It’s All About the Timing

We hear it about relationships all the time: “the right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing” (Joshua Harris). Harris, a relationship author, posits that romance is hugely dependent on timing- both in terms of the life stage two people are in, as well as pure circumstance in their meeting. What we don’t hear as often is this theory applied to Marketing/Sales.

5 Tips for Improving Content ROI - A Free MobilePaks Guide

The comparison between romance and marketing isn’t, however, a big stretch; both are about establishing a connection and moving a relationship forward. Just as proposing to someone on a first date is inappropriate, dropping Sales content at the top of the funnel is likely to scare off your prospect. The nice thing about wooing someone in a Marketing context, though, is that there are tools to aid your timing. If only such tools existed for dating…

Arming your sales reps with the most relevant content, reference aids, and training at the proper stage in the sales cycle is essential for conversion and loyalty. This is where relevance tools come in. They provide real-time content recommendations to sales reps based on transactional data, e.g. prospect title, sales stage, and transaction type. Using this data, the tool will automatically recommend the most relevant reference materials and marketing collateral to sellers from within the CRM.

Just as relevance tools help Sales time relationship building with prospects, they also help get sales reps up to speed quickly by providing them with the necessary material at the right time. Instead of inundating reps with information and content in their first few days or weeks, relevance tools act on an assumption of continued education. People are more receptive to particular points and pieces of information at different times; you need to be able communicate content effectively at a stage when one is most receptive.  Learning is most powerful when you can immediately apply it, boosting retention up to 60-90%.

Furthermore, relevance tools recommend marketing content for Sales reps to use at different stages in the buying cycle, so that not only are they getting the best content at the right time, but so are the prospects. The value of relevance tools are twofold: Sales reps are more informed and capable, and prospects receive content that is relevant to their stage in the buying cycle, position, and company. Right content at the right time. Learn how to use relevance tools along with other techniques to improve content ROI with our brief on the subject.

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Sales Playbook Lifehacks

Before Sales playbooks there were football playbooks. The coach would map out specific game scenarios and instruct his team on how to score or advance in such situations. Like a good coach, a Sales manager designs instructions for his/her team on how to best score a deal. The difference, though, between a football playbook and a Sales playbook (besides the obvious) is that football coaches are always there on the field, yelling instructions and giving real-time advice, whereas Sales managers are rarely, if ever, coaching a seller on the spot.

Because of this, it’s essential that sellers are able to access and utilize their sales playbooks as a player would a coach: quickly, easily, and in live selling situations. Sales playbooks should act as coaches in selling situations, and be as easily accessible as a real coach would.

Sales Playbooks of the 21st Century - a Free MobilePaks Brief

To help, we’ve put together five Sales playbook lifehacks:

    1. Create short modules for specific contexts
    Going through a huge PDF when you’re crunched for time or trying to figure out your next move in a selling situation is extremely difficult. Give your players quick, short, and easy to read playbooks for each stage of the buying cycle.
    2. Make your playbook accessible from anywhere
    Sellers aren’t always (or even usually) sitting in front of their computers while selling. Make your playbook mobile and tablet friendly, and have it accessible through CRM portals so that sellers can access and use it through a portal that they’re familiar with.
    3. Use data and tracking to gauge which plays work best
    It’s not just football players who have stats to obsess over. See which playbook modules are being used by your top sellers, and at which stage of the buying cycle. This will tell you which resources are enabling sellers to land customers, and which are either not being used or are not helpful in the selling process.
    4. Make your playbook interactive for better sellers
    People are able to retain and retrieve information better when they do two things: revisit topics to strengthen neural pathways, and learn via interactive methods like role-playing or presentations. Emphasize continued learning with an interactive playbook. Have it contain little “refresher” courses at different stages in the buying cycle, and emphasize interactive learning during training sessions.
    5. Integrate Marketing content for brand continuity
    Marketers are often frustrated at how little insight they have into what pieces of content Sales is using. Furthermore, if there’s not a strong connection between the two departments, Sales can end up botching a Marketing campaign because they weren’t brought up to speed or completely educated correctly. Integrate Marketing campaign knowledge into the modules that teach your sales team, so that the two departments create a seamless brand experience as people from prospect to customer.

