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 traits within the office and methods to navigate them efficiently. 

Right here to debate this matter is Graham Killian, the senior director of world income operations at Talogy. Thanks for becoming a member of us, Graham. I’d love so that you can inform us about your self, your background, and your function.

Graham Kilian: Thanks for having me. I’m joyful to be right here and searching ahead to our chat immediately.

I’ve been working within the go-to-market technique and enablement area for about 12 years, beginning out principally in an built-in advertising and marketing capability, doing slightly little bit of every little thing to drive enterprise for a couple of completely different startups. After which that’s the place I started with Talogy nearly eight years in the past the place I’ve been extremely lucky and I’m very grateful for the alternatives I’ve needed to study, develop, and innovate as the corporate has grown quickly and expanded throughout the globe.

And, actually reflecting on my expertise for our dialog immediately, I truly discovered it actually attention-grabbing how intently Highspot is tied to my profession journey, going from a advertising and marketing generalist supporting a really small gross sales staff in Indiana to now main a world income operations staff that helps tons of of individuals inside our go-to-market groups in over 20 nations worldwide.

And, I say it’s attention-grabbing as a result of Highspot got here into my view by way of your staff truly doing an excellent job of working towards what they preach from the primary touchpoint with certainly one of your gross sales improvement reps sending me some thought management content material concerning the rise of RevOps and the significance of gross sales enablement. And that was proper across the time that my present boss – who’s now the VP of world income operations – was the vp of gross sales, and I used to be in product advertising and marketing and we each began speaking about how this was actually a necessity for our group.

And, by way of the thought management content material that your staff was sending me, and as I started to have interaction together with your gross sales reps, that content material actually began to grow to be the muse for primarily my thesis for what RevOps might be for Talogy and actually what helped me make my enterprise case to grow to be a division of 1 to begin RevOps. And in order that was three years in the past. In that point, we’ve now constructed out the staff, we’ve restructured, I believe the worldwide RevOps staff now could be about 14 folks. And it’s loopy, right here we’re immediately. 

SS: We’re glad that you simply’re right here with us, Graham. Now, as talked about within the introduction, gaining higher perception into what works in your gross sales staff was one of many key explanation why you initially applied an enablement platform. How does Highspot provide help to take a data-driven method to your enablement technique? 

GK: Actually it helps us in a number of methods. We glance to finally use knowledge to assist us make extra knowledgeable enterprise selections, proper? There’s numerous knowledge throughout the enterprise. There’s numerous content material, particularly for a enterprise like us.

We’re the product of 16 acquisitions 16 completely different firms being introduced collectively, numerous completely different departments which have a special piece, whether or not it’s a part of creating the precise sales-enabled content material or creating steerage that goes into it after which finally truly having some agency knowledge relating to what works and what doesn’t, in order that we are able to higher prioritize the place we put our assets, the place we allocate these assets. We’ve actually used the information that we are able to achieve from Highspot to be extra strategic and extra pragmatic in how we method gross sales enablement, we’ve used it to essentially enhance the expertise that we are able to ship to our shoppers.

So among the knowledge that we actually take a look at after we’re contemplating the effectiveness of instruments like Highspot is suggestions from our shoppers. So we run a win-loss interview program. One thing that our product advertising and marketing staff heads up and, earlier than Highspot, we have been seeing knowledge coming in by way of these interviews telling us, actually pointing to among the typical signs of silo syndrome – the issues which you can count on while you take 16 completely different firms that each one have a number of departments and you place them collectively.

And it was inflicting friction within the gross sales course of and the shopper expertise, inflicting that ache that at occasions would trigger consumers to not select to purchase from us, even when they favored the answer. And we’ve been capable of leverage that suggestions into what we do, and now we’re leveraging that suggestions to validate that what we have now performed is definitely working.

SS: I like to listen to that. And the way has this data-driven method helped you scale your enablement technique throughout your international groups?

GK: From the time that we actually began Highspot – and we’ve tried to hunt suggestions from our groups – so leveraging knowledge on the very entrance finish to know what groups’ wants have been.

So by way of surveys, by way of focus teams and interviews, actually attempting to place some arduous knowledge behind what our challenges are as an organization globally, in addition to then additionally understanding sort of the nuances that include working a world enterprise working in ten completely different areas the place there are cultural variations which will influence the best way you promote and what’s actually efficient in your native market.

We’ve performed numerous work on the entrance finish to guarantee that we’re understanding that from our groups, and we’re additionally amassing suggestions now that we have now rolled this out to our international groups after we’ve applied and we’ve had a while with them truly utilizing it getting that suggestions from them to see what’s working.

