You need to understand what makes your proposition attractive to your clients and prospects and learn how to articulate these clearly, memorably and succinctly. Make the conversation about the prospect, and not about yourself and how amazing your business is.

Sure, you need to be clear on your business offering but be straight to the point and succinct. A prospect/customer should know what you are offering in a quick glance otherwise you’ve lost already. Your logo and agenda should be punchy and to the point. Then, you can focus on the real priority. ‘What can you do to solve your client’s headache’. Address the very needs of your client. What is causing them a headache everyday? What gives them the most pain? Make it personal and then detail exactly how your wonderful product/service can make their lives better. Exactly what is in it for them? Lay it out clearly with bullet points, examples and a call to action. If you are showing real examples of how you can make their lives easier why wouldn’t they want to talk to you straight away?

Throughout your career try to master the art of listening, work with integrity and never give up. Always treat others with respect and take constructive criticism as a precious gift. Do not cut corners to succeed but work smarter and not harder because being materially successful with a guilty conscience is living a lie forever but being successful by sheer ethical work and helping others to grow is more rewarding than any measurable material wealth. If you have a dream follow it so you don’t live with regrets.

The single most important message your sales material should communicate is how you solve a real business issue that your customer is dealing with – no waffle or features – focus on the pain point of your potential customer.

The main challenge for a lot of companies and sales people when it comes to their supporting documentation and materials, is that all too often they focus purely on themselves.

How often do we see: * Our company has X number of employees * We have offices in X countries * Our company has worked with X organisations (logo brag page) * We have been in business for X number of years * Our company values are X.

The problem is that nobody really cares, and it is so incredibly boring! Our sales materials and our sales people need to focus on the most important people in the room – our customers!

More specifically our materials should be geared towards the challenge that our customer has, that we solve more effectively than any other potential alternative. Value from the customers perspective is the reason why they buy – why they commit to changing the way that they currently operate, why they look to create a new and better future for themselves.

To answer the question – the single most important message your sales material should communicate is true customer value, that guides them towards being able to say “yes”. Try to stay away from the internal ego metrics and jargon!

Your sales material needs to clearly communicate how you can help a prospective customer with their immediate situation, this can often mean you need similar content with slight variations based on the customer profile. Too often in the SaaS environment sales messaging can move quickly into the product offering and you instantly lose that moment to connect and relate with your prospective customer, a moment that rarely comes back around!

In our industry we have quite a niche product so it’s important that we recognise the customer, so that when they hit our website or material, they know right away they are in the right place for the right solution. They know they are dealing with experts in their space and that they are not just buying software they are buying a technical solution partner they can evolve with.

Customers are unique and we want to ensure they are at the forefront of our thoughts when it comes to product and service. And don’t miss sell, don’t try and grab a quick buck to get them to buy the product they then can’t fully use, life time value is so much more important than a quick win and loss of reputation.

The single most important message is that we understand the pains of the prospect and we can showcase very top level that we can solve them.

Short answer…be useful.

The information you convey on your sales and marketing materials shouldn’t be all about your product or service. You need your prospective customers to recognise that you know and understand the problems they’re experiencing, you know their market, their business and are willing to provide actionable information they can use – today. Then repeat the process, over and over, with different actionable, useful information.

Your sales reps, business and you personally should aim to become a trusted advisor to your customers, using the information you’ve been providing in opening discussions when placing calls into new prospects.

The single most important message your sales material should communicate is “What problem do you solve, most importantly, in the customers language and connected to individuals”. You can have the most whizzbang bit of software that looks great and is architected perfectly, but if you can’t articulate what real life problems you help solve, you essentially have a hammer that is looking for a nail.

Over and above either helping an organisation make money, or save money, the ability to connect to individuals in organisations to show how you can help them personally solve a problem, or meet their personal objectives and KPIs, or help them do things better/quicker/cheaper – that ability will immediately differentiate you from companies explaining how shiny their shiny thing is!

In the B2B landscape the most important message that your sales material should communicate is the relevance of the audience that you serve/deliver. The more insight that you can provide in terms of audience numbers, channels, geography, job function and industry sector the better.

Having a strong content offering is of course key. Before you begin to showcase the myriad of products that you have to offer and why your company delivers the best ROI it is vital to demonstrate relevance. At Russell Publishing we spend a great deal of time ensuring that our audience offering is clear, concise, relevant and easily understood by our customers.

Your sales material should very quickly communicate the benefit to your proposed partner that only you can bring. If you have a fast and unique selling point that makes them consider whether your service could make them look good among their own stakeholders, you’re in!

