Deploying Sales Strategy
A new growth strategy creates lots of questions for the sales channels. Questions they may not even realize they should be asking. Questions we all need to be answering as we create a sales enablement roadmap that aligns the channels with the strategy.
Let’s say the strategy change is centered on a new solution that’s truly a game changer in the market space and creates significant differentiation. Salespeople will be (or should be) asking a number of related questions: What accounts do I prioritize? Which opportunities should I ignore? What individual roles should I target in those accounts? How do I engage those individuals? What’s my role in the demand creation strategy? Who else will be involved in the process of selling this solution?
These questions represent strategy at a very practical level, a practical level that often gets missed. When it’s time to take your big idea into the deployment phase, assign a few key resources to take ownership for developing a guide or playbook for the sales channels to create clarity and focus. Answer the questions above as a starting point.
The next layer is sales messaging. Will individuals across your sales channels actually tell the right story? Communicate the right messages by customer type? Ask the right questions?
It’s helpful to break the idea of sales messaging into the areas in which sales will need practical content and tools. The 4 areas we believe tie sales messaging together are:
What to Know
What to Do
What to Say
What to Show
The best content gets created when sales, marketing and product experts come together to create content for specific selling scenarios across the customer buying process. Sales playbooks focused on sales conversations we can anticipate in most sales cycles. Let’s say it’s an initial phone meeting or perhaps a face-to-face meeting in the customer’s office. What will sales need to know before having the conversation? What messages and proof points should they communicate? What probing discovery questions should they ask? What content should a salesperson show via web meeting interface, share through a PowerPoint presentation or draw on a whiteboard?
As you think through your plan for sales messaging, you may want to watch our “Rethinking Executive Conversations” video as one of your inputs.
