This episode of the Riva Rev-Tech Revolution podcast features Rich Giorgi sharing insights on his proactive approach to sales enablement, AI, and more.
In his current role at Swiss Re, Rich is responsible for enablement of the US Life & Health unit, including sales tool adoption, thought leadership, client insights, and product marketing. He supports the core reinsurance business, financial markets, and Swiss Re Solutions.
Prior to Swiss Re, Rich held leadership positions in sales operations and enablement at companies including Spectrum Enterprise, Fujifilm, EY, and Regus. His expertise spans data analysis, sales & marketing alignment, CRM implementation, process improvement, and cross-functional collaboration.
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Ken Lorenz: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. With me today is Rich Giorgi. Rich is with Swiss Re. He’s the Vice President of Sales Enablement. Rich, welcome to the podcast.
Rich Giorgi: Thanks for having me.
Ken Lorenz: Well, it’s a pleasure to have you and looking forward to our conversation over the next 30 minutes or so. (Likewise. Excellent. So so I guess just to to get to know each other a little bit, tell us a little bit about you to your career and and what what you like doing.
Rich Giorgi: Sure. Um, so I’ve been in in sales enablement and sales operations roles now for probably about 15 years, um, with a little bit of sales management interspersed in between there and some consulting. But, um, you know, when I started in sales enablement, we didn’t even we weren’t even really using that kind of nomenclature, you know, sales ops or sales enablement or even revenue. We just called it sales and marketing because the idea was how do we just drive better alignment between our go to market teams? Um, so so when I began in that that part of my career after a few years as a direct seller, um, you know, it really spoke to me because I was in a role that didn’t really have a ton of support, didn’t really have a lot of process around it.
Rich Giorgi: It was kind of a, you know, a very old school kind of sales role. Here’s a phone book. Here’s a phone. Just, you know, pound the pavement kind of thing. So when I I I joined the company that that had this sales operations in place, um, I said, that’s what I wanna do.
Rich Giorgi: I’m really better at being kind of the guy behind the guy, um, helping put those processes in place, driving alignment between different different functions, working with product. Um, you know, so I’ve done it for for Fujifilm, you know, the large conglomerate. I’ve done it for Charter Communications, which is a Fortune 100 telecoms firm. Um, and then like you said, I’ve been now with Swiss Re for almost 4 years where I’ve helped build out the sales enablement function.
Ken Lorenz: So so, I mean, you’ve seen a lot over 15 years. When and you’re right. The the industry has changed, the terminology has changed, etcetera. Putting AI aside, because that’s a gimme Right. What would you say is the biggest change you’ve seen in those 15 years?
Rich Giorgi: Um, the biggest change I’ve seen is these revenue operations and revenue enablement roles getting a bigger seat at the table. So what used to kinda sit either maybe down the HR ladder in learning and development or maybe an operational role that was really just kind of like a Salesforce administrator or something like that. Now we’re seeing it kinda move more to strategic direction where where the rev ops person or the rev ops leader is really in that seat next to the CRO or the head of sales, um, you know, really driving that alignment, being more strategic, being much more data focused on on how they go about delivering that strategy. Um, you know, again, you know, early on, it was just a lot of, you know, picking up the pieces, things that that a lot of other functions didn’t wanna do. Now it’s really got that strategic focus, and and I love to see it.
Ken Lorenz: Yeah. No. It’s it’s, uh, it’s definitely changed quite a bit. I think one of the one of the big challenges, and I’d love to get your point of view on this, is I think over the last maybe 3 to 4 years specifically, we’ve had this proliferation of MarTech stack. Right?
Ken Lorenz: Different tools that don’t integrate with each other, um, you know, that you know, what’s the what’s the solution to Azure, if you will, um, for anything in particular? And then I think a lot of organizations now are trying to figure out, okay. Now how do I weed that down, um, and then start to to skinny that down? Um, talk a little bit about your experience around that. I mean, in selecting and implementing 2 new tools and then choosing which ones to deselect and and really focus on what’s important.
Rich Giorgi: Yeah. So I I’ve always had a motto or or saying you know, I always say, you know, resist the urge to throw a new tool at every problem. Um, that there really is are are so many different tools out there. And one thing that’s nice is you’ve seen a lot of them start to consolidate, whether that’s nice for them or not. I mean, they’re buying each other there.
