Every revenue leader understands the importance of equipping sellers with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed. So it’s no wonder why 84% of organizations invest in sales enablement teams.
Yet, many organizations take an outdated, one-size-fits-all approach to sales enablement that doesn’t address the needs of each seller.
Sure, these companies may recognize the need to modernize their approach to sales enablement. But many feel overwhelmed and unsure of where to start. After all, while delivering tailored training at scale is important, it can feel like a pipe dream. This is especially true for global businesses with geographically dispersed sales teams and various native languages.
Paul Spackman, Global Head of Campus at Henkel, understands the challenges of modernizing sales enablement for a worldwide organization. At the Sales Enablement Summit in London, Spackman shared how his team has overcome key challenges to build a modern, future-proof revenue enablement function that drives bottom-line business results.
Recognizing a need for change
Henkel is a multinational, chemicals and consumer goods organization based in Dusseldorf Germany. The company’s sales team is about 5,000 strong, split between industrial and commercial retail business units. Spackman’s Campus team, responsible for functional sales training, has approximately sixteen employees, with a Campus manager for each region.
In the past, Henkel took a traditional approach to sales training that relied heavily on in-person classroom instruction. “We were an old school, traditional, ‘come to my classroom and I’ll lecture you for a couple of days’ campus,” explained Spackman.
There was very little pre- and post-work and nearly no follow-up on classroom instruction. “We were not particularly good at measuring and following that stuff through,” he continued.
Furthermore, uneven budget allocations meant that training wasn’t accessible to all sellers.

Identifying the opportunity to transform revenue enablement
The team at Henkel knew there was a big opportunity to modernize their approach to revenue enablement and increase their impact. The opportunity would allow for:
- Universal access: Providing every seller with the opportunity to take advantage of the training available.
- True hybrid approach: Using technology to create a hybrid approach that helps the company improve knowledge retention and flatten out the forgetting curve. “Adults are really good at coming to a classroom for a couple of days and learning stuff. But as soon as they go back to their jobs, if they don’t use that stuff they forget it really quickly,” said Spackman.
- Consistent, regular touchpoints with sales: With regular touchpoints, Henkel could shift away from a culture of ad hoc learning to one of continuous professional development and lifelong learning.
Earning transformation: you can’t do it alone
When it comes to transforming revenue enablement, you can’t do it alone. Henkel’s approach involved several components.
Embrace digital approaches and trust your sellers
Henkel knew they needed the right technology to support their digital approach to revenue enablement. The team set out to find a revenue enablement platform vendor and narrowed their options to three.

He also stressed the importance of trusting the sellers. Self-paced learning may be a new concept for sellers accustomed to classroom training. You must trust your sellers to use new technology to access learning opportunities.
Delivering targeted, granular training is key to getting sellers to engage with it. “We thought that we would be able to populate our site with large, open-access training on negotiation and handling objections, and everyone would want to take them. That doesn’t work,” said Spackman. “When we started to create programs in a more granular way for smaller groups of people, suddenly the engagement levels were really high.”
Map learning journey to individual career path
Learning opportunities shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all. Instead, they should be mapped to individual career paths.
Henkel has industrial and retail businesses, and sellers are divided into 11 groups, each with tailored learning journeys.
Ask more from your enablement vendors
Every business is unique. It’s important to find flexible enablement vendors to accommodate your needs, requirements, and restrictions.
For example, as a German business operating globally, Henkel encounters some unique challenges and restrictions that impact the way they can use technology. “If you’re an American business, you can take a platform like Mindtickle, pop it into your business, and use all of the features,” said Spackman. “If you’re a German business, there are certain restrictions.”
Spackman’s team collaborated with those who deal with GDPR and German data privacy law, as well as the workers’ council, to understand what they could and couldn’t do within the Mindtickle platform. Then, the team shared their requirements with Mindtickle.

