Sales teams bypass marketing assets because enablement often prioritizes production quotas over solving real seller pain points; here’s a simple way to fix that problem
B2B marketers are often tasked with creating content that the sales team can use to facilitate customer conversations.
This is often referred to as “sales enablement.” The idea is to pull together pieces that will help sales differentiate a product from competitors, hit uniform key messages and handle objections.
Ideally, it’s based on research, sales input and observation. It seems simple enough on the surface, but any seasoned B2B marketer who listens to sales calls knows it often goes awry in implementation.
Sales teams will hack out their own content and the messaging and quality can vary widely. This self-made content is sometimes called “shadow” sales or marketing collateral.
It slows down the buying cycle, as Shawn Casemore recently wrote for Sales & Marketing Management: Reduce sales closing times with better sales messaging.
He sets it up this way:
“A client who asked me to speak at their recent sales kickoff requested that I share insights into how to shorten their time to close. The client shared that the average time to close an opportunity was 30 to 90 days.”
The sales leadership attributed the problem to tactical sales actions such as these:
- “Not creating a sense of urgency in prospect calls”;
- “Delays in following up with prospects”;
- “Time wasted in attempting to craft a perfect response or presentation.”
The company commissioned Shawn to research the issue, since solving it could accelerate sales. He found the problem was quite different:
“For the most part, clients wanted to move forward much faster. However, they repeatedly found that the information they had researched in advance of speaking with sales did not align with the information shared by sales.”
We know B2B prospects research products well in advance of speaking with sales. The stuff a prospect will find in the research phase is created by marketing. It sets expectations.
Later, when prospects do speak with a member of the sales team and hear something completely different, they pump the brakes. It’s a natural reaction.
If sales is saying different things than the understanding a prospect gleaned in research, perhaps they didn’t understand the value like they thought they did. Or worse, the vendor is pulling a fast one on them.
Why sales ‘ignores’ marketing content
Forrester research analyst Peter Ostrow recently addressed this issue as well: “Why won’t sales pay attention to me?” – Four hacks to reduce enablement anxiety.
He calls it the “ignoring us” issue. It takes root at the very beginning because marketing is focused on getting it done, rather than solving the problem the sales team has:
“This ‘ignoring us’ issue arises when enablement efforts are not explicitly created and executed to serve sellers’ best interests but to satisfy production or activity goals from other functions.”
The way to fix this, according to Ostro is to focus on one key question:
“Are you creating something truly helpful?”
In other words, B2B marketing will have more success with sales enablement content if they: “view sales as an internal customer and follow the same rigor with which your external campaigns are delivered.”
High-performing salespeople can sell sales enablement
Nailing the “truly helpful” part is imperative, but there’s still a credibility gap. To put it bluntly, sales quota-carrying salespeople inherently discount recommendations from marketers that do not.
A fantastic study of B2B sales and marketing, that I covered a few years ago, provided keen insights. Importantly, this wasn’t a survey, but a study based on behavior.
The key finding was to have a high-performing salesperson present the materials rather than marketing. If a president’s club awardee is using sales enablement content with success, then the rest of the sales team will follow.
Among the key findings in that study were the following:
- “Using a high-performing seller to present new collateral increased the likelihood of use by 61% over a similar presentation made by the product specialist.”
- “Presenting new content with a case study or a demonstration increased likelihood of use by roughly 30% over basic information alone.”
- “When a high-performing seller presented new collateral with a demonstration, the likelihood of use increased by 111% over the least effective combination, which was a product specialist presenting only basic information.”
A high-performing salesperson will only present content they know works. So, this approach is also a good way to ensure the “truly helpful” is baked into sales enablement.
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Image credit: Gemini
