Hyster-Yale Finds A Winning Sales Enablement Solution With Highspot

Hyster-Yale drives more business with channel partners by implementing a single sales enablement platform to deliver guided sales plays, best practices, and AI-recommended content.

Key Results

Improved discoverability of sales assets for channel partner sellers with a single solution
Increased adoption of SFDC by surfacing integrated AI-recommended content ‘Best Bets’ to sellers based on unique selling scenarios
Expanded visibility for sales leadership into deal cycles and best practices
Delivered unique insights on content usage and effectiveness for Marketers to optimize sales plays

Company Size

5,000

Industry

Manufacturing

Introduction

Selling in manufacturing requires deep product knowledge and a holistic understanding of customer pain points, which can vary by industry. For Hyster-Yale, with a North American sales team of 900+ channel partner sellers employed through dealers in addition to an internal National Account sales team, product knowledge, consistent buyer experience, and visibility into deal cycles were key concerns.

To help sellers succeed, various tools including a marketing collateral portal, sales playbooks, and an LMS system were implemented. However, as Hyster-Yale discovered, though meant to support seller workflows, often using multiple tools is challenging for sellers and mastering the system is unlikely. Adding an additional challenge, Hyster-Yale implemented a CRM, Salesforce.com (SFDC) to allow dealer salespeople to quote products and log contacts, activities, and opportunities. However, with no incentive to enter that information outside of the need to create a quote, sellers opted to skip the extra steps.

Hyster-Yale’s goals were simple: find a better way to deliver existing sales assets and drive adoption of SFDC with partner sellers. Though initially, finding a solution seemed less clear. Through exploring various options to fix what seemed like two separate problems, Hyster-Yale’s sales enablement leaders discovered Highspot’s powerful functionality and seamless integrations could deliver a solution for both problems with a single platform. The team was excited to put the solution to work and see how far it could go.

With other sales support tools already in place, prior to bringing in Highspot, 86% of internal stakeholders were skeptical that driving partner sellers to utilize SFDC would further impact deals positively. However, less than a year after Highspot was implemented with its robust integration to SFDC, including the ability to provide Best Bets and Recommended Content based on unique deal attributes, 100% of internal stakeholders were convinced that using Highspot within SFDC does increase the likelihood of a rep to close deals.

Beyond agreement amongst senior leaders, the proof of value was validated through accelerated adoption of both SFDC and Highspot by channel partners and internal sellers alike, which has resulted in better engagement with buyers and increased revenue.

Highspot has given us the ability to surface relevant content within our CRM, bringing our sales playbooks to life and giving sellers quick and easy access to the most relevant assets for each unique selling scenario, including segment, deal stage, and geography. This has not only improved engagement with buyers but has helped to drive adoption of our CRM because sellers are now getting incredible value from tracking deals through the various stages.

—Bob Bladel, Director of Sales Enablement and Training, Hyster-Yale Group

Challenges

Lack of Adoption Leads to Underutilized Resources and Limited Visibility

STATIC, HARD-TO-FIND SALES CONTENT WAS OFTEN FORGOTTEN AND WENT UNUSED

Though time and resources were spent creating great content and sales playbooks, it was scattered across three different platforms, and sellers did not have easy access. Instead of wasting time searching, sellers used the limited assets readily available, typically old, unapproved versions that were not tailored to unique selling scenarios, which contributed to missed opportunities to deliver value to customers.

LITTLE INCENTIVE TO TRACK IN SFDC CREATED UNPREDICTABLE REVENUE CYCLES

Though meant to provide visibility into pipeline and sales cycles, because 90% of Hyster-Yale’s salesforce is employed through dealers and not directly by the company, reps had little incentive to follow internal sales processes, including logging deal progression in SFDC. This limited Hyster-Yale’s understanding of how channel partners prioritized the company in deals and where to focus on improving the sales cycle.

GEOGRAPHICALLY DISPERSED CHANNEL PARTNER SELLERS LIMITED BEST PRACTICE SHARING

Additionally, without visibility into which content performed best in various industries or scenarios, best-practice sharing was not conducive to a globally dispersed sales force, employed by hundreds of dealers contracted through Hyster-Yale. Though sales plays had been developed, the company did not have the data readily available to prove they were impactful or optimize for what was known to work best.

Solution

Highspot Brings Curated Sales Plays to Life with Dynamic SmartPages™

Setting out to improve access to its sales content and seller workflows, HysterYale discovered it could convert existing Sales Playbooks into truly dynamic, interactive content experiences by utilizing Highspot’s SmartPage™ technology. Turning static sales playbooks into interlinked SmartPages gave Hyster-Yale the ability to guide sellers through the sales process and recommend content based on various attributes, including industry or deal stage. With easy access to these plays sellers quickly realized the immense value of these resources available that were previously too difficult to find and not fully utilized. By surfacing what sellers needed to know, say, and show from Highspot directly within SFDC, more and more sellers started using SFDC—which kept Hyster-Yale top-of-mind for partner sellers and created more visibility into deal cycles for leadership.

EASY ACCESS TO CONTENT ACCELERATES PARTNER SALES

With Highspot content available directly in SFDC, channel partners now have quick access to targeted content for each unique deal, keeping Hyster-Yale top-of-mind and motivating channel partner sellers to market, sell, and support Hyster-Yale’s products more effectively than ever before.

Highspot helped our sellers, whether directly employed or a channel partner, follow recommended sales plays which accelerated the sales process and increased the likelihood of success. And in return, with greater visibility, we’ve been able to analyze what works best and continue to improve incrementally. These small increases in win rates have had a huge impact on our business.

—Bob Bladel, Director of Sales Enablement and Training, Hyster-Yale Group

Results

Smarter, Guided Selling Drives Revenue Impact

EASY ACCESS TO RECOMMENDED CONTENT

Highspot’s AI recommendations for related content and ‘Best Bets’ directly integrated within SFDC drastically improved the ability for reps to discover content. Sellers are now able to find what they need, right when they need it to better engage with buyers. Additionally, with robust buyer engagement data, sellers can further deliver targeted content focused on precisely what the buyer is most interested in.

CONTEXT AND TRAINING FOR UNIQUE SELLING SCENARIOS

By turning its sales plays into dynamic SmartPages, Hyster-Yale doubled down on the impact of its expertly curated playbooks. Now, the company provides supplemental content that delivers context and training in the moment they need it to all sellers, which helps reps better prepare for engaging conversations no matter how complex the industry or deal. Further, optimizing this guidance for unique selling scenarios, including segment, deal stage, and geography helps sellers deliver a personalized, value-driven experience for buyers.

IDENTIFIED BEST PRACTICES THROUGH ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS

Closing the feedback loop, Highspot’s Content Genomics technology tracks how content performs and is customized, surfacing unique insights into the content quality and effectiveness and identifying repeatable successful sales motions. With more insights into what reps are searching for and using as well as mapping the topics or types of content that are contributing to closed-won deals, Highspot helps Hyster-Yale marketers optimize resources to deliver the best content for reps to more effectively close deals.

Impact

Better Informed Sellers Create More Value for Buyers

Hyster-Yale’s ability to deliver dynamic guidance for which content to use at a given deal stage directly within SFDC has created a new-found value and activated both partner sellers and internal sellers to track deals within the CRM. This has given Hyster-Yale more confidence that its partner sellers are well-prepared and focused on prioritizing the company in deals. It also provides more visibility into partner-led deals. With more insights, the company now has the ability to optimize sales plays and content, ultimately driving more business and more value to buyers.

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