Analysis from Highspot discovered that greater than half of CROs report a 5X return on funding from their gross sales enablement platform. So, how can an enablement platform be used successfully to raise your technique?
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 tendencies within the office and navigate them efficiently. Right here to debate this subject is Julie Wolfe, the director of worldwide income enablement at Glassdoor. Thanks for becoming a member of, Julie! I’d love so that you can inform us about your self, your background, and your position.
Julie Wolfe: Thanks a lot, Shawnna. I’m thrilled to be right here with you in the present day. As you talked about, I direct the enablement workforce at Glassdoor. I’ve been at Glassdoor for nearly two years now, and I’ve an incredible workforce. We name ourselves Income Enablement as a result of we’re the engine that helps the go-to-market group drive velocity to income. We actually are specializing in not simply our gross sales companions, however our buyer success companions, our enterprise improvement reps, and all of our go-to-market group.
SS: I like that. I’d like to begin with just a few context setting. Out of your perspective, what does good enablement appear to be? Possibly if I reframe that or say that barely in a different way, what are the important thing elements of an efficient enablement technique at Glassdoor?
JW: Shawnna, enablement is about three issues to me, and people three issues are serving to your reps perceive your merchandise, your processes, and your techniques and doing so in a manner that’s entertaining and that helps them study. In the end our finish aim is driving velocity to income that helps them try this sooner. To me, these are the three issues we give attention to when it comes to enablement. We additionally discuss simplifying for our customers and our gross sales workforce. Our buyer success workforce are our customers and we would like it to be essentially the most easy-to-use expertise for them attainable.
SS: I like that. To the latter two factors on the techniques and processes entrance, what position does an enablement platform play in serving to you convey your enablement technique to life?
JW: I like that query. It performs an enormous position. To me, the enablement platform is our single supply of fact. I’ll in all probability say that once more in the course of the course of our dialog. If it’s in Highspot, that’s the only supply of fact. That’s the right place.
Course of Change, for instance, we rolled out an enormous compensation plan change for this Q3 that we’re in and did an entire web page in Highspot round all the pieces that you’d must know. What we discovered is that after we talk with numerous paperwork, it’s simple for issues to get misplaced, but when we put it in Highspot, that is the only supply of fact. That is your reply. Go there.
SS: I like that. What have been a few of the challenges that you just have been perhaps dealing with that Highspot has helped to resolve and the way does it go about fixing a few of these challenges?
JW: Among the finest issues about working at Glassdoor, and Glassdoor is an incredible firm, is that we really have a knowledge-sharing tradition. At Glassdoor, persons are very keen to share what they find out about a product, a course of, and a system. Now we have sturdy Slack channels, and what generally occurs when you may have a knowledge-sharing tradition is individuals share data that hasn’t been authorised by authorized and hasn’t been authorised by advertising and marketing, which, you recognize, it’s nice when somebody asks does anybody has a case research about one thing that may assist me shut this deal? Like, that’s precisely what you need your groups to be doing, to help one another. On the similar time, advertising and marketing and authorized exist for a cause, and so we need to make it possible for we’re being good stewards and good residents as Glassdorians.
Highspot, for us, solves a few of these challenges. After I see somebody in Slack sharing issues, I say, Hey, right here’s the Highspot web page. Go right here for this product replace. Hey, right here’s the Highspot web page, go right here to discover ways to do that new course of in Salesforce, for instance. We’re actually pushing individuals again to the supply in Highspot to know that that’s the one which’s been authorised by advertising and marketing, authorised by authorized, and is the fitting doc to be sharing.
SS: One other factor that I actually cherished about your LinkedIn profile, you truly talked about that the main target of the enablement workforce at Glassdoor is to simplify and ship. Inform us extra about this mantra and the way you infuse it into your enablement technique.
JW: One of many issues we all know is that individuals can solely retain a lot data. The ‘simplifying’ is taking a number of dense content material and boiling it all the way down to the nuggets that individuals actually need. If I inform you, Shawnna, these are the 2 issues we’re going to speak about in the present day, that’s a lot simpler to observe than sending you a 15-page doc and saying, might you pre-read this and like share your ideas with me?