How is it enhancing effectivity and effectiveness throughout the enterprise, and finally, how are we fixing for the traditional issues that all the companies like us have? Which is content material is tough to search out throughout the enterprise. It’s siloed in a ton of various areas, it lacks visibility. So there’s numerous nice content material on the market that folks might be utilizing however they don’t know the place to search out it after they want it – that simply in time surfacing of the content material that you really want. After which additionally, very importantly, is that content material lacks steerage. How do you truly use that content material to be efficient within the gross sales course of, place your self as an skilled as you’re promoting, and actually construct the belief that it takes? Once you’re not in commodity items, we’re answer suppliers. And so answer promoting takes one other stage of that basically good steerage the place you may put the context and the content material collectively and actually create an efficient influential expertise.

SS: Now, Graham, I do know international growth has been a key strategic initiative for your enterprise. What are among the challenges companies may face although, when attempting to develop globally?

GK: Yeah, there actually are all kinds of challenges that you simply run into. So we’re a world enterprise, as I discussed, we acquired 16 firms throughout the globe, so we’re in over 20 completely different nations. So with that comes all kinds of various stakeholders, so scalability turns into extremely essential while you’re a lean imply enablement staff, and also you want to have the ability to assist a really broad vary of stakeholders with various wants. As an illustration, each week we have now gross sales enablement content material in ten completely different languages to have the ability to assist our groups of their native markets. So with the ability to make sense of that, with the ability to guarantee that, your native groups have entry to the content material they want, however that you simply don’t create noise in your different gross sales groups that basically don’t have to see content material in Dutch, as an illustration. Very not often does our America’s staff have to see that content material. And so with the ability to create a curated gross sales enablement expertise turns into essential while you’re coping with the challenges of there’s numerous content material to start with and you then multiply that by language wants, it turns into exponentially higher to harness all of that content material and actually centralize it into one place.

As an illustration, we even have numerous completely different siloed repositories the place this content material exists. Coming from completely different firms, from completely different departments, we have now over 20 completely different content material repositories aggregated into Highspot. So when you consider organizational change and attempting to create effectivity it may be actually a problem to attempt to get of us who’ve possibly been doing issues a sure approach for a very long time to vary what they’re doing. It may be an enormous raise to attempt to consolidate 20 completely different SharePoints into one. However with a instrument like Highspot, we don’t should disrupt what persons are used to handle content material behind the scenes and permits us to combination every little thing into one central place for our shoppers – our salespeople, our go-to-market groups – to essentially drive the effectivity for them with out having to create an enormous mission to consolidate every little thing on the again finish. In order that’s been actually useful.

Coping with, you understand, the cultural variations and with the ability to account for these issues is actually one thing you take care of at a world scale. And so with the ability to create assets on the international stage for scalability functions, however then additionally with the ability to assist these groups with localization, which is basically the place we moved the needle in gross sales and in our native markets is basically essential. At occasions we’d use Gross sales Performs to launch one thing globally, however then work with our groups to determine the place we’d have to localize these issues – the place we have to guarantee that we’re offering content material pricing of their native denominations and their native currencies – and that turns into actually essential.

After which the very last thing I believe I’ll point out, which might be one of many greatest challenges, is driving consistency and standardization, proper? And that goes hand in hand with scalability. It’s very arduous to scale what you’re doing from a gross sales enablement and gross sales coaching standpoint when you could have eight to 10 completely different gross sales groups and so they’re all used to doing issues in several methods. And there actually isn’t an entire lot of consistency in how gross sales enablement and coaching have been delivered traditionally. Actually utilizing Highspot as our conduit for this we’ve been capable of begin that technique of standardizing the best way that we body our precise gross sales enablement and our coaching, the best way that we ship it to our groups after which the best way that we truly analyze it by now having knowledge. It’s very obscure the effectiveness of a program while you don’t actually have knowledge within the first place. And so going again to the primary query about how we’re leveraging knowledge, actually understanding. How our international groups are accessing and utilizing content material has grow to be extremely precious, and that’s one of many issues that we’re most enthusiastic about as we construct extra knowledge about what our inside groups are viewing and finally what they’re sending to our shoppers and the way they’re utilizing content material to affect the gross sales course of. Very thrilling stuff and solely one thing that’s potential with a instrument like this while you’re coping with international scale like we’re.

SS: I’m certain numerous firms can relate with that. Graham, you could have seen some implausible outcomes since implementing Highspot, together with a 95 % improve in rep confidence and a major improve in effectivity. What are the important thing elements of your technique that led to those outcomes?

GK: I believe the reply to your query actually lies within the shut collaboration that basically must occur with a purpose to achieve success with implementing one thing like Highspot. The entire objective of Highspot is to unravel the challenges that your staff is going through and in addition be capable of convey collectively cross-functional groups, demolish these silos, [and] break down the gross sales boundaries that there typically are. And numerous occasions meaning with the ability to collaborate extra intently with cross-functional groups than you sometimes do.

