According to a report from Fortune, more than 70% of the 40,000 mergers and acquisitions they studied fell short of expectations. So, how can you guide your sales teams navigate transformations and come out stronger on the other side of change?
Riley Rogers: Hi, and welcome to the Win-Win podcast. I’m your host, Riley Rogers. Join us as we dive into changing trends in the workplace and how to navigate them successfully.
Here to discuss this topic is Sérgio Vasconcelos, director of revenue enablement at Feedzai. Thank you so much for joining us. We’re super excited to have you. As we’re getting started, I’d love if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and your role.
Sérgio Vasconcelos: Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for the invite.
So Sergio, based out of Lisbon, Portugal as probably with all of the enablement leaders in board, we actually just stumbled up on the position. So got my degree in computer science. I’ve been doing multiple roles from software engineering to project management till. Roughly eight, nine years ago, I started to get introduced to the solution consultant world.
So supporting sales during the sales cycle with that technical knowledge and that advisory. And that has been the go-to for the probably for certain 10 years afterwards, there was a, uh, a stumble at feeds eye, you know, where I was able to, to gather that knowledge. The solution consultant and that experience of talking to the clients and I was actually invited to join recently created enablement role initially at Product ’cause the company was growing quite significantly and that organic growth was very much.
Creating some challenges to what concerns the common understanding of the products and the services that we were doing, and that we had to go to market, that we had to sell, and then we had to activate and support to our clients. But then that evolution actually went really positive, and then the opportunity came for me to reach revenue, uh, on that same enablement function.
That’s what I’ve been doing for the last, uh, three years, if I’m not mistaken.
RR: Amazing. Well, I think it’s definitely a common story that stumbled down the rabbit hole of enablement from a different discipline, and you look back and go, how did I get here? But I’m so happy. I am, and we’re so happy you are too, because we have a lot of interesting topics to cover with you today.
I’d like to kick off the conversation by asking about today. So in your role at Feedzai. What key initiatives are you focused on this year? And then in addition to that, how does your enablement tech stack support you in driving those initiatives?
SV: First, in order for me to be able to, to share what is the focus of this year at Feedzai a little bit initially on what is enablement from my perspective.
So enablement at the end of the day and the baseline, the core tenet is to address change. Experience simply whether it is in people, whether it is in product and services, whether it is, uh, market shift or market expansions, or whether it is actually in changing the ways of working. So enablement is actually the, the catalyst to promote that change.
With that being said, the focus of this year for me and the team is actually three core themes that we have. The first is to raise the bar, whether it is from a soft. Hard skills perspective, but also to reinforce sales best practices. That has always been at the top of our agendas. We always need to be at the top of our game, whether it is with the knowledge of our products and our solutions, whether it is on the way that we interact, to have always a customer first mindset, the value first approach, and also to, of course, you know, to operationally speaking, to be as efficient as possible.
The second one is how do we enable. Our sellers and you know, and our teams for success. That is basically the premise of how do we ensure that when a new Feedzaion comes in, they are equipped to succeed? Whether it is the first moment that we join the company with a solid onboarding program, not training, because I think that it is a wider aspect, or whether it is after the onboarding.
How would they succeed on an ongoing support and that not only on the sales side of the house, but also to all departments that create the revenue function, whether it is customer success managers, whether it is inside sales team solution consultants. Others. The last, but not the least, is actually the one.
And because I’m an engineer, you can’t improve what you don’t measure. Right? So that’s one of the quotes I have from Peter Drucker. I’m a fan of that because we need to measure. You think that in the world that we live in, we need to. Really to focus on continuous improvement. So those small steps so that when we can do them consistently, then we can get better outcomes.
And I think that that is, has always been at the top of our agenda. How do we ensure that we measure progress? And if we don’t, how do we actually identify it ahead of time so that we can adjust and adapt according?
RR: Absolutely. I think that introductory perspective of enablement as a change manager really sets the stage well for a lot of what we’re gonna talk about today.
Starting with, I know in the past you’ve switched off of a previous enablement platform and made the decision to embrace change and move to Highspot, so I’d love to talk a little bit about what motivated you to make that evaluation, make the change, and then what advice would you give to someone who’s looking to do the same?
SV: Yes, absolutely. So that was well investigated by the way. So there’s also a premise on the enablement, and I think that this is actually true for the overwhelming majority of the enablement teams in the business, which is we’re not big teams, right? So if we are agents of change, if you are here to actually to accommodate and to address change, we need to do that both effectively.