Rich Giorgi: So now you can get a a tool that does sequencing, but also can record your calls and give you some AI around around, um, your conversations, conversational intelligence. All of those things used to be kind of separated, so it’s nice to see them starting to consolidate. But the most important thing when choosing a new tool is kind of really looking at what are the problems you’re trying to solve, what are the most pressing priorities for your sellers or for your marketing team, um, and going from there. So, you know, for instance, at at Swiss Re, we don’t do a lot of phone calls, um, you know, so we know we don’t really need the conversational intelligence tools. We don’t need things like that.
Rich Giorgi: But what we do need is to better understand the intent. So we have more than just our core business, which is reinsurance. We sell a lot of other things, um, a lot of SaaS solutions, consulting services. And those are a different set of buyers than the buyers that we typically sell to. So at Swiss Re, understanding the intent of the companies that we’re calling into, um, or targeting, that’s important to us.
Rich Giorgi: So that’s we look at tools that can help us solve those types of
Ken Lorenz: issues. Yeah. That’s no. That’s great. Um, you know, one of the challenges, and I I see it in my own sales team, is the pace of implementing change, whether it’s new systems or new processes within the existing systems, it keeps coming faster and faster.
Ken Lorenz: Right? And
Rich Giorgi: Right.
Ken Lorenz: On on my weekly sales calls, it feels like we’re introducing something new every call. Right. And and I think for the sellers and for the marketing team, sometimes it’s it’s hard to keep up with that. Have have you seen the similar challenge, and and how do you how do you leverage sales enablement and training to align with the new technologies or new processes to keep everybody in sync?
Rich Giorgi: Right. I mean, the most important thing is having clear goals, um, on what you want those tools to do and what you want those processes to do. And they should always go back. I, you know, I take a very consultative approach to how we discern what our sales teams need. So a lot of interviews with our top sellers, a lot of working with our sales leaders, a lot of understanding, you know, where those challenges are.
Rich Giorgi: So when the process or the new tool is introduced, it’s very clear why we’re doing it. It’s very clear that this is something that they need. It’s something that’s gonna solve for that problem. And then having that that proof point, whether it’s, you know, in the insurance industry using data is very important. Everybody’s very numbers driven.
Rich Giorgi: So having a business case that’s very data driven, very data oriented around why we’re doing this, um, you know, really helps. Um, but, yeah, I mean, in in terms of training, we have a pretty robust training program at Swiss Re to make sure that as new things are rolled out, as we implement these new changes, people are all on the same page.
Ken Lorenz: Yeah. I mean, that’s that’s, uh, I sometimes feel bad. Some of my sellers might be out on customer meetings. Right, ma’am. Or they might be on vacation for a week, and they come back and they’ve they’ve lost track of everything that’s going on.
Ken Lorenz: Right. Um, so that that tends to be a bit of a challenge. When you think about those changes that are being implemented, what percentage of those would you say are driven by the business, where the business is coming to your team and saying, you know, I need these things to better understand the business versus you proactively going to the business and saying, here’s ways I think we can help That’s a great question. I don’t know if I
Rich Giorgi: could put an exact percentage on it, but I’d probably say it’s definitely more proactive than it is reactive. I mean, we’re always looking for ways to improve the seller experience and the customer experience. So, um, you know, it’s, I’d say, probably 75, 25, where the 75% of the time it’s us saying, you know, I noticed, um, you know, we’re having issues with this situation or we’re having issues with with, um, you know, there there’s there’s an area here for improvement or I’m hearing from the sales folks intermittently that that this process is broken in some way, and here’s our solution to fix it. Whereas about 25% of the time, it might be a sales leader coming to us and saying, you know, what I want is, um, you know, a a much better cadence around pipeline reviews. Can you help me organize, you know, a better pipeline review that’s a little bit more data driven, that’s a little bit more focused?
Rich Giorgi: So instead of just talking about everything that’s in the pipeline and saying, okay. Well, you know, what what’s the deal with that? How can we really focus on maybe the 4 or 5 big opportunities, um, and moving those through the pipeline and what the next steps might be? Um, so, yeah, I mean, we we try to be as proactive as possible. And, you know, Swiss Re is a little bit different than than other places I’ve been where it it’s it’s a far less transactional type sale.
Rich Giorgi: Right? So some of our sales cycles can be as long as 18 to 24 months. It’s a lot of client relationships and things like that. So, um, you know, it’s really about kind of understanding, you know, this has been it’s something could sit in a stage for 6 or 8 months, um, and, really, there might not be any movement. So we have to try to be as proactive as possible with the set with the sales teams and the sales leaders to really understand how we can help them.
