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Client Spotlight: LaserStar Technologies

How a U.S. Manufacturer Surpassed Their 2020 Revenue Goal by 45% Utilizing HubSpot’s Sales Tools

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The Client: LaserStar Technologies | The Global Experts in Laser Welding, Engraving & Cutting Systems

Since LaserStar’s founding in 1957, the company has grown into a global supplier of laser sources for welding, marking, cutting, deep engraving, and motion systems across a variety of industries. With over 14,000 customers globally, LaserStar needed to implement advanced sales operations and reporting tools that would scale alongside their business and set their sales team up for more efficient success.

Challenge: Organizing and Automating Sales Operations to Establish Smarter KPIs & Drive Revenue

Being on HubSpot since 2012, LaserStar has been able to grow with the platform and currently takes advantage of all three hubs and truly subscribes to the INBOUND philosophy, constantly creating new content on a regular basis that actually led to issues in driving too many leads for the sales team to keep up with. That, plus, the continuation of adding new machines to their product portfolio, it was time to leave behind their singular, rudimentary system of organizing and prioritizing all incoming leads within one universal pipeline. With sales volume increasing across a variety of their machines, they needed to implement multiple pipelines, deal escalation logic, automated workflows, more accurate forecasts, and advanced reporting. TribalVision worked with LaserStar to address three major operational challenges their sales team was faced with ahead of their annual team meeting:

The universal pipeline was disorganized and difficult to manage

Using one pipeline for 5+ different machine categories and weighing all leads equally (regardless of form submission type) made it extremely difficult to identify, separate, and prioritize incoming leads, often resulting in confusion or missed opportunities for qualified outreach by the sales team. TribalVision also noticed that there were no established KPI’s or insights into how quickly (or slowly) deals were moving throughout the sales cycle.

Manual deal creation, assignment, and outreach was cumbersome and inefficient

In addition to the difficulties with prioritizing leads, their sales team was responsible for manually creating and assigning deals to each sales rep. This process was time-consuming and often resulted in incomplete data entry along with delayed introductory and follow-up outreach.

Current reporting dashboards lacked visibility into individual sales rep and channel performance data

With disconnected tracking comes inaccurate reporting. Because the sales team did not have a streamlined system to track their individual performance against their assigned quotas and goals, the organization lacked insight into potential optimizations. Additionally, there was no process for holistically monitoring all advertising efforts and their impact on lead quality and revenue.

Solution: Implementing New Features from the HubSpot Sales Hub Toolbox

Upon reviewing LaserStar’s challenges and concerns, TribalVision identified additional relevant tools available within HubSpot Sales Pro & Marketing Enterprise that would serve as long-term solutions to help LaserStar overcome these roadblocks, working to establish efficiencies and increase revenue. TribalVision worked with LaserStar to get these solutions implemented in just two months, allowing them to achieve the following goals and see an immediate impact.

Implement pipeline segmentation and automations for a more measurable sales process

HubSpot Tools: Pipelines, Workflows, Reporting Dashboards
TribalVision worked with LaserStar to create multiple pipelines for each of the product lines/machines. Utilizing HubSpot’s pipelines, workflows, and reporting dashboards, TribalVision not only de-cluttered the team’s foundational pipeline but helped the sales team free up time for more qualified outreach. Additionally, this allowed the sales team to compile more accurate data on how quickly it takes to sell a machine, expected revenue by machine, and ultimately enabled them to prioritize leads more efficiently.

  • [Quote from sales]
    “Breaking up our universal pipeline has made our database much more organized. We’re now able to set expectations more realistically and have a baseline to measure up against.”
  • [Quote from James Gervais, President & COO]
    “As the President and COO, I’m always looking for ways to motivate our sales team. With the daily report cards and refined sales dashboards, we now have complete visibility into how we’re doing as a group and can track the progress down to each individual rep. These dashboards assisted me in coaching up our sales team, forecasting inventory, determining additional investments in marketing, and tangibly demonstrate to the sales reps that leads in fact were coming in.”

Enhance and automate lead qualification and criteria for outreach

HubSpot Tools: Deals, Workflows, Sequences, Tasks, Lead Scoring
HubSpot’s deals, sequences, and lead scoring allowed the sales reps to more accurately track contacts throughout the sales cycle and prioritize outreach based on real-time engagement criteria. TribalVision implemented workflows and tasks to automate the creation of deals and assign them to the appropriate sales rep, based on the user’s field selection on a landing page form.

  • [Quote from sales]
    “The automations and engagement scoring the TribalVision team have implemented within our sales processes save me so much time that I can now spend working more engaged and qualified leads.”

Establish KPIs alongside advanced sales and channel reporting dashboards

HubSpot Tools: Reporting Dashboards, Deals, Tracking, Advertising
LaserStar was able to use HubSpot’s deals to establish KPIs for determining realistic timeframes for each deal stage per machine. This helped the sales team track conversion rates and identify which stages had higher rates in drop-off to better dissect the issue with the individual contact owner. By implementing more robust tracking on all marketing, advertising, and sales activities, TribalVision was able to create advanced reporting dashboards, giving LaserStar greater visibility into deal progression as well as sales and channel performance data.
The advanced reporting dashboards also helped LaserStar better track inventory levels they needed for different machines and now are able to accurately predict the sales cycle for each machine and what they need on-site from an inventory perspective. From a cost-savings standpoint, LaserStar was able to save time, money, and resources that would have otherwise been spent on having either unnecessary inventory on-site or not enough.

  • [Quote from sales]
    “Our sales dashboards now provide the accurate info we need, to see where we are in relation to our sales goals. As a sales rep, these reports are everything – I’m checking them daily to help prioritize my deals and push past my quota.”

Results: Increased Revenue Using a Refined, Measurable Lead Management Process

With these implementations, LaserStar was able to exceed its 2020 revenue goal by 45%. The introduction of more organized and automated processes has allowed the sales team to prioritize and follow-up with qualified leads at the time that they’re most engaged. Now that these systems have been in place for over a year, LaserStar was able to achieve the following: 

Impact: Outperforming Sales & Revenue Goals

TribalVision’s recommendations for a more polished lead management process helped achieve and surpass sales and revenue goals; an impressive feat during an unprecedented year dealing with the unforeseen challenges of the global pandemic. They have implemented tools that will scale alongside them, and are eager to see what’s next with TribalVision and within HubSpot.

[Quote from James Gervais, President & COO of LaserStar Technologies]

TV is a Leader In Their Industry

I am the President & COO of LaserStar Technologies, a global supplier of laser sources. Specifically, TribalVision has helped us advance our CRM operations, email marketing, paid advertising, and other ad hoc marketing promotions. I enjoy working with TribalVision as they’re constantly analyzing data to find new opportunities to grow our marketing and sales efforts. They are the true definition of a partner, as we consider them an extension of our team. I’d recommend TribalVision to any business looking to quickly improve their marketing and sales efforts.

James Gervais
LaserStar Technologies