Sales enablement platforms are becoming more and more popular as businesses strive to improve their sales process. In this article, we will compare the two largest market awareness: Seismic vs Highspot.
Each vendor offers many solutions, each with a large number of features; we’ll try to do each justice.
Each of these vendors is in the all-in-one Enablement category, so we have included the four vendors in this category at the end of this article so you can see a complete, side-by-side comparison.
To Review – All-in-One Enablement
The All-in-one vendor landscape category includes sales enablement platforms supporting content, training, and coaching capabilities.
These companies’ solutions:
- Allow sales enablement to manage content in one repository, using automation to pull relevant content from other locations.
- As a result, your sales team saves time hunting for the content they need — they look in the enablement platform.
- Better aligns sales and marketing teams. Reporting data informs marketing about the sales teams’ content, allowing them to realign and pinpoint their content investments where they will have the most significant impacts.
- The coaching solutions do not coach reps — they give sellers more structured opportunities for practicing critical aspects of their jobs.
- From an ease of use perspective, each sales enablement platform is essentially the same.
- Each solution promises to help sellers easily find the right content at the right time, either through powerful search features or artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).
- NOTE: No vendor has demonstrated the ability to use AI/ML to save sales teams time or close more deals. These statements are great marketing messages with little proof to back them up.
In comparing each of these vendors, we note:
- Highspot is developing all capabilities under one platform. Seismic has added its non-content capabilities via acquisition.
- Seismic has a broader range of offerings, including Document Automation and Social Selling, than Highspot. Both, however, include the core capabilities of Content, training, and coaching.
- We found Highspot to be much easier to work with during our analysis. While neither of these vendors opened the doors to their platforms like the alternative all-in-one solutions, Highspot did provide a walkthrough without requiring an NDA (allowing us to share our findings openly).
A brief look at Seismic
Seismic’s Certified Profile shows us a few interesting points:
- What are the primary verticals Seismic sells into? Financial Services, High Tech
- What are the secondary verticals Seismic sells into? Advanced manufacturing, Healthcare, Business Services, Retail
We also know that Seismic has strong content roots, and its acquisition of Percolate in 2019 bolstered its capabilities in the broader content marketing area.
Seismic’s training and coaching capabilities come from its acquisition of Lessonly, and we have not been able to confirm the level of integration.
A brief look at Highspot
Highspot’s Certified Profile shows us a few interesting points:
- What are the primary verticals Highspot sells into? Technology, Financial Services, Machinery
- What are the secondary verticals Highspot sells into? Telecommunications, Real Estate, Retail
Highspot’s training and coaching capabilities are relatively new and behind the competition.
Seismic vs Highspot
Time for a side-by-side comparison of Highspot vs Seismic.
| Capability | Seismic | Highspot |
|---|---|---|
| Digital Sales Rooms | Solid capabilities, dynamic content, security. | Solid capabilities, dynamic content, security. |
| Content Playback | Unknown | Unknown |
| Reporting | Sellers can use reporting to identify customer engagement, identify who to reach out to and what to discuss. | Sellers can use reporting to identify customer engagement, identify who to reach out to and what to discuss. |
| Document Automation | Seismic LiveDoc is the leading document automation solution in the Enablement space. Note: To find other document workflow solutions, consider reading our article on PandaDoc vs. Proposify. | None |
| Sales Training and Coaching | Acquisition and integration of Lessonly are underway — still coming together. Seismic response (not validated by Trust Enablement as we have not been given access to the platform): “This assumption is not accurate… The deep integration was already completed when the acquisition was announced, and we were actually selling the deep integration product to our existing customers within the first 30 days.“ | Immature as newly released with mixed customer feedback |
| Social Selling | A solution exists, not enough feedback to share yet. | None |
| Email Integrations | Gmail, Microsoft Outlook | Gmail, Microsoft Outlook |
| CRM Integrations | Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Hubspot, Netsuite, Skuid, SugarCRM | Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics |
| Pricing | Not Published | Not Published |
| Primary Verticals | Financial Services, High Tech | Technology, Financial Services, Machinery |
| Secondary Verticals | Advanced manufacturing, Healthcare, Business Services, Retail | Telecommunications, Real Estate, Retail |
| Year Founded | 2010 | 2012 |
| Funding to Date | $440M | $645M |
| Ideal Customer Size | Mid-sized Businesses through Enterprise | Mid-sized Businesses through Enterprise |
| Evaluate Now | Evaluate Seismic | Evaluate Highspot |
Alternatives to Consider
The All-in-one vendor landscape category includes sales enablement platforms supporting content, training, and coaching capabilities.
Here are the Enablement Vendors covered in this part of our sales tech landscape.
This summary table covers the all-in-one enablement solutions we have evaluated as part of our technology landscape: Allego vs Highspot vs Saleshood vs Seismic.
| Sales Content Management | Ideal for Customers Like… | G2 Ratings | Pros | Cons | Pricing | Try Now |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Allego | Financial Services and Life Sciences Companies | 4.5/5.0 (321 Reviews) | Not published | Try Now | ||
| Highspot | Along with Saleshood, the top solution in this category – Any non-financial services companies should evaluate. | 4.7/5.0 (858 Reviews) | Deeply integrated into Salesforce.com — allowing it to support any configuration while delivering in-depth analytics. | Training and Coaching capabilities are immature. | Not Published | Try Now |
Saleshood  | Along with Highspot, the top solution in this category – Any non-financial services companies should evaluate. | 4.6/5.0 (291 Reviews) | The CEO wrote one of the essential books on Enablement — this company understands Enablement to its core. Offers a FREE trial. They are the only all-in-one platform with enough confidence in its product and its prospects. | Their digital salesrooms lack security, meaning content shared with customers could be accessed by anyone who knows the URL to the room. While relatively low risk, this prevents the product from being used to deliver genuinely confidential materials. Not a deal-breaker for most companies, but it will be for a few. | $50/user/month Details | Try Now |
| Seismic | Financial Services Companies | 4.7/5.0 (1159 Reviews) | Most robust offering in the financial services space — including leading document automation solution. | Was challenging for us to work with — only recommending for this one vertical. Training and coaching capabilities from Lessonly acquisition. Integration underway. | Not Published | Try Now |
Final Thoughts
We have created a robust buying guide to help you navigate the purchase process. — we suggest you read it if you have time.
None of these vendors currently offer a free trial for a variety of reasons, but we urge buyers to:
- Begin with a six-month pilot. If you cannot demonstrate value and progress towards solving business challenges prompting you to purchase a sales enablement platform — this is the wrong vendor.
- Begin with a one-year deal — never sign a multi-year agreement until the vendor demonstrates the ability to deliver results.
- Ignore the majority of user reviews on sites like G2. The platform is terrific, but many customers are incentivized to leave positive reviews, and these should be taken with a grain of salt.
Technology will aid you to go faster when your internal processes are solid. Ensure you have an excellent go-to-market strategy, and proven approaches, and then layer technology to scale.