Now, more than ever, Sales Enablement is coming out of the woodwork as a full-fledged industry, rather than a byproduct of the work sales (and marketing) was already doing.
The specifics of how companies are enabling their sales teams to close more deals depends on their goals. For many, it’s about using the best software tools. For some, it’s about training. For us, it’s all of the above plus a vital component overlooked by most of the businesses — sales content.
We believe that delivering engaging, relevant content to prospective customers will beat out the competition and close deals faster. This is often a joint effort between sales and marketing — both teams need to work together to understand their business landscape and create content that speaks directly to their prospective customers.
Here are 4 ways to drive more deals through content:
1) Reusable Templates for Proposals, Quotes, and Contracts.
Transactional documents — proposals, quotes, contracts, etc. — are often a necessary evil for sales teams. And while most sales reps hate how much time they take to put together (finding the correct client info, copy-and-pasting from older versions, etc.), the bigger concern is that they’re often boring and ineffective.
By creating templates the entire sales team can use, it not only cuts down on the time it takes to put them together, it creates consistent messaging. Your sales team shouldn’t be sending out collateral that’s inconsistent with each other. They should be working with marketing to create templates that corresponds and aligns with marketing’s efforts.
Marketing can also help develop templates that really “pop” visually. Standing out from the pack means just that — delivering a business proposal, contract, or quote that catches their eye immediately.
PandaDoc has a library of templates to give you a jump start. Here are a few templates that really “pop”:
What follows are other types of content that sales can include in their templates to really personalize them for each prospect.
2) Beat Out the Competition with Battle Cards.
It’s marketing’s job to understand the competition, but it’s sales’ job to sell why you’re the better fit. Sales is also the front lines of your business, so they know how people view you vs. your competitors. That’s why they need to work together to develop “battle cards” — content that educates and differentiates you from your competitors, and gives sales ammo to get the deal done.
Again, this creates consistent messaging across your organization, but they also let each sales rep personalize their pitch for each prospect. Tell them exactly why you’re the better solution for their specific needs.
Here’s an example of a battle card we’ve used:
When marketing and sales works together to better understand the competition, it creates stronger messaging and closes more deals by staying ahead of the game.
3) Let Your Customers Do the Selling.
The best advocates for your product are those that are actually using it — your customers. But developing case studies isn’t just about letting your customers speak for you. A prospect is much more likely to become a customer when they see a case study (or a few) that’s directly related to them.
Marketing needs to develop a vast number of case studies that speaks to every kind of client you have, whether it’s by industry, company size, or specific use case. Sales can help identify current customers who are the biggest champions of your product. Marketing can highlight the areas where case studies are lacking. Together, both teams can develop engaging narratives that really illustrate the problems your product is solving.
There’s a few items you should make sure to include when putting together a case study:
- Create a narrative. What problem were they looking to solve and how did your product or service provide that solution?
- Get specific with quotes. Let the client speak directly about how they saw improvements with your product or service.
- Quantify with data points. Get to the point with specific data points. How are they quantifying the results they’re seeing? Are they saving time? Have they seen an increase in their business?
- Include information about the client. Put what industry they’re in, the size of their company, and any other information that would be relevant to prospective clients. Someone in the technology field probably won’t find a case study about an HR organization relevant or useful.
When a prospect is wondering whether your product is the best solution, they’d rather hear it from someone who had a similar problem, not the person trying to make a sale.
4) Show, Don’t Tell, with Videos.
It’s 2016, so why are you still selling the same way your grandparents did in 1916? We live in the digital era with so many possibilities to sell better and stand out from the crowd. The simplest one to implement? Videos.
Would you rather receive a proposal that just lists what the product is and why you should use it, or would you rather watch a short video that actually shows you how it works?
You can include videos that go beyond just illustrating what your product can do.
Here are a couple examples of videos you can include in your proposals, quotes, or contracts:
- Create video testimonials with your clients. As I said above, your customers are your best spokespeople. Include ones that are relevant to the current prospect, and let them see and hear all the wonderful things they have to say about you.
- Introduce the team members who will be working with your clients. This shows off your company’s personality by putting faces to names. Let your prospects meet who will be working with them.
You can create a channel on YouTube, Vimeo or Wistia to host all your videos and easily embed them into your documents.
Videos make your proposals, contracts, and quotes interactive, meaning your prospects are much more likely to actually interact with them.
Setting yourself apart from the competition through great content is just one piece of having, which is why we’re partnering with outbound sales experts PersistIQ for a webinar about “How to Use Sales Enablement to Increase Pipeline and Drive Revenue.”
On this webinar, you’ll discover:
- The keys to an effective sales enablement program
- How technology can help you drive revenue and shorten the sales cycle
- 6 Steps to get up and running with sales enablement
- How Sales Enablement drives productivity and closes more deals
- 4 types of content that sales can use to close deals faster
- How marketing and sales can develop effective Sales Enablement content