Rich Giorgi: So so that that brings up a really interesting question.
Ken Lorenz: Um, if if you’re dealing with long relationships, long sales cycles, etcetera, and it sounds like more even in the Enterprise space, have you started delving into more account based marketing strategies or account based experience strategies versus the typical siloed marketing sales approach? We do. Um, account based marketing is a big part of
Rich Giorgi: what we do, um, at Swiss Re. It’s also a big part of what I’ve done in in past roles, um, because exactly that. I mean, the idea here is especially because with Swiss Re, a lot of what we do is not what we’re necessarily known for. So that’s that’s what’s exciting about what we’re doing. Um, you know, we have our core reinsurance business that we’ve been known for for a 160 years, but then we have these other great solutions that we know the market needs.
Rich Giorgi: Um, and really what we try to do is is we want our clients to come on a transformation journey with us, Um, you know, get them to see what we’re bringing to the table is is is a full suite of risk transfer products and solutions where we can really partner with them. Um, so the ABM strategy is very big because, you know, we have to multithread into these accounts because, you know, the typical reinsurance buyer who we’re used to dealing with is not necessarily the right person to make a decision on whether or not they should implement one of our, uh, underwriting tools or one of our claims tools, but they can help make those introductions for us. And then we have to target those people in the right way because they’re not thinking, oh, Swiss Re is the the company I wanna go to for a software solution. But now we can be. You know?
Rich Giorgi: So that that’s that’s a huge you know, the the ABM piece is something that we’ve really delved into, especially with our very, very large accounts. So how how long have you been leveraging an ABM strategy? Oh, probably about I’d say we we seriously launched it about 3 years ago.
Ken Lorenz: Okay. What what would you say have been the biggest things you’ve learned in the process, and and what what do you think is working really well, and what do you think is still our need to be what what do you think you still need to be trying to make improvements on?
Rich Giorgi: Um, just in general, you know, for any ABM strategy, it it’s really just refining the content. I mean, that’s always the most important piece is doing the right kind of, like, AB testing. Are we you know, is the content resonating? Is it too wordy? Is it is it is it relevant?
Rich Giorgi: Are we hitting people at the right time? Um, you know, and then being cognizant of of how often we send out different pieces of content or make those connections. Yeah. Because with an ABM strategy, I mean, you do wanna be consistent. You do wanna have an have the right approach with the right people.
Rich Giorgi: But at the same time, you know, you can’t flood their inbox every other week with, you know, hey. Do you remember me? Do you wanna do you wanna buy this? So what’s going on? Um, you know, so really refining those approaches.
Rich Giorgi: That that’s always been the biggest learning for me, and it’s and it’s different with with every company, You know, regardless of size or or even if we’re just trying to sell the same product to the same type of company, that that cadence of getting it right is always, um, you know, the biggest challenge.
Ken Lorenz: Excellent. Yeah. You know, ABM, to me, is was somewhat of a buzzword. Mhmm. I’d say 6 or 7 out of 10 people that I talk to about ABM can’t really point to success.
Ken Lorenz: So I’m I’m I love it that you’ve hit success with it.
Rich Giorgi: Oh, yeah. No. It could work. Yeah. No.
Rich Giorgi: We we’ve we’ve definitely gotten leads, and we we’ve closed opportunities from from good ABM strategy. Um, you know, I guess it could all you know, with Swiss Re, we we have a limited amount of clients that we’re selling into. Right? Though our universe is not large. Right?
Rich Giorgi: We’re we’re, you know, we’re still selling to insurance carriers. So there still is that brand awareness that we have where the name Swiss Re can get us in the door a little bit, um, and and things like that as well. So maybe that’s a little bit the reason why it works. You know, we we’ve seen success with it.
Ken Lorenz: Okay. Fantastic. So so let me let me change topics a little bit. I I like to do what I call lightning questions.
Rich Giorgi: Okay.
Ken Lorenz: Um, and and, uh, with no preparation whatsoever, but, you know, just some fun things to for people to get to know you a little bit. Mhmm. So so this was a sad week. Uh, we lost James Earl Jones. Right.
Ken Lorenz: Star Wars or Star Trek? Star Wars. Okay. Um, let’s talk about morning beverages. Coffee or tea?
Ken Lorenz: Coffee. Alright. And then beach or ski slopes? Oh, beach. Alright.
