Our inner analysis reveals that since deploying Highspot, clients have seen a median 16% enhance in win price. So, how will you maximize the affect of your efforts with an efficient enablement platform?

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hello and welcome to the Win Win Podcast. I’m your host, Shawnna Sumaoang. Be part of us as we dive into altering tendencies within the office and how you can navigate them efficiently. Right here to debate this subject is Molly Sestak, the pinnacle of enablement at SEDNA.Thanks for becoming a member of, Molly! I’d love so that you can inform us about your self, your background, and your position. 

Molly Sestak: Thanks a lot for having me, Shawnna. I’ve really been round gross sales my complete life. My dad’s firm is definitely a producer’s consultant, which mainly means they’re the center individuals between producers and wholesalers for actually massive business bid jobs. I grew up listening to him on the cellphone, spending time within the workplace, listening to how individuals make calls, and so forth. I really began working there once I was like 15 or 16 till I graduated from college. 

The humorous factor is I began because the cleaner and impulsively someday it was like, oh, are you able to file a couple of issues? Apparently, I used to be good at that. I don’t understand how you’re unhealthy at submitting issues, however a couple of days later my dad’s secretary really requested me to reply the telephones whereas she was away. Apparently, I used to be actually good at that, so they really began having me do inside gross sales. I actually was solely like 16 or 17, nonetheless in highschool at this level. I actually received my foot in gross sales early. 

I labored there just about each summer season for 5, or six years. I feel after uni, I assumed I used to be undoubtedly not going into gross sales. I didn’t need to be like my dad as a result of all he does is discuss on the cellphone and journey and all types, which appears good, however I didn’t need that. Nicely, sadly, that didn’t work out for me as a result of I discovered tech and I completely fell in love. 

I fell into enablement naturally. It was BDR after which grew to become a bit extra senior within the staff. As we began to construct out that staff on board new individuals, I took on that coaching particular person position inside the staff. It began off a bit of bit advert hoc doing staff coaching after which they’re like, okay you’re fairly good at that and I can see you prefer it, why don’t you assist us onboard among the new joiners? Quick ahead a couple of months later, a job opened up within the enablement staff particularly for BDRs, in order that’s actually the place my background focus is. I went for it and by no means actually seemed again. I feel that basically made me understand that I really like educating individuals how you can promote much more so than I really love promoting. 

I joined SEDNA a few 12 months in the past to assist with teaching the gross sales staff, constructing out playbooks, and so forth. It’s undoubtedly been a journey. I feel each firm has actually had various hardships within the final 12 months. It just about has touched each tech firm that I do know of. I even did a brief stint heading up our BDR staff, so a slight shift away from enablement. We’ve lastly employed anyone wonderful to take over that staff so I can announce that I’m lastly again into enablement as of a few month in the past. I’ve simply been promoted to move of enablement and I’ve by no means been in that strategic position earlier than. It’s been a extremely large studying curve, however slowly discovering my ft and am excited to see my plans come to life.

SS: Wow. While you say you’ve been in gross sales on your lifetime, you actually imply from virtually begin to end. That’s wonderful. I’d love to know, now that you just’re targeted on enablement and gravitated in the direction of that, out of your perspective, what does good enablement appear like? Possibly if I used to be going to reframe it as a result of your new position, what are among the key elements of an efficient enablement technique? 

MS: I feel that’s a extremely nice query, Shawnna. I can after all say what all people else says on this, I feel what the important thing pillars are, that are content material, coaching, and training. I feel these are the three key issues that we search for in driving enablement in an organization. You possibly can create the very best packages on the planet, but when they aren’t aligned with these firm targets and also you don’t collaborate closely with different groups and get these stakeholders purchased in, it’s simply not going to maneuver the needle. I’ve really spent a while eager about this and what I do otherwise to the above to hopefully assist those that are listening on the market. 

I feel one factor that has actually helped me is definitely having that gross sales background, doing gross sales myself. I at all times convey that into all the things that I do, however I additionally return to that feeling of being bored in coaching and never with the ability to sit nonetheless when you’ve somebody speaking at you. Once I construct my packages, one of many issues that I attempt to do is make them as partaking as doable. Does that imply that I’m asking them questions all through? Do I make it enjoyable? Do I put a recreation in there? I do know once I was at Okta, I really made a board recreation referred to as Okta Land. It’s type of like Sweet Land, but it surely really was with Okta questions and also you needed to reply questions concerning the product or do a chilly name position play or deal with an objection to maneuver ahead on the areas. So once more, it’s simply how we make it enjoyable and drive that engagement all through. 

