Analysis from McKinsey discovered that solely 22% of latest companies launched up to now ten years have efficiently scaled. So, how will you efficiently scale with enablement?

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 tendencies within the office and easy methods to navigate them efficiently. Right here to debate this matter is Gracey Cantalupo, chief advertising and marketing officer at MentorcliQ, Inc. Thanks for becoming a member of, Gracey! I’d love so that you can inform us about your self, your background, and your function. 

Gracey Cantalupo: Thanks a lot for having me, Shawnna. I like this matter and I like serving to different advertising and marketing leaders perceive easy methods to handle their content material, allow their gross sales crew, and in the end assist us all get extra income and assist us scale. 

As you mentioned, my identify is Gracey Cantalupo. I’ve been in advertising and marketing for over 15 years. Some B2C, some B2B, so I’ve had each. I’ve been at startups and I’ve been at giant corporations as effectively. I’ve been within the magnificence business, leisure, business actual property, and now SaaS, Software program as a Service. All this expertise offers me a really distinctive perspective. I like infusing all of the enjoyable from my B2C days at MTV and Viacom with the results-driven B2B expertise of my SaaS roles. I actually attempt to create a human-to-human strategy to advertising and marketing, in order that it’s efficient and in addition enjoyable as a result of, on the finish of the day, we’re advertising and marketing to people.

In my function as CMO at MentorcliQ, we assist make worker mentoring and ERG administration straightforward for enterprise corporations. We assist workers at these corporations develop their careers, hone their craft, and develop a neighborhood at work. We consider that each worker deserves an important mentor to assist them thrive of their profession and to assist them discover neighborhood and belonging of their office. I get to infuse all of that enjoyable and helpfulness from my B2C days to assist enterprises make a greater office expertise. 

SS: That’s improbable. I like the mission of what you guys try to do there. Now, I need to focus a bit bit on enablement. Considering again to while you had been first evaluating enablement platforms, what had been a few of the key causes you chose Highspot, particularly compared to your current resolution and perhaps different platforms that you simply evaluated?

GC: Completely. At MentorcliQ, we didn’t have a complete advertising and marketing tech stack after I joined. I joined MentorcliQ six years in the past, so I used to be capable of see so much and assist the crew construct out numerous issues. When it grew to become time for us to search for a gross sales enablement resolution, it actually got here down to a few issues.

Primary, is that this going to be straightforward for our reps? Nice salespeople are lazy and we need to make certain it’s as straightforward as doable for them or else they gained’t use it. We additionally wished to verify it was straightforward for prospects and shoppers as effectively. We didn’t need to need to do a password or make them signal into LinkedIn. We wished to make it very easy for them to see our content material. 

Subsequent, we wished to verify we may monitor what the gross sales crew was utilizing and what the prospects had been . Final, however actually not least, we wanted some dang model management. I imply, we had some reps that, I swear, will need to have damaged into an outdated storage unit, scanned outdated ass PDFs of actually dangerous content material, and we wanted to make that cease for positive. Making it straightforward, monitoring what’s getting used, and model management had been actually the three issues we had been on the lookout for. 

SS: I like that. And I’ve undoubtedly lived by way of these experiences. Now, while you had been first rolling out Highspot, your gross sales crew was additionally within the midst of almost doubling in measurement. Are you able to inform us a bit bit extra about how implementing Highspot helped you navigate that change whilst you had been additionally scaling?

GC: I began MentorcliQ once more, six years in the past, they had been a number of years in. That they had an important product advertising and marketing match they usually had been seeking to scale and over time, the gross sales crew grew from founder promoting to actual enterprise B2B SaaS salespeople promoting. They want construction. They will’t simply determine it out. They’re used to assets, they’re used to playbooks, they usually’re used to having a course of and a gross sales methodology in place for them to execute flawlessly. We simply didn’t have that. 

Consistency ended up being the important thing for us to assist us get these reps onboarded as rapidly as doable and Highspot was so nice for that. We had been capable of begin to construct that blueprint of a playbook. Within the first name, you do your discovery, and also you ship this Highspot pitch with this content material. Cool. Within the second name, you do your demo, you ship this follow-up. Okay, the third name, after you do your proposal, you ship this content material.

We actually formulated it out for them and helped them be constant. That was the important thing to with the ability to scale whereas we had been launching this gross sales enablement program, and in addition whereas we had been rising our crew on the similar time. 

