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Sales Tip: Establish Your Foundational Messaging

4/7/2022

 
A businessman builds a block tower, showing the importance of building sales foundations.
Your Sales Foundations define the core elements of your business. As their name suggests, they're the fundamental structure on which your sales and marketing efforts are built. Without strong foundational messaging in place, it will be extremely difficult to maintain a coherent narrative with your prospects, leads, and clients - and that inconsistency could cost you their business.

Of course, even if your Sales Foundations are already well-established, it's important to make sure that your team members understand and are in agreement with them.

If you're a sales manager, you play a crucial role in promoting this type of alignment. One practical step that you can take in that direction is to host a 30-minute workshop during your next sales meeting. The ultimate objective of the workshop is to make sure everyone is aligned with your company's foundational messaging, and has at least a high-level grasp of how to use it when interacting with leads and clients.

How To Lead the Workshop

In simple terms, establishing your foundational messaging is all about asking and answering the right questions. With that in mind, have your sales team come into the meeting with their individual answers to these key questions:
  • Who is your company, and what do they do?
  • How does your company create value?
  • What type of results do your customers get?
  • What is it like to work with your company?
  • What are the next steps if the client decides to work with your company?

As the sales manager, your job is to facilitate discussion, and promote alignment and agreement with your entire team. Get out the whiteboard. Go down the list of questions. Point out commonalities and differences with each answer that's given. By the end of the discussion, your team should have a consensus on these vital questions (e.g., whether your company creates value through its competitive pricing or its high quality of service, and so forth).

In addition, invite marketing to the meeting as observers. This helps them  understand where sales is coming from. In turn, they can take that knowledge back to their department. When marketing and sales are aligned towards the same basic messaging, it makes the entire customer's journey much more seamless, especially during transitions from one stage of the sales/marketing funnel to the next.

What if there isn't alignment at the start of the workshop? Well, this is a golden opportunity to jump-start the alignment process. In fact, you may even uncover valuable insights about your company as team members share differing viewpoints.

The Goal: Focused and Clear Messaging

In the final analysis, focused and clear messaging ultimately serves the customer by taking friction out of the sales funnel. How? It keeps your team on the same page and presents a consistent narrative to your consumer base. Ultimately, it all starts with the establishment of your foundational messaging. Take 30 minutes out of your day to make sure everyone is in agreement with that messaging. It’s worth it!

If you'd like more insights on how you can improve your sales leadership, contact us. Or sign up for our newsletter for more valuable resources.


Why Is There a Gap Between Marketing and Sales?

8/30/2021

 
Two gears represent marketing and sales working together.
For many businesses, the "gap" between their marketing and sales departments might as well be the Grand Canyon. Marketing and sales aren't on the same page. They live in "siloed" spaces — and they don't even like each other! If you're facing such a challenge within your organization, then you're far from alone.

The question is: Why is there a gap between these two departments? Ultimately, their goal is the same: to win customers and close sales. Yet, they often seem to be at odds with one another.

Let's dig a little deeper, and see if we can discover some reasons why the gap exists.

Discrepancies in Time and Space

While there could be several reasons why your marketing and sales teams aren't in alignment, two of the most common ones have to do with what we'll call "discrepancies in time and space." Here's what we mean by that:

1. Time

Sales reps often view time very differently from marketers. For them, speedy results are critical. They have quotas to meet, deals to close, and precious little time to do it!

In contrast, marketers often take a more long-range view of the buyer's journey. They're interested in deploying tactics that may not have immediate results, but will have a cumulative effect on their target audience. 

2. Space

The sales and marketing teams occupy very different spaces — literally and metaphorically. They often come under the oversight of different managers, have different goals, and interact with customers in two completely different ways.

For instance, sales reps spend a lot of their time working with prospects that are in the later stages of the sales funnel. On the other hand, marketers may spend more time interacting with existing customers as part of focus groups.


When you combine these two factors, it's easy to see why a gap could exist between marketing and sales. Traditionally, they live on different (and sometimes competing) schedules, and see the consumer base from vastly different perspectives.

Listen to Gretchen Lehman of The Carruthers Group and I discuss this topic in this video clip. 


How to Bridge the Gap

Of course, knowing why the gap exists isn't going to change things in and of itself. The question is: How can you bridge that gap, and successfully integrate marketing and sales? Here are three basic tips that can help:
  • Generate awareness. Sometimes the best way to start closing the gap between your two departments is to simply get them talking (to you and to one another). For example, you should determine how they view their respective roles within the buyer's journey, and within each stage of the sales funnel. Are there areas of overlap? Is there confusion as to when MQLs become SQLs? Exploring the answers to these and related questions may be a great starting point for building your "bridge."
  • Establish alignment. This will likely take some time to do, but it's vital that you clearly define the roles that each team should play in the context of the overall buyer's journey. You'll need to work with both teams to hammer out the details. But the important thing is that each department has clarity about which responsibilities belong to them, and which ones belong to their counterparts. 
  • Promote communication. Even after both departments are aligned, you'll want to keep the lines of communication open between them. Look for ways to foster collaboration. Marketers can continue to gain valuable insights from sales on common customer pain points and concerns. Sales reps can allow marketing to coach them on how best to stay "on message" in their interactions with qualified leads, and thus contribute to a consistent customer experience across the board.

True, bridging the gap between marketing and sales may be easier said than done. However, with some time, forethought, and patience, you'll be able to successfully do so, and align the strengths of both teams toward sustainable growth.

If you'd like more insights on how you can improve your sales leadership, 
contact us. Or sign up for our newsletter for more valuable resources.

    Meet  Me

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    I’m Karl Becker and I help individuals and organizations improve how they sell. My focus is on clear, concise, actionable solutions.

    In short, I'll show you how to increase performance and generate more revenue.

    This blog shares approaches, tools, and ideas that I have seen create success.

    If you’re interested in discussing anything, please reach out.
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