Benjamin Ard00:55 — Welcome back to another episode of Content to Close. Today, joined by Gus. Gus, welcome to the show.
Gus Garza01:00 — Thanks so much man, appreciate you having me.
Benjamin Ard01:02 — Yeah, Gus, this is going to be exciting. I love this subject, but even more than the subject, I love your background and how it ties into what we're going to talk about today. So if you don't mind sharing with the audience, tell us a little bit about yourself. We can kind of get to know you and get ready for the episode.
Gus Garza01:19 — Yeah, definitely. So I am an enablement all-star. No, not really an all-star, but I work in enablement now, enablement professional. Some people say I'm an all-star, I guess, on my company. But all right. Thank you, yeah. But my story really starts when I came to the Bay Area in 2008, my tech story. And yeah, I started off, you know, wanted to get into tech.
Benjamin Ard01:32 — I'll say you're an all star. That's great. From everything I know, I'll say I'll be the one to do that.
Gus Garza01:47 — I was in the military, I worked on jets and I was in avionics tech. So I really kind of had the tech bug. But my dream was always to come out here and you know, it's when you're living in Texas, it's alluring, right? This tech world and what's going on in Apple and all these other companies. So when I got here, I wanted to get into tech and they're like, you got to pay your dues, you got to go be an SDR. And I'm like, yeah, but I was great. I had done so all these other things and there's got to be a fast track. And there wasn't right. I was like,
So I ended up getting a job as an SDR. I remember it was like, I think it was, it was like 15 bucks an hour. Just get on the calls, make your calls. It was like events. It was like Eventbrite wannabe company and it's like, get on there and get your calls in. And my buddy got me in and I crushed it, right? There was just people just scared on the calls and I had done improv before in my life. And I'm like, I can do this. And slowly I just started getting a bunch of meetings and then I'd hear these reps
take the meetings and then they get your credit and then I got, started sort of moving up and then I was there about maybe five months and then I went to a company called Fuse. I was an SDR there. My other friend was there. So I started kind of working my network just to get better and better. And I really liked it. I was like, hey, this is great. This is tech and everyone's wearing the vests, you know? And I was like, okay, I can fit in here, right? I was, came from LA, you know? And I'm like, okay, I can do this. But,
Slowly I transitioned into sales and that's where I really kind of got my sales chops, got to use some of that improv to really, you know, now understood the problem as an SDR. How do you go and now take a deal through a deal cycle and make more money or I start closing these deals. I started getting commission checks. I'm looking at my commission check going, wow, that wasn't that hard. Let me go do it again. And then the deal cycle started getting bigger. I got into major accounts.
And then I really started to understand like some of the hiccups and how deals could slow, you know, do the right things and how do you get better at that? So I had some great managers, great leaders, kind of honed my skills then I had a, got into the UX UI space with an enterprise role and I didn't know much about that space, but I kind of quickly learned and it was a company called usertesting.com. It had a
giant user panel, we could test websites and then you can actually hear and see with video people stumbling across your website. Nobody was doing this at the time. And I'm like, oh, this is gonna be easy. I could just, you know, do outbound, I would just get somebody's site and I would just show people struggling or we just get panelists to go through with their experience and we send them the videos and they would take a call with us. We're talking about Microsoft and these big companies. So I really became good at like,
understanding other ways to get in because of my hunting skills as an SDR and then getting in those accounts. And then the real work started happening. We started going to, you know, actually close the deal. And slowly I got into enablement. I did some sales roles, but I really kind of like my success in enablement comes from those days of figuring out how do you get in these accounts and also being first in, right? So coming in as a...
As a sales leader, the startups that I worked at, I'd be first or second person in and there's no process. So I'd be the one building that process out. Understanding how do you, you know, we got 10 other people coming in, it's high growth. How do you get those folks sort of humming to the processes that we have, right? So we can all start closing, then we all start winning. So I became kind of a nerd at that and getting better and even listening to recordings and then we were using GoToMeeting and I would critique people on their calls.
There's all these tools that do that now. So I got really scrappy and I got to be sort of a student of that. And then just about six years ago, I fell into enablement and where I got a chance to kind of be a force multiplier and use all these skills from selling and then these enablement training before enablement was called enablement and really help level up sellers so they can be better and sell more.
