How do you handle sales communications?

It’s so important to work with your salespeople, ask your salespeople what they need, and not only ask them but go watch them do their job. Because people may tell you something, but if you’re sitting in the room with them with a customer, you may see so much more. I think it’s so important that as you’re rolling out any new technology to your team, that if adoption isn’t there, it’s likely because your salespeople don’t find it helpful. Or, your customers haven’t reacted positively. So if you have a great idea, try it. If it doesn’t work, figure out why and sit with your salespeople to make it even better.

We’ve stopped communicating content to the sales team based on the actual title of the content. So, we don’t say, ‘here’s the latest battle card’ or ‘here’s the latest data sheet’. We communicate it in business objectives, so your customer will have a certain objective. For LinkedIn, as an example, your customer will have a need to fill for hard-to-fill roles. That’s a business challenge that they have within the HR side of the business. This is how you can help as a sales rep to solve that business need.

You need listening mechanisms for what the managers are giving back to you and also one that doesn’t stop someone like yourself from coming to them. I use the example that I’m really passionate about where enablement is going, and I’ve got 30 examples. My manager may not know this, the data and my performance doesn’t reveal that, but it’s a passion of mine and something I’ve been working on. I may have a secret under my belt that unless you ask me, I’m not going to share it with you. So, you also need a listening mechanism to ask the reps: are you working on something awesome, have you got a secret you should be sharing with everyone?