Ken Lorenz: Those are fun. And the one that that always drives my CEO nuts, Mac or PC? PC. Fantastic. He’ll be happy to wear that one.
Ken Lorenz: Awesome. Let let me maybe, let’s take a bit of a step back for a second. So you said you started on the sales and sales management side of the world Mhmm. And gravitated over to sales enablement. What what what was the moment that you realized that you wanted to do sales enablement?
Ken Lorenz: I mean, what was that what was the tip for
Rich Giorgi: you? Um, so when I was about so then then 2 about 2010, I started at at a company called Regis. And I was working essentially as the assistant to the EVP of global sales. Um, you know, typical admin type stuff that he needed. You know, I knew I didn’t wanna do the cold calling sales anymore.
Rich Giorgi: I didn’t like it. I didn’t I I I just wasn’t for me, that type of sales. And I took this job kind of on a whim, and, you know, he he didn’t hire typical, um, EAs. You know, He didn’t want somebody who had 20 years of experience supporting executives. He wanted young people who wanted to learn.
Rich Giorgi: Um, so I got to sit in his office and watch how ahead of global sales with VPs in all three regions, you know, APAC, EMEA, and the US or the Americas, um, know how he managed the global sales force. And he had a guy working for him who was very much what we would call, you know, a revenue operations director nowadays. But back then, he was just our director of sales and marketing. But he was all about process, process, process. Right?
Rich Giorgi: Every salesperson should have a process they can follow, that they should have tools that they can use. They should have very defined leads, very defined, um, customer profiles. Salespeople should be set up for success. They should not be doing anything but being able to close leads or, you know, close opportunities. And that’s when I realized that’s what I wanna do.
Rich Giorgi: Um, you know, looking at at how they approached using data to understand the sales process better to figure out, you know, okay, what products are selling well, what products are selling well where, um, what can we do better with these products. All of that just made me realize there there’s a whole real good companies set their sales salespeople up for success from the beginning. Um, and I guess that was kind of the turning point for me.
Ken Lorenz: No. That that’s that’s, uh, a great answer. What kind of advice would you give yourself if you could go back 15, 20 years knowing what you know now? What what advice would you give yourself? Get out of your comfort zone a little bit sooner.
Ken Lorenz: Don’t worry so much about what people think about the job you have.
Rich Giorgi: You know, when when, you know, 20 years ago, again, right out of college, I was I took a sales job, and I was like, this is lame. This is not what you know, I’m not supposed to be a salesperson. You know? I didn’t go to college to do sales, but the reality is is everybody’s in sales. Um, you know, even when I went to E and Y and I started doing consulting, every partner there, sure, they’re they’re making 7 figures and their partner’s at a big four.
Rich Giorgi: They’re in sales. They’re out there every day in front of their clients building relationships, trying to remind them when you have something that can solve for, remember to call Um, so, yeah, I I would go back and say, don’t worry so much about, you know, titles and things like that. Just get out of your comfort zone and do the job.
Ken Lorenz: Yeah. No. I I think it’s, um, sales is one of those interesting careers where either you’re drawn to it Mhmm. Or or you’re or you’re not drawn to it. From a personal standpoint, I’m a developer by background.
Ken Lorenz: Okay. And when I got out of college and they got my first development job, I decided I really didn’t wanna be sitting in the cube writing code all day. I really wanted to be with people. Right. Um, and so that led me to an interesting career path and ultimately into sales and in sales leadership.
Ken Lorenz: So I I totally get that. When you think about how you keep up with what’s going on in the industry, uh, whether it we’ll talk about AI in a second. I told you we’d park that one, but we’ll come back to AI. But how do you how do you keep up with the trends in new technology and new methodologies that you can then bring to the sales and marketing teams?
Rich Giorgi: You know, lots of different ways. I mean, I listen to a lot of podcasts like like this one and other sales enablement, sales ops podcasts. Um, you know, I belong to a couple of different networking groups, um, with like minded rev ops and sales enablement folks. Um, I think we’re really seeing over the past, like I said, the past, you know, maybe 5 to 10 years, a real promulgation of of sales enablement as this strategic adviser to the business. Um, so, you know, networking with like minded people, attending conferences, listening to podcasts, all of those things, I mean, may just, you know, keep me in front of what’s going on.