And efficiently. And, uh, because of that, we have some, you know, simple requirements of an enablement platform that we need to consider. It needs to be extremely easy to operate. Extremely easy to use and reportable. In conjunction to that, it needs to act both as a content management system as well as a learning management system.
So it needs to serve both domains because again, if we just add up on the number of tools that we are supporting, the operational footprint, it’ll be a little bit heavier. What happens is that feeds eye. Basically runs at the fast pace and we were struggling to operate under those assumptions efficiently.
And uh, we were getting some feedback from the users that, um, although the information was there, it was available, it was not easy to find information. You know how salespeople and how revenue folks are, right? They like to spend their time not working on back office. They just want to make sure that they are in front of the customers and, uh, you know, and spending their time with customers.
But whenever that they need to find something, they need to quickly hop in. Find the information, get back to business. So that was, you know, we had a little bit of mixed feeling on the feedback that we got. And the other part is that the reports, when we talk about reports, we talk about. Numbers that generate insights, not just the KPIs per se, the numbers per se, the number of people that have been trained on, or the number of people that have downloaded certain assets.
It’s actually the impact that will give and the trends. Are we getting some more engagement out of the engagement platform? Everything that we are releasing is being used and is it being adopted? And we were struggling to have that type of intelligence on our side. Hence we had to go. And search for alternatives.
RR: Yeah, that all makes sense, and I think it’s something that a lot of organizations struggle with. You mentioned kind of what led you to the evaluation, and since you’ve made this decision and implemented Highspot, I’d love to know what are some of the differences that you’ve seen and maybe some of the benefits that you’ve noticed now kind of living in this new world?
SV: It’s actually, it boils down to very simple things. I think that the number one is it’s not a thing anymore for us to operate the system. It’s really hassle-free, let us say, we don’t get anxious when we need to roll out, you know, just a certain go to markets. We don’t get anxious when we need to support the rebranding, when we need to actually to curate material that has been sitting for a while.
So everything, all of the aspects of adding new assets, managing existing assets, updating existing assets, it has become really a hassle for operation. That has been one of the biggest ones. So basically we removed that variable out of our capacity, right? And that means that we have capacity to support all of the go-to-market initiatives going on.
The second one is honestly the support. The support of Highspot as a whole. It was. Kind of an eye opener, honestly, from the moment that we were doing basically inquiring high spots on the capabilities, the thoughtful way of actually understanding what was our problem, what was our requirements, and how to best serve them.
With Highspot being very true on what was possible and what was not possible. From the moment that then afterwards we made a decision of going with Highspot and then the activation. Process started all of that thoughtfulness of, uh, ensuring that feed eye had a solid foundation that could serve this for the long haul.
That was really, really interesting. And actually because we are now are at that process that we’ve passed way beyond the point of activation and we are just continually running and, and evolving with the tool, the on-demand supporters, uh, second to none honestly. And, uh, that’s. Customer, it’s not even customer support.
It’s actually customer care. That really makes a huge difference when, again, we need to cope with change. We need to be fast and we need be quick. I think that actually the last one, and that is a very recent one, is the new things that are coming up with ai. We know that AI has been, is an a acronym that is on the agenda of many people, is not a stranger that feeds ai.
Honestly, you, we’ve been talking about AI and domain risk management since AI was not a thing. But, um, I think that more than the AI itself is actually how to apply technology to address the enablement needs. And really the stuff that has been, uh, coming along in the recent product, uh, updates has been.
Amazing. And, uh, we are actually on the verge of trying out some really exciting stuff and I’m really excited about what’s going on. So again, that evolution also plays a part because scaling. Scaling is dying.
RR: Yeah. I love to hear that you have that kind of foundation built and then knowing that you have that partnership for the future, especially because.
I know Feedzai has recently gone through some significant changes. He recently acquired a company, which of course is gonna be a monumental change for your sales teams. So from your perspective, having gone through this moment, it’s only recently in the rear view, what are some of those common pitfalls that organizations often face during big organizational change like this?
And then how can they avoid them?
SV: So, well, I’ve been at Feedzai long enough to actually to witness a second acquisition, so I was lucky enough to witness that. From an enablement perspective, a change is a change whether major or minor, it is a change. So again, if we build those foundations right, it becomes easier or it becomes almost like part of the process because the rails, they are set in order for us to introduce that change to the revenue organization.
But honestly, if I could spin around that question and probably just focus on actually what I believe that made a positive difference out of, you know, out of the whole process and actually. Even wider than just enablement. So from a company perspective, I think that first and foremost, having a clear understanding of what is the outlook of what is the end state of what would post acquisition, post-integration would look like, and be very clear on that vision.
