We last left off discussing the need to integrate sales and marketing activities to closely collaborate in meeting organization-wide goals. We defined the second goal of these collaborations as facilitating close-to-real-time knowledge by marketers as to what problems and objectives customers are facing. Your sales staff are the first line on inquiry into these insights. They are out in the field with your customer, and see first-hand what problems your customers are facing, what solutions are out there competing with you, what product improvements would take your product from good to indispensible, and what is driving your customer to seek your product or service. If you can collect such information quickly and efficiently, you can always be on-target in terms of your value proposition, in terms of building the closest match between customer problems and your proposed solutions, and in terms of staying ahead of the competition.

There are many effective ways to activate your sales network in getting this information back to your marketing department in a timely, well-organized manner. We can look into these strategies in detail, but first let’s outline what essential questions the salesperson might ask in order to get the most essential nuggets of information.

Essential Questions Salespeople Should Ask for the Benefit of Marketing:

1. What attracted you to our product or service?
2. What is driving you to look for a product or service such as those we offer? (Answers to this question may include the need to drive profit, the need to drive organizational efficiency, the need to eliminate critical mistakes, the need to comply with a government regulation, etc.)
3. More specifically, what problem are you trying to solve? (Answers to this question will be similar to those above, but drive towards a greater specificity, i.e. prospect’s drive is to comply with a particular regulation, and the problem might be that their current QA/QC protocol does not include a tool to check for the disallowed component, which has been found in their product before).
4. If we offer solution X, how close will we be coming to being right on target with what you are looking for?
5. Do you have other solutions in mind?
6. Is this a problem you will need to solve once, or do you foresee changes and a need for extended solution support?
7. Describe the ideal result of a relationship between your organization and ours.

If you can gather this sort of information quickly from the field, you will be well-equipped to adjust marketing strategy to both customer needs and the competition’s behavior. Information about drive to use a product or service such as yours is probably the most essential, as it lets you hone in other prospects that may have the same drive and hopefully gives you insight into where to find them. Understanding particular client problems will allow you to create collateral that makes your prospects feel that you fully understand the challenges they are facing and are well prepared to provide a solution.

Read More…

• Back to Basics Marketing
• Marketing as Company Wide Responsibility
• Mobilization: Reaching Outside the Marketing Department
• Advanced Lead Qualification: Sales and Marketing Work Together
• You Are Here Sales’ Feedback into Marketing: Profiling Prospects and Their Problems
• “Inside Marketing”: Marketing to Your Own Sales Organization
• Developing Unique, Customer-Focused Value Propositions
• How to Train an Entry-Level Marketing Employee
• When Return on Investment Doesn’t Paint a Full Picture
• Defining and Presenting Value Propositions in a Competitive Market
• Logos and Promotional Product Designs for “Difficult” Subjects
• Defining and Refining Value Propositions for Luxury Items
• Evaluating Return-On-Investment (ROI) for Tradeshow Activities
• Management Mistake in Small Business: No Investment during Trying Times