I feel usually as enablement professionals, we get so caught up in that concept of like, we have now to have this large technique. What are we going to do for subsequent 12 months? I’m already eager about 2024. What’s going to occur? What do we have to leverage to actually hit these targets? I feel it simply turns into that tick-box train generally. I’ve thought loads about this just lately, which is humorous why you’ve requested me this query. I feel one of many solutions to that’s really having bite-sized coaching that may affect the now. How can we assist individuals do their jobs higher at present, not three-quarters from now? 

In fact, that’s tremendous necessary, however we’re already doing that anyway. One of many issues I really simply applied as of final week is named Mondays with Molly. I attempted to make it enjoyable with my title, and it’s simply in time snackable type enablement. It’s about three to 5 minutes. It’s a bite-sized video. I’m not an ideal editor, however I simply threw it in iMovie and made a bit of jingle on Canva simply to make it a bit of bit enjoyable. It doesn’t take me very lengthy. I simply recorded it proper earlier than this podcast and it took me about 20 minutes to provide you with the thought and really document it edit all the things and get it able to ship out Monday morning. 

The concept is that they hearken to it whereas consuming their breakfast or ingesting their espresso on a Monday morning within the hopes that that’s one thing that they’re going to begin doing that Monday. That’s what I’ve been doing a bit of bit otherwise than the standard enablement methods that we see throughout enablement groups at present. 

SS: I adore it. You’ve a inventive aptitude that you just convey to your enablement technique to hold it partaking. I imply, consideration is a tough factor to seize with gross sales reps, so kudos to that. How does your enablement platform enable you convey that enablement technique to life? 

MS: I undoubtedly couldn’t stay with out it. I feel that’s most likely as a result of in enablement we’re continually confronted with this concept of spinning plates and managing a number of stakeholders at one time, there’s like this big factor of collaboration. To not point out the quantity of content material that we’re accountable for and ensuring that persons are really utilizing after which giving that suggestions again into advertising. I’m positive that most of the individuals listening have simply handled the sheer variety of questions that go a bit of one thing like, hey, the place can I discover X doc? I’ve had so lots of these questions and to be sincere, I made an emoji in Slack, that’s the Highspot emoji, and I simply now despatched it to them. 

It’s type of a humorous technique to cope with it, however they do then get used to truly going and discovering it themselves. I used to be completely buried in these. Earlier than we had a gross sales enablement platform, and I actually suppose that they helped convey that construction to the chaos. Moreover that, I feel the principle factor is, to start with, they supply that single supply of reality for all of the up-to-date content material that may be shared with prospects and clients or used internally to tell or upskill the staff. Then, not solely can you make sure that your staff has entry to the precise content material or data on the proper time, however they will additionally share that content material with their prospects and clients and get these analytics into what they’re partaking in. Not solely does this assist enablement, however advertising and reps, it just about helps each staff that we contact actually perceive what content material is resonating most with consumers. That helps us make far more data-driven selections over time. 

On the coaching and training facet of issues, It’s an enormous handbook output. If you happen to don’t have a platform it’s all stay periods, monitoring issues on Google Sheets. I imply, to not point out if you need anyone to do an accreditation or some kind of certification the place they’ve a role-play concerned. It’s actually tough to handle all of that with the rubrics and all types. This actually helps to roll this out and guarantee completion on that, these sorts of issues like coaching and certifications and even an onboarding program, for instance. 

SS: Completely. I really like that. These are improbable examples. Earlier than Highspot, your staff leveraged a unique enablement platform. Are you able to inform us a bit of bit about that have and possibly among the challenges that your staff confronted?

MS: Yeah, completely. Once I joined SEDNA, the earlier enablement staff had really already chosen Seismic, so they’d been utilizing it for about eight or 9 months by the point I joined. I feel earlier than that they have been utilizing Google Drive, which is simply horrible to consider now that I can’t stay with out an enablement platform.

SS: Was there an impetus for deciding to make the change and implement Highspot as an alternative?

