For manufacturers, the sales landscape has fundamentally shifted. Cold calls, trade shows, and siloed spreadsheets used to carry the load. Today, buyers expect speed, personalization, and consistency across every interaction. For a VP of Sales, that means the old way isn’t just inefficient — it’s risky. Deals are slower, opportunities are missed, and competitors that modernize with AI-enabled tools start to pull ahead. This is where Growth Operations comes in.
Growth Operations is about rethinking how sales, marketing, and service work together under one operational umbrella. At the center sits HubSpot — not just as a CRM, but as the operational hub where everything from prospecting to invoicing connects. Add in AI-driven tools like Apollo.io and RollWorks, and suddenly your sales team can move faster, with more focus and more confidence.
The modern sales stack isn’t about piling on more software; it’s about creating a unified growth system that reduces friction for sales teams. Many manufacturers feel the pain of juggling too many disconnected tools — one for leads, another for quoting, another for email. Reps end up spending more time chasing data than building relationships. That’s why the winning model for manufacturing sales starts with:
Apollo.io for prospecting and contact discovery. It surfaces the right companies and decision-makers in minutes, removing hours of manual research. (Get a Free Account)
RollWorks for account-based advertising. The same accounts you target for outreach also see your ads across web and social, warming them before your reps ever reach out.
HubSpot as the operational hub. This is where sales teams actually work:
CRM for contacts, companies, and deals
Deal tracking and pipeline management
CPQ (configure, price, quote) and invoicing
Marketing tools for websites, content, landing pages, and forms
Automation for reminders, follow-ups, and nurturing sequences
Pro Tip: If your sales reps are working out of multiple systems, you’re losing both time and data. A unified hub reduces “system hopping” and gives leadership a single source of truth for reporting and forecasting.
Manufacturing sales cycles are often long and complex. Multiple stakeholders, technical evaluations, and procurement layers make speed difficult. But speed isn’t about rushing deals — it’s about removing dead time. That’s where AI and automation shine.
Automated research: Apollo.io enriches contacts instantly, and HubSpot integrates firmographic and behavioral data so reps never start from scratch.
Smart reminders and follow-ups: HubSpot workflows and Apollo sequences make sure no lead is left unattended. If a buyer clicks a pricing page, the rep is notified immediately.
Sales insights that matter: AI-driven tools flag which accounts are heating up, so reps can prioritize deals that actually have momentum.
Why this matters: Momentum is everything. Studies show that sales teams who follow up within the first hour of engagement are 7x more likely to qualify a lead. In manufacturing, we’ve seen cycle times shrink by over 20% when automation ensures consistent follow-up and timely responses.
One of the hidden costs of a fragmented system is smaller deal sizes. When reps don’t have context, they default to pitching what’s safe or familiar. But when they walk into conversations informed, they sell smarter — and bigger.
HubSpot centralizes engagement data: which web pages a prospect visited, which case study they downloaded, which ad they engaged with.
RollWorks shows which accounts are actively responding to campaigns.
With this data, reps can recommend complete solutions instead of just single products.
Pro Tip: Use HubSpot’s deal activity timeline in pipeline reviews. It shows exactly how prospects are engaging with your brand, so managers can coach reps on where to expand the conversation.
The result? We’ve seen average deal sizes increase by 18%, because reps had the confidence to suggest larger purchases or multi-year contracts supported by data.
Every time a rep jumps between Outlook, Excel, Word, QuickBooks, and a CRM, risk goes up. Quotes get mispriced, calls go unlogged, and forecasts get skewed. For manufacturers selling into large accounts, these errors can cost millions. HubSpot solves this by consolidating everything in one place:
Quotes built with CPQ tools
Invoices generated and tracked directly in the CRM
Websites, content, and landing pages aligned with the sales funnel
Real-time dashboards for reporting and forecasting
Pro Tip: Make it a cultural rule — “If it’s not in HubSpot, it doesn’t exist.” This simple discipline ensures accurate reporting, better handoffs between sales and service, and clearer forecasting for leadership.
This isn’t just convenience. It’s operational excellence. When the system is simple, reps focus more on selling and less on administration. For leadership, it means data-driven visibility instead of guesswork.
When industrial manufacturing and apparel companies adopt Growth Operations with HubSpot at the core, the results are dramatic:
Industrial manufacturing and apparel companies we’ve supported launched account-based campaigns that successfully opened doors to Tier 1 prospects including Disney, Walmart, Volkswagen, International Paper, and the City of Los Angeles. These were organizations that had been historically out of reach for their sales teams.
In the software sector, we helped a large open-source solutions provider run their first ABM initiative. Within just 30 days of launch, they had a conversation with one of their top 10 Tier 1 accounts — a deal estimated at over $15M in potential contract value if it moves forward.
Across multiple manufacturing and industrial clients, we’ve consistently seen:
1200% growth in qualified pipeline in under six months, adding more than $17M in new opportunities.
20%+ shorter sales cycles, simply by automating research, reminders, and follow-ups.
18% higher average deal sizes, as sales teams entered conversations with more buyer context and confidence.
The takeaway: Growth Operations isn’t just about adding tools — it’s about building a system where sales, marketing, and service are aligned. When that happens, doors open that were previously closed.
Manufacturing sales is evolving. Buyers expect more, competitors are moving faster, and the margin for inefficiency is shrinking. VPs of Sales who embrace Growth Operations with HubSpot at the center are discovering they don’t just keep up — they lead. The result is more opportunities, faster closes, and bigger wins. That’s what Manufacturing Sales 2.0 looks like.