CONTENT BASED CONVERSATION

1. THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO SPARK
SALES CONVERSATIONS WITH CONTENT
Align sales, marketing and enablement to increase
conversations in the market using digital insights.

2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 3
The Case for Content 4
The Non-­‐Linear Buying Journey 5
Part I: Roles & Responsibilities
Sales 8
Marketing 9
Enablement 10
Part II: Spark Sales Conversations
Never Send A Naked Message 12
Insights Salespeople Must Know Before
Reaching Out 13
Optimizing Content Sharing
With Insights 14
Part III: Barriers To Success
The Problem With Most Marketing Content 17
No More Excuses: Content Correlates
To A Lift In Sales Activity 18
The Insights Committee 20
Should Sales Create Content? 21
Window Time: How Your Sales
Team Can Create Original Insights 22
Part IV: Continuous Enablement
Enabling Content Sharing on Social 24
Conclusion 25
About Sales for Life 26
1

3. INTRODUCTION
Content has quickly become one of the most effective ways to
companies to attract, educate and sell to buyers. According to
Forrester, 82% of buyers viewed at least 5 pieces of content from the
winning vendor.
The main issue now is that many companies are throwing money into
content without proper research, a clear strategy and measurable
expectations. So how can you use content to generate more sales?
You might have heard before, “Content is the currency of the modern
buyer.” By creating and sharing content that supports the buying
journey, you will have more relevant conversations with customers,
at the right time, with the right context.
In this eBook you will find out how to do just that: how to create and
share the right content, when to share it with buyers, and the role of
marketing and enablement as they support your sales team in their
prospecting, nurturing and execution.
Jamie Shanks
CEO, Sales for Life
2

4. THE CASE FOR CONTENT
Think about the last time you made a major purchase decision in your personal life. Where did you start?
Did you jump on Google, maybe you asked your Facebook network or checked out those Amazon reviews?
Nobody engages a salesperson as the first thing they do.
It is up to sales, marketing and sales enablement leaders today to think about how can they enable their
teams to share the right content at the right time to elevate the customer experience while providing the
digital glue to knock down age-­‐old silos.
The landscape of B2B sales today has changed. It’s well understood today that on average, customers
complete nearly 60% of their purchasing decision before they talk to anybody in sales at all (HBR).
They’re looking at multiple pieces of content on their own. This self-­‐education is why it’s absolutely crucial
to add value to that conversation or interaction the first time that you have it.
3

5. THE CASE FOR CONTENT
82% 57% 74%
Take a look at the stats below—74% of buyers chose the sales rep that was first to bring value & insight. Why?
Because A, it’s becoming more and more rare that sales professionals provide value in the first engagement and B,
because, that’s what buyers want. They’ve done their research. They’ve done their education. Now they want to
engage with the salesperson to learn something they didn’t know about their business.
Of buyers viewed at least
five pieces of content
from the winning vendor
according to Forrester.
Increase in buyers who
connected with potential
solution providers using social
media according to CEB.
Of buyers choose the sales
rep that was first to bring
value & insight according to
Corporate Visions.
The End of Solution Sales, Harvard Business Review, 2012, http://bit.ly/1uKk1GR
4

6. THE NON-­‐LINEAR BUYING JOURNEY
What a lot of sales professionals who still
hammer cold outreach don’t always realize is
that leaders see those messages, but they don’t
necessarily act on them. With
template messages, there’s no real insight or
effort into actually educating you. It’s a risk. If
salespeople don’t start to shift how they serve
people, they’re going to have a tough time
winning and also maintaining customer
relationships. This is why more than half of B2B
buyers think less of brands that still use cold
calling (Koka Sexton).
The New Formula for Connecting with B2B Buyers, Koka Sexton, 2016, http://bit.ly/2vYCTvp
SiruisDecisions, Three Myths of the “67 Percent” Statistics, http://bit.ly/1nIlQ3i
It’s no longer a sales cycle—
it’s a buying journey
View Infographic
5

