RevTalks, Episode 9: How IBM is elevating tech to teammate

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Amanda Mikesell-Carrera: Hello, everybody. Is this thing on? Can you hear me? Awesome. Great. I'm very excited to be here with you all today, along with some wonderful colleagues I’ve had the joy of working with, to talk about how we've implemented some transformations with our sales tool stack at IBM. Specifically, I’m Amanda Mikesell-Carrera.

This is a kind of full-circle moment for me because when I started at IBM, we were just beginning our implementation of Salesloft, and I was using it as a seller. I've interacted with it as a sales leader, and for the last two years, I've been leading our deployment for sales tools, including our Seller Workflow Automation Initiative for North America digital sales.

I’m joined by some wonderful sellers — Josh and Hannah — and then our partner in crime at Salesloft, Nick, who has been instrumental in the deployment. I’ll let you each take a moment to introduce yourselves.

Joshua Artzy-McCendie: Yeah, my name's Josh. I've been working at IBM for about two years in our digital department, using many of our sales tools to drive as much volume as possible in our Data and AI department.

Hannah Elwell: And I'm Hannah Elwell. I've been at IBM for about eight years now, working in the digital select industry with automation. In digital sales, we’re constantly outreaching, and Salesloft is a tool I use every single day. So if you want to know how your salespeople feel about using this tool, we’re great references!

Nick Harris: My name is Nick Harris. I lead our strategic services team here at Salesloft, partnering with our strategic customer segment to make sure they’re wildly successful.

Amanda Mikesell-Carrera: Great. To give you an overview of what we’ll cover today, this Seller Workflow Automation Initiative in digital sales is focused on making sure we have effective deployment and adoption of our sales tools across the organization. We work closely with our vendors and internal teams to ensure we’re making progress, addressing product needs, and co-creating strategies to ensure success.

Later, I’ll be excited to talk with you about how we’re embedding AI into our processes to reduce the time sellers spend on non-revenue-generating activities, allowing them more time with clients and increasing productivity.

One of the key challenges we’ve faced—and many of you might find familiar if you’re deploying sales tools in your organization — is that we have many different business units selling products. Without intentional communication between them, they can operate in silos, which is a disservice. We want to make sure any best practices from one vertical are accessible and scalable across our business units.

Data governance and compliance are also hugely important to us. Digital sales at IBM involves a mix of existing clients, but we have a strong focus on acquiring new clients in white spaces. This means prospecting heavily while ensuring our activities remain compliant. To achieve this, compliance has to be built into our sales processes, rather than relying on individual behaviors.

Adoption is critical too. Having been a seller myself, I understand the importance of meaningful adoption, not adoption for its own sake. It’s essential to understand why our teams are or aren’t using a tool so we can scale good practices and address any issues that arise.

Josh, Hannah, I’d love to hear your perspectives on these challenges and how they play out in your day-to-day work.

Joshua Artzy-McCendie: As Amanda mentioned, we have multiple brands and many clients. I work with about 350 active accounts and thousands of others I’m prospecting into. At any one time, there may be 9 or 10 other sellers prospecting into the same accounts with different products. Knowing which accounts I’ve touched, who I’ve spoken to, and what’s already been communicated is crucial.

In the past, keeping track of all this in a CRM manually was a struggle. Salesloft automates that process, so I can see who has engaged with each account and when, avoiding repeated outreach. Salesloft also allows me to see who else is talking to an account within another business unit, so I can coordinate with those sellers beforehand.

Hannah Elwell: IBM’s partnership with Salesloft has been ongoing for several years now, and we have a lot of historical data about who has contacted whom. Recently, I was prospecting a new whitespace account and found that they had responded to an email three years ago! I could review that conversation before re-engaging.

Before Salesloft, following up was a manual process. I’d have to search through Outlook just to keep up with my cadence. But since using Salesloft, my success as a seller has greatly improved. I can confidently say that Salesloft is one of the few tools that has truly made an impact on my career.

Nick Harris: That’s such a great example of how Salesloft impacts the buyer experience by making it more personal and informed.

Amanda Mikesell-Carrera: Absolutely. Those of us who’ve sold without a tool like Salesloft can really appreciate the difference it makes. When I first took on this role, we faced many challenges in adoption, which highlights the importance of understanding why tools aren’t being used.

We discovered three primary issues: lack of integrations, lingering biases from past issues, and inadequate enablement. For example, at the time, we didn’t have an integration between Salesloft and our email system, which led to emails being sent from a subdomain rather than from our actual IBM addresses. This affected our credibility, understandably leading sellers to bypass Salesloft altogether.

Nick and I had some honest conversations about these challenges. Within six months, by focusing on solving these issues, we drove utilization from 40% to 80%. This included working with our CIO’s office to implement the email integration and communicating the change to sellers in a way that demonstrated we were listening and responding to their feedback.

We also conducted extensive enablement, offering both virtual and in-person workshops to meet sellers where they are. For some, virtual training was sufficient, but for others, nothing beats an on-site workshop.

Nick Harris: We’ve learned that there’s no single solution to drive adoption. You need to meet sellers on their journey with options like on-site enablement, self-serve resources, and predictable virtual training.

Amanda Mikesell-Carrera: Absolutely. And while we solved many initial issues, new challenges will always arise. This ongoing loop of listening, addressing issues, and reinforcing the feedback loop is essential.

Recently, we’ve been focusing on the IBM Sales Assistant project, an initiative to streamline and automate the workflow for our sellers by using our own AI products. It allows sellers to pull accounts, identify prospects, and find relevant personas without having to search manually. Josh and Hannah have been key contributors in piloting this project within digital sales, and it will soon be available more broadly.

Hannah Elwell: The Watson X Sales Assistant has been a game-changer for me. I’ve seen higher email response rates, longer conversations, and increased productivity. With its chatbot capabilities, I can quickly access prospecting lists, marketing documents, and more.

Joshua Artzy-McCendie: I love how it simplifies complex tasks. Instead of manually compiling a campaign, I can ask the Assistant about my best products, top industries, and suggested contact personas. What would have taken days to compile is now ready in minutes.

Amanda Mikesell-Carrera: This entire experience has taught us that deploying a sales tool stack is about understanding your sellers as clients. You have to be deeply rooted in understanding the challenges they face and remain committed to improving continuously.

Thank you all for joining this discussion. I hope you found it insightful, and I’d be happy to connect offline for further brainstorming and sharing ideas.