Stephanie Middaugh
Sr. Sales Enablement Manager, Divvy
How do you define enablement?
Enablement focuses on supporting revenue-generating teams to grow and succeed by providing relevant and applicable training, documentation, and support at every step of their employment journey. Enablement serves as a lens or translator between revenue-generating teams and the other organizations in the business. We take information from the different business units and determine the best way to communicate any changes and/or provide training in the most effective way possible in order to provide clarity and alignment while keeping pace with the business.
Describe your current role.
I currently run the Enablement program as a team of 1 at Divvy, a FinTech startup in Utah. I mostly support the Sales department, but I do also cross-over in the Customer Success organization when I'm needed or able. I've been fortunate enough to build the Enablement program from scratch there at Divvy, standing up programs like a repeatable and scalable Onboarding Program, implementation of a Learning Management system, and Content Management site, and I play a key role in the continuous training and development of our teams.
Briefly walk through your journey to get where you are today.
As with most Enablement folks, my journey to where I am now has been quite the winding road. I started out wanting to be a High School English teacher in college, but then decided that wasn't the right area for me and picked up a Receptionist job at a well-established ERP software company is Southern California. From there I followed the waves of opportunity into Sales Operations and Deal Desk roles. I took my first dive into Enablement with a Data Analytics company and fell in love. I did end up moving back into Sales Operations while I was there but ultimately discovered that Enablement is where I wanted to be, which is when I started taking a much more active role in where I wanted my career to take me.
What’s your proudest accomplishment?
That's a tough question, but I think the proudest accomplishment was my very first Enablement program and initiative that I owned & championed. A Sales VP at Alteryx wasn't fully bought into the vision of Enablement at the time, however he had just put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into a 40+ page playbook (in word doc format) and couldn't figure out why his reps weren't reading it or implementing the tactics. My Manager put me in charge of creating a virtual version of his playbook to host in our LMS, so I created an outline and reserved a conference room for an entire day where the VP & I filmed sections for the virtual playbook. After rolling out the Playbook initiative via the LMS, the VP reported back that the following quarter he saw a 122% increase in Pipeline from his reps that completed the coursework. After that, we had him hooked and he had so many ideas for what he wanted to work with us to create next!
What’s your advice to someone getting started in enablement?
As with any new role or career, observe as much as you can and ask questions to clarify unknown phrases or concepts. The Enablement community is one of the most giving and open group of people that I've ever come in contact with - connect with folks on LinkedIn, immerse yourself in the world and don't be afraid to engage with others. None of us know it all, but usually we're willing to share what we do know.
What are you doing to develop yourself?
I'm working on pushing myself out of my comfort zones and networking with other people. When I was younger, I really didn't understand the word or benefits of "networking", but as I came into my role here at Divvy and I was building a program from scratch, I needed to expand my circle and learn from others. Being an introvert can make that uncomfortable a lot of times, but I have gained so much from just talking to others in my profession. And if you don't know how to "network", the secret is it's just talking to other people!
Follow Stephanie on LinkedIn!
Comments