In response to Forbes, 71% of C-level executives imagine gross sales productiveness is essential to reaching progress. However unlocking this could typically be simpler stated than executed. 

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hello and welcome to the Win Win Podcast. I’m your host, Shawnna Sumaoang. Within the quest to drive gross sales productiveness for your enterprise, you’ve seemingly requested your self: What does good seem like? This month on the podcast, we’re serving to you reply this query by exploring finest practices on how one can ship strategic enablement with Highspot. 

Right here to assist us perceive methods to unlock gross sales productiveness at present is Jon Perera, chief advertising and marketing officer at Highspot. Thanks for becoming a member of Jon! I’d love so that you can inform us about your self, your background, and your position right here at Highspot. 

Jon Perera: Hello Shawnna. It’s a delight to be with you all. As you stated, I’m the chief advertising and marketing officer right here at Highspot. I additionally run our associate alliance staff. I joined the corporate about 4 and a half years in the past after we had lower than 100 workers, so it’s been actually thrilling to see the expansion. Earlier than Highspot I spent seven years at Adobe and about 18 years at Microsoft. I’m a local of Seattle, and completely happy to be right here on the Win Win podcast with you. 

SS: I’m excited to have you ever right here as properly, Jon. Thanks a lot for becoming a member of us. I’ll begin with what looks like a straightforward query, however I’d love your perspective on this. What’s gross sales productiveness and why is it so essential for corporations to give attention to that at present?

JP: There are a number of definitions of gross sales productiveness on the market, and to maintain it easy, I believe it’s actually nearly how a lot income an organization makes for each single gross sales rep. It’s a actually easy equation. Once you’re within the boardroom, the dialogue can be round what share of your reps are on quota. These are actually essential questions as a result of because it seems, most gross sales reps aren’t spending most of their time promoting. Actually, based mostly on Gartner analysis, 72% of a rep’s time is spent not promoting and never working with the purchasers. 

In case you contemplate a number of issues, for instance, your organization’s OPEX, gross sales, and advertising and marketing are maybe typically the very best share of your whole OPEX, significantly within the B2B area. The board and the corporate and shareholders and stockholders and workers must see the return on funding of that, and it’s extra essential now than ever.

Immediately’s financial system is hard. Most salespeople have by no means offered via a down market like this. I’ve spoken with dozens of chief income officers who say, yeah, our salespeople haven’t offered in 2007 and 2008, so that is all very new and it’s additionally occurring at a time when shopping for groups and the shopping for course of has grow to be far more complicated. Gross sales productiveness might be subject primary in at present’s boardroom. 

SS: Which is why it’s a essential subject after we take into consideration what attractiveness like, and that’s completely what we’re right here to speak about at present and methods to leverage what attractiveness prefer to empower productiveness, however to set the stage, Jon, I’m curious to listen to out of your perspective concerning the inverse of that. What does unhealthy seem like?

JP: I really like this query and one thing that we’ve all suffered from at one level in our profession. I’ll take into consideration three issues right here, Shawnna. To begin with, unhealthy seems like the lack to execute an organization’s strategic progress initiatives. In case you take a look at a latest HBR article, it seems that round 70% of all strategic initiatives fail. These are strategic initiatives to develop your enterprise, and what typically occurs is that the boardroom, gross sales management, and advertising and marketing management could give you precisely the proper technique to develop the enterprise, retain your buyer base, develop buyer satisfaction, and drive cross-sell, however failure occurs. You don’t have execution on the entrance line along with your frontline salespeople and people strategic progress initiatives aren’t strengthened by gross sales managers. 

I’ll provide you with an important instance of this. Many corporations have spent lots of, if not tens of millions of {dollars} on the implementation of a brand new gross sales methodology. One thing like MEDDPICC and I’ve heard many CROs say, yeah, we’ve been working for 18 months on implementing our new gross sales methodology, nevertheless it’s really not being carried via by gross sales managers and gross sales reps. You’ll additionally see advertising and marketing groups aren’t aligned with the brand new gross sales methodology. In order that’s primary. It’s concerning the lack of execution of your strategic progress initiatives. 

The second attribute of what unhealthy seems like is completely traditional, and it’s when your gross sales and advertising and marketing groups aren’t aligned, they don’t have a single supply of reality for the core message. They’re not aligned at a really detailed stage on the objectives. They don’t have a shared scorecard. They’ve two totally different scorecards, and we see this the entire time.

The final one I’ll point out is, we regularly see many corporations have what I’ll name a patchwork strategy to gross sales enablement. So what does that imply? They’ve dozens of various instruments. They don’t have shared analytics on what’s working. They don’t have a single viewpoint across the course of to land strategic initiatives, they usually’re simply making an attempt to do enablement simply in time with regardless of the emergency hearth drill of the day is. They don’t have the individuals, the method, or the instruments actually wanted to roll issues out easily. These are three traits, I believe, of what unhealthy seems like.