MS: I feel as soon as the staff really received their fingers on Seismic, the belief that truly Lessonly in Seismic, they really weren’t built-in in any respect. There have been two utterly separate logins. I feel for anyone listening, who’s needed to cope with two separate platforms when doing enablement, that’s simply double the enablement that you must do, double the administration, and double the admin. That was an enormous downside for us.  

I feel one of many most important causes that we did change was that I like having content material with context. On pages, you’ve your content material after which you’ve your context, which is your coaching and training round that. You couldn’t actually try this with Seismic until you hacked the web page and it was type of identical to a click on right here kind hyperlink. There weren’t any buttons. It wasn’t type of like that sensible navigation that you’ve on different platforms. With the digital gross sales rooms, in addition they type of fell brief a bit of bit, and the staff felt that they have been actually tough to create they usually simply weren’t used, although that was one of many most important drivers for buying the answer within the first place.

Reps couldn’t discover the content material. Your platform is barely pretty much as good because the content material that they will discover, so it was an enormous downside there. That search wasn’t actually optimized, and the pages weren’t that simple to navigate. Talking of the pages, the general appear and feel of the platform simply felt a bit of bit too clunky for a small group and we actually discovered it tough to make the teachings and the pages look custom-made to our model and the texture of our model. I feel you can have when you had plenty of design expertise and had a staff devoted to doing that, however we didn’t. We needed to be a bit of bit scrappy, in order that was actually difficult. 

Then lastly, on the analytical facet of issues, it was actually tough to tug out the information and analytics on what was working and what was getting used to actually assist us make these data-driven selections. It really took certainly one of our staff members a number of days to tug that information out for QBRs. She actually struggled with this and would go to Seismic and ask for assist and they might type of simply ship her a assist article. She’s like I already learn the assistance article like I don’t understand how to do that nonetheless. We actually didn’t get the assistance that we would have liked.

On the flip facet of issues, once I joined SEDNA, I did know that they have been already feeling plenty of these challenges, in order that they have been already in talks with Highspot. I feel it was mainly that our Highspot contact knew that we have been developing on our renewal, and likewise knew that you just guys have been launching your Coaching and Teaching facet of issues, which was an enormous factor for us on the time. The Highspot reached out to my earlier boss, like properly earlier than renewal, so I feel that the Highspot staff did a extremely good job reaching out and being proactive and following up as a result of I actually suppose that that helped us drive the change even additional. That was just like the nail within the coffin, like, hmm, really we should always look into Highspot once more. That was actually cool from the staff.

SS: Nicely, I adore it, and I’m glad that you just’ve joined the Highspot household. After implementing Highspot, how have you ever been capable of clear up among the challenges your staff was going through together with your earlier answer? 

MS: I feel there have been three most important issues for us which have really solved plenty of the challenges that I spoke about earlier. The search was an enormous win for us. Highspot search is completely wonderful. I discover issues in a single second. It’s humorous as a result of our platform can be famend for search, so we really feel very comfy with that. Whereas generally once you’re looking on different platforms, you don’t actually get what you’re in search of after which you must attempt to determine what web page is it on. Or what folder did I put it in? This was an enormous win for us. 

I don’t get any questions on the place to seek out content material anymore, in order that was an enormous sigh of aid for me. Pitching has additionally been an enormous win for us. The staff wasn’t actually adopting this earlier than, although it was one of many absolute most important causes we bought Seismic within the early days. My staff completely loves which you can add a number of items of content material in a branded setting moderately than simply type of sending these one-off hyperlinks to every of the items of content material. That’s been a extremely large factor for us. 

Additionally simply ease of use not just for the staff and simply how good the platform seems to be basically from a UI perspective, however I feel from my perspective as an admin. We accomplished our complete migration, examined it with the staff, and rolled it out in actually about two to a few weeks. It’s insanely fast. It didn’t really feel fast, by the best way. It was undoubtedly a little bit of a curler coaster for me attempting to determine trigger I had by no means applied a gross sales enablement platform earlier than, however we couldn’t have finished that with our earlier answer. That was big for us when it comes to the admin and maintenance. 

SS: To that time, I feel getting buy-in from govt leaders on the affect of enablement and the worth of your enablement platform is completely essential. What are a few of your greatest practices for securing buy-in out of your govt stakeholders? 

