Enablement Entrepreneur & Consultant | Haas MBA | LinkedIn + Asana Alum | Husband and Dad
Kickoffs are a gauntlet for enablement.??Intense planning, complex logistics, and the impossible task of pulling through meaningful learning to an audience that stayed out until last call the night before.? ?Over the past several weeks, Hector Hernandez and I have been lucky to be a part of HubSpot’s ‘Flywheel Kickoff’, where Morgan Jacobson and the HubSpot Enablement team put on a masterclass balancing skill development and inspiration into three massive in-person events (over 5000 attendees total).?Here's what they did so well: Activity driven programming and gamification kept everyone engaged:?? - Instead of traditional training, HubSpot ran a full day Simulation featuring a series of role plays modeling different parts of the customer journey.?Huge kudos to the HubSpot enablement squad, especially ??Diana Zalaquett and Alec Harrises, for seamlessly executing a complex Simulation at massive scale. Kickoff content was inclusive of all GTM roles, not just sales:?? - HubSpot has a specialized GTM team, with different roles that own unique parts of the customer lifecycle (Sales, Pre-Sales, CSM, BDR, Support, Partner).??Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, HubSpot customized the Simulation for each role, including unique role play scenarios and materials. Relevance is the key to a successful Simulation, and the attention to detail and expertise from Joe Bourke Rebecca Wolf, PMP? Natalie Ortiz Britney Talty took the event to the next level. Multifaceted senior leadership presence:?? - In addition to delivering key notes, HubSpot’s senior leaders took hands on roles across the enablement potions of the event as well.??For example: Chief Customer Officer Rob Giglio ran a large section of the Manager workshop, and HubSpot’s CEO Yamini Rangan cleared her calendar to participate in the Simulation where she played the role of customer and provided invaluable feedback.??This level of leadership participation cascaded down and drove engagement. Empowered managers to deliver actionable (yet simple) coaching and feedback: - The team designed an entire parallel workshop on coaching and feedback, equipping managers with the tools to guide debrief conversations that ensured participants walked away with tangible, sticky insights to impact their long term development. Incredible work by Sam Lewis bringing this to life. ?????? Next level focus on the customer:? - HubSpot brought in its Marketing and Revenue Operations teams to play the role of the customer during the role plays. This not only made the Simulation more realistic and allowed the GTM Managers the opportunity to focus solely on coaching, but it also provided HubSpot’s cross-functional teams a unique opportunity to gain empathy through stepping into the shoes of the customer.??Special call out to Alison Elworthy and Kipp Bodnar for their vision and leadership prioritizing this with their teams. Kudos to HubSpot for a highly evolved approach to kickoff that we can all learn from!