I'll pause there, but that's kind of what my story is and how I started with sales and early sales to enablement.
Benjamin Ard05:39 — I love it. And I love the hands-on experience having gone through the SDR motion. Like you said, paying your dues, moved up to the AE side and then naturally just drawn to the idea of I can be, and I love this term that you keep using, force multiplier. I can be a force multiplier and benefit everyone around me. And that drives us into the subject today. What we're going to talk about with sales enablement is going from training
to actually making people revenue ready, like really going beyond checking the box of training to really feeling like reps are ready for revenue. Now, when we say this Gus, teams are shipping more sales enablement material than ever. There's more training than ever. There's more tools than ever. Why do you feel like sellers are still unprepared and how do we make this shift?
Gus Garza06:28 — That's a great question. You're right, you can have the best content, you can have all these things, beautiful decks. What I think is, I think it's the practice, right? And it's just, you can have all this stuff, but how are you using it effectively to really go and sell? And I just don't think they're getting their reps in, right? Like, there's just some great tools now that we're using, like AI role-play tools.
But even just a GPT, like some of the stuff that I introduced is just building a GPT that you can talk to in voice mode on ChatGPT. One of our products is Scout, at a company called Yext that I work at. And just building a GPT out that will prep you right before your call. So you can get that, maybe you're on the train, you're on the way to work, you're asking, hey, I'm about to jump on with XYZ client. Give me some talking points around here. Here's what they're struggling with. How could I then take what we sell?
and weave it into the conversation and then put it in voice mode and just, now challenge me, let's do a quick role play. Without having to use these expensive systems, right? I've seen it for years now, but it's just, you can get all this in like I mentioned, but unless you're putting those reps in and practicing instead of practicing on live customers, which is some of what the reps are doing in my company until we started implementing some of these things, you gotta put those reps in and then that's how you're gonna.
That's how I see this true sort of growth. And then their confidence, right? They have the confidence, they put those reps in, then you have that ready seller that you're talking about.
Benjamin Ard07:53 — I love that. So the difference between someone who's revenue ready versus just training and sales enablement, it sounds like the gap there is putting in the reps. It's how do I actually practice getting the material out there, things like that. What's cool, I also love that you're talking about a free way or really inexpensive way with ChatGPT and voice mode. Hey, just help me, you know, role play and it'll do a great job, things like that.
Gus Garza08:02 — Yeah.
Benjamin Ard08:16 — What are the ways though, can you make it so that experience getting in those reps? Like how do you transition the enablement material and help you transform that into like productive reps that help you like really train and practice on the right things.
Gus Garza08:29 — Yeah, I think it's figuring out like, you know, coming in like me, I'm fairly new to this organization. I've been there about five months. It's trying to troubleshoot like, where are they tripping up now? Right? Are they, because sometimes it's too, the product is too product heavy and leader. So it's really kind of listening to those calls, right? Using like Clari or Gong and finding out you're going to see right there in those Gong calls. That's what I first started. I go, where are these Gong calls? And they're like, oh, we got to dig them up. And I started digging them up and I could hear
They go right into the product and they go right into, you know, their competitor, right? We have a competitor that's really on our heels. And as soon as they're doing a great job, their value is so, and they've got a great intro. And then they say, hey, we're looking at this customer. And then they go right into our feature. This is better, this other feature is better. It's like, you're never going to win that race. Right. So I think it's about being prescriptive, understanding what does that seem truly suffering, you know, where, where, where are they then.
building some enablement around that that's prescriptive like, okay, it's here, they need to value some more, ask more questions, sell the vision, future state. You can plop in any methodology there, but I think once you can do that, then you can start coming up with these other ideas of, I'm all about just as well, like modern learning, like
bite-sized learning, right? Like where are you suffering? Okay, here, let's do this little module. We use AI avatars too. You can build a scenario-based learning. So we use Synthesia. I know I'm throwing all that AI out there, but I'm really, it's great because you can put together a quick scenario or you put them through some enablement, maybe a group enablement, and then they go and engage with this avatar in a real life scenario. We use fake customers and we put them in scenarios and then how do you get out of this? And then we...
Benjamin Ard09:53 — I love it, yeah.
