Trust is a Straight Line to Enablement | Chad Trabucco, Go1

Ken Babcock (00:01.014)

Hey everyone. Excited to welcome you here for the change enablers podcast. We have Chad Tribuco here with us today. Um, excited for this one because Chad has a ton of experience specifically in sales enablement and that's an area that we haven't yet gone super deep on.

in the podcast, Chad brings a ton of experience from Glint, which, you know, was acquired by LinkedIn. Uh, he also spent some time at, uh, Dixa Guru, uh, is now at a company called Go One, the common theme across those is that he was leading enablement.

across these companies. And so I'm really excited to dig into, you know, the unique learnings at some of those, uh, some of the applicable learnings that happen across all of them. Um, and so we're going to go really deep on enablement. We're going to talk a lot about what's, what's broken with enablement, where Chad thinks enablement is going and, you know, just the principles that he's used to kind of navigate, uh, his career. So Chad, welcome to the podcast.

Chad Trabucco (01:05.106)

Gosh, thanks Ken. I appreciate being here. It's a lot of fun. It's a great, great podcast. I've already learned a lot from checking out some of the other episodes and hopefully somebody learned something from this one.

Ken Babcock (01:16.746)

Yeah, something, something is a good, that's a good goal. Somebody learns something. And we actually got referred to Chad through Hillary, one of our guests, Hillary from Guru, another awesome episode. So I'll just do a shameless plug for that one. And we asked Hillary this question too, we're gonna ask it to you Chad, just to open. What is one ops hill that you will die on?

Chad Trabucco (01:20.924)

Yes.

Chad Trabucco (01:45.414)

Such a great intro question. Sort of just like shakes it all up. Gives you pretty focused pretty quick. I think I see just like so much chatter on LinkedIn, other places. I get hit up from reps all over the place. Like, hey Chad, how are you measuring enablement? Like, it's so hard. You can't measure the impact. And I think the hill that I die on is like, you can find a way to measure it. And I have. I've been at companies that don't have a huge

RevOps team. I've been at other companies that have like a dynamite RevOps team, but are still small. I think like, if you're creative enough, you'll find ways to show your indirect impact. And I think it's hard. I think sometimes like the data is not there or, you know, you're a one person band, but I think there is way, there are ways to measure enablement. One way that I've found is like, you know, it's not the number of trainings. It's not how many people show up to.

you know, this, that, or the other, or get certified. But, you know, we're really trying to drive outcomes. And I think one of the things that undergirds some of the outcomes that sort of leaders are looking at is this sense of confidence, this sense of, I can do my job and I have the things I need to do my job. I came from Glint, which is a survey platform and employee engagement platform. Now is one of the core questions, like, do you have what you need?

to do your job. And that's not a question. I think we're always asking sales reps. I think we're pushing them to do more and be more productive and more focused, but we're not always asking them, you know, are you feeling confident in doing those things? And we'll riff on this a bit more, but I think that's one place to start measuring. And then you can look at some of the sort of like lagging indicators and you can help tie that sort of.

Ken Babcock (03:19.534)

that.

Chad Trabucco (03:42.018)

indirect influence between the two. So the hill is enablement is measurable. It's just you got to be creative in how you look at it.

Ken Babcock (03:50.602)

And it's not number of trainings. Are you sure?

Chad Trabucco (03:55.556)

If only it were, right? If only it were.

Ken Babcock (03:59.018)

Yeah, you know, I think there's a tendency for folks to measure the things that they feel like they can directly control. And a lot of times, you know, that does, you know, it does sort of shift you into this almost like output checkbox mentality where it's like, well, like, here are all the things that we did. So I love that there's a balance that you mentioned around lagging indicators. And yeah, the confidence piece is one we're going to touch on a little bit later. But

help the audience kind of understand, you know, from your experience, the companies that I mentioned, you know, some of them have ranged in sizes of very small startup to LinkedIn, which is a behemoth. So what, you know, what learnings would you take away from maybe?

the small startup where you're standing up enablement for the first time versus kind of the larger organizations and how would you kind of compare the two?

