Welcome to The Adapter’s Advantage: Breakthrough Moments that Lead to Success. In this episode, industry analyst Josh Bersin shares why we’re seeing explosive growth in learning during the pandemic and how his lowest moment ended up being a pivotal career turning point.

As a globally known industry analyst, educator, and thought leader in all aspects of HR, leadership, and HR technology, Bersin produces sought-after research and analysis on the topics of corporate human resources, talent management, recruiting, leadership, technology, and the intersection between work and life. Bersin is the founder and dean of the Josh Bersin Academy, the world’s professional development academy for HR.

Listen to this episode to hear Bersin describe the growing need for learning in the flow of work, the evolution of training technology, and why a good learning experience forces us out of our comfort zone.

Episode 9: Learning In the Flow of Work | Josh Bersin

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“Companies that fail to invest well in sales training and sales enablement and understanding who they’re selling to and how they will best reach those customers usually do not achieve their potential.” — Josh Bersin

From This Episode

Host Mark Magnacca: “How do you see the sales process changing in this more virtual world?

Josh Bersin: “I spent two years as an engineer and decided I didn’t want to be an engineer. When I went back to college and came back to work a second time, I went into sales. I worked at IBM in the eighties, and for those of you that ever worked at IBM in the eighties, IBM was the Google of today. It was the hot place to work. I was a systems engineer, and then a sales person, went through marketing, became a manager. Later, I worked in corporate training and online learning.

“One of the things I always appreciated was that it doesn’t matter how good your product is or your service. If people don’t buy it, you’re not going to have a company. My son works in sales. My mother worked in sales. I don’t look at sales as an evil thing. I look at it as a very creative thing. It’s really the translation of a product or a service into value for a customer or buyer. And so I have really paid a lot of attention to sales in my own companies and in the clients I talked to.

“You find from private equity companies that turn around businesses and companies that are highly successful that they always have a killer sales organization. It is always a formula for success. I think companies that fail to invest well in sales training and sales enablement and understanding who they’re selling to and how they will best reach those customers usually do not achieve their potential.

“The other thing I’ve learned about sales is that salespeople are not just the people out there collecting the revenue and trying to do deals. They give executives enormous insights into what’s going on in the market. In my experience, I pay a lot of attention to what’s going on in the sales organization because they’re the ones that hear firsthand why somebody does or does not buy or use or appreciate the product that you’re building. So they’re a very important part of a company and maybe one of the most important parts of an organization of any size.”

About Adapter’s Advantage

Our podcast features leaders from sales, training, and industry who share their personal journeys of transformation and how they are adapting to an ever-changing environment. As your host, I’ll introduce you to some of the most interesting and inspiring people I’ve met over the last twenty years.

The conversations dive into the ups and downs of my guests’ journeys. We focus on inflection points—the aha moments that, in retrospect, had a critical impact on their success. These interviews will leave you with practical, real-world advice that you can apply to your life.

Our world is in constant change. This podcast helps sales training, enablement, or learning and development professionals gain valuable insights to help themselves and their organizations adapt to this time of tremendous upheaval.

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