Our inside analysis reveals that since deploying Highspot, prospects have seen a median 16% enhance in win fee. So, how will you maximize the influence of your efforts with an efficient enablement platform?

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 find out how to navigate them efficiently. Right here to debate this subject is Molly Sestak, the top of enablement at SEDNA.Thanks for becoming a member of, Molly! I’d love so that you can inform us about your self, your background, and your position. 

Molly Sestak: Thanks a lot for having me, Shawnna. I’ve really been round gross sales my complete life. My dad’s firm is definitely a producer’s consultant, which principally means they’re the center individuals between producers and wholesalers for actually giant business bid jobs. I grew up listening to him on the cellphone, spending time within the workplace, listening to how individuals make calls, and so forth. I really began working there after I was like 15 or 16 till I graduated from college. 

The humorous factor is I began because the cleaner and rapidly someday it was like, oh, are you able to file just a few issues? Apparently, I used to be good at that. I don’t understand how you’re dangerous at submitting issues, however just a few days later my dad’s secretary really requested me to reply the telephones whereas she was away. Apparently, I used to be actually good at that, so they really began having me do inside gross sales. I actually was solely like 16 or 17, nonetheless in highschool at this level. I actually obtained my foot in gross sales early. 

I labored there just about each summer time for 5, or six years. I believe after uni, I assumed I used to be positively not going into gross sales. I didn’t need to be like my dad as a result of all he does is speak on the cellphone and journey and all kinds, which appears good, however I didn’t need that. Properly, sadly, that didn’t work out for me as a result of I discovered tech and I completely fell in love. 

I fell into enablement naturally. It was BDR after which turned a bit extra senior within the workforce. As we began to construct out that workforce on board new individuals, I took on that coaching particular person position throughout the workforce. It began off a bit bit advert hoc doing workforce coaching after which they’re like, okay you’re fairly good at that and I can see you prefer it, why don’t you assist us onboard a few of the new joiners? Quick ahead just a few months later, a job opened up within the enablement workforce particularly for BDRs, in order that’s actually the place my background focus is. I went for it and by no means actually appeared again. I believe that basically made me understand that I like instructing individuals find out how to promote much more so than I really love promoting. 

I joined SEDNA a couple of 12 months in the past to assist with teaching the gross sales workforce, constructing out playbooks, and so forth. It’s positively been a journey. I believe each firm has actually had various hardships within the final 12 months. It just about has touched each tech firm that I do know of. I even did a brief stint heading up our BDR workforce, so a slight shift away from enablement. We’ve lastly employed anyone wonderful to take over that workforce so I can announce that I’m lastly again into enablement as of a couple of month in the past. I’ve simply been promoted to go of enablement and I’ve by no means been in that strategic position earlier than. It’s been a extremely large studying curve, however slowly discovering my toes and am excited to see my plans come to life.

SS: Wow. Whenever you say you have got been in gross sales to your lifetime, you actually imply from nearly begin to end. That’s wonderful. I’d love to know, now that you simply’re centered on enablement and gravitated in the direction of that, out of your perspective, what does good enablement appear to be? Perhaps if I used to be going to reframe it resulting from your new position, what are a few of the key parts of an efficient enablement technique? 

MS: I believe that’s a extremely nice query, Shawnna. I can in fact say what everyone else says on this, I believe what the important thing pillars are, that are content material, coaching, and training. I believe these are the three key issues that we search for in driving enablement in an organization. You may create one of the best packages on the earth, but when they aren’t aligned with these firm objectives and also you don’t collaborate closely with different groups and get these stakeholders purchased in, it’s simply not going to maneuver the needle. I’ve really spent a while serious about this and what I do otherwise to the above to hopefully assist those that are listening on the market. 

I believe one factor that has actually helped me is definitely having that gross sales background, doing gross sales myself. I all the time deliver that into every part that I do, however I additionally return to that feeling of being bored in coaching and never having the ability to sit nonetheless when you have got somebody speaking at you. Once I construct my packages, one of many issues that I attempt to do is make them as participating as doable. Does that imply that I’m asking them questions all through? Do I make it enjoyable? Do I put a recreation in there? I do know after I was at Okta, I really made a board recreation known as Okta Land. It’s type of like Sweet Land, however it really was with Okta questions and also you needed to reply questions in regards to the product or do a chilly name position play or deal with an objection to maneuver ahead on the areas. So once more, it’s simply how we make it enjoyable and drive that engagement all through. 

