Over the past twenty-five years, Georgia has witnessed remarkable growth and innovation in technology. Skillibrium, a new player in this dynamic ecosystem, is proud to be part of this thriving landscape, benefiting from the exceptional talent, active professional community, sales and customer engagement excellence, and vibrant entrepreneurial spirit that defines the region as the “Silicon Valley of the South.”
The Founder’s Journey: Shaping Atlanta’s Tech Landscape With Talent and Grit
In the lead-up to the 1996 Olympics, as Atlanta was gearing up to showcase its dynamism to the world, Bart Fanelli, a young entrepreneur and sales professional, was starting to build his life and career in the city. His deep roots in the community, evidenced by his family’s long-standing residence in Peachtree Heights since 2006 and his son attending Georgia Tech, have intertwined his personal growth with Atlanta’s technological development.
Bart and his family are constantly embracing the vibrant culture of Atlanta, including seeing concerts at the Fox Theatre, Mercedes Benz Stadium, The Roxy, and Chastain Park. Bart can seamlessly bridge business, family, and personal passions into a fulfilling lifestyle in Atlanta. Whether traveling globally to see Pearl Jam or enjoying a local concert with family, these moments enrich Bart’s life, effortlessly blending the worlds of business and personal joy.
Founded amid Atlanta’s tech rise, Skillibrium has become a testament to the city’s innovation over the last twenty-five years. The company champions integrity, transparency, and humility, sidestepping corporate ego to foster a culture of seasoned leadership and ethical business practices, which Bart believes are crucial to long-term success. His guiding principle—“Life is about the long game of chess, not checkers”—reflects his strategic approach to building a business focused on sustained growth rather than short-term wins.
Innovating Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategies: A Vision From Austin
From Austin, Texas, Kerri Barton, the second founder of Skillibrium, brings the team a rich history of collaboration and innovation. Having worked with Bart at three companies and being a frequent visitor to Atlanta, her journey demonstrates the power of partnership and shared vision. Kerri’s career has been dedicated to revenue enablement, sales optimization, productivity, adult learning, and professional development—fields she is deeply passionate about. She is driven by a desire to help individuals excel in their roles and has sought innovative ways to impact go-to-market teams significantly.
Kerri’s focus is on helping to create and activate great sales execution content—through executive alignment, consistent messaging, standard playbooks, and repeatable coaching practices. Recognizing a significant opportunity to help teams move beyond outdated paper processes and departmental silos, Kerri is now focused on applying a modern approach to tackle these issues.
The Sales Process Is Broken
The idea for Skillibrium began out of frustration. Each organization Bart and Kerri joined lacked GTM consistency and relied on disconnected tools and processes. Despite the technological progress made over the last 25 years, sales processes are not fit for today’s businesses that must operate in a consumerized, digital world. Businesses are underserved from a people, process, and tools perspective. Fragmented and inconsistent messaging leads to ineffective communication. Sales teams operate in silos without a unified platform, lacking collaboration and visibility. Without standardized processes, each representative follows their own approach, causing inefficiency.
Sellers navigate multiple systems to find content, distracting from core selling activities. Distractions prevent a focus on critical activities like value mapping and proposal management. Sales leaders lack visibility into processes, complicating management, while sellers often neglect relationship strategies, undermining long-term success.
How Does Skillibrium Help?
Skillibrium helps GTM leaders and contributors deliver outstanding revenue growth to organizations by using modern approaches to develop people skills and empower GTM teams to simplify customer interactions using AI and data analytics.
Role-based Skills Learning
Skillibrium tailors learning experiences to specific roles, ensuring team members receive relevant training when and where it is needed most. This method of situational learning accelerates onboarding and improves performance, with customizable templates fitting any sales methodology.
Skills Execution Workflow
Skillibrium automates and optimizes sales and GTM with guided workflows and AI-driven tools. This singular GTM focus built around the customer compresses deal cycles, reduces overhead, and enhances productivity by providing a structured sales playbook.
Objective Coaching
By providing a framework that connects coaching with performance indicators and behaviors in a collaborative and transparent way, Skillibrium helps leaders develop their teams continuously. Its AI-driven coaching tools enable regular performance assessments and visual progress tracking, addressing skill gaps and improving team performance.
A Legacy of Community and Growth: Championing Women in Sales
Skillibrium is proud to honor the legacy of a past leader, Barbara Giamanco, a trailblazer in the sales industry, a long-standing board member of TAG, and co-author of The New Handshake, the pioneering book on Social Selling, published in 2010. Barbara hosted the award-winning podcast “Conversations with Women in Sales,” creating a platform to showcase and mentor younger women in the field. Her impact on the industry was profound, particularly in championing women in enterprise sales.
Barbara was honored to present Marva Bailer, Strategic Advisor to Skillibrium, with the Technology Association of Georgia Leader of the Year award. Marva has been highly engaged in the Atlanta community for the past twenty-five years, contributing to mobile, big data, IoT, cybersecurity, and AI with a strong focus on equity, inclusion, and accessibility. Marva is a three-time Women in Technology Woman of the Year honoree and author of the 2023 Career Book of the Year, Be, Unexpected: Resetting Routines for the Future of Work. At Skillibrium, Marva is helping to shape the strategy for the future of work and scalable growth.
In 2024, Skillibrium partnered with Lori Richardson, author of She Sells and the new host of “Conversations with Women in Sales,” to foster talent and innovation in Atlanta and beyond.