The economic headwinds companies have endured over the past year continue to be a challenge for many sales teams. In fact, Forrester Research warns B2B companies to get ready for a bumpy ride through 2024.

“B2B marketing, sales, and product teams face a turbulent year ahead, full of partner-centered growth and productivity ups as well as buyer demand, technology, and regulatory/legal downs,” Forrester’s analysts say. They also predict generative AI will have a “sweeping impact across all teams,” with a mix of success and failures during the year.

Teams that succeed will “double down on customer analysis and understanding, address buyer preferences, and enrich collaboration with partners.”

Erik Fowler, Chief Revenue Officer at Allego, views the situation similarly. Erik has 20 years of sales leadership experience at SaaS companies, and over the years he’s learned how to navigate economic ups and downs.

“Everyone is looking at the economy and wondering, ‘Is it a soft landing? Is it a hard landing? Is there going to be a recession?’ There isn’t going to be a national recession. But if you look at the technology companies, we are definitely in a technology recession,” he told me during a recent interview.

And in a technology recession, decision makers look very closely at every dollar spent. That means sales reps must ensure those buyers understand the value of the products they sell, he said.

This has been a great opportunity for us to partner with our customers, to sit down to show them the full value that Allego and its full suite bring to the revenue enablement space.

“For Allego, this has been a great opportunity for us to partner with our customers, to sit down to show them the full value that Allego and its full suite bring to the revenue enablement space,” Fowler said. “Allego had the foresight to realize that [many enablement point solutions] would ultimately come together [in one platform]. And that’s what customers want. They want one vendor that can provide them with a fully integrated revenue enablement suite.”

When you buy from one vendor, you reduce the total cost of ownership, you increase your sales team’s productivity, and you have a product that works significantly better because the components are integrated—they were built to work with one another,” he said.

Fowler also warns sales leaders not to overreact to what they see in the news.

“When economic times get tough, some companies pivot really hard to the right. If that doesn’t work, then they pivot all the way over to the left. And that doesn’t work. They compound the situation and make it worse.

“I think the biggest thing to do is to make incremental changes while at the same time, looking 10 or 15 steps ahead to make sure you’re getting through all the obstacles. When you get through it, you’re in a better position to move forward,” he said.

Fowler shared even more during our conversation, including the evolution of the sales enablement industry, benefits of revenue enablement suites, and the impact of AI on sales and enablement. Continue reading to learn more about those and trends that could shape the future of revenue enablement.

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Michelle Davidson: How is the revenue enablement industry evolving? How are things going since we last talked six months ago?

Erik Fowler: I’ve been a user of these types of technologies for a long time, and I’ve watched this revenue enablement industry really be formed over the last 10 to 15 years. During that time, numerous point solutions have come out—solutions for learning, call intelligence, coaching, content, and so on. So, organizations end up with multiple tools. And now consumers of these technologies realize they don’t want to have seven or eight or nine different vendors that they’re working with. They want one vendor to deliver a full suite of revenue enablement products.

Allego saw that vision early on and designed the company so it could provide a full revenue enablement suite. They had the foresight to realize that these components would ultimately come together. And that’s what buyers want. They want one vendor that can provide them with a fully integrated revenue enablement suite. That’s really the future of revenue enablement.

What are the benefits of having a revenue enablement suite? Is it cost related? Is it productivity?

Fowler: It’s all of the above, and I think it’s being accelerated by the economy that we’re in where everybody is watching every dollar that they spend very carefully. Obviously there’s value in purchasing from a single vendor just from the total cost of ownership. In fact, optimizing costs is a top priority for CFOs this year, Gartner found, increasing in importance 74% since 2022. Beyond that, the value of purchasing from a single vendor is that it’s a natively integrated solution. A lot of companies out there will offer “a suite,” but the difference is they’re stitching it together by leveraging APIs. The reality is that those solutions often don’t function as well as a true, native suite product like Allego.

What are the main components of a successful effective revenue enablement program?

Fowler: It goes back to having a suite where all the components are in one platform. I call it the single pane of glass. Think about your browser window when you have a thousand tabs open. You have to hunt for the right tab and probably have to log into the website or the application. It’s easier and faster if you can eliminate some of those tabs—and condense the information into just one.

The same applies to sales tools. Research from Salesforce shows 66% of sales reps say they’re drowning in tools and spend just 28% of their week selling. So, you want to make it easier for sellers to access as much information as possible. Allego does that by integrating with Salesforce or the CRM, making it possible for sellers to access that full suite of revenue enablement tools right there at their fingertips.

Part of the philosophy of revenue enablement is all the teams work together—that sales and marketing are aligned. How do you approach that and ensure it happens?

Fowler: All the technology in the world doesn’t matter if you don’t have people. It comes back to the people and their willingness to work together. I think building a culture of collaboration is the first step of that. Then you want to work together to leverage the technology that can help you take your company to the next level. I look at all these exciting technologies out there, but at the end of the day, if your teams don’t build that working relationship, you’re not going to have success no matter what tools you purchase.

Are you working with Allego’s VP of marketing to ensure sales and marketing collaborate?

Fowler: Yes. Deniz (Olcay) and I are tightly aligned. He’s part of the sales leadership team, so he participates in all our sales leadership calls. He’s a key team member and helps make sure that line of communication is always open and available. Our teams are synergistic. It’s really truly one team focused on the same goal, which is to support our customers and grow our business.

Allego is a strong proponent of continuous learning and everboarding within the sales team. How do you do that? How are you fostering that continuous learning environment?

Fowler: It’s about making it a priority. Because if you don’t make time for it, then it doesn’t feel important. Again, you can have all the tools in the world, but if you’re not helping people understand the value that they bring and giving them time to maximize their skills, then they’re never going to be successful. I think back to my time as a kid playing basketball, and if you didn’t practice those free throws and that motion every single time, you just didn’t get better. You had to stay and allocate that time, not just play.

