In keeping with knowledge from Gartner, organizations that prioritize income enablement are 75% extra more likely to exceed their income development targets. So how will you drive affect with an efficient enablement technique?
Shawnna Sumaoang: Hello, and welcome to the Win Win Podcast. I’m your host, Shawnna Sumaoang. Be a part of us as we dive into altering tendencies within the office and find out how to navigate them efficiently.
Right here to debate this matter is Lou Keane, the senior vp of income operations at GWI. Thanks for becoming a member of us, Lou. I’d love so that you can inform us about your self, your background, and your position.
Lucrezia Keane: It’s nice to be right here. I joined GWI about 11 years in the past, earlier to that, I used to be working for an additional analysis firm referred to as Kantar. I began off as a person contributor on the account administration facet and labored my means up there for the primary six years. Once I joined GWI 11 years in the past, it was very a lot a startup. There have been 13 individuals in the entire enterprise and I joined to arrange the account administration group.
After which grew that group from myself as a player-coach and one different rep, to having 15 account managers. We launched a buyer success group as effectively so then excessive antenna buyer success reps. And drove the expansion of the account administration, renewal, and growth of present accounts.
By then, my position pivoted and adjusted a bit bit. So I began taking care of what we outline as gross sales excellence, which covers every little thing round enablement and operations. That is on the level after we introduced Highspot on board, and my position now’s a bit bit extra targeted on income development. So, taking care of SDRs, channel, and partnership answer companions, that are basically our gross sales engineers however spanning nonetheless some enablement operations.
SS: We’re so excited to have you ever right here, Lou. You had a chance to work throughout a number of disciplines, as you talked about in your introduction, from account administration to gross sales excellence and income development, based mostly on this expertise, what do you see because the strategic worth of enablement for income groups?
LK: Completely. From my perspective, the principle factor about enablement helps to enhance effectivity and drive productiveness. Whether or not it’s updating processes, creating new processes bringing on instruments that allow you to automate sure duties, driving efficiencies, or having the analytics and the background to essentially perceive the affect of these instruments and the affect on the enterprise.
Then the final bit for me is content material. Having the suitable content material for the reps, whether or not it’s coaching kind of content material or extra of the gross sales collateral and gross sales property. For me, enablement seems at processes, instruments, and content material, and to drive effectivity and productiveness.
SS: I couldn’t agree extra. Now, pondering again earlier than you had Highspot, what have been a number of the challenges your groups have been going through?
LK: We had just a few. So, as a startup after which a scale-up, there have been a number of items of content material saved in a number of totally different locations. We moved to Google Drive, and it was very tough for reps to seek out the newest piece of content material and essentially the most acceptable for sure conversations with several types of purchasers.
It was tough to measure shopper engagement with that content material. Offering a advertising and marketing group or strategic insights group with suggestions on how purchasers have been participating and what actually labored within the gross sales course of—these are the principle challenges. Then, streamline coaching and onboarding. It was very manager-led, carried out barely otherwise, relying on the supervisor, relying on the group. So streamlining all of that was a key facet that we would have liked to enhance.
SS: I believe all of us can undoubtedly relate. And at the moment, I consider you have been leveraging a special enablement platform.
What was the impetus for deciding to make a change and discover one other answer?
LK: On the time we had an LMS. However I don’t assume it was getting used as broadly, or as successfully because it wanted to be. It was additionally as a result of it wasn’t owned throughout the income group—adoption wasn’t nice—after which we used Google Drive for managing lots of our content material, which isn’t the very best place to handle content material.
Yeah, actually enjoyable discovering an answer that helped with content material administration and monitoring, but in addition teaching and coaching. As a part of the analysis course of, we spoke to quite a lot of totally different corporations, together with Highspot. However what actually made Highspot shine in comparison with a number of the different corporations that we have been evaluating was actually the flexibility to do each of these issues and do them effectively.
We spoke to corporations that have been actually sturdy within the content material administration half however didn’t have the teaching and coaching component and vice versa. So, having the mix of the 2 was actually key for us.
SS: I really like that and I’m glad you probably did. A part of your group’s focus when bringing on Highspot was constructing out coaching applications.
Why was this a key focus for your enterprise and the way did Highspot allow you to to construct efficient coaching?
LK: It was a key focus as a result of we have been rising actually quickly. We have been hiring a number of new individuals and realized that possibly our ramp time was a bit bit slower than we needed it to be. As I discussed earlier coaching was very manager-led throughout isolation by totally different groups and totally different managers.
Some have been higher at it, some weren’t as nice. So actually having a consolidated unified means of coaching the totally different groups, bringing them into Highspot, constructing out Gross sales Performs, constructing out the entire totally different studying paths, customizing these studying paths based mostly on totally different roles or groups that they have been engaged on.