Your sales materials need to communicate a clear value proposition to the buyer. By understanding what drives change within a customer (or prospect) organisation, combined with how they can accelerate time to value and ROI, you can land a message that starts meaningful sales conversations. This should tie back to your product or solution message, but your widget features should not be the leading message. By combining key customer insights with language the buyer is familiar with, will help ensure your message is truly buyer-centric (as opposed to seller/vendor-centric).

Sales material has to focus on the value you are able to create for the client. Unfortunately, most sales materials are too product focused. Don’t sell the product / service, sell the value.

Simplicity. We work in an increasingly connected and competitive world. Whoever our target audience is they will be recipients of numerous sales approaches every day, not to mention being exposed to hundreds of ads both ATL and on social platforms. To cut through we need to land a relevant proposition, convey authority and gain trust quickly. Over complicating things will not achieve this. Sales material must be pointy and simple. If we reduce the mental capacity needed to understand our message we increase the individuals mental capacity to make the decision in our favour.

Sales material should always be sweet and straight to the point. No unnecessary fluff, no convoluted graphs & charts, no size 8 text that is difficult to see! Remember, 70% of a buyer’s journey is completed before the buyer even reaches out to sales.

Your sales material should clearly articulate what you want your audience to believe about the particular topic. What possibility do you want them to believe that they can reach. Most importantly, your sales material should clearly answer the question ” Why should I care”? It’s not about you, your product or service, it’s about them! Your sales collateral should always be customer centric!

If it has to be a single thing I would say differentiation. We’re in tech sales so lets operate on the basis that our prospects are smart. Everyone will try and say they are better but what’s more important is how you are different. If you have confidence in your development strategy and market fit and can articulate your differentiation the prospects can figure out the rest.

It is all about the value you can provide. Why you and/or your product? It doesn’t matter how much you love your own product that you created, the clients are looking for solution for their business problem or need. You need to make sure that you understand the challenge client is facing and cost [of it] to their business, then you can provide targeted solution that has return on the investment they are making.

Most sales material just tries to ‘tell’ a prospect why they should buy – it doesn’t prompt a prospect to ask themselves questions…and only by doing that will they be able to start to realize they have a problem. And one which you may be able to help them to fix. In my view there are 3 key questions to be answered before any sale can move forward…or any opportunity be qualified.

1) Why buy anything? What is the reason for any change at all? Your biggest competitor isn’t the multi-national giant with a gazillion dollar budget…it’s a prospect doing nothing.

2) Why buy now? Why should they take action at this time…instead of just waiting another year. What are they potentially losing out on by not making a change now?

3) Why buy from ‘my company’? This is where your unique positioning or differentiators are important…if you don’t answer this one convincingly, then all the work you did answering 1 and 2 is just selling for the competition.

Sales materials in my view should all be geared to helping a prospect to answer these 3 questions – it helps them, and as long as you get Q3 right…it will help you too!

The most important message your sales material should communicate is that your product or service is the solution to your customer’s problem.

People don’t buy products or services; they buy solutions. Your job as a salesperson is to show them how your product or service will solve their specific problem.

This means that you need to know your customer’s pain points and be able to articulate how your product or service will address them.

If you can do this effectively, you’ll be well on your way to making a sale.

The problem. If you can articulate it better than the people experiencing it can, they will subconsciously associate you with the solution.

“Don’t deliver a message, deliver an experience. People are too smart to be sold to, their choice is endless, so the experience is what can make you distinct. Show up where and when people are browsing, always use simple language and hero your services or products through stunning imagery and slick videos that people will remember. That way, when they’re ready to buy you will be remembered.”

Your single most important message should include a story about you “The Company” why you are proposing the product or service “The Requirement” and the background behind the Product or Service ” Why you should purchase this” You need to be passionate and confident about what you are selling to make the customer feel that they are buying great value and have the full information to make that choice.

It should give clear message explaining how you can offer any potential customers High Value for money.

What do you provide within your service offering which they are currently not getting and that will save them time or money so they can focus on the key areas of their business.

Keep it simple. Keep it relevant. Show you care.

Seek to solve a problem for your customer or client. Try and ask questions before you submit any material, and aim to tailor make any proposals to their needs, resolving any problems for them or demonstrating incremental opportunities. It might be a problem they didn’t even know they had….
When you submit proposals, try to think of exciting and innovative ways to send it, but it keep short, simple and relevant. You’ll make the most impact in the first few minutes.