And numerous what we have been capable of do, as I discussed earlier, was collaborate with our gross sales groups on the entrance finish to essentially perceive what their wants have been, collaborate with the content material homeowners and the steerage homeowners to know what their wants and their challenges have been when attempting to ship that content material to our gross sales groups, after which actually be capable of use Highspot to convey that collectively and to be the answer to a lot of these challenges. And actually nailing these issues down with the gross sales staff on the entrance finish allowed us to be very centered in what we prioritize after we created Highspot and within the design of Highspot and finally, I believe that’s what has led to reps being extra assured that they’ve the most recent and best at their fingertips always.

And numerous it additionally goes again to that visibility as they at the least now really feel like they’ve visibility into every little thing. They usually additionally know that they’ve the staff –  this cross-functional collaborative staff of content material homeowners throughout the enterprise – which might be centered on sustaining that repository for them and making certain that it’s actually, accessible. A single supply of reality for the group.

SS: Now, you’ve touched on it, however a serious driver behind your success are Gross sales Performs. What are a few of your finest practices for using performs, and the way has this helped drive influence? 

GK: Yeah, gross sales performs are nice, they are surely. They’re one thing that basically brings extra simplicity and cohesion to issues that may typically really feel nebulous and sophisticated and even disjointed while you’re bringing collectively all the completely different puzzle items throughout the enterprise from completely different departments that it takes to really create an entire complete gross sales enablement bundle in your staff. So Gross sales Performs are nice with that, they actually helped foster that collaboration with cross-functional groups concerned in each the content material and the steerage creation and assist convey all of it collectively in a single place.

I actually love the simplicity of Highspot’s finest follow framework of what to know, say, present, and do. And that’s actually one thing that we have now adopted now as a framework for enablement as a enterprise. So once I work with our consulting staff or our product staff, we discuss, which property match into which of these know, say, present, and do classes. After which we convey that each one collectively right into a Gross sales Play that’s organized in that approach. And it’s simply so easy that it is smart to our groups. 

And so we truly simply used that framework for collaboration on a really giant international initiative. We simply launched a brand new answer, our in-view management answer suite earlier this 12 months, which was an enormous cross-functional effort throughout the globe. A ton of labor from a ton of groups went into it. And to make sense of all of that, to ship it to our go-to-market groups in a approach that isn’t overwhelming, is a problem. And we used a world Gross sales Play to have the ability to convey collectively all of that content material and context into one place. And that’s how we launched it internally. We launched it by way of a Gross sales Play that was in our inside webinars as we have been explaining what the answer was. We have been additionally serving to our groups perceive the place they’ll discover the assets that they want. A lot of this, like if you happen to sit folks down in a 1-hour webinar and provides them a bunch of data, they’re going to retain a really small portion of that. So the principle factor we attempt to practice our groups on is the place they’ll discover these assets after they want that just-in-time capacity to floor the content material it’s good to be the skilled in real-time while you’re having a dialog together with your shopper and keep away from the ever dreaded, “I’ll get again to you with that.” Even when it’s one thing that’s a seemingly easy reply, it could kill a gross sales course of. 

And so Gross sales Performs are actually good about ensuring a salesman has clear, curated steerage from end-to-end of every little thing that they want in a given promoting state of affairs. And it additionally helps as a result of they know that there’s one place they should go to search out every little thing. And if they’ll’t discover it, there’s often steerage there to inform them both it’s coming, or who they’ll go to for assist with that. So it’s a extremely complete approach of enabling a staff, but in addition giving them a slender segmented focus of the place they’re promoting and never permitting them to get misplaced within the noise of different options within the course of.

So we’ve truly expanded the usage of Highspot globally proper earlier than that launch in order that we may get that Gross sales Play out to all people. And it’s actually been, we’ve had nice suggestions, implausible suggestions from our in-market groups. And the early outcomes and the suggestions we’ve seen leads me to say that it’s actually been one of the vital profitable product launches in my time at Talogy.

SS: I like that. And I’d love that one of many areas that you simply’re increasing into, otherwise you’re within the technique of increasing into, is round Pitching and Digital Rooms. How are you planning to leverage Pitch capabilities within the 12 months forward to proceed constructing momentum together with your groups?

GK: So Pitching is an superior function, it truly is, and one thing that our salespeople have typically dreamed of and didn’t suppose was potential. And so, there’s been numerous early pleasure from the gross sales groups which have gotten it. We’ve had nice outcomes with early adoption of pitching simply because our gross sales groups love the abundantly skilled deliverables which you can ship to your shopper. And making that gross sales course of simpler, in fact, avoiding a ton of emails and attachments and attempting to ship a shopper, whether or not it’s a recording of a name, or if it’s a pitch deck, that’s possibly too giant and you’ll’t even ship it by way of electronic mail. It solves numerous simply the essential issues that our groups have. And in order that’s the place driving the adoption of it hasn’t actually been an excessive amount of of a problem.

