How do you tell the difference between (a) your messaging needs to be reworked vs. (b) your sales reps have poor delivery? And if the answer is (b), how do you decide whether the answer is to rework the messaging or rework the training/enablement?

When your messaging needs to be reworked there are typically multiple signs pointing this way. Not only your reps may not be getting traction, but your competitive losses start climbing, fewer qualified leads enter the funnel, and when talking with customers you start hearing more “you were cheaper than the competition” instead of “we saw greater value in your product”. Analysts (Gartner, Forrester, etc.) can also help serve as early warning signs that your messaging needs work, as they will flatly tell you that you sound just like everyone else. I’ve been there and it hurts but is a great wake-up call.

This why it is so critical for product marketers to conduct win/loss analysis and also to occasionally sit on sales calls. Now, if you see that leads are coming in, the pipeline is growing but deals are getting stuck, this could be an indicator that the sales team is not being able to convey your value prop or that they are having difficulty in clearly articulating why your solution is different. In this case, more training or enablement can help.

The biggest risk we have is waiting too long to diagnose the problem. The ideal scenario is when you can intercept the problem before it becomes too big, and this is where sales enablement tools like MindTickle come into place. They can help you identify if reps are able to deliver your message by providing virtual role-plays and allowing you to measure their effectiveness before they even start talking to customers. Using tools like Gong or Chorus can also help as you are able to listen to call recordings and identify patterns that might be hindering a salesperson's effectiveness.