How Yubico cut sales cycle time by 25%

Yubico’s hardware keys secure logins for Fortune 500 companies across the globe. Its strategy team partners with Highspot to sharpen sales execution, using the platform to:

• Accelerate coaching development and deployment
• Strengthen execution across a global sales team
• Identify and scale winning behaviors

Coaching a global sales force

Yubico’s sales organization spans the globe, but the work of coaching it falls to a lean team that built every coaching program from scratch. Development consumed capacity and made it hard to pivot with the business. Deployment wasn’t easy, either, as busy sellers and managers had to make time to practice and review. Even when the team invested the hours to develop and deploy coaching, they had no way to see where sellers fell short. Without that visibility, it was hard to know what to build coaching around, so investments went toward what seemed urgent, instead of what sellers and the business actually needed. Seeing these gaps, the team began exploring alternatives.

“How do we give reps effective, repeatable coaching without spending thousands of hours in coaching sessions?” asked Austin Clark, GTM engineer at Yubico.

Yubico turned to Highspot Role Play to provide repeatable practice without straining enablement or manager capacity.

Scaling feedback with Role Play

For sellers, Role Play meant practice was available the moment they needed it, not whenever a manager’s calendar opened up. They can run scenarios at any time and expect specific feedback right away, then repeat the process as many times as it takes to feel confident and ready, without the pressure of practicing in front of a manager or when on a call with a prospect.

For managers, it removes the burden of running the same coaching conversation over and over. Instead of spending hours walking every seller through the same objection or pitch, they can point them to a scenario and reserve 1:1 coaching time for the moments that matter most. The team builds new Role Play in a matter of hours, saving 12% of their work week for other high-priority tasks. Because every Role Play session produces a score, Yubico’s team has a consistent view into where sellers are strong and where they need support.

“Role Play helps us skip a lot of the manual work,” shared Clark. “It takes us hours to set up a Role Play versus weeks of prep and knowledge transfer.”

Shaping go-to-market strategy with data

Insight into seller strengths and growth areas is changing how Yubico’s leaders run the business. Instead of waiting for a quarterly review to see where sellers are struggling, they can spot and act on gaps as they appear.

Using Role Play, Yubico’s team turned their coaching program into a self-serve engine for global sales development. Now, sellers can:

• Practice anytime, anywhere
• Build skills in low-stakes scenarios
• Execute more effectively in live conversations

That impact is already showing up in how quickly deals move. This year alone, Yubico has seen a: 25% decrease in sales cycle time.