Wayne Foreman

Revenue enablement leader San Francisco Bay Area

Every revenue team has more wins in it.

I’m Wayne Foreman. I help sales teams win the deals they should be winning. I focus on whatever is slowing sellers down most, and I use AI to get them the right answer when they need it. I’ve done it leading a 25-person worldwide team and as a department of one.

See how I work Connect on LinkedIn (opens in a new tab) wayne@wayneforeman.com

How I approach enablement

Find what’s in the way. Build only what fixes it.

Start with the business

Enablement only works when it serves the business. I learn the company’s goals first, then the part sales plays in reaching them.

Fit the plan to the team

I’ve worked with enough sales teams to know where problems usually hide. What fixes them depends on the team, so every plan is built from scratch.

Follow the results

Completions and attendance are easy to count, but they don’t win deals. I look at how sellers run their calls, how fast new hires ramp and how often deals close.

Demo

Here’s what that looks like.

I built an agent that reads 40 sales calls and finds the biggest gap. It drafts the fix, I review it, and it goes out where sellers already work.

  1. 01Scores every callAI
  2. 02Finds the patternAI
  3. 03Drafts the fixAI
  4. 04Reviews and approvesMe
  5. 05Delivers in SlackAI
  6. 06Checks weeklyAI

Scoring all 40 calls cost about $3.

Gap report

The pattern across the calls, by rep and team, with quotes as evidence.

Open →

Five-minute lesson

What good sounds like, in the strongest reps’ own words.

Open →

Role-play

A buyer, a scenario and a rubric to score the practice.

Open →

Manager notes

Which reps need it, the evidence, and one question for the next one-on-one.

Open →

The company, sellers and calls in this demo are made up.

AI

AI is how I work.

“A seller doesn’t need more training. They need the right answer the moment it matters.”

That’s what AI finally makes possible. I build assistants that answer sellers’ questions mid-deal and take prep work off their plate, and I test each one against real examples before it reaches a seller. Try one below, built for Keelmark, the made-up company from the demo above.

Questions are preset. Answers drafted by AI from Keelmark’s knowledge base and reviewed by me. Nothing here runs live, and nothing you type is sent anywhere.

The buyer says Nimbalance does the same thing for half the price. What do I say?

Agree that they’re cheaper, because they are: their list price runs about 40% below ours. Then ask whether finance needs to plan and explain spend, since that’s where Nimbalance falls short.

Say this: They’re cheaper. The question is whether finance needs to plan and explain spend too.

Drawn from: Nimbalance battlecardPricing and discount guideCustomer story: Pellaton

Practice. The buyer says: Nimbalance gives us basically the same dashboards for about half what you’re asking.

Your goal: Agree on price, then move the talk to what finance needs that Nimbalance can’t do.

A good reply includes:

  • Admit plainly that their price is lower
  • A gap question, such as what share of the bill is unallocated or who explains a spend jump to finance
  • An offer to have the SE show shared cost allocation on the buyer’s own data

Avoid: Don’t match their discount or call their product a toy, because the buyer may have it open in another tab.

The buyer wants 25% off if they sign this month. Can I do that?

Not on your own: you can approve up to 10%, your manager up to 20%, and anything over 20% needs the VP of Sales and Finance. First find out what’s behind the ask, and if you do discount, get something back.

Say this: Is this about the total budget, or about how we compare to another quote?

Drawn from: Pricing and discount guide

Practice. The buyer says: If you can do 25% off, we’ll sign before the end of the month.

Your goal: Learn what’s driving the request and avoid committing to a number you can’t approve.

A good reply includes:

  • Ask whether it’s a budget limit, a competitor quote or a procurement habit
  • Say you’d need to get approval for anything over your limit
  • Explore trades or options like a two-year prepaid term, a reference call or a smaller first-year scope

Avoid: Don’t promise the 25% before the VP of Sales and Finance has approved it.

Their security team is asking if we can change anything in their AWS accounts, and where their data is stored.

No, every role we ask for is read only, and recommendations are shown to their team to act on. Their data stays in the AWS region they pick at setup, US (Oregon) or EU (Frankfurt), and any full questionnaire goes to your SE.

Say this: We only ask for read-only access, so we can’t change anything. Your data stays in the region you pick.

Drawn from: Security FAQ

Practice. The buyer says: Our security team needs to know what Keelmark can touch in our AWS accounts and where our data lives.

Your goal: Give clear, accurate answers and get the formal review moving early.

A good reply includes:

  • Read-only access to billing data and resource tags, with no access to workloads or application data
  • Data in US (Oregon) or EU (Frankfurt), chosen by them, staying in that region
  • An offer to route their questionnaire to the SE and share SOC 2 and ISO 27001 reports under NDA

Avoid: Don’t let the security review drift past the second call, since late reviews often push deals out a quarter.

The customer says they’ll just build it themselves on their billing export.

Respect what they built, because the builder is often in the room and may become your champion. Then ask about upkeep hours and what happens if the builder leaves, and walk through the cost math using their numbers.

Say this: What you built proves the need. The question is whether your engineers should keep maintaining it, or spend that time on your product. We’d plug into the same billing data and you could keep your dashboards if you like them.

Drawn from: Build-it-ourselves battlecardCustomer story: Ruskmoor

Practice. The buyer says: We already export our billing data to the warehouse. One of our engineers can build what we need.

Your goal: Credit their work, then help them see the real ongoing cost and the gaps.

A good reply includes:

  • Acknowledge their build fits their tags and team structure
  • Ask how many hours a month go into keeping it running and what happens if that person leaves
  • Mention Ruskmoor, where two engineers spent about a week each month on a spreadsheet and went back to product work after switching

Avoid: Don’t guess their hours or costs. Ask for their numbers.

How do I find the economic buyer?

Ask on the first call, once the buyer has described the problem and put a cost on it. Two questions are enough: is there money, and who signs.

Say this: When you buy a tool in this price range, who has to say yes?

Drawn from: Lesson from Demo 1: Ask the money questions on call oneCustomer story: RuskmoorPricing and discount guide

Practice. The buyer says: Let’s see if it works on our data first, then we can worry about who signs off.

Your goal: Find out who approves the purchase without pushing the buyer away.

A good reply includes:

  • A light framing like asking early so it’s not a surprise later
  • A direct question on who has to say yes, or the dollar amount where it goes to the CFO
  • A check on whether a parent company or group procurement has a say

Avoid: Don’t say “We’ll get there” and leave the money question for a later call.

Wayne Foreman

About

I started as a systems engineer, spent years enabling sellers and channel partners, and went on to lead enablement at Informatica, Palo Alto Networks and now Transmit Security. I’m at my best when I’m making other people successful, and I’m happy to let the team take the credit.

Off the clock, I build with AI for fun: agents that run my home lab, triage my email and track what’s new in the field. I built this site the same way.