I think that that is, you know, establishing the, the end goal is the number one priority, and then the second one is actually how do we get there? That is a clear plan with clear definition of who is involved, what’s the schedule, what’s the timings, who you know, what they need to do so that we can, we can fulfill that vision.
And then honestly, it’s just, it’s sheer greet and pure team execution. It’s making sure that there’s ownership on everyone’s involved and you know, and get it done well because it, nothing is all that rosy. Right. I think that, again, change is the only constant in the world. So. Things will happen. We’ll need to accept the fact that not everything will going to turn out smoothly.
We need to be able to adjust and just move forward. So we just need to accept the fact that it won’t go without its bumps. But, uh, I think that if we plan in anticipation, there’s a clear vision, a schedule for us to get there and teamwork at, uh. It makes a world of a difference.
RR: I love the kind of breakdown of a really big initiative, like an acquisition of just where are we going, what is our end goal, and then how are we gonna get there?
So thinking of that, how are we gonna get there? And getting a little bit more granular into that. I’d love to know how an enablement platform helped you as you were figuring out those steps to get to that end goal.
SV: That’s a big one. How can we actually boil it down? I think that if we can try and simplify it.
So first the, an enablement platform needs to isolate from the noise of the world of excessive information that we have today. It’s almost like the definition of insanity, that we have so much information in the internet and in the world today that we need to actually to create large language models, to be able to consolidate and to make that information really efficient and useful for us.
But, um, if we can just boil it down to one or two things, I think that one is. By isolating the users of this excessive information, the enablement platform will be able to actually to bolster the user’s efficiency, right? So when they need it, what they needed being there, it is there. So it’s almost like it’s a tool of confidence that you have an enablement platform where the material that it is available is curated, is ready to go, it is always up to date.
It is a reliable source of information. That sellers and the revenue department as a whole, as an asset at their disposal. That is one. I think that the second one is, again, we need to be efficient. So time to market is really, really key. So departments that are creating those assets, that are creating those materials, that are creating those trainings, they almost have the recipe.
They have almost like a conveyor belt where they can transition everything, whether it is products or services, or any change that has been defined and move them consistently and effectively. To market and an enablement platform is actually a tool to be able to create that consistency, to decrease that time to market and to actually make sure that we are predictable in the way that we approach change as a whole.
RR: Earlier you kind of broke down an enablement tool as it needs to help you with your content, and it also needs to help you with your learning. So I’d like to touch on that. Second piece, as I know that training has been a really key lever as you’re navigating this change, looking at the data, it seems that you’ve achieved a 100% active learner rate in Highspot.
So I’d love to know what are some of your best practices for optimizing your programs and then getting reps to use them?
SV: Yes, yes. So first I have an awesome team, so that is one. But I think that the second, which is a very. Much necessary key aspect that we need to socialize is that without management buy-in, we can’t really be successful, right?
So there needs to be a belief that training and enablement is a core tenant of success. Because without that, we’ll be throttle by it. So I think that that is the number one. So team’s awesome. Management, buying management team is awesome as well. The second one is when we think about training, we think about in isolation.
Honestly, I think that we need to broaden that up. When we think about training. We think about training in the lens of the onboarding or in the lens of resident sellers or resident team members, and how can training can. Educate, influence and evolve KPIs, metrics and outcomes. Whether you are a new seller or a new feed design in general, or whether you are a resident that has been with feed, you know, for a number of years.
So thinking training broadly. I think that that would again, get us away from the training and the training completion and more around outcomes. What type of outcomes do we want? Depending on actually the Feedzai tenure and where they are and when they join and for how long they have been in the company.
The third one is you trust that you verify. So, you know, I do expect all of our revenue colleagues to do the training, but we need to introduce gating on those. So, for instance, if we think about, you know, a simple example is at the onboarding we have an onboarding program. So training it is required to be done.
And then afterwards there is a checkpoint, a checkpoint to assess after, you know, actually if the training was done, if, if the manager provided the, the review of the, of those submissions of, um, you know, and then of course then we’ll move forward. Right? So almost like the training per the training, it is important to be rolled out, but it also needs to be validated and verified that the people have done it.
Done it in the time that it was given to them and actually produced the outcomes and the learnings that we have expect out of them. And nothing happens with that if we don’t have reports. So that the ability to create reporting, to give that awareness, not only the individual awareness, but also the managerial awareness, it is important.
So managing up and managing down. So then afterwards, everyone understands where they are at their learning and development path. The not so fun path is you just keep on beating down the dead horse, right? It’s ad nauseum. You just need to continue on pushing the teams. They have 10,000 other things to do, right?
