A RECKONING.
15 YEARS
OVERDUE.
The first complete deconstruction of sales enablement as we know it. And the operating manual created for compounding revenue, ready to take its place.
NOTIFY ME WHEN IT SHIPS
THE FIFTEEN-YEAR DIVERGENCE
$14B → $80B
In Five Years
Since 2017
2012 vs 2024
Since 2021
Same Window
More spend. Less performance. Fifteen years and counting.
THE THESIS
Enablement was built to deliver training.
The job is to drive performance.
Training NEVER produces performance. Neither do tools. People do!
The receipt is the data. Fifteen years and counting.
The Ten Truthbombs of Sales Enablement
Like physics, they exist whether or not you accept them. Embrace them, and you can begin to put some method to the madness.
Enablement is about performance, not training.
"Stop thinking like a training organization. Performance is the job. Period."
Your customer is the salesperson.
"Not the CRO. Not Sales Ops. Not the VP who approved your budget. The rep. If they don't see value, you're dead."
Reps want to close more deals.
"Build something that helps them close. Something so useful they choose it over the back-channel Slack thread. They'll come to you."
No one wants to sit in training.
"Stop building events. Start building systems. Build something they don't have to sit through."
Activity isn't the goal.
"Activity is the input. Outcome is the goal. Tie every metric to a business number or take it off the dashboard."
You have to know the numbers.
"Win rate. ACV. Time to close. Quota attainment. Not knowing the numbers in a leadership role isn't a gap. It's a disqualifier."
Be a profit center, not a cost center.
"You touch every rep. Every deal. Every skill. No other function has that reach on revenue. Show the work or you're a line item."
Know what you're solving for.
"Diagnose first. Then build. A playbook that addresses the wrong problem is a waste of everyone's time, including yours."
People are complicated.
"Ego. Fear. Habits. Pressure response. The greatest enablement teams get more out of people than people can get out of themselves."
Tools, data, architecture, methodologies, won't save you.
"You fix performance by making the humans in the seats better. Every other lever only works after that."
Co-creator of the Sales Enablement category at IDC, 2006. Founding member of the Sales Enablement Society.
Get notified when it ships.
Drop your email. The day pre-orders open and the day the book ships, you hear from us first. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.