7. THE NON-­‐LINEAR BUYING JOURNEY
Unless you’re selling a commoditized product that everybody knows about, the buying journey
is not a linear path. Be patient, persistent, and continue providing relevant value. Remember:
Keep tabs on your buyers
You don’t necessarily need to wait until buyers are through 67% of their journey before
getting involved (SiruisDecisions). You can be a part of their research with a social listening, a
strong presence, and content.
Buyer trust other travelers on the journey
Some data shows only 9% of B2B buyers fully trust vendor content. They trust information
from their friends, family and network of connections. Thanks to social selling and automation,
you can stay in close contact with these buyers on a regular basis (CMO Council).
Let them come to you
69% of leads from Facebook/Twitter/other channels convert to opportunities, compared to
15% from lead lists.
CMO Council Content ROI Center, Context, Commerce + Customer, 2016, http://bit.ly/2iPnN2U
B2B Sales Benchmark Research Finds Some Pipeline Surprises, Salesforce, 2014, http://sforce.co/1VVw5Gd
6

8. ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES:
WHO OWNS CONTENT?
7

9. ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES: WHO OWNS CONTENT?
Great question. The truth is, there’s no easy answer.
The question of ownership directly relates to the function of the content, but the key here is to
remember no content should be created in a silo. Though marketing is responsible for the creation of
blog posts, infographics, videos, webinars and eBooks, they can’t optimize their process without the
feedback of sales. And sales can’t continue educate their market without marketing content that
speaks directly to the pain points their buyers are having. If your company has the luxury of sales
enablement, they should provide deal support and training on how to contextualize that content to
each specific vertical.
8

10. ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES: WHO OWNS CONTENT?
Just like a true social selling program requires the involvement of three senior leaders, optimizing
content production to increase sales conversations requires the constant feedback of sales, marketing
and enablement. Each role will be a vital dance partner. Don’t discount each role’s involvement in
success, or you’ll risk everything falling apart.
MARKETING
(ONE
TO
MANY)
SALES
(ONE
TO
ONE)
SALES
ENABLEMENT
(SALES-­‐FOCUSED)
Top of the funnel:
Blogs, videos, eBooks,
infographics, case
studies, testimonials,
whitepapers, research,
etc.
One-­‐to-­‐one content:
tailor & customize
content provided into
one-­‐to-­‐one videos,
email, social and other
outreach.
Bottom of the
funnel/buying phase:
Competitive intelligence,
call scripts, case studies,
personalized learning &
sales training
9

11. SALES LEADERSHIP
Salespeople still create 26.3% of the content they need on their own, which is way too high (CSO
Insights)! Salespeople should only have to customize the content that marketing and enablement
provide them.
Who Creates Content That Salespeople Use In Their Selling Efforts?
Marketing
Salespeople
Product
Management
Sales
Enablement
Sales
Ops/Legal
Other
26.3%
Who Creates All The Content Salespeople Need Along The Customer’s Journey, CSO Insights, 2016, http://bit.ly/2yvfBRo10

12. SALES LEADERSHIP
Organize the “How” toolkit
CRM, social prospecting (LinkedIn Sales Navigator),
Data/List services, Email Engagement, Phone
Find and prioritize opportunities
You can streamline content sharing with proper account
selection based on social proximity to current accounts:
Competitors, VARS/Channel partners, suppliers, sphere
of influence, advocates
Align your message with the buyer’s profile
Gather market + buyer intelligence.
Align with: Enablement, marketing
Better contextualize your outreach
Engage by creating a diverse cadence to more effectively
connect with the buyer.
Align with: Marketing/operations
Accelerate “speed-­‐to-­‐engagement”
Share insights and educate buyers along their journey.
Prioritize engaged accounts/buyers with deeper education
Socially surround the buying committee.
Align the “why” mindset
Prepare your team’s brand to be buyer centric
Further your brand with your target market
Grow your professional brand with purpose
The sales leadership role is to guide the efforts of digital prospecting. Sales has got to ensure sales
professionals keep on track with learning and executing digital behaviours. To do that, sales leaders have
the responsibility to:
11

13. MARKETING LEADERSHIP
The digital content marketing team is going to fuel social selling by creating, organizing, and helping
distribute and evaluate the effectiveness of insights (digital content) sales professionals providing to
prospects. But don’t be fooled: marketing isn’t the sole creator of content. The pie chart below
illustrates that marketing creates only 39.4 percent of the content salespeople need for their selling
efforts (CSO Insights).
Who Creates Content That Salespeople Use In Their Selling Efforts?
Marketing
Salespeople
Product
Management
Sales
Enablement
Sales
Ops/Legal
Other
39.4%
12

