Based on a Harvard Enterprise Overview report, about 70% of change initiatives fail. So how can enablement assist gross sales groups navigate large-scale transformations and are available out stronger on the opposite aspect of change?

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 tips on how to navigate them efficiently.

Right here to debate this matter is Jenna Siegel, the director of income enablement at InMoment. Thanks for becoming a member of us, Jenna. I’d love so that you can inform us about your self, your background, and your function.

Jenna Siegel: Thanks a lot for having me. I’m excited to be right here. I made a big shift to land myself into enablement. So I got here really from an academia background, educating on the College of Illinois Chicago, whereas I used to be working via some postgraduate work, and I rapidly realized that academia wasn’t a spot that I wished to land for the long run. Which left me with this actually sort of humbling expertise of what do I need to do with my life. And I believe like many individuals in enablement, I landed myself in gross sales. I used to be in varied go-to-market roles, whether or not that be service, gross sales, or buyer success, and I actually rapidly received pissed off with like, the dearth of assets and training within the company house. And naturally, as somebody who got here from an training and academia background, I used to be a relentless advocate for we want assets to get everybody to talk the identical language, to get everybody to know the identical processes. So after having labored in go-to-market roles for a number of years, I landed a task inside enablement and I’ve been there ever since for about six years now.

SS: Jenna, we’re actually excited to have you ever right here on the podcast. So thanks a lot for becoming a member of us. I do know your crew just lately went via an acquisition, which might usually carry important change for gross sales groups.

What greatest practices did you implement to assist your groups successfully navigate via this transition?

JS: Completely. So acquisitions are so tough to navigate and I actually really feel like they’re fear-inducing for everybody concerned. So with my crew, I used to be main income enablement at an organization referred to as ReviewTrackers that was acquired by my present firm referred to as InMoment.

So ReviewTrackers was a extremely small group with a really small enablement org. InMoment was really a a lot bigger group with none true devoted income enablement. So for us, it was really easy to step into this expanded function of main enablement throughout the whole group with really preconceived notions of what we thought would drive success, primarily as a result of we knew what drove success at our small little scrappy firm referred to as ReviewTrackers.

So the largest problem for me and for my crew submit the acquisition was actually simply to be curious. Proper. We consistently are preaching this to our gross sales reps all through the invention part. Be curious, ask quite a lot of questions, and actually find out about them and their enterprise. And I believe we regularly neglect to do this in enablement. We are available in and we’re like, I do know what drove success. I do know that doing this gross sales methodology goes to work as a result of have a look at the success it drove for my prior enterprise. So we actually needed to undertake the identical methodology in our transition. And this didn’t simply contain assembly with the stakeholders and with senior management and presenting our experience and our plans and getting their suggestions, however I believe an important factor that we did was actually step into assembly with the frontline people, these which can be executing on the function each day and actually find out about what are their challenges, what are their enablement needs, what do they need that they had, however Had by no means had as a result of they didn’t have a income enablement devoted function.

So it was a brand new perform to within the second and we stepped in and I believe it was break up. Some folks thought, Oh gosh, these persons are going to return in and so they’re going to make our lives depressing and so they’re going to implement all these trainings and we’re, it’s going to tug us off the sphere. , our largest technique within the acquisition was driving belief and confidence throughout our groups earlier than we ever have been capable of current a plan.

SS: Effectively, it sounds such as you guys did an outstanding job actually driving that belief and confidence throughout your groups. I do know unifying the go-to-market groups is important throughout most of these transitions. What challenges have you ever encountered in aligning your go-to-market groups and the way did you overcome a few of these challenges?

JS: Yeah, completely. So I believe the largest factor is we weren’t simply unifying groups, we have been unifying areas. So we had three separate areas that have been functioning fairly independently from one another, in addition to groups, whether or not that be gross sales, success, ADRs, or our account administration crew that have been additionally functioning independently from each other.

