Not too long ago, I was interviewing the marketing director of a $50 billion healthcare company. It has a sales force of several hundred, scattered across America. Making thousands of in-person sales calls a week to hospitals and other healthcare providers. And with rare exception, one member of the sales team wasn’t being invited. In fact, this team member was being overlooked on purpose. Even worse, it was the most expensive member of all, costing this company hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. So, who was it?
Well, it wasn’t a WHO, but a WHAT: the sales support materials that this marketing director had created. Brochures, PowerPoint presentations, flyers, sales sheets, binders, giveaway items–an entire litany designed to help this company deliver a strong story at the point of sale. Problem was, the story wasn’t strong. Indeed, when I looked at all of the collateral pieces together, I could quickly see that there was no consistent story at all.
No wonder the sales guys weren’t using the collateral system. It wasn’t helping. (It might even have been hurting.)
I’d like to say this story is rare, but if you’ve been a corporate writer for any length of time, you know it’s not. Effective sales collateral systems are the exception, not the rule. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. If you build a Corporate Messaging Platform first, you’ll accomplish three goals that will help ensure your sales collateral will make it to the meetings:
- Deliver the right message: A Corporate Messaging Platform will help you develop a story that is both differentiated and relevant. You’ll answer the question, “Why choose me, instead of my competitors?” And then, have a system for customizing that message for each of your various sales audiences.
- Deliver it consistently: Your Platform becomes the foundation for every sales support tool you develop. Whether you’re creating a corporate brochure that appeals to every audience–or a simple flyer that targets just one–you’ll have a system for maintaining clarity and consistency. Your sales collateral will look like a ‘family’–because it is.
- Save 30% while you’re at it: When you use a Corporate Messaging Platform, you never start from scratch. Your launch point is already built, regardless of the tactic or audience. In my experience, this saves 20 – 30% of the time, money and effort you’d typically invest in a project. Imagine saving 30% of your creative development budget over the course of a year, and you begin to see the value of creating these platforms.
“How much of your sales collateral could be thrown out, and no one would notice?” It’s a question I typically ask a prospective client during our first discussion. I generally hear 30 – 40%. Once, I heard 90% (he wasn’t joking). With a Corporate Messaging Platform, a corporate writer can begin to cut that number down to size.
5 Comments for this entry
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Andy:
This is good article and great comments related to the development of a corporate message and a strong sales platform.
Bob Simon
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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-09-19 | Corporate Writer Insider, September 19th, 2010 on 10:33 am
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Andy Bartling
September 13th, 2010 on 11:49 am