14. MARKETING LEADERSHIP
The main role of marketing content is to answers buyers’ pain points and business challenges, and
illustrate potential solutions that could be achieved. As shown on page X, this is predominately
awareness stage blogs, success stories, webinars, and the like. However, on top of this production,
marketing leaders have a responsibility to:
Interview sales leaders and audit sales reps
How many sales reps are currently sharing content? What are the
main pain points in your ideal customer profile’s journey? Use
these to develop a clear gap of your resource production.
Create content that converts to opportunities
A. Map the buyer’s journey + buyer persona challenges
B. Develop an internal insights committee to brainstorm + design
content for buyer persona challenges
C. Design insights in a scalable framework.
Ensure you have a well-­‐organized content library
Insights should be easy to find and distribute for buyers and
sellers
Growth hack insights to drive opportunities
Distribution growth hacks with high returns: what are your
highest converting assets? Digital events, eBooks, webinars?
Optimize measurement to identify trends
Create a content consumption story to evaluate engagement,
capture trends, and adjust resources and production
Assemble the team
Align your team—leadership, creative, content and data—for a
digital deployment. Understand your buyer personas and ideal
customer profile (ICP).
Devise a plan to repeat and scale actions
13

15. SALES ENABLEMENT LEADERSHIP
The enablement/operations team is responsible for bringing together the entire process: the tech-­‐stack,
the onboarding, the learning and development or training, and interweaving it into your existing sales
process together with social. Sales enablement is also responsible for deal support, which involves more
customized content relating to various buyer roles and their content needs.
Who Creates Content That Salespeople Use In Their Selling Efforts?
Marketing
Salespeople
Product
Management
Sales
Enablement
Sales
Ops/Legal
Other
10.8%
14

16. SALES ENABLEMENT LEADERSHIP
“The future project manager requires more detailed content regarding the solution, the options, and
implementation strategies. The procurement role requires detailed pricing information, SLA
agreements, contract attachment, and other details,” writes Tamara Schenk of CSO Insights (LinkedIn).
In this capacity, sales enablement is responsible not only for training content, but what Schenk calls a
“content management framework that covers the entire customer’s journey for client facing and
internal content types”. Enablement leaders have a responsibility to:
Provide personalized learning
Competitive intelligence questions, practical call recordings,
white boarding sessions, coaching, Q&As, etc.
Customized content for different buyer personas
Proposal templates, SLA agreements, contract attachments,
statements of work, calculation tools, etc.
Internal content
Playbooks that point salespeople along the entire customer’s
journey
Provide deal support
Competitive intelligence, customer reference calls, deal strategy
Content management framework
A formal collaboration approach with all other departments
involved that “helps map all content types and formats along
the entire customer’s journey, tailored by various criteria,
combined with ongoing analysis of what’s working and what’s
not.” (Schenk)
Why Content In Sales Enablement Covers Much More Than “Marketing Content”, Tamara Schenk, LinkedIn, 2017, http://bit.ly/2hVYjGv
Who Creates All The Content Salespeople Need Along The Customer’s Journey, CSO Insights, 2016, http://bit.ly/2yvfBRo
15

17. SPARK ENGAGEMENT &
SALES CONVERSATIONS
16

18. NEVER SEND A NAKED MESSAGE
A good rule of thumb for salespeople in today’s
busy market is to never send a naked message—
64% of B2B decision makers said they wouldn’t
engage with a salesperson if the communication
was not personalized (LinkedIn).
Emails are great for sharing an attachment, but
not necessarily for communicating or cutting
through the noise. Emerging mediums like video
help salespeople stay creative, while also
humanizing the experience.
Keep in mind that one day, video will be the
over-­‐dominated medium. People will get videos
every day and there will be no creativity to them.
To break through the noise again, you’ll need
harness creativity once again.
The State of Sales 2017, LinkedIn Sales Solutions, 2017, http://bit.ly/2x5ehAT
SDR Development Metrics & Compensation Report, 2016, http://bit.ly/2gvSKhz
17

19. NEVER SEND A NAKED MESSAGE
But you can’t just send one video and walk away.
Salespeople must be professionally
persistent. The Bridge Group reported the
average number of attempts per prospect has
gone up 46%, now just over 8, since 2012 to
maintain the same number of quality
conversations.
"Differentiate from the competition by giving your
customers a memorable buying experience.”
What does the customer engage with? How can
you reciprocate how they want to communicate
back? Keep an open mind as far as the different
mediums that they’re using. And always ensure
you’re agile in terms of delivering digital insights
that relate directly to your buyers pain points.
The State of Sales 2017, LinkedIn Sales Solutions, 2017, http://bit.ly/2x5ehAT
SDR Development Metrics & Compensation Report, 2016, http://bit.ly/2gvSKhz
18