There are numerous aspects which your marketing should encompass, to get the right message clearly across to your potential new customers. But if I had to pick the single most important aspect, from the perspective of my company, it is to convey the quality of the cars we sell and the facilities we work in. You may do the best work in the world or have the finest car for sale, but if the way you present yourself isn’t up to scratch your customers will automatically be asking themselves questions, even on a subconscious level. With polished advertising, showing the quality of the cars we sell and the top class facilities we work, it immediately gives people confidence in what we do, the values we embrace and the passion we have for our business. People formulate an opinion on a company they have never used simply from their website and advertising, so make the best possible introduction, which will give future customers confidence in who you are and what you do.

Who you really are, what you genuinely stand for and what you honestly believe. Most businesses write what they think their prospective clients/customers would want to hear. By doing so they often end up with customers they don’t want to work with, and/or relying on price as a sales lever. Stand for something and be authentic and you end up attracting the types of customers you actually want.

OUR WONDERFUL PEOPLE. AS RECRUITMENT PROFESSIONALS, OUR PEOPLE SHOULD BE THE BEST IN THE BUSINESS. RECRUITING LIKE MINDED INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE SKILLED AND DEDICATED PROFESSIONALS IN THEIR OWN FIELDS OF EXPERTISE IS WHAT OUR WONDERFUL PEOPLE DO BEST. AS A RECRUITER IF YOU CANNOT DEMONSTRATE YOUR ABILITY TO CHOOSE THE BEST FOR YOURSELF, HOW CAN YOU PROFESS TO RECRUIT FOR YOUR CLIENTS. OUR INDUSTRY HISTORICALLY HAS A VERY HIGH STAFF TURNOVER RATE. OURS IS EXTREMELY LOW AND SOME OF OUR WONDERFUL PEOPLE HAVE BEEN WITH US FOR MORE THAN A DECADE. PEOPLE BUY FROM PEOPLE, MAKE SURE YOURS ARE THE BEST
ENSURE YOUR SALES MATERIAL SELLS YOUR WONDERFUL PEOPLE

In my opinion, it should be completely customer centric focused. The sales message should be all about the customer, how can we help them solve their problems, what’s the impact of solving these challenges, how solving these challenges can help them attain their goals. Sales professionals need to as close to as a subject matter expert in the world of there prospects as possible.

We need to move away from presentations/demos which talk about how good “we are” and focus on truly understanding exactly how we can help the customer solve there unique problems.

What problem do you solve for your customers?
Until you get there and are easily able to articulate why you are in business and what you are there to do, you are just another part of the noise. Copying your competition, looking to see what others are doing, not knowing your why and having none of your own values.
Articulate what problems you solve quickly and efficiently. Not every customer is for you. Attract them to you don’t drag them to you.
Why should I buy from you? Get more people to know you, more people will like what you do, more people will trust you, more people will buy from you. Know your own worth and stick to it. Get a vision and articulate that to your customers. Everyone loves a vision. With a vision comes passion. With passion comes a following. With a following comes customers.

Without a doubt, your USP. It’s what makes you different to everyone else and gives the customer a reason to choose you.

It could be your product, your structure, your location, your approach – whatever it is, you need to identify what makes you special and what the benefits are if they buy from you.

I think it helps to be a little disruptive in your copy style/TOV too, so that you stand out and grab attention. Once you have your audience’s attention, you’re halfway there. So think about the structure of your sales material. Get people’s attention with a bold headline, a short, sharp statement on your USP. Then you can elaborate and develop the overall proposition. Finally, a call to action at the end, and a reason for Why now?’. And don’t forget to make it easy for people to get in touch. It sounds obvious, but you would be amazed how hard it is sometimes.

Remember your sales material is aimed at prospects rather than clients, so focus your messaging on how you can solve the problems a prospect is likely to be facing rather than those of a client; they are not always the same!

Tells the customer exactly what you do in an efficient and concise manner. Nobody cares that the business was founded in 1985 and has 23 offices across 5 locations blah blah blah. Tell the customer what they want to hear and what the purpose is of the service/product that the business controls. Be open an honest and keep it brief. Who looks into when Steve Jobs launched Apple – all they want is he device that delivers their solution. Keep it brief.

You need to start with communicating an understanding and intelligence of the customer needs you are aiming to solve, but in reality I don’t think that alone is enough.

In a sea of sameness, it needs to be coupled with a clear and confident articulation of what makes your solution different, urgent and worthy of people’s time.

Finally, humanity’s often lacking, so getting away from cliches, and being human, authentic and empathetic is also really important, especially if you are in the service business and looking to start a relationship with your customer.

