5 Things Your Sales Team Wishes You Understood

I have always thought that there are two types of people in this world: salespeople and consumers. When conjuring up the image of a typical member of a sales team, I picture a relentless presenter who is able to convince others of the value behind a particular product or service.

Some could make the argument that we’re all salespeople at heart. Whether you’re selling goods or yourself (to potential employers, schools, mates, etc.), it’s essentially the same.

However, the key difference is that innate salespeople thrive on this process and actually enjoy it.

Regardless of why certain people enjoy and are better at selling, we can all agree on one thing: they are the bread and butter of your company. So what are some of the ways that you, as a marketer, can better support the efforts of the sales team?

Let’s take a look at five things your sales team wishes you knew:

1) Salespeople are investigators

A lot of the time, the sales team spends their efforts on connecting with the right decision makers at the right time. This means identifying the key stakeholder and how to get in front of them.

It may be easy to convince someone of the value behind your product when they have no purchasing power but the real challenge is persuading the person who will ultimately sign on the dotted line.

As a marketer, you can help by ensuring that you’re thinking of this persona throughout the entire content and campaign creation process so as to target that very person.

As a marketer, you can help by ensuring that you’re thinking of this persona throughout the entire content and campaign creation process so as to target that very person.

2) Stories are not as effective as measurable ROI

Yes, prospects who are evaluating whether or not to purchase your product or service love to hear current success stories. However, stories are not as meaningful as measurable ROI figures. Clients want to know “If I’m going to invest X amount of dollars, how much can I expect in return?”

By incorporating these into current customer successes, prospects are much more likely to present the case to their superiors as well as evaluate your product seriously. When producing marketing collateral, make sure you include hard numbers to catch the eye of that target decision maker.

3) Buyers care about more than just the product

At the end of the day, consumers want to buy from someone and from a company that they can trust. If your product/service is neck and neck with a competitor, the deciding factor will be whether the buyer feels like they can rely on you.

This is the marketer’s job—to create the sense of community and consistency that a shopper looks for and it starts with your brand. Think of strategies on how to associate your brand with those traits and take the onus off the sales team to have to sell that in addition to the actual product.

As Patricia Fripp says , “It is not your customer’s job to remember you. It is your obligation and responsibility to make sure they don’t have the chance to forget you.”

This is the marketer’s job—to create the sense of community and consistency that a shopper looks for and it starts with your brand.

4) Consumers know when they are being sold to—and don’t like it

Why is most of the web traffic garnered through organic search and not paid? Why do 84% of people leave websites that have intrusive or irrelevant ads and 86% of people skip TV ads? Consumers can tell when they are being sold to and resist.

Your sales team knows this better than anyone and that is why they have mastered the skill of selling without seeming to. Again, it is our responsibility as marketers to generate informative content, not to sell but to educate buyers on why they need to purchase your product. At Conductor, we call that Web Presence Management.

It is our responsibility as marketers to generate informative content, not to sell but to educate buyers on why they need to purchase your product.

5) The sales team wishes you'd stay up to date

”Who are some of your competitors?” “Why should I go with you guys and not Competitor A?” “Have you heard about XYZ in the industry, and what is your organization’s take on this?”

These are all objections that salespeople are accustomed to hearing and train for. Ultimately, shoppers want to know that they are buying the newest and most cutting-edge product they can and it is the job of the sales team to convince them.

You can support them by staying up to date on competitors and their actions. Additionally, keep an eye out for up-and-coming trends in your industry and evaluate if those align with your business and how to incorporate them. These will be signposts to potential buyers that they are in good hands with knowledgeable experts.

When all is said and done, sales is the engine that keeps the company car operating and moving. They are the representatives of your organization and are the direct ears to your target audience. It’s about time that we as marketers start listening and steering the wheel.