Who is Brightly:

Brightly is a global leader in intelligent asset management solutions. It helps organizations optimize their assets, improve sustainability, and cut costs with its software and services. Brightly's sales team has a complex sales cycle. It is mainly in the Education, Government, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Senior Living, and Clubs & Associations sectors.

Challenges

Before Recapped, Brightly's sales team struggled with:

• Inconsistent seller execution
• Difficulty tracking prospect engagement with shared resources
• Limited visibility into deal progress for managers
• Inconsistent forecasting based on reps' subjective information

Solution

With Recapped, a deal execution platform, Brightly’s sales team could:

• Standardize their entire playbook for different verticals
• Streamline customer experience and timelines with Mutual Action Plans
• Manage and organize deals efficiently
• Integrate seamlessly with Salesforce and other tools
• Provide an elevated and differentiated engagement experience 

Outcomes

By implementing Recapped, Brightly’s team saw the following results:

• More adherence with sales reps using Mutual Action Plans effectively
• Improve forecasting accuracy
• Deliver the best buying experience
• Stand out from the competition

Reps who adopted Recapped saw an average increase of 39% in conversion rates and 29% in AOVs.

Lower performers who adopted Recapped, those historically in the bottom 25%, often achieved a 2x improvement in conversion rate, with consistent use of the tool.

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Introducing Brightly's Senior Manager, Sales Operations, Ashley Moralez and Sales Operations Program Manager, Cedrick Crudup.

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Moving upmarket with better deal management

Moving upmarket in today's competitive landscape requires excellent deal organization and execution. Brightly knew they must overcome some challenges: opportunity planning, account planning, efficient multi-threading, driving timelines, and creating accountability.

Tracking deal progress was another area of improvement for Brightly. Reps struggled to show deal status, timelines, and negotiation processes. This often meant piecing together info from scattered Excel sheets and email threads. It caused disorganization and lost chances in winnable deals. 

With Recapped, Brightly streamlined deal management and execution. It drove adoption of their sales methodology framework and improved deal velocity. This boost sparked a surge in bookings for the reps that have adopted Recapped, lifting average contract values 29%.

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Winning More Deals With Excellent Execution

Winning more deals and not losing winnable deals relies on execution excellence. Like many organizations, Brightly had issues with inefficient deal management. Manual updates and complex spreadsheets hurt productivity. They also hindered collaboration and visibility into deal progress for sales reps and managers.

Recapped helped streamline workflows and improve CRM hygiene. Reps could save time by adding notes in the platform. This would cut duplicate work and reduce emails.

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The integration with Salesforce improved collaboration. It was key to driving rep adoption. Recapped's simple interface let reps customize Mutual Action Plans, without help from ops or training.

"Ease of use was a quick win. If it even just looks complicated, they're not going to use it."

Reps who adopted Recapped saw an average increase of 39% in conversion rates and 29% in AOVs. Lower performers who adopted Recapped, those historically in the bottom 25%, often achieved a 2x improvement in conversion rate, with consistent use of the tool.

Delivering a Seamless Buyer Experience

An organized and streamlined sales process can be a powerful differentiator in a competitive market. Using Recapped, Brightly creates a buyer experience that impresses prospects and surpasses competitors.

While Brightly’s customers had a good overall experience, it was inconsistent. Information was scattered in emails and various resources. This created confusion and misalignment and detracted from the buying experience.

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Recapped's deal rooms turned this pain into a strength. Prospects now praised Brightly's organized sales process. Buyers valued a single place for clear timelines, resources, and easy collaboration.

The deal room was a "crisp and clean" way to interact with clients. It avoided lengthy emails and phone calls. It was user-friendly.

By reducing friction and providing a smooth buying journey, Brightly reps set themselves apart. They built stronger connections with prospects, driving better outcomes.

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Creating repeatable playbooks for every vertical and segment

Brightly invested heavily in tailoring vertical-specific journeys for prospects, and wanted an easier way to do this at scale. But regardless of investment, serving several key verticals with varying customer personas and buying committees was a challenge.

"You can’t have a cookie cutter template when your personas are two totally different people, or where your buying committee is completely different." - Ashley

With Recapped, they were able to create repeatable templates for every situation. Brightly crafted baseline playbooks tailored to specific verticals with distinct buyer journeys, stakeholders, and potential roadblocks. The platform was a content hub, eliminating the risk of sharing outdated materials.

It ensured reps had personalized playbooks for each vertical's needs. This let them present the right info at the right time, navigate hurdles, and stay focused on their goal.

With actionable playbooks and a single resource, Brightly armed their sales team. They now had the tools and guidance for better deal management and consistent success.

Brightly's ability to forecast and track deal progress suffered from a lack of deal-level visibility.

"It was very hard to forecast on those deals, particularly because you're taking the rep's word for it when it comes to how much the person is interacting with a deal." - Ashley

Recapped's integration with systems like Salesforce solved this. It provided a centralized view of deal statuses, engagement levels, and mutual action plan progress.

"Our forecast reports show the mutual action plan's status. It's helping us better predict when a deal will close.

If I go into a forecast call and they say a deal is going to close this month, but on the mutual action plan, I see it's delayed or stalled, I'm obviously going to have a conversation with my leadership." - Ashley

This transparency lets leadership question forecast categories and close dates based on actual deal insights. 