I believe usually as enablement professionals, we get so caught up in that concept of like, we’ve to have this large technique. What are we going to do for subsequent 12 months? I’m already serious about 2024. What’s going to occur? What do we have to leverage to essentially hit these objectives? I believe it simply turns into that tick-box train generally. I’ve thought quite a bit about this not too long ago, which is humorous why you’ve requested me this query. I believe one of many solutions to that’s really having bite-sized coaching that may affect the now. How will we assist individuals do their jobs higher at the moment, not three-quarters from now? 

After all, that’s tremendous essential, however we’re already doing that anyway. One of many issues I really simply applied as of final week is known as Mondays with Molly. I attempted to make it enjoyable with my title, and it’s simply in time snackable model enablement. It’s about three to 5 minutes. It’s a bite-sized video. I’m not an ideal editor, however I simply threw it in iMovie and made a bit jingle on Canva simply to make it a bit bit enjoyable. It doesn’t take me very lengthy. I simply recorded it proper earlier than this podcast and it took me about 20 minutes to give you the thought and really file it edit every part and get it able to ship out Monday morning. 

The concept is that they take heed to it whereas consuming their breakfast or consuming their espresso on a Monday morning within the hopes that that’s one thing that they’re going to start out doing that Monday. That’s what I’ve been doing a bit bit otherwise than the standard enablement methods that we see throughout enablement groups at the moment. 

SS: I find it irresistible. You might have a artistic aptitude that you simply deliver to your enablement technique to hold it participating. I imply, consideration is a tough factor to seize with gross sales reps, so kudos to that. How does your enablement platform provide help to deliver that enablement technique to life? 

MS: I positively couldn’t reside with out it. I believe that’s in all probability as a result of in enablement we’re consistently confronted with this concept of spinning plates and managing a number of stakeholders at one time, there’s like this enormous ingredient of collaboration. To not point out the quantity of content material that we’re in command of and ensuring that individuals are really utilizing after which giving that suggestions again into advertising. I’m positive that lots of the individuals listening have simply handled the sheer variety of questions that go a bit one thing like, hey, the place can I discover X doc? I’ve had so a lot of these questions and to be sincere, I made an emoji in Slack, that’s the Highspot emoji, and I simply now despatched it to them. 

It’s type of a humorous approach to take care of it, however they do then get used to really going and discovering it themselves. I used to be completely buried in these. Earlier than we had a gross sales enablement platform, and I actually assume that they helped deliver that construction to the chaos. Apart from that, I believe the principle factor is, to begin with, they supply that single supply of fact for all of the up-to-date content material that may be shared with prospects and prospects or used internally to tell or upskill the workforce. Then, not solely can you make sure that your workforce has entry to the suitable content material or data on the proper time, however they will additionally share that content material with their prospects and prospects and get these analytics into what they’re participating in. Not solely does this assist enablement, however advertising and reps, it just about helps each workforce that we contact actually perceive what content material is resonating most with consumers. That helps us make far more data-driven selections over time. 

On the coaching and training facet of issues, It’s an enormous handbook output. In case you don’t have a platform it’s all reside classes, monitoring issues on Google Sheets. I imply, to not point out if you need anyone to do an accreditation or some type of certification the place they’ve a role-play concerned. It’s actually tough to handle all of that with the rubrics and all kinds. This actually helps to roll this out and guarantee completion on that, these sorts of issues like coaching and certifications and even an onboarding program, for instance. 

SS: Completely. I like that. These are incredible examples. Earlier than Highspot, your workforce leveraged a special enablement platform. Are you able to inform us a bit bit about that have and possibly a few of the challenges that your workforce confronted?

MS: Yeah, completely. Once I joined SEDNA, the earlier enablement workforce had really already chosen Seismic, so that they had been utilizing it for about eight or 9 months by the point I joined. I believe earlier than that they had been utilizing Google Drive, which is simply horrible to consider now that I can’t reside with out an enablement platform.

SS: Was there an impetus for deciding to make the change and implement Highspot as an alternative?

