Sales messaging is a powerful sales tool that can bridge the divide between high level strategy and what gets communicated in customer conversations. It’s an art form, and like any other art form needs to be mastered with practice and study. 

This blog post covers some of the key elements that should be included in messaging strategy. Read on for 9 surefire ways to make new sales stick!

What does it take to become a messaging guru and master the art of persuasion? It’s an art form, and like any other art form needs to be mastered with practice and study. 

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Here are some key elements that should be included in your sales messaging strategy:

Product positioning: messaging strategy is all about how your product fits into the larger context of customer’s lives. 

Highlight the areas where they need help and show how your solution can be a catalyst for change or an accelerator to their goals. 

It should also reflect on why customers would choose you over competitors, and what makes them uniquely qualified to solve their problems.

1. Value Drivers

Purchase decisions aren’t made on product features alone. Instead, buyers want to know that their needs are understood and that you can provide them with the best possible solution. 

An effective messaging framework outlines the driving reasons a customer would choose to purchase your solution. It aligns your company behind the value that drives your customers to make decisions. 

As a result, it enables your salespeople to have sales conversations that are focused on the value of your solution. The salesperson can then share how you understand and address the value drivers that are important to your customers.

2. Differentiators

It should show how you are different from the competition. The salesperson can share their own point of view or use customer insights to support these statements, but it must be consistent with other sales materials and personalized for each specific buyer.

Buyers want to feel confident that they’re making a sound decision before committing themselves financially — and it can help them feel more confident in their choice. 

Salespeople should be prepared to answer questions and concerns, but if they’re armed with a strong sales message framework it will enable them to focus on the value of your offering as opposed to features and functions.

3. Ability to Quantify Business Pain

The messaging should include the ability to quantify business pain. This helps build trust and shows that you understand your customer’s challenges in a way they can immediately relate to. 

It also differentiates you from competitors by demonstrating why your solution is best suited for solving their problems, even if it appears similar on paper.

Customers are often more concerned about the potential pain associated with doing nothing than they are excited by new opportunities. 

As a salesperson, you need to communicate how your solution will solve their problems and prevent them from experiencing that pain in the future. 

Quantifying business pains is one of the most effective ways of demonstrating value beyond product features or pricing.

4. Outcomes of Doing Business With You

Effective messaging also outlines the potential outcomes of doing business with you. This can be used to include price in your sales conversation, but it isn’t about just listing features or even talking about product benefits. 

Instead, it helps salespeople ensure they are creating an emotional connection between what you offer and how this will benefit their customer.

An outcomes-driven sales message will resonate with customers. 

It helps salespeople identify what’s most important to their customer and shows how your solution can help them achieve success faster than they would be able to do on their own or working with a competitor who doesn’t have the same level of expertise in the industry.

5. Ability to be leveraged by the whole organization

It should show how your salespeople can play a key role in the organization. It’s not just about selling, but also helping customers scale and make an impact at every level of their business. 

Salespeople need to be able to demonstrate how they are part of the team that will help everyone succeed by driving demand for your solution.

Your sales team should be able to communicate how they are an integral part of the organization and play a pivotal role in helping customers achieve success with your solution.

 By demonstrating the ability for salespeople to position themselves as trusted advisors, you enable them to become valued contributors across their entire company — not just when it’s time for purchase decisions.

6. Executives who manage it, inspect it, and reinforce its use.

The sales should be able to include how salespeople can help executives by providing a strategic framework and standardized approach. 

This is about more than just identifying decision makers, it’s about demonstrating the value of your solution and enabling salespeople to give customers all the reasons they need before making their final commitment

 — not after that point when they’ve already purchased and you’re trying to close the deal.

Messaging should include salespeople demonstrating their expertise in helping executives identify key decision makers, but it also helps sales people provide value by helping customers avoid any potential pitfalls that might arise during implementation and reinforce best practices for achieving success with your solution after purchase. 

This ensures salespeople are part of the process that makes sales people become trusted advisors who can help customers achieve success with your solution at every level.

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5 STEPS TO EFFECTIVELY LAUNCH NEW SALES MESSAGING 

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TIP 1: PUT YOUR CONTENT INTO CONTEXT

Deploy sales enablement content after you've developed sales messaging that aligns with your strategic needs and selling scenarios.

Provide your team with resources that correspond to the types of talks they have on a daily basis. Whether it's dealing with concerns from fresh prospects or selling more licences to an existing customer, your sellers will have a similar set of dialogues.

Start by providing them with targeted campaign, coaching, and customer-facing information to assist them on multiple fronts:

Obtaining access and arranging a meeting

Get ready for the meeting.

Make a presentation that stands out.

Have a conversation that will be remembered

Follow-up in a meaningful way

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TIP 2: MAKE IT VISUAL

Our brains process images 60,000 times faster than text.

