For example, take Ford and their new F-Series line of trucks. They’ve developed a campaign that showcases the truck’s capabilities and the capabilities’ alignment with the target audience’s typical issues. The associative content is delivered primarily via video @ fordvehicles.com/2011Superduty/. Here, the prospect can gather the obligatory head-to-head comparisons to the competition, but that’s just the beginning.

Ford has (apparently) invested a ton into making their trucks the most capable in their class. I know little to nothing about trucks, however after being walked through numerous real-world demonstrations, I’m convinced. Rather than appealing to the 5-year old in me by having the trucks jumping rings of fire (see Dodge) and racing around the desert, Ford educated me. Their message is about the alignment of their trucks’ capabilities and their practicality. Interwoven with the capability speak are reference-able case studies. Regardless if you’re selling software, trucks, or pharmaceuticals this is a winning approach.

This approach gives the audience the ability to relate their experiences and needs to a particular set of capabilities. In other words, it contextualizes the product’s capabilities. In the case of Ford, it’s these capabilities that sell F-Series trucks, but it’s Ford’s personalized and conversational presentation of them that make the difference.

Thinking about you and your products and services:

What capabilities sell or should sell you products?

How do you communicate the relevance of your product’s capabilities to the real-world challenges your end-users face?

How easy is it for your end-users to see your products solving these real-world issues without having to communicate with a sales person?

How can you leverage your website to make easy the dissemination of your message and relevance of your products?

Think about these questions when crafting your next pitch on why an end-user should buy your products or why a reseller should sell them. Jumping rings of fire is cool, but when was the last time you did so?

Coincidentally, many sales trainings resemble weather reports in that they are infused with too much product specific information. The inclusion of this type of information doesn’t prepare sales people for business-related real world conversations. Consequently, where sales training should lower the execution risk associated with the act of selling, it fails by actually raises it.

This begs the question, what should sales training look like? Moreover, what type of information should it include and how should it be delivered?

From the top, think like your customer. News Flash: Customers don’t care about you or your product. They care about two things:

• How does your product or service help them fulfill their job responsibilities?
• How does your product answer a specific business challenge?

That’s it, plain as day. If your training doesn’t prepare your sales people to answer those questions (at a minimum) it’s nothing more than an exercise in futility. The natural inclination when thinking about sales training is to increase product knowledge. Enhancing product knowledge is not a bad thing, however, you can’t lead with it. The art of selling begins with uncovering the opportunity. Translated, this means, what is the real issue the customer is having? Furthermore, do they even know what their core issue is? At a higher level, what are the typical issues organizations in that market are having?

The only way to make a salesperson feel comfortable having a probing conversation is to arm them with holistic market data points. These are often referred to as market dynamics and they include:

• Market size
• Market trends
• Competitive landscape
• Typical customer pains (per vertical)

The conversation surrounding these attributes has nothing to do with your product. Of course there is a time and place to communicate how your product fits into the landscape and but this isn’t the first step by any means. The first step is 100% about mapping product/service capabilities to business challenges.

How does your product help me put butts in seats?

All future conversations emanate from this point. Your answer needs to be crystal clear as to how your product solves their business issues. Solving these issues might or might not include 3^rd party products and services but that’s immaterial. It’s immaterial because your customer doesn’t care. They care only about whether or not your product is the right fit and can you enable them.

Technical organizations are notorious for making the mistake of starting product education with a technical dissertation centering on architecture and installation caveats. To make an accurate assessment of where training should begin, use the questions below.

Why is the customer interested in this product?

What is he trying to accomplish by deploying this product?

Who is the decision maker for this purchase?

Incorporating the answers of these questions into training accomplishes a number of things. First, it tightens the scope of what the educational event will convey. Next, it proves to the prospect that the product operates as advertised in their environment. Third, it establishes you as a trusted advisor.

The net benefit of this approach is the creation of a welcoming environment for your sales team to walk into. The creation of this environment is a culmination of speaking the customer’s language and providing them with the know-how to intelligently evaluate the product. This culminates with presenting the sales channel with a relevant platform to address the customer from.