I don't I don't have a ton of extra resources to lean on. And so the first thing is talk to people I have. Right. Enablement supports change across pretty much every business. Connect with other people who are doing the same thing as you. I've found, some of the events I've been to recently have been incredibly helpful.

Georgina Beard [00:13:28]:

Made some really good connections with people who I can ping on LinkedIn and go, help me. These things happen. I don't really know what I'm doing, and had phenomenal support. So I think the first thing is find some other people who have done it before, leverage their expertise, and they don't have to be from within the same business either because changes, changes, change, and, ultimately, we're talking about getting people to adopt something new. And it doesn't matter whether you're doing that in tech or pharmaceuticals or education. It it's the same, human action. So I think that's the first thing. I think the second is if change is happening in a business, it's happening to the business, and therefore everyone in the business is a part of it.

Georgina Beard [00:14:08]:

Yep. Just because someone is not on your enablement team, they're not on your op team, they're not on your sales team, it doesn't mean that you can't go, hey. You have expertise that I need. Come be my friend. Come help me in this. But also having people who just will have your back when you need to scream and to avoid, I think are incredible people to find. And so I think those are the main things. The resources are people.

Georgina Beard [00:14:32]:

It it's time. It's, experience. It's advice. Those, I think, have been the biggest things. And then in terms of actually getting the team to adopt or want to adopt, I always say internally and I will say until the end of time, everything has to come back to money. Everything has to come back to money, for a sales rep. Excuse me. Nobody goes into sales because they want to make cold calls or because they want to be best friends with prospects.

Georgina Beard [00:15:02]:

People go in ultimately because there's a commission check at the end of the month or the quarter. And I think the biggest thing that I found about embedding change is tie it to how they make more commission because that is the thing that will drive them through. Not top place on a leaderboard, not a gold star for passing something, not a pat on the back from leadership unless they're that way inclined, and that's their form of motivation. The biggest thing is how do I get more money at the end of the day?

Andy Hough [00:15:29]:

That's a good point. And, you know, sometimes it's a bit bit lost in the trees, isn't it? That thing that people do go into sales because they want to have upward mobility. They want to have a good income that enables them to do other things if we're brutally honest. I mean, there are some people that are insane about sales, but they're few and far between. So the next question then, Georgina, is, so business as usual doesn't stop, clearly. Unfortunately, you don't get a month off from that to do transformation or change. Deals still need to be closed. Reps still need onboarding.

Andy Hough [00:16:04]:

Call still need coaching, etcetera, etcetera. How do you balance the business as usual or the lights on as we're talking about it in the title title with the kind of change in strategic things that need to get done, which are not obviously business as usual?

Georgina Beard [00:16:19]:

I think often business as usual is sort of referred to, in the enablement space as kind of random acts of enablement as well. I think a lot of that features in, and, unfortunately, that's something you can't really control. There is still gonna be that 6 AM Slack from a senior leader going, hi. I've woken up and thought about this really important thing that has to happen today. Or a rep comes off a really bad call and goes, I need help. Help me, please. So I think those kind of things, you just have to plan that into your if you have a 100% of time, 10% of that has to be for the random stuff, the random unpredictable things that nobody could tell you when they're happening or what's going on. And so I think that always has to be a space.

Georgina Beard [00:17:01]:

I think apart from that, it's about what drives value, what drives value to the people who care about it, and what is gonna have the most smiling faces across the board. What's gonna make senior leadership happy? What's gonna make reps happy? What's gonna make reps successful? I think, ultimately, if your BAU doesn't match with the transformational change you're doing, you've gotta disconnect somewhere. Because if your transformational change is to, embed a new piece of tech, for example, and your BAU doesn't match up with the usage of that tech, why is the tech coming in? What what what use is that doing on a day to day basis? If you are embedding new coaching scorecards, the BA you're doing and the coaching that you're doing should match. So they should be 1 and the same. That doesn't get away from the fact that coaching an individual rep is not the same as rolling out scorecards to the entire business. But ultimately, to me, those two things should be heading in the same direction, and therefore, it just comes down to planning, time allocation, resource allocation to make sure you've got a balance of the 2 with a little pot set aside for the random Slack messages.