Allow sales people to engage their imagination and envision how things work

 — this will help them put your messaging into context and enable salespeople to communicate the value of what you offer more effectively.

You need content that is rooted in a picture that decision makers can't "unsee" if you want it to drive them to buy.

However, your sales content isn't the only thing that needs to be visually appealing. Your sales crew is likewise crucial, pearly whites and all. According to statistics, sellers who close use their camera 41% more than those who don't:

Webcam for Discovery Calls

For a genuinely unforgettable buying experience, anchor your gleaming new sales presentations with great visuals and the human factor.

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TIP 3: BUILD YOUR PLAYBOOKS 

In sales, it's essential that your sales people consult a playbook to ensure they're using the same messaging and lingo as other sellers.

By creating sales playbooks for all of your sales scenarios you can help everyone become more effective by communicating with one another better. 

This includes not just making sure salespeople are on the right path but also coaching salespeople to develop better sales skills and improving overall sales performance.

A sales playbook is the best way to ensure that your salespeople are providing customers with messaging that relates to their needs and makes it easier for them to buy.

If you're unsure about what types of sales playbooks or resources would be most beneficial, here's a list of some ideas:

Customer-facing materials :  sales collateral sales enablement content

For instance, if you're a SaaS company providing sales people with customer-facing materials can ensure your salespeople are using the same messaging as other sellers. 

This playbooks should be accessible from anywhere and written in language that is easy to understand so they do not have any barriers for reaching out to prospects when needed.

Sales Enablement Playbook

Customer-facing sales enablement materials should be available to salespeople from anywhere. 

This way they can reach out to prospects regardless of where they are, without any barriers getting in the way of engaging with them at every stage. 

The sales playbook is a great tool for ensuring that your sales people provide customers with messaging that resonates with them and makes it easier for salespeople to sell.

If you're looking for some sales enablement content that can help your sales team develop better sales skills, be sure to check out our resource library here: 

SellersChoice.TV Library  - we have tons of videos on topics like how to get back in the sales game, sales prospecting and sales management.

TIP 4: EQUIP YOUR INTERNAL CHAMPIONS

You can help salespeople become even more effective by providing them with messaging training and support.

Sales people are on the front line of sales for your company, but that doesn't mean they're always equipped to be great at it. 

That's why sales leaders must equip their sales team members internally with tools, coaching opportunities and information. 

If salespeople feel like they're walking into a sales scenario blind, it's going to lead to confusion and ultimately missed opportunities.

If key leaders understand it completely, the rest of the team will follow suit. Internally, business leaders must champion your new message and communicate it with confidence, vigour, and impact.

If they don't, the crew will most likely fall back on what they're most familiar with: features. That isn't the place where you want them to be. The lower your reps' win rates, the more they feature dump (i.e., focus too much on features):

What is the best way to avoid this? Practice the new storey with your senior leaders so they're comfortable with it and ready to present it at any time.

You especially need a strong delivery during the kickoff event. Give them storyboards and talk tracks to help them understand the story’s key features so they can refine their delivery through practice. You can also build out coaching guides that reinforce the story’s differentiators and key points.

TIP 5: HOST AN EFFECTIVE KICKOFF EVENT 

Your sales team needs to know that they're on the same page and headed in the right direction. They also need a clear idea of how your new strategy will help them get there:

Where do you start? With an effective kickoff event, for starters.

Hosting this meeting is crucial because it's where everyone gets together to hear the story and vision for where you're headed. 

They need to know why this matters, how it will help them be more successful in sales conversations with customers, and what they should expect going forward.

A sales kickoff event is a great way to bring your sales team together around a new sales play book or theme - especially if your sales team works remotely or in sales teams that are spread out geographically.

You get the opportunity to reinforce new tools and talk tracks, give salespeople role-playing opportunities so they can develop their skills with them, and establish a forum for sales people to ask questions about how they should use these strategies during conversations with prospects.

Because salespeople have established talk tracks that they won't want to abandon, your inaugural event for fresh messaging must shake them up. Your original presentation can (and should) act as a rerouter.

Allow it to set the tone, assisting sellers in understanding why they need to change and motivating them to do so. Don't underestimate how difficult it is to make a long-term change.

Your initial "public" demonstration of the new messaging should pique the interest of your sellers. After all, your new messaging has the potential to boost their performance and give them a competitive advantage. Deliver that message with confidence.

Better yet, deliver the stories at the event and then provide your reps with a call recording library to listen to at their leisure thereafter. Make sure each selling scenario in your playbook has a call in the library.

Call shadowing is substantially slower than using a call library to help your rep learn. Given the high amount of no-shows that occur during live, scheduled calls, a rep can listen to multiple times the number of calls compared to the number they can shadow.

 This is critical for long-term adoption, especially for new recruits who were unable to attend the launch event.