My mother used to say, “the road to heaven is paved with good intentions.” So true, in the case of sales support and the “everybody sells” mantra, it can have a devastating effect on a bottom line. If you walk into most companies today, client facing individuals are on some level of variable compensation, namely commission. I have seen up to 5-6 people getting compensation on a deal, e.g. demand generation, sales, product marketing, industy lead and the delivery person who was involved in the sales cycle.

Variable comp has been around awhile. Back in the 90′s, I remember walking into meetings with 6-8 people to meet with a client team of one or two. It’s not the fact that I think sales support hurts. The issue I have is that responsibilities and communications plans are not discussed thoroughly and there is no good way for the internal team to create, collaborate and document client-specific content and messaging prior to, or after a meeting.

The purpose of this blog, is not to tout, or lobby for tools, but to talk about “rogues,” which Free Dictionary defines as;

rogue: 1. A person operating outside normal or desirable controls

We all know one, they are the kind of people who go behind closed doors to tell “their side” of the story. Rogues can be detrimental to the sales process. The reason? The number one inhibitor to sales success is the ability to articulate value. If you look at a typical client organization, there is rank, order and process to their decision. The front facing, “buyer” represents a collective of people’s wants and needs who are behind the scene, each tied to org chart and their own set of problems.

In today’s competitive environment, one-off messaging does not help winning the hearts and minds of the people who are working “behind the scenes” in the decision process. One comprehensive, unified “plan” has to be created and submitted covering how you will address the buyers collective “wants and needs” and how your company is uniquely positioned to address them.

One voice: I understand your problem, here is how we going to solve it, and we are uniquely qualified to solve it because _________”

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