Several years ago we were engaged by the senior sales executive of a high growth supply chain software company. His company was transitioning to a new portfolio of products and a sales strategy focused on executive buyers. Marketing had created messaging for this strategy, but the sales team was not converting the messaging into successful executive meetings and targeted sales results.

The sales executive decided to join customer meetings to see what was really happening in the field. What he found was a team whose only messaging consistency was no consistency at all. Most salespeople were making up their messages and presentations on the fly. Given the company’s legacy, it was not too surprising that the messaging was still product-oriented and not appropriate for solution-oriented conversation with customer executives.

The sales executive realized he had to find a way to ensure key sales messages were consistently communicated by the organization. A key element of his solution was the development of sales-oriented messaging tools that his top sales performers developed in collaboration with marketing. Due to the direct involvement of top-performing salespeople in creating and validating practical sales messaging tools, the broader sales team ultimately embraced the new messaging.

Are your sales people delivering consistent, compelling messages in customer conversations?