Do Your Sales Reps Need a Lifeline?

On their way to wealth and security,  contestants on the TV game show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” face tough questions during their once-in-a-lifetime experience. Sometimes they need the help of a “lifeline”- from the audience or a phone call to a friend-before giving their “final” answer. Your salespeople are under similar pressure every day. Which lifelines make the most sense for your team?

Almost all companies offer their sales forces some support. True, some reps are thrown into the deep end of the pool to sink or swim. But even then product training, a presentation “deck” of PowerPoint slides, a “price sheet”-maybe even a brochure-are usually available.

Companies that invest in sales support no doubt see returns or they wouldn’t do it. Some don’t offer support because they’re pretty sure the return won’t be worth it. Others don’t invest much because they believe marketing is all the support salespeople need-name recognition and good leads will get them in front of the right decision-makers. Or they might be confused about the roles of sales and marketing and how to help them work together. Still others just don’t know the best, most cost-efficient ways to help more than they already do.

One of the best lifelines,  though not as straightforward as a phone call on “Millionaire,” is for corporate leadership to ensure that marketing and sales  work together efficiently for the common good.  What are the basics of reaching that goal?

First, what is the difference between sales and marketing?

Essentially, companies must make prospects aware of their products or services-that they exist-and then educate them about what they are and the value they deliver. That’s marketing: awareness and education. Selling moves beyond awareness and education to persuading prospects to appreciate the specific value of products or services to them-and then to purchase that value from your company. Both marketing and sales are needed to realize full business development potential and, ultimately, bring in revenue.

Second, how do companies -unintentionally-keep sales and marketing from working together? The most common reason we see is that the two functions aren’t aligned, which means that neither function is nearly as efficient as it could be.

If one person oversees both sales and marketing, for example, that person’s experience and training naturally push the needle to one side or the other: strong sales and weak marketing or the reverse-strong marketing and weak sales. Or perhaps the two functions are run by different people without a productive process to coordinate activities. Finally, a small minority of firms grow significantly without a formal program for sales or marketing. Their offerings are so superior or different that the market comes to them.

One of our clients just graduated ten people  from our FOCIS consultative sales training program. Over three months we worked with them to upgrade their consultative selling skills and to build a new, stronger sales process customized for their business and their markets. Going in, executives were aware that sales and marketing needed better alignment, so they included their head of marketing in our FOCIS  training. They had decided, correctly, that the more knowledge each function had about the other the better they would align and, in effect, “catalyze” each other. Since the sales force would be using a newly created sales process, there could be no better time.

After the training was completed, the marketing chief called a two-hour meeting of the FOCIS participants.The purpose was to learn what changes the sales force thought would help bring sales support activities and materials into alignment with the sales process. Better alignment, both marketing and sales now believed, would result in a better topline.

Here are some discussion questions  you can use to help your with your sales and marketing people collaborate to build lifelines to support sales.

1. How can sales support materials (leave-behinds, for example) better speak to discovery issues presented or uncovered during the sales process?
2. Can current materials be altered or are new ones aligned with the new sales process needed?
3. How can persuasive communications principles used in the sales process be reflected in the sales support materials?
4. Will video be useful, either in the field or on the Website? How could it be useful?
5. What about social media? Do we need several, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, or will one or two be enough? Who will keep those accounts active?
6. How can webinars, seminars, and trade-show exhibits better support sales?
7. What about our presentations, including PowerPoints? Are they merely educational-or, worse, chest beating-or are they persuasive and focused on the prospect?
8. Do our visuals not only make our points clearly but also memorably? Will they help our internal advocates support us inside the prospect company?

The answers vary for every firm. But which comes first-sales or marketing? To decide, leaders need to ask themselves  two key questions  about where to get the better return on investment.

1. Better Leads or Better Closing:  Do your salespeople need . . . (A) More, qualified leads  OR  (B) A better closing rate with the leads they’re already getting?
2. Better Product Value or Better Communication of that Value: Do your salespeople need to . . . (A) Find more differentiated ways to create value for prospects in the form of better products and services?  OR  (B) Communicate that value much more effectively?

In each case,  Answer A  means marketing needs attention and  Answer B means sales needs attention.

For Leaders : Is the sales process aligned with the company’s leadership style, such as low-cost producer, product leader, and customer intimate? Each requires a different sales process.

The most effective ratio between investment in sales process and marketing differs from company to company and market to market. To find out what makes sense for you, track “how and why” you won business. It’s likely that you’ll find that credit goes mostly to marketing for creating awareness and generating the leads, and to sales for creating value within the sales process, communicating differentiation, and ultimately winning the business.

One last point:  Some firms grow without much focus on either sales or marketing. Their product or service is just that good or in high demand for other reasons. But as the market matures and competition increases, this position will become difficult to maintain. Plus, with growth, the founders almost always need to transfer business development to others or even to the “next generation.” The hand-off can be difficult.

We specialize in helping companies determine a good starting point for strengthening either their sales process or their marketing support for sales or both. If you’re not sure about the best next steps, contact us to discuss your particular situation: 847-446-0008 Ext. 1 or  pkrone@productivestrategies.com

Let’s spend a few minutes  talking about which lifelines will be most useful to your sales force and to your corporate growth.