Joe Galvin, VP Research Director at Sirius Decisions, led a panel featuring three representatives from diverse backgrounds on the topic “Sales Communications: Gaining and Maintaining the Attention of the Field.” Panel members included:
- Jamie Wisniewski, Director Sales Planning, Sales Ops, Symantec
- Carolyn Brackett, VP Channels and Alliances, Cybersource
- June Reese, Marketing Manager, Treasury Services , JPMorgan Chase
Joe kicked off by stating that communication is what differentiates us from our primitive ancestors. Moreso, it’s how sales communicates with our clients and how we communicate with our sales people so they learn best practices and know to leverage correct information and experts.
Some notable quotes:
“Marketing was sending too much to sales and they said ‘too much! It’s not relevant to me!’ Now we have a targeted communication to reduce the amount of messaging they bombard sales with.”
“Executive-level sponsorship was required to make the change. Also, first-line managers must measure and adopt processes.”
“We’ve created newsletters, training and webcasts for channel partners. It’s a disparate process—we have 10 people to manage 500 partners and their ecosystem. We’re looking to use tools like SAVO to centralize and integrate the information.”
“Too many emails, too much info.”
“We have a biweekly virtual meeting for communication, and a sales-focused newsletter.”
“SAVO provides just in time knowledge around our 200 products.”
“We have a love-hate relationship between product and sales, and marketing is caught the middle. Marketing should be out of the middle of that conversation.”
“We have to stress the importance of executive sponsorship to agree, this is how we are going to communicate with sales.”
“Sales ops has a weekly team meeting with product and marketing and training teams to bridge the gap and bring trust between the teams.”
“With social media, you have less control over your message. Now your brand is judged by other people’s Tweets. It’s risky to let your sales teams create social communities. But they have value as internal communication tools.”
Thanks for the great insight!