Chad Trabucco (04:59.29)

Yeah, I struggle with this question because I don't want to say that large, like what's great about small companies is absent from larger companies, but I think it's probably more pronounced. And I think the thing that always stands out to me at smaller orgs is just sort of this appetite from the reps to be resourceful. And I think that trickles down to sort of a hunger for enablement. And I don't want to say like the bar is low.

and you can come in and just sort of do a couple things, but I do think those couple things that you do, do have an outsizing impact. And reps are really excited to co-build with you, really excited to sort of take what is created from an enablement standpoint that may not go all the way down all of the rabbit holes, but they're resourceful enough to sort of take what you can provide and then turn that into gold, like literally gold.

And so I love that sort of like scrappiness, that resourcefulness. I think being at Glint really taught me to trust that we've hired sales reps that were good and that like we hired them for a reason. They're not just sort of a shirt, you know, like these are professionals. And I think, you know, that sort of plays into my approach, my empathetic approach to enablement, but that scrappiness I think is so fun. And I think...

The more that we tap into that from an enablement perspective, even at larger orgs, I think can really fuel the success. And then, you know, at larger orgs, I think LinkedIn does such a great job from a resource standpoint. Like I was just blown away at sort of the capacity and the sort of thoughtfulness with the way that they had, you know, supported enablement programs. But I still think even at LinkedIn, there was sort of this desire to like,

button up the trainings in a way that was, you know, using more tools and had instructional design and I think there's a place for all of that, but I think, you know, when there's more budget, it's so easy to throw another tool at it. But often this sort of takes the relational aspect out of enablement. And sometimes like takes it, you know, creates more barriers between what the reps are doing.

Chad Trabucco (07:22.33)

and hearing and seeing and needing to do and what enablement is sort of trying to drive. And so I think like at a larger company, it's really important to sort of keep that balance and uphold those relationships and like, navigate some of the things that you have to bring forward through the tooling, but also like see the tooling as not the be all end all, but really uphold the relationships that you would at a smaller org so that you can really kind of like.

Keep those things close.

Ken Babcock (07:54.174)

Yeah. And, you know, I think what's interesting is when you, when you add new tooling, you might actually need an enablement for that tooling too. So it's like, Hey, you know what? We're going to implement an LMS and it's going to help, you know, get everyone up to speed. But, you know, before we get everyone up to speed, let's get them up to speed on the LMS too.

Chad Trabucco (08:01.659)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chad Trabucco (08:11.526)

Yep. Yeah, exactly. Let's get an LMS to teach him the LMS, and then we'll use the LMS for other teaching. You know, like there's sort of this perpetual cycle, right?

Ken Babcock (08:20.934)

Yeah, exactly. And that unfortunately is a, is a tale as old as time. Um, in your roles, you know, there's always, uh, you know, you mentioned kind of the different expectations that people at LinkedIn had, which makes sense. There's more resources. They've grown accustomed to it. Whether it's LinkedIn or even some of the smaller companies you've been at, uh, like Glint or Dixie.

Chad Trabucco (08:26.784)

Hahaha

Ken Babcock (08:46.238)

What mindset shifts did you need from those teams in order to make sure that you could enable them? How did you get them to buy into what you were trying to do?

Chad Trabucco (08:57.862)

Yeah, I think I fall into this trap still, like that enablement is sort of the keeper of the knowledge and then we pass it on. And I think that the shift is really like, no, we are all co-building this, right? Like we are one, you know, behemoth team or we are one small team trying to drive this forward. And I think, you know, where I've seen this really work well is when you can show it and it's not necessarily enablement owning the show, right? Maybe we set the table to sort of bring it forward,

I think that mindset shift is really like, we are not the gatekeepers or the holders of all of this knowledge, but we really can sort of do it together. And I think that's where it works really well when it's sort of like a peer-to-peer learning, or you can have reps sort of be your voice. I saw so much success at LinkedIn when I could tap a few reps to sort of be...

in a pilot program and then they could share their experience. And I remember this one time I was thinking about this as we were prepping. Like I had this huge training. I was sitting in this room, actually close to you in Chicago. And we were going through sort of like a new demo and we had somebody who was not a salesperson taking everyone through the demo and they had written it and they knew all the ins and outs of it, but they basically read from a script for 45 minutes.

And I was sitting in a room with all the sales leadership and within three minutes, I saw people just start checking out. And I was just squirming in my seat because I let this thing happen. And I could have thought about it from this other approach of let's co-build this. This isn't something we just throw over the wall and sales runs with, but let's do this together. And after that, I've been so committed to having, when those rollouts happen, having sales.

have an outsized voice. And sometimes that's not all 30 minutes, but an outsized voice in sort of the way that is brought to the team. But I remember that so vividly and just like, it sort of gives me the creeps even thinking about how I let that happen. And I could see people just checking every social that they could think of just to get their mind out of this because it was just so far from what they needed. And they were...

