COVID-19 caused global disruption to supply chains, and manufacturers are still feeling the effects five years later. The pandemic led to a shortage of critical components and transportation bottlenecks, driving up costs for manufacturers already managing tight profit margins. In today’s challenging economic climate, you need to take every available step to reduce long-term risks and minimize disruptions.
One popular way to minimize risks? Reshoring. A recent study by Medius found that 69% of American manufacturers are reshoring their supply chains, with 94% reporting successful outcomes. The study also showed 93% of manufacturers are planning to increase the pace of reshoring over the next two years — domestic production is here to stay.
Reshoring supply chains isn’t just a matter of increasing manufacturing staff in the U.S. It also means you need to hire for support functions as well, including GTM. But despite the industry’s best efforts to attract new talent, many manufacturers are struggling to fill open positions. Manufacturers rely on dealers and channel partners to sell their products as well, but even these extended networks can struggle to support your overall sales goals.
According to a 2024 study by Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute, the need to bridge the gap is urgent: “The net need for new employees in manufacturing could be around 3.8 million between 2024 and 2033. And, around half of these open jobs (1.9 million) could remain unfilled if manufacturers are not able to address the skills gap and the applicant gap.”
Accelerating sales readiness without compromise
When you’re unable to fill open positions, you have to maximize contributions from each employee. Every employee at your organization needs to make meaningful contributions, and that means onboarding and training new team members as quickly as possible. The need for speed is particularly important for your go-to-market teams (GTM). Ramping up sales reps and partners needs to take weeks, not months, for them to start contributing opportunities and revenue.
Manufacturers are already feeling the pain of inefficient sales organizations. According to “The Go-to-Market Performance Gap,” a recent report by Highspot, 42.5% of manufacturers have found deal cycles taking longer than expected over the last 12 months.
But when you’re selling a broad range of complex products, speed can’t come at the cost of accuracy. Your reps need to understand your entire product catalog inside and out to make high-value sales with real business impact. That challenge is even more complicated for manufacturers offering custom orders: reps require additional expertise to pitch, sell, and deliver made-to-measure products.
Sending your sales reps out into the field too early can do more harm than good. When reps are unable to answer clients’ questions, important deals fall through the cracks, and your brand’s reputation suffers in the process
Onboarding isn’t just for internal sales reps — many manufacturers collaborate with external dealers and channel partners to reach more customers and expand their market share.
Your external partners need effective onboarding to promote and sell your products, but engagement in training is typically low. Channel networks are often widely distributed, and dealers are busy representing multiple companies simultaneously.
You need a way to deliver effective training to everyone responsible for selling your products, regardless of whether they’re on your payroll or not.
Streamlined learning delivered at scale
Highspot helps manufacturers quickly onboard and train sales reps without sacrificing skills or accuracy. Our platform is designed to elevate your GTM teams with personalized, streamlined learning experiences delivered at scale.
- Unified training solution: Even as manufacturing jobs move back to the U.S., employees remain spread out across cities and states — when you factor in external dealers and channel partners, you could have sellers in every region of the country. With Highspot’s sales training software, your sellers can access essential learning materials, regardless of where they’re located, and start closing deals faster.
- Skills and certifications: Your reps need specific skills and competencies before they can sell effectively. Highspot offers industry-leading certifications to help you accelerate new rep productivity. By learning how to onboard, train, and coach employees, you can reduce ramp-up time and build stronger sales teams. Our sales enablement certification also shares best practices for engaging adult learners and improving knowledge retention.
- Personalized learning paths: The best training is never one-size-fits-all. With Highspot, you can provide every employee and channel partner with personalized, AI-powered learning experiences. Sales reps can develop and fine-tune their skills with always-on coaching, instant knowledge checks, and accurate insights from your entire collection of GTM resources.
- Confidence through practice: Your salespeople need confidence to navigate the sales process, especially when it comes to explaining complicated, expensive products. That confidence also helps build trust with customers and get tricky deals over the line. Reps can prepare for customer interactions with role-play simulations in Highspot and receive immediate AI feedback to improve their sales conversations.
- Analytics that drive impact: Identifying and replicating the actions of your best sales reps helps you build high-performing teams. With Highspot, you can see the behaviors, strategies, and tactics that have a positive impact on sales and scale winning behaviors across your team. Highspot also offers deep data on sales readiness, providing confidence that reps are prepared to sell in every scenario.
By accelerating sales readiness with Highspot, you’ll build a GTM team that’s ready to capitalize on the current boom in domestic production. Read our full article to find out more about how Highspot is helping close the GTM execution gap in manufacturing.
