Company taps sales enablement leader to engage partners, provide incentives, and offer consistent content across the entire direct and channel sales ecosystem

Seismic, the recognized leader in sales and marketing enablement, announced that Rackspace will use its sales and partner enablement platform to engage with and incentivize their partners through a newly updated Rackspace Partner Portal that employs gamification. Rackspace will use Seismic to provide partners with the same training materials and marketing content that direct sellers have access to, ensuring they’re providing consistent content and messaging across the entire sales ecosystem.

According to research from CGS, 54 percent of companies report that partner enablement strategies increase sales and 72 percent believe it also increases market penetration. As the benefits of channel enablement become more apparent, Seismic is uniquely positioned to help organizations like Rackspace approach channel engagements differently, and in a way that drives more value for the partner community.

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Beyond giving access to training and marketing content, Rackspace has introduced gamification as part of their partner program by granting points to partners for each asset they download through the platform. Assets are tiered in terms of importance, and channel partners can gain more points for downloading and using high-priority assets or watching self-training videos. Partners can collect points to work toward obtaining certain certifications or can be awarded with Rackspace swag.

“Prior to using Seismic, our training, sales and marketing content was delivered to our partner community through a myriad of different tools,” said Lisa McLin, vice president of alliances and channel chief at Rackspace. “The process of ensuring that everyone had the right assets was not easy – we would have to email partners individually, which was laborious and prone to human error. Now, we upload all our assets directly into Seismic, which makes it easy for our direct sales team and channel community to obtain the materials they need to engage with prospects, from one single source of truth. Adding gamification to the program has also motivated partners to engage with and use the content we’ve produced.”

With access to the same content and training materials, Seismic makes it easy for both Rackspace’s direct sellers and channel partners to deliver a consistent message and customer experience. Further, Rackspace can now effectively measure which content is being used most often, and can start to track which components of their partner program are making an impact on the team’s ability to close more deals.

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“A strong channel enablement strategy is a critical component to any successful partner program,” said Doug Winter, CEO and co-founder of Seismic. “Customers like Rackspace are showing the industry that it’s time to flip traditional approaches to channel enablement on its head. New strategies like gamification provide organizations with a fun way to engage partners, and when it’s supported with intelligent sales enablement technology like Seismic’s, they can track the success of the program and determine whether they need to pivot their approach, produce new assets, or offer added support to particular partners. The partner community is a powerful extension of a company’s direct sales team, and it’s exciting to see leaders like Rackspace adopt and set the tone for best practices in this area.”

McLin adds, “The initial feedback from our partner community has been stellar so far. Partners love the gamification aspect of the program, and are excited to earn swag, rewards and recognition for their hard work. It’s been great to see the warm reception and we’re looking forward to continuing to refine and improve the way we work with both our partners and sellers. We have big plans to scale the program with Seismic – this is just the beginning.”

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