The Friday After

Ava: So I did a thing last quarter I'd never done before. I called every single person on my team, eight days after we got back from an offsite training. Same question for all twelve of them.

Nate: Which was?

Ava: "Name ONE thing you've done differently this week because of what we learned." Three of my twelve could answer. The other nine just... went quiet on me.

Nate: Oh no.

Ava: And the training was good, Nate. Really good. Two days of objection handling with a pro I'd wanted to work with for a year. The team left that Friday feeling like they were firing on all cylinders. And eight days later, most of it was gone.

Nate: Welcome to Leading PreSales. I'm Nate.

Ava: And I'm Ava. Every episode, one idea, five minutes. Today: the Friday after an offsite is where enablement actually happens... and most of us skip it entirely.

Nate: Okay so, walk me through what happened that Monday. The week after.

Ava: Monday hit. Half the team walked straight into back-to-back demos booked before the offsite. The other half had urgent customer work waiting. And by Friday? We were doing exactly what we were doing the week BEFORE the training. Same habits, same reflexes.

Nate: Hmm. Look, I want to push on something. Is this a training problem... or just a memory problem? Because humans forget. That's not the vendor's fault.

Ava: Memory is real. But I went and dug into this after those phone calls, because it bothered me. There's research going back decades on something called the forgetting curve. Ninety percent of unreinforced learning fades within a week. Ninety percent, Nate.

Nate: Mm. And you paid for one hundred.

Ava: I paid... honestly, I don't even want to say the number out loud. It was a real number. For a team of twelve. And most of it evaporated in a week.

Nate: Look, I've managed some significant enablement budgets over the years. And the dirty secret every VP of SE knows — but nobody says out loud — is that we keep buying workshops because they're LEGIBLE. You get a receipt. There's a photo of the team looking happy. It looks like enablement.

Ava: Yes! And here's the part I hate admitting. The vendor usually isn't even wrong. The workshop itself is often excellent. The problem is what we do on Monday. Which is nothing.

Nate: Okay. So what did you actually change?

Ava: The main thing I changed: the very next deal review after the training became the test. A live walkthrough, on a real deal, in front of the whole team. "Here's the deal. Here's what we learned last week. Show me how you'd apply it now."

Nate: And why specifically a deal review?

Ava: Because it forces retrieval. The research on this is really clear — retrieval is the difference between recognizing something in a slide deck and actually remembering how to use it. Reading a framework in a workshop barely sticks. Having to recall it under social pressure while looking at a real problem? That's what moves it from short-term memory into actual skill.

Nate: Fair. But I've watched versions of this turn into pure performance theater. The SE picks an easy deal, applies the framework loosely, everyone nods, nothing actually changes.

Ava: Yes, and that's the second piece. The manager picks the deal. Not the SE. SEs will always optimize for looking good in front of their peers. If I let them pick, they'll pick one where the framework already fits. If I pick, I pick the deal where I know they're struggling. That's where retrieval actually costs something.

Nate: Quite a nuance, that. Management picks the deal, not the trainee.

Ava: Otherwise it's just a show.

Nate: Okay, last push. Not every investment lends itself to a deal review. Negotiation training. Discovery skills. How does this translate?

Ava: Honest answer — same principle, different container. The rule isn't "do a deal review." The rule is: design a mandatory retrieval event within seven days, on something real. If it's negotiation training, the debrief happens right after their next actual negotiation. If it's discovery, after a real discovery call you listened in on. You debrief the real event against the framework you just paid for. The specific container doesn't matter. The timing and the "on something real" part do.

Nate: Right. So the move this week, for every SE leader listening: before your team goes to ANY enablement — a workshop, an offsite, a webinar, even a book club — put a retrieval event on the calendar for within seven days. Specific meeting. Specific deal. And YOU pick it. Not the SE.

Ava: And then be honest with yourself about the Friday after. If you can't name the thing your team is doing differently this week because of the training... the training didn't land. That's not a reason to stop investing in enablement. It's a reason to fix the week after.

Ava: I'm Ava.

Nate: And I'm Nate. See you next episode!