I’ve found that those strategic initiatives don’t fail because they don’t have the right people, the right processes, or the right technologies — but because the leaders entrusted to drive initiatives cannot get on the same page.
Only 52 companies that were operating as of 1955 are still in business. Organizations that fail to align their marketing, sales, and services fail to increase revenue, improve profitability, optimize costs, and reduce risks. Ultimately, these companies languish, while the perennial members of the Fortune 500 consistently execute their alignment and strategies, armed with the digital dexterity to win as market conditions change.
As Highspot’s VP of Product Marketing, I believe that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. It’s part of my job to make sure that Highspot’s revenue-generating teams are on the same page, so that together we can drive incredible outcomes for our customers, and future-proof our business.
Although I’m new to Highspot, I’m not new to the enablement space. Years ago as the VP of Product Marketing at Apptio, I discovered that sales enablement is the solution to this challenge of aligning and enabling go-to-market teams to make every customer conversation count. Now, enablement is quickly coming to fruition amongst the world’s highest-performing organizations. In the past five years, the sales enablement function has experienced a 343% increase in adoption. Currently, 62% of organizations have an enablement function, and an additional 13% plan to add the role in the coming fiscal year, according to Sales Enablement PRO research. The changes brought on by COVID-19 has been an accelerator for sales enablement, as companies everywhere learn to operate in a virtual environment.
Many may say it’s a unique time to join a new company, and they would be right. But regardless of the circumstances, I was bullish to join Highspot for two main reasons. First, I believe this is a company that is truly delivering on our mission to transform the way millions of people work. Highspot is at the center of go-to-market excellence and at the forefront of innovation, leading the enablement charge with the only natively built unified platform and ideas that are positively disrupting the industry. Second, a product is only as good as its people — and from the colleagues I’ve met, it’s safe to say that Highspot is made up of the best of the best. Within our virtual office walls, bright minds are coming together to create breakthrough software for our customers, united under a common mission and grounded in guiding principles. It’s a culture where anything is possible.
Now as I look at the road ahead, I see an incredible opportunity to help companies everywhere leverage the power of enablement to get their go-to-market teams on the same page. Here is an inside look at how Highspot is approaching this with our own teams, and some pragmatic steps your organization can take to close the gap.
Success Starts with Alignment
As you embark on your 2021 initiatives, consider that your go-to-market team’s alignment is the foundation of your ability to drive existing initiatives forward, support new initiatives, and manage change. You must align your people, processes, and technology to ensure everyone understands the strategy and how to execute it.
This is where Highspot’s end-to-end enablement platform comes into play. Bringing together content, guidance, training, coaching, engagement intelligence, and analytics, Highspot provides everyone from the sales rep to the Chief Sales Officer with what they need to succeed in their individual function and stay in sync across the business. Let’s take a closer look at these capabilities and how to maximize their potential.
Provide Guidance Alongside Content
The majority of content that marketing teams create goes unused. At previous companies, I’ve felt the frustration of providing the field with important materials, only to attend a sales call where the seller is using an eight-year-old pitch deck. With Highspot, marketing and enablement can provide context on how to use every piece of content, ensuring sellers have the guidance to have effective conversations.
Reinforce Learning with Continuous Training and Coaching
The Forgetting Curve shows that the most significant drop in information retention happens soon after learning. Without continuous reinforcement, the ability to retain the information plummets. With Highspot, enablement and sales training teams can develop coursework to drive the adoption of key initiatives and real behavioral change. What’s more, leaders are able to demonstrate the impact of training and coaching on company performance with 360-degree analytics that validate changes in rep behavior.
Optimize with Engagement Intelligence
Losing deals to close-no decision is a rampant problem. If you’ve ever looked to find where the team failed to earn the next conversation and come up empty-handed, you’re not alone. Now with sales enablement technology, leaders can extract insights from buyers at critical moments through their purchasing journey. That information empowers sellers to improve execution. I’ve personally felt the satisfaction of aggregating post-mortem buyer journey analyses to identify gaps and pattern match practices that showcase ideal engagements, ultimately accelerating sales cycles and improving win rates.
Answer Key Questions with Actionable Analytics
Analytics is where the big picture clicks together. Every go-to-market leader has felt the pain of the amalgamation of data from multiple systems, which is why Highspot solved this problem with 360-degree analytics that provide a holistic picture across companies’ initiatives, teams, and customers. The platform’s Scorecards offer a comprehensive view of the impact of go-to-market initiatives, allowing revenue leaders to answer three fundamental questions:
- Does the customer-facing team understand the strategy?
- Are the customer-facing teams executing the strategy?
- Is the strategy driving business results?
Transforming the Way Millions of People Work
Achieving alignment across go-to-market teams is no easy feat. It’s one of the reasons why only a handful of companies have stood the test of time and lasted for decades. But now with the advent of new technologies, like sales enablement, all of that is changing.
I am grateful to be part of a team that empowers other leaders to grow revenue, improve operational efficiencies and increase customer satisfaction — and part of a company that is fundamentally changing the way people around the world do great work. And we’re just getting started.
If this sounds like a mission you can get behind, learn more about joining our team.
