Episode 28 of Leading Matters features Rick Nucci, the founder and CEO of Guru, which focuses on making it easier for sales teams and customer experience teams to get to the right information at the right time in order to better serve their customers.

Awesome and intriguing insight on this one for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that Rick has the wisdom of one who successfully sold a startup (Boomi), and then stayed on as an active member of the large enterprise company that he sold to (Dell).  That experience lead him to identify a pain all too familiar with companies of just about any size – in a world where our sales reps can no longer rely on teams of specialists supporting their deals how does the rep respond quickly and accurately to his prospects questions?  The puzzle gets more complicated when you consider that customer experience teams are tasked with so much more than just online, email or phone support; they must be public ambassadors for company brand and reputation. 

It is a fascinating solution, Rick has some fascinating insight into the problem and this second or third wave of selling and supporting disruption.  And as always the way we lead, the way we focus our teams, and the way that we bring in new talent onto our teams plays a very big part in our success.   

HIGHLIGHTS

Sales Enablement is A Bottom Line Game

Enabling our sales force, for generations, has been a top line revenue game.  The landscape has changed and enabling our sales force is the first step in building our ability to profitably serve and keep the customers we win. 

Big Company Experience Makes a Difference

Rick sold his first startup, Boomi, to Dell in 2010, he then stayed on with the tech giant for nearly 3 more years.  The lesson?  Building and selling a startup is great experience, but big company experience has a host of lessons to be learned.  Not the lest of which, for Rick, spawned the idea of Guru.

Sales Bootcamps Don’t Work

In the enterprise world you’ll often hear a new sales rep say they are in the ‘drinking from the firehose’ phase of their employment.  In other words there is an avalanche of info being thrown their way, too much to consume and master.  Yet this has been the typical training for sales reps for years. With buyers more patient about their buying decisions we can’t afford to have sales reps drink from firehoses any longer.

Enablers Must Be More Accountable

Who is enabling your sales force?  What accountability process is in place to ensure that they are constantly auditing their resources to guarantee that the sales and support teams have the latest and must accurate information?

The Culture Matters

Speed and accuracy are more a value than an operational reality.  We have to cultivate the passion and desire of our workforce to internalize the want to communicate quickly and correctly.