And one of many first issues that we recognized was that there was an unlimited quantity of expertise and go-to-market processes that differed throughout the org, particularly due to the variety of mergers and acquisitions that that they had gone via even previous to buying evaluate trackers. And I strongly imagine that these fragmented applied sciences and processes Additionally help in making a fragmented go-to-market group.

So I’m so grateful that I sit below a extremely good income operations crew that I might accomplice with and so they might accomplice with enablement. So we might actually perceive how the applied sciences and processes have been getting used and the place there was room for optimization. This was actually our first step in attempting to determine how we have been going to unify the groups and the way we have been going to get everybody working.

Collectively and in the identical route. Don’t get me improper. All these groups have been doing actually good work, but it surely was very fragmented in nature. So in doing that, we explored how can we string collectively the processes and the applied sciences to drive adoption. So for instance, we’re a MEDIC store. Submit acquisition, we carried out MEDIC methodology.

And I believe it’s actually frequent to introduce promoting methodologies and ship everybody on their merry method and simply hope that it really works. , we are able to implement it for gross sales, we are able to implement it for achievement, we are able to even implement it for our account administration crew, and I simply actually hope that they put it into observe.

However we had the actually distinctive alternative to remodel the techniques and the processes alongside introducing a few of these new methodologies. So we have been capable of layer in, right here’s the brand new methodology, let’s observe it. Let’s get it, , we all know it’s not new to the go-to market group. Right here’s how additionally your expertise goes to carry you accountable.

So this type of set the groundwork for a way we carried out our CRM system. How we arrange gross sales phases with exit standards, how we deploy info via the LMS system, and it may be role-specific, however the identical line of pondering to all these completely different go-to-market organizations. How we arrange Highspot, and the way Highspot is organized for all of our gross sales reps to make use of, and our go-to-market orgs to make use of. That was our largest factor to sort out after we considered how we have been going to unify the groups.

SS: Mm. Significantly in a merger acquisition, I do know generally workers can really feel uneasy as crew buildings and roles and dynamics evolve. What’s your greatest recommendation on motivating groups and reps particularly to essentially ease them into the method of change?

JS: Yeah, I believe all of it goes again to communication, proper? We all know it’s important to get management alignment first. That’s primary. If leaders are aligned and purchased into the modifications and introduced into the processes to assist outline the processes, we all know it’s going to trickle right down to their groups. But additionally, we wished our frontline folks to have a voice in these modifications.

Silos, like particularly for InMoment, we’ve seen this occur, can solely result in additional nervousness and defiance and really adopting the method and burnout workers. So we created these group of tiger groups, the place we introduced collectively leaders and particular person contributors, and into these groups to assist us outline the processes, and poke holes via our processes.

And that trickled right down to the better crew as a result of they have been purchased in. They might be, , the leaders of their crew. They will advocate for these processes and these techniques. And that’s the place we see essentially the most quantity of success and hoping that folks aren’t anxious or hoping that folks can course of these modifications.

SS: Yeah, I believe buy-in is totally important. Out of your perspective, what’s possibly the strategic benefit of an enablement platform when navigating change like this?

JS: Yeah, that’s an excellent query. And I like enablement platforms. I’m an enormous believer that even the smallest go-to-market org and the smallest enablement crew, it’s very exhausting to be efficient with out having a platform in place.

I like to separate this out into two pillars why we expect enablement platforms are essential or how we actually use it to our benefit. One is how we deploy enablement. So how we even go about deploying enablement? The second is how we monitor the efficacy of the modifications. And the efficacy of the enablement that we’re placing out into the sphere.

So, relating to how we deploy enablement. Our enablement org, right here at InMoment, though it has grown because the acquisition, could be very small and really scrappy. And we as a small crew, want to have the ability to scale. And after I hear folks say scale, my first thought is all the time, Oh gosh, every thing’s simply going to be LMS programs.

Nothing’s going to be reside. We’re not going to have hands-on coaching. And I don’t imagine that to be the case. I don’t assume that scaling for our crew means abandoning reside coaching or fully avoiding the face-to-face side of enablement. I believe it’s really fairly essential in this type of blended studying surroundings post-COVID and post-remote groups.

