Sales Enablement from "Both Sides" with Emily Hartzell

Episode 21: We all know that providing salespeople with the right resources to use at the right times can transform an average sales organization into a stellar one. However, there are too many sales teams that are grinding away without a solid sales enablement strategy.  

In this episode, our guest has experienced sales enablement (and a lack thereof) from “both sides,” as a salesperson and as senior inbound marketing and sales consultant at LeadG2.  

Joining Dani, is Emily Hartzell.  Emily started her career working in radio sales as a LeadG2 client, which eventually led her to work at LeadG2. Emily’s background in B2B sales provides her with a unique perspective for her clients that encompasses both marketing and sales. As a salesperson, sales enablement and inbound marketing played a huge role in Emily's success, and it is Emily's goal to bring that experience to her clients to help them drive inbound sales results.  

Together, Dani and Emily break down “both sides” of Emily’s Sales Enablement experience in a few key areas: 

• Working for a business who was adopting a sales enablement strategy for the first time 
• The most beneficial aspects of sales enablement tools and resources for salespeople 
• Holding your salespeople accountable for using and maintaining sales enablement tools and resources 

CONNECT:

LeadG2: LeadG2: leadg2.thecenterforsalesstrategy.com/
 
Dani Buckley: 
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/daniobuckley/
About: leadg2.thecenterforsalesstrategy.com/dani-buckley
 
Shaye Smith:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/shayesmith/
About: leadg2.thecenterforsalesstrategy.com/shaye-smith

Emily Hartzell:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/emily-hartzell/
About: leadg2.thecenterforsalesstrategy.com/emily-hartzell

TIMESTAMPS:
(03:14) Emily's background in sales
(05:30) What was your experience like with sales enablement?
(06:06) Excited and overwhelmed by all of the tools and resources
(06:59) CINTAS didn't have sales enablement tools
(08:38) Ensure sellers are consistently using sales enablement resources
(11:15) Standardized Templates, Sales Playbooks and Automation
(12:13) Thought Leadership
(14:30) Hold salespeople accountable when using sales enablement tools and resources
(15:54) Wrap-up

Transcript

Dani Buckley: 0:09

Welcome to Sell Smarter. Sell Faster. A podcast dedicated to helping sales organizations grow. Each week, we discuss proven sales enablement strategies and real life examples with experts and thought leaders from across industries. I'm your host, Dani Buckley, Vice President and general Manager at LeadG2, a sales performance agency.

Shaye Smith: 0:35

In this episode, we are covering sales enablement from both sides. We all know that providing sales people with the right resources to use at the right times can transform an average sales organization into a stellar one. However, there are too many sales teams that are grinding away without a solid sales enablement strategy. Our guest today has experience sales enablement and a lack thereof from both sides as a salesperson and as a senior inbound marketing and sales consultant at LeadG2. Joining Dani is Emily Hartsel. Emily started her career working in radio sales as a LeadG2 client, which eventually led her to work at LeadG2. Emily's background in B2B sales provides her with a unique perspective for her clients that encompasses both marketing and and sales as a salesperson, sales enablement and inbound marketing played a huge role in Emily's success, and it is Emily's goal to bring that experience to her clients to help them drive inbound sales results outside of work. Emily lives in Dallas, Texas with her husband, toddler, and two adorable pups. Emily is also a Missou alum and enjoys cheering on the Tigers with her entire family of Missou grads, including her husband, parents, sister, brother-in-law, and cousins. M-I-Z! Together, Danny and Emily break down both sides of Emily's sales enablement experience in a few key areas, working for a business who was adopting a sales enablement strategy for the first time, the most beneficial aspects of sales enablement tools and resources for sales people, and holding your sales people accountable for using and maintaining sales enablement tools and resources. With that, let's dive into the conversation. Dani, over to you.

Dani Buckley: 2:22

Thank you so much, Shaye. I am so excited about our guests today. Um, not only a colleague, but also a friend. Emily, welcome. So glad you're here with us. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, good. Um, and I, you know, it's fun when we get to have someone on our team on the podcast. We don't do that often, but, um, I know that you've got some unique experiences and insights to kind of share like both sides of the, you know, the spectrum that you've been on. And so let's jump in if you're ready. Uh, got some good questions for you. Let's do it. Cool. So just to kind of give the greater context, I know, um, everyone knows what we mentioned. You're a senior inbound marketing and sales consultant at LeadG2. Um, but before you were here on this consulting side of things, you were in sales. So tell us just a little bit about your background. Where were you, what did you do? Kind of what, what, where did you come from?

