Product Marketers Can’t Take a One-Size-Fits-All Approach to Enabling Sales

Let’s dispel a certain belief or practice that you’ll often hear in Sales, “If it’s not short, my sellers won’t read it.” I have never met a top seller who didn’t take the time to read through all available content whether it be competitive positioning or offering-related. High-performing sellers learn all they can about what the company does, what it offers and how that benefits customers.

That’s not to say that Product Marketers shouldn’t target sales enablement content to be more digestible and to the point. However, what happens when Sales leaders pursue a focus on brevity at the cost of completeness, and Product Marketers align to it, is that the content can get watered down, shortened, key nuggets get cut out and the content becomes less effective. Often, the win is in the nuance and the nuance can get lost in such a dogmatic approach.  

Instead, Product Marketers should focus first on producing real insights that matter and conveying those points appropriately based on your audience in Sales.

It’s a simple difference. Let’s say your Sales audiences are your “Business Development Representatives” or “BDRs,” Account Executives” and “XYZ Consultants” (your Technical sales experts). Your first line of engagement is your BDR team. Every day, they make 30 to 50 calls. They explain themselves to receptionists and other “gatekeepers,” hoping to get to their primary target. They make callbacks when that person isn’t available and they leave lots and lots of voicemails.

It’s a small percentage of their efforts where they actually talk to the person they’ve been trying to reach and even then, the conversation lasts anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes. Their role is all about getting a meeting with the contact and the Account Executive they support. BDRs typically don’t have the depth of knowledge that the Account Executive does and they don’t necessarily need to (unless they are eyeing promotion).

So, Product Marketers need to consider providing enablement content that provides guidance on the points that matter to these teams. Of course, a BDR manager is also tasked with doing that. However, Product Marketers should move away from the one-size-fits-all approach to enablement to identify what matters most to BDRs and couch the content in a way that is most useful for BDRs. This means short, concise content that provides simple dialogues best suited for BDRs. In this vein, work with your BDR manager counterpart to develop materials targeted at and right-sized for this audience.

Account Executives are expected to know the ins and outs of the portfolio and how to sell it. This means that providing the spectrum of content and information on the offering-how to position it in the market with prospects and customers and against competitors-is critical. You need to answer any questions that they might have, in advance, and make it available because they are likely to get lots of questions from prospects and customers. This means using FAQs and commonly expected questions as well as developing a “Sales Toolkit” that provides comprehensive information on the offering and where to go for even more resources.

Sales “consultants” are the more technical resources that get pulled in on deals. These are the experts that help with the more complex and technical aspects of addressing the prospect’s pain, challenge or desired outcome while working to bring the deal to a close. Product Marketers need to ensure that the technical aspects of an offering are captured and properly conveyed to this audience. Product Marketing definitely acts more as a conduit to bring Product Management and Sales Consultants together while packaging critical content from one team to another.