Incentivize engagement in new ways
Training and revenue enablement initiatives require time and resources, but they won’t have an impact if sellers aren’t engaged with them. Henkel needed to rethink the way it encourages and incentivizes engagement while remaining compliant.
Empowering all sellers with a modernized program
In October 2024, the team at Henkel officially launched STEPS, a structured program that provides a clear pathway of continuous professional development from new sellers to “Master Black Belt.”
“We took our old, unstructured, ad hoc classroom training and transformed it into a structure of sales training and professional development opportunities for a whole sales force of 5,000 people,” said Spackman. “There’s something here for everyone, whether they’re a fresh-faced 23-year-old straight from university or a seasoned professional or late-career sales manager.”
The STEPS program has four key components, all of which are linked to the Mindtickle platform.
#1 Guided curriculum by sales role
The team at Henkel has found that the more granular the programs, the higher the engagement and effectiveness. Henkel sellers were split into industrial, retail, and inside sales. In industrial and retail, sellers were split even further:
- Territory sales
- Channel sales
- Key account managers and business development
- Sales managers
Each group has a role-specific curriculum, which includes components like:
Guided curriculum, which consists of programs focused on their roles
Elective curriculum: This consists of programs that are fairly focused on their roles but with some pieces that are a bit more forward-thinking.
Self-paced learning curriculum, powered by Mindtickle
#2 New Campus charge model
In the past, access to training was inconsistent. “We were relying on people’s local budget to access our services.,” explained Spackman. “We needed to find a way to give universal access.”
Today, Henkel has developed a charge model where training seats are allocated based on the size and maturity of the sales region.
“Suddenly, all the sales managers who had to find budget before don’t have to anymore because there’s a number of seats allocated to them,” said Spackman. “They can start to allocate training on the basis of need, not on mad local budgets.”
#3 Henkel Selling Foundations
This onboarding program is for anyone new to sales at Henkel Adhesive Technologies. Sellers complete 6+ hours of content, and they are expected to complete it in their first eight in their role. The content is available in 16 languages, including industrial and retail versions. Sellers receive a sales enablement license when they complete the foundations,
After completing Henkel Selling Foundations, sellers have “the building blocks to talk to customers.”
#4 Recognition and reward belt system
Henkel leverages Mindtickle’s Readiness Index feature to drive an incentivized belt system for sellers. Readiness Index scores are based on several factors, including:
- Classroom trainings
- Sellers’ experience
- What training they engage with on Mindtickle
- Manager input

With the Readiness Index, Henkel can track competencies and correlate them to organizational baselines and revenue outcomes. In addition, sellers earn badges endorsed by the Institute of Sales Professionals. “This is an incentive for our sales team to take part in that fits very neatly within our compliance rules.
Four key takeaways
The team at Henkel is already starting to see the impact of their revenue enablement transformation. In addition to consistently getting positive feedback from sellers, the team has experienced:
Transformation can seem overwhelming. But by taking things one step at a time, it’s achievable – and can yield big results.
Spackman closed the session by sharing four key takeaways for any organization looking to modernize its revenue enablement approach.
#1 Make sure your vendors are true partners
Your vendors need to be flexible and easy to work with. Support is tailored to the needs of each location worldwide, .
#2 Pay attention to services and support, not just technology
Great technology is important. But it’s also important to find sales enablement solutions that provide excellent services and support. “We couldn’t have done this without a great customer success team at Mindtickle and the tech people who sat behind them,” said Spackman.
#3 Show investment in your sellers
Ensure your sellers know you’re investing in programs to help them succeed. You’re here for them.
#4 Show how continuous professional development supports career paths
Sellers only have so many hours in the day and many competing priorities. It’s important to show them how continuous professional development is relevant to them. “It has to be meaningful for those sellers to get time in their day,” said Spackman.
Watch the full Henkel Story
Want to see Henkel’s full session to learn more from Paul and how his team modernized enablement with Mindtickle?
Watch the On-Demand Session