Author: Highspot Team

How do you build a culture of customer satisfaction that keeps solving customers’ challenges at its core? Oliver Sharp, our co-founder and Chief Solution Architect, sat down with Tim Porter, Managing Director at Highspot investor Madrona Venture Group, to discuss this topic. Their conversation not only details our approach to customer success, but offers lessons for other businesses that want to deliver elevated customer experiences.

Product and customer alignment is more important than ever as the subscription business model becomes increasingly common in the B2B space. Oliver explains, “The SaaS business model is explicitly based on this notion of renewing a service. One of the things that it does, which is really cool, is that it aligns your business need of getting that renewal with the goal of wanting your customers to be hugely successful and hugely enthusiastic about your product.”

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Fall ‘19 Product Release Introduces New SmartPage Marketplace, Data Slices and Web Apps, Enabling Go-to-Market Teams to Elevate Customer Conversations

SEATTLE, September 17, 2019 — Highspot, the sales enablement platform that reps love, today announced its Fall ‘19 Release introducing the general availability of SmartPage™ technology, which gives go-to-market teams context alongside content so they can have the most effective customer conversations. SmartPages offer extensible capabilities across content, data and web applications that drive customer engagement, sales performance and revenue growth.

“If every customer-facing employee knows what to say, show and do with prospects and customers, you have a true competitive advantage,” said Robert Wahbe, CEO, Highspot. “Compelling conversations are the foundation of great customer experience. Our AI-powered guidance pairs content with context at scale, helping everyone on your team become a trusted advisor who delivers real value.”

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Productivity. For the modern worker, it’s more than a buzzword — it’s a lifestyle. There are productivity role models, apps to help you work smarter, and a plethora of services designed to eliminate the inefficient habits of unproductive people, like grocery shopping or leisurely eating.

But is all of this really making us more effective employees? In our new blog series, “Worksmart,” we’re putting so-called productivity “best practices” to the test to see what really works and what advice you can forgo.

Eating Through Lunch Could Hurt Your Performance

First up — lunch. What was formerly a sacred hour for friends and food has become an unfortunate casualty of our nine-to-five (or seven-to-seven) hustle. Recent studies have shown, however, that working through lunch can negatively impact performance.

In an interview with NPR, Kimberly Elsbach, a professor at the University of California, Davis Graduate School of Management, who studies workplace psychology, explained the correlation between breaks and the type of non-linear work most of us do: “Staying inside, in the same location, is really detrimental to creative thinking. It’s also detrimental to doing that rumination that’s needed for ideas to percolate and gestate and allow a person to arrive at an ‘aha’ moment.”

Most of us know this instinctively yet struggle to step away when tasks start piling up. The reasons why vary. Guilt, perceived judgement, and stress can all keep us tied to our desks.

Could just a 30-minute break and the productive, refreshed mind it promises be enough to make up for lost time? For one week, our test team took a real lunch break every day to find out.

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Have you ever purchased a $2,000 event ticket and flown across the country in pursuit of new learnings — only to find yourself trapped in a windowless conference room nodding off to outdated material? If so, you’re not alone. 

There are good conferences, and there are “why am I here” conferences. When these events cost both time and money, how can you ensure you’re making a wise investment?

Let this guide be a beacon — we’ve included a list of the fall events we’ve chosen to attend, from the US to the UK. Between new research shared by the experts to networking hours with the best and brightest, these events are not only worth the jet lag, but will leave you feeling reinvigorated and inspired.

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“You said you’ve been struggling with customer retention for a while,” the sales rep said. “What led you to address it now?”

Great question.

Unfortunately, before his prospect could reply, the rep followed it with three more.

“Did retention hit a new low? Or are you changing your organizational focus? A lot of folks reach out to me after hiring a customer success manager — does that apply to you?”

The buyer seemed a little overwhelmed, and responded with hesitancy in her voice: “Well, I guess you could say our goals are changing, so a change in organizational focus, I guess.”

Did you see what just happened? The buyer simply picked one of the sales rep’s options rather than potentially giving a reason he hadn’t anticipated.

In his rush to fill the silence, this salesperson missed a precious opportunity to learn more about his buyer’s pain.

Have you ever struggled to talk less? Read on for a simple — yet crazy effective — technique for doing just that.

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You finally signed the contract on the new sales tool you’ve championed for months. Weeks of research, stakeholder meetings, and contract negotiations are behind you, so the hard part is over, right?

Not quite. Now you need to drive adoption across your sales team. After all, a tool that no one uses is just a waste of money. But sales reps are inundated with more tools than ever, requiring that new solutions overcome skepticism and ingrained habits to achieve high adoption.

All this may make it seem easier to avoid purchasing new tools altogether. But modern buyers demand fresh, digital sales tactics, so doing nothing simply isn’t an option. Follow these three steps to ensure that your sales technology investments are a success.

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Most people who change the world don’t set out to do so. Innovation expert and New York Times contributor Pagan Kennedy has found genius often unexpectedly strikes those “in a position to see a problem that needs fixing in a very personal way.”

The evolution of sales enablement technology follows this pattern. For decades, salespeople have wasted precious hours searching for sales assets while marketers have been beset by countless inbound content requests. Necessity demanded a more efficient way of organizing, discovering, and analyzing content — and those who experienced these challenges first-hand invented technology that is now changing the way millions work.

But not all sales enablement platforms are created equal. Recognizing real innovation is increasingly difficult amidst industry hype and buzzword-laden marketing. So how can you separate a genuinely game-changing platform from the rest? Look for these critical capabilities:

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The right tools can make all the difference. Just as James Bond needs his gadgets, or a baseball player needs a quality bat, sellers will be most productive with a strategic tech stack.

The sheer volume of sales software available, however, makes deciding which platforms to invest in a daunting task. That’s why you need a simple decision framework and a clear understanding of which tools can make the greatest impact.

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The B2B landscape is rapidly evolving. Sales teams must keep pace with the latest market developments, new products and services, buyer behaviour, competitor news, and much more. The flow of information is unending. How can your sales team keep up? The answer is sales readiness.

Sales readiness encompasses efficient onboarding, ongoing sales communication, and effective coaching and training. It has become a critical component of sales enablement, as it ensures salespeople are equipped with everything they need to adapt to change and have meaningful customer conversations.

Building on the momentum of May’s Sales Enablement Soiree, we sought to continue the learning at a Highspot-hosted event in London. Industry experts from Brainshark, ICIS, Emarsys, and S&P Global Platts came together to discuss key areas of sales readiness and how to overcome the challenges of onboarding, coaching, and training sales teams.

From sharing success patterns over breakfast to building new relationships, we left with actionable insights on readying sales to drive revenue. Let’s take a closer look at five important takeaways.

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I used to work with a woman who would go to the local coffee shop to make prospecting calls. She used to say, “They drink the caffeine and I feed off of their energy.”

A creative co-worker of mine can’t function in the office when he’s searching for ideas. He works from home where it’s quieter.

I find it impossible to work without using two screens. Switching back and forth on one screen drives me bananas.

Your work environment can be motivating or demotivating. When you’re in a particular place, you tend to do (or not do) specific things. You feel different depending on where you are and what’s around you.

In RAIN Group’s latest Extreme Productivity Benchmark Report, more than 2,300 sellers and business professionals were asked about their work habits and behaviors. Analysts reviewed their responses through the lenses of productivity, job performance, happiness, and job satisfaction. The findings revealed that the Extremely Productive (the XP) are particularly tuned in to their environments. They are 3.3 times more likely to organize their work environment to maximize productivity.

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