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 traits within the office, and the right way to navigate them efficiently. Right here to debate this subject is Kris Richardson, the senior director of gross sales and associate enablement at Apptio. Thanks for becoming a member of us, Kris. I’d love so that you can inform us about your self, your background, and your position. 

Kris Richardson: Certain, thanks, glad to be right here. I’ve been at Apptio for about eight years. My position is I’m answerable for the entire gross sales coaching, not just for our interns or sellers but in addition for our companions.

My background is definitely in gross sales, I began years in the past. As an alternative of going to med faculty, I began with an organization referred to as Nextel promoting telephones to companies. I discovered myself involved in coaching my prospects and from that, began into gross sales coaching, and I’ve been on this facet of the enterprise for about 25 years now.

SS: Properly, we’re excited to speak to you, Kris. Apptio has been a long-time buyer of Highspot, however earlier than Highspot, your workforce leveraged a special enablement platform. Are you able to inform us a bit of bit about that have and perhaps among the challenges that your workforce confronted at the moment?

KR: Yeah, it was fairly the expertise. It was not expertise for our sellers. It was a really, what I name, bland interface. So, it was a poor consumer expertise. They couldn’t navigate very nicely. The search didn’t work superb. For anyone that was attempting to create content material, which was principally our workforce and the advertising and marketing workforce, it was very, very clumsy.

It might take typically hours simply to face up one little part with, some textual content in it, in a hyperlink. So, that was very troublesome. After which, we didn’t have loads of analytics. We couldn’t see, what are the issues that our sellers had been ? What was driving them to sure pages or sure content material?

With out that info, we didn’t know what was working. So, we had been simply placing up every little thing we may day by day and hoping that our sellers had been clicking into it. 

SS: How have you ever been in a position to remedy a few of these challenges that your workforce is dealing with since implementing Highspot?

KR: I believe the largest was the convenience of use. Our sellers love the internet-style paging, they’re used to that. They’re at all times looking out on their telephones and on the web themselves. Seeing the buttons, and with the ability to click on on a picture or a button and get to what they want. With the ability to simply navigate, and search tremendous simply.

The search engine with Highspot is so highly effective that we will tag sure gadgets and it’ll populate precisely what a vendor is searching for whether or not they put in the best info or not. After which going again to what I stated within the earlier query is that for our of us which can be constructing “spots”, what Highspot calls their pages, it’s very easy to face up a brand new spot.

You may actually copy one thing else that occurred a couple of months in the past, change a couple of issues and you’ve got a brand new model of that that appears refreshed and up to date. After which lastly the largest is that we’ve got the analytics to see what our settlers are and what they’re not . So we will take that info, it permits us to advertise the gadgets that appear to be actually fashionable, after which archive the gadgets that aren’t getting used.

SS: Superb. Now, as a bit of little bit of background, I believe Apptio just lately went by an acquisition, and I believe everyone knows MNAs can typically current loads of change for gross sales groups. What had been a few of your finest practices for serving to your reps actually navigate that change? And, and the way did you leverage Highspot to assist?

KR: The very first thing we did was rise up a web page instantly associated to the acquisition, loads of questions, loads of shifting components, so we made on our house web page, the touchdown web page when of us come into Highspot. Our sellers see an enormous banner that mainly says, “Hey, right here’s the place it’s good to go”. As soon as they click on into that, we had the entire related guides, any calls that had been held.

So the recordings of these calls, any PowerPoint decks or slides that had been utilized in these calls, any related guides associated to the acquisition. So it was tremendous straightforward for them to search out that simply by going to the homepage, they may click on in there, and get what they should, to remain updated on the modifications.

SS: Completely. And even all through all of that change, Apptio had a implausible recurring utilization fee with Highspot. I believe you guys had been at persistently 80%. What are your finest practices for driving adoption? 

KR: Properly, we put nearly every little thing {that a} vendor wants on Highspot. With my background in gross sales, we at all times consider the place would a vendor go to search out this? What would they seek for? And we promote and serve up the issues that they’re going to make use of most frequently that that’s going to be most helpful for them of their day-to-day job. So something essential will get put onto the homepage. That may very well be any name that we’ve got any content material that we need to promote.

After which we’ve got a collection of enablement calls. We now have a minimum of one every week. Typically we’ve got three to 4, they may very well be role-based calls. They may very well be regional calls. They may very well be gross sales abilities or course of calls. However each time we do a name, we promote. On these calls. Hey, what’s new in Highspot? We now have slides and we discuss what’s new and what they’ll discover. After which as quickly as that decision is over, we put up these hyperlinks to these calls and people decks proper there in Slack, and thru electronic mail. So everyone is aware of if they should discover one thing, they go to Highspot. So, I believe that’s what drives the utilization for our sellers.

SS: That’s superb. Shifting gears just a bit bit. One space the place you guys have additionally seen actually excessive adoption is gross sales performs, and also you’ve touched on them a bit of bit. You guys have 69% adoption. Inform us about your gross sales play technique. How are you leveraging performs to successfully information your reps on the right way to land loads of your key strategic initiatives within the area?

KR: It actually begins with onboarding. Gross sales performs are a key a part of what we name our Ignite and Spark vendor onboarding. And so each time any person goes by onboarding, one of many key parts is we level them to the gross sales place. We need to get them used to it straight away, going to search out content material on Highspot.

Among the actions could be, go take a look at a sure piece of content material on the gross sales play after which go apply it, whether or not they do a task play with a mentor or their supervisor, perhaps they’re filling out some vendor prep content material and so they’re sharing that with us by onboarding. So that they instantly know to go to Highspot due to that. Anytime we even have a product change or perhaps there’s a brand new persona that’s shopping for the merchandise that we’ve by no means actually handled earlier than, maybe a brand new competitor that has emerged these gross sales performs get up to date. So anytime there’s new info on the market, we attempt to get to the sellers by the gross sales place.

