According to a study from Gallup, training can improve a company’s productivity by 17% and profitability by 21% when offered to engaged employees. So how can you train and coach your reps to keep them engaged and help them hit their quotas?
Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Win Win podcast. I am your host, Shawnna Sumaoang. Join us as we dive into changing trends in the workplace and how to navigate them successfully.
Here to discuss this is James Petkovski, the director of enablement technology at MetLife. Thank you for joining us, James. I’d love for you to tell us about yourself, your background, and your role.
James Petkovski: Thank you for having me. I’m really excited to be here. And a little bit of a background on me and my role, so I was born and raised in New Jersey, entire family is there, I ended up venturing off to Arizona for college, trying to really experience life on my own, met my beautiful wife there, and then after about 10 years, we relocated back to New Jersey for a little where we had our daughter and I ultimately got my start at MetLife and started my career. At MetLife, I’m providing support for our sales teams in regards to their state licensing and FINRA registration.
And I was in that role for a little over a year before I transitioned into sales enablement. Progressed through the enablement role from a consultant to a manager, and now to a director where I currently oversee the technology for our market enablement organization and can’t be happier. Enablement was one of those things I attended an ATD conference and was like, wow, so much sales enablement. And it just struck a chord. And I was like, I’m home. This is exactly what I want to be in.
SS: It really is a career calling, I think, for the right folks, so I’m glad that it pulled you in, James. And, you know, as you mentioned, you have a wealth of experience as a sales enablement leader and as a technical analyst at MetLife.
You walked us through your journey a bit into enablement. I’d love to understand how does your analytical background influence your enablement strategy?
JP: So, always had a passion for the creative arts and One of the awesome parts of enablement is being able to blend both of those from that business analytical side with the creative side.
And that really helped me excel in my role in enablement as I was able to solve the business needs with creativity, whether that was developing a learning path, creating videos, podcasts, e-learnings, like really thinking outside the box when it came to how are we going to deliver this in a fun and interesting way.
And pulling into my analytical nature, some say I’m crazy, right? But my enjoyment in looking at data really helped me to think through and deliver the best strategy based on, you know, what were we needing? How can we take advantage from data from past learnings, like looking at trends on how our, you know, sales and service reps were engaging with, you know, that format that we provided?
Did it, was it effective? So data really helped me tell the story and direct where we needed to go to make sure we’re putting that best learning forward.
SS: I love that. I love that you’re applying both that creativity and that analytical component to it as well. It’s both art and science, I guess you could say.
Now at MetLife, you’re responsible for developing and managing the training programs. What did training look like at your organization before you started to leverage Highspot and how has it evolved since then?
JP: I think some aspects are similar, right? Before and after, we still do e-learnings. We still do videos, webinars, podcasts, the whole kind of learning gamut.
I think the real difference came from, previously was a lot of manual work, from pulling reports from various platforms to derive. How effective was the learning? Was it attended? Excel trackers to guide a user through their quote on quote learning pathway. There was just a lot that was done manually, which took time, right?
It took resources, and capacity. And this applied to the reps taking those programs as well, having to email their weekly trackers and take all their activities in different systems. So they were bouncing around. I just thought really put that experience together in providing that one-stop shop area for everything.
So all those learning activities were all done and access right from the Highspot platform. So it really made that training journey truly about learning and not about how do I need to complete this and what system was I doing it in and kind of the nuances of that. And not only did it simplify the journey for the learner, but also like on the admin side, allowed us to capture that needed data, to be able to quickly look at completion statuses and see, Hey, where were opportunities, right? Like how I think having that quick insight allowed us to adapt quicker.
SS: I love that. I love that. I want to circle back to that, but you had mentioned something earlier about all of the variety of learning content, including videos, simulations, and I should have known you had podcasts in there because you were a pro and you hopped on this podcast line already. But in your view, what are some of the key building blocks for effective training content? I
JP: I think the biggest key is understanding each training is unique and you really need to come at it from that angle.
What are you trying to get across to the audience? Like how quickly do you need to get that message across? And is it more in-the-moment learning or is it a big announcement that was changing the way people were? I think videos really allowed us to get information across quickly. It made things a little bit more bite-sized where we could also include best practices with it, which best practices really resonated.
Podcasts allowed for that more conversational, to dive a little bit more into some of the nuances that just sometimes don’t come across in like maybe a direct webinar. And then e-learning and simulations allowed that. You know, hands-on experience and gave a little more interactivity and engagement to some longer form training.
And I think the nice thing with the e-learnings and simulations is when you have systems that you’re training on, like being able to have a user get in there, click through some things like, hey, here’s what this area does. Those simulations help in that fail proof environment. And one thing I’ll share is.
I don’t feel like a training needs to be one or another, right? Like I think series played a big part in what we do. And that could be starting with a quick introduction video, getting people grounded in a topic, then a webinar to really talk about the meat and potatoes. And then, you know, finally a podcast to wrap it up with some of those conversational nuances.
So I would say like just each training come at it from a fresh angle. Thinking through what needs to be done and don’t be afraid to experiment and take that longer form, maybe like shorter tidbits, as opposed to just kind of, Hey, we’re just doing this, right? I think we have a lot of technology at our fingertips.
