How SS&C Intralinks Increased Training Completion by 75%

As the team at financial services tech company SS&C Intralinks understands, conquering change management is crucial in enabling and empowering a strong sales force. Being agile in today’s changing market is something that only 34% of organizations can successfully navigate.

When companies can evolve their training to be more dynamic and engaging, it helps their sales force become more agile in the face of an ever-changing future. After implementing Highspot’s unified platform, SS&C Intralinks achieved 100% adoption of training and coaching programs company-wide, making it easier for their enablement team to offer digestible, useful training and coaching customized to the exact needs of their salespeople. This practical knowledge is essential in helping SS&C Intralinks sellers handle the ever-changing sales landscape without compromising buyers’ needs.

Seeking a Unified and Practical Sales Training Model

Before implementing Highspot, SS&C Intralinks lacked a unified system where they could not only organize sales content and training materials, but deliver them in a dynamic way that unlocked scalability. With training taking place in static, one-time virtual sessions and sales content managed in a separate system, the enablement team had no way to track how reps were engaging with enablement programs or monitor what was working.

For example, training sessions often took place live over WebEx, with little oversight over which reps were in attendance. And if reps could not attend, there was no way to ensure they watched the session recording. This training method also lacked hands-on and practical components, leaving salespeople to digest and apply the knowledge they learned on their own time. “Delivering lessons and courses is just not enough,” explained Vincent Drapeau, director of sales training at SS&C Intralinks. “We have to think about that ecosystem of all of the components of your learning based on your learning objective. Do you use one hour of your sales reps’ time to tell them what to learn, or do you actually use that time to make them practice in small groups?”

Intralinks decided to revitalize its training strategy to embed training into the culture of the sales team and connect the dots between learning, action, and outcomes.

Systematic Training Improves Rep Engagement

After implementing Highspot, Intralinks was able to centralize its enablement programs in a way that simplified the sales rep experience by effectively equipping, training, and coaching them. “Highspot provides one single platform where the same user interface that’s used for sales learning is used to find and share content with customers — and it’s also the same practice environment where sellers learn how to pitch and deliver that content effectively,” shared Drapeau.

With all training and content in the same platform, Drapeau and his team were able to more easily weave enablement programs into existing rep workflows, helping to drive adoption.

To further drive rep adoption and engagement, Drapeau and his team also partner with frontline sales managers to ensure they have access to actionable insights. “Helping the managers to track and ensure completion really helps ensure great immersion of training,” explains Drapeau. In addition to collaborating with sales managers to drive training adoption, Drapeau and the team work closely with subject matter experts (SMEs) and sales leaders to improve the quality and focus of training, ensuring sellers have the right domain knowledge and expertise to deepen their relationships with buyers.

A Dynamic Learning Ecosystem Facilitates a Wider Vision for Enablement

For the Intralinks team, creating a dynamic learning ecosystem that goes beyond static training sessions has been critical in reinforcing the value of their training programs. While one-time events can be easily forgotten, Drapeau and his team have found that an ongoing approach to learning drives behavior change at scale. Leveraging a unified enablement solution to create this ecosystem has helped the team.

Since implementing Highspot’s unified platform, Intralinks has boosted training completion by 75%, leading to 100% adoption of training and coaching programs company-wide. With a streamlined approach to enablement that is interconnected to sellers’ workflows from the start, Intralinks has also improved content efficiency by 90%, helping to drive overall sales productivity.