Getting buy-in from all of your users is crucial for success when introducing a new revenue enablement process, tool or strategy, according to Lunchbox's Director of Revenue Enablement, Bryan Grobstein.

We caught up with him to pick his brains about everything from what makes a successful enablement leader, to how Covid forced Lunchbox to re-evaluate their entire business model.

Q. What leadership traits would you say are crucial for driving revenue growth - particularly in today’s uncertain environment?

A. Accountability and ownership are givens for any leadership role. Larger RevOps teams have resource-rich, sophisticated and highly specialized revenue engines, but early stage startups often require a solo FTE generalist that can take project ownership from strategy to operationalization alongside cross functional thought leaders. It’s the full lifecycle of a deliverable with a deadline; orchestrating each step of ideation, documentation, communication and iteration.

Empathy and emotional intelligence is paramount when developing standardized processes, implementing tools and systems, or establishing expectations. Change is hard and the velocity of change can get a visceral response from anyone impacted. Not to mention getting key contributors from across the business to prioritize your projects.

Having a growth mindset and self-awareness to recognize when you need to go back to the drawing board. Constantly measuring efficacy to substantiate the direction and make small, incremental changes. Data is great but a process, tool or strategy is only effective if there’s buy-in all of your users. Feedback from an SDR or AE is equally as valuable as the feedback from a VP of Sales.


Q. How do you ensure consistent team performance that ensures success amongst those key teams that are involved in driving revenue: sales, leadership, marketing, customer success, and enablement?

A. ACED - Automation, Collaboration, Evolution, Documentation.

  • Automation - Any time you can simplify the revenue strategy through automation, you ensure consistency across the entire organization. Integrated systems, validated fields and universal naming conventions will optimize reports and drive adoption.
  • Collaboration - You need cross functional teams involved at the outset. Anyone involved in the buyer’s journey and execution of the process will need to champion the revenue strategy. Even if you have a contrarian in the mix, if the strategy represents their voice, they will be an advocate.
  • Evolution - It’s a cliche but “the only constant is change”. Once GTM leadership establishes the principles and goals, the execution will be an iterative process. Small tweaks along the way, not sweeping changes that will cause uncertainty and confusion. Pivot too often and you lose the crowd.
  • Documentation - It’s pretty common to hear someone say they weren’t told about XYZ. Part of Enablement is ensuring that everyone receives job aids, resource guides, wiki updates, weekly newsletter, meeting recaps, etc. All of the above is important for education and accountability.

Q. Can you share an example(s) of when and how you’ve adapted (for example, your value proposition) or pivoted over the past year at Lunchbox to ensure continued revenue growth?

A. Since I just got started at Lunchbox in March, I don’t have a great example that is specific to that role. At Garten, we had to re-evaluate our entire model since our product was based on employees coming into the office. We needed to quickly expand our product mix to include at home services (snack boxes), virtual events (wellness classes) and contactless technology (vending).

Everything needed to change at that point from our value proposition to our pricing/packaging. Demand generation evolved to target with our new ICP and buyer personas. Buyer’s journey mapping had to align with each of the new offerings. Essentially, our end-to-end sales readiness started from scratch thanks to Covid.


Q. Do you feel RevOps should shift more focus onto retention, cross-selling & upselling as a means of revenue generation, rather than new customer acquisition, at the moment?

A. Not at all. While it’s incredibly important to master Expand + Retain sales plays, you cannot shift your focus away from landing new business.

Depending on your deal size and sales cycle, revenue campaigns can have downstream implications on pipeline conversion. While you might see some stage durations stalling right now, you need to invest today in opportunities that will cross the finish line in 90-180 days.


Q. How is the role of Revenue Leader different to traditional sales leadership?

A. I guess it depends on company size and maturity. Traditional sales leaders often need to be 100% focused on their team. There are a lot of dynamic personalities in sales, all with the singular goal of pipeline conversion and quota attainment. There’s not much time for other things.

When you are in RevOps or Enablement, the primary directive is scalable, repeatable revenue across the entire sales process.

Smaller, early stage companies require all hands on deck from demand gen to expand and retain. Quota carrying leaders and revenue leaders should be walking in lockstep to win each deal, hit the forecast and get that next round of capital.



Keen to hear more from sales enablement experts on how their strategies have propelled them to the at the top of their game? Tune in to the Sales Enablement Innovation podcast!