SS: Now, once more, to the subject at hand for at present, what does good seem like on the subject of driving gross sales productiveness? 

JP: I’ve spent in all probability the final three or 4 months talking with dozens of chief income officers and CMOs on this quest to actually perceive what attractiveness like. Wanting right here inside Highspot now we have a incredible enablement staff and nice course of and studying from that. What attractiveness like I synthesize it down to a few areas. 

Primary, what’s in widespread for all these very high-performing corporations is that they place an enormous quantity of focus and energy on their individuals and their tradition. Particularly, they’re speaking a couple of tradition of gross sales excellence, of gross sales rigor. They’ve an enormous give attention to variety, fairness, and inclusion. What attractiveness like are groups which can be actively measuring what are the engagement scores of our frontline salespeople. There’s a deep funding and wager into the artwork and the craft of promoting. Once you hear what attractiveness like, primary is it’s about individuals and tradition on the very core.

Quantity two, it’s concerning the course of, and specifically, you hear so much about having a system of operational rigor. What meaning is that there’s no deviation, there’s no thriller round execution, and there’s constant habits change and constant execution of firm technique from the very high to the very entrance line. You see very sturdy alignment and a single supply of reality between gross sales and advertising and marketing on the objectives. There’s a deep inspection on a really common foundation round how we’re doing on funnel conversion at each single step. That notion of operational rigor is on the very core of the method of what attractiveness like. 

The ultimate space is know-how. The attention-grabbing query in corporations which can be completely successful at all times has a system that equips, trains, and coaches their reps to be at their best. I’ll provide you with an anecdote. I used to be just lately talking with the previous chief income officer for DocuSign, and we have been speaking about what operational rigor seems like. He stated, look, do you imagine that your gross sales groups shall be extra productive if you happen to successfully equip, prepare and coach them? Properly, the reply to that has to utterly be sure. 

Then the subsequent query is, properly, whose job is that to equip, coaching coach? The reply actually is the CRO or the top of gross sales in deep partnership with the top of gross sales enablement, however you possibly can’t do it and not using a system, a know-how platform, that means that you can coach on these behaviors that you simply wish to see, that means that you can examine, that help you have a single supply of reality for every one in every of these areas. What attractiveness like are individuals, processes and know-how coming collectively to create a system of operational rigor that helps sellers execute each time on time. 

SS: These are three incredible areas of focus, and I believe it’s additionally a beautiful segue into my subsequent query, Jon, which is, what are a few of the ways in which Highspot can assist groups be what attractiveness like?

JP: Nice query. I’d say two or three years in the past, a number of of the important thing leaders inside Highspot began to assume very lengthy and arduous about this query. We have been a know-how firm, at first, deep bets on AI, deep bets on next-generation experiences for sellers, and we knew that that wasn’t sufficient. We began to take a look at corporations inside our portfolio of consumers that have been doing higher than others, that have been simply actually doing an incredible job at execution. It grew to become clear that there have been numerous patterns that emerged and we took all of that sample matching and we created and launched one thing that we referred to as the Strategic Enablement Framework. 

Primarily what that claims relies on the place an organization needs to go to execute your core applications, your key progress initiatives, and the enterprise outcomes that you could drive, you want a complete system that thinks about the way you equip, prepare, and coach and drive the habits modifications that you simply want at scale. We’ve taken that framework and we’ve made all of it accessible via the Highspot Spark Neighborhood, via our skilled companies groups, and thru our Highspot College, as a system that corporations can depend on that drives far more strategic enablement. I believe the primary method by which we can assist far above and past simply our know-how platform is thru this system to drive extra repeatable progress.

The second factor I’d point out is neighborhood. As an organization, we’ve wager so deeply on the gross sales enablement neighborhood. We’re deep believers within the change makers that these gamers have in your group. Particularly, we’ve created two noteworthy communities the place individuals can join, community, and share finest practices. I’d name out the Highspot Spark Neighborhood, which is accessible, in fact, proper from inside the product, and what some individuals don’t know is that we additionally constructed out the Gross sales Enablement PRO neighborhood that has occasions just like the soiree that’s now virtually 30,000 members sturdy. This wager on the neighborhood is a wager on self-discipline and the impression of strategic enablement. If now we have a extremely thriving neighborhood, we predict that we can assist corporations develop and have an effect the best way that they wish to. 