They have quarter, they have quarters, they have renewals, they have upsells. We just need to continue on reinforcing the fact that training is a shortcut to success, a proven one.
RR: I love that phrase. I think we’re gonna have to steal that. Training is shortcut to success. It’s a great way to put it, and a, definitely a more positive slant than beating the dead horse, but both are true indeed.
I’d like to touch on something a little bit more abstract, which is that during an acquisition, roles are changing, dynamics are shifting. Reps might start to feel a little bit uneasy. So what is. Your advice for motivating reps, easing that process of change and then getting them comfortable with that new state of work that you’re in?
SV: Yeah. So that it is a tough cookie indeed. So I think that there’s something that, um, enablement can do and there is something that management, management can do as well. I think that from a management perspective, from a senior leadership perspective, tackle upfront and with clarity and company-wide, what’s happening, what’s the plan and what’s the goal?
Be very clear and very forthcoming about it. The sooner the merri, just because you know that doubt, um, if we leave doubt for too long, right? Generates a lot of discomfort. I think that everything else, again, enablement, new joiners, new team coming in, included, be a Feedzai as soon as possible. Getting to the onboarding training, getting to the onboarding bootcamp.
Make them a Feedzai, make them part of the family. Reach out just like we would do with any new joiner, but with the extra attention because that uncertainty always bubbles up. If we are just aware of that and again, introduce them into the same processes, treat them as a family member, I think that, uh, everything will turn out to be all right.
RR: Yeah, I think that’s great advice. That kind of marriage of clarity and then compassion of understanding that this is a hard moment. We’re right there with you. Let’s talk about it. I think that’s gonna earn you success more than trying to come up with some ad hoc strategy or anything like that. One of the things that you’ve.
I think mentioned a couple times as we’ve been talking is the importance of measurement, the importance of data trust, but measure. So what are those key metrics that you’re looking at as you’re driving change initiatives like these? What are you monitoring to ensure that your teams are on track and that you’re in that execution phase and you have your end goal here? What are you looking at to make sure that you’re on your way there?
SV: On that aspect, it’s almost like it’s a bottom up. Type of strategy, so, so zooming out a little bit, so in essence, any change initiative requires a go to market of sorts, whether it is a bigger one, smaller one, and with a go to market.
There’s a plan, there’s a strategy. So depending on the type of go to market that exists and the priority that exists, there is a. A bill of materials of assets that need to be built and that needs to be then released to either the market, so either internally or external, so to the revenue organization, other departments of the market.
Also, on all of the go-to markets that are relevant, we’ll try to create certification courses to make sure that there is this ability or there is this trigger. So that the existing roster of the revenue family is acquainted with the new go-to market that we are releasing for the minor, let I say for the less relevant things we make use of what we call just in time training.
So reference spaces in Highspot where we can make available the information because most probably certain people will need that. Two months from now, six months from now, and they’ll can resort to the same place to look for that information again. The quick hopping hop off, and that is what we try to reinforce.
So we plan those go to markets, we make the quarterly, the quarter, the quarterly schedule. We make them available and we reinforce them as the quarter goes through. Then in each regional QVR, we basically report the status, the progress, the achievements, and again, reinforcing the need on those qvs. But then again, with the management buy-in, those KPIs of certifications, the progress and the completion and entertainment, they all bubble up into revenue wide KPIs as well.
So it’s the bottom up from the release of the GTMs, the creation of. Either certification courses or references that people can or should be doing. All of that then is mapped out into a quarterly schedule and they, all of that bubble up into macro KPIs under the revenue organization.
RR: I really like that chain of events of how do we get from, you know, the beginning of activity all the way through to what the business cares most about.
I’d like to maybe double click into measurement a little bit and talk about, you know, since implementing Highspot. I’d love to know if there’s any business results you’ve achieved, wins that you can share, accomplishments that you’re measuring, that you’re especially proud of. Anything like that.
SV: Without going too much into detail, but I think that there are a couple of insights that I think that were really, really useful.
I think that Highspot has enabled us to create actually a revenue wide initiative called Road to Productivity Focus on sellers, and that means it’s almost like starting with the out with sellers. So what is the definition of success for sellers? By the end of year one, potentially reaching a particular quota, right?
And now we’ll say, okay, for the seller to be able to be successful by the end of year one, what needs to be the road for them to be successful? So by the end of quarter one, what type of pipeline needs to be created, or if that is the pipeline that needs to be created. So KPIs should be on Q1, on how to be trained.
For them to understand what they are pitching and what type of pipeline to create. And then to be able to, so quarter one is on the training side of the house. So training KPIs are, are the focus for the quarter one evaluation of sellers. The quarter two is the amount of pipeline created. The right pipeline created.
