Sales Enablement Manager

Overview

You'll develop training programs, create sales content, and drive adoption of new GTM strategies as Backblaze rebuilds how they sell cloud storage. You report to Kassie Morgan (Senior Director of Sales & Rev Strategy). This means you're building enablement infrastructure from scratch or heavily revamping what exists—not just maintaining existing programs.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Public company (IPO'd in 2021)

Size: 362 employees

Growth: Active GTM transformation - new positioning, new sales motions, scaling strategies being rebuilt

Market Position: Challenger in cloud storage fighting AWS, Google Cloud, Azure. Known for transparent pricing and being developer-friendly, but constantly battling "why not just use AWS?" objections.

GTM Reality

Current State:

• Sales team learning new positioning and messaging (transformation in progress)
• Mix of self-serve PLG motion and traditional enterprise sales
• Likely moving upmarket or refining ICP as part of transformation
• New reps need to understand both technical product (cloud storage) and business value
• Existing reps need to unlearn old approaches and adopt new ones

Your Role in It:

• Building training that sticks during a period of change
• Creating content that helps reps actually handle objections and position value
• Measuring whether enablement is working (not just if people attended training)
• Partnering with sales leadership to diagnose skill gaps and fix them

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: AWS S3, Google Cloud Storage, Microsoft Azure Blob, Wasabi

How They Differentiate: Predictable pricing (no egress fees that surprise customers), S3-compatible (easy migration), positioned as the anti-lock-in alternative

Common Objections: "Why not AWS?", "Are you stable long-term?", "What about enterprise support?", "Our team already knows AWS tools"

Win Themes: Total cost of ownership (egress costs add up fast), transparent pricing, multi-cloud strategy, performance for AI/ML workloads

Your Job: Make sure reps can articulate this clearly and handle objections confidently

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Content Creation (35%) | Training Delivery (25%) | Program Management (25%) | Coaching/Observation (15%)

Key Activities

• Building sales playbooks: Writing talk tracks, objection handling guides, discovery question frameworks, competitive battle cards. Making them usable (not 50-page PDFs no one reads).
• Onboarding new hires: Creating and delivering new hire bootcamp. Product training, sales methodology, tool training, shadowing program. Then checking if they're actually ready to sell.
• Ongoing training programs: Running workshops on new positioning, competitive updates, skill development (discovery, demos, negotiation). Mix of live sessions and self-paced content.
• Creating enablement content: Slide decks, one-pagers, demo scripts, email templates, video snippets. Packaging complex technical concepts into rep-friendly formats.
• Measuring effectiveness: Tracking training completion, content usage, certification pass rates. More importantly, tracking whether trained reps actually perform better (shorter ramp time, higher win rates, faster cycles).
• Sales coaching: Shadowing calls, giving feedback, running role-plays, helping reps practice new skills. Not just training once and hoping it sticks.
• Cross-functional coordination: Working with Product Marketing on messaging, with Product on technical training, with Rev Ops on process adoption, with Sales Leadership on skill gaps.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• Proving impact: Hard to draw a straight line from your training to revenue. You'll need to get creative with metrics and tell stories about rep development.
• Getting reps to show up: Sales reps are busy. They'll skip training if they don't see immediate value. You need to make it relevant and convenient or they won't engage.
• Building credibility without carrying quota: You're not selling, so some reps won't take your advice seriously until you prove you understand their world.
• Keeping content current: The GTM transformation means messaging will change. Content you spent weeks building might get outdated in a quarter.
• Adult learners are hard: Everyone learns differently. Some want workshops, some want docs, some want shadowing. You can't please everyone.
• Change fatigue: Reps are learning new positioning, new tools, new processes. They'll resist more training. You need to balance pushing skill development with not overwhelming them.

What Success Looks Like

• New reps ramp faster (time to first deal, time to quota attainment)
• Existing reps adopt new messaging and positioning (you hear it on calls, see it in emails)
• Win rates improve in competitive deals (especially vs. AWS)
• Content gets used organically (reps share your battle cards and decks without prompting)
• Sales leadership asks for your input on GTM strategy (you're seen as a partner, not just a trainer)

Who You're Supporting

Primary Stakeholders:

• Sales team (AEs, SDRs, SEs) - they're your students and content consumers
• Sales leadership - they identify skill gaps and measure your impact
• Product Marketing - partners on messaging and positioning
• Product team - source for technical training
• Your manager (Kassie) - sets enablement priorities and strategy

What They Care About:

• Sales reps: "Give me something I can actually use to close deals. Don't waste my time with theory."
• Sales leadership: "Shorten ramp time and improve win rates. That's how I measure enablement."
• Product Marketing: "Make sure reps can articulate our positioning consistently."
• Product: "Help reps understand the technical side so they can have credible conversations."

Requirements

• 3-5 years in sales enablement, sales training, or sales experience (need credibility with reps)
• Experience building enablement programs from scratch or during transformation (not just maintaining steady-state programs)
• Strong content creation skills (can write clear talk tracks, build compelling decks, record effective training videos)
• Comfortable with technical products (cloud storage is infrastructure - need to simplify complexity)
• Instructional design skills (know how adults learn, can build effective training)
• Data-driven approach (can measure enablement impact beyond training completion rates)
• Direct communication style with low ego (fits manager's culture)
• Comfortable working remotely and enabling distributed teams