Emily Hartzell: 3:09

Yeah, so, um, I went to the University of Missouri, and then while I was a senior in college, I started working at the local radio station, Zimmer marketing in Columbia. And after I graduated, I loved my role there. I loved the company, so I stayed and I continued full-time radio, I loved radio, just the culture of radio and the company. It was amazing, and I loved my time there. And then I ended up continuing my sales career at CINTAS. So I moved over, um, in Columbia to Cintas and worked there. And then even my husband got a job in Salt Lake City, Utah. So we moved across the country and I was able to transfer right over with CTAs. So I, I had an experience working at CTAs in both small town Missouri and in the big city of Salt Lake City, which was pretty cool. Um, Awesome. Yeah.

Dani Buckley: 3:57

Yeah. And I know it's kind of neat because you got to see two really different types of sales environments, you know, like the local media sales, which is also where I come from, my background. Um, and so you have that experience, which is, uh, very, uh, I don't know, I guess you would say consultative relationship based, like, um, you know, things like that and, and solutions oriented and instant tos is as well, I imagine, but also like, Oh, really? CTAs my understanding is, you know, just like, really like this is sales. Like yeah, you get out there and you sell it<laugh>.

Emily Hartzell: 4:26

Yeah, it was also unique because in radio you sell it and then you like continue the relationship with the client, um, throughout their time as, you know, a client of yours. But at CTAs it's very different in the sense that you sell it and then you move on. So it's a lot less like, relationship focused. Yeah. So that was two very different sales processes in itself.

Dani Buckley: 4:46

That makes sense. And I think the reason I'm glad to have you on today is because, um, also when you worked at Zimmer Communications that you, uh, Zimmer was a client of LeadG2. Yeah. Still work with Zimmer. We love Zimmer. Shout out to all of our Zimmer people in Columbia and, and other areas. Um, and so you've got, you had the experience of actually being a client of ours. Like we came in and, and you learned, uh, HubSpot CRM and sales enablement and sales playbook and all that stuff as a salesperson. So that's really cool that you then eventually ended up on our team and, and we're really lucky to have you. So, Yeah.

Emily Hartzell: 5:18

Yeah, really cool. I feel like it's, we'll talk about it later, but like, I do feel like it's really shaped me in this role.

Dani Buckley: 5:25

Great. So let's start with Zimmer. Let's talk about that experience. Um, you know, as a media advertising salesperson, what was your experience like with sales enablement? Tell us like kind of what were the resources, the tools, the strategies that you used that really helped you be effective in media sales?

Emily Hartzell: 5:39

Yeah, so I actually remember, um, very, very vividly the day we switched to HubSpot. I remember you and Alina, uh, coming into market and like rolling it all out to us, showing us the new sales playbook, um, showing us all the tools at our disposal. I actually remember HubSpot being very different then as a seller. Um, like it, at that point, it didn't even connect with like Mac computers, so I didn't have the ability to like, use the inbox integration, but I just remember feeling so excited about all of the tools and also feeling like slightly overwhelmed with like, what I'm gonna do with all of this stuff. But yeah, I, I do remember, um, like specifically strategies that I used. So I remember spending a lot of time on the Zimmer blog. So I would spend, you know, hours a day looking at all of our blog posts, especially as the blog got bigger and there was like, so much like historical blogging. Um, I found myself looking constantly for, um, blogs. I could send eBooks, I could send one sheet that explained what I was, you know, trying to explain to clients. I remember really spending a lot of time, um, looking through all of like the marketing tools that I could use as sales enablement. I don't even think I knew the word sales enablement then, but that was like, that was it. That was what I was doing. And then, um, I actually remember too, when I moved to CINTAS from Zimmer, I, like, I really craved that marketing material. Like when I moved to CINTAS, we did not have that kind of, you know, that resource at our disposal. So I often found myself like wanting to send a prospect something, but I didn't have what I wanted to send. And so it was interesting, like the frustrations that came after kind of knowing the grass was greener on the other side and like not knowing what to send to a prospect. So that was really the biggest strategy for me was like utilizing the playbook, utilizing the templates, and then also sending resources. That was, yeah, probably spent a good majority of time doing that.