Deploying enablement for us means What’s going to occur after now we have run the preliminary enablement? I quote this research to love nausea with my crew that 30 days submit enablement, 70 p.c of the content material is forgotten if we don’t do any type of follow-up. So we actually like to make use of our techniques to present these reminders, to make the content material repeatedly reappear submit enablement.

So possibly it’s utilizing Highspot to really ship content material newsletters. We deployed enablement. We all know these are the items of content material that basically coincide with the enablement. We ship month-to-month enablement newsletters really utilizing Highspot digital rooms, which individuals love in order that it’s, the content material stays entrance and middle.

Or possibly it’s deploying an exercise in our LMS system. Hey, we ran this enablement session. Right here’s this fast exercise or problem that we wish you to have interaction in. Or additionally possibly it’s gamifying it via our techniques to make studying a little bit bit extra enjoyable. We just lately did Highspot scavenger hunts post-enablement.

We launched a brand new product line. We had what we name experience exchanges the place we actually shared greatest practices amongst the crew. And a part of that was a Highspot scavenger hunt of like, who can discover essentially the most related stats associated to this product and associated to the worth of the product and share it with the bigger crew.

Individuals beloved it, proper? It’s completely different. It’s not your typical sit in hour-long reside periods the place we all know that. quarter-hour in we’re dropping folks to their e-mail and their slack or it’s not, , hastily we’re opening up a breakout room on Zoom and we see the attendance drop 50 p.c as a result of folks simply don’t possibly have nervousness round that which can be comprehensible, however we additionally must fight.

So this manner of gamifying it via our techniques and thru our enablement platforms is admittedly essential. In order that’s our first pillar. Our second pillar is how can we use our enablement techniques. To measure the efficacy of our efforts. We deploy surveys. I didn’t point out this but, however Amoment is a buyer expertise expertise platform.

We’re actually huge on how can we perceive our buyer’s expertise. And right here in enablement, we expect our prospects are all the inner people which can be on the receiving finish. Surveys give us actually nice suggestions. However they solely inform a portion of the story. We are able to get survey suggestions that’s like, every thing was wonderful.

We love this enablement session. It was enjoyable. I realized lots. After which a month down the street, the info is telling us a really completely different story. And we actually attempt to take a holistic method to how we perceive knowledge. So if we run an enablement session on a product launch, anytime we run a bigger initiative, my enablement crew, we measure varied knowledge factors to essentially perceive the place it’s that we have to go subsequent.

We are able to have a look at the lagging indicators, that’s like financials and deal velocity and all of that. However I believe quite a lot of the actually good info and the juicy info lives inside our enablement platforms. , we embody attendance and completion knowledge level. There’s fairly a bit that goes into the info that we’re taking a look at.

Conversational intelligence knowledge, how they’re really talking about it in our subject, however enablement metrics like Highspot metrics are actually essential to us. Maybe it’s that we’ve deployed this enablement. We’re seeing an enormous uptick in how they’re utilizing the content material. After which the following month, it’s not distinctive to InMoment.

We see an enormous dip down and hastily nobody’s utilizing it. Effectively, that tells us we have to resurface this not directly, form, or type. We have to work out how we’re going to get folks speaking about this once more. So it truly is our sign for the place do we have to re-engage and the place do we have to re-evaluate our technique.

SS: I like listening to that. Shifting gears a little bit bit, content material governance has all the time been a giant focus for you this 12 months with 58 p.c of InMoment’s content material now properly ruled. Congratulations. How have you ever been capable of optimize governance and what impression has this had in your crew as they navigate change?

JS: Yeah, I strongly really feel that we had a Greater mountain than normal to sort out in terms of Highspot, um, significantly as a result of my crew, once more, there was an absence of a income enablement crew at InMoment for a very long time, and my crew acquired Highspot, and it was a device that was launched out to the plenty with none actual technique round the way it was going to be maintained.