Reps no longer had to jump between different platforms, and could focus on what they do best - selling and helping customers. Now, they can easily access and update deal information within the Mutual Action Plan itself, streamlining collaboration and ensuring accurate data tracking.

With Recapped, Brightly gained unparalleled visibility into deal progression and engagement levels. Brightly improved their forecast accuracy. They made better decisions. And, they aligned reps with leadership.

Advice for Implementing Mutual Action Plans or using Recapped

Implementing a mutual action planning tool like Recapped can significantly enhance deal management and overall business efficiency. Here are the best practices recommended by Ashley Moralez and Cedrick Crudup for maximizing the impact and adoption of Recapped or similar tools within an organization:

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1. Understanding the Process Before Implementation through Peer-Led Initiatives

“Before you go forward with purchasing a tool like this, you have to understand how you want to use it within your business and what are your expectations. So, do you expect a mutual action plan to be on every single deal? Or only when you’re talking to a specific persona? I think if you don’t understand how to use it within your business, it’s going to be very hard for your reps to understand how and when to position it for it to be beneficial for them. And then obviously, I think because we had so much success with a peer-led initiative, I would always consider that as a best practice.”
- Ashley Moralez

“Having their teammates actually get into the tool early, helped us understand how they’re going to use it as a team. They’re the ones that’s in there day-to-day, and that’s how you’re going to get the buy-in from their peers. So I would 100% suggest they go a similar route when purchasing the tool and rolling it out.”
- Cedrick Crudup

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2. Thinking about implementing Mutual Action Plans or using Recapped?

Advice from Ashley Moralez, Senior Manager, Sales Operations:

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“I would look at, how do you plan to implement the mutual action plan process within your sales process?’ 

Take the tool and put it aside for a second. Do you want a Mutual Action Plan to be a very big driver in your sales cycle?’ 

And if so, how do you plan on doing that without a tool? Because if you’re going to do it without a tool, there’s a lot of manual tracking, and not a lot of bi-directional collaboration with your prospect. 

And so from a management side or business side, how do we know that that Mutual Action Plan is actually benefiting you. Does the tool meet all of our needs? Does it help us get to that end goal? Here’s how I expect my team to use it and win. And here’s how I expect them to position it within the selling process.

Once you’ve determined that, then the tool and the implementation is relatively easy in my opinion.”

Example of assigning next steps within a mutual action plan in Recapped.

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3. Best Practices to Maximize Impact and Adoption

Brightly leveraged the platform's simplicity, tailored templates, and leadership buy-in to drive widespread adoption of Recapped. They showcased wins to maximize its impact on deal execution, rep productivity, and sales performance. Here are their best practices and wins:

• Recapped's intuitive design and ease of use played a big role in driving adoption among reps. Administrators like Ashley and Cedrick have the ability to make quick changes without complex processes.
  • "The fact that the team is pretty much all using it... speaks to how easy it is for them to maneuver through it." - Cedrick
• Little to no issues with the platform.
  • “Recapped.io interface allows our users the ability to quickly learn the tool & adapt to using it within their day to day, quickly. We rarely have any issues with the technology, it’s extremely easy to use!” - Ashley
• Create and tailor playbooks to distinct buying cycles and stakeholders to empower reps with relevant guidance and better deal execution.
  • “In each buying cycle within each vertical, you have different things you need to present to the prospect at that specific moment in time. And making sure that we understood that we don't have to present everything at once. We don't have to have everything due at once.” - Ashley
• Leadership getting behind the solution and consistently reinforcing its value goes a long way in getting new tools adopted. Managers that are closest to the deal and the rep will drive the best adherence.
  • "When your leaders are constantly reminding the team, 'This is how we won this deal, and these are the tools we used, you get a lot more buy-in.” - Ashley

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The Results

Recapped's implementation changed Brightly's ability to manage complex sales cycles and deliver results. 

Recapped had an immediate impact across many aspects of their sales organization:

1. Better deal control: Brightly gained control over their sales pipeline. This led to a 39% increase in closed deals and a 29% rise in contract value. The platform's structure aligned all stakeholders on goals, timelines, and roles. This reduced the risk of deals falling through the cracks.
2. Improved forecasting accuracy: Recapped's integration with Salesforce gave Brightly's leadership real-time visibility into the pipeline and deal progress. Using real engagement data from the platform, sales leaders could better predict revenue. This would help them make informed decisions on resource use and planning.
3. Increased rep efficiency: Recapped, by consolidating all deal-related tasks in one platform, empowered Brightly's sales reps to manage their deals better. The new process removed manual data entry. It cut the time spent searching for info. Now, reps can focus on high-value tasks, like engaging with prospects and closing deals.
4. Buyer enablement: Recapped's Mutual Action Plans helped Brightly's customers navigate the buyer journey. They used the resources to advocate for their solutions internally. By empowering internal champions with the right tools, Brightly sped up sales. It also boosted the chances of success.

"Using a Mutual Action Plan is very important to our selling process. Recapped.io has allowed us to implement this practice easily within our team. The tool itself is a 9 out of 10!" - Ashley

The impact of Recapped on Brightly's sales performance was undeniable. Ashley shared that these results prove the platform's power. It can drive revenue growth and improve sales efficiency.

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