The presentation by Carla Johnson emphasizes the need for better alignment and understanding between sales and marketing teams to enhance customer engagement and conversion. It highlights that misalignment can lead to significant revenue loss, and that both teams should collaborate to develop content and strategies that meet buyer needs effectively. By fostering communication and empathy, marketers can help sales reps connect with customers more meaningfully, ultimately driving long-term revenue growth.

1. Carla Johnson, President
Type A Communications
@CarlaJohnson
Making Content
Work for the Sales
Force

2. ABOUT CARLA JOHNSON
@CarlaJohnson

3. ABOUT THIS PRESENTATION
This presentation focuses on how marketers can
start to understand sales reps, what questions to
ask to uncover their true needs and help them
better engage with prospects and convert them
to customers. It’s not about technology, which is a
huge component of the sales enablement
process. Instead, it’s about how marketers and
sales reps can better understand each other and
connect as people and achieve goals together.
@CarlaJohnson

5. CONTENT MARKETING
Content marketing is a marketing technique
of creating and distributing relevant and
valuable content to attract, acquire, and
engage a clearly defined and understood
target audience – with the objective of
driving profitable customer action.
- Joe Pulizzi, Content Marketing Institute
@CarlaJohnson

6. SALES ENABLEMENT
Strategic processes that align marketing
and sales goals to inspire valuable
conversation in the right time, place
and format to move a sales opportunity
forward.
- Carla Johnson, Type A Communications
@CarlaJohnson

7. CONTENT MARKETING + SALES
ENABLEMENT
Marketing and sales integrating to tell
the same story to defined personas
with purpose of engaging, nurturing,
converting and retaining customers
with the ultimate goal of driving longterm revenue.
@CarlaJohnson

8. 1
@CarlaJohnson
THE UGLY

9. WHY IS THIS A PROBLEM NOW?
Misalignment between sales and marketing causes
the typical company to underperform by 10-20% in
annual revenue. (IDC)
Best-in-class organization that integrate sales and
marketing outperform those that don’t by as much
as 24% in average revenue growth. (Sirius Decisions)
The seller no longer controls the process;
the buyer does
@CarlaJohnson

10. THE SALES MACHINE
Sales concentrates on a linear process and
outdated expectations of customer
behavior.
Managers focus on fine tuning the machine
to improve results.
No room for creativity and novel
information from sales reps.
@CarlaJohnson

11. TODAY’S CUSTOMERS
Customers aren’t linear. They go through
a web of information that sales can’t
control.
Complex B2B sales require greater
internal consensus.
Customers want insights that “go beyond”
and talk about business impact.
@CarlaJohnson

12. THE CHANGING BUYING PROCESS
Source: CatapultWorks
@CarlaJohnson

13. THE CHANGING BUYING PROCESS
Source: B2Beacon
@CarlaJohnson

14. THE HIDDEN SALES CYCLE
@CarlaJohnson

15. 2
@CarlaJohnson
THE BAD

16. B2B marketing organizations now spend more than
25% of their budgets on developing, delivering and
promoting content to drive business leads, influence
customer markets and grow brand presence and
authority.
Source: Better Lead Yield in the Content Marketing Field, CMO Council, June 2013
@CarlaJohnson

17. 50
90
TO
@CarlaJohnson
%
%
of collateral
created by
marketing is
never used
by sales

18. MARKETING SAYS…
“Sales is rigid, egotistical
and uninspired. They
don’t care about
customers. They only care
about selling.”
@CarlaJohnson

19. SALES SAYS…
“I poured my heart
out to marketing and
all I got back was a
truckload of shame.”
@CarlaJohnson

20. CUSTOMER CONVERSATIONS
Thinking of your initial meeting, what percent of reps were:
Not Prepared
26%
Somewhat
Prepared
31%
Source: IDC Customer Experience
@CarlaJohnson
Extremely
Prepared
16%
Very Prepared
27%

21. Basically, the overwhelming
majority of executive level
buyers tell us that how a vendor
engages with them differentiates
them a lot more than what their
products and services are or do.
Scott Santucci
Forrester Analyst
@CarlaJohnson

22. SALES & MARKETING ACTUALLY AGREE
Improved
Differentiation/Story
53%
36%
27%
Better Understanding of What
Content to Use, When, Who and
How to Present It
Increase Marketing's Visibility into the
Sales Pipeline and Deals Closed from
Marketing-Generated Leads
Sales Enablement: Fulfilling the Last Frontier of Sales-Marketing Alignment, Aberdeen Group
@CarlaJohnson

23. Move away from helping sales
people sell and instead, help
buyers buy.
Michael Brenner
Vice President, Marketing and Content Strategy, SAP
@BrennerMichael
@CarlaJohnson

24. 3
@CarlaJohnson
THE GOOD

25. SALES REPS ARE LIKE CUSTOMERS
• If it’s hard, they won’t engage
• They want to know what matters to them
• They need education
• They connect through stories
• They need consistent, relevant
communication
@CarlaJohnson

26. Product
Marketing
Give ‘em everything
@CarlaJohnson
Marketing
Only the important
stuff
Sales Reps
No time. No attention.

27. TALKING WITH SALES
Sales teams are like customers. The
problems they say they have aren’t the real
problems.
What questions do they really
need answers to?
Go 5 deep with “why?”
@CarlaJohnson

28. WHO TO TALK TO
20% of an organizations’ sales people
generate 60% (or up to 80%) of its
revenue.
Focus on the performers.
This group can help identify top
priorities.
@CarlaJohnson

29. EXPLORE MOTIVATORS
Identify what’s really motivating them.
People who buy high-end bikes
don’t want a better bike. They
want to be a better cyclist.
Create content that expands
on these motives.
@CarlaJohnson

30. BE WILLING TO LEARN
• Your company’s specific sales process
• How and when conversations evolve with
prospects/customers
• What kind of engagement communications
sales prefers for them
• What sections they want to tweak and edit
within tools and why
@CarlaJohnson

31. HELP SALES UNDERSTAND
• Sales conversations are business conversations
• What behavior do they want to influence?
• What action do you want them to take? When?
• The pillars of your story so they can tell it in
their way and in different circumstances
• What your brand story is and how to tell it
consistently
@CarlaJohnson

32. ASK SALES
• What story do you tell? How can marketing and
sales tell it more consistently?
• Why does your audience have these interests
and challenges?
• How can you tell your story so it solves a future
problem?
• How can we create disruption in our customers’
minds?
@CarlaJohnson

33. THE GOAL
“Marketing absolutely hit
the mark. I feel like they
now know the customer as
well as we do.”
@CarlaJohnson

34. People will forget
what you said,
people will forget
what you did, but
people will never
forget how you
made them feel.
- Maya Angelou

35. Carla Johnson, President
Type A Communications
(720) 344-0987
carla@goTypeA.com
www.goTypeA.com
Type A Communications
@carlajohnson
Carla Johnson