So after we acquired Highspot as a crew, we had lots to sort out. One is that there was quite a lot of outdated content material on there. I believe I discovered content material again from 2009. Which is problematic and in addition simply pointless as a result of Highspot gives the governance instruments that you’d must guarantee that content material is refreshed.

So after we had preliminary conversations with our go-to market crew, when the acquisition occurred, I stated, how are you all utilizing Highspot? The primary reply is, Oh, we don’t look in there. There’s an excessive amount of outdated info. So my crew began by doing a content material audit.

We pulled an inventory of all the content material that lived inside Highspot, with what number of views it had. We actually used the info in Highspot, what number of views it had, when it was final seen, when it was final up to date, when it was initially uploaded.

Sadly, nothing had suggestions homeowners listed on it. So we actually didn’t even know who owned the content material outdoors of unique authors or whoever uploaded it initially. So we, as an enablement org, had our product advertising groups and our advertising groups undergo an train of marking content material as.

It’s outdated, take away it. It’s nonetheless related content material, however wants updating or it’s good to go and maintain it as it’s. In doing that, we received our content material right down to, I need to say about 400 to 500 items of content material from 1000’s and 1000’s of items of content material, which was actually huge. Our subsequent step was really working with our go-to-market groups and making a tiger crew to determine how do we wish this organized within the system.

Individuals didn’t know the looking performance properly sufficient to have the ability to discover the data they wanted. And there have been no logical spots arrange within the system the place they may simply click on in and say, Oh yeah, I’m in search of a pitch doc, so I’m going to click on right here, or I’m in search of a weblog or a gated asset, I’m going to click on right here.

So we labored with the varied completely different go-to-market groups, buyer success, gross sales, ADRs, to determine a unified method of organizing the content material inside a system with the related filters. We all know our ADRs need to filter by purchaser persona. That’s how they’re going to market. And that’s how they’re prospecting.

However we all know that our buyer success people won’t need to be solely filtering by purchaser persona. So we created what we expect are very logical spots with the suitable filters for the suitable groups. After which I believe an important piece of that is that each single piece of content material is required to have a content material proprietor, a suggestions proprietor so that folks know if there is a matter with the content material, it’s not an enormous gap within the system the place you’re simply caught with this outdated items of content material.

You’ve gotten somebody that you may go on to and say, hey, this isn’t on top of things. This isn’t touchdown within the type. Or this has a buyer who’s now not a buyer and subsequently we have to take it out. That was a giant piece of the puzzle in addition to placing expiration dates on every thing. So every thing has a six-month expiration date on the six-month interval.

The suggestions homeowners can evaluate the content material, mark it as nonetheless relevant, or say this must be eliminated off the system to guarantee that we by no means get into the state that we had earlier than. And in addition only a huge shout-out to Highspot on that one. That was an enormous enterprise and an enormous challenge which the Highspot crew helped us out on a weekend after we took the system down. They have been simply Malcolm, our buyer success rep. He was actually there to assist present us with trade greatest practices. I don’t assume we might have accomplished it alone and in a silo.

SS: Effectively, I like listening to about challenge wins like that. In a latest webinar, you really talked about that your crew holds month-to-month experience exchanges to advertise peer studying.

May you share extra about this observe and the way you foster a tradition of ongoing studying?

JS: Yeah, our experience exchanges have been created as a result of after we stepped into the function, there was quite a lot of silo work occurring, and we knew that enablement was by no means going to be efficient if we did a one-and-done method.

So we created a collection of experience exchanges. We’re on a month-to-month cadence. We get collectively the varied groups and we actually check out, properly, what enablement did we run this month? What was our focus? And it leaks over month to month. For instance, if we’re operating product coaching, After which we’re additionally operating a technique.

We try to mix the 2 collectively to essentially make it a holistic coaching that the enablement efforts aren’t even siloed inside itself. Each month we have a look at what enablement we run? What knowledge have been we attempting to affect? And we work out a theme for our experience exchanges. So, for instance, one month that theme may be a product line, proper, repute administration within the subject.