That’s three things in the end. But they’re all pretty key.

That you care about your target customer. If you can communicate that you’ve taken time to understand your prospect’s needs, you’re well on the way to landing a new customer.

During this period of change that we are undergoing, one tool has become more visible in our industry, over all else, and that is honesty. Coronavirus has forced the hand of many agencies and brands to take immediate action and not to procrastinate. Whether this be questioning the benefit of an expensive, large office or bringing forward a marketing decision that has until now been in the balance. Brands and agencies alike no longer have the time or resource to beat around the bush, not to be direct or to confabulate extensively. Honesty, our hand forced by the economic climate, is now actually the prized attribute in our business dealings.

Conversations between supplier and purchaser are more open, cleaner and more efficient. Support from big to small is offered and understanding of the uniquely challenging situation we find ourselves in is shared. There is simply no other alternative course.

But how does this honesty manifest itself in our sales material?

It does so through ‘benefit’.

Benefit to the consumer. An honest exchange of wares. No blurred lines, no wool over eyes, no slight of hand.

Your sales material should honestly explain the benefit to the consumer. Yes, dress it up, make it pretty, explain why you are the best, but be honest.

Honesty is the new currency post COVID and it is what will make your message rise to the top.

Speak in your client’s language while conveying a clear message about the value you can deliver.

Benefits – there’s so much waffle too little time- cut to the chase and make it interesting to read. But don’t try and be too clever- keep it simple

In an economic climate affected by a global pandemic, brands are nervous more than ever when planning where and how to spend their marketing budgets. When introducing a brand to a new channel such as Gaming, evidence that the platform is effective and well received is imperative.
Brand Uplift studies or an Eye-Tracking study that can prove users do in-fact look at the ads in game and that they prefer the ad placements over intrusive, non-native placements gives brands confidence that they are making a sound investment.
In my opinion, solid evidence compiled by a reputable 3rd party that proves your tech/offering is effective, is the single most important message your sales material should communicate.

To not forget the “What’s in it for me” (WIIFM). Any audience only really cares about what they are being told if it has an impact on them and their decision. Fro example does a client really care how big their agency is or do they care what buying power they have and how it will benefit them and the rates they will pay.

I always think of opera when it comes to planning Marcomms. No, not Carmen or the Nutcracker (although that depends on what the creative work looks like!) . But AIDA. However it is an acronym of the process that sellers going through on the purchase cycle; Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. So we always have to consider where on that cycle is the particular customer you are aiming at and then ensure that you hit them with the right message. If they are existing customers, then you can focus more on the Action eg by running a price offer, or a deal with a deadline. But there is no point talking about price to someone who has never even heard of you, eg a new prospect. We need to get their Attention and their Interest in what we offer, and that is usually via showcasing a Benefit- in our case it is the fact that we can save them the risks of running prize promotions without taking appropriate legal and compliance advice. We use the emotion of ‘helping promoters to sleep at night’ to gain their interest in what we can do for them. It seems to work !

In the decade I’ve been an agency leader, I’ve found that the single most important message is one that achieves an emotional connection. Much of this can be through the personality of the presenter delivering it, but when it is not delivered in person, then making sure it speaks to the audience’s pains/gains that span both emotional and rational reasons are really important. B2B Marketing Magazine report that 95% of the decision-making behind our purchases are driven by emotions, so gathering insight into your audience in advance means you can craft messaging that is relevant and impactful. Not only that, but when you have b2b marketing that you are proud of, then you enjoy presenting it too, which always comes across and builds more empathy in a vicious circle of positivity.

The benefit to the customer – what value will be added to their life/lifestyle by investing in this product or service…

Communicating the Next steps! Always what’s next!? How do I buy? Or how can I take this to the next level. I often see proposals that bamboozle – give too many options, and even when it’s clear sometimes there is no obvious way to advance the discussion and push closer to a sale. It’s the customers experience of the sales process – each step gives them a clue on what it will be like to buy, and work with you, leaving them lost, or worse, asking for what to do next is a really easy way to accidentally introduce those feelings of uncertainty and confusion. Being a tech company and loving talking about tech and fancy widgets we fall foul of this all too many times ourselves!

Conveying trust in your sales material is key to building long-lasting relationships. Therefore, I would say it is essential to be authentic and communicate your values. Many of the sales proposals I have seen conventionally focus heavily on the ‘features and benefits’, but I believe that building trust is now more critical than ever.

