How do you get internal teams to adopt new messaging?

Leaning on research and data to project the impact of new messaging and show internal teams why it will matter to customers is most effective. This could come in many formats - showing the potential size of the business opportunity or showing how customers are currently responding to messaging are a few different ways that can help others clearly see your point of view and why you believe a change is necessary. Without a clear articulation of the "why" behind what you're proposing, it's much more challenging to influence others.

Broadly speaking, as it relates to messaging adoption, there are two categories of stakeholders: Sales and everyone else.

Let’s start with “everyone else,” which is far simpler. Messaging adoption should be programmatic and simple: You draft messaging, get multiple rounds of feedback, have it signed off, and then use it as the basis of everything you and your stakeholders produce (eg, launch comms, web, blog, PR, etc). Your organization likely has a well-defined messaging framework that serves as your single source of truth, and a well-oiled marketing organization will be familiar with using the right messaging (most of the time).

But Sales, on the other hand, is much, much different. I spent some time as a Solutions Engineer at Salesforce working directly with AEs, so I have first-hand experience here. As it relates to messaging adoption, the field is up against two different challenges: Capacity and Expertise.

Capacity: We throw a ton at AEs and expect them to retain it all, and it’s really an impossible task. Oftentimes, for their own survival, AEs will start to selectively tune out some of the internal comms around launches, updates, new features, etc, because it’s overwhelming. When this happens, they may never hear about your messaging (if a tree falls in a forest, and there’s no one around to hear it…).

Expertise: The other challenge is, your most successful AEs are already hitting on all cylinders. They may be navigating complex sales engagements at large, enterprise accounts with different teams, multiple decision-makers, juggling 6-, 7-, or 8-figure contracts with multi-quarter sales cycles. They’ve (ideally) built deep relationships with champions, execs, and perhaps even some practitioners. So when you roll out your new messaging, candidly, they may not need it in order to be successful. Or perhaps the “new thing” will just get lumped into a larger contract, so they’ve not overly concerned with how you’d like them to talk about it. And oftentimes, your less-successful AEs may feel the same way too, resulting in the same behaviors.

But don’t give up! There’s a reason Product built that thing. There’s a reason you’re investing company resources into launching it. I suggest taking a two-pronged approach:

• 1:many: Company-wide awareness and enablement. Even if some AEs tune out these channels, do them anyway, because you’re still going to get some of the field to pay attention. But don’t think of it as “one and done.” Instead, treat internal awareness much like you’d treat market awareness–as an ongoing campaign. People need to hear things multiple times before it sets in, and Sales is no exception.

• 1:few: Direct field engagement. Hopefully you’ve built relationships with a handful of AEs and SEs/SCs who are happy for you to connect with them from time-to-time. Use these opportunities to drive awareness of the things you’re working on (in addition to collecting their feedback and customer/market intelligence). Additionally, when appropriate, connect with Sales team leaders, and try to get five minutes in their team meetings every quarter or so. You’ll find that individual and team formats have their unique pros and cons, so pursuing both options will give you the best overall outcome.