Everyone Makes Pipeline (EMP) aims to drive meaningful pipeline growth and serve as the bridge between sales and marketing at technology company Veeam Software. Driving the program was the need to analyze the way sellers use call blocks to drive pipeline and to encapsulate how they successfully incorporate marketing campaigns and enablement resources into those call blocks in ways that boost their sales skills and nurture opportunities.
So rather than just giving sellers a marketing campaign and telling them to call about it, EMP provides the tools and instructions that help sellers know when to call, how to talk about the campaign, and why it’s important.
Program Details
Veeam’s Sales Acceleration teams designed and led the program in partnership with key executive stakeholders and subject matter experts across the business to create a comprehensive strategy with emphasis on training/enablement, performance support, sales coaching, utilization of resources, sales tools, and marketing campaign insights. The VP of Sales Acceleration coordinates with the chief revenue officer and CEO on the strategic direction and topic quarterly. Then the VP of Product Marketing, members of the Demand Generation teams, and Product Marketing managers collaborate with Sales Acceleration team members for identification of content, enablement resources, and marketing campaigns.
The scope of this program is global, including all sales, channel, and sales development representative (SDR) roles; federal (AMER); and management.
The program enables sellers to apply marketing programs more effectively and gives marketers more ROI on their campaigns because the sellers are using the assets and receiving directed microlearning and enablement on the use of sales scenario cards, pitch decks, and more. Sellers participate in microlearning and Conversation Strategy enablement sessions leading up to EMP day. They are provided both internal and customer-facing documentation to use as needed. Sellers participate in EMP day with calls around a specific topic (based on product release or industry/customer needs) and sales behaviors. Opportunities are tracked in Salesforce based on set criteria and tags.
This is the first time Veeam implemented an enablement and call blitz program on the same day per month across the globe. This meant the company spanned and covered 24 hours of continuous EMP implementation and value-based conversations across every time zone and reaching every sales team member at Veeam.
Sellers receive ongoing coaching and feedback in one-on-one meetings with their managers. Based on historical data and success, the geo Sales Acceleration teams also work to identify areas of opportunity and host “power tool” sessions in which they provide specific feedback and guidance to sellers on a variety of topics that can help boost their achievement in EMP days. Such topics include objection handling, value proposition, questioning strategy, and goal identification needs.
Results
Veeam achieved its goal of a 10-plus percent pipeline generation increase year-over-year as a result of the AMER EMP Program.
