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Deal qualification and inspection, pipeline reviews, sales methodology standardization.
Two disparate sales orgs with two different sales processes. No standardized motion for the full org.
A fully unified sales team with a streamlined sales motion, increased pipeline visibility, accurate forecasting, and complete sales methodology adoption.
Ping Identity specializes in providing identity and access management (IAM) solutions, helping organizations manage secure user authentication, authorization, and single sign-on (SSO) capabilities in their user applications. In 2023, Ping Identity’s parent company acquired Forgerock, another identity and access management company that had been a People.ai customer since 2021.
When the two companies merged in early 2024, they combined the two sales teams—which meant they needed to quickly standardize their new unified sales org on one harmonious sales process. When Forgerock merged with Ping Identity, Spencer Hodson, the VP of Global Sales Operations at Forgerock, took on the same role at Ping Identity. He quickly realized the challenge ahead when he saw firsthand how differently the two GTM teams were running their sales organizations. The Ping Identity team did not have a standard sales qualification process in their CRM. Instead, individual managers and sellers would employ a variety of methodologies that did not correspond to their sales stages and buying journey. However, three years ago, the Forgerock team standardized their sales qualification on MEDDPICC. They leveraged People.ai to ensure that every seller was following the same optimized process and enforced that process in SFDC.
“There are many sales methodologies, and no one is necessarily better than another. What really matters is high adoption, enforceability, and CRM compliance,” said Hodson. “People.ai is fully integrated with our CRM and took just a few clicks to set up. This made it incredibly appealing and lets us guarantee high usage of our chosen process.”
When it came time to choose which organization’s sales methodology and processes should be used to unite the two teams, the answer was clear. Looking at historical performance data, they found that high-performing sellers at Forgerock had a 50% increase in People.ai usage over their low-performing ones. They also found that all of their President’s Club AEs had high utilization of People.ai, and their deal sizes tended to be much larger.
“The decision was easy for us. Forgerock’s sales process was something we could readily leverage at our combined Ping Identity company thanks to People.ai,” said Hodson.
Ping Identity worked with People.ai for a seamless transition so that the new team could hit the ground running. The People.ai team made sure that all historical data was captured around past and ongoing Forgerock opportunities, and partnered with Ping Identity’s enablement team on a series of team-wide trainings to get their AEs up to speed on their new sales process leveraging MEDDPICC.
Ping Identity built Opportunity Scorecards around MEDDPICC elements, customizing the template based on the needs of their sales motion, and then built those scorecards into their regular cadences and deal reviews. Leadership set baselines for Opportunity Scorecards, requiring sellers to utilize them on all new logo deals, any deals over $100,000, and any SaaS deployment deals, allowing them to easily track the progression and execution of key opportunities.
In their twice-quarterly pipeline reviews, Ping Identity relies heavily on Opportunity Scorecards to have accurate and complete data around what’s going on in each seller’s pipeline. AEs can easily open their scorecard and identify any hygiene issues, allowing sellers and their leadership to discuss potential causes and fix problems early.
“Every sales team struggles with hygiene. Good pipeline hygiene is the holy grail of sales. But being able to expose those issues in team meetings and pipeline reviews ensures accountability on our team and drives better behavior,” Hodson said. “Nobody wants to look foolish when they open their scorecard and it’s incomplete.”
Ping Identity uses the sales performance platform Anaplan for forecasting, creating customized views that incorporate People.ai data from scorecards and directly expose this data in forecasting and pipeline views. Sales leadership has easy access to accurate, up-to-date data, directly from their sales team, allowing them to build a more streamlined and precise forecasting process. As a result, Ping Identity can better pinpoint expected revenue, and is able to make informed business decisions around their forecast.
Ping Identity also leverages People.ai’s Relationship Maps to understand stakeholder buying groups at the large enterprise organizations they sell into. “We got instant value from Relationship Maps,” said Hodson. “Allowing our team to build their map, show relationships between contacts, and then export that directly into their presentations and account plans has been hugely helpful.”
By bringing order to these complicated buying groups with Relationship Maps, Ping Identity’s sellers are able to approach deals more thoughtfully, ensuring that key personas are engaged throughout every stage of the deal, driving more high-value deals to close.
When it comes to driving usage of Relationship Maps, sellers don’t need to be told to build a map—they just do. “We don’t have to establish any criteria around creating maps because they all use it willingly. Our sellers just love Relationship Maps. The Forgerock AEs that came over have always used them, but the Ping Identity legacy sales reps who are using it for the first time say they’ve never seen anything like it,” said Hodson.
By partnering with People.ai, the merging of Forgerock’s and Ping Identity’s sales orgs was streamlined, ensuring high collaboration and alignment across the two teams. In just 6 months, Ping Identity’s leadership team took two completely separate GTM orgs and built a single synergistic sales org that breeds disciplined, high-performing sellers.
“This transition was 100% smoother and easier thanks to People.ai’s partnership. Merging two teams in such a short period is a monstrous task, but we were able to do so efficiently and quickly by using People.ai to drive alignment,” said Hodson. “I’m excited to see what comes next for Ping Identity, People.ai, and our continued partnership.”
