Sales Messaging Must Fuel Your Sales Cycle: Does Yours?
Sales Messaging Must Fuel Your Sales Cycle: Does Yours?
The good news is that this is changing rapidly. Thought leaders in Sales, Sales Operations, and Marketing, are finding that this shift improves their competitiveness and market share by over 15%. Unfortunately, those who fail to change are leading their firms into decline – and will soon be replaced. The logic of the idea and results it produces are just too compelling to ignore.
**What You Need to Know**
There are four things that you need to do to align your messaging with the phases in your sales cycle. They are:
1) Define your sales messaging and identify how it’s different from other messaging types like brand messaging, product messaging, etc.
2) Understand the phases of the sales cycle for each of your products and services
3) Appreciate what the primary goal is for each phase in the sales cycle
4) Know the buyer’s primary buying question in each phase of the sales cycle
Sales messaging is defined as providing a compelling and persuasive answer to your buyer’s primary buying question for each of the products or services you offer. As the product or service moves through the sales cycle, the primary question will change – and your answer must shift to accommodate it, so that the right message is delivered at the right point in the sales cycle.
Defining sales messaging in this way differentiates it from all other messaging types. (To learn more about this differentiation, download the free article The Messaging Mess: Billions Wasted Annually on Bad Messaging from the Silver Bullet Group’s online resource center.)
Use the table below to help you gain clarity on the typical sales cycle phases, as well as the primary goal and buying questions for each.
**Buyer Questions in the Sales Cycle for an Early Stage Product or Service**
**Sales Phase - Primary Goal - Primary Buyer Question**
One - Create a Meeting: Why should I meet with you?
Two - Create Demand for Your Company’s Offering: Why should I change-out my current solution for a new solution?
Three - Create an Order for Your Company: Why should I buy your solution rather than a competitive solution?
As you can see, the sales cycle has distinct phases, each with its own goal, and buyer question. For an emerging market product, the first-phase goal is to create a meeting. This is achieved by providing a compelling answer to the buying question, “Why should I meet with you?” Clearly, this is a critically important question – as most sales cannot occur without a meeting or conversation. Yet, most companies do a terrible job of answering this question. They try to create meetings by saying something like:
“Hi, this is Michael Cannon with the Silver Bullet Group. We help companies dramatically
improve sales and marketing effectiveness by implementing great sales messaging. I’d like
to schedule a meeting to talk with you about this innovative service. When would be a good
time to meet?”
Sound familiar? Let’s look at this from the buyer’s perspective. What they hear is: “I’d like to take an hour of your time to tell you all about what we do and ask you a bunch of questions to determine if you’re a good prospect for me.”
This is not a compelling answer to, “Why should I meet with you?” But, when we understand what the key buying question is, we might say something like:
“Hi, this is Michael Cannon with the Silver Bullet Group. We have helped hundreds of companies
profitably increase sales by 15% or more through the implementation of great sales messaging.
So, I thought you might want to evaluate this idea and determine for yourself if you could
create similar results for your company. When would be a good time to meet?”
Do you see the difference? The buyer learns exactly what they will get for their time – an opportunity to evaluate an idea which has produced quantifiable results. The point of view shifts from “What Can the Buyer Do for You?” to “What Can You Do for the Buyer?”
**Great sales messaging is strategic when it supports the phases in the sales cycle**
Once you’ve created a meeting, the next phase in the sales cycle is to create demand for your offering by answering the buyer question, “Why should I change-out my current solution for a new solution?” The answer to this question has very little to do with your company. The primary goal, at this early phase, is to create demand by articulating a compelling reason to change from the current solution to a new or better solution.
With demand created, the final phase of the sales cycle is to create an order for your company by answering the buyer question, “Why should I buy your solution rather than a competitive option?” The answer to this question must focus on competitive differentiation. The primary goal, at this later phase, is to create a compelling reason to buy the solution from your company, rather than from the competition.
**A Real World Example**
Let’s contrast the principle that sales messaging must support the phases in the sales cycle with the messaging in much of today’s marketing collateral. The example below is a product description of McNetwork’s Gallant, which says:
Today’s growing enterprise needs to reduce costs and make the best use of storage equipment
—and they must find new solutions to simplify diverse storage networking environments. The
Gallant delivers the solution. The Gallant acts as the “backbone” of the enterprise data
center—it delivers the unmatched availability, performance and scalability you need to support
your most important data and carry the highest data traffic. With Gallant’s MaxPar™ technology
(hard partitioning), you can consolidate your multi-vendor fabrics while maintaining secure
separation by data, management and Fibre Channel Services. With “carrier-class” availability,
dynamic port allocation and intelligent fabric services, it’s the ideal backbone for your
enterprise.