Rich Giorgi: You know, what what new technology is out there, which companies are are buying, who that maybe we can consolidate our tech stack a little bit. You know, obviously, I I try to go through different continuous learnings and and things like that. I try to get, um, you know, certified in the tools that we use so I can carry that with me if if I should ever go into another role. Then I know that I’ve taken the knowledge of the tools that I have at Swiss Re or other companies that I can take that with me. Um, but, yeah, just constantly staying staying in front of and networking with people.
Rich Giorgi: I think that’s that’s the biggest piece because there’s always somebody out there who knows a little bit more than you do, um, or has done things a little bit differently. And and I think that’s that’s been my biggest source of of knowledge and growth in my career.
Ken Lorenz: That’s that’s great advice. So so let’s go to the AI route. Right? I mean, it’s it’s the hot topic of the day. What’s what I guess, high level, what what’s your take on AI and where you think that’s gonna really impact the industry?
Ken Lorenz: So Say say marketing that is. So yeah. I mean
Rich Giorgi: yeah. Obviously, AI is the is the big buzzword out there. I mean, we’re we’re I I think it’s gonna impact the industry in a lot of different ways. I mean, you know, number 1 is just, you know, access to knowledge, access to information in in even more of a lightning quick way that helps distill, um, you know, esoteric concepts and things like that down into to easily digestible, you know, pieces of of of information. I mean, just, you know, when you’re thinking about, let’s say, like, building sales content or building a sales strategy, um, you know, you can Google that or you can use, you know, you know, information that you’ve had before.
Rich Giorgi: But with something like AI, how it can help structure things for you, bring in lots of different perspectives. And then from there, you can tweak it for your company, for your sales process, things like that, um, you know, with the tools that we’re seeing. You know, I just got off a call with one of our vendors the other day, um, you know, one of our sales tools that we use, and they walked us walked me through the new AI features in this tool. It’s a tool I’ve used in past companies. I brought them into Swiss Re, um, when I joined.
Rich Giorgi: And, you know, again, it’s it’s you know, now we can do better sequencing. Now we can do better, um, you know, now it can scrub our databases for information. Now it can do all all these different interesting things, um, and I think it’s gonna save people time. I think it’s going to make people more productive. Um, you know, but then, obviously, there’s the challenges of, you know, I I I I majored in English in in undergrad, and I can I can tell a chat GPT email pretty easily?
Rich Giorgi: Um, you know, so there’s gonna be that challenge too. Right? How do you leverage leverage these tools in such a way that, you know, you you’re you’re still making the the content at your own. Um, but I think in terms of of efficiencies and things like that, we’re already seeing it, you know, at Swiss Re and and other people that I speak to at other companies, you know, the efficiencies that that are are are being found are are really exciting.
Ken Lorenz: Yeah. I I I agree with everything you said. Right? I mean, there’s there’s so much work or so much work that can be saved or reallocated, right, by taking out some of the inefficiencies, um, kind of the what’s what’s the 20% of the job that’s soul sucking that nobody wants to do? Right?
Ken Lorenz: And and give that back as selling time. I mean, I think if you said to a seller, I’ll give you 20% of your time back so you can go sell, you know, more and more effectively. I I’m not sure I may not I’ve met anybody that said, no. No. I don’t want any of that.
Rich Giorgi: Right. Right. Yeah. And I think that’s where you’re gonna see see in the world of sales. The the the biggest the biggest help is giving that time back and, you know, taking automating some of those tedious processes within within the tools.
Rich Giorgi: And, you know, from a rev ops perspective, you know, we’re always, you know, did you enter that in Salesforce? Did you did you click the right buttons? Well, maybe now a lot of that can get done, um, by AI so they don’t have to worry about it, and they can focus on what they really want.
Ken Lorenz: How have you built built AI training into your sales enablement? Whether it’s tools that you’ve built or implemented at Swiss Re or things that are of commercially available, chat, GPT, Gemini, those kind of things. Have you built that into your training curriculum?
Rich Giorgi: Um, we’re working on it. I mean, you know, we we wanna find the right places for it. So like I said, we just had, you know, one of our vendors, you know, showcase their new AI tool within within their, um, you know, program, that’s something that we we might end up moving ahead with. If we do move ahead with it, yeah, that’ll get built in. Um, you know, we do a lot of just in time training, so there’ll be a lot of a lot of that, a lot of building out.
