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 developments within the office and the right way to navigate them efficiently.

Right here to debate this subject is Marc Losito, the chief of employees at FoodChain ID. Thanks for becoming a member of us, Marc. I’d love so that you can inform us about your self, your background, and your position.

Marc Losito: It’s a pleasure to be right here and, at the moment, I function the Chief of Workers at FoodChain ID and the Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives.

I simply completed a 23-year profession within the army the place I completed up in technique and operations. And so transitioning right into a strategic initiatives position or an operations-based position is thrilling, and fluid for me. I’ve been at FoodChain ID for over a yr now, and we’ve been using Highspot as our major gross sales enablement instrument for about eight months.

SS: We’re excited to have you ever right here with us right this moment. Now I do know if you first began at FoodChain ID, one in every of your first duties was to implement an enablement platform. Inform us about that journey. Why was it a strategic precedence for the enterprise to put money into an enablement answer?

ML: Yeah, that’s an effective way to phrase it, it was a journey. So, about this time final yr, our govt management workforce gathered collectively and started to judge our strategic progress choices, and gross sales enablement saved rising to the highest. Brandon Taylor, our Chief Income Officer our champion of Highspot actually put it on the entrance of our progress initiatives and actually championed our adoption of Highspot.

It wasn’t an excessive amount of longer after that, and it was about, Could of final yr that we started to undertake Highspot and we rolled it out in August. We now have been rolling ever since. One of many key variations that we’ve seen, and it’s actually simply the conclusion of this, this progress narrative that Highspot brings to gross sales enablement is we have been capable of lower down our vendor ramp time from 9 months to 6 months instantly with the coaching and training options on Highspot and, professionalizing our onboarding, placing all of it into one spot and having sellers singing off the identical choir sheet, because it have been.

SS: That’s superb to go from 9 months to 6 months, and I undoubtedly wish to circle again to that. I do wish to get a greater sense since you have been the chief sponsor for the analysis and I do know that you just partnered carefully with different key stakeholders within the course of. How did you accomplice together with your CRO and RevOps to search out the appropriate answer for the enterprise and in the end acquire buy-in?

ML: That’s an excellent query. Our CRO, Brandon Taylor, was the champion of this progress initiative, and Ryan Wing, our Director of Income Operations, was essential to creating certain that we have been all aligned on a collective imaginative and prescient, ensuring that our strategic objectives have been synchronized, and to ensure that the whole lot from, gross sales enablement content material to the best way we wished to orchestrate our performs and the KPIs that we had set out, the primary being to lower that ramp time. We thought that was the closest crocodile to the canoe if you’ll. We’re persevering with to chase, another objectives, and our CRO has actually put a excessive bar on what we wish to obtain with this. With Highspot in, shortening our gross sales cycle instances, growing our win charges, growing our ACVs, and growing our alternative creation, however in the end getting their buy-in was step one and ensuring that we have been all aligned on what the chance was and what the return on funding could possibly be if we unanimously supported the adoption.

SS: Completely. And I do know that having one unified answer for enablement at FoodChain ID was actually necessary somewhat than separate instruments to equip, practice, and coach your groups. In your opinion, what has been the impression of that unified expertise in your sellers and their productiveness?

ML: The essence right here is, bringing fragmented instruments from throughout our enterprise and bringing them into one centralized location.

It’s like switching from a car that has handbook steering, the place you’re making an attempt to wrestle to shift and pivot with market developments, market modifications, and competitor dynamics. However bringing Highspot into FoodChain ID is like switching to autopilot. You’re capable of cue vendor behaviors so rapidly.

You’re capable of pivot and adapt to key modifications that you just’re seeing within the market and it permits for a seamless influx of data. Consequently, our sellers change into extra agile, extra knowledgeable, they execute it. Vendor behaviors and performs are higher, they usually’re considerably simpler. And we’re beginning to see the impacts of that.

SS: Now, we alluded to one of many huge wins earlier, however I do know since implementation, you guys have shortened your onboarding time from 9 months to 6 months, and also you’ve additionally decreased ramp time by 30%. Are you able to stroll us by means of the way you optimized gross sales onboarding and in the end drove these very spectacular outcomes?