Chad Trabucco (11:23.506)

you know, so divorced from like the implementation of.

Ken Babcock (11:28.231)

Yeah, I mean, it's why we value sports analysts who like play the sports, right?

Chad Trabucco (11:33.694)

Totally, totally. Yeah, I mean, there's so many analogies that we forget are so true, because it comes back to our earlier point of, am I doing the training? Are people showing up? That's sort of the end goal. If that's the end goal, those things will continue to happen.

Ken Babcock (11:52.978)

Yeah. And when you come into these organizations, as you have, you know, I think it obviously it's tempting for a leader to come in and be like, all right, here's the change that I want to see. Did you have specific initiatives, topic areas where you said, like, this is where the world is going, like, this is how I want the team to be thinking about something new.

Chad Trabucco (12:18.842)

Yeah, I think there's some tooling that I like to bring in when I get to a new place or insurers in place. I think having a framework of this is where I go to find the knowledge that I need. I like to think about it like a Google for their job. If I need to do this thing, I'm gonna Google it or I'm gonna YouTube it. So I like to have from a tooling perspective a place for that. I like to have a place to have insight.

from conversational intelligence, a gong, a chorus, a Jiminy, something like that, so that I can see what's going on. We can share more broadly the good that's happening. It's not so much of a mystery. But then beyond that, it's really more of an ethos, right? That idea that enablement is co-building and then it's an accelerant to the good that's already happening. I don't want to come in and say, well, this is the way that we've done things and this is the way you're going to do it.

Um, and we'll get a little bit more into sort of like probably unpack some of the confidence stuff and how we measure that. But I think where I found a lot of like trust being built, which is I think really important and enablement and sort of like where the programs have really. Impacted the bottom line is when I simply ask, like, where are you confident? Where are you not? And then build the programs based on that, because I think that really fits nicely with that sort of co-build ethos, the accelerant.

and then making folks more confident and trusting that we've hired them to do what they're doing, but let's just make them more effective at it versus saying, Chad has an idea of what will make you better. And so we're going to do that versus asking you what you think will make you better.

Ken Babcock (14:04.258)

Yeah. And there's another theme that you brought up that kind of ties to that is this idea that you want to give people what they want, you know, and you lose sight of what they want. It's probably not going to land because it's like, Oh, here's someone coming in and telling me what I think I need, but I actually know what I need. So, you know, maybe, maybe talk to me about what are some of those common needs or desires that you've seen? What, what do reps want from their enablement teams?

Chad Trabucco (14:10.684)

Yeah.

Chad Trabucco (14:32.102)

Yeah, I think what pops up in my head right away is like, whenever I run these surveys, I always hear like, we need more case studies, we need more customer stories. And I think what reps are really saying is not like, Hey, marketing, go create more stories, but they're saying kind of two things. They're saying, Hey, put these stories in a way that I can actually tell them. Like don't give me a 20 page document that sort of goes through every, you know, every flavor, but I also think they're also saying.

Like I need to know more stories. I need to be like more broad in the stories I'm telling. Like, hey, enablement, could you like set up sessions where we tell each other the stories that we all tell? Like what are my back pocket stories? And like, you know, Jane in, you know, account management might be telling three different stories. How do we sort of like create that so that sales is teaching one another sort of those common stories and why they're telling them?

I find that to be like a real common theme when I ask these. I also find like, sometimes it's just like, can you minimize the noise? There's so many things going on. There's so many communications coming at us. I think if enablement can sometimes be the sieve that like is the communication sieve, I think that can be really, really helpful. So like they know when communications are happening, what their mind share, you know, how their mind share is gonna be tapped over the next month.

Ken Babcock (15:42.67)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Trabucco (16:01.479)

I think that can help cut down some of the noise and they can focus and be more productive.

Ken Babcock (16:06.922)

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of folks cross-functionally, and I'm saying this from someone who was not in sales, um, at any point in my career, but. You know, it is, it can be shocking if you open a sales reps calendar and you're like, well, when do you, when do you read your emails? When do you like, I mean, it's really hard. And I think that that, you know, we're going to talk about empathy a little bit more, but you know, cross-functionally for people to understand.

