Giving Marketing a “Say” in the Sales Conversation

In today’s rapidly commoditizing marketplace, the customer conversation is fast-becoming the last bastion of competitive differentiation. A company’s ability to create a solution and communicate value is literally in the hands of, and on the lips of, our sales people.

So, how does a company make sure the right conversations are taking place across a disparate sales force with varying skill levels?

This article will provide a quick look at six (6) steps for aligning marketing strategy with sales execution—to maximize impact at the all important point of customer conversation. The process outlined is based on the concepts presented in a recently released book called Customer Message Management.

1. Create a Customer Message Map

Every organization should document the key conversations their salespeople need to have with your targeted customer decision makers at each step of an identified customer buying process—this is called your Customer Message Map:

• Determine target market segment

• Name the buyer roles that will be part of the decision-making process

• Map their buying cycle from “untroubled” to “purchase decision”

• Identify the key conversations that must take place at each step

2. Conduct a Cross-Functional Messaging Workshop

To populate your Customer Message Map, you need to gather your top sales people with your best marketing subject matter experts in a facilitated workshop to determine the most pressing customer business objectives, relevant challenges and appropriate responses—this is called the Cross-Functional Messaging Workshop:

• Identify the top 5 business objectives that each decision maker wants help with

• Uncover the top 3 challenges/problems keeping them from meeting each objective

• Align our 3 best capabilities that directly address and overcome these challenges

• Articulate the value customers can expect if we help them in this way

• Link our best customer testimonial that proves we’ve done this successfully

3. Create a Conversational Roadmap

Based on the inputs from the Cross-Functional Messaging Workshop, you can now build out your company’s best story, taking care to create all of the messaging components needed to help guide sales people through a consistent, high-quality consultative dialogue:

• Opportunity Development messages including probing questions and relevant insights and provocative proof point statements

• Solution Mapping messages including diagnostic questions, what-if scenarios and
  relevant capabilities

• Value Creation messages including contextual value propositions, key differentiators and solution summaries

• Messaging validation with sales, marketing and customer decision makers

4. Customer Buying Cycle (Sales Cycle)-Relevant Tools

The Conversational Roadmap serves as a core content library that can be leveraged to build and populate sales tool templates and outputs that align with the identified customer buying cycle and help ensure consistent messaging throughout the customer conversation:

• Appointment Getting tools such as one-minute messages, call prompters, email templates that grab attention and convince key decision makers to meet

• First Call tools such as talk tracks, discovery prompters and proof points to help identify and confirm problems and needs and establish credibility

• Follow-Up tools such as confirmation of needs letters and solution brief leave-behinds that establish an opportunity and gain customer commitment to next steps

• Solution Development tools such as presentations and value summary proposals that present capabilities and potential business value in the customer’s context

5. Certify Conversational Competency

Ensure the successful application of this new messaging and sales tools by training, practicing and coaching sales reps on how to have the best possible conversation with customers:

• Establish sales training sessions

• Review customer buying process

• Demonstrate new messaging and tool alignment

• Role play sales calls (appointment calls, discovery calls, solution presentations)

6. Provide Just-in-Time, Opportunity-Specific Access

Once sales people are back in the field they need quick, easy access to a single, online content repository with an intuitive interface to help them find and use the right messaging and tools they need at the right point in a customer conversation:

• “Situational interview” interface asks questions about the customer opportunity

• This filters and “pushes” the right messaging and tools at the right time

• “What do you need to do today” questions guide them most appropriate choices

• Dynamic assembly allows sales people to personalize and customize outputs

These six steps will help your marketing and sales teams rally around a common approach to creating messages and tools that 1) reflect the conversations sales people should have with customers and 2) provide support that works the way customers want to engage in—and sales people should conduct—a consultative dialogue.

“The Customer Message Management process gives our company the ability to focus on the client in order to create compelling messages that can be leveraged in sales conversations, presentations and proposals in a way that we’ve been unable to achieve before.” ~ Kelli Stephenson, Director of Sales Support, Experian