Andy Hough [00:18:21]:

That's really early. I I love the way that you picked up on there that, actually, why are you bringing in new tech if it doesn't support business as usual or enhance it? And and, actually, let's be brutally honest about it. So many companies bring it in because someone's gone, it'll help you get more pipeline.

Georgina Beard [00:18:35]:

Mhmm.

Andy Hough [00:18:36]:

It will help you get close deals quicker. And it's what I find fascinating about it now, Georgina, is that people like you have become the hunted by lots of people who've got sales stuff and tech to sell. Because if you buy it, you're gonna get that secret. You're gonna get that, you know, silver bullet, and you're gonna be vastly more con you know, more competitive and successful than the competitors that you've got.

Georgina Beard [00:18:58]:

Yep.

Andy Hough [00:18:59]:

And I I I look at it and go, when did when did that happen? And and, actually, it's not it's not actually created that thing because everyone can buy it. So if everyone can buy it, it's it's a bit like the the incredible, the superheroes, isn't it? If everyone's a superhero, then no one's a superhero.

Georgina Beard [00:19:15]:

Exactly. Exactly. And I think so often you'll you'll promise these incredible results. Like, I can guarantee you a 100% sales process adoption. We can increase the effectiveness of your content by x%. We can decrease ramp time or increase ramp time, decrease time to first deal, things like this. But not a single one of them then then says, yeah. But you're the person that has to get people to want to use it.

Georgina Beard [00:19:38]:

Yep. Because great. Promise me all of these incredible things. I'm kinda doing that already. You just tell me how it's gonna be easier for me to get someone to adopt it.

Andy Hough [00:19:47]:

And it it it's right back to that point of ask for help when you were talking about earlier. I can remember I was asked to go and, roll out a CRM system when I was at, a large tech company. I was really lucky that a friend that I knew basically was in a very similar position in another non competitive tech company, and he went, let's have lunch. And he went, your your senior leadership are gonna think this is a light switch exercise, and it isn't. It's it's a it's an evolution, and we still have 4 years after we rolled out the same tech. Teams that are not using it. So, you know, it's that really interesting point, isn't it? That, you know, what's in it as you just mentioned about if there's money in it for me, I'll probably adopt it. But if there's not, then it's just another way of making you feel really, really happy with yourselves as a company.

Georgina Beard [00:20:37]:

Exactly. Are you giving you might be making my senior leadership happy, but if you're giving me more work, I'm unlikely to be the 1st person to put my hand up and say I want it.

Andy Hough [00:20:46]:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm call me cynical cynical Andy, but I've never worked in a company where people have come in and said, you know what? I need, Microsoft's dead. I need a CRM system. They've they've always they've always managed to work quite happily with the tool that they've got.

Andy Hough [00:21:03]:

That said, that's a bit unfair because I do know other leaders who've gone. Would it be great to have one holistic view of a company and a customer across customer services, marketing, etcetera? So getting towards the last two questions, for people like you who are in enablement, what what is the key learning or takeaway that you would say to them going through the transformational business change that you have and they're probably going through it as well? What's that one piece of advice you'd give them?

Georgina Beard [00:21:36]:

You will come out with it okay because everything does work out even though it doesn't feel like it will in the moment. And that may sound a bit kinda wishy washy and a bit, not particularly kind of practical advice, but I think the biggest thing when you're in the trenches surrounded by constant change and pressure from here, there, and everywhere, it can feel a little bit like when does this ever end.

Andy Hough [00:22:03]:

Mhmm.

Georgina Beard [00:22:04]:

And the short answer is it kinda doesn't because change is ever constant, but it does get easier. And I think when you roll out change, there are always gonna be people who don't want to adopt it, and that is okay, because they will eventually if you've done it right. Because you've put the metrics in place, you've put the testing in place, you can turn around in 6 months' time and go, hey. You know that thing you didn't want, well, these people that did want it are now doing 50% better than you. Do you wanna should we have that conversation? Maybe you want to adopt it now. And that just feels easier. So even when it feels like all you're doing is struggling to stay afloat, necking Red Bull after Red Bull just to get through blood pressure, it does get easier. And I think I might actually change that slightly and say it gets easier.