You know, Hey, here's, here's the, here's the responsibility of a sales rep. And then the role that enablement can play and making sure that those hours spent in meetings are highly productive and that maybe, maybe they don't need to read everything about what's going on in their inbox and instead can have like the, the key takeaways. So I think that's, that's a really salient point. Um, there's an element of this though, that's also, you know, how do you, how do you enable self-serve? So if a rep wants to find.

information, wants to gather some of those learnings. How do you approach sort of the creation of learnings, distribution of that, the search, the ability for people to self-serve? Is there anything in particular you can recommend to the audience?

Chad Trabucco (17:22.79)

Yeah, well, I certainly have leaned hard into, you know, knowledge management systems, not intranets. I obviously worked at Guru. I was a long time Guru customer and champion sort of outside of the company and then got to be in the company. And I just think the approach really does cut down so much noise and I've seen such an uplift at the organizations that I've brought it into in terms of like...

Wow, this really straight lines a lot of things. I literally had a rep say, it took me 20 minutes to find this thing in our old system and now I found it in a couple of clicks. Like you think about the impact of that and the trust that builds and sort of like the straight line that brings is great. And like, we're all working mostly in sort of this new async world where we have, you know,

Ken Babcock (18:17.386)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Trabucco (18:19.794)

folks all over the world that are all doing the same thing at different times. And I think, you know, generally I haven't seen too many enablement teams that are, you know, overstaffed. And so I think there's like ways that we have to find, uh, ways to scale ourselves and be always on. And I think systems like Guru, where you can sort of build, create knowledge, put it in there, embed trainings, embed, you know, some folks embed onboarding programs, but like

I like to embed a lot of video snippets and then just like description so that reps can find what they need. And now with AI, I think it can stitch a lot of the things together that I'm not sort of capturing. And that sort of makes it even better. But I think it comes back to that, like sort of like Google or YouTube for the workplace. Like what is that? So that reps can find what they need. And then, you know, we use the communication tools that are there, like a Slack or...

Ken Babcock (18:49.19)

Yeah.

Chad Trabucco (19:18.682)

a teams to like create another layer of, of maybe more of a peer to peer layer and like drop in what you're seeing that's working well and like give shout outs and like use those channels to create sort of momentum, uh, in a way that, that feels like a team in sort of this async world.

Ken Babcock (19:25.887)

Yeah.

Ken Babcock (19:33.461)

Mm-hmm.

Ken Babcock (19:38.25)

Yeah, you did, however, say one of my dirty words, which is knowledge, knowledge management system, which I'm told if you say that like five times fast in front of a mirror, the mirror will shatter. Can you, can you maybe talk about, cause I know Guru is a little different, but talk to me about knowledge management systems and what's broken with the traditional knowledge management system.

Chad Trabucco (19:41.329)

Uh oh. Uh oh.

Chad Trabucco (19:50.479)

Yeah.

Ken Babcock (20:10.662)

Did we pause there, Chad? Yeah, that's all right. That'll get cut out. Did you hear my question though, or should I redo that?

Chad Trabucco (20:14.77)

That's cool.

Chad Trabucco (20:18.658)

You stopped it. Talk to me about knowledge management systems.

Ken Babcock (20:21.642)

Okay. Um, so talk to me about knowledge management systems because, you know, I, I'm sure that folks have had varied experiences with knowledge management systems. Let's define sort of the traditional knowledge management system and why that's broken.

Chad Trabucco (20:38.254)

Yeah, I think this is a tall order to define, but I also love saying dirty words on a podcast, so I appreciate the kudos there. I think traditionally systems were just a bucket, and you just threw stuff in the bucket and expected someone to find it. And if you threw it in the bucket, you knew where it landed in the bucket, but no one else did. And then we sort of

area where we had somebody come along and they were like the architect of everything that was thrown in the bucket and they, you know, were steeped in the ways that people think and learn and so they put all the stuff that you had in the bucket in a place and I think maybe, maybe I'm not going to like complete that metaphor for like the ways that I see it but as a rep like finding stuff in that bucket can be tremendously hard and wondering is that thing

you know, up to date, is it right? Comes back to the confidence, like, am I using this thing because it's in the bucket or am I using this thing because it's right and the latest and greatest? And then I also think like, there's a sense of, you know, I don't know what else is in the bucket that I'm missing. And I think when we can find ways of like, answering the specific question that they're having, but then also pointing them to more information in a way that's like...

connected to the information they were looking at, not like when they're searching for, you know, some thing and they get some other HR information that is totally unrelated. Like that's gonna, you know, devalue the experience. So I really like to try to think about it like, that bucket is super noisy. And how do we cut down the noise and like really straight line a rep to finding what they need when they need it and.

and then giving them sort of the autonomy to go deeper if they need to. But generally, like you and I both know, like when something breaks at our house, like we're not gonna read all about our furnace and how it exhausts and does all this stuff. We're gonna be like, I need to know the problem so I can fix it and move on. And I think like, if we think like that with our knowledge management systems, I think they become a lot more direct. They rely a lot more on technology to sort of like...

