Highspot Blog

What can today’s leading companies do to build more inclusive, diverse teams? How can we make real progress toward closing the gender gap in the technology space?

We ask these questions at Highspot because we already believe these challenges deserve our attention and action. It can be daunting to know where to begin, but as Highspot’s head of engineering I contend that with a committed leadership team and a culture of inclusivity on your side, some strategic investments can make a big difference.

One such investment that the team and I are enormously proud to announce is Highspot’s sponsorship of Ada Developers Academy. In sponsoring Ada, we join more than fifty companies including Google, Zillow, Amazon, and others who share a common mission.

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As a Highspot Account Development Representative, I know it is no longer the case that sellers get to control the buying process — rather, it’s the reverse. In many ways, the role of the salesperson has shifted from being the pitcher in baseball, where they get to dictate when and how to deliver the pitch, to the batter, where they now must be ready for anything the prospect decides to throw at them. In fact, it’s estimated that 50 to 80% of the buyer’s decision-making process happens before the sales rep gets involved.

For salespeople to combat this paradigm shift in buying patterns and behavior, we must be ready for any conversation, question, or objection, no matter where our prospects are in the buyer’s journey — and we have to be able to turn on a dime. That’s why Highspot is designed to empower sales reps like me with modern sales plays and sales playbooks.

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In our fast-paced world where modern-day buyers are more demanding than ever, sales enablement comes to play a crucial role in sellers’ success. But there’s more to it than that. Not only do companies need the right sales enablement solution — they need the right approach.

This is one reason why we’re excited to share insights and advice from Matt McClendon, President of DSG, as part of our Highspot “Hot Shots” series. Matt has a passion for creating sales-friendly playbooks and helping clients provide their sales channels with the content, tools, and training required to lead compelling customer conversations. DSG has provided professional services, creative services, and enablement tools to hundreds of B2B companies and more than 100,000 salespeople.

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Artificial intelligence is the next big thing for sales. Sales leaders know it, but many aren’t sure what to do with sales AI yet.

A recent MIT survey found that 85% of executives believe that AI will give their companies a competitive advantage, yet only about 20% have incorporated AI into their business.

Although hype is building around the potential of sales AI, business leaders are struggling to find a starting place.

If you’re a sales leader looking to give your team an edge over the competition, these six opportunities will give you the guidance you need to begin using AI to streamline your sales processes.

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If you’re a sales professional or support a sales team, you live with a common challenge every day: The pace of change is relentless. New and changing products, updated processes, management directives, competitive intel, pricing changes — the list goes on.

For those of us in the supporting cast, this means there is a constant stream of opportunities to share knowledge and improve the skills of our front-line teams. Anyone in sales enablement or sales readiness knows there will never be a shortage of learning to develop and deliver. The challenge is that we too often choose the wrong methods to effectively enable our teams to leverage new skills or knowledge. We’re all guilty of forcing mandatory, one-size-fits-all training because it’s “more efficient” (pronounced “easy”). Let’s take a look at some common scenarios.

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Everyone knows that a company’s success depends on customers — and specifically, customers’ experience. However, sustaining customer interest can be difficult. Companies must compete for customer attention in a world where consumers have more options then they have ever had before. In the last ten years, customer experience has become increasingly more important in this new world where customers want to have more of a say in how corporations portray themselves.

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More great news coming out of Highspot: We’ve won an American Business Award for Most Innovative Tech Company of the Year from the Stevies^®!

According to the American Business Award judges, “Highspot created integrations across learning management platforms to further enhance the ability for sellers to sell. Highspot has further developed its artificial intelligence capabilities over the course of last year.”

“All of us at Highspot are honored to be recognized by the American Business Awards alongside many other impressive companies,” said Jake Braly, vice president of marketing at Highspot. “The fact that this award is focused on innovation highlights the hard work of our product and engineering teams — dedicated to building beautifully designed sales enablement software with a spark of magic, that marketers and sales reps love.”Continue reading article ›

Sales enablement has become mission-critical to businesses. As part of the Highspot “Hot Shots” series, today we’ll hear insights from Mike Kunkle, a highly respected sales transformation architect and internationally recognized sales training and sales enablement expert. He has spent 24 years as a corporate leader and consultant, helping companies drive dramatic revenue growth through his best-in-class learning strategies and effective sales transformation methodologies. Today, Mike is the VP of Sales Transformation Services for Fast Lane Digital (a new division of Fast Lane Consulting & Education Services) and founder of Transforming Sales Results, LLC.

What do you see as the most critical aspect of sales enablement and why?

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Thanks to technology, sales is now a new game. Buyers have already researched your product (and the competition) and are much further down their purchasing process before they even meet your sales rep. In fact, 64.5% of sales reps have reported experiencing more complex sales processes. This means that your reps need sales readiness and training to be ready for more complex and advanced conversations in their meetings and demos.Continue reading article ›

When sales enablement is evolving and growing as fast as it is, it’s helpful to hear how others approach it, and where sales enablement is going next. Today we begin a new blog series highlighting the expertise of “hot shots” of the sales enablement world. We asked questions of Ben Cotton, a thought leader who leads EMEA sales enablement for HubSpot out of Dublin, Ireland. He works at the intersection of sales and marketing and uses deal support, content, data and education to help HubSpot’s sales organization succeed. Ben is passionate about building sales and marketing alignment, as well as helping businesses create predictable recurring revenue.

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