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Sales-First Storytelling

Great post by April Dunford on how marketing teams and sales teams need to tell different stories about a product:

Our goals in marketing are very different from our goals in a sales situation. Often in marketing, we are simply trying to capture an audience’s attention and get their permission to continue marketing to them. […] Sales, on the other hand, is generally dealing with the folks who have already raised their hand in some form and are in a purchase process. Our primary job in sales is to help guide prospects through the purchase process.

However, both approaches to storytelling need to come from the same positioning source:

Sales and marketing should use the same inputs for whatever storytelling structure they choose, and those inputs should come from our positioning. Both marketing and sales communicate the value that the product delivers that no other solutions can. Both have a common definition of what a good-fit prospect looks like. Both teams need to understand the alternative approaches, including the status quo and more direct short-list competitors. Our positioning defines the inputs for marketing and sales content—we ultimately need commonality across marketing and sales because our positioning defines where we win and why.