Rich Giorgi: We also have a little bit of, um, you know, in the insurance industry, things are obviously very regulated, so we do have to it it it can’t move as fast maybe as it can at other companies, um, you know, even with Chad GBT, even with, like, Copilot within Microsoft, like their tool, um, you know, just to use that, we had to go through a lot of extensive training, a lot of certifications, you know, just to make sure that we’re not sharing sensitive information, things like that. So, you know, when when it comes to building that into sales enablement, you know, we do have to be careful about, you know and then you have, like, in in Europe, you know, my role is mostly based in the US, but I do do some global stuff. And you have, like, GDPR and things like that that you have to be cognizant of. Um, you know, so, you know, we haven’t really built it out quite yet, but those are the types of things that that we have to worry about in insurance. Um, and I’m sure it’s like that in other industries as well.
Rich Giorgi: I mean, when you’re dealing with people’s information and things like that. But, you know, you know, being hyper focused on it and being a company, a European company, um, you know, privacy is so important. So, you know, building that into sales enablement, like, what we don’t want people doing is just going into chat gbt and saying, you know, write me an email or, you know, putting people’s email addresses into something and saying, you know, sort this out for me this way or that way. Yeah. No.
Rich Giorgi: I think there’s there’s definitely a lot of
Ken Lorenz: extra stuff, if you will, put it that way, that you’ve got to consider. Private data and getting into a large language model, bad. Um, a lot of our customers are in financial services as well, and so we’re we’re seeing that they are full disclosure. If content has been fully or partially built through a AI, they need to disclose that. Right.
Ken Lorenz: Um, so it’s it’s, uh, it won’t be the wild, wild west for long. I I think it’s it’s, uh, trust is a huge issue.
Rich Giorgi: Yeah. And and we’re making a concerted effort here to to leverage it. I mean, it is definitely a part of what we wanna do, and and it’s being supported. It’s just, you know, how do we get it right? And and, you know, make sure we’re doing the right thing, being smart about it.
Rich Giorgi: Right. Are you, um, and just out
Ken Lorenz: of curiosity, are you seeing different adoption rates of AI technology based on generational, in other words? Are you seeing Gen Fers and and Gen Zs using it more than millennials or obviously baby boomers? Or are you seeing a mix of, um, of it across the board? I’m I’m just curious.
Rich Giorgi: Um, I I definitely think it’s, you know, my generation and younger who are probably, you know, using it more. But I think that’s true for any any any of the tools that we kind of roll out. I mean, we we see that, you you know, the the the the cleanest pipelines are are people of a certain generation, whereas some others are you know? They’re like, how do I have to put this into a CRM system? I used to put it in a notebook.
Rich Giorgi: It’s all up here. I know who my clients are. But, yeah, there’s there’s definitely a bit of a generational skew when it comes to using tools like this.
Ken Lorenz: Yeah. I I think the younger generations, in my experience, are looking for ways to leapfrog having to have 10 or 15 years of experience in a role before they’re an expert at whatever their role is. Anything that they can use to to use that to leapfrog, they want to do it. They they want instantaneous gratification. Now, that’s a gross generalization, which which my daughters would come beat me up for.
Ken Lorenz: But I I think in my experience, there’s definitely a willingness to leverage technology or a bigger willingness than, let’s say, in older generations.
Rich Giorgi: Yeah. I mean but but part of it is just because that’s where things are going. I mean, in the next few years, um, you know, like you said, I mean, this is gonna be everywhere. It’s not gonna be the wild west anymore. So if you’re not if you’re not getting on on it now and learning it now, you know, you have no chance in the next few years.
Rich Giorgi: Um, and then even then, you know, I’m I guess I’m a millennial. I’m an elder millennial as they might say, but I am a millennial. And, you know, I was saying to to my nephew who just started college, uh, this year, I said, you’re gonna have to, you know, learn this stuff and learn it fast. I said, because for me, my bosses are gen xers and even to some extent still baby boomers. I said, but your bosses are gonna be me, millennials.
Rich Giorgi: I said, and, you know, it’s easy for the millennials to kinda outpace the Gen Xers a little bit. Again, I’m making gross generalizations here too, but I’ve seen it. Um, you know, I I’m better at Excel than certain bosses of mine have been, and and I’m embracing AI, um, in the work that I do. And, you know, the younger generation, the ones who are in college now, I I don’t know what I guess that would be Gen z, maybe. Um, Yeah.
Rich Giorgi: You know, they’re they’re gonna have to contend with a with a, you know, with people ahead of them who know how to use this stuff and who who know how to embrace technology. Um, you know, they won’t be able to leapfrog as easily as they think.