The third space is round companies and assist. The excellence and the care that now we have taken to be sure that each single buyer is profitable. We pay attention actually fastidiously to our prospects and the way they wish to drive progress, and just lately we’ve really operationalized loads of these discussions into precise instruments, actual telemetry, the place we are able to perceive like, hey, if an organization has a strategic progress initiative round, let’s say for instance, cross-sell, properly each single month, each quarter shall be working with that buyer on how are you doing, are you hitting the metrics that you simply wish to? The analytics inside Highspot will showcase the habits change that you could see whether it is really happening in order that we can assist corporations speed up their progress. These are three or 4 areas by which I believe Highspot can actually assistance on this entrance.

SS: I’d like to dive in a little bit bit extra on that first one, which is across the Strategic Enablement Framework, as a result of one of many issues that I really like about that methodology is it actually helps to take the guesswork out of what attractiveness like and, as you’ve talked about Jon, in occasions of financial uncertainty, I believe readability is essential. Are you able to inform our viewers about what it means to have strategic enablement? 

JP: In our view, that’s a repeatable system that means that you can equip, prepare, and coach your gross sales reps in two particular areas. The primary is what I name foundational applications, and the second is across the execution of those strategic initiatives that we’ve been discussing.

Let’s check out the primary. It’s actually attention-grabbing, even in at present’s market the place we’ve seen actually painful levels of layoffs in many various sectors, most corporations will expertise a churn of their gross sales pressure of round 30 to 35%. What meaning is that on a 12-month foundation, each gross sales firm within the B2B area might be hiring. 30 to 35% of their gross sales reps are model new, and the extra complicated your product line, the longer the ramp time is. In some corporations, it could possibly be 8, 9, 10, or 11 months earlier than a rep is off the ramp, so a foundational program inside strategic enablement needs to be onboarding. In case you can shave one month, a month and a half off that ramp time, that’s massively impactful on the subject of gross sales productiveness and impression on income.

It’s additionally about these strategic initiatives. On the core of that, I believe there are a variety of components. One in every of them is teaching, which we’ve talked about a little bit bit, however as we discuss to CROs all over the world, one of many issues which can be turning into most obvious is that while you allow your area on a brand new challenge, a brand new initiative on a cross-sell strategy, for instance, one of many errors we see is that they’ll simply go straight to the frontline and allow the reps.

What attractiveness like is definitely enabling your gross sales managers perhaps a month forward of time, since you want these gross sales managers to educate the reps on what attractiveness like and methods to actually drive that strategic initiative all the best way right down to the entrance line. It’s about having the proper message and ensuring that at each level of the client’s journey, each rep is supplied with the proper message on the proper time of the gross sales cycle to assist transfer that deal ahead.

All of this, I believe, actually requires a system of strategic enablement the place you’re wanting left to proper round how we equip our reps, how we prepare them successfully and onboard them quicker than earlier than, and allow our gross sales managers to be world-class coaches. In case you pull all these collectively, you possibly can actually have a system that helps corporations land each foundational applications, that are completely core to working your enterprise, and perhaps extra importantly, these issues which can be progress drivers even on this down market.

SS: I’d love to know, particularly given your position at Highspot as CMO, what position does advertising and marketing play in driving gross sales productiveness and actually serving to to empower what attractiveness like?

JP: To begin with, I’d say loads of it’s about what’s the mission of selling. For my part, it’s about serving to sellers win offers. We reside and exist to serve gross sales and the extra that we actually deeply embrace that mindset, the higher job that we are able to do by way of serving to drive vendor productiveness. Now, by the best way, it goes past that. It’s about serving to prospects achieve success. It’s about driving class thought management. It’s about driving buyer satisfaction, however particular to gross sales productiveness, it’s taking that mindset that we’re right here to serve.

The place does that begin? I believe it begins with vendor empathy. Do the entrepreneurs within the group spend loads of time working with sellers on offers, listening in on calls, attending conferences, actually being investigative and inquisitive about what are the toughest questions that prospects are asking, and having actually deep vendor empathy, understanding what it’s like and the way arduous these questions are that our reps are getting? It’s a mindset shift that’s so essential to driving gross sales productiveness. Primary on my checklist is that mission and sense of empathy and understanding what it’s like. 

Quantity two is that it’s the position of selling to set gross sales up for achievement on the subject of aggressive insights. Actually aggregating and understanding what are aggressive tendencies, like the place’s your competitor making an attempt to upend you? How do you actually equip, prepare and coach each single vendor at your organization across the battle card and the gross sales play on the aggressive entrance? It’s advertising and marketing’s job to be the subject material skilled and to assist the corporate perceive how we win competitively.