It enabled us to be much more efficient and environment friendly with the coaching that we have been constructing, and the way that was being delivered to our reps with several types of content material, in several types of codecs. We introduced in LinkedIn Studying movies and had our personal, we combined it up with some face-to-face classes and a few self-learning and had totally different quizzes. So it made it rather more participating and interactive than we had earlier than. It additionally enabled reps to return to it. So it wasn’t a form of one-and-done kind state of affairs, however it enabled them to, in the event that they weren’t fairly clear on one thing, to refer again to it. However, I believe one of many key issues that we’re nonetheless leveraging now—and it’s a very easy means for reps to know new processes or merchandise—is Gross sales Performs.
It actually helps give the rep a streamlined, actually concise view of, for instance, what the product is, find out how to communicate to clients about it, what use instances it solutions, how will clients be leveraging it, and actually helps them of their gross sales journey.
SS: You’ve carried out a tremendous job. Your group has seen unimaginable adoption since implementing Highspot, together with 88% recurring utilization. What have been a few of your finest practices for driving adoption once you first applied the brand new platform?
LK: We did lots of coaching, and lots of roadshows group by group to essentially deal with the wants of each particular person group. There was lots of drop-in classes following the primary launch, and we spent lots of time displaying the worth of Pitches and Gross sales Performs and why it was a a lot faster and higher means of discovering out extra a couple of product. But additionally, with the Pitches, is sharing content material with purchasers and prospects, understanding how these purchasers and prospects have been participating with these.
It was really easy to indicate the worth of issues like Pitches to the gross sales reps as a result of for an account supervisor the place the contract’s arising for renewal, they may share that by means of a pitch and so they might see: A, has a key resolution maker engaged with it? Have they shared it with anybody else? Who’re they sharing it with?
It offers the reps the suitable time to succeed in out to that individual. As soon as they know they’ve had the time to devour that content material, then they attain out to them, reasonably than it being utterly clean and chasing individuals endlessly. In order that was actually useful.
We arrange Spot homeowners to maintain issues updated, that was vital. And clearly, one of many points we had beforehand was that lots of content material wasn’t updated. So having Highspot and having Spot homeowners who have been accountable for importing new issues, and eradicating when issues have been outdated constructed that belief with the group as effectively.
They know that after they go in there, they’ve entry to the newest info, and I believe we continually share updates on new content material accessible. Everybody throughout the group has actually adopted it; our CRO will continually share hyperlinks to property which might be in Highspot. So once more, it’s driving that utilization and that engagement with the software as effectively.
SS: I really like that. Along with adoption, what are a number of the enterprise outcomes you noticed after implementing Highspot?
LK: The primary one was actually about ramping sooner. New joiners that have been becoming a member of GWI have been in a position to, by means of the totally different sorts of studying paths, onboard themselves so much faster, and had higher outcomes.
We see that form of on an ongoing foundation with our SDR group, as effectively. They’re working sooner than they ever did, hitting their targets faster. They’ve higher information of find out how to have interaction with the purchasers and higher information about new merchandise. So it’s not only for new reps, but in addition present reps who need to upskill themselves. With the ability to do this as and after they want, and never be too constrained to a coaching session that’s being booked in 4 to 6 weeks’ time.
If there’s one thing new that’s already been launched, they’ll entry that content material right away. These have been the principle issues that we noticed. The opposite factor was higher success charges when it comes to closing offers sooner due to the Pitches and interesting on the proper second, I say these are the principle issues.
SS: Implausible. And in the end, how have your groups overcome the challenges they beforehand confronted and the way did Highspot assist?
LK: One of many issues is, it made it so much simpler to seek out the suitable content material. We did lots of work on filtering, however a number of the developments that Highspot made by making the search performance so much simpler and much more intuitive, actually helped our reps and our groups discover the suitable content material so much faster.
With the ability to monitor engagements generally, simply having a better-informed gross sales group by means of the content material that’s in there. After which once more, having much less out-of-date content material actually streamlines the method, and makes positive that the suitable content material is within the fingers of the suitable individuals and the suitable purchasers.
And so they’re not sharing stats or info that’s 12 months outdated, as a result of that may actually affect the belief you’ve got with a shopper or a prospect.
SS: I really like to listen to that. Lou, final query for you, trying towards the way forward for GWI, what do you hope to realize within the 12 months forward and the way can Highspot assist?
LK: I believe that so many options that Highspot has, we might truly embed much more and do much more of. One of many issues that we actually need to have a look at is how we embed Highspot content material coaching and studying in Salesforce extra. In order that when reps are in Salesforce, they’ve that content material surfacing.
We’ve carried out a bit little bit of it, however it’s most likely not as effectively organized as we’d like. We’re launching a brand new LMS platform and I believe integrating the LMS with Highspot will likely be key. We’d love to do much more with a number of the new AI options that you simply’ve launched and likewise leverage the scorecards extra.
So there are undoubtedly just a few options that we have to do extra of. However once more, it’s nice to have a platform like Highspot that basically helps us transfer ahead with a few of these issues.
SS: Thanks a lot for becoming a member of us, Lou. I actually respect it.
LK: No, it’s nice to be right here and it’s beautiful speaking to you.
SS: To our viewers, thanks for listening to this episode of the Win Win Podcast. Make sure you tune in subsequent time for extra insights on how one can maximize enablement success with Highspot.
