According to Forrester Research, 78% of executive buyers say that sellers aren’t prepared with relevant content. This is a training and sales content problem, which slows down sales cycles and prevents reps from hitting quota.
Today, Brainshark and Seismic are excited to announce a strategic partnership to better solve these challenges with an integrated, end-to-end sales enablement solution. Below, Brainshark CEO Greg Flynn and Seismic CEO Doug Winter provide details on the partnership and what it means for both customers and buyers of sales enablement technology.
Why have Brainshark and Seismic entered into this partnership?
GREG FLYNN: The driving force behind this partnership is our customers. Sales and marketing leaders want to unite their sales and marketing stacks to gain insight into the buying process and increase sales revenue.
As marketing creates content for sales to use with prospects, reps should be trained and coached on how to use it effectively. Once reps are trained and coached, organizations can further improve productivity by leveraging solutions like Seismic, which empower reps to quickly find the best content and customize it for each buyer conversation. Ultimately, integrating Brainshark and Seismic is a natural partnership.
DOUG WINTER: Sales reps need to know what to show a prospective buyer and know how to present it. Seismic solves the first part of that equation, and partnering with leading sales training and readiness solutions, like Brainshark, makes the “know how to present it” a reality for our joint customers.
What does this partnership mean for current Brainshark and Seismic customers?
GF: With Brainshark, our customers have excellent training and content authoring capabilities at their fingertips. With this integration, joint customers will be able to easily access their Brainshark resources – at the appropriate time of the sales cycle – directly from the Seismic platform. Seismic customers can then leverage Brainshark to ensure their reps are ready to engage with buyers and prepared to use the content they share more effectively. Seismic also represents a strategic addition for Brainshark customers who require more advanced sales content management capabilities like version control and dynamic content customization.
DW: In addition to everything that Greg said, I’d only emphasize that it means that we’re designing a user experience that is more streamlined for our customers. People want technology that works in the context of what actions they are taking. So if they’re getting ready for a meeting, they want to do a quick prep with a Brainshark without having to leave Seismic. We’re partnering to remove any friction that would prevent a sales rep from spending their time most efficiently in preparation and execution of a great sales interaction.
What does this partnership mean for buyers of sales enablement technology?
GF: We’re starting to see the sales enablement market mature, where vendors are honing in on the specific capabilities that drive value for customers, most notably in two distinct areas: sales readiness and sales engagement. Both are critical to sales enablement success, and technology buyers have recognized the need to easily integrate these platforms to gain the maximum value from their investments. Through this partnership, both Brainshark and Seismic are positioned to help companies get those maximum returns through a more strategic, comprehensive approach.
DW: Many sales and marketing leaders want the flexibility to purchase best-in-class solutions that solve for the specific the needs of their business. For large companies, which we focus on servicing, disparate technologies have to “play well together” in the sales and marketing technology stack. We’ve recently announced integrations with leading marketing automation platforms Marketo and Eloqua Oracle for this very reason, and will continue to integrate with other leading solution providers to ensure that information flows throughout the touchpoints of the buyer journey, creating valuable insights for sales and marketing teams to better target, sell to and close new customers.