All of us work asynchronously quite a bit now, however what our aim is in simplifying is to take complicated data that comes throughout the group and actually condense it down for our gross sales and CSS groups in order that they know precisely what they should do and it’s perhaps one or two steps. That’s the simplification. Additionally simplifies their person expertise. Now we have accomplished quite a bit in Highspot to make it extra user-friendly, and to make it extra clear the place you go for what. We’ve accomplished quite a bit to tag our content material in order that if you’re looking out, you’re discovering the fitting content material. Once more, that’s simplifying that person expertise.
For ‘ship’, there’s an outdated phrase, a ok one thing is best than an ideal nothing. We wish to have the ability to ship issues to our reps which are good. We’d love them to all be good, however we’d slightly them be ok and assist them get the place they’re, or the place they should go as rapidly as attainable. In the end, supply for us helps our groups. We use a hashtag at Glassdoor quite a bit, #oneteam. As one workforce, our aim is to assist velocity up income. I’ve mentioned it earlier than, and I’ll in all probability say it once more, that’s why if it’s revenue-driving, that’s a part of what we have now to help. That’s the supply. Simplify the person expertise, simplify the content material, simplify the asks, after which assist our groups ship.
SS: How do you go about leveraging Highspot? I do know you already gave some nice examples of the way you’re tapping Highspot to assist simplify issues. How do you leverage Highspot to simplify and ship initiatives?
JW: I like that query, Shawnna. We did an audit of our Highspot content material about 18 months in the past, and we did an enormous archive of issues that have been outdated. We regarded and began enhancing governance as a result of we had probably not had plenty of governance across the content material that went into Highspot. We’ve been enhancing our governance round all the supplies that we put into Highspot. We restructured Highspot in order that if you open the homepage it’s very clear, regardless of who you’re, the place you’re alleged to go.
There’s a product button and there’s a techniques button, and so you possibly can click on on both one, after which there’s a button for every of the groups, so that you click on on that button, and that opens up a web page, which then has playbooks, it has expectations, it has roles and obligations. It’s very sensible and tactical with the concept that we would like our reps to have the ability to self-service and use Highspot as that software to strengthen the issues that we’ve educated them on in onboarding and everboarding and all of the issues we do. After they click on into Highspot, basically, they’re getting a really well-crafted, narrated expertise of the place to go to search out all the data that they want.
SS: I do know we’ve, we’ve chatted about this, what you’re doing is clearly working. You guys have an 81% recurring utilization of Highspot, which is nice. What are your finest practices for driving adoption in your reps along with simply making it actually easy for them?
JW: One of many issues that we do is we do a weekly publication that we use by means of Highspot. When individuals open the publication, they’ve to return into Highspot, so there’s a technique concerned in that as nicely. That’s a part of their technique. Once more, making it the only supply of fact and figuring out in case you go to Highspot, we’ve accomplished the audit, we’ve cleaned it up just like the content material is there, it’s simple to search out, it’s correct.
That’s one other factor, we have now been making it visually interesting. We’ve included pictures that we’ve taken when we have now on-site and when we have now occasions. We’ve added memes, issues that simply make the content material come to life. We’re including extra movies as a brand new factor we’re doing this yr and extra fast tutorial movies as a result of all of us wrestle with the TLDR.
We use wiki quite a bit, and in a wiki, generally there are 50 pages to elucidate a course of. I don’t find out about you, but when I need to work out do my hair, like in seashore waves, I’m going to YouTube. I’ll watch a tutorial on curl my hair in seashore waves. Our reps are the identical. Now we have to consider that as enablement professionals. Our reps don’t have time to learn an extended doc, a tome filled with processes, they want a fast video that explains issues. It sits proper on the web page that explains the product. If I’m moving into and so they’re speaking a couple of product, I can watch a fast video and all the pieces’s proper in the identical place. Once more, this simplifies the person expertise for our groups.
SS: I do love that instance, by the best way, I’ve to say. What are a few of the enterprise outcomes you’ve achieved since leveraging Highspot?