Chad Trabucco (23:03.418)

undergird that AI machine learning, those types of things. And they don't become a place you have to go. I think the sort of unique thing about Guru is that, you know, the Chrome extension, you know, is there and sort of follows you where you go and surfaces the information or you have access to the information where you already are. You don't have to go and find some sort of login.

and maybe you haven't logged into the intranet in a while, and so you've got to go through those steps, and then you have to remember, well, why was I going to that place in the first place? What was I asking? And then you may get a bunch of results that are not sorted. You're getting documents and decks and PDFs, and you're like, where do I even start? I just need the information to answer this question. And I think that's where a guru or a system like that is really effective.

Ken Babcock (23:37.742)

Mm-hmm.

Ken Babcock (23:57.034)

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it is still crazy to me that we expect out of traditional knowledge management systems, not Guru, we love Guru at Tango, out of traditional knowledge management systems, we expect the person who doesn't know to come up with the right query, to find the information gap that they have, and be able to trust that information. I mean, it's wild, so.

I think that's us saying that we agree. But it's a...

Chad Trabucco (24:28.69)

I think there's also another piece that like, people are throwing things in that bucket, but there's not a way for enablement to cut through that noise and say, hey, here are the things that are important. Here's what you need to know, or here is the latest and greatest. And I think it's sort of one directional and it erodes sort of that relational aspect. And I think that's what...

Guru does really smartly with the announcements feature and being able to sort of like get in front of folks and push information. It becomes a little more directional. And I think it elevates what enablement does in a way that like, hey, we can cut through the noise. We can sort of like organize and be that sieve and say, these are the things you need to know this week or this is the latest messaging, make sure you're across that.

just as you would in a Slack message or an email, but like we both know how, how encumbered both of those things can become. And so I think like being able to push information and surface it is really unique.

Ken Babcock (25:37.246)

Yeah, it's super powerful. And all of this sort of plays into one of these, I feel like is a core tenet of how you approach work, which is this peer to peer approach. Part of that ties into the confidence piece and the empathy piece that we're gonna talk about. But maybe, you know.

With the peer to peer, I know there's some, some precedents. And one of the ones that you shared with me when we were prepping was. Encouraging people to think. Scrappier. And so what do you, what, what do you want to share with enablement leaders that are going to help them think scrappier?

Chad Trabucco (26:15.13)

Yeah, I love this peer-to-peer idea and I feel like that's where I've seen reps really come alive. I think there's a couple things about that. I'll sort of talk philosophically and then dive into some of the tactics, but I think what's unique about it is sometimes reps don't know that what they're doing is really good practice. And they don't know, they're just doing what they've been trained to do and what they're good at.

And I think sometimes when you force them to share that with somebody else, somebody else picks up something that they hadn't seen, they get more confident because they're teaching, which we all know is a learning tenant. But I think sometimes it gets them out of the mode of like, what I'm doing is not that special. And I think we hire them for a reason. I think there's an acknowledgement of that. But then as we sort of get into some of the tactical stuff, I love like pairing folks up to...

across regions, across segments, across roles even, so they better understand the full arc of the customer journey. So they better understand the nuances of different regions or they can get flavors of folks that are not brushing shoulders with or don't see in the office or don't see on the all hands because it's a different time zone. I love sort of like, if there's application or new ways of working between different teams.