MS: It’s fairly attention-grabbing. I feel it’s about getting them to see the worth by salespeople. Shouting constructive issues about it moderately than me. I feel the second it drives a deal ahead or a prospect is like, oh, wow, that’s fairly cool, it undoubtedly will catch their consideration. I’m going by Sandler coaching proper now with my new VP and it jogs my memory a little bit of the Sandler Methodology that you must get your prospect and realistically my gross sales stakeholders are my prospects and clients, however you virtually need to get them to understand it themselves. The affect of one thing or the challenges they’re having moderately than it coming from you. It’s far more highly effective.

I feel that’s undoubtedly the best way to go, virtually making them understand like oh, yeah we do have these challenges and wow that truly is a big affect moderately than you saying it your self. I additionally, as I discussed beforehand, embody them up entrance within the course of, and ensure they’re conscious and knowledgeable all through as a result of that may actually guarantee that they’re purchased in up entrance. They know precisely what we’re signing up for and you’ll already begin to have key metrics that you just need to measure and just remember to’re holding your self accountable for getting the ROI out of that platform. 

SS: Completely. Now, along with having management help, you’ve seen actually sturdy adoption throughout your whole customers. You’ve a recurring utilization price of 84%. What’s your recommendation for driving adoption amongst your sellers?

MS: It’s actually attention-grabbing as a result of our staff was not likely a fan of Seismic. At first, we really struggled to get individuals enthusiastic about Highspot as a result of they thought it was like, oh, it’s simply the identical. We stored saying, no, it’s not, however after all, they don’t hearken to us. We inform them issues on a regular basis. They should discover it out for themselves. What I did was I really tried a couple of enjoyable issues after we launched it. A type of issues was a vacation scavenger hunt the place we offered clues that led to a very powerful pages that we needed them to land on. Let’s say product or partnerships or personas pages. It helped them get the navigation down and perceive the place all the things was situated. We mainly put vacation emojis on the piece of content material that associated to the clue in order that they needed to go and discover these.

SS: I really like that. Taking these skeptics and making them champions is completely clutch. Now, I need to ask since you’ve talked loads all through this podcast concerning the significance of a unified platform that may enable you not solely with content material but additionally coaching and training and seamless expertise is driving adoption. How have you ever began to leverage Highspot Coaching and Teaching and what are among the outcomes that you just’ve seen thus far? 

MS: The very first thing that we did with Highspot Coaching and Teaching was really a Highspot certification, naturally. That received them used to the options and features of how you can use it and the way it was a bit of bit completely different than Lessonly, so we received them comfy with it. Since then, we’ve finished various certifications. One in all which was like a discovery demo certification that included not just a few movies and a few stay periods, however we really took it one step additional and did a video response with some check questions and had a rubric hooked up to that, that then matched our rubric in Gong.

Once we began to do name teaching afterward, that was just like the real-world instance and never simply type of the role-play instance. We may then take that rubric and use that later down the road they usually have been comfy with it and conversant in it and knew precisely what they wanted to alter. 

That was the primary actual occasion of utilizing this. We weren’t ready to do that with Seismic. The video uploads by no means labored for us, so we at all times needed to do issues like a handbook ship by way of Slack, which is simply not perfect. With Highspot, we’re really capable of take the very best video responses and I used to be capable of then construct a web page with the entire greatest ones the place individuals may then go and watch right here’s what beauty like off the again of this. That could possibly be Gong calls, but it surely may be the video responses that they’re utilizing. 

The following factor that I’m constructing out is definitely an onboarding program for each BDRs and AEs. They be a part of on the second of October, so I really solely have a few week left to have the ability to construct this out, and possibly solely 60% of the best way. Onboarding simply has a lot content material. I feel it’s nice that having that type of platform that has each the content material and the coaching and training is an absolute necessity for brand new joiners as a result of not solely have they got a spot to go when it’s like oh I completed all the things for at present for my onboarding. They’ll go in, they’ve Gong calls to observe inside Highspot, they’ve completely different video coaching that’s bite-sized like my Mondays with Molly that they will go watch, they will see QBR decks, they will go type of peruse product private data. I feel it’s simply tremendous useful for them to have entry to that content material on day one and simply in time after they need to uncover it. 