Directly address the main pain points and challenges your target customers face and demonstrate empathy and understanding. Follow this with how your product / service can relieve those pain points and include real life examples of how you have done it for others. Customers want a sales narrative they can relate to, where they can recognise their own situation and see an obvious solution.

For a technology company creating sales material, it is very easy to fall into a trap of getting very technical on the audience explaining lots of features. In our experience sales material should contain information of business benefits, improvements and any added value that your products / solution provide. Customers are interested in reducing risk and cost, but improving service level agreements and offerings. Material should include examples of a companies design, deployment and support methodology with examples of cost saving
and improvements made by other similar customers. The material needs to be concise, showing example analytics . One certainty is change will happen, embracing change and becoming agile to lead we give competitive advantage. Demonstrating how this can achieved is more important than a technical features white paper.

How is your content going to help the customer? Put yourself in your customers shoes and when you read the story that your sales material describes does it answer the question “what’s in it for me?” Does it explain how your product or service is going to help, benefit, or solve the needs of your customers? Can they save money by buying today? Will they look healthier because of your workout? When there is a clear answer to Whats in it for me? you’re good to go.

Sales material that makes an impact always includes 3rd party endorsements. Having other people saying your the best has a much bigger impact than simply saying it about yourself.

Everything you do must inspire action in the people who matter most, and when it comes to sales material the only people that matter are your customers and prospects.

Your sales collateral should communicate who you are, what you do, and how you can help. But more importantly “WHY” the prospect or customer should get in touch. What’s in it for them? How will it be of benefit? And what will they gain?

If you can make the “WHY” clear, you’ll stand out from the crowd and consequently get more enquiries. There are lots of brands out there telling WHAT they do, but very few tell you “WHY” they do it.

There are many important messages to communicate in sales material, but if I were to pin point a single one it would be to communicate the why/how your products or services will add to value to the purchaser.

Trust. In the consultancy business, in particular in oil and gas, you must develop a client base for the long run. They must rest assured from day 1 that you are there to defend their interest, suggest a course of action that best serves their objective and accompany them along the way to make the necessary adjustments. You should be the first one to warn them when your advise has been wrong and suggest how to resolve it.

Focus on the business pain your customers are experiencing, use language they understand, tailor to vertical and horizontal functions. It’s all about them – not you.

In my experience you need to fully understand your buyer and anticipate his needs.
Follow on with delivering the product or service as promised, within the time scale given and above all at the price agreed.

Service is everything…..

Remember also the old adage that “people buy off people”.

Try to build a personal relationship with your buyer not necessarily just connected with business, talk about common interests outside of the work zone and not just the order…

Pick up the phone and talk to your buyer – it will work so much better than an email.

For me, any sales material needs to include some form of evidence. Be that of your team’s expertise, your product’s efficacy, reasons for your pricing, or trustworthiness.

Without evidencing your claims or offers, your offer will feel shallow, unresearched and templated.

Try to see your business from your potential customers perspective – what benefit do they get from your product or service. An all too common mistake we all make is selling what we think people want from our own viewpoint. Get friends and existing customers to tell you why they would or did use your product or service and then find a way of incorporating that information in to your sales material.

Always consider the needs of the customer first and the benefits you bring to the sale; repeat business and referrals are worth significantly more than the cost and effort required in finding new customers all the time. Adopt a blend of marketing platforms and messages and, wherever possible, collect metrics to analyse and optimise your marketing. Build your relationship with customers and keep your communications timely and appropriate as there is also a fine line between relevance and unwanted attention. If you are not a marketeer then engage with a reputable agency and set targets for results based on profitable leads not just impressions and likes, leads are seeds for growth. I would also advise adopting a customer relationship management software tool to keep records and drive conversions, then you will have a genuine customer base on which to build your business. If you are negotiating a deal make sure it is a Win/ Win outcome, no-one appreciates being ripped off and you will not get a good referral either; bad news travels fast and a poor reputation is difficult to overcome. Finally know when to say no and never give up.

With whatever you have to sell – a product or a service – you must create a ‘I Desire It, I Need It, I Want It, I Can’t Live Without It’ feeling amongst your potential customer base. Price becomes irrelevant. Make the potential purchasers feel that they are going to become part of ‘something’ special and for life, an exclusive or elite club of owners.

Build a great team and systems that give clear process to your customer journey. Do not be scared to surround yourself with people that have more knowledge than you in key areas, engage with them, involve them and give all a platform to flourish and grow. Invest in your people and they will invest in your business, provide great systems and that will drive your business to consistent delivery of results. Start with the end GOAL in mind and always work towards that with your team. Share your vision.