Do You Have a Hole in Your Swing?

Like some of you I have spent a good portion of my career as a turnaround guy for sales forces. Without fail I have found that many sales people or channel partners were ill equipped to hit the ball out of the park on behalf of the company. They were decent salespeople for the most part, and knew the product, but had a difficult time educating all levels of the organization that they were selling to and because of that lack of success I looked at "sending them down to the minor leagues".

I have used the term "Hole in your swing" for several years after watching Tom Selleck in the movie Mr. Baseball.  Selleck played a pro ballplayer that was a good defensive player, but could not hit the ball with any authority. 



So it is for many of your salespeople, but the "hole" may not be solely theirs, you may have a hand in it as well.  The hole in the swing exists in part in the education process between your sales force and your prospects.

We rely on the internet heavily to be the passive tutor for our clients and while it does a yeoman job at that, companies need to integrate the message developed for E-content into printed content, case studies, and white papers. Recently at The BDEvent we talked with many of you about how DCIG is developing our products around the mantra "From the C Suite to the Street"; meaning that the message that is developed in the C suite needs to have its message DNA in all forms of communication with the client.  The hole here is the leap from electronic messaging to a formal lead generating leave behind document.

DCIG has solved that problem for our blogging clients in the product that we call an executive white paper.  The executive white paper is a gap bridging document that is developed from content that has been generated in approved blogs; it is then morphed into a 2 sided single sheet document that is a great lead gen resource for use by sales people and channel partners. 

It delivers the message that you want concisely and can harness blog content in a meaningful way. Blog content in its nature is ephemeral if it stays just a blog. By transforming that content into a document you enable the valuable message of the blog to take on additional life.

The pathway for educating the customer now looks like Blog, to Executive White Paper, to Case Study, and then finally a full white paper.  That new pathway closes the hole in the swing and allows your sales efforts to be more integrated.

Many of our clients have confirmed what we thought when we developed the product.  Decision makers don't necessarily want to have to read a 20 page white paper to understand the big picture about your solution or product. They will read the blogs, but most if not all of them want and will appreciate a document that crystallizes the value proposition for them quickly.

If you want to increase your sales team's batting average, think about adding an executive white paper into the lineup you have for lead gen and education materials.  We are excited about what this new product will do for our clients, and look forward to sharing the success stories with you!