20. 12 INSIGHTS SALESPEOPLE MUST KNOW BFORE REACHING OUT
1) Name
2) Job title
3) Company
4) Company size (number of employees, product or service offerings, typical sale size)
5) Common connections
6) Announcements (industry blogs/executive briefings that mention company challenges, active
social channels, acquisitions, etc.)
7) Their previous interactions with your company
8) Understand your ICP, ie VP’s of Sales are driven by the high-­‐level objective of bookings and
revenue growth
9) Challenges and obstacles, ie improving win rates, quota attainment, shortening sales cycles
10) Professional success metrics (ie sales books, revenue, YOY growth)
11) Risks & Fears (ie average tenure of a new sales leader is 19 months)
12) Career trajectory (How experienced are they in their industry? How quickly can a decision be
made?)
19

21. OPTIMIZING CONTENT SHARING WITH INSIGHTS
When it comes to decision-­‐making, not all
content is created equal. Take this into
account when deciding what to fill your
LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook feeds with.
Remember, we’re not trying to educate the
entire world in one shot, we’re trying to
educate over time.
With this in mind, let’s review the data
LinkedIn provides us as users when we do
share content.
The Times Sales Performance Report, Raconteur, 2017, http://bit.ly/2h5irSu
20

22. OPTIMIZING CONTENT SHARING WITH INSIGHTS
The screenshot here reveals the
data for a piece of content shared
in the first 3 hours. LinkedIn shows
who looks at our content, where
they’re from, what companies they
belong to, location, etc. It even
shows which degree of
connections are viewing this
content the most (first, second or
third degrees).
Exhibit 1: Generate Awareness for Your Message
Before sharing content, first consider the main driver of
why people visit your profile and what these people do. If
you share the right kind of content that pertains to your
customers, it’s safe to assume that’s the type of people
you will attract to your profile over time.
21

23. OPTIMIZING CONTENT SHARING WITH INSIGHTS
All signs point to content sharing
driving the types of people that visit
you.
LinkedIn has started to share this data
with us. Although it’s not fully obvious
(found generally in the notifications if
you’re lucky), it’s worth you
bookmarking this link and visiting it
often:
https://www.linkedin.com/me/search
-­‐appearances/
This is a quick snapshot of our weekly
search statistics, allowing insight into
the top companies visitors that are
visiting your profile and which job
functions they largely represent.
Exhibit 2: Let the Message Drive Visitors to You!
As you’ll see, this data can help us create and share the right
type of content that’s important for our audience. The data
paints a picture of opportunity, allowing us to determine the
audience we want to speak to. Right now, 22% of visitors to
my profile are sales professionals, but if I want to turn that
into C-­‐Level executives (hypothetically), it can be done by
shifting to sharing content that appeals to them.
22

24. BARRIERS TO SUCCESS
23

25. THE PROBLEM WITH MOST MARKETING CONTENT
How often does your sales team share content?
On average, approximately 20% of sales professionals in technology companies are sharing content. We
checked this over a 4-­‐week period across the top 250 technology companies of the world.
Since the technology industry claims to be the most cutting-­‐edge, we set out out to conduct audits on
sales professionals sharing content within some of the top global companies.
If you’re asking if we’ve only audited the tech sector, the answer is no – we’ve begun audits of other
industries as well and the results are even less. We will launch these to the market soon enough.
This data resonates with us because it reveals why up to 70% of all content in B2B organizations isn’t
shared (SiriusDecisions). Quite frankly, there just aren’t enough salespeople sharing content.
Inciting a B-­‐to-­‐B Content Revolution, SiriusDecisions, 2013, http://bit.ly/2gS9dcW
24

26. THE PROBLEM WITH MOST MARKETING CONTENT
How often does your sales team share content?
Inciting a B-­‐to-­‐B Content Revolution, SiriusDecisions, 2013, http://bit.ly/2gS9dcW
On average, less than 20% of sales professionals in technology companies are sharing content. We
checked this over a 4-­‐week period across the top 250 technology companies of the world.
% of Sales
Professionals
Sharing Content by
Company
25