JW: We’re engaged on form of an general well being rating. Our aim is to take a look at what our groups are doing, like what instruments are they leveraging. Are they leveraging our content material administration system, after all, which is Highspot? We use different instruments and wouldn’t have a way of what they’re utilizing, after which tie that to outcomes. The place I need to go together with that is saying reps who use Highspot are two instances extra prone to fill within the clean. What I wish to say is like, hey quota, or, you recognize, one thing that’s very tied particularly to the enterprise final result.
What I can say is that I feel Highspot makes us extra organized and makes us suppose in a extra organized manner, which helps us be higher cross-functional companions. In Highspot, we have now a variety of access-only licenses. Our aim with that’s to let executives and cross-functional companions have entry and be capable to see all the pieces that we’re doing within the go-to-market group. Once more, in some methods, that’s a part of our communication technique. There’s plenty of visibility with what we’ve created in Highspot when it comes to course of, product, techniques, and compensation that’s shared with the broader group.
SS: I like that. And to your level, these are basically effectivity and in the end possible productiveness positive factors in your discipline groups as nicely. Doing that correlation over the fullness of time, I feel could be a extremely attention-grabbing information level to take a look at for the enterprise when it comes to what enablement helps to drive.
JW: I feel you’re proper, Shawnna. I feel if I can add another thought there, I can inform you personally that if it’s not in Highspot, and I do know it’s elsewhere, I in all probability spend 20 minutes searching by means of issues to search out the doc. I undoubtedly personally see a productiveness achieve in utilizing Highspot once I’m like, the place is that doc? It’s proper right here. I can search by title.
SS: I like to listen to that. Final query for you, Julie. Trying forward, what do you envision as the way forward for enablement at Glassdoor and the way do you propose to leverage Highspot to help that imaginative and prescient?
JW: I like this query. One of many issues we’re is whether or not can we incorporate extra of the educational administration options that Highspot has into our present platform. We at present use a unique studying administration system, however we’re exploring how we will really use Highspot with all of the options that it offers. One thing that we’re doing that we simply began and launched actually final week in Highspot is a supervisor teaching web page. Considered one of our objectives was to create a single supply of fact for our managers and administrators, in addition to for the remainder of the go-to-market group.
What we discovered was we had not employed our personal finest practices for our managers and administrators. We have been speaking with them with plenty of Slack and emails and shared paperwork and we mentioned, you recognize what? We have to create a web page in Highspot only for them that has all of their issues. We mentioned right here’s all of the details about onboarding, right here’s hearken to name recordings and use scorecards, and we’ve included tutorial movies. Right here’s all the coaching details about the brand new compensation plan, however only for managers solely. We modified the permissions so solely the managers are capable of see it. I feel that it was one thing we had not accomplished beforehand and I’m so glad we’re as a result of it seems attractive, it’s simple for them to make use of, and once more, it simplifies that have for them.
Pitches are additionally one thing we actually need to get our workforce beginning to use extra. I noticed our QBR for Highspot simply this previous month and I feel we have been up like 15% in pitches. Don’t quote me precisely on that quantity, however I feel that’s what it was and the aim with pitches is after all, for our groups to have the ability to monitor what persons are doing with the content material that they ship, I would like us to lean in additional on that. I feel that’s an extremely helpful software and it’s extremely helpful information to our gross sales groups. I’d like us to do much more round that. I simply need us to maintain exploring all of the myriad features that Highspot has.
Once more, for true enablement, it’s not only a content material administration system. We consider it as our CMS, prefer it holds the content material, and I just lately had an government ask me like, nicely, how is that any completely different than, like, the wiki? I used to be like, oh, it’s so completely different from a wiki. I needed to clarify it, and once I was accomplished, once I might present all of the statistics about our utilization and all the content material and simply the design and the appear and feel, I had transformed that particular person. That’s the place I would like us to maintain going. Actually excited about how we will take all the pieces that Highspot can do and actually be totally using it.
SS: Completely. I imply, a platform ought to be reinforcing your income enablement technique, which to your level is about ensuring you’re rising productiveness to hit these income targets. Julie, thanks a lot for becoming a member of us in the present day. I significantly loved this dialog.
JW: Shawnna, thanks a lot. I used to be thrilled to be right here and actually recognize your time.
SS: 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.