ML: I let you know, decreasing onboarding time was a problem nevertheless it’s one which Highspot is tailored to go after. And so we targeted on three major areas with Highspot in terms of onboarding, which is personalized studying paths. Integrating real-world eventualities into the coaching course of after which leveraging the big quantity of information and suggestions that you just get to constantly refine your onboarding strategy.

And in order that triad not solely expedited our onboarding course of, nevertheless it ensured that new workforce members have been sales-ready in a shorter period of time.

SS: Improbable. I like to listen to that. Along with onboarding, your workforce additionally targeted on bettering gross sales teaching. In your opinion, what’s the worth of real-world teaching for gross sales reps?

ML: There’s nothing that may change real-world teaching. You’re not going to have the ability to automate or AI your manner out of real-world, human contact. And the crucible the place principle meets apply. Once we’re onboarding reps, it’s not solely necessary for them to be taught in a classroom, nevertheless it’s additionally necessary to have a setting to use, iterate, and refine their approaches in actual eventualities with a suggestions loop.

That accelerates their studying and flexibility. And in the end, the adage is true that apply makes excellent. And in right this moment’s dynamic market, that’s particularly vital. 

SS: You probably did point out AI, so I’m curious. How do you propose to make the most of innovation within the enablement area like AI to assist your workforce ship efficient teaching?

ML: I even have a little bit of a background in AI, from graduate faculty and from my time within the army. I simply imagine that AI opens up a complete new frontier that revolutionizes gross sales teaching, by utilizing AI options like assembly intelligence, we are able to personalize studying you possibly can personalize it at scale you possibly can present real-time suggestions, and extra importantly is which you can determine patterns that might be inconceivable for people to detect.

And it’s not about changing the human aspect. Like I mentioned, nothing goes to exchange the human contact in coaching and training, however augmenting it, and studying the right way to use AI with that human contact goes to make teaching extra impactful and insights-driven. 

SS: Completely. And I didn’t know that about your background, that you’ve got a background in AI. So I’d like to get your opinion: how can AI assist the enterprise scale gross sales productiveness extra broadly? 

ML: I’ve seen firsthand from my time within the army, how AI can have a transformative energy globally and on the battlefield. And in case you consider gross sales as a battlefield it scales productiveness by automating routine duties that in any other case take sellers away from partaking the purchasers, it delivers insights that might take us ages to investigate, with torrents of information, stacks upon stacks, and personalize the client expertise as properly at scale. It’s a sport changer, and it turns information right into a strategic asset for each group. 

SS: How do you suppose AI will proceed to drive enterprise innovation within the close to future, particularly in terms of enablement?

ML: AI is certain to develop, particularly in enablement and enterprise innovation. I feel we’re going to see AI change into extra built-in into day by day operations. Highspot is already on the forefront right here with assembly intelligence, being a part of each gross sales engagement, and offering analytics.

I feel these analytics will change into extra correct over time as we, practice new fashions and attain new heights. However on the finish of the day, the potential is it’s fairly huge: from automating administrative duties to delivering these strategic insights and shaping vendor habits and future instructions to make our buyer expertise extra pleasant.

SS: Mark, final query for you. As you look forward, how do you propose to leverage Highspot that can assist you obtain a number of the innovation that you just’re aiming to drive this yr? 

ML: That’s an excellent query. So the place can we go after our large begin? And I feel what our CRO would let you know, and our director of income ops would let you know is that Highspot is poised to be a cornerstone of our technique to drive innovation.

Internally to FoodChain ID, we check with Highspot because the gross sales accelerator. It’s what propels our gross sales cycles ahead. So we plan to leverage its capabilities to personalize studying scale improvement. We’re at the moment going by means of an setting optimization the place we’re utilizing the motto of all of the gross sales enablement you want if you want it, and none of it if you don’t.

So the important thing there. Is {that a} gross sales rep doesn’t must wade by means of this swamp of gross sales enablement that they don’t significantly want at the moment, and Highspot is tailored – with its filtering, its lists, and its search options – to supply the appropriate gross sales enablement on the proper time and none that you just don’t

SS: I like that. I may need to steal a few of these taglines for our advertising efforts. Mark, thanks a lot for becoming a member of us right this moment. I actually admire it. Completely. 

ML: Thanks. It’s a pleasure to be right here. 

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