27. THE PROBLEM WITH MOST MARKETING CONTENT
Since the technology industry claims to be the most cutting-­‐edge, we set out out to conduct audits on
sales professionals sharing content within some of the top global companies.
If you’re asking if we’ve only audited the tech sector, the answer is no – we’ve begun audits of other
industries as well and the results are even less. We will launch these to the market soon enough.
This data resonates with us because it reveals why up to 70% of all content in B2B organizations isn’t
shared (SiriusDecisions). Quite frankly, there just aren’t enough salespeople sharing content.
Inciting a B-­‐to-­‐B Content Revolution, SiriusDecisions, 2013, http://bit.ly/2gS9dcW
26

28. NO MORE EXCUSES: CONTENT CORRELATES TO A LIFT IN SALES ACTIVITY
Here are the common reasons we hear from
sales professionals on why content isn’t being
shared.
Understand the modern buyer. Does your
sales team understand that ¾ buyers conduct
half their research online? (Forrester) This
doesn’t mean we can’t engage with them, it
just means they must be approach through
education. Before a call is even conducted,
sales can impact and influence buyers before
the first call is made. This core understanding
must be in place for the expectation that sales
shares content.
Investigating the Truth About Social Selling by Industry, LinkedIn, 2017, http://bit.ly/2zmAJGm
27

29. NO MORE EXCUSES: CONTENT CORRELATES TO A LIFT IN SALES ACTIVITY
Content bias. Sales professionals don’t have any desire in sharing overly-­‐salesy or product-­‐based
information all the time. This is an issue that needs addressing.
Typically, sales is demanding the marketing team to produce content that answers questions they hear
in everyday interactions with prospects and buyers. The question now is why marketing isn’t producing
this? Perhaps this is a part of the reason we keep saying that there is a fundamental misalignment
between sales and marketing.
How content activity correlates to a lift in sales activity. It’s evident that most marketing departments
haven’t correlated how the sharing of content can help with a lift in tangible sales activity and pipeline
growth. Is there one? Absolutely. Most marketers know about it but they choose to highlight other
positive factors of content sharing, such as visibility, brand exposure, etc.
LinkedIn has now empirically proved sharing content on social significantly impacts seller revenue
regardless of industry or region. As seen by the image to the left, several industries see more than 50%
of revenue attributed to content sharing and social selling (LinkedIn). If that doesn’t motivate people
get start sharing content, what is?
28

30. NO MORE EXCUSES: CONTENT CORRELATES TO A LIFT IN SALES ACTIVITY
To break down the age-­‐old silos of sales and marketing working together, you need to measure,
qualitatively and quantitatively, the ROI of marketing content.
You definitely want to have your ear to the ground, so to speak, with respect to how your sales team is
using content. But then you’ve also got to be able to measure it—there are so many people who have
no content measurability. They’re spending 20 percent of their marketing budget creating content and
they have no idea what the ROI is on that and oftentimes, 70 to 80, sometimes even as high as 90
percent of it goes completely unused for the purpose that it was built for (SiriusDecisions).
Inciting a B-­‐to-­‐B Content Revolution, SiriusDecisions, 2013, http://bit.ly/2gS9dcW
29

31. NO MORE EXCUSES: CONTENT CORRELATES TO A LIFT IN SALES ACTIVITY
So to be able to measure that and to know which pieces of content are resonating helps to align your
sales and marketing team much better because now sales is getting what they want. Aside from views
and conversation rates, create a content consumption story to measure KPIs such as:
• Lead-­‐to-­‐customer-­‐conversion rate for each nurturing campaign or piece of content delivered
• Content attribution in the sales process
• Lead source (content)
"Better align your sales and marketing teams behind creating and using content your buyers will love.”
At the same time, digital is fostering some great solutions. Review the continuous feedback loop on
Page 8 to optimize insight production and measure each piece of content’s performance going forward.
30

32. THE INSIGHTS COMMITTEE:
ALIGN SALES AND MARKETING WITH CONTENT
Aligning on content is critical for organizations to achieve digital transformation success—but it’s not
going to happen overnight. Where do you start? Here are some tactical steps to start driving towards
sales and marketing alignment.
The Insights Committee is a group of four or five sales
professionals that are chosen to be the voice of your buyer. Each
member from the sales team is going to be responsible for
thinking about the pitfalls, challenges, and best practices they’ve
learned from the market.
They’re out in the field, talking with buyers, and hearing first-­‐hand
what buyers are looking for. So once a month, they’re going to get
together as a committee and talk about those problems and ideas,
and help marketing develop content ideas. The Insights
Committee fills in the content gap that marketing has.
31

