In this episode of Full Throttle Leaders, host Michael Falato interviews Carol Mahoney, Global Head of Enablement at TTC. Carol shares her unconventional career path—from aspiring professional actress to BDR pioneer and eventually to enablement leader—highlighting how early BDR experience shaped her understanding of sales fundamentals. She discusses a key lesson learned: when introducing new sales processes, leaders must be enabled first, as their adoption drives team-wide uptake. Carol recommends two AI tools, Claude and Lovable, which she used to build a certification app for TTC sellers, calling them game‑changing for enablement work. The conversation then shifts to the evolution of the BDR role: today’s BDRs are more consultative, community‑oriented, and reliant on automation, contrasting with the manual, volume‑focused approach of five years ago. Carol offers outreach advice, emphasizing relevance over superficial personalization, and illustrates this with examples. Finally, she talks about her involvement in enablement communities (Sales Enablement Collective, SDR Leader groups) and how listeners can connect with her via LinkedIn or her website.
Chapters
Hello everybody, Michael Falato from Full Throttle Leaders. Today we have Carol Mahoney. She's the Global Head of Enablement at TTC. How you doing, Carol?
Good, doing really well. Excited to be here, Michael. Thank you.
So we talked a little bit before about your journey. I wanted to kind of recap What we talked about is, you know, tell me about how you got to TTC and what you guys do there, but also why you took that job.
Yeah, 100%. I love this. I love this question because I feel like my career path has been anything but linear. I started as a professional actress, so that was my whole life up until like age 21. And I didn't finish college. I actually moved to New York City to try to pursue acting professionally.
From where?
Yeah.
Where'd you move from where?
I moved from upstate New York where I was attending college to New York City. So not, not the biggest jump. Born and raised in Boston. So, you know, it's all an East Coast thing, right? So yeah, I mean, I moved to New York City and I really thought I was gonna give professional acting a try. And I think what I found is that I was broke and I needed a job and I was like not doing well, not having any money ever. So my older brother who's in finance, recommended to me that I get a salaried position. And I was like, salary? What's a salary? And he was like, it's where they give you money no matter what, every couple of weeks. And I was like, dope, that sounds awesome. I'd like a salary job. So because I was like working hourly jobs as like a bartender and a nanny. So anyway, I kind of stumbled into B2B sales as a BDR. I was actually the first in the first batch of BDRs at the company that I landed at. And so, it was a super new function. So, we were all kind of learning together. I was in a class of, I think, 4 total.
Wow.
And so, that was an incredible experience. I credit that company and that opportunity to all of my career success and evolution because I think anyone who wants to be an entrepreneur, a business owner, a CEO, should start as a BDR because you need to learn how to sell. You need to learn the basic principles and basic tenets of how to pitch and how to understand your product, but how to translate your product into a use case and a value prop for a customer. So I had an incredible 2 years there. I was promoted a couple of times. I was a top performer on the BDR side, and I really just started to excel in in that career. And then I started working in BDR leadership, which was so awesome. But what I found as I worked in BDR leadership was that the parts of BDR leadership I liked most was training. I liked putting together like the onboarding guides. I liked training the new hires and all that stuff. So I actually broke into enablement from there. And I've had some like steps backwards and forwards since then, but enablement has really been my bread and butter since like 2022. So yeah, I'm really thrilled to be at TTC now as the Global Head of Enablement. It's an incredible company, an incredible opportunity. We are a corporate travel company. We have about over 40 brands under us, ranging from luxury travel to budget travel and more young people-friendly travel, right? So we have a ton of different offerings. And it's an incredible company. It's awesome to be able to be doing work that you're genuinely passionate about.
And what's, what's maybe one or two things in the last 6 to 12 months you're like, wow, that was not a good idea. I'm not gonna do that again. Or, or hey everybody, I learned something really cool. Tech solution, tactic, strategy that I wanna kind of let, let my audience know.
Yeah. Oh my gosh, I love this question. I think the first piece of the question is I learned the hard way. That you have to really start by enabling your leaders, your frontline leaders. If you have any new sales process, any new sales workflow, training framework, you can't start with the sellers. You have to get that buy-in from the leaders. But not only do you want their buy-in, you have to actually train them on this new framework, process, etc. Because if they're not adopting it, their team isn't going to adopt it consistently. And so I think that's one of the things that I learned the hard way over the last last year, because one of the first things I did at TTC was develop a bespoke sales framework for our contact center agents. And we have hundreds of agents, right? So it was a behemoth of a task. But something that I think I could have done a better job at and something I think I will do a better job at moving forward is enabling the frontline leaders first and foremost. So I think that would be the kind of like lesson learned. And then in terms of the tool, that I'm using that I want to shout from the rooftops. If you are an enablement leader and you are not using Lovable or Claude, you got to. You literally have to. I'm telling you, these are tools that have changed my life. Claude is like having a super smart assistant who also creates decks for you and can kind of get in your brain and think like you. And then Lovable is just an incredible vibe coding tool that you can use to develop apps, websites, all of that good stuff. So I actually used Claude and Lovable to develop a certification application for my sellers here at TTC. And that's been a really, really cool thing for them to get certified on the sales framework. So I would say those 2 tools I wanna shout from the rooftops.
Yeah, I have friends that are using Claude, like building all these different tools and then like basically selling it.
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It's so cool.