Gus Garza10:10 — We can put a little like knowledge check and then we can start to see, you know, did you get out? Did you make it on the scenario? So that's what we try to do is really understand the problem. Then we can build enablement around it, keep it bite size and short. And then once they get that skill, you know, that's the behavior change you're trying to get. They've experienced it, they can do it. Now they can get on a call and they're going to be able to talk through to that customer, right. And then stay on a path and a strategy instead of just taking the bait and you know, messing up the call.
So that's sort of how that's worked for me. And I think sellers appreciate it too. The short form, quick learning, they're all busy. No one has time for long enablement or take this course. We have this, you know, two hour course and nobody has time for that, right? But if you can be prescriptive, they'll appreciate it. You'll have that trust and then you'll start to see that growth.
Benjamin Ard10:38 — Yeah.
I love it. So when it comes to that, it sounds like a lot of this material is kind of, this is how you approach our business. This is how we sell. Like you talked about like, hey, you don't need to dive into all the features necessarily, here are the benefits and all the things like that. What about when it comes to like new updates? Like we have this new offering, this new service, whatever it may be. How does this system apply to that? Like, how are you training people so that they're getting in the reps with new material that comes out that they need to be aware of and trained on?
Gus Garza11:25 — Yeah, I think it's about finding out like what's the easiest way because we have a lot. We have a really big AI tool that's really focused in. It's called Scout. So it's really AI search visibility. You know, how do you show up in LLMs first, right? We were crushing SEO for a long time and now we're moving about this company and now we're selling an AI, you know, tools, so to speak, that's updating all the time, but
Um, so that's been sort of like introducing and throwing it. You're going to start learning this. And I, you know, one of the things we struggle with is we just kind of launched it without great enablement. It was just a lot of live sessions. So I think going back now is building out understanding and introducing it in the right way. And same thing. It's like, you got, you got to sort of understand the problem that we're solving and then we could, you know,
build some enablement around there. But I think if you just start rushing out, like we have this cool thing, just go start talking about it. It just, it's just not used to it. They were, they want to go back to what they know, which is SEO, right? In our sense. So it's about understanding and rolling it out in a prescriptive way where you can, you know, sort of tease it and make sure they understand the problem we're solving and then the market and then introduce those bites, that bite-size enablement, right? So now you know the basics.
Now we get into advanced, what it can do. And then we have like a three-part learning series, right? But again, micro learning. But half of it is going to engage with an AI role play where you can go and, you know, test your knowledge against it, practice instead of on a live client. And then, so you're weaving that into your story. But yeah, I think a lot of organizations struggle with getting thrown off by a new product and how do they work it in? Because they're used to these two core products here.
So it's also product working together with sales and product marketing all together and you're a marketer so you know what I'm talking about. To making sure the message is there so you all have a cohesive message that helps as well when you're trying to sell or bring in new products or at least in the experience I have.
Benjamin Ard13:25 — I love that. So a couple other quick questions and I'm going to kind of double click on this because I'm just really fascinated and something I'll throw you a little bit of a curve ball here. When you're looking at enablement now, obviously you've got a smaller team and you're an enablement leader. You can kind of do that one on one opportunity to say, hey, rep A, B and C or you whoever, here's some skills I want you to work on. Why don't you go practice this with the AI and this other rep you need to work on this. So let's go practice this over here.
How do you do it at scale? Like when you're looking at this, you know, group of sales reps that all may have different strengths and weaknesses, how are you creating these like training moments where they're getting in the reps, but for the right things that they may be struggling with individually? Is AI helping you personalize that or are you kind of finding the best practices across the board? How do you kind of navigate those waters?
Gus Garza14:15 — Yeah, that's a great question. I love that. You know, what we did at my last company was there's tools out there. You can do that too.
