So you are in the group of sales and marketing folks who totally understand how important a well honed sales message is. Your message has been crafted by a multifunctional team that includes sales, marketing, and subject matter experts. Congratulations!
Are you infusing that message into the field? Probably not. A recent Corporate Visions survey found that 35% of companies have an established message development process but don’t apply the message consistently. Why create a provocative sales message but not complete the cycle of training sales staff how to deliver it, or not create the tools to support the message through thought leadership? Why pay a guy like me to bring that message to light if the message isn’t used? 20% of all companies think that everyone in their company just delivers any message that they think is best? Think of your message that you have developed as a hub in a wheel. From it emanates all of the sales enablement tools to deliver the message to prospects (playbooks, presentations, collateral, whiteboards and proposals), and all of the thought leadership tools designed to position the company in a certain way and generate sales leads (blogs, publicity, web sites, and advertisements). Take your message and think about how you will translate it tangibly or tactically in each "spoke." Lets make sure that message finds its way into your sales infrastructure. Focus on two things. 1) Tactical execution. 2) Change management. You’re organization is resource-short. To make sure things happen tactically -- hierarchically plan which tools you need to develop first, one at a time, so that implementation really happens. “First things first,” as they say. Getting your team to actually use your brand new shiny marketing tools is tough. People are inherently risk-averse. Change management needs to be thought through. Once your tools are made, take the time to create excitement around each tool and teach your team how the tool will help them close new business. Think through what steps you should take to reinforce use of the new marketing tool. Training, rehearsal of use, incentivizing use, and tracking of use are four good categories of change management that you should be thinking about. Remember, tactically execute one item at a time so that it really happens, and plan to help your team utilize the tools.
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Barry RothschildSeasoned marketer of complex products, services and technologies. Archives
January 2019
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