MS: I believe as soon as the workforce really obtained their fingers on Seismic, the belief that truly Lessonly in Seismic, they really weren’t built-in in any respect. There have been two utterly separate logins. I believe for anyone listening, who’s needed to take care of two separate platforms when doing enablement, that’s simply double the enablement that it’s important to do, double the administration, and double the admin. That was an enormous downside for us.  

I believe one of many most important causes that we did swap was that I like having content material with context. On pages, you have got your content material after which you have got your context, which is your coaching and training round that. You couldn’t actually do this with Seismic until you hacked the web page and it was type of identical to a click on right here kind hyperlink. There weren’t any buttons. It wasn’t type of like that good navigation that you’ve on different platforms. With the digital gross sales rooms, additionally they type of fell brief a bit bit, and the workforce felt that they had been actually tough to create and so they simply weren’t used, although that was one of many most important drivers for buying the answer within the first place.

Reps couldn’t discover the content material. Your platform is barely nearly as good because the content material that they will discover, so it was an enormous downside there. That search wasn’t actually optimized, and the pages weren’t that simple to navigate. Talking of the pages, the general appear and feel of the platform simply felt a bit bit too clunky for a small group and we actually discovered it tough to make the teachings and the pages look personalized to our model and the texture of our model. I believe you could possibly have if you happen to had numerous design expertise and had a workforce devoted to doing that, however we didn’t. We needed to be a bit bit scrappy, in order that was actually difficult. 

Then lastly, on the analytical facet of issues, it was actually tough to tug out the info and analytics on what was working and what was getting used to essentially assist us make these data-driven selections. It really took one in every of our workforce members a number of days to tug that knowledge out for QBRs. She actually struggled with this and would go to Seismic and ask for assist and they might type of simply ship her a assist article. She’s like I already learn the assistance article like I don’t understand how to do that nonetheless. We actually didn’t get the assistance that we would have liked.

On the flip facet of issues, after I joined SEDNA, I did know that they had been already feeling numerous these challenges, so that they had been already in talks with Highspot. I believe it was principally that our Highspot contact knew that we had been developing on our renewal, and likewise knew that you simply guys had been launching your Coaching and Teaching facet of issues, which was an enormous factor for us on the time. The Highspot reached out to my earlier boss, like properly earlier than renewal, so I believe that the Highspot workforce did a extremely good job reaching out and being proactive and following up as a result of I actually assume that that helped us drive the change even additional. That was just like the nail within the coffin, like, hmm, really we should always look into Highspot once more. That was actually cool from the workforce.

SS: Properly, I find it irresistible, and I’m glad that you simply’ve joined the Highspot household. After implementing Highspot, how have you ever been capable of clear up a few of the challenges your workforce was dealing with along with your earlier answer? 

MS: I believe there have been three most important issues for us which have really solved numerous the challenges that I spoke about earlier. The search was an enormous win for us. Highspot search is completely wonderful. I discover issues in a single second. It’s humorous as a result of our platform can also be famend for search, so we really feel very comfy with that. Whereas generally while you’re looking on different platforms, you don’t actually get what you’re searching for after which it’s important to attempt to determine what web page is it on. Or what folder did I put it in? This was an enormous win for us. 

I don’t get any questions on the place to seek out content material anymore, in order that was an enormous sigh of aid for me. Pitching has additionally been an enormous win for us. The workforce wasn’t actually adopting this earlier than, although it was one of many absolute most important causes we bought Seismic within the early days. My workforce completely loves that you would be able to add a number of items of content material in a branded setting reasonably than simply type of sending these one-off hyperlinks to every of the items of content material. That’s been a extremely large factor for us. 

Additionally simply ease of use not just for the workforce and simply how good the platform appears to be like usually from a UI perspective, however I believe from my perspective as an admin. We accomplished our complete migration, examined it with the workforce, and rolled it out in actually about two to a few weeks. It’s insanely fast. It didn’t really feel fast, by the best way. It was positively a little bit of a curler coaster for me attempting to determine trigger I had by no means applied a gross sales enablement platform earlier than, however we couldn’t have executed that with our earlier answer. That was enormous for us by way of the admin and maintenance. 

SS: To that time, I believe getting buy-in from government leaders on the influence of enablement and the worth of your enablement platform is completely essential. What are a few of your greatest practices for securing buy-in out of your government stakeholders? 