So KPIs really focus on that second quarter of, are we actually. Is the seller actually developing the right amount and the right quality of the pipeline for them to be successful at the end of that year. Then for instance, on the Q3 is what type of KPIs or what type of pipeline or what pipeline is being actually developed and has been progressing through the funnel so that they can have enough coverage for them to attain the year one quota.
Final outcome of having everyone at sales be incredibly successful at year one. How do we actually backtrack it into outcomes? And all of that is actually is backed up by Highspot, right? So on the, uh, month one on the training, having the training ready to go under the onboarding program is paramount. We then, we reinforce quarter three and quarter three with specific role plays for the typical scenarios that they will mostly kind encounter while they are trying to qualify opportunity, while they’re trying to pro progress on opportunities.
And then afterwards, hopefully. It’ll end up with a successful year one for residents. It’s a little bit on that as well, because if you think about it, the training, training as a Pacific Lego block, it’s very useful for the new joiners, but it’s also very useful for the existing or for the residents because again, new products are coming out, new releases are coming out, new USPS are being generated, new ways of working.
Are being, uh, continuously improved, then they need to continuously be on top of their game. So with that being said, the same mnemonics that we use for training at the onboarding, we also leverage them for the existing sellers as well to making sure that both motions the new generation, the existing generation, they then they all benefit from the same product innovations and, and, you know, and new services that feeds I makes available to their clients and equip them with the right knowledge for them to be able to be.
Successful there. So the same way that we have a road to productivity of one year for new sellers, we also have a subset of those KPIs that we also try and understand if you are also getting good outcomes for the existing residents as well.
RR: I really like how you broke that down into kind of a very clear step by step.
It makes it feel more manageable and more actionable and like you can actually viably complete these steps to get to success. I think oftentimes these are very large, scary things to tackle. I think you broke it down very clearly, so thank you for that. So looking ahead, how do you envision evolving your enablement strategy to keep pace with your business’s growth, especially with, as we talked about, the ongoing adoption and interest in AI technology?
SV: That’s actually, it’s almost like it is a wider question because it almost touches us all roles, all functions, and actually the future as a whole, right? How do we stand up with the, with this evolution of ai, of uh, this digital revolution that’s, uh, probably, we see that only on the industrial area and we are now undergoing that one.
I think that honestly is, again, back into the core foundations of being very operationally nimble. I think that if I can summarize one in one sentence is actually how can we do more with less? How can we make sure that almost like we double with triple, we increase in one order of magnitude, what we can do with the same capacity?
That we have today, or with a minor incremental gain. The reason why I am so curious about the, for instance, the new capabilities that Highspot has and whatnot is, as we know, the trust, but verify is actually a very nice to say, very hard to do. Because the verification process, typically we need to rely many times on the managers.
The managers, they are accumulating responsibilities because they have a team to manage, they have outcomes to produce, uh, and to generate. And how can actually enablement can take away some of their burden, some of their load and be able to actually to ensure, you know what? How can we actually make more or do more to be able to equip new sellers and new revenue and new feedzai to be very, very well enabled, very well trained, so that can we maximize the chances of being incredibly successful at Feedzai?
And that can be probably just ly speaking. For instance, one of the capabilities where I’m really eager to look forward to is the review of the submissions. How can AI actually auto review certain submissions, gives insights even without an enablement persona to be able to give them. It’s actually me as a seller.
That I’ve just uploaded a feeds I pitch or a solution pitch. How can AI help me to give the insights that I need for me to continuously improve without relying continuously on my manager to do that feedback? Right? How can we enable that happen? How can we bring more self-sufficiency to sellers so that they can.
Create their own learning path, and that is actually the path of scaling. That is actually the path of scaling, is, if you think about it, how can we actually grow tenfold without growing linearly? How can we actually do that without requiring 10 times additional people? That is what I think that AI will be able to give us.
It’ll be able to scale our responsibilities and our outcomes without the need of us, having 10 times more people or 20 times more people, right? How can we do more high impact activities and leveraging AI to do all of those other things?
RR: Those are certainly the questions that I think most companies are asking of how can we do more with less?
How can we maximize our impact? And I wish you and Feezai all the best in answering them as we’re all figuring it out. But that’s it for us. I wanna say thank you so much for joining us today. It has been a fantastic conversation and I really can’t wait to share it with our audience.
SV: Thank you so much. Was a pleasure.
RR: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Win-Win podcast. Be sure to tune in next time for more insights on how you can maximize enablement success with Highspot.
