Leveraging eLearning & Certifications at Liquibase

40% YoY Revenue Growth

 

The Client

Liquibase-1


Liquibase brings DevOps to databases, enabling customers to securely automate database changes.

The privately held Austin, Texas-based company provides the largest database management tool in the world: open-source and with over 200 million downloads. Liquibase’s commercial product is used by Fortune 500 companies in highly regulated industries like banking and insurance.

The Business Challenge

Liquibase’s rapid growth and international expansion meant adding team members. This emphasized the need for an aligned selling process informed by a consistent qualification approach.

The team faced challenges in prioritizing the right opportunities. “It's tough to delineate an open-source lead from a commercial lead,” says Mike Runco, Liquibase’s Senior Director of Sales. “What was happening was a lot of poor pipeline. We had reps focusing the wrong time and the wrong resources with the wrong prospects. We saw a lot of deals that were qualified for open-source, which is okay, but not qualified for a commercial offering, which is how we make our money.”

“We solve a very complex problem at Liquibase. It’s Fortune 500, even Fortune 100 companies that we sell to, so it requires deep qualification. Following the steps, understanding the process, the criteria: from who will make the decision to multi-stakeholder sale. Like most DevOps tools, but specifically Liquidbase, there's platform engineering involved. There's AppDev leadership, there's DevOps, there's DBAs, and we need buy-in from all different personas and teams.

The Solution

Liquibase’s growth stage meant it didn’t have the resources for a sales enablement role. The company needed a solution to fill that gap. Runco's success with Force Management at two previous companies led him to seek an FM solution for his team. “Ascender® is a great fit for a smaller team,” says Runco. “It’s easy to use and the team can go back to access it as a resource whenever they need.”

Liquibase used an Ascender Teams subscription to ramp up its entire GTM organization, including more than a dozen RSMs, AEs, BDRs and RevOps. Team members obtained Ascender MEDDICC Certification, which is part of Ascender’s Elite Selling™ Curriculum. The MEDDICC certification pathway contains courses like Getting to the Economic Buyer and Building Champions for Life. Manager dashboards provide Runco and other leaders visibility that improves forecasting and frames weekly coaching sessions.

Improving account targets came by removing regional territories and using Ascender’s territory planning coursework and supporting content to drive ideal customer profile focus. Runco explains, “We moved to account-based and asked reps to attend Ascender’s Plan to Make Your Plan webinar and obtain Sales Planning Certification. We've seen better strategy compared to the last two years with giving reps free rein to make account lists. We've seen an increase in productivity and lists since making these changes.”

Liquibase made the eLearning platform a cornerstone of onboarding and speeding up time-to-productivity for new hires. “We use Ascender as a main part of our onboarding plan,” says Runco. “Every rep is required to go through Ascender’s MEDDICC training and certification.”

The Results

“The results have been phenomenal,” says Runco. “Quantitatively, we grew the business 40% last year. Qualitatively, our pipeline is the healthiest it's ever been. We had a record year, the best year in company history.”

Outcomes for Liquibase include:

          •  Revenue growth: 40% YoY
          •  Healthiest pipeline in company history
          •  Record Annual Revenue (2023)
          •  Best quarter in company history (Q4 2023)
          •  Shortened sales cycles
          •  Reduced time to productivity for new hires

 

“We have tighter alignment as an organization,” Runco reports. “Going through the forecast now is a breeze; it's not 100%, but it's getting better."

“The feedback for the live webinars has been great,” says Runco, describing how his team engaged the Sales Planning webinar. “There was a Slack channel going on the whole time with people saying, ‘Hey, we need to incorporate this,’ or ‘Hey, this is a really good message, something to remember.’ In enterprise sales, these reps know a lot, but it’s just like working out and developing muscle memory.”

Continued growth and scale mean bringing in an enablement expert, and Liquibase plans to make Ascender a centerpiece of that program. Runco explains, “We want them to leverage Ascender and continue to incorporate the videos and training within the weekly enablement sessions to drive the message of MEDDICC and keep it top of mind.”

Learn more about how the Ascender sales acceleration and eLearning platform can drive elite sales execution at ascender.co.   

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