Crystal Clear Communications Blog

Make your salespeople happier with a concise sales toolkit.

Marketers and salespeople have the same goal: increase sales, and therefore revenue, for the organization. Yet many of my clients see tension between their marketing and sales teams, particularly when it comes to sales enablement.

In addition to obtaining and nurturing leads for the salesforce, marketers are also often responsible for sales enablement: training and tools to help the salesforce sell. As we gear up to enter a new year, it’s a good time to ask the question: Are you giving your salespeople the right tools to help them succeed?

To help Sales sell, we need to arm salespeople with tools that truly enable them to sell better. Do you have a well-organized sales toolkit that is clear, concise and consistent? Can your salespeople easily find what they need without having to wade through tons of documents and PowerPoint decks?

In good news, it’s easy to create a concise, well-organized toolkit for your salespeople. Here’s how.

Always start with a Message Map

Salespeople have a short amount of time to get, and keep, buyers’ attention. When you make a Message Map for your company or product, your salespeople have a clear, concise, compelling message on one page. So they see what to say and say what they mean.

Understand your buyers

In addition to a clear message, salespeople need a clear understanding of the company’s buyers. As with the Message Map, put your buyer personas on one page. Here’s an example of a one-page buyer empathy map.

Make a benefit-focused pitch deck for your salespeople

Once you have your Message and buyer empathy maps, use them to create a short, benefit-focused pitch deck that clearly, concisely tells your buyers what’s in it for them.

When you focus on the why before the what, you capture buyers’ attention more quickly, since they know what they’ll gain.

Coach one of your best salespeople how to present the deck, and then record his or her presentation for others to learn from.

Make your solutions easy to explain with a sales toolkit

I work with a lot of clients that sell complex technology solutions. Salespeople need an easy way to introduce your solutions, as few buyers have the patience for a 25-slide deck before they start to understand the true value.

You can solve this problem by making one-page value propositions for each of your solutions. When salespeople have all the key information about a product on one page, it’s much easier for them to become familiar with, and therefore describe and sell, your solutions. Download our free template here.

Prepare salespeople for questions about competitors

Finally, no sales toolkit is complete without competitive battle cards. Remember, your salespeople don’t need to know every single fact about each competitor. They need to know what each competitor’s solutions do and how to respond to the key strengths and weaknesses of each.

Instead of asking your salespeople to read lengthy competitive profiles, make a simple, one-page battle card for each competitor that shows your salespeople how to respond to competitive strengths and weaknesses. Download our free template here.

A great sales toolkit is only one component to providing your salespeople with great marketing support. You also need to support your salespeople with the right marketing content. According to Pam Didner, to do that well, you need to think and act like a salesperson and create content that salespeople can use to follow up after meetings. This keeps your message in front of buyers, so they don’t forget about your solution.

When you arm your salespeople with a clear, concise sales toolkit, you make it easier for them to capture and keep buyers’ attention.

Smart marketers don’t let their relationships with salespeople end there. They also support salespeople with the right marketing content and ensure sales teams are informed about marketing activities and metrics, including how leads are scored and nurtured.

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