On prime of that, from my perspective, I can see precisely the place they’re of their onboarding journey. What have they accomplished? Just about daily they’ve pre-work, which tends to be like a collection of e-learning movies or articles that they should learn, and a few stay periods that we’ve run outdoors of Highspot. Then we throw them again into the platform within the afternoon for his or her post-work, which could possibly be a presentation that they need to create, after which they should add the hyperlink into Highspot so we are able to grade it and provides them suggestions on it, or an objection dealing with position play that they should do. We use check questions loads, and we additionally use the free video response loads. 

That simply signifies that as we develop our new joiners and we have now individuals undergo onboarding we are able to begin taking greatest practices and hyperlink the movies that they do inside that with out having to obtain add and document them by way of Zoom. It simply makes that method simpler. Simply having all the things in that one unified platform. 

SS: I really like that. On that word, final query for you, Molly. This has been improbable by the best way. What has been the affect of getting a unified platform on gross sales productiveness, and do you’ve any key wins or enterprise outcomes you may share? 

MS: I feel getting our prime vendor on board was an enormous key win for us as a result of I feel if we didn’t handle to do this, I feel we might have been in bother. That was most likely our largest win of actually driving that adoption and ensuring that gross sales are productive with it. We’ve additionally finished some further issues, like refresher coaching. A few of these can even be developing on Mondays with Molly. Simply little issues, like if we get updates in Highspot, I do know you guys are at all times launching new, wonderful options. 

That Monday with Molly is an ideal outlet to then be like, hey, that is really one thing new that you are able to do on the platform and I would like you to begin doing it at present. I can begin measuring that. Usually, I don’t get any extra questions, like The place can we discover X? The search operate is working rather well. It signifies that reps can discover the content material that they want in a matter of seconds, moderately than doing the entire ready for anyone to reply on Slack, which may take hours if not days. If I’m actually busy, generally I overlook to reply. 

Really, there’s a joke that occurred the opposite day that I feel brings us to life. We now have a brand new RevOps contractor who’s performing some territory planning and books of enterprise for us. She really requested me the query the opposite day and honest sufficient I didn’t prepare her on Highspot and she or he stated, hey, do we have now a doc on ICP or one thing like that? I stated no, really we don’t have that doc. I must construct it, blah, blah, blah. She stated this again to me and I quote, I’m glad I’m not loopy. Issues are so properly organized right here that I’ve to maintain reminding myself when you can’t discover it, it doesn’t exist. 

I assumed that was like a real testomony to what we’re attempting to do with not solely the search operate however actually optimizing that guided promoting expertise in order that when you don’t know the place one thing lives and also you’re not likely positive precisely what you’re in search of and what it’s referred to as, which you can navigate and type of uncover that content material because it comes up and as wanted. I feel we have to refine that a bit of bit extra transferring ahead now that we all know what persons are looking for and updating that content material. I feel we have now a extremely good, sturdy basis to begin with and it’s clearly working.

Advertising and marketing was capable of pull out the entire most used exterior content material, which actually offered the inspiration on which they have been capable of prioritize which items of content material they need to really replace first. I feel that was actually useful for them. We, after all, don’t have a loopy quantity of content material. I feel we have now possibly 400 or so property within the platform, however when you needed to undergo 400 and attempt to prioritize, simply type of finger within the wind, that will have taken them a extremely very long time. I feel it saved them various time on that entrance.

In saying all of this, I really want that we had actually concrete and higher metrics, however with my position shifting a lot, we haven’t actually measured sufficient or correctly used the governance facet. It’s really one thing that’s on my record to work on over the subsequent few months. As a part of the refresh, we’re really going to dive a bit of bit deeper into a few of these and what KPIs we actually need to measure transferring ahead to actually make that affect of the platform loads better. I’m actually excited to see the place we find yourself. If I discuss to you in a 12 months from now, I feel it is going to be wonderful. 

SS: I can’t wait. I’d like to have you ever again, Molly. Thanks a lot for sharing your story at present. 

MS: No downside. Thanks a lot for having me. 

SS: To our viewers, thanks for listening to this episode of the Win Win podcast. Be sure you tune in subsequent time for extra insights on how one can maximize enablement success with Highspot.