But yeah, cuz I, I actually have Claude, but I haven't really messed with it too much. And I got a new— and Beautiful, I built, I wanted to see what my, what it would do for my website. I think they changed it around. It was, it was, it was pretty good.
Yeah.
Especially, especially if you wanna, like, I'm changing my company from Full Throttle Falato Leaders to GTM Full Throttle. So I wanna, I don't wanna be a lead gen company. Only, right? Here, here's the architecture, right, of how you do this, because a lot of people will just take AI and pitch slap people. That's still noise.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
So tell us about a little bit about what, um, company taught you the most, right? As far as you don't have to name names, but when you mentioned earlier that You learned a lot when you were younger. What, what was that big life lesson that, that was taught to you or that you— what aha moment?
Yeah, that's a great question. I think for me it was learning that you cannot rely on your talent alone. A lot of people who are stepping into the BDR space, they'll see early success and they'll be super jazzed about it. But you have to actually rely on consistency with what you're doing and not just your raw talent. I think I hit a wall at a certain point as a BDR, because I wasn't being consistent with my outputs. And therefore my performance started to look pretty inconsistent for a couple months there. And I think I had to learn the lesson that you actually can't rely on your talent, you can't rely on motivation, you have to rely on discipline, you have to develop a discipline of, I'm going to show up every day, First one in, last one out. I'm gonna, you know, do these same outputs every day, no matter if I'm smashing it and booking a ton of meetings, or if I'm having a crap day and not booking anything. I'm gonna keep doing the same outputs no matter what. So that was a huge life lesson for me.
What do you think of the BDR role as of today compared to like five years ago?
Yeah, I think five years ago, before we had more streamlined, you know, tools for outputs, it was a lot more manual. Right? Like, you know, 5 years ago, it was a lot more manual. Nowadays, it's a lot more automated. I think the role of the BDR today is more consultative than it was 5 years ago. I think it needs to be more consultative. I also think the role of the BDR today needs to be more community-oriented. And I think BDRs need to be more present on the channels where their buyers are at, the social channels. So I think it requires kind of a totally different skill set today than it did 5 years ago. We have so many tools for automation nowadays, which are a blessing and a curse, of course, because you don't want to necessarily rely on spray and pray. But at the same time, that tactic does work for some companies when their targeting is on point. So I think that BDR, the landscape of being a BDR has changed completely.
And what type of messages do you see that actually resonate When you're doing outreach, like when, when I do it, obviously the podcasts and the roundtables, making them feel special, it's really made my outreach better. Yeah, because I'm giving versus asking. But I want to know about— because you, you know, you're obviously in a different industry as far as what you do with travel. Like, what's, what's working, what's not?
Yeah, I, I think that something that I see that doesn't work is personalization, not relevance. So if someone reaches out to me and they're like, hey, Carol, I see that you went to Ithaca College. Anyway, here's my company, here's what we do. It's like, yeah, sure, you led with something personal, but that's not relevant. Like, yes, I went to Ithaca College. I didn't graduate. I didn't have a particularly good time there. That's not really something that's going to connect anything for me.
Yeah.
But rather, if someone were to reach out to me and say, hey, Carol, saw your post the other day about how you used Claude and Lovable to develop a certification app. Curious how that went for your sellers. That's a super creative idea. You know, that's a more relevant intro that I would be open to responding to. So I think relevance—
I used AI to read my LinkedIn. Thanks. Great job.
Yeah, exactly. I'm like, sure, I went to Ithaca College. Like, what of it? Yeah. So I think relevance over personalization beats out every time.
Or I've been following your career. Congrats. Okay.
I'm like, cool, thanks. Like, I appreciate it.
Yeah, I always like, I try to look at their post and, and, uh, like you said, and comment on that as well. But pitch slapping, you, you can't just go from one message to, hey, here's what I do. Yeah, the whole idea is just to— I call it business dating. Like, think about this as you're not gonna ask someone on a cruise when you first meet them.
Yeah, exactly. And that's such a good point too. I always say, like, if you're on a first date with someone, you don't just sit down and be like, okay, so what's your timeline for getting married? When would you want to, like, get engaged? It's like, no, you're gonna freak the heck out of someone. Like, just, like, take it slow, build the relationship.
Yeah. So what's, what's a, what's a good way to get a hold of you? And what type of people do you want to get a hold of for you to What type of people do you want them to get a hold of you?
I can't— yeah, I'm super open to connecting with other enablement leaders and operations leaders. I think I'm trying to build my network out with more of my peers, so I think that would be awesome. I'm super available on LinkedIn. I'm always on there, so you can always reach out to me there. You can also go to my website, which is in my LinkedIn. I have like a form that you can fill out if you want to get in touch, book me for an event, anything like that. So That's, I think, the best way to get in touch. Yeah.
How about groups? Are you a part of SDR Leaders with those— Dave, what's his name?
David Wilkinson? Yeah. Not anymore. I used to be part of Sam Nelson's SDR Leader group, but right now I am— gosh. Oh, Go-To-Marketer, the Sales Enablement Collective. I'm part of that group. So I actually spoke at an event with them recently and I'm doing another one on June 1st, which I'm super excited about. So yeah. Big fan of that group.
Well, I appreciate you being on, Carol, and, uh, I'll send you the link for this so we can post it together. And, um, I hope, uh, your, your career just keeps on growing like a hockey stick.