33. THE INSIGHTS COMMITTEE:
ALIGN SALES AND MARKETING WITH CONTENT
The Intellectual Property Loop—the Insights Committee in action
Here’s how the Insights Committee works to create an Intellectual Property Loop (IPL).
Evaluate
1. Committee members from the sales team collect all the intellectual property they’re hearing about in
the market.
2. They then share that information with marketing, giving them blog ideas.
Create
3. Marketing then develops those ideas, and creates content.
Educate
4. Sales pros then receive the final product. They Like, Share, and have conversations with buyers
about that content.
Discover
5. Sales receive new feedback from buyers. Marketing reviews & optimizes content
6. Next month, they bring this new feedback to the committee, and the process begins again
32

34. THE INSIGHTS COMMITTEE:
ALIGN SALES AND MARKETING WITH CONTENT
This process is a continuous loop that repeats itself every month.
Creating an Insights Committee achieves sales and marketing alignment because it gets sales involved
in the content creation process—and ensures that marketing is always creating content buyers need.
33

35. WHO SHOULD CREATE CONTENT?
Why Marketing Wants Sales To Create Content
Often times, marketing may get frustrated with sales. When they hear the content they’re producing isn’t “good
enough,” they respond emotionally, asking sales to do it themselves.
While it’s a visceral reaction, it does acknowledge that since sales is on the customer frontlines, they’d naturally hear
the most common objections, concerns, trends and gaps in the market.
But that doesn’t necessarily translate into a definitive answer that sales should invest the time to create the content.
Instead, it’s in marketing’s best interests to foster a feedback loop, as outlined on page X, to uncover insights from the
sales team, turn them into content and optimize production.
If sales is willing, marketing and sales may engage in what Sales for Life calls “Window Time,” extracting insights from
sales and optimizing them for top-­‐of-­‐the-­‐funnel content.
34

36. WHO SHOULD CREATE CONTENT?
Why Sales Leaders Push Back
Sales leaders want their sales teams squarely focused on revenue generating activities. This makes complete sense.
The greater issue here is that more sales professionals need to be sharing content. Only 1 in 5 B2B sales professionals
are sharing content actively on social networks (Sales for Life).
Not only does this present a large opportunity for those who are sharing content, it’s a large missed opportunity for
those who are not doing so.
Before sales professionals create content, they need to share content. Then, it’s entirely their prerogative if they want
to share thought leadership. Various stats at the start of this book reaffirm why it’s so critical to share content
throughout the buying journey.
Once salespeople cross that bridge, they can explore the concept on the following page, an easy way to create original
insights without the legwork.
So, should sales create content? When it comes to top of the funnel content, the answer
is simple (and marketing may not like it): only if they want to.
Only 20% of Salespeople Engage Buyers With Content, Amar Sheth, The Sales Review, 2016, http://bit.ly/24lyoFT
35

37. WINDOW TIME: HOW YOUR SALES TEAM
CAN CREATE ORIGINAL INSIGHTS
Window time is a simple process. Sales professionals are on planes, trains and automobiles all the time.
It’s rare to get their fingers to ever hit a keyboard and contribute to the company blog. But what
salespeople can do better than anyone else in the world is talk.
Window time maximizes their down time such as commutes to work, sitting on the tarmac of an
airplane, sitting on the train from New York to Philadelphia, etc. They have this downtime, but they’re
still unwilling to write. But if you have a placed call from your marketing team, where they call them
and they say, “We want to do an article on X. Talk about what you’re hearing from your customers,” it’s
much easier to get them involved in the content process.
Basically, a content creator just lets the salesperson speak. That way, the salesperson can write a 500-­‐
word blog in minutes. This process captures all the intellectual property that’s stored upstairs in the
sales professionals minds. There’s dozens and dozens of these blogs just waiting to be written! And
salespeople legitimately want their voices to be heard, they love to see their name in writing on the
company’s blog site. But they usually aren’t willing to do the hard lifting. Window time maximizes all of
these opportunities so everybody wins.
Only 20% of Salespeople Engage Buyers With Content, Amar Sheth, The Sales Review, 2016, http://bit.ly/24lyoFT
36

