This session titled, “Consensus Case Study | Implementation and Rollout: Lessons Learned” featured speakers from Highland who oversaw the rollout of Consensus to over 450 users. The session focused on the company’s experiences and lessons learned during the implementation process, including the importance of platform ownership, sales leadership buy-in, and providing ongoing training and education. The speakers also discussed the success of their demo boards and how they improved stakeholder discovery rates and helped close deals more efficiently. Additionally, they emphasized the value of providing feedback, attending in-person events, and joining the growing community on Discord.
- 00:00:00 The moderator introduces the session which is a case study for implementation and rollout of the Consensus platform. The session features Catherine Wilkins and Melissa Kellenberger from Highland, who oversee 450 users in the Consensus platform. The moderator encourages participation and questions from attendees, and also mentions the opportunity to donate to the company’s humanitarian organizations and join the growing community on Discord. The session will focus on the speakers’ experiences and lessons learned during the rollout of the consensus platform at Highland.
- 00:05:00 Catherine Wilkins and Melissa Kellenberger, representing Highland, introduce the company and the challenges they faced with their repetitive demos, little insight into buyer engagement, and the difficulty of scaling their presales team. Highland required Salesforce integration, the ability for buyers to self-educate, and a frictionless buying experience. The rollout timeline from June 2021 to October 2022 is detailed, including initial training, increasing the demo library, and successfully rolling out to over 450 users. Highland reports on their consensus numbers, which show a successful rollout and a positive impact on engagement and sales.
- 00:10:00 Catherine Wilkins and Melissa Kellenberger discuss the success of their rollout and implementation of Consensus, including exceeding their KPIs and discovering new stakeholders. They also highlight the various tools they created to support their teams, such as an internal Highland page and a Microsoft Teams chat. The speaker also discusses the importance of ongoing training and education, as well as the lessons they learned throughout the process, such as the timing of their rollout and the need for more emphasis on certain integrations. The speaker also discusses the process they created for leaders to review and rate demo content, and how they use the feedback to improve the quality of the content.
- 00:15:00 Catherine Wilkins and Melissa Kellenberger discuss the lessons learned during the implementation and rollout of the Consensus platform. The speaker highlights the importance of platform ownership and sales leadership buy-in for successful adoption of the tool. They also discuss the need for a personalized demo video, categorized demo library, and a playbook with an end-to-end process. The speakers emphasize the significance of documenting team success stories to improve adoption and incorporating interns to enhance the changes and improvements. Finally, they talk about the content creation process and the importance of having a hit list of demos and creating forms for video creation requests.
- 00:20:00 Catherine Wilkins and Melissa Kellenberger discuss the creation parameters and best practices for teams in creating videos for Consensus. The teams were asked to record two versions of the video for each topic, one long and one short. The short video is an introduction and overview, while the long video is a clear and concise demonstration of the features. They also created a template for storyboarding that is available for guidance and highlights the features of the long and short videos. Additionally, the speakers emphasize the importance of not using customer-specific demos and content and scrubbing demo data to adhere to customer data handling policies. The speakers also highlight the success they’ve had in creating demo boards within the platform.
- 00:25:00 Catherine Wilkins and Melissa Kellenberger discuss the success of their demo boards using Consensus, including an increase in demo creation, demo board views and stakeholder discovery rates. They also highlight the 10 most commonly sent demos and the amount of time and effort saved by using this platform. The presenters then provide specific success stories from their account executives, showcasing how Consensus helped them win deals and strengthen relationships with customers. These stories highlight the benefits of providing consistent messaging and the ability for customers to refer back to demo videos at their own convenience.
- 00:30:00 Catherine Wilkins and Melissa Kellenberger share some success stories of using Consensus demo boards to close deals more efficiently. One example involves a lead who was quickly disinterested in the platform after viewing the demo board, allowing the account executive to focus on other opportunities. Another success story involves a stalled deal with a Healthcare customer that was revived after sending the demo board to all stakeholders, ultimately leading to a quick close. However, the speakers admit they did not have any spiffs for incentivizing salespeople to use the tool or create content. As a takeaway, the speakers suggest focusing on tasks that are burdensome for the team and encouraging them to complete those first to free up time for more customized demos. There was little pushback from salespeople or leaders during the implementation of Consensus.
- 00:35:00 Catherine Wilkins and Melissa Kellenberger discuss the importance of having a point person to manage the program and how finding champions early on can help with immediate successes and propel people to use the system. They also mention the significance of creating testimonials and sharing success stories to influence and drive adoption. They touch upon the Snap tool and how it can be used to record a quick walkthrough to ensure the message isn’t diluted and to uncover new stakeholders. Additionally, they talk about the viewing Telemetry and how to utilize repeat views to tailor further conversations and customize demonstrations for prospects.
- 00:40:00 Catherine Wilkins and Melissa Kellenberger discuss the value of repeat views in driving sales. They note that having a demo board that can be repeatedly viewed saves time for presales teams and enables them to focus on other tasks, such as creating more customized demos. Additionally, the repeat views help to ensure consistency in messaging across different stakeholders and reduce the risk of messages getting lost or diluted. The speakers also emphasize the importance of scripting demos to highlight value propositions and summarize them to enhance the viewer’s understanding. Finally, they touch on the value of live refresher sessions for account executives to increase their usage of the tool.
- 00:45:00 Catherine Wilkins and Melissa Kellenberger discuss the importance of showcasing small wins and success stories to encourage sales reps to adopt new technologies. The moderator compliments Catherine and Melissa for quickly responding with success stories when introduced to two account Executives from Highland software who were not part of the initial pilot group. They also talk about the time it takes to create a consensus demo, stating that the building process within consensus is the easiest part, taking about 10 to 20 minutes, while recording a two to five-minute video takes around 15 minutes as the speaker is a bit of a perfectionist. The hardest part is outlining the demo and thinking about what to include in it.
- 00:50:00 Catherine Wilkins and Melissa Kellenberger discuss the value of authenticity and informality in video content for software demonstrations. They agreed that less produced videos, similar to those found on YouTube, are often more effective than higher produced ones, as they help build credibility and trust with customers. It was noted that authentic content that speaks from the heart and is backed up with knowledge and passion can really resonate with prospects and help position the presenter as a trusted advisor. The speakers also reminded attendees of the importance of providing feedback for the event, as well as the possibility of attending DEMOFESTx events in person.
- 00:55:00 The moderator encourages viewers to attend upcoming in-person DEMOFESTx events and visit the expo hall to support Premier Partners. They also mention upcoming sessions and allowing viewers to navigate to different tracks and sessions, thanking Melissa and Catherine for sharing their expertise. The events have been so popular that they have had to expand to larger venues, and the speaker encourages viewers to pay close attention to announcements and join the Discord community.
