Driving Pipeline Opportunities with Performance Enablement

About OwnBackup

OwnBackup is a leading SaaS data protection platform for some of the largest SaaS ecosystems in the world, including Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and ServiceNow. Through capabilities like data security, backup and recovery, archiving, and sandbox seeding, OwnBackup empowers thousands of organizations worldwide to manage and protect the mission-critical data that drives their business.

The Problem

In 2021, the company began searching for a performance enablement platform to guide their sales efforts.

As a Salesforce AppExchange partner, OwnBackup leverages Salesforce sellers, account executives, and solution engineers to recommend OwnBackup to their customers, requiring a full enablement cycle of:

• Foundational understanding with account executives
• Virtual meetings
• Account mapping sessions 
• Discovery calls with customers to generate new pipeline

They needed a tool that could encompass and enable this complex process, which requires knowledgeable, engaged, and motivated account executives. Such a solution should ideally excite and motivate sellers to work with them and help them stand out on the Salesforce AppExchange. All in all, the company was in search of robust technology that could:

• Enable a complicated sales cycle in a streamlined, easy-to-use manner
• Help them engage with more Salesforce personas
• Guide Salesforce teams in product knowledge and explanatory skills
• Surface OwnBackup solution at top-of-mind for the sales team 
• Drive more net pipeline opportunities
• Make learning fun and engaging for Salesforce employees

After a search, they decided to leverage Rallyware’s performance enablement platform for a trial balloon contest in 2021. They figured that the platform’s Learning & Development and Incentives & Recognition tools in particular could help them drive higher results for their contests – automating productivity for Salesforce account executives while making the process fun and appealing for them. 

The Solution

Leveraging the Platform

OwnBackup found Rallyware to be helpful in a variety of ways. Salesforce users could perform “lighter-touch” activities such as reviewing data sheets, watching videos, recording themselves giving a pitch – but could also engage in more outward-facing actions like scheduling meetings, promoting webinars, and distributing pieces of collateral. In short, OwnBackup could use the platform to force-multiply their efforts, incentivizing sellers to attain higher performance numbers. 

In part, this is due to the “friendly competition” that Rallyware’s Incentives & Promotions module helped promote, which encouraged Salesforce salespersons to work harder, more proactively and more efficiently. Such incentives in the past have included Inspirado travel passes and game systems. 

Evolving the OwnBackup Contest

After their initial sales contest proved promising, OwnBackup’s team decided to run a second contest. With the guidance of Rallyware’s Customer Success team, they developed a useful “Meeting” program, which makes it easy for OwnBackup to build relationships and share data sheets, product information, and account mappings with Salesforce account executives. Additionally, Rallyware helped Salesforce account executives become far more comfortable with conducting hands-on demo sessions of OwnBackup’s technology. 

OwnBackup has a great deal of experience in the Salesforce ecosystem, but also room to expand. As one of more than 5,000 apps on the Salesforce AppExchange, they were always looking for ways to stand out.

“Rallyware helps us knock down some of the walls and bring up a unique way of engaging with a partner. We don’t want them to say, ‘This guy is calling, oh no, he wants to sell his app!’ Rallyware brings us a unique way of engaging with a partner. We can share customer stories and videos that we might have had access to and make it fun; give the account executive a chance to win cool prizes.”

Jesse Peterson

Senior Salesforce Alliance Director for OwnBackup

Rallyware and Force Multiplication

In this light, Jesse cites the force multiplication effect that Rallyware fosters. The platform has helped them get access to more people faster, because those who sign up for the contest can choose their own adventure – Rallyware molds the user experience according to an individual’s self-defined goals. 

For instance, the winner of the contest in late spring was a public sector account executive for Salesforce covering the state of Arizona. Though skeptical at first when he scheduled a meeting with OwnBackup, he ended up making five referrals over the course of the contest. He recorded testimonial videos, intelligently prompted to do so by Rallyware – with the engaging content no doubt having helped him make those crucial referrals.

Other account executives made creative contributions to the contest, including recording raps about Rallyware. 

“They wanted that Playstation 5,” Mr. Peterson commented wryly, referring to one of the prizes offered through Rallyware’s Incentives & Recognition module. 

Favorite Features

OwnBackup loves Rallyware’s leaderboard, part of Incentives & Recognition. The leaderboard lists real-time sales progress for teams and encourages friendly competition, which has proven crucial in motivating sellers. They see how close they are to emerging victorious from a contest and work that much harder to land sales.

OwnBackup also likes how they can set up tasks in Rallyware and create separate flows and progressions. But they can also pivot on the fly, adding more tasks in flight, without skipping a beat.

From a marketing standpoint, they appreciate that they could add their own branding to make it look and feel like themselves. 

“It’s a very intuitive, user-friendly platform. We didn’t have to go looking for support articles, and the navigation made a lot of sense.”

Jesse Peterson

Senior Salesforce Alliance Director for OwnBackup

Results by the Numbers

For their second contest, OwnBackup netted ten (10) new opportunities for their pipeline, with an average deal size of over $380,000. They have added just under $2 million to their pipeline and $670,000 in revenue since launching Rallyware, which has exceeded their initial expectations. 

How?

“We got access to Salesforce account executives we wouldn’t normally have had access to. At the beginning of Covid, we weren’t able to go onsite to their offices, which is a huge part of being a Salesforce ISV (Independent Software Vendor) partner. But with Rallyware, we weren’t Powerpointing and Google-Meeting people to death! We were able to engage them in a different way. It resonated with Salesforce folks. We got a lot of good feedback, like: ‘I wish more partners did this type of thing.’”

Jesse Peterson

Senior Salesforce Alliance Director for OwnBackup

Facing the Future

OwnBackup is looking forward to using Rallyware to expand their alliance team to other venues: the system integrator consultant channel, the Microsoft Dynamics channel, and profitable sites for ISVs. 

They look forward to learning from their earlier contests and leveraging Rallyware more effectively from their side, collaborating with Rallyware’s Customer Success team as they continue to develop and adjust the practices, strategies, and methodologies that work for them. 

As OwnBackup faces the future, they are excited about the avenues for growth that Rallyware’s performance enablement technology has helped them access. They know that however they expand, and whichever ambitions they work to realize, Rallyware will be by their side, helping them drive results.

Driving pipeline opportunities with performance enablement Download case study