Dani Buckley: 7:37

So it sounds like you really took, like to heart the, the value as a salesperson of like being educational, being consultative. Yes. And being like helpful and being a valued partner. Not just, you know, selling, but you're, you're educating, so that's

Emily Hartzell: 7:52

Great. Yeah, no, absolutely. That was like the biggest thing is, you know, you would run into objections and questions constantly and to have a blog that you could just quickly send off to them and be like, Yeah, check this out. Or, you know, if they're not responding to you for a while, be like, you know, Hey, I'm just following up with you. We actually just wrote this blog. Or, you know, having that resource was, Yeah, I mean, amazing for me.

Dani Buckley: 8:14

Yeah. I wish I had that when I was selling that. Um, so what was it like for you shifting from salesperson to now kind of helping sales organizations and salespeople with their own sales process, like sales enablement, lead generation? I'm just kind of curious, like, um, what, I guess, like what was it, what's it been like for you, but what have you, um, learned that you wanna pass on to our audience maybe about having both those experiences?

Emily Hartzell: 8:38

Yeah, so, um, I think having the knowledge of what it can do for you has made me extra passionate about making sure that sales people are actually using the materials that LeadG2 is putting out for them. Um, I, I think it's so easy for marketing and sales to just kind like go in their own directions. And I've been really, really focused on and feeling very passionate about sales people actually using the marketing materials and like doubling them as sales enablement tools for themselves. And I think the biggest thing for me with that is just finding easy ways for sales people to, to use this stack. So whether that's, and I know our, I mean, our entire team does a great job at this, but I mean, recently I, I created like a sales resource center for a client that like, schools can go find these things. Cause I know, just thinking back to my sales days, the amount of like hours and time that I put in to like, and I had to like, make myself do that, like that, like, you know, that's something that you have to really have kind of a, an awareness around. So I've been really, really passionate about making sure that yeah, the sellers on the sales teams that we work with are using this stuff, Um, and just constantly reminding them. Um, and then I think also I've, I've found that I've been able to put myself in their shoes and like, you know, it's, it's really easy to think about all this stuff from a marketing perspective. Like what would, you know, a potential buyer who's just scrolling through, you know, Google or social media or whatever it may be, like, what do they wanna see? Um, but it's been really interesting to put myself in the salesperson's shoes and think too of like, what do they want to send? Like what is it that in kind of getting that buy-in from them and thinking from them. Um, and then just like continuing to put myself in their shoes anytime I come up with a campaign or anything, just trying to think through, you know, what would be most beneficial to the sales team. Um,

Dani Buckley: 10:28

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Now I love that that kind of leads us into the next question is like, so you did have experience with this stuff before, but I'm sure you have so many more, so much more access to like best practices, tips, things that you use with your clients now. So if you were to pick like just one or two, um, big things that you wish you knew or had then, um, as a salesperson that you are, you know, often passing along to salespeople now, what, what are those like ones that really stand out to you?

Emily Hartzell: 10:54

Yeah. Uh, that's, you know, such a good question. Um, I think because I worked with LeadG2 at Zimmer, I had all of the resources that I could like possibly need at my disposal. So I'll speak to kind of a, as a CINTAS rep, or as a salesperson who does didn't work with LeadG2, um, I wish that I, I would've had more, um, like standardized templates, things that I was expected to send a playbook of, like exactly what should happen and at what time. Um, that was something that I didn't have and that I, I wish I would've, you know, being thrown into sales, you're like, Okay, I'm reaching out to all these people, but then what, what do I do now? So that ability to, you know, know what to send and when to send it. Yeah. Um, and what worked for people in the past. Um, but then even taking that a step further, the ability within HubSpot to automate all of it, Oh my gosh. As I've been teaching sales teams how to do, do this, I think all the time, how that is not something I actually had at er and something I wish I did have was the ability to just enroll people in a workflow. And it's like everything happens for you. They don't even have to, you know, lift a finger. It's really incredible how much has changed in just like the sales hub of HubSpot, but that definitely is a big one. Um, and then I think just someone to have, you know, made me be a, a better thought leader on LinkedIn. Yeah. Um, I, I think that, you know, it's really easy to, to send a bunch of emails and send a bunch of, you know, call people all the time and, and, you know, build relationships with the prospects. But, um, as a salesperson, I really wish I would've done a better job of building my social media credibility and just really, you know, adding all of my prospects and customers on LinkedIn and just, you know, really sharing my expertise and showing myself as a value to them. Um, that's something, if I could go back in time, I would definitely Yeah. Do<laugh>.

