Challenges• Coaching was inconsistent among managers

and was not streamlined or well-defined• Existing LMS lacked dynamic, engaging and

personalized content, holding back learning and knowledge acquisition and impacting reps’ performance

• Sales managers had no way to measure improvement in reps’ skills and knowledge over time

About Splunk• Splunk is the world’s first Data-to-

Everything Platform designed to remove the barriers between data and action so innovators in IT, security, DevOps and more can gain clarity, elevate discussions and accelerate progress.

• Splunk employs more than 6,000 employees in 27 offices worldwide.

Solution• Engage learners with dynamic, customized

and relevant content delivered through microlearning, social and gamified training

• Leverage metrics to track competencies and measure reps’ progress over time

Impact• Culture of coaching across the company,

underpinned by Splunk-branded, easy-to-use technology

• Greater insight into knowledge and skills gaps so managers can pinpoint and personalize coaching experience and track reps’ progress

• Gains in sales productivity due to increased enablement engagement among employees and reps’ improvements in soft and hard sales skills

• Improved new-hire training process

By 2019, Splunk had determined that its training program, hosted solely by an LMS that was populated by the Splunkcontent team, was no longer meeting the company’s needs. Specifically, sales training consisted of a library of e-learning courses that were primarily video-based modules. Every new hire leveraged the same content in their on-boarding process, regardless of their skill level. And coaching — a cornerstone in the development and training of sales reps —was inconsistent among Splunk sales managers and not at all streamlined or well-defined. Splunk determined that all this could be remedied by creating a culture of coaching at the company, underpinned by smart investment in enablement technology.

After a rigorous vendor evaluation process, MindTickleemerged as the superior option to complement Splunk’sexisting LMS and help Splunk achieve its goal. “MindTickle was attractive to us because it’s easy to use for both reps and sales managers,” said Krishna Saw, senior systems manager, enablement & content platforms at Splunk. “In addition, it incorporates learning with activities to reinforce new messaging, skills and information. MindTickle also allows managers to track metrics showing reps’ progress in mastering competencies over time.”

The journey toward creating a culture of coaching begins

Greater insight into knowledge and skills gaps and tracking a

rep’s progress

Gains in sales productivity due to

increased enablement engagement

Splunk FostersCultureofCoachingWith MindTickle

CASE STUDY

With MindTickle as Splunk Coach’s engine, Splunk could now begin to take action on its main enablement objectives, including increasing sales rep productivity and overall revenue impact, and creating more engaging and personalized learning journeys. One way to accomplish this goal was tobring sales leaders and productivity managers into reps’ enablement journeys by opening up the training process to them and empowering them to develop their own coaching sessions and content.

“We felt it was important for our managers to be able to develop their own coaching sessions and other training activities,” said Cox. “MindTickle empowers managers to do this, and in doing so, they create their own content faster and personalize it to fit the specific needs of their reps. This also frees up our content team to work on other tasks.”

Splunk’s “Stand & Deliver” program is also a key part of its newfound culture of coaching. The program’s goal is to ensure reps are staying on message and delivering the most compelling presentations to customers and prospects. Reps review a given scenario, messaging and scoring rubric; they record themselves directly within Splunk Coach; and a manager reviews against the scoring rubric and provides feedback. This feedback is then used to inform coaching plans for each rep.

Splunk Coach tackles enablement objectives

Probably most importantly, MindTickle could provide a foundation for a coaching culture at Splunk with its more streamlined, consistent and data-driven approach to coaching.

“MindTickle goes beyond the traditional LMS in many ways,” continued Saw. “When a rep completes a course in MindTickle, it’s bundled together with a Mission [recorded role play]. Managers are able to leverage this to see how much of the learning has been applied, and they can give feedback and coaching customized to the individual rep. This ‘execution of action’ with a traditional LMS vs. learning with MindTickle is quite unique.”

Because Splunk’s corporate branding is very important to the company, MindTickle would be delivered through “Splunk Coach” — essentially, the MindTickle Sales Readiness platform branded with Splunk’s “Buttercup” mascot and bright-pink colors.

“All the thumbnails and graphics throughout Splunk Coach are right on brand to keep everything consistent and engaging for our employees, whether they’re new hires going through our three-month onboarding process or a veteran Splunk employee doing ongoing learning,” said Sally Cox, instructional designer, global field enablement team at Splunk.

Now, Splunk’s enablement team can gauge how Splunk Coach is resonating by regularly gathering metrics and reporting back to stakeholders to ensure enablement is delivering what was originally intended. So far, SplunkCoach’s metrics have proved its worth.

“Our Stand & Deliver program, for example, has been a real success, with 91% of non-sales employees and 96% of sales reps having completed it,” said Saw.

Aside from MindTickle’s heavy lifting of the tech side, Splunk Coach’s success can also partly be attributed to the company’s well-thought-out initial plan. “We began all of this with a defined governance model and operational processes, executive buy-in and champions across the company, metrics to map back to, and a plan to ensure adoption would be seamless,” said Saw. “Without taking these initial steps — and, of course, MindTickle powering Splunk Coach — Splunk wouldn’t have been able to attain a culture of coaching.”

Metrics tell the readiness success story

mindtickle.com | US: +1 (800) 231-5578 | APAC: +91.83.7883.7118 | EMEA: +44.20.8103.5545 | sales@mindtickle.com

About MindTickleMindTickle provides a comprehensive, data-driven solution for sales readiness and enablement that fuels revenue growth and brand affinity. Its purpose-built applications, proven methodologies, and best practices are designed to drive effective sales onboarding and ongoing readiness. With MindTickle, company leaders and sellers can continually assess, diagnose and develop the knowledge, skills, and behaviors required to effectively engage customers and drive growth. Companies across a wide range of industries use MindTickle's innovative capabilities for on-demand, online training, bite-sized mobile updates, gamification-based learning, coaching and role-play to ensure world-class sales performance. MindTickle is a global, privately-held company headquartered in San Francisco, CA.

Similarly, Splunk’s productivity managers developed “Cloud Heroes,” a course within Splunk Coach that helps reps learn how to formulate a positioning pitch. After watching a sample pitch and a short course, reps can record a pitch on their own directly within Splunk Coach, submit it to their managers and receive detailed feedback. The entire process conveniently takes place within Splunk Coach.

Assessments are also a big part of Splunk Coach. “We use coaching sessions to build a feedback model between our managers and our reps. The reps are coached by the managers, who can then better assess reps’ skills in order to prescribe extra studies or remediation in case they need improvement,” said Saw. “This allows for a more personalized — and therefore, more effective — learning journey for each rep.”

Another objective Splunk put into motion with Splunk Coach was to increase engagement among learners. To that end, Splunk complemented the company’s existing video-based learning library with Missions, Tasks and other engaging MindTickle activities (such as gamified learning) that can be assigned in more consumable pieces so reps can learn on their own schedule.