How can you make sure that your sales team understands how to use selling tools they're given and can sell the product?

As a PMM your job is not just to create the content, but you also want to make sure you are training them and providing the right context.

• You can do self-serve training using LMS tools or video tools like Loom - and share that as you launch new content
• You can run live (virtual or in-person) training workshops and sessions (if you have an enablement team, partner with them)
• Host office hours so people who have questions can come to you for answers

I recommend a combination of training, support, and ongoing refreshers / support.

1. Comprehensive Training: First and foremost, you need to develop a training program. This might as simple as a webinar / presentation to your sales organization or as involved as an on-demand training course. You will want to discuss the features and benefits of the product as well as how to use resources to support the sales process. If possible, make sure the training is hands-on and interactive to keep the team engaged.

2. Documentation: Provide clear, easily accessible documentation for both the selling tools and the products. With my teams, we regularly provide pitch materials (presentations), quick reference guides (1-pagers), FAQs, and supporting video content.

3. Ongoing Refreshers & Support: Products evolve, so it’s important to update trainings and materials to ensure the sales team has the latest information. Also, ensure that sales people have experts they can go to for support in pitching the product. This might be technical resources like sale engineers or product experts within the sales team / broader organization.

• Have regular meetings in which you invite all relevant parties and review the newest updates, how to find them, etc. 
• Make sure to use the tools already available in the company if/when they're available 
• Have regular meetings with Sales leaders to ensure they're "fluent" in the items you want their teams to understand and ask of them their support on an ongoing basis 

Medium- to large-sized companies typically have a sales enablement team that focuses on this exact problem. In a smaller company, sales enablement often falls on product marketing. In that case, how can you make sales enablement work? 

1. Collaborate closely with sales leadership. Make sure that the sales tools you're producing will actually help sellers.
2. Make sure that your sales tools are self-explanatory (in spite of recommendation #4). Include clear and concise messaging, answers to any questions or objections they may encounter, and frequently asked questions. Include detailed speaker notes on presentations. (I can't believe I have to say this, but I see slides delivered with no notes all the time!)
3. For anything that you expect a seller to read out loud, read it out loud yourself. Multiple times. Get rid of tech jargon and wordy descriptions that don't roll off the tongue. 
4. Test sales tools with a few key sellers before rolling them out.
5. Do a live training. Recruit a seller to co-present with you and encourage questions. Record the session for those who can't make it. 
6. Answer your email and Slack messages when people ask for help! Better yet, create Slack groups dedicated to specific types of sales tools (e.g. competitive-plays, sales-play-1).
7. Encourage feedback and release new versions on a regular basis (but not so frequently that people lose track of what the latest version is).