Dec 08 06
Communicating to the corporate sales force: lessons learned & best practices
By Renn Vara
Corporate communications target a wide range of audiences from general employees to customers/partners to field organizations. One of the most challenging, and less talked about, groups is the ever-moving sales force. We work with a number of large companies with quota carrying forces that range from a few hundred to thousands. No matter the size, the challenges are the same.
The typical sales person is oriented to verbal communication vs. written and generally isn’t patient with in-depth product information and strategies. This often creates a large disconnect between a strategy oriented marketing organization and the “hit and run” field personality. That’s why most sales leaders depend on their own sales communication team to keep their field force up-to-date on product updates and customer needs. That’s also why most marketing organizations find themselves distanced from field realities. It’s like oil and water. Sometimes their natures are their greatest enemies. Because we at SNP have been in the middle of this tension-filled relationship for almost twenty years, in a wide range of successful companies, we’ve learned a few things from watching smart and intuitive marketing people who embrace these differences and work closely with their counterparts in sales. Here’s a partial list of what we now know:
- Understand the differences between the interests of sales and marketing, see the benefits of both, don’t judge them, accept them and realize they work together for the common good.
- Understand that sales people only respect other sales people who share their burden of carrying a bag and quota. Marketing people don’t qualify no matter how many years they may have sold in their past. If you don’t carry a bag today, right now, you don’t count. It may not be fair but the best marketing people get this in their bones.
- Sales people need to hear from their leadership first. Secondary is the CEO. While it’s easier to get a marketing person or product manager to host a webevent or lead a meeting of sales people, the results will be compromised unless you go the extra mile to get sales leaders to lead all field communication. Period.
- Remember that sales people learn from talking, not listening. In order to effectively communicate to a field organization, it’s imperative that you engage them. Lectures never work. Only use dialogue driven interviews and conversations. And know they can multitask like crazy. Get them talking, typing and answering questions all at once. It works.
- Minimalize scripting for all communication efforts. Give leaders bullets points only. Remember sales people love to talk. And they are good at it. Get out of their way.
- Don’t expect sales people to use marketing language or positioning. Get over it. They know their customers and know how to communicate with them. Trust your sales force. Particularly if they are hitting their numbers.
- When a sales person asks a marketing person for exact language. Believe them. Don’t waste their time explaining the why’s and how’s. Just give them what they ask for.
Be careful using expensive-looking vehicles like highly produced videos to communicate to a sales force. If they perceive marketing had fun or that they misspend resources, sales isn’t happy, no matter how good the product. - Remember if a sales person is sitting at their desk, they aren’t working. So use mobile audio vehicles for messaging whenever possible; CDs, podcasts, etc.
And finally, as much as you don’t want to hear this, sales people commonly lie to marketing people. Why? Because they don’t believe you get it and don’t have the time to teach you.
So when you ask “What did you think of the meeting we just had?” don’t believe them when they say with a big smile, “It was great!” It’s a big lie on par with “the check is in the mail.”
