Episode One: The meaning of Showpad

You are an important Showpad customer and we want to set you up for success. In this first episode of the self-onboarding guide, we want to explain what the Showpad platform is all about. As a Showpad administrator, discover where you can get all the information to accomplish your adventurous mission, together with your sales reps and your buyers. Showpad provides a platform where sales reps can better engage prospects with strong marketing content as well as access important training and coaching tools on-the-go to ensure they are leveled up at all times.

Reading this introduction to Showpad will take about 20 minutes.

Creating the best buyer experience

Showpad is all about creating the best buying experience for your customers. Our platform makes it simple to present your company's products and services interactively. Gone are the days where your sales reps had to be heavyweight lifting champions to carry a ton of leaflets and brochures. And this is only one of the problems you solve with Showpad Content.

Your sales colleagues can finally have an interactive conversation with prospects and customers using all your available digital marketing content. With tablets in their hands, or using the web browser as a platform during an online sales meeting, it is so much easier and faster to have a conversation with potential buyers. One of our goals is to ban the following sentences during the sales process:

• "I'll have to search for that particular brochure. I swear I took it with me."
• "Oh, the pricing on this leaflet seems outdated, let me change it with my pen."
• "I will send a link to a product video later today. My brochure can't play movies, heh."
• "Don't mind that coffee stain on this one-pager."
• "I need a tool to follow up on my inside sales."
• "My dog ate the pricing information."

While some examples are quite tongue-in-cheek, you understand the importance of having all marketing content available in the palm of your hand. Your sales reps will love it, and your buyers will like it even more.

Regain control over your marketing content

Centralizing all your sales and marketing materials in one place is just the first step. Showpad uses powerful tagging and metadata to organize your content easily. These features guarantee that salespeople always find what they need.

You create separate experiences to organize everything logically and structurally. It's these experiences that your sales reps see while presenting your products and services.

The best part is that everyone will always have the latest version of the documents available when the marketing content gets updated. You can send custom announcements when new versions of your content are available. Yes, you can also use these announcements to spread some sales love, but we recommend keeping it informative as well.

Manage your Showpad users

Let's talk about your colleagues who will use Showpad out in the field. They have a tablet with the Showpad app in one hand and use the other hand to block out the sun out of their eyes, watching the horizon, looking for opportunities. (There is nothing wrong with romanticizing the life of sales reps.)

We didn't forget about your inside sales colleagues who are probably less mobile. They can rock using Showpad's Web app and play their sales air guitar when nobody's watching.

You, as an administrator, create and manage these fearless users. You assign them to particular groups and experiences to make sure they only see the content they need and have access to the learning materials that will help them close deals.

Learn what marketing content works

...and see what content could be more effective. This is one of the biggest advantages of using Showpad. Companies can spend a ton of money on beautifully designed brochures, but what's the purpose if nobody distributes or reads that content? The reports section in Showpad lets you visually see what documents are used the most while having the sales conversations. It finally answers some of these questions:

• "Which material was used and shared the most in the past months?"
• "Should we focus more on these particular products?"
• "Does that format of the product presentation work better?"

Enable your users with on-the-go coaching

...and be confident that they have the learning tools they need to close deals. Showpad Coach provides a streamlined approach to onboarding, training, and coaching your sales reps.

• "How do we educate our reps on new product lines or services?"
• "What is an efficient way to disseminate important updates to users?"
• "Do our sales reps have the proper training to sell effectively?"

What to do when you're stuck

Now that we explained briefly why Showpad exists, it's useful to know where you can get help. Well, dear friend, you are already here! The Showpad Help Center explains all available features and is divided into two big sections.

• The administrator part shows all information necessary to build out your Showpad organization.
• The user part explains all front-end action. It explains everything your company's inside and outside sales warriors need while driving their horses, with mobile devices and laptops in their hands.

If you have an additional ten minutes, browsing our glossary makes you familiar with the language we often use to make your Showpad experience as effortless as possible.

If you have a Showpad issue or question that isn't answered on this Help Center, you can contact our great support team. Read the full article about contacting support.

Showpad's Mission Control: The Online Platform

Great story, but I want to start pressing the buttons and see how it works. The Online Platform is for administrators like you. It's available via the web browser and not on the Showpad app, which is used by your users. Play the video below to see how it's done.

To access the Online Platform:

1. Go to https://organizationname.showpad.biz. The organization name was created when you enrolled to Showpad and is available in the welcome email you received. In most cases, this is the company name.
2. Enter your login. The login is the email address you used to sign up or what was provided by another colleague. This is also visible in the welcome email you received.
3. Enter the password you chose while signing up. Always keep it secure. If it's 123456, now is the time to change it.

On the next episode...

We'll show you how to get started once you access the Online Platform for the first time. You understand what Showpad is all about, so you’re ready to start thinking about structure and how to upload content. Follow the next guide to learn how to do this or go back to the onboarding index.