SS: I like that. That’s improbable. Not solely had been you guys scaling whilst you carried out Highspot, however you additionally had a extremely quick implementation. How did you make sure that you had been capable of each implement rapidly and successfully? 

GC: That is what we name a compelling occasion, or in our case, a number of compelling occasions. Sensible Hyperlinks, which was a product by Gross sales Navigator, was being sundown and it was presupposed to be sundown in January of that 12 months. We wished to verify there wasn’t a giant hole for our gross sales reps, and we had offers which may’ve began in This fall, however aren’t going to shut till Q1 or Q2. We wished to verify there was a clean transition there. So a giant, compelling occasion there. 

The second large, compelling occasion is This fall. For many corporations and B2B SaaS, This fall is large, and we didn’t need to distract our salespeople. These two compelling occasions actually motivated us to maneuver rapidly and make it as straightforward as doable for the gross sales of us.

SS: Now you’ve already seen some nice outcomes since implementation. I believe you guys are at about 86 p.c recurring utilization of the Highspot platform. What finest practices are you able to share that helped you drive such excessive adoption from the onset?

GC: There are actually two keys for us. Primary, once more, is making it straightforward for reps. Our reps are engaged on offers in numerous phases. They’re getting new offers coming within the door on a regular basis. We simply have to make it straightforward, plug and play. Like I mentioned, nice gross sales reps are form of lazy so we wanted to make it possible for this was very straightforward for them.

One of many issues I actually liked about Highspot is its integration with Salesforce and inside Gmail. It simply made it very easy for the salespeople to make use of it in their very own move of labor. I believe I’m really stealing that from the gross sales pitch from Highspot, however that basically resonated with me to get the salespeople to undertake it. It simply wanted to be the place they already had been. I didn’t need to ship them to a different place. It’s proper there for them and Salesforce, all of the actions in Salesforce, and in addition there’s that plugin for them in Gmail, they will seize a pitch and ship it instantly. So primary is simply to make it straightforward in your reps.

Quantity two, it’s a repeatable, very clear course of. After the primary assembly, ship this pitch. After the second assembly, you get a demo, you add this content material to the identical pitch. That additionally makes it straightforward in your prospects and your shoppers. They’re simply going again to at least one hyperlink and one pitch and that’s the place the magic actually occurs. How do you make it straightforward? It’s a repeatable course of and our prospects really love our Highspot pitches they usually touch upon it on a regular basis as effectively. 

SS: On that very notice, one other space the place you guys have seen wonderful adoption is leveraging Highspot to have interaction consumers, as you mentioned, and also you guys are at an 80 p.c pitch adoption charge. How are your groups extra successfully participating consumers with Highspot? 

GC: They ship it they usually maintain sending the prospects again to the Highspot pitch. I hear our reps on the cellphone, oh yeah, so I’m going so as to add it to the hyperlink I despatched after our first name in order that’ll be there for you while you want it. The proposal will likely be proper there. All the things you want is true there. That actually makes it straightforward for the prospect has be tremendous useful. 

The opposite factor, I believe, that has been useful for the gross sales crew particularly, is that they get notified anytime anybody engages with a pitch. Possibly that deal went chilly. Possibly that deal ghosted us, or they mentioned, oh, it’s budgeting season, I’ll come again to you once we get our funds numbers in This fall. The gross sales reps can see folks participating with the Highspot pitch and that’s an excellent flag for them to achieve out early and see if they are often useful. That has actually helped the salespeople undertake it not solely within the entrance finish of the gross sales course of however utilizing it as a device to do well timed engagement again out to prospects which have gone chilly in the event that they’re participating with Highspots pitches.

SS: I like that strategy. Now, your group additionally lately launched a brand new product for a brand new purchaser kind, so getting your reps up to the mark was important to participating these new consumers. Are you able to inform us the way you had been capable of certify your reps to promote this new product utilizing Highspot? 

GC: We acquired an organization referred to as Diversed. That’s our ERG administration platform. We wanted to rapidly practice our reps and ensure they understood what the product did, what the worth proposition is, and what’s the mixed worth proposition of MentorcliQ and ERGs. 

Most worker useful resource teams have mentoring taking place organically. Let’s bridge these two issues collectively and provide mentoring to these ERGs in addition to clean administration. For them to grasp rapidly the mixed worth proposition and the way it labored was key. 

