Strengthening Skillsoft’s GTM with a New Messaging Framework

SKILLSOFT — a leading provider of corporate learning solutions, had just acquired Codecademy, a renowned provider of online coding education with a small but growing number of B2B offerings. After a year of product integration, they were ready to launch a new combined corporate training solution with Codecademy as the leading brand.

Problem Statement

Since the acquisition, Skillsoft and Codecademy teams experimented and struggled with their GTM. Too many strategic pivots and messaging updates muddled Skillsoft and Codecademy’s blended value proposition and hurt the sales team’s ability to sell Codecademy to Skillsoft customers.

Goal

Develop concise and compelling messaging collateral that clearly communicates the unique benefits of the Skillsoft-Codecademy solution to sales, marketing, product teams and ultimately prospective customers.

Outcome

Alignment and trust built with the sales team on a singular message that delivered product and positioning clarity across the organization.

My Roles

  • Product marketer
  • Content designer

Partners

  • Product marketing team
  • Brand marketing team
  • Go-to-market (GTM) team

Users

  • Skillsoft employees
  • Skillsoft customers
  • Skillsoft prospects

Duration

Approx. 3 months

Understanding the Problem

The problem had already been defined: Messaging was fragmented and positioning was unclear.

Tasked with resolving this, the Skillsoft and Codecademy brand teams still didn’t understand the scope of the problem and how it was impacting the business.

To fully explain the problem, I gathered and synthesized the following data:

  • Sales data from the last year
  • Feedback from the sales team and select GTM partners

What I learned: The sales team was no where near hitting their sales targets with most prospective buyers struggling to understand the added value of the integrated solution.

MY ROLE

I was adopted by the Skillsoft team early for my B2B experience. As a result, I understood their team structures and dynamics better than my Codecademy colleagues. When both teams first came together for this project, I helped bridge the gap between them.

Aligning the Stakeholders

The Skillsoft brand marketing team led a messaging workshop with brand, curriculum, and product stakeholders from both Skillsoft and Codecademy teams with the goal of capturing:

  • Collective product and market knowledge of both solutions
  • Shared understanding of how to position the new combined solution

The workshop involved individual and group brainstorming and affinity mapping.

Outputs following the workshop included:

  • Alignment around target audience and product differentiators
  • Unique selling proposition (USP)
  • Brand statement

A New Messaging Framework

Alignment on these core messaging building blocks meant I could start work on the messaging framework itself.

1. Gather relevant collateral & insights

  • Pre-acquisition Skillsoft and Codecademy messaging
  • Messaging collateral created since the acquisition
  • Sales feedback about messaging and GTM struggles

2. Assess for strengths and weaknesses

  • Found overlaps in Skillsoft and Codecademy messaging
  • Some good content design - simple, easy to understand
  • Too much repetitive, excessive, or outdated content

3. Keep, add, remove, or change

  • Implemented messaging framework from past experience
  • Stuck with PowerPoint (PPT), Skillsoft’s preferred file type
  • Simplified critical but repetitive information
  • Streamlined content design to improve comprehension

4. Regularly check-in with stakeholders

  • Established weekly team calls to discuss progress
  • Gathered async feedback with each slide of framework

5. Address feedback

  • Managed a lot of feedback async via PPT comments
  • Leveraged Slack for most 1:1 and team conversations
  • Scheduled calls or used team calls only when necessary

Applying Changes Across the Organization

I worked with the sales enablement team to create a new customer-facing deck the sales organization would use as the basis of all sales calls with prospective buyers. This deck would be a critical asset for an upcoming sales training program designed to prepare the sales organization for a major shift in what and how they needed to sell.

With guidance from the sales training manager, I developed a pitch deck that quickly and clearly communicated the new solution’s value proposition with an emphasis on visual content design.

Impact

This project was a part of the broader solution to a larger problem. The importance of getting our messaging right was clear having experienced firsthand what happens when you get it wrong.

After a year of struggling with weak messaging and version control issues, we received very positive early feedback on our updated messaging with included:

  • Appreciation from the sales organization for partnering with them ahead of the launch
  • Positive sentiment across different departments about the new pitch deck overall
  • Sales feedback and pitch evaluations indicated the new messaging was clearer and easier to communicate than previous iterations
  • We were able to replace 3 decks and retire 6 other pieces of sales collateral that were created since the acquisition

Takeaways

Key learnings

Establish expectations and working styles early.

This is important when working with someone new and in a new working environment. Assuming everyone’s starting with the same baseline assumptions often leads to misunderstandings and wasted work.

What I’d do differently

Insist on creating a baseline early on.

The project owner for the broader brand launch was swamped and didn’t want 1:1s too early on in the project. This wound up being a mistake that led to misunderstandings between us about our respective roles, expectations, and deliverables. Instead of complying, I should’ve have requested a one-off discussion closer to when the work was starting to ramp up to set clear expectations between the two of us.

Define the feedback process early too.

My main partner for the enterprise pitch deck was the sales training manager but I also had weekly reviews with the wider sales enablement team, including the head of sales enablement. Sometimes, feedback from them would conflict, leading to wasted work. I should’ve confirmed who the final approver was at the start and the weight the head of sales enablement’s feedback carried so I could schedule all my project calls accordingly, with top priority feedback collected before all else.

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