What's the biggest challenge you've consistently seen translating product stories to sales narratives that sales really gets behind?

For me, the biggest challenge is bridging the gap between a core product story and the customized, business-specific narratives that actually resonate in sales conversations. I have found that Sales teams often want ready-made, off-the-shelf decks that they can plug-and-play. But the reality is that no single deck can account for the nuances of every buyer’s business model, vertical, or challenge. The product story may be sound, but without tailoring—whether to a subscription vs. transactional b ...Read More

Sales messaging must be relevant, differentiated, clear, and drive intent - all while using customer language and avoiding jargon. Sales messaging has to resonate both internally with your sales team and most importantly with customers. We have four main guiding principles for any sales messaging that product marketing produces: First, it's got to be relevant - germane to your target audience's day job and the things that keep them up at night. Take an outside-in approach by leading with the cus ...Read More

Getting sales reps to truly believe in the product's value is challenging until they see firsthand customer success. I completely agree with Madeline. I'll add that I've been in numerous situations where the rep almost needs to experience the success of their own customer, especially in a more customer-oriented business. At LinkedIn, we had a brand new product launch - net new in the market. Most of our field was relationship managers who had deep relationships and trust with their customers alr ...Read More

The biggest challenge is providing diverse, quantitative proof points from a wide enough customer base to resonate with every salesperson. For us, the biggest challenge is being able to provide all of the quantitative, credible proof points from a diverse enough customer base to have resonance with every salesperson. It's much easier to train on things based on what you have in-house, but when it comes to documenting ROI and creating crisp, clear customer stories, it becomes difficult. And not j ...Read More