I reviewed some interesting findings from the Corporate Visions Inc. Quarterly Sales Messaging Report Q3 FY09 (www.corporatevisions.com) which surveys thousands of business to business marketing and sales professionals. The survey highlights the continued challenges around sales effectiveness, in that 74% of salespeople publicly admit to rewriting messages and tools created by marketing.  There still seems to be a divide amongst many sales and marketing teams and the fact that selling time is being absorbed by sales people recreating marketing assets is not only inefficient but potentially dilutes or even damages a brand. It means sales professionals don’t feel confident in the messages they are being asked to deliver or don’t feel they are credible or compelling enough within the rapidly evolving competitive landscape.

Another key area of concern highlighted in the survey findings is that a staggering 87% of salespeople are looking for more coaching from their managers. The key area where sales teams felt there were gaps was how best to differentiate the company and communicate what makes the company’s solution different. Clearly classroom training alone is not the answer as things change quickly and most people will not contest that what is learned in the formal training environment is not used indefinitely or quite quickly forgotten. And one on one coaching is not really a scalable answer either. How can sales managers hold the hands of each and every sales person though each and every stage of the sales cycle?

The key to better enable sales teams and drive higher overall sales effectiveness is a more holistic approach to the whole sales and marketing function. What is needed is self help in an ongoing manner for sales and empowerment of the sales force to continue to learn and develop at their own pace. Marketing and sales are so often considered as separate functions in many organizations but customers assume they are dealing with a company and not a set of departments. What is needed is better collaboration to close the sales and marketing divide, where marketing assets are ranked and rated by the sales recipients so marketing have the insight from the field to make corrective action and build stronger business alignment.  Though the use of enabling technologies this is now entirely possible and also means that consistent market messages are achieved, rather than recreating assets and creating several versions of the truth.