AMA: Amazon Product Marketing SME, AWS, Holly Watson on Sales Enablement

Training sales prior to a launch is a go-to-market milestone I incorporate into any of my launch plans. This starts at the beginning of your launch planning. I always align with my sales leaders to assign a primary point of contact (POC) that can represent the sales team. This might come from a sales enablement department, a senior sales leader looking for a stretch project, or other designated role based on your organization. This individual is often responsible for assisting with beta customer outreach and helping gather data across our pipeline and sales database (typically found in a CRM like Salesforce). Since this POC is with you through the launch cycle, once you have your messaging, first call deck, sales script, battle card, and more complete, that individual can help you conduct trainings and evangelize the content throughout the wider sales organization.

Multiple. People learn differently (hear, see, do), and repetition is key. When planning your training consider how you are offering multiple channels for the seller to learn. It's common for the sales team to have to understand the entire portfolio of an organization's offering, so make your training stand out by keeping it concise to what the most important things are to learn that will move the prospect forward. Keep in mind too, that you have to answer "why should the [seller] care?". Meaning, how are you addressing how they hit their KPIs/revenue goals by selling your new product in your trainings?

There are tones of recommendations that you'll find in a simple search that include battle cards, sales scripts, slide ware, and more, but to prioritize what is going to be most effective - ask. Build relationships with your sales leaders and understand the sales methodology, the customer response to existing content, and where your particular sales team might need support.

Competitive intelligence is great resource and team to collaborate with, if you have the opportunity. I work closely with this team to help me uncover details on the top 5-8 direct competitors like product positioning, pricing, where they win, and where they're weak. It's up to you as the PMM to determine what information to surface to sales and how. A few tactics I've seen work include a weekly newsletter - short and to the point that summarizes compete activity; battle cards; objection handling questions and answers; and private rate cards. Keep in mind you'll also want to stay aware of indirect competitors. Perform similar analysis for indirect competitors, but it might be a little lighter due to bandwidth and information retention. Regardless, indirect competitors can soon become direct competitors, and you'll not want to be caught on your heels if that happens.

There are two approaches to consider here. First is the 80/20 rule. Create content and training material for the 80% of the deals that are standard. This can include material that is fundamental for new hires who simply need to understand what good looks like, and what you actually sell. For the other 20%, create more templated content and point to your assets like messaging, brand voice, personas, and competitive intelligence so the sellers are empowered to modify some content on their own for bespoke use cases. The second approach is to create highly modular content. This requires more rigorous training, but modular content can accommodate for sales cycles that include a higher volume of unique deals.

Sales enablement should be a steady drum beat throughout the year. More specifically, during a product launch or major release cycle, you'll want to lay out a sales enablement plan that can span 2-4 weeks. Keep your training sessions short (30 mins preferred; 45 mins max). Have guest speakers from within the sales team - peers training peers builds trust. Address why sales should care - how will this retire quota, help them reach new markets, increase deal closer rate (time to close). Keep your training specific to where sales will win (who is the decision maker, what phrases work, how do they beat out the competition). These training sessions should build up towards your launch and continue shortly after (check-ins once a month for 3 months).

Two things: 1/ You have to align with sales leadership on the digital asset manager (DAM) the organization is going to rally behind, and 2/ You have to provide quality content. Quality must be determined by you and your stakeholders, and expectations must be set in terms of content updates, what is/isn't provided (Do you make 1-pager overviews for your products; do you manage regional webinar content), and how you promote those artifacts. Consider treating this program as a product and seek internal sales testimonials, small rewards like profile badges or shoutouts in leadership emails, and feedback.

1. Sales first call deck (FCD) with script 2. Competitive battle card with 1/ objection handling questions answered, 2/ private pricing options/discounts, and 3/ why customer should by now. 3. Video content like 1/ demo, 2/ polished promotional, 3/ internal sales video of a peer delivering the FCD Keep in mind YOU don't have to be the one to make all this content, but YOU are in charge of orchestrating it's delivery.

With any content, you have to be clear on why sales should care. How is it going to help them close a deal faster, increase the size of that deal, retain or grow the account quickly? To do this, you have to know what KPIs your sales team is measured on. So if you are going to deliver persona content to sales, help them see why it'll help them with their goals.

Sales can be protective of their calls with customers. When trying to get involved in a customer call, be specific with your ask and clear what the customer will get out of your attendance. Are you inviting them to an exclusive program, are you inviting them to provide feedback on a beta offering, are you interested in getting candid feedback about a specific use case. Being clear on your "why" will help ensure the sales manager can position your needs correctly, and ensure the client sees value. If you are looking to attend a call to understand how your sales team pitches, you might consider holding an internal pitch competition or using tools like Gong to assist you with that.