Highspot Blog

Sales enablement has revealed itself to be an increasingly critical contributor to B2B sales growth, giving businesses a powerful advantage in connecting with today’s modern buyers. This is just one of the many insights that come out of this year’s State of Sales Enablement report.

This year’s report shows the gap in success between those with and without formal sales enablement programs is widening.

In the report, which is now available for download, you’ll see that sales enablement is transformational in companies. This tectonic shift is creating more empowered and productive sales organizations, and it further illustrates the importance of enacting or updating a sales enablement strategy quickly—before competitors gain the edge.

Continue reading article ›

What do sports teams, households, classrooms, and sales teams have in common? There’s a coach backing all these teams who enables and motivates people to succeed. If you take a moment to think about it, you may begin to see coaches in almost every aspect of your life. Coaches can take the form of a parent, professor, mentor, The Voice, NFL head coach, sales manager, or even your friend.

From competing for my high school track team to my job here at Highspot as an account development representative – I attribute my growth, drive, and success to the individuals who have coached me. The coach who helped me perfect my form over the hurdle, the coach who helped me close my first deal.

These coaches made a huge impact on me personally, and I’ve come to appreciate the skills with which they helped me develop. Coaching has been and always will be about helping your people experience meaningful progress and growth.Continue reading article ›

It’s that time of quarter again: we’ve pulled the latest stats to highlight the customers who have been killing it on Highspot. The biggest win? The awesome results our customers have achieved by using the Highspot platform.

It’s always a treat to see how many of our customers love using our platform, but as much as #RepsLoveHighspot, it’s always important to remember that #HighspotLovesReps, #HighspotLovesMarketers, and #HighspotLovesSalesEnablement as well. And we’d like to highlight some of those users who showed the Highspot platform a lot of love last quarter.

#HighspotLovesReps Awards

Continue reading article ›

Sales enablement as a technology is still a grey area for a lot of people. In account development, I talk with several people every day who could benefit from our solution–but the term sales enablement sometimes stands in the way. That’s why it’s my job as a sales rep to educate and guide them, rather than shuffle them along to a contract. The mantra of educating and guiding should be your approach to social prospecting, too.

From a tactical standpoint, we practice the same sales methodology that we preach, which is largely due to how the modern B2B buyer behaves. We’re a point a time where there’s a seemingly infinite amount of information and twice as many product reviews (thanks to our friend Jeff from Amazon), and buyers have the incredible freedom and power to self-educate. Which is why when I’m looking to connect with my prospects, I need to be offering some value elsewhere, which is often just good conversation. We’re looking for people who might not know about our company or technology, yet own some degree of the problem they consciously or unconsciously are looking to solve. Social media offers another channel through which you can meet your potential buyers, and offers some awesome power with the right approach. So let’s dance.

Continue reading article ›

You’ve done your annual company sales kickoff… There was sales training, product training, dynamic speakers, team-building social events, food, frivolity—maybe there was even a little role playing to practice those newly formed sales skills. But here’s the question: was it a total waste of time and money? Was it just an excuse to schmooze?

The typical AE spends 2.7 years on the job* and takes 4.7 months to ramp—often more. So, it’s essential to do something to train and keep that AE on track to retire quota. If you’re wondering what the return is on your investment in SKO every year, you’re not alone.

Continue reading article ›

Keeping up with buyers today is exhausting. Their behaviors are constantly shifting, and they do more research up-front and on their own than ever before. According to CEB, the average B2B buyer gets 57 percent of the way through their purchase decision before ever engaging a supplier sales rep.

But ponder this: the modern sales rep doesn’t have a problem with any of that. The top echelon of sales reps is knocking it out of the park even in today’s buyer-first environment. Why? Because they’ve figured out what works. Sales enablement teams have the power to lead a shift across the sales organization to update old school “conventional wisdom” and modernize the way reps work.

Continue reading article ›

The most important metric for sales at the end of the day is quota attainment. The calculation is straightforward: take the total sales that a rep, region or team closes over a certain time period and divide it by the quota for that same period. As an example, if a sales team meets its quota target for a given period, it would achieve 100% sales quota attainment. If it closes only half of the quota target, it would achieve 50%.

But there’s a few problems with sales quota attainment:

1. The quick fix for poor sales quota attainment is to get rid of lower performing sales reps. According to CSO Insights, an average sales team’s annual turnover is around 25 percent. But ironically, the quick-fix approach to improving attainment backfires. Sales teams soon find themselves having to hire, onboard, train, ramp, and transition pipeline to a large portion of their constantly churning sales organization. And quota attainment actually suffers as a result.
2. Sales quota attainment is a lagging indicator. That means some really important things have to happen before a rep can successfully retire quota – like getting trained, delivering the pitch, and engaging with prospects. By over-focusing on quota attainment these important activities are overlooked.

Continue reading article ›

When we talk about modern-day sales cycles, we hear a lot of challenges. Just about every sales rep will tell you that the sales cycle is getting increasingly complex. With the continuous advent of new technology, leadership teams have more visibility and insight into how effective their current business operations are. Because of this, there are now multiple stakeholders, all of whom want a voice in why and how to improve their current processes.

So, what does this mean for sales organizations? As an account development representative, I talk every day with people who are experiencing these kinds of challenges—and I also am part of a team that is selling into this increasingly complex world. Let’s take a closer look at how peer-to-peer relationships within sales organizations can make a tremendous, positive impact on modern sales cycles.Continue reading article ›

January may not be the traditional month for being thankful, but we have been overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude over the past few weeks. Why? Because of the outpouring of positive feedback we’ve received from our customers, most notably reviews posted on G2 Crowd over the past year. Success with any technology requires adoption, and adoption only happens when users love to use it.

Continue reading article ›

“That’s how we’ve always done it.” Some of the most expensive words in any business.

Whether it be tools, processes or mentalities, tradition often becomes the scapegoat when faced with the possibility of new. Longstanding conventions seem like a brick wall, and it is easy to become blind to the possibility of change.

In the information era we live in, there is an abundance of knowledge, news and resources available, yet it seems as though they are often overlooked, until there is a critical need that compels us to notice. Proactivity is therefore critical: organizations should always strive to improve and refine processes, and as you become aware of a need for a process improvement or software enhancement, the next steps are vital. Yet, despite their importance, these next steps can certainly feel ominous, creating an uncertainty of what to do and how to begin. Tradition can seem like the easy way out.

As with most tasks, dealing with this uncertainty proves to be the hardest part. Fortunately, while each situation is unique, the general process itself can be broken down into a few, simple steps. So, where do you start? Continue reading article ›