Trends & Insights
Mailbag: Answers to your top foundational enablement questions
By Tony Smith — On October 29, 2024
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Trends & Insights
By Tony Smith — On October 29, 2024
Welcome to our special mailbag edition of the Seismic blog! Earlier this month, we wrapped up an incredible week at Seismic Shift 2024, our annual customer conference in San Diego.
Over the course of three days, we had the pleasure of connecting with 1,123 attendees from 429 companies across 19 countries. It was a week filled with inspiring keynotes, engaging breakout sessions, and countless opportunities to learn from each other.
Throughout the event, we gathered a wealth of questions from our conversations with attendees. These questions reflect the curiosity, challenges, and aspirations of our community. To ensure everyone benefits from the insights shared at Shift, we’ve decided to create this mailbag-style article where Seismic’s subject matter experts will address some of the most pressing questions from our customers.
From the latest innovations in the Seismic Enablement Cloud™ to practical tips on driving transformational enablement, our experts are here to provide you with valuable answers and actionable advice. Whether you were able to join us in San Diego or are catching up from afar, we hope this blog post helps you push what’s possible in your own enablement journey.
Stay tuned as we dive into your questions and share the knowledge and experiences that made Seismic Shift 2024 an event to remember.
The short answer is it depends. The longer answer is more complex, but it ultimately comes down to revenue and growth.
Enablement needs to align to the revenue sponsor, whether that lies with marketing or sales. Enablement teams should be integrated into the strategic planning process to ensure their initiatives are aligned with the company’s overall objectives. As a critical player in the decision-making process, enablement can help set measurable success metrics that matter to the business, such as pipeline velocity, win rates, and customer engagement.
This data-driven approach allows for continuous monitoring and adjustment of strategies to achieve the desired outcomes. Ultimately, the close integration of enablement teams with other functions and their involvement in strategic planning are crucial for driving significant revenue growth and achieving business success.
Enablement teams should be strategically positioned within an organization to drive the greatest growth impact. By aligning closely with sales, marketing, product development, and customer success teams, enablement can ensure that all efforts are directed towards common goals and outcomes. This alignment fosters a shared understanding of success and creates a cohesive strategy that enhances efficiency and productivity across the organization. Enablement teams provide the necessary tools, training, and resources to support sales teams, ensuring they are well-equipped to meet their targets and drive revenue growth.
Hayden Stafford | President & CRO | Seismic
To build a strategy for an initiative, start by clearly defining the objective, understanding the problem you aim to solve or the opportunity you want to leverage. Identify key stakeholders, resources, and potential obstacles. Develop a strategic roadmap for action with specific, measurable steps, prioritizing tasks based on impact and feasibility. Finally, establish metrics to track progress and ensure continuous evaluation and adjustment.
In more specific terms, we recommend that you start with an Enablement Charter if you do not have one. Our Enablement Charter service helps establish a comprehensive framework that defines the strategy and vision of your enablement function. This formal charter ensures that your enablement efforts are aligned with broader business objectives and have clear ownership across departments. By activating this charter, we help ensure your organization is strategically positioned to maximize the value of your enablement initiatives. This service brings structure, alignment, and focus to your enablement strategy, enabling long-term growth and measurable success.
You can also contact the Strategic Enablement Services team! We have a broad range of ways to help customers get started, including a baseline assessment of your enablement maturity level and corresponding recommendations that point back to our Enablement Value Chain.
Dean Perry | Strategic Consulting Director | Seismic
Ultimately, you want to measure more than just the number of people logging into the Seismic platform, so defining meaningful KPIs for your organization is paramount. Every enablement org serves a different business with different goals, making it difficult to determine a set of KPIs for all.
Ask yourself what value story you hope to tell with Seismic and how it aligns to your business’s outcomes. Businesses often measure success with revenue, and while difficult, it isn’t impossible to tie enablement behaviors to revenue.
Identify what your leaders recognize as success, such as the average length of a sales cycle, lead conversion rate, and win rate. Aim to change and improve sales behavior through enablement. Consider the average time to ramp up new sellers, measure content usage for product/program launches in relation to revenue trends and compare win rates when using Seismic content versus not.
The key takeaway is to be conscious of your core audience. Use the data Seismic provides to connect the dots between your actions and your business goals.
Sergio Toranzo | Senior Solution Consultant II | Seismic
Two of the questions we’re often asked are, “How do I prove value to teams I haven’t engaged with?” And “How do I engage with teams I haven’t provided value to?”
We recommend understanding your organization’s vision, which often involves building strong customer relationships for revenue and loyalty. As an enablement expert, you likely have initiatives to support team goals. Next, identify these teams’ specific goals and challenges within the business context. Create or use content that addresses these needs, with measurable deliverables. Regularly check in with clear reporting to show impact and uncover new growth opportunities.
Liz McLemore | Product Marketing Director | Seismic
There remains a wealth of opportunities for AI to bring business value to highly regulated industries, especially by integrating with existing regulatory requirements and ensuring compliance. Many AI products are specifically designed with regulatory frameworks in mind to meet the complex needs of enterprises.
To find a suitable, enterprise-grade AI solution for your industry, it’s crucial to involve legal and compliance teams early in the process. This helps address concerns and ensure the solution adheres to essential standards. Key factors to assess when choosing AI products include compliance with privacy regulations, transparency in AI decision-making, responsible data-sharing practices, and ensuring data residency requirements are met. Additionally, AI models should be accountable and designed with safety mechanisms to prevent unintended risks.
To help your organization adopt AI, start by educating internal teams and addressing key concerns raised by legal and compliance departments. This builds trust and alignment regarding technology, business, and regulatory needs. Begin with low-risk AI projects that have clear, measurable outcomes, allowing your organization to see real-world benefits through small, controlled pilot programs.
Yinyin Liu | VP of Engineering | Seismic
Strategic Enablement Services offers tailored consulting solutions that align your enablement efforts with broader business goals, driving measurable impact. Our expert team works alongside you to optimize processes, enhance team productivity, and ensure smooth adoption of new initiatives. Whether you need support with onboarding, change management, or developing a robust enablement strategy, we bring the expertise to help you achieve sustained growth and maximize your ROI.
Irina Soriano | VP, Strategic Enablement Consulting | Seismic
Understanding your organization’s vision and aligning it with actionable enablement initiatives is key to driving growth and success. Seismic’s Strategic Enablement Services team is here to support you every step of the way, from optimizing processes to ensuring smooth adoption of new initiatives. With tailored consulting and a focus on measurable impact, we are dedicated to helping you achieve your business goals.
Thank you for your questions. We encourage you to continue to submit your most pressing enablement queries to us on social media. We are always here to provide the insights and support you need to drive success in your organization. Stay engaged and keep those questions coming!