Hand in hand with that, it’s concerning the ICP, the best buyer profile, and the client insights. What are the toughest ache factors that prospects have and the way can we actually craft our story and our market to air covers each single stage of the funnel from the highest of the funnel, all through to when offers are within the negotiation stage that we’re offering the instruments, the sources, the case research, the references, the enterprise case wanted to actually tackle these purchaser insights that we’re aggregating.

The subsequent one on the checklist is round constructing a compelling message, and I believe the outdated method of getting a extremely sturdy message was entrepreneurs would go do a bunch of buyer analysis, they’d perceive what the message is, they usually’d roll it out to the sector, and that labored for a very long time, however I believe at present what attractiveness like is a way more collaborative strategy to the event of the message.

I’ll provide you with an anecdote about one thing we did right here at Highspot that I simply actually assume is efficient. Round twice a 12 months we pull collectively gross sales, advertising and marketing, and enablement. We pull individuals which can be on the entrance line of all these roles, individuals which can be managers, and folks which can be vice presidents of the corporate for a sequence of workshops and we construct the core message collectively. The explanation that we do that’s that we hold it actual. We’re grounding ourselves on what are the actually arduous questions, what’s actually working, and let’s do that collectively so that you create shared buy-in as a result of we created the message collectively, which then means there’s a a lot greater chance that it’s constant throughout your entire firm.

One thing I discussed earlier, it’s about having an aligned gross sales and advertising and marketing scorecard. Advertising and marketing’s job is to actually perceive these gross sales metrics and KPIs and perceive precisely each step of the journey. Each MQL, each pipeline generated, each advertising and marketing attribution, touchpoint, how is it serving to transfer offers ahead? I believe the very last thing I’d point out is that advertising and marketing’s job is to actually perceive the analytics of the content material, the campaigns, the applications, and the gross sales performs, and perceive what works in order that we are able to scale it.

Platforms like Highspot permit entry to these analytics that permit us to fine-tune our job and make it even higher so we’re offering higher content material, higher campaigns, and higher approaches to drive prospects via the funnel. These are a few of the issues that I take into consideration by way of the position of selling to actually drive gross sales productiveness and empower what attractiveness like, particularly throughout these occasions. 

SS: Jon, thanks a lot for sharing your CMO perspective on what attractiveness like. To shut, what recommendation would you give different government leaders who need to unlock gross sales productiveness inside their organizations? 

JP: I’m unsure I’d name this recommendation a lot as perhaps what we’re all studying from one another. As I discussed earlier, I’ve been spending loads of time with CROs and CMOs at high-growth B2B corporations in the previous few months simply asking the query like, what does good seem like? If I have been to mixture all of that, what I’m studying, and perhaps the recommendation from the entire cohort, what’s quite common is that proper now what’s wanted is a system of operational rigor within the promoting course of, and that’s concerning the elimination of guesswork. It’s about eliminating just-in-time enablement, and it’s about having a really sturdy structured strategy to driving repeatable habits change throughout your area. 

What we’re listening to is that it comes down to those three areas that I’ve talked about earlier than, investing in your individuals is job primary. It has by no means been extra essential. It’s that very first expertise they’ve once they’re interviewing. It’s concerning the onboarding expertise and the excellence of this system you may have onboarding. It’s concerning the tradition that’s created by gross sales and advertising and marketing leaders. Having a tradition of gross sales excellence and execution rewarding helps individuals be consultants at their craft. Actually deeply embed variety, fairness, inclusion, and belonging via their strategy, and don’t neglect the significance of teaching. Most frontline gross sales managers have been nice gross sales reps, however they have been by no means skilled on methods to be nice coaches. 

I believe studying and recommendation primary is that all of it begins and really clearly, with individuals and it has these dimensions. Quantity two, it’s concerning the course of for operational rigor and applications just like the Highspot Strategic Enablement Framework that systematically seems at how we equip, how we prepare, how we coach, and the way we get the analytics on what’s working. How can we really prepare, observe and measure that we’re driving the habits modifications that we have to see in our area? That’s completely essential. 

Then lastly, it’s about ensuring your sellers and your enablement staff, and your gross sales course of have the proper tech stack in place. Frankly, most corporations have too many gross sales instruments. I’ve spoken with numerous individuals who say, yeah, no, now we have 10, 12, 16 totally different gross sales instruments. In case you can consolidate right down to the essential few that help you have one system for execution, you’re making a stronger bias for excellence and a stronger system for operational rigor. That’s what we’re studying, that’s what we’re actually enthusiastic about, and that’s the whole lot round what attractiveness like. We’re placing loads of our studying and sources into the Highspot Spark Neighborhood to share with you.

SS: Completely. Jon, thanks a lot for becoming a member of us at present. 

JP: It was a delight.

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 transcend what attractiveness like with Highspot.