I think something that's been really effective is like, okay, open up your book of business where you have to collaborate on this thing. Take what you've learned and work through it together over the next 20 minutes, and then come back and share it so that it's not just like, okay, we did this thing, but you have to sort of remember what did you learn, and then you've already done one of the things that you can then take out of the meeting and go apply it. So I think getting them to collaborate is really-

Ken Babcock (27:44.072)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Trabucco (28:07.062)

fun. And then, you know, I think there's nothing better than sort of a regular forum where they can, you know, share what they learned about a deal they just closed. And you can give them some kudos for that, but they can also sort of do some of that peer-to-peer stuff of like, you know, if I were to do it again, I, you know, I probably would have multi-threaded more. You know, I saw that the deal stalled towards the end because, you know, this guy was on vacation and I didn't have this. I didn't, I think they can sort of like realize ways that they can get better. And then, of course,

they're enforcing some of that sales 101 stuff that I think, you know, we all forget in all of the like product enablement and new tooling and all of that stuff, like those things really support like what great looks like.

Ken Babcock (28:50.41)

Yeah, totally. And, you know, I think what's, what's challenging about this market right now and for sales teams right now is people are just under an immense amount of pressure, right? All these market dynamics are really challenging for growing companies. Um, and you know, sometimes it's hard for a rep to say, all right, I'm going to take time out of my day to go do the thing, uh,

that you're talking about this peer to peer sharing or do the enablement activity. And so maybe talk to me a little bit about, with all that pressure, how do you create enablement practices that work best in those conditions? You've probably had to deal with a multitude of environments and conditions. And so how do you acknowledge those and then move forward successfully with enablement?

Chad Trabucco (29:42.126)

Yeah, I certainly don't want to add more to a reps plate, especially in these times where like, you know, every deal matters and pipeline is, you know, hard to come by. So I think like a couple things, I think enablement can really set the table for those and do some of the prep work and like, not just, hey, tell me about this deal, but like tell me what you would have done differently to like think a little bit further down the road and like to my point earlier, be scrappy.

Record it on Gong, record it somewhere and just sort of spitball for 10 minutes. And reps love that. They love to sort of sit back and get out of the day-to-day. And then you can share that more broadly. But I think some of the other sort of ways and things that have helped is spending time with managers. What is it that your team needs this month that we can sprint towards and create?

to make them better. Like what are the things that you're doing repeatedly? What are you training them on repeatedly or telling one rep and then telling the next rep like that I can take off your plate and we can scale that. And like those are some of the areas I've seen be really, really interesting, not only in building trust, but like in taking some of that pressure off. I found this like to be really interesting at Glint. We didn't really have an onboarding program when I came on and...

you know, managers were basically sharing around a doc that they would sort of edit real quickly and then send to the new hire. And I think they were spending a lot of time like helping folks with systems and doing some of this stuff that was so like repeatable. And it was really cool to like take that and say, okay, let's build an enablement program based on this and give you more time back to coach and to manage. And I think that philosophy was really, really unique.

50 days out of time to first deal by doing that. And I think that's because managers were much, much closer to sort of like, how are you doing the demo? How are you approaching this? What are the discovery questions? Like, here's what I've seen. So they were able to sort of like infuse that rep with like the real stuff they needed to know. And I had one manager tell me that sort of approach, it used to take him 10 weeks to feel confident when the rep was out in the field actually pitching to a customer. And he's like...

Ken Babcock (31:58.286)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Trabucco (32:09.038)

the way that we have architected this onboarding, it now takes me three weeks and they're out in the field, on the phone, pitching, and I feel confident. And I think that sort of like, not only does that build incredible trust with the sales leadership, but it just sort of juices everything else. And time to first deal, right? The impact for the business is tremendous, especially when you're spending what you spend for sales reps.

Ken Babcock (32:35.326)

Yeah. And that's, that's another way you can measure enablement, right? I mean, anecdotal, but you can measure that. Um, you also, you know, when we were, when we were prepping, it talks a lot about empathy and, you know, the role that empathy can play and in creating a lot of those enablement practices. I just want to give you an opportunity to, you know, kind of share your thoughts there, um, before we talk a little bit more about confidence.

Chad Trabucco (32:41.263)

Exactly.

Chad Trabucco (32:59.674)

Yeah, I think this comes back to like, this sort of human aspect of enablement. And I think if we get wrapped up in the things that we're building and throwing over the wall, as it were, the trainings and counting the number of trainings or the number of people that showed up, excuse me, it's not really driving the behavior. It's not thinking like, what would a rep need to actually do this thing that we're asking them to do or make them better? I mean, at the end of the day,

we should be trying to make them better. And I think if we don't have empathy for what that entails, I think we're gonna miss the mark a lot. And so I think it's sometimes thinking about what do reps need and what do reps, what do they not want in this? Like, what do they expect from enablement to be an accelerant, to be a co-builder? Like, they probably don't wanna pitch to more execs.