Georgina Beard [00:22:58]:

You don't have to do it alone. Mhmm. But also as yet, you just don't have to do it alone. Don't think that if you're drowning and everything that's going on, you can't ask for help, and it doesn't have to be pushing back to senior leadership. It can be pulling in your friend who works in product to go, I need a coffee, and to scream at you for 5 minutes about how stressful this is and then come back. Or to talk to someone who's a developer and go, hey. Look. Can you just give me some insight into this thing? Kind of things get easier when you have a team, and sometimes you just have to create that team for yourself.

Andy Hough [00:23:34]:

So, one of the things that we look for on sales TV across the episodes and things we do is to give that one takeaway to a salesperson. We believe that there is no silver bullet that actually salespeople need to keep developing and learning. And by tuning in, they're gonna learn from professionals like you one thing, and they'll keep taking the one thing away and making it work for them or putting something down, picking up another thing. And and I have, I think what is, a thing that you've alluded to, which is really interesting. So I'm gonna ask you kind of a question to tease that out, which is, of the sales reps that ask you for help, are they the ones that tend to do better than the ones that don't?

Georgina Beard [00:24:25]:

Yeah. They are. I think the biggest thing that I say to reps is that you are the one in charge of your own destiny. If something doesn't work and you're not giving feedback, no one can help you. If the MQL to SQL process is broken and you just sit there and complain about it but complain to another sales rep and don't complain to marketing, what do you want anybody to do about that? No one can help you. If you have a bad call and you're sat there beating yourself up about it and you don't ask people who know what they're talking about to give you some advice, no one can help you. You have to take control of your own destiny. Ask for support.

Georgina Beard [00:25:09]:

Ask for help. And asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It's a sign of wanting to improve because, ultimately, nobody is gonna sign that commission check for you. You're the only one that can get there. And so, yeah, I would say take control of your own destiny and keep feedback open because that's the only way things get better.

Andy Hough [00:25:30]:

And and I think that is the conclusion from from us. I mean, if I go back to my very first graduate job for a well known bank with a black horse, I can remember getting up one morning, and I've had a a huge drink the night before and being in a classroom. And and I I looked down at the carpet and the pattern kind of leaped up at me, and I hallucinated, and I missed the question completely. And I thought, okay. I can blag through. And I turned around and went, I don't know. And the trainer turned around and went, thanks for being honest. It gives us a great starting point.

Andy Hough [00:26:05]:

So to kind of reinforce, I don't know, I need help is is not a sign of weakness. Actually, it's a sign of strength. And as you've said, the key takeaway is if you ask for help, you're probably gonna be one of the people that is the most as opposed to suffering in silence.

Georgina Beard [00:26:19]:

Absolutely.

Andy Hough [00:26:20]:

Georgina, any closing thoughts from you?

Georgina Beard [00:26:24]:

Go buy Red Bull.

Andy Hough [00:26:26]:

Buy Red Bull. Yeah.

Georgina Beard [00:26:27]:

Yeah. And if anybody if Red Bull wants to sponsor me, I'm very up for that.

Andy Hough [00:26:30]:

There we go. Yeah. If any other, other energy drink companies want to sponsor Georgina, we are open. There was a small agency fee clearly, but we are open for that because other brands are available. We are not you know, Georgina is an absolute expert, but we are not rating Red Bull or Monster or anybody else. They're all equally as good in our eyes.

Georgina Beard [00:26:50]:

They are. They've all got caffeine in. They're all great.

Andy Hough [00:26:52]:

They're great. Georgina, it's been an absolute pleasure to to spend some more time with you again today. Thank you for all of your insights. Thank you for that key takeaway for reps. For everyone out there, don't don't lose that message. You know? Ask for help from that trusted adviser who are your sales enablement people who are keeping more away from you than you probably realize and are there to help you, and they they really do care. So thank you once again, and I look forward to seeing you all on the episodes tomorrow. Bye.

Andy Hough [00:27:22]:

Thanks, Georgina.

Georgina Beard [00:27:23]:

Thank you.

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