Lockstep Sales Collateral For A Seamless Performance: ACT II

Our last post set the stage for sales enablement as a seamless, show-stopping production. We left you with this nonnegotiable yet oft-neglected truth: Putting your sales collateral in strategic lockstep is the only way you’re going to achieve sales and marketing alignment. And this choreographed collaboration is critical to surviving in such a demanding B2B market.

Sync like your company depends on it. (Because it does.)

Why is interdepartmental synchronicity so essential?

• Your market is tough.
• Your buyer is tougher.

The modern market favors the buyer and clears clumsy companies from its stage. Information is nail-biting, brain-churning currency, and the B2B buyer demands it from you: both in quantity and quality. Your show has to be on fire.

So how do you produce such a demanding yield of content? To be productive and responsive, you must be in sync. Sales and marketing alignment is no longer an option – it’s a necessity. This means sales collateral must serve and suffice both of your teams.

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION: Locking your sales collateral (and teams) in step.

Make it a sales and marketing collaboration.

75% of content generated by marketing is “rarely” or “never” used by sales.

• Marketing should provide templates and informative material that make the company’s voice, tone and messaging clear for ultimate branding consistency.
• Marketing should understand the sales process so it’s able to create material that locks in step with and makes sense for the sales team.
• The sales team must be familiar with the brand message and image that marketing has cultivated with such careful deliberation.
• Both teams need access to and visibility of each other’s processes, practices and materials – no more ambiguities or blind spots, lost-in-translations or up-to-interpretations.

Make it easier … for everyone.

A Sales Enablement Platform puts your sales collateral in lockstep and your sales and marketing teams in buyer-centric alignment.

• Communication tools allow sales and marketing to glean information from and share insight into one another.
• Detailed buyer insight enables the marketing department to create relevant, pain-centric content and helps the sales team attract, nurture and convert leads into legitimate sales opportunities.
• Precision-targeted marketing content that reps actually want to use stems from sales and marketing alignment and spurs crisp differentiation for potent B2B buyer engagement.
• Coaching tips, subject matter expert (SME) input, relevant research and thought leadership enable reps to connect with buying teams, establish trust, earn respect, inform and educate, assure key decision makers and drive consensus, pulling off that “content triple threat” (comfort, compel and challenge) that seams together the entire buying process.
• Personalization tools help reps give the discerning, highly leveraged B2B buyer that exceptional experience he demands, expects and deserves.
• A content management library empowers sales reps with access to an entire collection of marketing-generated slides for easy presentation construction, plus content recommendations based on buyer persona/buying stage and detailed sales analytics on how prospects are responding to materials – all in one place.
• A SALES PORTAL enables reps to meet with prospects or clients, share content and execute presentations in a singular, secure hub.
• VIRTUAL AND CLOUD CAPABILITIES promote a nimble defense and proactive offense of responsive mobile sales reps who are always up to date, in the loop and on the ball.

Sales and marketing: Combine, conquer and prosper.

Ready to get your teams in seamless lockstep for sales success? Fill out the form below, and we’ll put on a show for you: spotlighting the perfect Sales Enablement Platform for sales and marketing alignment.