How News Corp Australia Enables 600 Salespeople At Scale | Interview

Episode Transcript: Felix Krueger (00:00): Hi, my name is Felix Krueger, and I'm your host. If this is your first time tuning into The State of Sales Enablement podcast. Welcome, and thanks for your support. If you work closely with a B2B enterprise sales team in your role, make sure to check out the free on demand training provided by Krueger Marketing, my business and the sponsor of this podcast. The training breaks down the steps required to shorten sales cycles with the effective use of content. To access the free training session, visit thestateofsalesenablement.com/content, that's thestateofsalesenablement.com/content. (00:34): Welcome to The State of Sales Enablement podcast with your host, Felix Krueger. Insights and actionable advice from B2B marketing and sales experts that share what it takes to achieve sales enablement excellence. Felix Krueger (00:53): My guest on today's episode is both a well-respected sales enablement veteran in the Australian media industry and a technology buyer. He is Board Director of the Australian chapter of the International Advertising Association, the world's most influential network of marketing professionals, and one of the smartest people I had the privilege of working with. In this interview, we speak to the Head of Ad Product at News Corp Australia, Stewart Heys. Enjoy the show. Welcome to the podcast, Stewart. Stewart Heys (01:18): Thank you, Felix. Felix Krueger (01:20): Thanks so much for joining today. So for those listeners that don't know you, what has been your career journey so far and what do you do now? Stewart Heys (01:27): So in terms of my journey today, I've been in digital media for 12 years, maybe. At times it has roughly been split 50-50 between media sales and sales enablement. So I've got kind of 50% experience on the sales side and then 50% experience kind of sales support sales enablement side. So I was media sales at places like CBS and CBS interactive, and also moving into Fairfax. I started off my time at Fairfax in a media sales role. And then during my time at Fairfax, moved into more sales enablement and then proceeded with that career path coming through places like Yahoo7 and now at News Corp as well. So now at News Corp I'm in a role which basically looks after the commercialisation of our own network Ad Product portfolio across which media video targeting and some of the native portfolio looking at the end-to-end ideation scoping launch in market representation of our product portfolio. And one of the key functions within that is making sure that our sales team has all the tools that they need to be able to go out and constantly sell the products that we build and we launch. So I guess that's why I'm here today. Felix Krueger (02:31): That's right. You mentioned that you previously also worked in sales yourself, which is obviously the best case scenario for somebody working in sales enablement, because you know what the challenges are. You know, the mindset of the salespeople that you're dealing with. So how would you say has this experience working in sales impacted your mindset in the way you approach sales? Stewart Heys (02:53): I think it leads to a really strong sense of empathy. I know how challenging a sales role can be. I know how pressurised it is. I know how much the sales teams, particularly premium publishing media sales, they're having to constantly create new angles, create new stories, think of new ways of doing things and ground that in kind of product experience and product knowledge. So what I kind of understand how adaptable they need to be, and that really informs my decision making process, not just around the kind of sales enablement side of things, but also in the products that we launch and the way we talk about them. So first and foremost, it's that sense of empathy. Being able to understand what they're going through on a day-to-day basis. And I think that really informs the way I operate and the way I ask