38. WINDOW TIME: HOW YOUR SALES TEAM
CAN CREATE ORIGINAL INSIGHTS
Here is a step-­‐by-­‐step process to complete Window time.
1) Schedule time with a salesperson
This can be done via Google Calendars, or using whatever internal time management
systems your company uses. Before you schedule time with X person, ensure:
• You’ve built an editorial calendar and have selected a topic that best speaks to that
salesperson’s area of expertise.
• You’ve picked a time that works for both of you. Some salespeople have their best thoughts
in the morning; others in the afternoon. If you want the most valuable insights, you have to
carve out time when their thoughts are clear and unobstructed.
• You’ve picked a location that works for both of you. The beauty about window time is that it
can be done in person, over video chat, or on the phone.
2) Make and record the call
Treat window time as any other meeting. Ensure both parties are at ease before starting the
recording. Use call recording software.
3) Transcribe
If you are crunched for time and/or don’t have someone who can transcribe on staff, there
are many programs or sites that will do this for you for a small fee, such as Fiverr
4) Packing
If you’re in marketing, you know the drill: SEO, readability, headlines, photos, imagery, etc.
37

39. CONTINUOUS ENABLEMENT
38

40. ENABLING CONTENT SHARING ON SOCIAL
When it comes to sharing content on social media, the key is really making it as easy and simple as
possible for your sales team. There are several ways sales/marketing teams can do that.
Raise awareness of new and relevant content with regular communications
Some companies (Brainshark, seen above) have a weekly email they send out, for
example, a “Weekly Top Five.” It’s basically a list of all the new content that the
marketing team has created over the past week: new blogs, videos, podcasts, e-­‐
books, whatever it might be that we want to get more exposure of. Think about all
the different and creative ways you can let sales people know about new content
while making it extremely easy for them to share it.
Pre-­‐write posts for LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.
Don’t just say, “Hey, here’s a new blog post.” Go that extra step of actually pre-­‐
writing a Tweet with hashtags, etc. Then all sales really needs to do is copy/paste
and start sharing.
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41. ENABLING CONTENT SHARING ON SOCIAL
Help reps enable “auto-­‐sharing” of new blog content
Work on ways where you can use different social media solutions to actually help sales people set up a
feed so whenever a new blog post is published, it’s automatically shared out on their network. Many
employee advocacy platforms have tons of configurations for this. Now, this isn’t exactly ideal social
engagement, but if you’re looking to get more exposure for your content, there is nothing easier than
having a salesperson set that up, and then not have to think about it and that content’s being shared
automatically.
Create a content committee—rep influenced content
Marketing should be talking to sales because sales are actually talking with buyers. They know what
the challenges are better than anyone, because they’re hearing them first hand. Get together with a
content committee on a monthly basis to brainstorm challenges, objections and stories sales is hearing
in the market. You can then turn those into valuable pieces of content that will not only resonate with
buyers, but also the sales team.
Get top customers involved
Getting customers involved is also a great way to share stories about your solution and showcase real-­‐
life examples.
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42. CONCLUSION
Content sharing can be spam or it can be educational; you decide.
But one thing is for sure: it can help spread awareness of you and your message to your network like
never before. It can also help you stand out to people outside of your network.
This awareness can drive up views of your profile, allowing others to learn about you, your brand, your
company and more. It's up to you to capture those insights, and use them to drive sales conversations.
Remember, content sharing is one part of the social selling pie. While insights help get you in the door,
successful social selling programs require leadership buy-­‐in, accountability, and reinforcement for long
term behavioral change. While content sharing is definitely a good start, true digital transformation
takes more than loading up your social management feed with content. In other words, social selling is
an organization shift; content sharing is just a part of that.
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43. LEARN HOW TO ENGAGE BUYERS
USING DIGITAL AND SOCIAL SELLING
Learn a prescriptive approach to find, educate and engage buyers at scale. Enable your sales team
to break into new accounts and expand existing ones with social and digital selling.
Sales for Life is known as the global leader in building, scaling and managing social selling
programs. We train sales and marketing organizations—from leaders to individual contributors.
We have built social selling programs for over 300 clients in nearly every industry, ranging from
start-­‐ups to Fortune 500 corporations.
SCHEDULE A CONSULTATION
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