MS: It’s fairly attention-grabbing. I believe it’s about getting them to see the worth by way of salespeople. Shouting optimistic issues about it reasonably than me. I believe the second it drives a deal ahead or a prospect is like, oh, wow, that’s fairly cool, it positively will catch their consideration. I’m going by way of Sandler coaching proper now with my new VP and it jogs my memory a little bit of the Sandler Methodology that it’s important to get your prospect and realistically my gross sales stakeholders are my prospects and prospects, however you nearly need to get them to appreciate it themselves. The influence of one thing or the challenges they’re having reasonably than it coming from you. It’s far more highly effective.

I believe that’s positively the best way to go, nearly making them understand like oh, yeah we do have these challenges and wow that truly is a big influence reasonably than you saying it your self. I additionally, as I discussed beforehand, embody them up entrance within the course of, and ensure they’re conscious and knowledgeable all through as a result of that can actually make it possible for they’re purchased in up entrance. They know precisely what we’re signing up for and you may already begin to have key metrics that you simply need to measure and just be sure you’re holding your self accountable for getting the ROI out of that platform. 

SS: Completely. Now, along with having management help, you have got seen actually sturdy adoption throughout your entire customers. You might have a recurring utilization fee of 84%. What’s your recommendation for driving adoption amongst your sellers?

MS: It’s actually attention-grabbing as a result of our workforce was probably not a fan of Seismic. At first, we really struggled to get individuals enthusiastic about Highspot as a result of they thought it was like, oh, it’s simply the identical. We stored saying, no, it’s not, however in fact, they don’t take heed to us. We inform them issues on a regular basis. They should discover it out for themselves. What I did was I really tried just a few enjoyable issues after we launched it. A type of issues was a vacation scavenger hunt the place we supplied clues that led to crucial pages that we needed them to land on. Let’s say product or partnerships or personas pages. It helped them get the navigation down and perceive the place every part was positioned. We principally put vacation emojis on the piece of content material that associated to the clue so that they needed to go and discover these.

SS: I like that. Taking these skeptics and making them champions is completely clutch. Now, I need to ask since you’ve talked quite a bit all through this podcast in regards to the significance of a unified platform that may provide help to not solely with content material but in addition coaching and training and seamless expertise is driving adoption. How have you ever began to leverage Highspot Coaching and Teaching and what are a few of the outcomes that you simply’ve seen to this point? 

MS: The very first thing that we did with Highspot Coaching and Teaching was really a Highspot certification, naturally. That obtained them used to the options and capabilities of find out how to use it and the way it was a bit bit completely different than Lessonly, so we obtained them comfy with it. Since then, we’ve executed various certifications. Certainly one of which was like a discovery demo certification that included not just a few movies and a few reside classes, however we really took it one step additional and did a video response with some take a look at questions and had a rubric connected to that, that then matched our rubric in Gong.

After we began to do name teaching in a while, that was just like the real-world instance and never simply type of the role-play instance. We might then take that rubric and use that later down the road and so they had been comfy with it and acquainted with it and knew precisely what they wanted to alter. 

That was the primary actual occasion of utilizing this. We weren’t in a position to do that with Seismic. The video uploads by no means labored for us, so we all the time needed to do issues like a handbook ship by way of Slack, which is simply not very best. With Highspot, we’re really capable of take one of the best video responses and I used to be capable of then construct a web page with all the greatest ones the place individuals might then go and watch right here’s what beauty like off the again of this. That might be Gong calls, however it may be the video responses that they’re utilizing. 

The following factor that I’m constructing out is definitely an onboarding program for each BDRs and AEs. They be a part of on the second of October, so I really solely have a couple of week left to have the ability to construct this out, and possibly solely 60% of the best way. Onboarding simply has a lot content material. I believe it’s nice that having that type of platform that has each the content material and the coaching and training is an absolute necessity for brand spanking new joiners as a result of not solely have they got a spot to go when it’s like oh I completed every part for at the moment for my onboarding. They’ll go in, they’ve Gong calls to observe inside Highspot, they’ve completely different video coaching that’s bite-sized like my Mondays with Molly that they will go watch, they will see QBR decks, they will go type of peruse product private data. I believe it’s simply tremendous useful for them to have entry to that content material on day one and simply in time after they need to uncover it. 

