In February, our customer-facing teams and key internal partners headed to Atlanta, Georgia, home of the newest Collibra regional HQ, for our annual Field Kickoff. The Field Team is comprised of sales, customer success, enablement, support, and education, spread across the globe. The 3-day event was filled with executive and customer keynotes, panels, track sessions and a motivational speech from Olympic Champion, Summer Sanders. While kickoffs are not unique to Collibra, this year’s event included four distinctive elements that added value and engagement and provided key takeaways.
1. Recognition builds motivation: We hosted our annual Field awards ceremony on the 50-yard line of the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, dubbing it “Field on the Field.” Top performers across the regions were recognized for their excellence based on metrics like Customer Success MVP and Collibra values like Top Communicator.
Key takeaway: Wins stack. Celebrate your victories and successes, they always lead to the next win.
2. Learning yields momentum: Generally, kickoffs are loaded with presentations and an overwhelming amount of information. Based on recommendations from Collibrians across the org, the Enablement Team worked to create a more interactive experience with real-time learning. For the first time, a certification element was introduced, where reps were tasked with pitching what they had learned to a mixed group of peers and then graded based on their performance. At close, the certification pass rate was at 98%, and those who needed a bit more guidance were coached individually and achieved certification!
Key Takeaway: Learn by doing. Embrace a hands-on approach with sales training and enablement, and team members will more easily adopt and adapt.
3. Collaboration is empowering: When teams are segmented by region and tenure, it’s not always easy to be on the same page. Field Kickoff brought Collibrians from all over the world and created the opportunity to collaborate across various perspectives and experiences. Teams from APAC provided input to teams from North America regarding their overall approach, and sales development teams from North America acquired valuable feedback from the experiences of EMEA senior leadership. The opportunity for collaboration prompted real-time reflection, awareness and learning that wasn’t specific to just SaaS or Data Intelligence, but was relevant to sales growth overall.
Key takeaway: Leverage internal resources. Each team is unique and sharing individual experiences can benefit colleagues across the org.
4. Push the flywheel together: As part of his opening keynote, Cofounder and CEO, Felix Van de Maele stated, “we are all pushing this flywheel together.” To be successful, everyone must work side by side, not top down, and that it’s the small repeatable pushes that drive the momentum, not just one big moment.
Key takeaway: Lead by example. Leaders must be in the trenches to help push the wheel forward by participating in training, giving feedback and investing time.
FKO is just one aspect of the sales strategy at Collibra. All new hires experience a week of hands-on training and regional teams meet regularly throughout the year.
The team is led by CRO, Philip Carty, and CCO, Madan Gadde. To satisfy the growing demand for data insights and Data Intelligence, Collibra’s Field Team is growing quickly across the globe. To learn more about the Field opportunities at Collibra, click here.