SS: I love that. So going back to what you were saying, you really are at MetLife fostering a culture of continuous learning amongst your sales teams. I’d Love to understand how you, you foster that and you motivate them to enhance their skills and knowledge over time.
JP: So I think having Highspot be that one stop shop really allows us to blend in with that continuous learning, right?
Like having the resources all on the Highspot platform allows reps once they’re out of, say for example, like a new hire program or an academy program. They know that that content is still there in Highspot and they know how to locate that. So they’re getting accustomed to that being able to leverage the managed content feature within various other content in Highspot allows us to continue that training when needed mindset where for rep pulls up a certain marketing content, it’s, hey, have you taken this training or, hey, have you reviewed these speaking points? So being able to meet the reps where they are, whether they know they need it or not, I think is really how you kind of foster that continuing education is getting them set up with that structured program, having an area where they have access to continuing education on bite-sized topics. And then,
Lastly, make sure that you’re kind of connecting that content with the past trainings that have been done.
SS: I love that, that continuous learning journey for the folks that are in there. And you have achieved an amazing adoption of active learners and Highspot. I think you guys saw a 38 percent increase in active learners recently. How do you ensure reps consistently engage with and adopt your training programs?
JP: So I attribute that to really the amazing work our training team do in our market enablement organization and by giving them a stellar, concise pathway, the reps that are, you know, that they know will walk them through the journey and get them to the finish line, building that rapport with not only the learners, but managers as well, like giving them that confidence that we got you, right?
We got, we got them, right? Like for managers, we’re going to make sure they’re prepared with the knowledge. That’s part of those learning pathways is that managers also get that insight into how their reps are performing through it all as well. So they can keep in touch and really align with those opportunity areas that I was speaking a little bit about how on an admin backend side, like being able to quickly look at those analytics, it really allows you to tailor, hey, how do I focus my energy and efforts?
SS: I love that. Now, going back to your analytics background, when you’re evaluating the success of your training initiatives and the overall sales readiness of the team, how do you leverage data to optimize these programs?
JP: So we look at a lot of items and I would say it’s kind of a never-ending review on effectiveness.
It’s taken us a while and we continue to this day, to grow in our understanding of what to do and how do we change and make things better. You know, from the time that rep starts to well after how have they been performing months, years after a training program, after taking it, looking only data and analytics, but gathering feedback too, is there anything we could have changed to prepare you better? Feedback is king, good or bad, I think, never be afraid of it.
SS: I love that. And since implementing Highspot, what are maybe some of the business results that you’ve achieved and do you have any wins you can share?
JP: Yeah, so I think from an admin side, the time to build pathways, courses, lessons has drastically decreased, you know, we have saved days with this as everything is really simple to create and previously where, you know, my team would have a large hand in building out the courses throughout the year after we set up the initial framework and templates.
We have really been able to pass that down to some of our other devoted training teams within our market enablement to continue that process. And the process is straightforward that, you know, we just provide that guidance, but they’re the ones adding in that new content for the program. So this saves them time as well.
Saves us time really allows us to really put our efforts toward guiding the reps. And then also thinking, hey, how do we innovate and push the boundary next time. And then from a ramp up timeframe, we’ve been really able to give reps not only a quicker timeframe to get ready for their role, but also get them familiar with the platform that they will be using day in and day out with Highspot.
This helps with that easy transition, right? When they go to their full-time role, the dedicated courses and pathways with everything captured in one spot really allow them to get their learning done. And focus on the day to day work and shadowing afterwards.
SS: I love that. And I have to say another win I saw was that you shared on LinkedIn that MetLife was named to Fortune’s world best workplaces list. And from an enablement leadership perspective, how do your training programs help cultivate a strong and healthy sales culture?
JP: Yeah, so we have amazing onboarding and continuing education training teams and programs. I think having a great team definitely helps. I think the best part that we do is really setting up a rep with a fresh start.
It’s not muddy. It’s direct. It gives not only reps what they need, but managers too. Becoming a leader, knowing that from the leadership side that my reps are being taken care of, and I don’t have to do all this work myself. And I have, you know, this amazing team around me. It really makes the process of preparing reps to do what they’ve been really brought here to do, and that is to achieve their best.
So being able to get everyone on that same starting ground, just set them up for success and drives us to that healthy culture. I recently just had a new hire come on board my team and. Just the way we onboard them and get them all set up. It was nice because I didn’t have that much pressure on me.
So it really allowed me to know that they were in that trusted hand. So that is one of the things that I think sets in a healthy culture of the manager has that confidence. And then that rep also has that confidence as well, getting started.
SS: Amazing. Last question, James. To close, if you could give one piece of advice to someone looking to enhance training within their teams, what would it be?
JP: I would say don’t be afraid. Whether it’s of feedback, of change, of data. Use that to cultivate and adapt the world of training and technology is ever evolving and the beauty of the connection we have nowadays from forums and conferences and you know, the works we have so much education out there that don’t be afraid of it.
Take it one at a time. Don’t know how something will come across to your team? Implement a series, like have that be a portion of the learning. Maybe have a pilot group — pilot the idea with a certain team, see how it does, ask for feedback. Don’t be afraid and be bold.
SS: Fantastic advice. Thank you so much for joining us today. I appreciate your time.
JP: Thank you. Have a great day.
SS: To our audience, 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.