You have to spend time practicing your [sales] skills so when it’s time to get into the game, which is having conversations with the customers, you’re prepared.

It’s no different in sales. You have to spend time practicing your skills so when it’s time to get into the game, which is having conversations with the customers, you’re prepared. Because in today’s world, you don’t have as many chances to talk with buyers as you used to. Customers are more educated than they’ve ever been. They come to you, and when they do, they probably know 70% of what they already want to know because of the research that’s out there. So, you really have only one chance to impress. And making sure you’re ready for that opportunity goes back to putting time aside to hone those skills and sales leaders emphasizing the importance of learning and practicing.

You talked a bit about marketing and sales working together to put the customer first. How do you make sure the sales team puts customers in the center of their strategies?

Fowler: It’s really a mindset, and it starts from the top of the company with leaders saying, “Hey, we know our lifeline is our customers. And if we don’t put them first, then we put all of us in jeopardy.” I’ve been doing this for a while now, and it amazes me how many companies just don’t see that and don’t see the value of it. I think one of the things we do really, really well at Allego is we lead from the top and we believe that if you have happy customers, you have happy employees, and then you have happy customers. It just goes back and forth.

Now I want to talk about AI. AI is talked about everywhere. How do you see AI impacting sales and enablement?

Fowler: I think the key with AI is to leverage it in different areas to make your life a little easier. For example, one way we use it in sales every day is we record our sales calls, we have a nice call with the customer, and then AI can completely transcribe the call, provide a summary, send it to you, and send it to the customer. But then following that, AI can give you content recommendations: Based on the conversation you had, here’s some content that might be valuable to the customer. It can even go as far as to build a personalized microsite—a Digital Sales Room—that you can share with them and suggest content to include in it.

You can’t think of AI as all encompassing—that it is going to do everything for you. Just look at the different subsets of the revenue enablement cycle and decide where it can be plugged in to make the seller’s job easier, such as give them recommendations and make sure they’re putting their best foot forward for their customers. That’s where AI is having the most impact right now. Five or 10 years from now, we’re going to look back and say, “Wow! AI completely changed everything.” But I think it’s going to be in small steps in targeted areas, such as writing an email for you, and then grow from there.

AI is in almost every tool we use, like Microsoft Word, Google Docs, even social media management platforms. It’s there, and it’s already doing work to help us.

Fowler: Yeah, it’s going to be interesting. I think for people who say they want AI projects, so to speak, I would look at areas that you can plug and play to just make things a little easier, make them improved. Having AI take over the job of an SDR or sales rep is not going to happen anytime in the near future—maybe never. Because at the end of the day, there’s a people component and no one takes care of your customer like a human. You must have empathy, and you have to want to help that customer and its stakeholders achieve their goals and objectives. We’re really, really far off from AI being able to do that.

Having AI take over the job of an SDR or sales rep is not going to happen anytime in the near future—maybe never. Because at the end of the day, there’s a people component and no one takes care of your customer like a human.

Over the course of your career, has there been a time when you’ve had to overcome significant challenges? If so, what lessons did you learn from that experience?

Fowler: I’ve experienced many different challenges. I actually look at the environment we’re in right now as a challenging environment. Everyone is looking at the economy and wondering, “Is it a soft landing? Is it a hard landing? Is there going to be a recession?” There isn’t going to be a national recession. But if you look at the technology companies, we are definitely in a technology recession. When you have people who are watching every single dollar, it becomes super, super important that they understand the value that they get from their products.

For Allego, this has been a great opportunity for us to partner with our customers, to sit down to show them the full value that Allego and its full suite bring to the revenue enablement vertical. I’ve watched what our company is doing in the face of a lot of economic headwinds, and I’m really impressed with what we’re doing. I’ve seen these cycles go before, and I’m super excited about what we’ll see when we get on the other side and the technology economy starts to take off again. There’s going to be a lot of really, really good things happening across multiple verticals, and we’re going to be on a nice upward trajectory pretty quickly.

Did you learn anything in previous difficult economic climates that you’re able to apply this time around?

Fowler: I think the biggest thing is to not overreact. I started my career as a naval officer, and I drove big ships. When you have a big ship, you can only move the ship so much at any given time. So, you have to predict things to make sure you’re not going to hit objects, because it just takes a really long time to turn. It’s similar to businesses. When economic times get tough, some companies pivot really hard to the right. If that doesn’t work, then they pivot all the way over to the left. And that doesn’t work. They compound the situation and make it worse.

I think the biggest thing to do is to make incremental changes while at the same time, looking 10 or 15 steps ahead to make sure you’re getting through all the obstacles. When you get through it, you’re in a better position to move forward. That’s exactly how I approach the things that we’re evaluating. I don’t make any haste decisions based on the latest economic news.

That’s a great analogy. Last question. Looking to the future, what trends do you anticipate coming down the line that could shape revenue enablement?

Fowler: We talked about it a little bit earlier, but AI will absolutely shape revenue enablement. It already is by creating transcripts of calls and providing coaching advice. We’ll see AI popping up in that entire revenue enablement life cycle, and I think that’s exciting. I think we should embrace that because it’ll only help us help our sellers become better. And as AI expert Sam Richter—who is speaking at Allego’s S3—points out, you may not get replaced by AI, but you might get replaced by someone who uses it well.

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About Erik Fowler: Erik is Chief Revenue Officer of Allego where he is responsible for the company’s customer acquisition and sales goals. He has 20 years of sales leadership experience, focused on maximizing sales opportunities through strategic planning and streamlined sales processes.

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