On prime of that, from my perspective, I can see precisely the place they’re of their onboarding journey. What have they accomplished? Just about daily they’ve pre-work, which tends to be like a sequence of e-learning movies or articles that they should learn, and a few reside classes that we’ve run outdoors of Highspot. Then we throw them again into the platform within the afternoon for his or her post-work, which might be a presentation that they need to create, after which they should add the hyperlink into Highspot so we will grade it and provides them suggestions on it, or an objection dealing with position play that they should do. We use take a look at questions quite a bit, and we additionally use the free video response quite a bit. 

That simply signifies that as we develop our new joiners and we’ve individuals undergo onboarding we will begin taking greatest practices and hyperlink the movies that they do inside that with out having to obtain add and file them by way of Zoom. It simply makes that method simpler. Simply having every part in that one unified platform. 

SS: I like that. On that word, final query for you, Molly. This has been incredible by the best way. What has been the influence of getting a unified platform on gross sales productiveness, and do you have got any key wins or enterprise outcomes you possibly can share? 

MS: I believe getting our prime vendor on board was an enormous key win for us as a result of I believe if we didn’t handle to do this, I believe we’d have been in hassle. That was in all probability our largest win of actually driving that adoption and ensuring that gross sales are productive with it. We’ve additionally executed some extra issues, like refresher coaching. A few of these may even be developing on Mondays with Molly. Simply little issues, like if we get updates in Highspot, I do know you guys are all the time launching new, wonderful options. 

That Monday with Molly is an ideal outlet to then be like, hey, that is really one thing new that you are able to do on the platform and I would like you to start out doing it at the moment. I can begin measuring that. Generally, I don’t get any extra questions, like The place can we discover X? The search perform is working very well. It signifies that reps can discover the content material that they want in a matter of seconds, reasonably than doing the entire ready for anyone to reply on Slack, which might take hours if not days. If I’m actually busy, generally I overlook to reply. 

Truly, there’s a joke that occurred the opposite day that I believe brings us to life. We’ve got a brand new RevOps contractor who’s doing a little territory planning and books of enterprise for us. She really requested me the query the opposite day and honest sufficient I didn’t prepare her on Highspot and she or he mentioned, hey, do we’ve a doc on ICP or one thing like that? I mentioned no, really we don’t have that doc. I must construct it, blah, blah, blah. She mentioned this again to me and I quote, I’m glad I’m not loopy. Issues are so properly organized right here that I’ve to maintain reminding myself if you happen to can’t discover it, it doesn’t exist. 

I assumed that was like a real testomony to what we’re attempting to do with not solely the search perform however actually optimizing that guided promoting expertise in order that if you happen to don’t know the place one thing lives and also you’re probably not positive precisely what you’re searching for and what it’s known as, that you would be able to navigate and type of uncover that content material because it comes up and as wanted. I believe we have to refine that a bit bit extra shifting ahead now that we all know what individuals are trying to find and updating that content material. I believe we’ve a extremely good, sturdy basis to start out with and it’s clearly working.

Advertising and marketing was capable of pull out all the most used exterior content material, which actually supplied the muse on which they had been capable of prioritize which items of content material they need to really replace first. I believe that was actually useful for them. We, in fact, don’t have a loopy quantity of content material. I believe we’ve possibly 400 or so property within the platform, however if you happen to needed to undergo 400 and attempt to prioritize, simply type of finger within the wind, that might have taken them a extremely very long time. I believe it saved them various time on that entrance.

In saying all of this, I really want that we had actually concrete and higher metrics, however with my position shifting a lot, we haven’t actually measured sufficient or correctly used the governance facet. It’s really one thing that’s on my record to work on over the following few months. As a part of the refresh, we’re really going to dive a bit bit deeper into a few of these and what KPIs we actually need to measure shifting ahead to essentially make that influence of the platform quite a bit larger. I’m actually excited to see the place we find yourself. If I speak to you in a 12 months from now, I believe it is going to be wonderful. 

SS: I can’t wait. I’d like to have you ever again, Molly. Thanks a lot for sharing your story at the moment. 

MS: No downside. Thanks a lot for having me. 

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 maximize enablement success with Highspot.