They probably want to hear from their peers and what's working well. They probably don't want to hear from Chad, like this is how you should deliver this. They probably want to hear from a peer that's seen that and doing that every day. I think, you know, what have we started to think a little bit more empathetically from an enablement standpoint? I get really fired up about this because I think we can do that.

And I've seen it be effective. I was actually chatting with someone at LinkedIn recently and they were like, we try every day to meet sales where they're at. And I think, you know, we're asking reps to do that same thing with their prospects. We're asking, you know, CSMs to do that with their customers. But if you don't do that in enablement, like how are they supposed to sort of like pattern match those different things or connect those dots? And so I think we, we sort of have to model what we're asking them to do.

And I think I've seen that be really, really fun and effective. And it takes some rethinking of like, well, why would I put together this e-learning? Could it be better if it were just a guru card or would it just be better if I had a, I sent out a quick loom and people could watch it when they needed to. And they didn't have to get in a room and cancel a customer call, um, to join this training where I was just talking at them, you know,

Ken Babcock (35:17.058)

Yeah, we just had someone on the pod, Robin Spencer, who's the CEO of Clearbit, and we talked a lot about how there's this trap sometimes where you pursue maybe the most complex process or channel or method just to feel smart.

You know, as opposed to distilling it down to like, okay, well, what does someone really want? They just want like a quick video that they can easily consume and digest. It doesn't need to be, you know, the doctrine as a lot of people think it can be. You know, one other thing that I thought was unique about your sort of approach.

Chad Trabucco (35:51.07)

Totally.

Ken Babcock (35:58.926)

is when a lot of enablement leaders think about focus, productivity, systems, you talk a lot about confidence and the role that confidence plays. Can you share a little bit more with the audience about how you view confidence and where does that sort of stack up in your enablement priorities?

Chad Trabucco (36:18.47)

Yeah, I totally flubbed this story, but I always come back to it. Like when they were building the Golden Gate Bridge, right, they were, it was like unprecedented what they were doing. They were trying to do it as fast as they possibly could and, you know, challenging conditions. And basically what they did is they built a safety net underneath the Golden Gate Bridge as they were building it. And they saw productivity go up and injuries like, you know, dramatically decrease.

I think it was like for every million dollars, there was a certain number of deaths that were supposed to be expected in construction projects. And they like basically cut that down. Like I think only two people died building it because of this sort of like net. And I think, you know, measuring confidence and thinking about confidence, it's really around that psychological safety. Like we're pushing reps to be more focused, more productive, more efficient.

But if we don't create sort of this layer underneath them that they know, I know I have the information to do this thing, it is valid. I am across the latest messaging. I know what's happening next week or next month from a product perspective. Like, if we don't do those things, they're gonna continually feel the stress of sort of the push, and they're not gonna feel that sort of like empowerment of...

Ken Babcock (37:38.734)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Trabucco (37:43.438)

safety that like they can be confident to do the things that we're asking them to do. And I think we sort of get this when we think about onboarding, right? Like we don't give them quota generally in the first month and then it sort of ramps up or first quarter or whatever. And then all of a sudden, magically, they hit that ramp and they're like fully confident and fully enabled and fully on board. And I think we need to think a little bit longer.

Like it takes time and there's so much change. And if we can think about sort of like building the confidence around the things that we're driving and measure those like back to our earlier point, I think we really can see the outcomes that we wanna drive. We really can see the focus and the productivity. And I think, you know, that comes back to the empathy. You and I both know we would be better if we like didn't have to deal with some of this stuff or the noise was less or we were confident in what we were doing was like the right direction and the right.

Ken Babcock (38:25.324)

Yeah.

Chad Trabucco (38:43.322)

approach. And so I think it just takes thinking like that. And I usually run a survey to measure this at a quarterly cadence so that I can get a bead on where's the voice of sales, how are they feeling, those types of things.

Ken Babcock (38:58.922)

Yeah, and I think there's a really nice link to the peer-to-peer approach as well, because you talked a little bit about people sharing, you know, hey, here's a story I use, or here's a method that I use. And a lot of times, until somebody does that, they actually don't know that they're exceptional at it. Because the things that you're really good at,

Chad Trabucco (39:15.898)

Exactly.