And once more, persevering with to advertise anytime there’s updates by Slack calls, et cetera. After which lastly, I’d say we use the gross sales performs loads of occasions for stipulations for coaching. For instance, we’ve got our gross sales kickoff arising in two weeks. And a part of that’s, “Hey, we’ve up to date the gross sales play for this product, or that product.”

Go overview that earlier than you get to the gross sales kickoff. So once more, driving that, {that a} fixed must go there to get the data they want has been, I believe—one of many components for fulfillment with the adoption of reviewing gross sales performs.

SS: Completely. And also you touched on this a bit of bit, however as your corporation has skilled loads of change, how do you retain the performs up to date and optimized over time?

KR: Properly, I believe we’re fortunate in that we’ve got a product advertising and marketing workforce and so they have very particular of us that personal every of these gross sales performs. So that they are usually the individuals which can be within the know. So that they know when there’s a new competitor. Perhaps there’s new objections which can be popping out. They know when, you already know, new personas, they know there’s new updates to our merchandise.

So that they’re those that may make these modifications as quickly as doable. We additionally filter suggestions from our sellers. So if the sellers are seeing stuff, these get filtered proper to the product advertising and marketing workforce. And once more, they’ve that possession. The opposite factor is we’d like to tug the information to see. What are the sellers doing on these gross sales performs?

What are they in these performs? Are they remixing any of the content material? Are they pitching any of that content material? And in the event that they’re not utilizing a few of that content material, can we simply eliminate it? Can we transfer it off there? So the gross sales performs good and clear and continuously seems refreshed. So I believe that makes it, makes it simpler when sellers can get in there.

There’s not, they’re not overwhelmed. They see the data they want and know they’re going to make use of, and so they also can say, Hey, that’s, that’s new content material that’s up to date. And they also continuously go there to search out that new info.

SS: I really like that. On the subject of optimization, I seen on LinkedIn that you simply talked about you deal with shifting the needle towards key enterprise outcomes, akin to win fee and quota attainment. How do you measure the affect of your efforts on a lot of these metrics?

KR: I imply, I believe on the whole, it begins with onboarding. We guarantee that our sellers full their full onboarding program, that Spark or Ignite program that I discussed. We additionally guarantee that we overview their exercise. What are they doing and the way does that correlate to the pipeline that they’ve?

After which finally, how does that correlate to win charges and their success? We need to be sure that they’re not simply getting fortunate, that they’re doing the work. They’re studying, they’re honing their craft, honing their abilities, and so they’re making use of that by having calls, conversations, conferences, et cetera, pitching issues from Highspot in order that the pipeline, the exercise, the information ends in these win charges and, and quota attainment.

SS: How has your utilization of Highspot helped you affect a few of these metrics, and do you’ve got any wins you may share? 

KR: Yeah, I imply, I might say because it pertains to Highspot, one of many huge issues that we take a look at is the scorecards. Are reps energetic in Highspot? What are they doing in there? Are they reviewing new content material? Are they honing their abilities? Are they constructing their information? If they’re, we all know that they’re extra more likely to succeed. They’re extra more likely to shut offers as a result of they’ve the information and abilities to have the ability to try this. We need to be sure that, are they remixing content material. Are they downloading content material?

Going again to the pitching, that’s tremendous essential. Are they pitching content material? What’s working? What’s not working? Then we will share that info with different sellers in order that we will say, “Hey, look, Bob over right here has been pitching this explicit set of supplies. And he appears to be getting loads of conferences.” It’s, it’s nice for us to share that. So I believe these metrics helps different sellers along with simply those which can be actually energetic in Highspot.

SS: Superb. Chris, since we’ve got simply turned over to a brand new 12 months, as a closing query for you, trying on the 12 months forward, what are a few of your workforce’s prime priorities, and the way do you intend to leverage Highspot that can assist you obtain these?

KR: Yeah, I might say Highspot is essential. As we talked about, we had been acquired by an organization in September. Among the organizations, not all, have gone by what we name switch of employment. So a few of us are literally workers of that firm. That will get to be troublesome when not your whole workers are. So we’ve acquired to guarantee that everyone’s on the identical web page. Once more, that’s why we put every little thing on Highspot that’s why we’ve stood up this web page specifically about what’s taking place, what’s coming, what’s new. However we’re about to go do a switch of enterprise. Which means everyone within the firm shall be workers.

Everyone within the firm has to function underneath this new firm’s tips. And so I believe the great factor for us is all of our sellers know that our processes have been constant. Our sharing of knowledge has been constant and that’s been by Highspot. By placing the data in Highspot, sharing it in Highspot, they know they’ll at all times go there to make that change administration a bit of smoother. I say us personally as a gross sales enablement workforce,  and a associate enablement workforce, our objective is to essentially enhance our search outcomes and that goes again to tagging, and sharing like content material. We do a fairly good job of it, however we’ve got loads of authors, and we have to get them higher at it. We now have an entire, what we name governance committee that will get collectively, an writer committee ensuring that they’re doing the issues that our workforce does to verify the search is nice, that sellers can discover what they need shortly.

After which lastly, it’s actually about eliminating stuff that’s not getting used, archiving content material, as a result of when you don’t keep on prime of it, you would have an enormous library and persons are discovering stuff that’s not related. So ensuring that everyone that’s authoring stuff is archiving outdated stuff, and simply conserving the brand new stuff entrance and middle.

SS: Fantastic. Properly, Kris, once more, thanks a lot for becoming a member of us at this time. I actually respect it. 

KR: Yeah, thanks a lot. This has been nice. 

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.