Why Phoenix Needs Groups Like The Sales Enablement Society To Continue to Grow And Attract Top Talent & Businesses to the PHX Valley

Last month, we "successfully" launched the Phoenix Chapter of the newly formed Sales Enablement Society.

I say "successfully" in quotes, only because there is still a lot of work to be done before we can consider the local chapter a success. (We are only 1 meeting in as of this post; for the backstory on how the Society came to be, please refer to my last post here.)

Phoenix is the 6th largest city in the U.S. in terms of population But according to Forbes 2016 "The Best Places For Business And Careers" list, Phoenix is ranked:

• 38th overall
• 41st in job growth
• 130th in cost of doing business
• 105th in education

For the area to grow, significant investments need to be made to lower the cost of doing business in AZ.

How do you lower the cost of doing business if you are in sales or supporting sales roles?

You help sales sell more, faster.

Put simply, for businesses to thrive in Phoenix, we need to stop looking at Phoenix only for call-center and support-type roles, and start looking at the Phoenix talent pool for the top-notch talent it actually produces, all while simultaneously attracting -and KEEPING- businesses here for the long-run.

This change won't happen overnight, though. Change at this level requires an invested community and ongoing advancements in the capabilities and performance of the workforce.

Here is where the Sales Enablement Society can help: 

The Society exists as a non-profit, 100% practitioner-led group, with the goal of advancing "sales enablement" as a strategic professional function, recognized globally. The SESociety meets on a monthly to a quarterly basis to bring together all those involved with enabling sales at their respective organizations.

At our last meeting, we discovered that while maybe 15-20% of our members had "sales enablement" in their title, most came from sales support roles or direct sales roles such as operations or marketing.

What this showed us is that sales enablement does not mean the same thing to different sized companies and that as a company grows, sales enablement changes.

With all of this in mind, for our next meeting, happening on March 2nd, 2017, we will be:

1. Announcing our new President, Patrick Flanigan, VP of Sales Enablement at ADP
2. Patrick will then be presenting on how sales enablement came to be at ADP and how it has evolved since formation.
3. Lastly, we will be breaking down into smaller groups (by company size) to discuss what each of us can do today to better enable our sales teams.

Here's a quick (< 1min) interview I did with Patrick last month discussing WHY he joined the SESociety and what he hopes to get out of it:

Patrick Flanigan, VP of Sales Enablement at ADP talks about the SESociety

Does this sound like something you can get behind?

Then join us as we continue to grow and evolve the sales enablement function by signing up for our next meeting;

March 2nd, 2017 at 6:30pm

ASU SkySong, Ingenuity Room 301,

1475 N Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale AZ 85257

Signup here, or here, or even..............................................over here.

Not in Arizona but still want to get involved with the SESociety?

Please join the Linkedin group and apply to be a member on the official website at www.sesociety.org (free to join)

Have questions? Email us at [email protected]

Lucas Gerler hates people who write in the third-person about themselves but can't resist it at the same time. Lucas is a Founding Member and the VP of the Sales Enablement Society in Phoenix. Lucas is passionate about sales and marketing and is currently serving as the Director of Business Development for WireBuzz as well as an Ambassador for the AZ Tech Council. You can find him off-roading on weekends and on Twitter everyday at @TheeLucas.