The thing about advice is that it often has a shelf life. What worked 10 – or even 5 years ago isn’t going to guarantee the same impact now.
One of the main changes seems to be that we no longer solve problems with headcount. Maybe it was inevitable with the realisation that churning and burning ultimately hurts everyone in the long run?
I think that’s what has driven a shift in attitude towards software and enablement. I’ve noticed a few companies bringing in a head of sales enablement way before I’d ever have considered it, back in the day.
If you can set up sales enablement to help each person improve, then as Hubspot says, “If you’re a sales manager and you help each of your 10 reps sell 20% more, you’ve essentially just “created” two new salespeople.”
The same goes for software like call intelligence, engagement and other outbound tools, that have gone from nice-to-haves to core tech stack. It reminds me of a webinar where @Kevin Dorsey pointed out “if you can get a bump in productivity using a piece of software, that’s likely to be less expensive than hiring more people”.
We’re loving that shift away from replaceability to productivity. Bring it on 🙂