Industry 4.0 is reinventing how manufacturers design and build their products. Advanced analytics, robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI) have led to what is now being called the “fourth industrial revolution.”
The rise of the smart factory means manufacturers can produce complex products at record speed, and most are seizing the opportunity. According to recent research by Deloitte, 78% of manufacturers are allocating more than 20% of their overall improvement budgets to smart manufacturing initiatives. Industry 4.0 is making an impact across the board — in industries ranging from energy and chemicals to consumer products.
But digitalization doesn’t just affect those working on the factory floor; your sales teams also need to keep up with new and emerging technologies. To educate buyers and sell effectively, sales and channel reps must be able to explain how products are made and the value they deliver. At the same time, your sales organization should be ready to take advantage of new, AI-driven tools that help them do their jobs more efficiently and effectively. “The Go-to-Market Performance Gap,” a recent report by Highspot, found that 46% of manufacturers are prioritizing AI adoption and acceleration with their go-to-market (GTM) investments over the next 12 months. How can they make the most out of those investments?
Challenge: Mastering a complex product catalog
Emerging technologies like augmented reality (AR) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are difficult to explain even for product experts. Your sales and channel reps need help to understand the details and benefits of advanced products as quickly as possible. But constant change makes that challenge even harder: what your reps know about a product today might become obsolete in just a few months.
Think about a manufacturer that builds sensors designed to monitor environmental conditions like air quality, temperature, and humidity. A decade ago, selling that product would be straightforward. But today, smart sensors offer everything from built-in connectivity (using a variety of different protocols) to real-time alerts to advanced data analytics. Today’s sales and channel reps need far more technical knowledge to sell these products effectively.
That environmental sensor is just one example. Your typical manufacturing catalog could include hundreds of products, all of which are becoming more complicated by the month.
If your organization offers engineer-to-order (ETO) or configure-to-order (CTO) models, there’s even more work to be done. Your reps need to understand how advanced features can be tailored to each specific customer and their needs. Then, they need to communicate that unique information as if it’s the most practiced message in their playbook.
As a manufacturing leader, you need to train internal reps and the channel partners and value-added resellers that make up your external sales network. The pressure is real: manufacturers face significant governance challenges, and you need to deliver consistent, compliant learning experiences at scale across your organization.
According to “The Go-to-Market Performance Gap,” only 39% of manufacturing leaders feel very confident that their teams can execute new initiatives with speed and consistency. To overcome that performance gap, sales training needs to be highly relevant and instantly accessible to everyone selling your product, regardless of where they’re located or what kind of device they’re using. Now more than ever, your salespeople need to be ready to answer complicated technical questions to get high-value sales over the line.
Solution: A smarter approach to sales enablement
For GTM teams, innovative training and coaching are crucial to keep up with an increasingly complex product catalog. Highspot offers a range of smart solutions that will help you prepare your reps for every sales scenario.
- Scalable one-on-one coaching: When you’re working with hundreds of sales reps and channel partners, it’s not always possible to provide individual support and guidance. With Highspot AI, you can coach more effectively while saving hours of time reviewing call recordings. Each sales rep receives instant feedback after practice sessions and live presentations, helping them polish their performance and deliver the most effective messaging.
In the manufacturing industry, training and learning rarely take place in a classroom or on a computer. Highspot’s adaptive, multimodal training tools allow sellers to access the content they need when and where they need it, adjusting to the pace of their learning.
- Informed sales conversations: Smart products often come with complicated specs, and it can be difficult for sales reps to find what they need during a sales conversation. When AI is trained on your product information, it can quickly surface the most relevant details for a specific scenario. AI takes the stress and guesswork out of buyer education, even when dealing with highly complex, technical products.
- SmartPages: Successful sales start with compelling customer conversations. Highspot SmartPages pair content with context to create guided experiences specifically tailored to your reps.
- Spots are collections of related content that align with sellers’ needs across different sales scenarios. With a Spot Overview, you can keep reps focused on the most relevant resources and show them where to find them. Spot Overviews can also include subject matter experts and contact information, crucial for reps getting to grips with emerging technologies.
- Sales Plays pull together resources from multiple Spots, ensuring reps have everything they need to sell complex, high-value products. New team members can learn from the best with real examples from top-performing reps in your Sales Plays. You can continue to refine your approach with insights into the effectiveness of each of your Sales Plays.
- Digital Sales Rooms (DSRs): Buyers can reach informed decisions faster with easy access to sales collateral. DSRs are personalized spaces where sellers can engage with buyers and share the whitepapers, product demos, and pricing documents buyers need to move forward. Buyers and sellers can also maintain open lines of communication with live chat and commenting features built into the DSR.
Manufacturing sales are going through a major technology shift, and Industry 4.0 is just one part of that. For more on trends like reshoring and mass customization, download our new guide to GTM in manufacturing.
With Highspot, you can prepare your sales teams for every challenge — visit our Manufacturing page or request a demo to learn more.