It’s one thing that’s change administration, it’s completely different habits than numerous salespeople have been used to. However as soon as you may practice them on it and get them extra comfy with it, they actually love the capabilities of what they’ll do. And we’ve seen numerous this adoption of Pitching relating to how we current proposals and RFPs. If there isn’t a restriction on how the RFP may be delivered to the shopper, we construct out a pleasant branded Digital Room, we host the precise proposal doc with all the necessities in addition to any of the supplemental supplies they may want, generally we add a customized video. And it actually personalizes the shopping for expertise and we do imagine that’s going to result in extra wins, proper? At this level, our groups are actually enthusiastic about what they’ve been capable of ship after which the insights that they get after they ship it. One of many issues that may drive salespeople and gross sales leaders loopy is when you’ve despatched that electronic mail, what occurs? I spent all this time placing collectively the proper pitch, did they even take a look at it? That’s one of many questions that’s at all times burning in your thoughts.

Our SDR staff makes use of it for prospecting, a good way to make use of Pitching functionality. So while you’ve despatched a number of emails to focused prospects and also you’re attempting to prioritize, who do you observe up with when nobody’s truly responded to you? Leveraging these Pitch analytics that simply pop as much as the highest to say that so and so simply seen this piece of content material, it simply indicators that’s a well timed time to succeed in out. And so we actually leverage it in that approach as nicely, simply to assist prioritize the place our salespeople spend their time daily, ensuring that they’re reaching out to those that could be heat, or possibly you probably did ship a proposal a number of months in the past and that shopper has gone silent. And you then see one thing pop up in your electronic mail, a notification that they’ve re-engaged. That’s an excellent time to possibly attain out and see in the event that they want something. And so we’ve had some actually good expertise now and a few good success tales from salespeople who’ve had that actual factor occur and made that attain out and the consumers like, “Oh, that’s truly nice time that you simply’ve reached out, we’re truly prepared to maneuver ahead within the decision-making course of.” So it’s an awesome instrument.

SS: Final query for you, Graham. How do you intend to leverage innovation and enablement like AI to proceed to develop globally and interact your shoppers at scale within the 12 months forward?

GK: The rise of AI is actually one thing that everybody has their eyes on. Highspot is basically proving to be a frontrunner on this area, and so I’ve been studying numerous the thought management content material, attending numerous the webinars to remain up on what the choices are, and attempting to know actually what’s going be the most effective match for our enterprise. The place will we begin with implementing a few of these AI-enabled options, after which what can we possibly develop into over time, ’trigger I believe that’s at all times essential. Implementing newer applied sciences, particularly with issues which might be actually on the innovative like AI. A few of the options in Highspot that I see quick utility for are issues like Instantaneous Solutions. So, with the ability to go to the search bar – intuitively sort in a query that may usually go in an electronic mail to certainly one of our consultants or somebody in our R&D staff – with the ability to simply plug that into the search bar with a query mark, after which truly returning a solution that’s based mostly upon.

Our content material that’s in our system, I believe is basically essential, proper? When there are instruments like ChatGPT on the market, the place you could possibly have salespeople going and attempting to ask a query and getting a solution again and never realizing if it’s factually correct, I like the truth that our staff can go into Highspot, ask a query at the least about our content material, about what we do as service suppliers, and be capable of get a solution that’s simply based mostly upon the content material that we have now at Highspot is unimaginable.

It’ll result in numerous time financial savings. I believe it’ll result in some simply pure upskilling of our staff. After they have a fast query, they’ll get a fast reply. So it nearly turns into like a information test in that approach. After which there are some extra thrilling options that I do know Highspot has, like AI information checks, like AI teaching which might be all issues we hope to reap the benefits of in the long term. I believe different options the place AI and the place these improvements might help us return to what, you understand, I talked about earlier being so vital, which is basically serving to our gross sales staff when the gross sales course of is so nuanced, [and] when there’s such an unlimited pool of content material that our gross sales staff can use to place themselves as specialists within the gross sales course of. Utilizing instruments that may assist them floor the best content material on the proper time is so vital.

And so instruments like Highspot and with the ability to truly advocate the content material to salespeople, relying upon the place they’re at within the gross sales course of, relying upon sure attributes that they’re monitoring associated to a chance in Salesforce is basically highly effective stuff relating to serving to your gross sales staff effectively get to what they want. After which with the ability to successfully use it with their shopper to affect the shopping for resolution. 

SS: Graham, thanks a lot for becoming a member of us immediately. I actually recognize your time and your insights. 

GK: Thanks very a lot. It was my pleasure. 

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