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 learn how to navigate them efficiently.

Right here to debate this matter is Marc Losito, the chief of workers 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 function.

Marc Losito: It’s a pleasure to be right here and, at present, 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 function or an operations-based function 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 software for about eight months.

SS: We’re excited to have you ever right here with us at present. Now I do know whenever you first began at FoodChain ID, one among your first duties was to implement an enablement platform. Inform us about that journey. Why was it a strategic precedence for the enterprise to spend money on 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 staff gathered collectively and started to guage our strategic progress choices, and gross sales enablement stored 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, Might of final yr that we started to undertake Highspot and we rolled it out in August. We have now 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 had been capable of reduce 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 had been.

SS: That’s superb to go from 9 months to 6 months, and I undoubtedly need to circle again to that. I do need to get a greater sense since you had 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 companion together with your CRO and RevOps to seek out the suitable answer for the enterprise and finally achieve buy-in?

ML: That’s a terrific query. Our CRO, Brandon Taylor, was the champion of this progress initiative, and Ryan Wing, our Director of Income Operations, was essential to creating positive that we had been all aligned on a collective imaginative and prescient, ensuring that our strategic objectives had been synchronized, and to make it possible for all the things 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 need to obtain with this. With Highspot in, shortening our gross sales cycle occasions, rising our win charges, rising our ACVs, and rising our alternative creation, however finally getting their buy-in was step one and ensuring that we had 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 slightly than separate instruments to equip, prepare, and coach your groups. In your opinion, what has been the influence 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 automobile that has guide steering, the place you’re attempting to wrestle to shift and pivot with market traits, 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 turn out to be 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 massive 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 via the way you optimized gross sales onboarding and finally drove these very spectacular outcomes?

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

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

SS: Incredible. I really like to listen to that. Along with onboarding, your staff 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 exchange real-world teaching. You’re not going to have the ability to automate or AI your means out of real-world, human contact. And the crucible the place concept meets observe. After we’re onboarding reps, it’s not solely necessary for them to study in a classroom, however 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 finally, the adage is true that observe makes good. And in at present’s dynamic market, that’s particularly crucial. 

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

ML: I even have a little bit of a background in AI, from graduate college and from my time within the army. I simply consider that AI opens up an entire 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 could determine patterns that will be not possible for people to detect.

And it’s not about changing the human factor. Like I stated, nothing goes to interchange the human contact in coaching and training, however augmenting it, and studying learn how 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 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 will take us ages to research, with torrents of knowledge, stacks upon stacks, and personalize the client expertise as properly at scale. It’s a recreation 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 the case of enablement?

ML: AI is sure to develop, particularly in enablement and enterprise innovation. I believe we’re going to see AI turn out to be extra built-in into every 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 believe these analytics will turn out to be extra correct over time as we, prepare 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 intend to leverage Highspot that will help you obtain among the innovation that you just’re aiming to drive this yr? 

ML: That’s a terrific query. So the place can we go after our super begin? And I believe 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 discuss 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 present going via an surroundings optimization the place we’re utilizing the motto of all of the gross sales enablement you want whenever you want it, and none of it whenever you don’t.

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

SS: I really like that. I might need to steal a few of these taglines for our advertising and marketing efforts. Mark, thanks a lot for becoming a member of us at present. I actually respect 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. You should definitely tune in subsequent time for extra insights on how one can maximize enablement success with Highspot.