The first question that matters: why change now? Steve mentions that if the buyer does not feel real discomfort, the process drifts. The deal may still look active, but it is usually sitting atop the status quo.
He frames urgency around three familiar pressure points
In practice, that means the seller has to help the buyer name the cost of doing nothing. Without that, the internal case for change stays vague.
Brian started with Brevet’s origin story, and I think it matters. The firm did not come from a traditional training background. It came from management consulting, then learned a hard lesson in the field.
Good ideas do not change seller behavior on their own.
That gap shaped Brevet’s point of view. Strategy must turn into implementation. Implementation has to show up in the way sellers prepare, run conversations, manage opportunities, and use tools.
“To get behavior change, to get sales organizations to do something different, we needed to overemphasize this idea of implementation,” Brian said.
That is the execution problem many revenue leaders still face. The strategy is right. The rollout is polished. But the field does not change enough, fast enough, or consistently enough.
Warren made a point that should get the attention of every CRO. Enablement is no longer a support function that waits for requests from the field.
The best enablement leaders are becoming strategic integrators. They work across HR on role design and competencies. They work with RevOps and IT on the tech stack. They work with product marketing on messaging. They work with frontline managers on coaching and adoption.
That is a different job.
It also changes how enablement should be measured. Smile sheets and attendance numbers do not tell the story. Revenue leaders need to know whether enablement is improving seller productivity, manager participation, and execution quality.
There is a lot of noise around AI. That is true in every function. But for enablement leaders, the real question is practical.
What would the enablement function look like if it were designed around what AI can do now, and what it may be able to do in the next 12 months?
Brian described a client asking that exact question. Not how to add one tool. Not how to make an old process faster. How to rethink the function with a blank sheet of paper.
That is the right question.
AI can support practice, simulation, workflow guidance, content use, coaching signals, and measurement. It can help leaders see whether training is changing what happens in the field. It can also expose where adoption is breaking down.
But the tool is not the strategy; the operating model still matters.
Warren closed with a practical challenge: spend a day in the life of your sellers and sales leaders.
Many organizations have added processes, tools, content, AI prompts, dashboards, and methodology layers to the field. Each addition may make sense on its own. Together, they can create drag. And sellers feel that drag first.
If enablement leaders want to know what sticks, they need to see the work as sellers experience it.
What do they use before a call? What do they ignore? Where does the CRM slow them down? Where does coaching help? Where does it become noise?
That proximity changes the quality of enablement decisions.
Ray Makela, Warren Shiver, and Brian Williams discuss why enablement has to move beyond event-based training and into long-term activation, manager reinforcement, AI-supported measurement, and field-level behavior change.