With ever-changing market and customer demands, brands are repositioning their messaging constantly. But marketing and sales leaders struggle to relay these changes consistently to their revenue teams, leading to Frankendecks: out of brand and date sales decks. Sales enablement approach provides a real way out of this dilemma . . .
Marketers and salespeople work hard to gain the trust of potential customers, and then continue to work even harder to prove to them they’ve made the right choice. However, it can only take one poorly reviewed sales deck to undo all of that good work.
Businesses have been living with Frankendecks for a while now, and we understand why it’s hard to keep track of content when you’re busy running an operation.
But it’s crucial we nail messaging and branding in our sales decks from the get-go, to prove to potential prospects that we know what we’re talking about – because we do! A world without Frankendecks is possible, and here’s how…
What is a Frankendeck?
Frankendecks are company assets that are outdated and poorly executed. At their worst, these decks can contain incorrect pricing, repeated information, and a narrative that is tough for any consumer to follow, and even tougher for a salesperson to present.
When a new customer requests a project pitch, teams race to put together slides from previous decks, images from the depths of their hard drives, and as much data as they can find.
Unfortunately, when it comes to Frankendecks, we’re lured by a false sense of efficiency. As a result, the mismatched messaging can cause more harm than good to your organisation.
Even though certain diagrams, charts, or images may appear to fit the deck perfectly, they still lack a consistent narrative that an audience can readily follow from start to finish.
Simply put, Frankendecks don’t serve your key message. If anything, they waste time and fail to fulfil the fundamental purpose of moving the business conversation ahead. Not to mention, they fundamentally undermine your company’s brand, position and value proposition.
Even if they begin with the greatest of intentions, these types of decks can easily escalate into an overwhelming nightmare for your marketing and sales teams. Nobody internally has any clarity on what is and isn’t working, and it makes for an even more confusing buying cycle for prospects.
So, how can both marketing and sales teams break the cycle and avoid the Frankendeck, once and for all?
The Solution
Both sales and marketing teams will admit to being guilty of creating Frankendecks. It’s an easy, quick fix when you don’t have time to recreate, update or find an asset for a customer. Fortunately, spotting Frankendecks is the first step to eradicating them and this is possible through a sales enablement tool.
Sales enablement is the continual process of providing sales teams with the knowledge, direction, and training they require to engage customers effectively. This solution can provide insights, analytics, and deliver data-driven content suggestions to the marketing and sales teams.
In short, sales teams require a single source of truth. They need to be able to access relevant, up to date content easily. Marketers need to see where the message is landing and resonating with customers in order to replicate the effect their content has. All of this is made possible via sales enablement solutions, whilst also solving the content chaos of Frankendecks.
Benefits of Killing Frankendecks
Eliminating Frankendecks saves marketers and salespeople a significant amount of time. Having one source of truth for the entire business means that everyone is on the same page. For marketers, this means they can be confident in the messaging salespeople are delivering to potential customers. For sales, this means they can be confident in the information and assets they’re using.
Ultimately, Frankendecks are detrimental to customer relationships and as a result, to business revenue too. Sales enablement platforms, like Highspot, provide the clarity salespeople want when looking for assets, and provide marketers with the insights they need to create successful messaging. Achieving both of these will lead to consistent and improved revenue for the business.
ABOUT OUR GUEST WRITER
Liz Hajjar
Sr. Director, Sales – Northern Europe, Highspot
Liz is Highspot’s Sr. Director of Northern Europe Sales. Prior to that, Liz was at Glassdoor for 10 years, most recently Head of EMEA GTM org. During her time as a Sales Leader at Glassdoor, Liz helped build and scale the San Francisco and Chicago offices. Liz brings years of tech sales experience and is excited to be a part of Highspot EMEA’s growth.
