How do you ensure that your reps are all singing the same tune when the jargon in your industry is constantly changing?

Fintech is definitely a dynamic and ever evolving space – which makes it super exciting! What’s interesting about Visa’s role here is that we sit at the center as a network and have exposure to and partner with fintechs of various shapes and sizes. So speaking a common language is less of an issue at Visa given our extensive engagement in fintech (we like to think of ourselves as the world’s first fintech).

That said, this is a super valid question. Standard messaging documents that sales reps can utilize to ensure there is a common talk track are beneficial. These sometimes operate as standalone documents or could be anchored with a product/solution pitch deck (as a part of the speaker notes).

What I’ve also seen work well, especially when it comes to ensuring sales reps have a common understanding of relevant industry dynamics, is to create an internal education content series. For example, when I was working at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, our Sales Enablement teams did a phenomenal job of creating internal training content on different industry trends impacting our customers – e.g., Cloud Transformation, Big Data. These helped to get reps educated on the latest industry trends and also how to talk to customers about these topics.

The only way to ensure that is to have a really strong and clear messaging strategy that is documented and shared across your entire company. That should also consistently reflect in any sales content you create to make that more actionable - so if you deliver really great sales pitch materials, the team will actually use them

Secondly, do continuous training.

This is a tough one! A couple of things you can put into place:

• Regular training and updates by conducting regular training sessions,  workshops, office hours, certifications

• Weekly updates by sending out weekly emails with new terms and industry news, slack announcements 

• Centralized knowledge repository like Seismic for example

• At Zendesk, we use a tool called Gong to listen in on calls our reps are having with customers, we also join customer calls and EBCs to observe and provide feedback to the sales team on their positioning and pitching of our solutions

Good sales messaging + proper enablement is the solution to this problem. More often than not, when I've seen a lack of messaging consistency in my sales teams with every sales rep offroading and rolling their own, it's either because our messaging wasn't credible/didn't resonate, or we had an awareness/enablement gap.

Here's what good messaging needs to do:

• Be Relevant: is it germane to your target audience's day job and the things that keep them up at night?

• Be Differentiated: does it sound different from how competitors talk, or does it look the same and make unsubstantiated first/only/best claims that make prospects skeptical?

• Create Clarity: is it easy for your target audience to understand why they should care?

• Drive Intent: is it compelling to prospects and does it make them actually want to buy and use your stuff?

Here are some guiding principles I practice and coach my PMM teams on as it relates to creating messaging:

TAKE AN OUTSIDE-IN APPROACH 

I’m a big believer that product marketers need to take an outside-in approach to developing messaging, not the other way around. That means leading with your customers’ problems, their needs, and using that as framing for how you describe the promised land and your solution. Prospects tune out when a vendor sales deck leads with the obligatory About Us autobiographical slide. Prospects care a lot less about your company vitals than they do about the problem they're facing and whether you have a vision for how to help them solve it.

USE WORDS YOUR CUSTOMERS USE

I have a zero jargon policy with my PMM teams when we create messaging, and our goal is to write it exactly like you'd say it out loud. In a conversation. With a customer. I call it conversational tone (I've heard it referred to as BBQ speak by others), and it's the best way to make your messaging sound like something a sales rep would actually be confident saying out loud in front of a customer.

I'm also generally not a fan of initialisms, acronyms or jargon-ey terms that aren't broadly understood by "the uninitiated". You only get so many at-bats with coined terms before you confuse customers, so when in doubt, use conversational tone and default to approachable language that creates clarity for the masses.

COME IN AT THE RIGHT ALTITUDE

Your messaging needs to strike the balance between being technically credible for the prospects you are trying to reach, while simplified enough for those customers, your sales team, and your marketing team to "get it".

Too many times, I see messaging get way too in the weeds on "the what" and "the how", with no synthesis on "the why" – specifically why customers should care and the value to them. Other times, sales messaging is too high-level and undifferentiated. In 2024, if you're a B2B company and the first slide of your sales deck still says "every company is a software company" or includes the word "digital transformation", you're doing it wrong and your messaging needs to be more precise. :-)

BE CONCISE, BUT NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF CLARITY

When your messaging framework becomes too minimalistic, or over-rotates toward short phrases that look like ad copy, the narrative gets lost and you increase the likelihood that sales and marketing folks are going to off-road when they start pitching to customers or creating downstream content.

When done right, the content in a messaging framework gets copy/pasted liberally and becomes foundational for your sales messaging, your web copy, your thought leadership assets, and your press releases. Consistency is important. And a well-written messaging framework becomes a scale enabler for downstream content.