What buying questions is this paragraph trying to answer? Below, this product messaging blurb is parsed into its component parts:
Some of the messaging seems to be answering the question “Why Buy a New Network Storage Device?”
• Reduce costs
• Make the best use of storage equipment
• Simplify diverse storage networking environments
• Consolidate your multi-vendor fabrics
• Maintain secure separation
And some of the messaging seems to be answering the question “Why Buy a New Network Storage Device from McNetwork?”
• Unmatched availability, performance and scalability
• The highest data traffic
Then there are more messaging statements that didn’t seem to answer either question. They seem to fit best as features in a Product Description, such as:
• “Backbone” of the enterprise data center
• “Carrier-class” availability
• Dynamic port allocation
• Intelligent fabric services
As product messaging, it’s a pretty good description. It includes a feature and benefit overview of what the product does, and contains some decent statements about the value the buyer might get by buying.
From a sales messaging perspective, it’s not so good. The answers to the buyer’s key buying questions are scattered across the paragraph, making it hard to follow and comprehend. And, when you gather up all the answers to the buying questions, you can see that the answers are not compelling.
This is a representative example of what most companies produce today, and why most sales teams consider 50% or more of collateral produced by Marketing to be useless. As Sales and Marketing executives, we MUST make sure our staffs are creating compelling answers to the buyer’s primary buying questions, and then aligning these sales messages with the key phases in the sales cycle. The results are better alignment with the buy/sell cycle, better communication with the buyer, and dramatic improvements in sales and marketing effectiveness.
Sales Messaging Must Fuel Your Sales Cycle Does Yours - To learn more about this author, visit Michael Cannon's Website.
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It’s commonsensical – your sales messaging must support your sales cycle. Yet, upon closer examination, it becomes clear that the majority of companies, and the Sales and Marketing executives that run them, don’t follow this “common sense” principle. They don’t align their messaging with the phases in their sales cycle.
The good news is that this is changing rapidly. Thought leaders in Sales, Sales Operations, and Marketing, are finding that this shift improves their competitiveness and market share by over 15%. Unfortunately, those who fail to change are leading their firms into decline – and will soon be replaced. The logic of the idea and results it produces are just too compelling to ignore.
**What You Need to Know**
There are four things that you need to do to align your messaging with the phases in your sales cycle. They are:
1) Define your sales messaging and identify how it’s different from other messaging types like brand messaging, product messaging, etc.
2) Understand the phases of the sales cycle for each of your products and services
3) Appreciate what the primary goal is for each phase in the sales cycle
4) Know the buyer’s primary buying question in each phase of the sales cycle
Sales messaging is defined as providing a compelling and persuasive answer to your buyer’s primary buying question for each of the products or services you offer. As the product or service moves through the sales cycle, the primary question will change – and your answer must shift to accommodate it, so that the right message is delivered at the right point in the sales cycle.
Defining sales messaging in this way differentiates it from all other messaging types. (To learn more about this differentiation, download the free article The Messaging Mess: Billions Wasted Annually on Bad Messaging from the Silver Bullet Group’s online resource center.)
Use the table below to help you gain clarity on the typical sales cycle phases, as well as the primary goal and buying questions for each.
**Buyer Questions in the Sales Cycle for an Early Stage Product or Service**
**Sales Phase - Primary Goal - Primary Buyer Question**
One - Create a Meeting: Why should I meet with you?
Two - Create Demand for Your Company’s Offering: Why should I change-out my current solution for a new solution?
Three - Create an Order for Your Company: Why should I buy your solution rather than a competitive solution?
As you can see, the sales cycle has distinct phases, each with its own goal, and buyer question. For an emerging market product, the first-phase goal is to create a meeting. This is achieved by providing a compelling answer to the buying question, “Why should I meet with you?” Clearly, this is a critically important question – as most sales cannot occur without a meeting or conversation. Yet, most companies do a terrible job of answering this question. They try to create meetings by saying something like:
“Hi, this is Michael Cannon with the Silver Bullet Group. We help companies dramatically
improve sales and marketing effectiveness by implementing great sales messaging. I’d like
to schedule a meeting to talk with you about this innovative service. When would be a good
time to meet?”
Sound familiar? Let’s look at this from the buyer’s perspective. What they hear is: “I’d like to take an hour of your time to tell you all about what we do and ask you a bunch of questions to determine if you’re a good prospect for me.”
