The Challenge
Cornerstone OnDemand is a leading global provider of cloud-based talent management software solutions. Nearly 13 million users across 190 countries rely on Cornerstone’s solutions to source and recruit top talent, develop and engage employees throughout their careers, improve business execution, cultivate future leaders, and enable external networks of customers, vendors and distributors.
Cornerstone’s Mid-Market Sales team sells to mid-size organizations, most of which are first-time buyers who have never invested in talent management before. The team saw an opportunity to maximize the utilization of value selling to HR and C-level executives, and to offer prospects scenario-based visions of the future. This led Cornerstone to upgrade its current selling strategy and implement ValueCore across the Mid-Market Sales team.
Before ValueCore, Cornerstone OnDemand used third party media articles and home-grown Excel spreadsheets to showcase the value of their software and services in sales meetings. While the information presented through these materials was helpful in demonstrating various trends and growth patterns, this content could not quantify the value to prospective clients, nor describe how Cornerstone might be able to impact their specific business. Furthermore, working with Excel spreadsheets created inefficiencies, slowed down the process and didn’t offer prospective clients any interactivity.
The Strategy
Because Cornerstone was working with first-time buyers, the company was determined to build better business cases and pricing conversations while simultaneously enabling their prospects with a collaborative process.
Cornerstone introduced the ValueCore product to its Mid-Market Sales team to utilize during sales pitches and meetings. Having the ability to customize solutions for various prospects and collaborate through the sales process proved to be a great conversation builder, as well as a significant time saver. When the team used the tool early in the sales process, they were able to deliver more client-specific data (not just industry trends); provide various use case models for each company; plus shorten sales cycles by encouraging prospects to buy sooner, or ending sales cycles earlier when engagement or interest wasn’t present.
The Result
Since implementing ValueCore across Cornerstone’s Mid-Market Sales team, they have realized the following results:
- Decrease in sales lost due to no decision, as well as an increase in closure of larger/multi-module sales deals
- Reduction in time and operational cost spent on prospects who don’t value ROI-based conversations
- Substantial value-added across sales cycles based on the ability to customize every conversation and business case
Cornerstone has received positive feedback from some of its prospective clients regarding the tool’s simplicity, intuitiveness and ease of customizations. Some prospects also have been impressed by the ROI impact in the model presented in real-time.
By using ValueCore tools, Cornerstone is better able to avoid being held back by lagging sales cycles, stale data and ineffective ROI conversations. ValueCore and Cornerstone share the same goal: to help present value propositions in visually impactful and collaborative ways. In the future, Cornerstone intends to continue to work with ValueCore to foster even greater client engagement, increase deal sizes and achieve positive sales results.