Ken Babcock (39:19.51)

it's probably innate in some way. And you've never come to appreciate it until you share it in that forum. I know that was true for me when I was an analyst at Uber, like sharing how I thought about data and sharing how I thought about an analysis. I was like, oh, wait a minute, like maybe I am thinking about this in the right way. Cause that, you know, a former PhD from Stanford just was nodding her head the whole time.

Chad Trabucco (39:43.026)

What?

Ken Babcock (39:45.342)

be good at this. I think that's so valuable and I think those two, you know, work in lockstep which is really cool.

Chad Trabucco (39:51.898)

Yeah, and I think we forget that like sales 101, I'm using that as like a broad term is like, you know, embedded in everyone and they know all of the things about it. But I think like, one of the methodologies is like sharpen the sword, like continually keep working at it. And I think we gotta come back to that because it's a complicated, complicated endeavor, what these sales folks are doing. And we continually remind them of the good.

and the best practices, which can be dressed up in many different methodologies, but are generally very similar. Like we should be doing those things regularly and it never lands better than it does from other reps.

Ken Babcock (40:36.518)

Yeah, awesome. Well, Chad, there's a lot of awesome insight in there. I do wanna close with a couple quick questions for you. The first one, which we talked a little bit about some software tools, namely Guru, but maybe what are three other software tools that you can't live without?

Chad Trabucco (40:57.626)

I love this question. It's so fun. And it gets at the heart of what we're all about as people. But the first one, I don't know if a lot of folks know about this app called TimeShifter, but if you travel for work and you're crossing major time zones, I worked for a company called Dixa based in Copenhagen. I did training in APAC with LinkedIn. TimeShifter, basically, you set up your flight schedule, where you're going, and then it will tell you when to start.

to sleep, to drink coffee, to not drink coffee. I did it before a Thanksgiving break and I was wearing sunglasses during the day to sort of like minimize the light. So I'm eating my Thanksgiving dinner with sunglasses on, but I literally went to APAC, I went to Sydney for a week and didn't have any jet lag going there and no jet lag coming back. And so if you want to be productive and you're doing some long haul flights, Time Shifter is insane.

Ken Babcock (41:55.394)

That's a pretty strong endorsement. And, and you'll be the coolest guy at Thanksgiving with your sunglasses on. Yeah.

Chad Trabucco (41:59.546)

Yeah, yeah, you can always wear your rain pants, you know? Yeah, yeah, exactly. The other one is Libby. I know a couple other folks on the pod have talked about Libby. I'm huge on audiobooks, and I think, you know, I read so many audiobooks I couldn't pay for all them, and I love using my different library cards. I lived in San Francisco, so I've got one there. Here in Santa Barbara, I've got one, so I'm always crushing those. And then...

I've recently fallen into Canva. My wife and I have a side business. And so being able to create ads and copy and flyers and all sorts of things, it's just so mind-boggling how easy it is to do all that.

Ken Babcock (42:47.69)

Yeah, Canva's pretty special. I only recently have gotten introduced to it. We do Figma internally, and that's what I've always associated with design. But when you talk about being scrappy and just giving somebody a superpower, I'm not a designer, but I feel like I have superpowers in Canva, which is like, which I shouldn't when it comes to design.

Chad Trabucco (43:08.886)

Oh, it's a great way to put it. Great way.

Thank you.

Ken Babcock (43:15.714)

All right, last question for you. Who are you following on whatever social media you're on? Who are you following that actually makes you better at your job?

Chad Trabucco (43:27.09)

Yeah, I think I thought of two people, Andrew Berry of Curious Lion, I don't know if you know him, but I think just like the energy and sort of the big picture approach to what we do, whether it's enablement or teaching or coaching or just mentoring, I just love his perspective and I find it so deep and rich and just like right on the nose. So I think about that a lot and then I love following

Jen Allen, Newth, Demand Jen. I think like, man, if I could put into practice all of the things that she's sharing, I feel like, you know, I'd have a billion dollar business. But I think just like from a practical standpoint, she's just unreal.

Ken Babcock (44:13.622)

Awesome. Well, you heard it here from Chad. Go ahead and follow Andrew. Go ahead and follow Jen. Give Chad a follow too. Chad's got a lot of good things to say. Chad, I appreciate you spending the time with us today. That'll wrap up the pod. Thanks again.

Chad Trabucco (44:24.721)

Yeah.

Chad Trabucco (44:35.066)

Yeah Ken, this is a ball of fun. Appreciate you.