This is not a compelling answer to, “Why should I meet with you?” But, when we understand what the key buying question is, we might say something like:
“Hi, this is Michael Cannon with the Silver Bullet Group. We have helped hundreds of companies
profitably increase sales by 15% or more through the implementation of great sales messaging.
So, I thought you might want to evaluate this idea and determine for yourself if you could
create similar results for your company. When would be a good time to meet?”
Do you see the difference? The buyer learns exactly what they will get for their time – an opportunity to evaluate an idea which has produced quantifiable results. The point of view shifts from “What Can the Buyer Do for You?” to “What Can You Do for the Buyer?”
**Great sales messaging is strategic when it supports the phases in the sales cycle**
Once you’ve created a meeting, the next phase in the sales cycle is to create demand for your offering by answering the buyer question, “Why should I change-out my current solution for a new solution?” The answer to this question has very little to do with your company. The primary goal, at this early phase, is to create demand by articulating a compelling reason to change from the current solution to a new or better solution.
With demand created, the final phase of the sales cycle is to create an order for your company by answering the buyer question, “Why should I buy your solution rather than a competitive option?” The answer to this question must focus on competitive differentiation. The primary goal, at this later phase, is to create a compelling reason to buy the solution from your company, rather than from the competition.
**A Real World Example**
Let’s contrast the principle that sales messaging must support the phases in the sales cycle with the messaging in much of today’s marketing collateral. The example below is a product description of McNetwork’s Gallant, which says:
Today’s growing enterprise needs to reduce costs and make the best use of storage equipment
—and they must find new solutions to simplify diverse storage networking environments. The
Gallant delivers the solution. The Gallant acts as the “backbone” of the enterprise data
center—it delivers the unmatched availability, performance and scalability you need to support
your most important data and carry the highest data traffic. With Gallant’s MaxPar™ technology
(hard partitioning), you can consolidate your multi-vendor fabrics while maintaining secure
separation by data, management and Fibre Channel Services. With “carrier-class” availability,
dynamic port allocation and intelligent fabric services, it’s the ideal backbone for your
enterprise.
What buying questions is this paragraph trying to answer? Below, this product messaging blurb is parsed into its component parts:
Some of the messaging seems to be answering the question “Why Buy a New Network Storage Device?”
• Reduce costs
• Make the best use of storage equipment
• Simplify diverse storage networking environments
• Consolidate your multi-vendor fabrics
• Maintain secure separation
And some of the messaging seems to be answering the question “Why Buy a New Network Storage Device from McNetwork?”
• Unmatched availability, performance and scalability
• The highest data traffic
Then there are more messaging statements that didn’t seem to answer either question. They seem to fit best as features in a Product Description, such as:
• “Backbone” of the enterprise data center
• “Carrier-class” availability
• Dynamic port allocation
• Intelligent fabric services
As product messaging, it’s a pretty good description. It includes a feature and benefit overview of what the product does, and contains some decent statements about the value the buyer might get by buying.
From a sales messaging perspective, it’s not so good. The answers to the buyer’s key buying questions are scattered across the paragraph, making it hard to follow and comprehend. And, when you gather up all the answers to the buying questions, you can see that the answers are not compelling.
This is a representative example of what most companies produce today, and why most sales teams consider 50% or more of collateral produced by Marketing to be useless. As Sales and Marketing executives, we MUST make sure our staffs are creating compelling answers to the buyer’s primary buying questions, and then aligning these sales messages with the key phases in the sales cycle. The results are better alignment with the buy/sell cycle, better communication with the buyer, and dramatic improvements in sales and marketing effectiveness.
Sales Messaging Must Fuel Your Sales Cycle Does Yours - To learn more about this author, visit Michael Cannon's Website.
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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John BrennanJohn Brennan Ed.D. Dr. Brennan is President of Interpersonal Development, LLC, a training and development firm. Interpersonal Development has provided sales training and coaching to more than 3,000 sales reps from over 100 companies. A native of Australia, Dr. Brennan received his doctorate from the University of Rochester. His dissertation researched the effectiveness of Behavioral Modeling Technology in training people in interpersonal skills. While he has spent most of his career designing or delivering training, he was also a Vice-President of Sales of a training and development franchise with operations in 25 markets. Dr. Brennan has designed and delivered sales training in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He has been a guest speaker at numerous national and regional professional conferences. When Microsoft wanted Best Practices articles on sales for their web site, they called Dr. Brennan. The results are at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX011387391033.aspx His firm’s clients have included Volvo, The Prudential, Merrill Lynch, Eastman Kodak, Gannett, Equifax Europe, the Economist Group and countless small businesses. - Visit John Brennan's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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Anne BarrAnne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations, networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
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