We did coaching on that and we had our reps get licensed. They really needed to go a take a look at do an interview and talk the worth prop again to sure senior leaders within the firm. This was all tracked in Highspot utilizing the entire pitches we constructed for Diversed in addition to all of the content material. To make it simpler for reps, the entire Highspot occasion of ours was constructed with spots, which we form of consider them not as file folders, however as isles of content material you may stroll down. Now we have a particular spot for Numerous, which is our new product. We make it very easy for the reps. They don’t have to hunt round within the product options and features drawback options or any of the client tales. Something associated to that new product is in a single singular spot, one content material aisle they get to stroll down. That additionally made it very easy for the reps to rapidly go in, seize content material, or create a pitch that’s particular to Diversed and ship that out as effectively. 

They didn’t get entry to that content material, although, till they handed the certification, which was a cool a part of it. We had it locked till they handed after which they bought entry. 

SS: I like that. Use that as an incentive to get them to get by way of that. That’s improbable. Simply shifting gears a bit bit, what metrics or key Highspot to form of actually optimize numerous these packages you’re operating? 

GC: I’ve been in advertising and marketing my complete profession. I began as a graphic designer. I labored for plenty of totally different corporations, and whether or not it was an actual property firm, a magnificence firm, or actuality TV, MTV, there was by no means sufficient content material. Gross sales groups at all times need extra content material. They’re a bottomless pit of want. They at all times suppose their prospect wants this factor and their want is particular. If it really works for them, then everybody ought to have the factor. 

This checklist is large, proper? There are by no means sufficient assets and there’s by no means sufficient time to supply the entire asks that gross sales suppose are actually essential. The factor that I like a lot about Highspot is it lets us monitor what’s really getting used, what’s really being engaged with by the prospects, and what’s really influencing income. That influenced income metric was a recreation changer for us after our first 12 months of utilizing Highspot. 

What we did is we regarded on the affect income report, after which I narrowed it right down to, okay, there are 5 key items of content material which can be influencing probably the most income. It’s our demo spotlight video, it’s our one pager, we’ve bought a spotlight deck, there’s this one shopper testimonial montage, after which we’ve bought this one very highly effective mentoring influence report that talks about mentoring and the Fortune 500. It’s these 5. So, don’t F these 5 up was what I got here again with.

It’s like, okay, these need to be good. We’re going to evaluation them each quarter. We’re going to verify they’re updated. We’re going to verify these are wonderful as a result of these are what’s driving probably the most influence. You don’t have to get every part good, however that helps us give attention to the highest 5 most impactful items, make certain they’re glitzy, make certain they’re shiny and ensure they’re getting used. 

Positive, there are going to be one-off requests or somebody’s going to want a selected case examine for one deal they’re making an attempt to shut. It gained’t kill these requests, however it does assist you to slender these requests to a really manageable 5 that our crew can give attention to. That’s been the sport changer for us, is the give attention to the highest 5 and the way that influences income. 

SS: Great. Final query for you, Gracey. Simply as a advertising and marketing chief, what has been the influence of Highspot in your prime enterprise priorities? Do you’ve gotten any wins or key outcomes you may share?

GC: I’m a designer at coronary heart. That’s how I began as a graphic designer. I like how versatile the pitches are. I’ve a graphic designer on my crew, so I’m very fortunate in that respect. One of many issues that we’ve been capable of do isn’t just have a PDF connected to an e-mail that goes to a prospect, however you may design this beautiful pitch that has your branding on it, it has your messaging and that’s not simply within the header. 

In every part, we will form of wrap our messaging into the background of the pitch in order that there’s nice context round all the good content material, form of like a pleasant contextual hug round all of that nice content material that we produce. That’s been extraordinarily impactful from a branding perspective and set us aside out there.

Typically folks simply open that factor they usually may see that messaging time and again. Possibly they don’t go to web page 5 and your slide deck the place you want at all times hit on these messaging factors. For me, it’s been wrapping all of that messaging and that worth advert into the precise pitch itself. I actually consider it helps us turn into the seller of alternative sooner as a result of we’ve bought that branding alternative. 

So for me, it’s having that model management, with the ability to get throughout that messaging, in addition to the factor we talked about earlier, which is with the ability to monitor not content material that I’m in love with, or that the salespeople are in love with, however the content material that truly influences the income. These two issues have been probably the most impactful for us.

SS: I like listening to that. Gracey, thanks a lot for becoming a member of us in the present day. 

GC: Completely. Thanks. 

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.