Tag Archives: Jim Ninivaggi

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Season 3, Episode 6: Creating a Strategic Sales Onboarding program

Co-Host Jim Ninivaggi - Brainshark

 

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This week Jim Ninivaggi joins the Sales Enablement Lab podcast. Jim is responsible for strategic partnerships and alliances at Brainshark. Before Jim joined Brainshark, he was with Sirius Decisions where he launched the Sales Enablement practice working closely with hundreds of clients providing them with strategic advice. In Season 1, episode 15 we talked with Jim on how to create the business case for Sales Enablement.

This week we are focussed on sales onboarding, a key area for most Sales Enablement practitioners.

Monster.com reports 30% of external new hires turn over within the first two years of employment. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the cost of replacing an employee is over 25% of their annual salary (some say 50%), so it is very costly when you don’t get it right.

Together with Jim, we answer questions like: What is the definition of sales onboarding and how does it compare to traditional training? Where does onboarding start and where does it stop? How do you create an onboarding organization and strategy? How do you measure success?

Let us know what you think of this week’s topic! How do you define sales onboarding and what program have you developed? How do you measure the impact of your onboarding program?

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Season 1, Episode 15: Building the Business Case for Sales Enablement

Co-Host Jim Ninivaggi - SiriusDecisions

 

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Jim Ninivaggi is the Service Director, Sales Enablement Strategies at SiriusDecisions. SiriusDecisions is an advisory firm focussed on B2B companies providing data, advice, research and industry events for practitioners in the field of marketing, sales and product development.

This week’s podcast is focussed on ‘Building the business case for Sales Enablement’. Almost everyone who wants to start a Sales Enablement function or expand an existing function will have to go through the same justification challenge: Why invest in Sales Enablement? What will be our return for the company? Why not invest in something else?

The answer this question we need to start at the beginning. Jim will share his views and definition of Sales Enablement. According to SiriusDecisions Sales Enablement is the orchestrating function between sales, product marketing, sales training & sales operations and should be focussed on three different key areas:

  • Sales Talent Management – How do we attract the right sales talent to the organisation, retain and give them the right skills?
  • Sales Asset Management – Which sales assets do we need to develop?
  • Sales Communication Management – When do we communicate what to the sales teams to make sure we don’t overwhelm them?

When done right these three key areas will enable the sales teams to have the right conversation with the right customers at the right time according to SiriusDecisions.

After discussing Jim’s view on Sales Enablement we focus on how to create the business case. Jim shares some practical advice on how you can make some simple calculations to show your leadership the impact you will deliver over time. How do you calculate sales rep productivity? What will be the impact if they can find content within 10 minutes vs 1 hour? How can you leverage data points like this to create your personal business case. Jim explains it all.

As always we end with 3 practical tips you can start using today in your sales enablement programs.

We would love to hear your feedback! How did you create your business case for Sales Enablement? Did you have to prove the value? How are you measuring your impact? Leave your comments, feedback and suggestions in the comments below.