What process can we put in place to guarantee that sales use the official product message, rather than crafting their own variation?

"Guarantee" is tough one, but a good way to make sure the official product message sticks is to make it stupid simple. I like to keep it to a 3 statement message. Early on when I worked at Oracle, this was a core rule for all PMMs, all our messages must follow a 3 pillar approach. And it all layered back up to the core 3 pillar Company message. So for my product, and this is YEARS the message was Scalable, Reliable and Secure. Then you think back and remember, ok how is it scalable? The story th ...Read More

Guaranteeing every person the sales team uses "official" messages is a sisyphean task; when you step back to look at benefit vs. effort, it's probably not worth the effort. Instead, here's where I'd focus my time: Tier new messaging/resource rollouts like you would any launch – focus time, training, and effort on the most critical resources. For that content, gain buy-in from sales leadership to enable every team, including pitch certifications, on-demand resources including videos of salespeopl ...Read More

Here are a few winning strategies to keep sales on message including: Sales often crafts their own variation of a product message to fill in gaps when the official version falls short or is incomplete. Ensuring that you've got clear, strong messaging that is up to date and readily accessible for reps to see helps prevent this from happening. Prioritize the single most critical message(s) and make sure reps are hammering it home. Learn from rep behaviour and adapt accordingly. Reps going off mess ...Read More

I wouldn't focus on mandating that your sales team use the official product message word for word. Each sales rep has a style and way of delivering content that feels natural and confident. If you try to box them into a script, it will sound scripted and inauthentic.Instead, give the sales team a framework of the message and the value points that they should try to touch on during each conversation. You may need to repeat these to them a few times (bonus points if you can share case studies and ...Read More