Instead of scores your sales reps are chasing revenue and customers, but the idea behind football and Sales playbooks is the same: teach and educate well so that your team gets iteratively better. Marry technology with what we know today about how people learn, and you’ll
ensure that your Sales playbook is the best coach your sellers have ever seen. For a complete guide to the making the Sales Playbook of the 21st Century, check out our brief on the subject.

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Sales Learning 101

The brain has a handy spam filter that funnels much of the input we receive into a difficult to
access “folder” of our brain. This filtration system enables us to focus on information that is
useful and important, and ignore irrelevant input. However, sometimes this system funnels
things we should be learning into the spam area of our brain. And that’s the biggest challenge
when teaching Sales: ensuring that what your sellers are taught sticks and can be used.

If retention is the goal, sellers are unfortunately often taught in the worst way possible: huge, long training sessions during which they are supposed to simply absorb a massive amount of information for future application.

Sales Playbooks of the 21st Century

To ensure retention, we’ve put together three tips for better Sales learning:

  1. Educate in continued, short bursts: people often think they remember more than they actually do. This is called the fluency illusion. To ensure that your sellers are actually absorbing all of the information they are receiving, incorporate little training sessions and quizzes into each quarter. Education is not a one time thing. Strengthen retrieval pathways in the brain by having multiple interactive training sessions.
  2. Give context: sellers are more likely to understand and apply concepts that are taught in conjunction with other concepts. This means two things: teaching in ways that are applicable to real selling situations, and creating a continuity of education throughout the buying cycle. Sellers will retain and apply information more effectively if it is given to them when they are about to use it, or when it is explained in conjunction with scenarios that might possibly occur.
  3. Make your playbook accessible in real selling situations: Downloading a PDF is fine for downtime at the office, but it’s difficult to quickly find and apply information within it
    during a real selling situation. Playbooks should be accessible on smartphones and tablets, and easily searchable for a particular application. Furthermore, playbooks are more useful when they’re divided into buying cycle subsections so that sellers have the parts that are most immediately useful on hand.

To learn more about how people learn, the best ways to teach them, and how to revitalize your Sales playbook, check out our ebook on the topic.

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Brief: How to Revitalize Sales Playbooks for the 21st Century

Sales Playbooks of the 21st Century - a Free MobilePaks Brief

Since the late 90s, sales playbooks have been dense, content-heavy PDFs peppered with hyperlinks. While this format was a vast improvement over paper, both as a reference tool and as training material, people’s information consumption habits have changed in the past 15 years.

PDF playbooks no longer cut it because they don’t really take into account the way people learn, use and retain information. A playbook is not simply a reference tool to help sellers remember product or methodological details. It’s an enablement asset, helping sellers learn how to position and differentiate your products, identify customer challenges, and follow process. Know what it takes to make a great playbook that’s truly tailored to the way people learn, retain and recall information. Read this free brief now.

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5 Tips for Improving Content ROI: A MobilePaks Brief

content-ROI

Marketing content is a significant investment. Because it is created for top and middle of the funnel and then handed over to Sales, tracking results to prove ROI is a major pain point for marketers. 30% of B2B marketing budgets are currently spent on content, and this percentage is only predicted to increase—which means improving the ROI of content is essential.

To help you, we’ve created a list of 5 tips for tracking and improving content ROI. You can read up on all these great tips here.

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ATD Webinar: The Science of Sales Enablement, presented by Chanin Balance and Tim Riesterer of Corporate Visions

Join us October 21st at 2:00 ET for an ATD hosted Webinar on how to craft effective sales enablement. While content may be an art, its underpinnings lie solidly in science. This presentation not only shows what works when it comes to training your reps on how to engage prospects more effectively, but also explains why. Peek into the inner workings of the brain and discover:

The Science of Sales Enablement

  • how research on decision making can help you craft a compelling story that engages prospects and communicates your company’s true value
  • the science underlying the enablement process, and how you can develop and deliver content that syncs with the way your salespeople learn and process information
  • how technologies, such as guided selling, greatly boost training effectiveness with just-in-time recommendations of relevant training bursts, job aids, and marketing collateral.

This webinar will give you the information you need to help your team have more effective selling conversations and close more deals. Register now to ensure your spot.

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