We assign them via our LMS some pre work to do prior to those experience exchanges so everybody comes ready. That normally is, for instance, importing a prospecting e-mail that you simply despatched after which submit the enablement session or offering a pitch deck or a recording of a name. We attempt to make it issues that they’re already doing.

So it’s not seen as, Oh gosh, I’ve to go do a mock demo or I’ve to create a faux pitch deck. We would like it to be issues that they’re really doing throughout the subject and it shouldn’t be a carry for them. And it’s additionally not a carry for enablement. It’s a simple one for enablement. Enablement evaluations. These we come collectively as a go-to market org.

And we simply name upon folks. Hey, I do know you all have been placing this into observe, would love to listen to the place you’re seeing wins, the place you’re not seeing wins, and actually simply share amongst one another. Persons are very desirous to share their wins, which is nice. So very not often do now we have to name upon folks, however we even have the submissions upfront so we are able to check out them.

And if now we have that second of like nobody eager to share, name out their wins for them, proper? Like, hey, I noticed Caroline, that you simply labored on this e-mail that truly. Our outreach knowledge exhibits received 40 p.c reply fee to, are you able to speak about your e-mail? It’s a extremely nice method to get folks to see how they’re really placing the enablement technique into observe within the precise subject.

And in addition we simply create a library for them in Highspot as properly of like, right here’s the examples of when so you possibly can simply discover them and go off and do the identical. If another person is seeing success, it’s best to completely undertake that and it’s best to completely put it into observe your self.

SS: I believe that’s incredible recommendation that our complete viewers can possibly even take and apply of their organizations. As you’ve expanded and developed your enablement technique, what key metrics would you suggest monitoring to successfully drive change?

JS: Yeah, completely. I’m certain everybody preaches this, however I actually do sit below essentially the most good income operations crew and most good income operations group, which is nice as a result of I’ve entry to all the info that I might ever presumably want.

And I believe like many enablement leaders, I bucket our metrics into main and lagging indicators of success. And main and lagging indicators of affect, which I don’t assume is a novel mannequin to be utilizing, but it surely’s a really efficient mannequin. So the main is the info that myself and my enablement crew, we are able to instantly tie again to our enablement efforts.

Issues like attendance and completion charges and problem scores, and even conversational intelligence trackers inside our CI system. These are very easy metrics for us to. Be capable to monitor to begin to inform a part of the story. I believe the lagging indicators are so essential to show our worth to the bigger enterprise and to repeatedly present how we’re aligned with no matter it’s that the enterprise is attempting to concentrate on.

And people lagging indicators are ones that we might additionally like to be like, sure, enablement. Had a direct affect on, however there’s different, , influences that come into play there. I usually discover that these lagging indicators are the toughest. Bits of knowledge to get entry to within the enterprise. However as I discussed, I’ve like the best income operations crew.

And particularly, I’ve a colleague on my crew, a coworker, Trevor, who builds out essentially the most good lagging indicator dashboards. He even does a superb job of like bringing within the main indicators to that dashboard. And that is what we actually use month over month enablement technique. So these are issues like deal velocity. These are issues just like the financials of like, if we’re doing enablement on a particular product line, are we seeing an uptick within the income that’s coming in from these product strains? Our pipeline knowledge, even outreach knowledge and knowledge particular to our instruments. We actually deep dive into this knowledge month over month.

And we even have like a month-to-month knowledge evaluate session the place we have a look at our main indicators, lagging indicators, try to drive correlation, but additionally. It’s not only for proving out the efficacy of our efforts. It’s actually determining, okay, primarily based on this knowledge, the place is it that we’re going to go subsequent?

And I believe after we’re taking a look at knowledge, we do it in two methods. One, now we have quarterly precedence periods amongst my enablement crew, the place all of us sit down and we work out, okay, what are the largest like lagging indicator knowledge drivers that we have to have affect on this quarter? What’s knowledge telling us?

Is it retention? Is it pipeline? No matter that’s. After which month over month we glance a little bit bit extra granular on the knowledge to determine are we really having the impression that we have to have. From a enterprise perspective.