I always start with Claude or ChatGPT. My Claude knows me and I'm building a lot of enablement. So I usually start there with like, here's what we're trying to do. Here's a problem we're trying to solve. Level, enterprise reps are struggling. They might be struggling with just that closing bit, right?
which is kind of something happening right now. They're great on everything else, but the closing, they need to tighten up that close. This other mid-market rep is suffering upfront with discovery questions. So you can actually load up these AI role-play tools. I mentioned we use one. There's others out there as well that I've used, but you can literally tell it and give it information where it's just going to work on discovery. And you can even program it where it's like that source code of using OPPO, KALM or something where you can
you know, give it the source code and what it needs to just work on discovery for this, these folks in mid enterprise. And then for enterprise, same thing. They just want to work on the close. If it's for healthcare, you can load up a healthcare CMO persona. You can even do multi-threading. It's that advanced now where you can say there's three people in the room. One person is the finance, one person is, you know, the economic buyer. And then you have this, the champion, right?
And they can all be firing questions on at you. So that's how good the AI is now, where you can really get prescriptive and that enablement to meet those different levels, because they are going to be at different levels. But it goes back to listening to those calls, knowing what those problems are, so then you know, I don't think enough managers are doing that right now. It's really understanding, where is it at right now? Because no one has,
Benjamin Ard15:53 — Been
suffers in every area. That's what they're saying. Yeah.
Gus Garza15:56 — Exactly right. So yeah, I think it's understanding where they're at, which, you know, because reps aren't going to tell you themselves, right? They're going to wait for somebody. But once you can flag that, that's the growth that happens. That's when you're going to see that rep appreciate it. They're like, why am I doing these reps? Then they're on this cause you start to measure. We haven't talked about measurement yet, but you measure where they're at now, where they're struggling. You look at them in six months, you're going to see that growth. Hopefully if they're doing these things and they'll appreciate it because their confidence is up just like a speech, right?
You do the TED talk, you're gonna practice it 20 different ways. They're gonna have that rep, that muscle memory so they can succeed. So yeah, a little combination there with that scenario.
Benjamin Ard16:34 — I love that. Now one random question, we're almost out of time. Do you feel like the individuals that go through this kind of system, obviously they're improving and they're growing, they're increasing their capabilities, they're selling better. Do you feel like it's also kind of an interesting weeder format for the kinds of reps that you get in your business where you get the ones who are okay with improvement, they're okay with the role play, they're okay with getting in these reps, whereas others who may not be as interested in that
tend to kind of sort themselves out and go somewhere else, you know, and find a different business.
Gus Garza17:05 — Definitely, definitely. Yeah, I think we're seeing that kind of now even, you know, in my last company in this company where there's folks that still want to hold on to the old way they were selling. They don't want to adapt. AI is still scaring them. I mean, you've got to get on this train. You know this because it's moving really fast. If you're not at least open to it, some people are just totally against it. They are sort of not self reporting, but you know, they're like,
They're just like, I'm out. Let me go back. Let me do something else, which is interesting because I think it's easier to sell now because you have these things. You're going to sell better. But some people just have this, I don't know, AI is going to take my job mentality and they just, they're just fighting it. And instead of trying to lean in. So, yeah, definitely. I've definitely seen even folks that have been in three or four months and you're like, hey, and they're like, hey, Joe just left. You're like, Joe resigned. Why? Why? You know? And
I think it's, yeah, I don't know. I'm still trying to understand why, but it's definitely happening a lot more than you'd think.
Benjamin Ard18:02 — Yeah, 100%. Well, Gus, this has been fascinating. I love this. I love how you're focused on actually not just training reps, but making sure they're ready. I love the role play and actually getting in the reps and this mentality. I think it really does bridge the gap from sales enablement material and training to having an individual who is ready to get on a call and actually perform. I think this is amazing.
Gus, for anyone who's listening and would like to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you?
Gus Garza18:31 — Yeah, just find me on LinkedIn, Gus Garza. And I work at Yext, Y-E-X-T. I do enablement there. And once in a while, I'll post some of the things that I'm doing that I think could help. So you might see some of my posts here on LinkedIn. But yeah, I'd love to connect with you, anybody interested. But Ben, thank you for your time. I love your background as well. So thanks for having me on.
Benjamin Ard18:50 — You bet. I love it. For anyone listening who would like to connect with Gus, scroll down to the show notes. We'll have Gus's LinkedIn profile right there. Go ahead and click on the link, say Gus, you know, want to connect. I came from the podcast. We'd love to have you connect with Gus again. Gus, thank you so much for the insights today.
Gus Garza19:06 — Thank you, appreciate it, take care, good luck.