Dani Buckley: 12:54

That makes sense. And I mean, these things are, I mean, some of them are things that an organization can provide, right? Like the automation, the tools, um, the sales plays, the sales playbooks, the templates, right? Like that's the stuff that marketing or sales leaders are, or, you know, external sources are providing and hopefully organizations, you know, and the folks in charge or thinking of that stuff and are enabling their sales people. And then you also touched on the things that sales people can just do on their own, even if they don't have access to that stuff. Like being a thought leader using social media, right? Like using content in the sales process. So just for those listening, you know, yes, it's great if your organization and your management and leadership is all in on this stuff and they're providing all of this for you. And if they're not or they're not there yet, um, there's still a lot you can do. And I think you touched on it, like the, the thought leadership piece is a huge thing that, that any salesperson can really, um, own and take advantage of, but it does take work and you gotta be willing to do it. But it does work. It works. We see.

Emily Hartzell: 13:49

Oh, yeah. I mean, I even think just about how I make like, personal buying decisions. So much of what I do is yeah, looking up the people that, you know, making sure that they know what they're talking about and you know, that credibility. So yeah, looking back, that's definitely something I would've done. It's something I recommend a hundred percent of sales people start doing is building that personal brand.

Dani Buckley: 14:09

Great. Love it. Um, so to, to kind of wrap us up, I think we've covered a lot of good stuff. I just wanna be sure, is there anything that we didn't touch on that you wanna pass along? Like best practices or just big tips or things that, like closing thoughts that you think, um, either a salesperson or or leadership needs to know that you've kind of gained from your experience on both sides?

Emily Hartzell: 14:30

Yeah, I think the biggest thing is, you know, as a salesperson and now being in this role, I, I know that sales is so laser focused on selling, which is, you know, obviously their job, that it's hard to expect them to do anything outside of that without some like accountability. So, um, something I've noticed is just the organizations that thrive with content and with lead gen and with all of this are the organizations that have at a leadership level, like really holding everyone at the organization accountable. It's like using this stuff. Cause it doesn't work for you if it just sits there,<laugh>. I mean, you can make blogs and you know, all this stuff and eventually you'll see, you know, success from it. Uh, but so much of the, the resources, the marketing materials and tools that are out there, um, even just the website alone being like a media kit. Yeah. Um, all of that at a, at a leadership level and holding the sellers accountable. Um, I've found that to be really successful. And I know in my time at Zimmer, we were held very accountable to using all of this stuff. And I think that that really helped me, um, to use it to like, you know, actually spend days and devote time to using at my disposal. So that's really the only thing is like, yeah, you know, just talk from the top down, like making sure all of this is like really important and that everyone's all in is, is really important.

Dani Buckley: 15:54

Yeah. So leaders, managers that are listening, you know, if you and your organization are gonna invest in this stuff, whatever it is, whether it's crm, whether it's sales enablement technology, whether it's sales playbooks, I mean all the different things, trainings, um, hold your people accountable, like find a system because that is, I, I agree with you. It's one of the biggest, um, obstacles. And it's also one of the, the fastest ways to success is that leadership is really holding that, um, that they're bought in and that they're holding folks accountable in a way that helps them understand this is to benefit them, this is to help them sell more, be more effective, you know, grow their business. So yeah. I love that. That's a great closing thought. So yeah, thank you Emily for joining. This was fun. I love being able to talk with you in this way.

Emily Hartzell: 16:39

Yeah, Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Dani Buckley: 16:42

Yeah. And for those that want to, um, you can connect with Emily Hartzel, uh, we'll have her information in the show notes so you can, um, contact her, connect by Twitter, LinkedIn. I know Emily is available and love to chat with anyone. So please connect with her. And, um, for all those listening, we look forward to seeing you on the next episode of Sell Smarter, Sell Faster. Until then, happy selling. Thanks for joining us on Sell Smarter, Sell Faster. Be sure to click that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And visit us on Sell Smarter, Sell faster.com to access tons of resources on the topics we cover on the show, or to get in touch with Shay or myself. And of course, you can find us on social media, including our personal pages on LinkedIn and Twitter. We'd love to connect and hear from you.