Ken Lorenz: Exactly. Well, I’ll tell you what. We’re, uh, we’re getting close to Tivir, which which is, uh, the time has flown. I guess one one question that I’ll throw at you, and then I’ll give you one additional question. So what would you want to share with the audience about, you know, things that you’ve learned over the last 15 plus years?
Ken Lorenz: If you could impart one piece of wisdom to the audience, what what would that be?
Rich Giorgi: That’s a really good question. One piece of wisdom, I think it would be just the the idea like, I I touched a little bit on it earlier, but the idea of continuous improvement. Um, you know, never never it sounds cliche, but really, especially nowadays, you know, never stop learning. Never stop trying to improve. Um, you know, it’s so easy now to learn new things.
Rich Giorgi: Um, you know, you have tons of different online courses, Coursera, free things, obviously, learning about AI. But just don’t, you know, don’t become stagnant in what you’re what you’re doing. I mean, even in the world of sales enablement, like I said, it’s it’s changed so much just in the past decade from this learning and development, little bit of sales coaching to now this large strategic type, um, function that, you know, started out in the world of tech, I think, really, and is now being embraced. I mean, uh, you know, I’m at a 160 year old Swiss financial services company, and, you know, we have a 12 person sales enablement team because that’s what we need. And we know that’s what the key differentiator is.
Rich Giorgi: So, you know, that idea of just, you know, continuous improvement, continuous learning because you never know what the next big job is gonna be or what the next tool, you know, is gonna be that’s gonna take your career in a different direction.
Ken Lorenz: Awesome. That that’s great advice. So so my tradition on on the podcast is the last question is actually yours. So is is there let me flip the tables. Is there anything that you’d like to ask me is is the opposite?
Ken Lorenz: I know you’ve actually been on a number of podcasts, so I’m I’m sort of prepared. So you’re in you’re in
Rich Giorgi: a sales leadership role now, and this is about rev ops. I mean, how have you seen the evolution, you know, of of rev ops and revenue enablement from, you know, your early days as a seller through now your time as a sales leader? And, you know, do you agree it’s become, you know, the a more strategic function than what it has been? Yeah. So so great great question.
Ken Lorenz: Um, it’s obviously changed significantly. Right? I think you touched on it at the beginning of the conversation with, you know, rev ops was an IT function, an administrative function. Now it’s becoming a lot more strategic. I think that there’s tremendous value in it in in one of the things that I’m seeing, and you’ve done it, uh, we’ve done it in our organization, is to take sales enablement, that function, and make that part of rev ops.
Ken Lorenz: Right? Because it’s not I think people think about sales enablement in terms of teaching you about how to sell, what the collateral is, what do I, you know, how do I handle objections, the classical sales training kind of stuff. But it’s so tightly ingrained with the systems and the processes that it it makes sense for sales enablement to live in rev ops even though it’s not just about the technology. Um, so to me, that’s been a big change. I think there’s the rev ops organizations that I’ve been around that succeed the most have strong business acumen within the rev ops team and can do a great job of anticipating what the business is looking for, you know, even before they know it.
Ken Lorenz: Um, it it can be frustrating when you’ve got a rev ops team that is looking for things to do, if you will, but they don’t understand what makes the business tick. So having that business acumen built in is is, in my experience, is really critical, um, to to human success. Otherwise, you can you can invest a lot of time and effort into things, but they don’t really change the trajectory of the business.
Rich Giorgi: Yeah. I know. I I would agree with that a 100%. I mean, understanding where the business is going, have a having a clear view of that strategy, um, is so important. Otherwise, yeah, you’re just searching for stuff to do and that doesn’t help people.
Ken Lorenz: Yep. No, exactly. I I think I think at a personal level, and then, Jesse, we can cut this part of it out. But, um, I I think at a personal level, coming from a technical development background and going into sales, I get frustrated because sometimes I just want to solution it. It’s just, look, just build these tables, create these joins, here’s how I want this to work.
Ken Lorenz: Mhmm. And I get the can, don’t solution. Right? Just you give us the business requirements. We’ll give you the solutions.
Ken Lorenz: Okay. Fine. Right. Um, but, uh, no. It’s, uh, I think it’s it’s helping significantly.
Ken Lorenz: Right? I mean, sales and marketing absolutely has to depend on technology to be successful, and having somebody strategically aligned to make sure the technology is implemented properly and managed and and so on is really critical. Right. Yeah.