SS: I believe these are undoubtedly among the key metrics as change efforts. Sometimes, although, they sort of progress via varied phases and sometimes require time to totally implement. How do you preserve momentum as new processes change into solidified in the long run?

JS: Yeah, we like to take an ever-boarding method. So we onboarding new folks. We additionally do it after we’re launching large-scale enablement efforts. I really assume the important thing to creating enablement sticky is offering leaders with the assets to teach on this on an ongoing foundation.

We’re a small crew. We are able to’t scale to have on one conversations with everybody and work out the place it’s falling quick, and the place we have to make changes. Maybe Mike is healthier than Anthony. We don’t have these assets to have the ability to get actually granular into the folks side of this. However the managers do and that’s their job and so they need to be doing this.

So we like to consider after we launch an enablement collection, Have a look at the info first. We work out why are we doing this enablement. Is it mandatory? Are we doing this as a result of now we have our personal agenda or does the info align with us? We then meet with the managers first and we really run virtually the identical model of the enablement session with them with some caveats why are we operating this?

What’s the aim of this? What are we going to be presenting? After which the final a part of that’s managers, what do we want from you submit enablement? Possibly it’s that we want you to hear to 1 name per rep per thirty days and supply them suggestions within the system in order that we are able to collect that knowledge and see how that is sticking.

Possibly it’s that now we have created a training template in an effort to have these conversations in your one-to-one. And by the best way, add these into one in all our techniques, clearly on a personal foundation, in order that we are able to evaluate these as properly. We would like to have the ability to present the leaders with the assets that they should assist us make enablement sticky.

After which we run the enablement session for his or her folks. After which after we’re doing the experience change, we even have a one-month retro with the leaders the place we speak about what are you seeing within the subject. What’s working? What’s not working? A really comparable change session that we do for our. Individuals however with managers. We would like the managers to have a voice in the place we go subsequent as properly.

SS: I like that. Final query, Jenna. Trying forward, how do you envision evolving your enablement technique to maintain tempo with what you are promoting’s development?

JS: Yeah, completely. We really simply had our enablement technique assembly for 2025 and actually beginning to take a look at the info.

And truly, as of just lately, my crew acquired product coaching as properly. So we now have a fair higher alternative to sort of align all coaching throughout the enterprise and guarantee that we’re all working in a singular route. Though for lots of latest groups as properly too, proper, we’re not simply centered on income enablement now.

We’re additionally centered on the technical groups from a product coaching perspective. So, alignment throughout the org and the way we method enablement. I’m additionally selfishly very enthusiastic about this as a result of I get quite a lot of new distinctive views from my crew contemplating I’ve new people on my crew now as properly who’ve had a distinct view vantage level of enablement throughout the org.

But additionally I would like my crew to repeatedly get to a proactive state. And I believe we are able to solely get there by being brutally sincere about our present progress and utilizing knowledge to drive choices. I like what my crew has accomplished to this point in utilizing knowledge, however The information is one piece. We have to storytell with the info.

We actually must make it make sense for everybody else throughout the enterprise. And we have to make it make sense for us in order that we may be proactive. We have now like one rule on my crew and it’s, you’re not allowed to carry an ego to work and assume that your method is the easiest way. And through our enablement technique assembly, I began off with everybody needing to problem us, and problem me as a pacesetter.

I don’t know the easiest way ahead on a regular basis. You all have nice concepts that I’ve by no means even considered. All of us must proceed to problem one another, use knowledge to make data-driven choices, and actually proceed to retro and take into consideration, did this work? Was this efficient? Was this not efficient? All whereas being proactive and actually, , scaling our crew.

It’s like an unattainable process that now we have as enablement, however I believe it’s attainable with the correct folks and with the correct technique.

SS: I’m excited to see the place you all go. Thanks, Jenna, a lot for this.

JS: Yeah, thanks a lot for having me. It was nice.

SS: And thanks to our viewers 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.