Keeping your sales team on track with your most important messages through consistent brand messaging

 

As a marketing professional or sales executive, the last thing you want to hear is your sales team ‘winging it’ when it comes to explaining who your company is.  You’ve worked hard to fine-tune the words and messages that you want your customers, prospects, and investors to associate with your brand.  You have the ability to see where the market is going and know what messages will work best now to get you where you need to go.  When your sales team ignores (or forgets) your guidance and delivers messages that aren’t on point, the entire positioning is at risk.  Message delivery must fit the style of each sales person, but it is critical that they all make the same points, use the same phrases and highlight the same concepts to help reinforce your brand.

You may have sent them marketing collateral to introduce the latest messaging.  You may have even send PowerPoint slides and scripts, or a video of your CEO delivering the message, or even gone to the expense of bringing them all to HQ to learn the “why” and the “what” or your messages.  But did they ‘get it’ and how do you know?

A 3-Step Process for Consistent Message Delivery

You’ve spent a lot of time and money on marketing materials … videos, slides, scripts, brochures and training materials.   So let’s use it, but take it 3 steps further to success.

1. Find out what your message sounds like in the field

Have each sales person create a simple 2-minute video where they describe the messaging as if they were talking to a new prospect or long-time customer.   Then view their videos to look for 3 things …

• Does each salesperson know the key points?
• Do they use the right words and phrases to reinforce your other marketing campaigns?
• Are they effective at presenting the ideas?

2. Offer Feedback and Coaching to Your Sales Team

For those who deliver the message effectively, congratulate them, and do it publicly. Share their videos with the rest of the sales team to emulate as best practice examples of on-point messaging.  For those who still need more work, give them some constructive feedback and coaching on what sounds good and what still needs more work.  Ask their managers to monitor their progress and give them suggestions.  You may even decide to enlist the assistance of product marketing, outside presentation coaches or other industry specialists.

 3. Set a Standard of Excellence

Finally, insist that your sales team demonstrates proficiency in delivering your messages.  Salespeople that can deliver a consistent value message will inevitably be better positioned to achieve their sales objectives, as well as reinforce the branding strategy of the company overall.

It’s easy to make it happen

The steps we outlined above work.  But you might be wondering… How can the sales team create effective videos?   Will it take a lot of time? Isn’t sharing large video files a cumbersome task?  How do we integrate the feedback process into the video viewing?

At Allego, we’ve faced these issues and have effective solutions that can work.   Some are based on what we’ve learned with other clients.  Some are based on new technologies we’re recently introduced to market.  Contact us for a demonstration to understand how our customers are ensuring their sales teams are delivering a consistent message.