Content from a Salesperson’s Perspective

Ben:  
Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Duncan. Duncan, welcome to the show.

Duncan Alger:  
Yeah, let's do it, man.

Duncan Alger:  
Yeah, Ben, thanks for having me, man. Happy to be here. Appreciate it.

Ben:  
Love it. And I'm excited for this conversation. It's going to be a little bit different from the normal episode. And this is going to be fun, but Duncan quickly let us get to know you a little bit about your career and background and stuff like that. And then we'll dive into the conversation for the day.

Duncan Alger:  
Yeah, so originally where I met Ben obviously as a former AE over in regional sales manager over at Weave and I'm currently over at Route now where I'm a senior account executive. But yeah, I didn't plan to be in the tech industry. It kind of found me and haven't looked back since. So I'm enjoying it.

The Role of Content in Sales

Ben:  
I love it. I love it. So as you can tell, Duncan's not in marketing. And typically our guests are marketing individuals who love content marketing, have tips and tricks for that. Really we're looking at the other side of things today. So Duncan's gonna talk to us a little bit about how marketing can help sales when it comes to content. And I'm excited for this conversation because...

One of the best things you can do for a business is align marketing and sales. That's like, I'm a firm believer of that. If there's a disconnect, it's just going to get ugly. And everyone's experienced that. But the times like when we were at weave, there was a lot of, you know, obviously there were hard points. Don't get me wrong. That always happens. But the times when we were in sync marketing and sales, that was just pure harmony. It was awesome. So I love it. So Duncan, so first off, first and foremost, thank you again.

When it comes to content, how does sales interact with content in general? What do you use content for on a regular basis as you're working with people that you're trying to sign on to the company?

Duncan Alger:  
Yeah, that's a great question. I would say I use content one to simply progress deals or close deals or give relevant content that is needed to my customers to make an informed decision. So yeah, I use content on a daily basis in terms of the closing process and sales, but also just in my daily life. I think sales reps need...

timely, relevant and actionable marketing content that they can use in real live, you know, sales situations. And I think, you know, in a world of content company, companies need to stay relevant and you know, whatever it is, they need to find their lane and really stay relevant.

Choosing the Right Content

Ben:  
I love it. I love it. So when you're looking for content, how do you know the right content to share with the people that you're working with? Like how do you find the things that you feel like will progress the deal and ultimately help them out with what they're looking for?

Duncan Alger:  
Yeah, I think data is very important. You know, content with accurate data that can give the customer a good kind of reflection of what our product or our software can do for them. I think that's very important. Great examples. I'm in the e-commerce tech industry, so I work with a number of different brands. And I think in terms of the content that I share with them, it's similar brands. And, you know...

data points that are really relevant to them that will help move the needle in that deal for me.

Ben:  
I love that I love that. So if you had to pick like your favorite kinds, you mentioned data, but like favorite kinds of things, you know from case studies and white papers, industry reports, things like that. Do you have like a favorite genre of content like a go to kind of content that you typically like to share the most?

Duncan Alger:  
I would say, you know, as I think case studies sometimes get like a bad rap, so to speak. but I think if you share them in the right way and they, and it is relevant information that the customer can, you know, use to make, a good decision based off, off that case study or information that is in that case study. I use that very frequently. but I think it, again, it has to be relevant, right? I think sharing just a random case study, it's not going to be beneficial, but if you share.

a case study that has good information, has good data, and it's relevant to that brand or that customer, I think that can go a long way.

Improving Case Studies for Sales

Ben:  
I love that. So digging deeper into case studies, because again, this is we want to help marketers produce better content for sales. What could marketing do better with case studies that kind of get rid of that bad connotation that this is just like a really handpicked solution and these percentages maybe might not be believable, things like that. What can marketing do to create those case studies that your clients would actually want to read that would actually provide the relevancy and value that you're looking for?

Duncan Alger:  
Great question. Again, I think it's like, in a sense, real time, I think a lot of situations I've seen in the past is that we have a case study, but you know, it's it's from years ago or months ago, and it's not updated. I think a case study that is again relevant, as I mentioned before, but it's real time, it's up, it's updated in real time. It has real feedback from you know, that that customer that is on the case study.

I think that can speak volumes because I can't tell you how many times I've shared a case study in my early days in sales and, you know, it wasn't up to par, so to speak, but I think keeping, if you want to call it like real time alerts or real time updates on those case studies can be super beneficial. And then real, real feedback from, you know, the customers that we're kind of, depicting on that, on that case study as well.

Feedback and Collaboration Between Sales and Marketing

Ben:  
I love that, I love that. Yeah, you're talking about like this constant pulse, you know, just like if I were to get on Amazon, you know, you're in e-commerce. If I look at reviews for a product and no one has reviewed the product in like the last two weeks, immediately I'm like, I don't even know if this company is in business anymore, you know? So you see the same kind of scenario with case studies, right? So it's like...

Duncan Alger:  
Yeah, yeah, you're gonna move on it's it's it's relevant in the

Ben:  
actively showing, hey, this is a group that just last month or whatever saw these benefits with us.

Duncan Alger:  
100%, yeah.

Ben:  
I love that. I love that. So when it comes to working with marketing to provide feedback, every organization is different. You know, some people are in-house, some are remote, all that kind of stuff. How do you feel like marketing could approach sales to get information from you? You know, whether it's insights from what you know about the customer.

whether it's about just needs in general of what you need. Like you're talking about relevant case studies. Like what would you like to see from marketing professionals to like practically come to you and say, Duncan, how can I help you? Like, what would you like to see from those kinds of interactions?

Duncan Alger:  
That's a fantastic question, Ben. I think I would like to see mainly two things. One is collaboration, right? Sales rep should be involved in the marketing brainstorming sessions, if you will, for whether it's content, lead sourcing, emails, whatever the case, right? But open and honest communication, it's okay to tell the sales rep that, you know, what we want is not realistic, right?

And just like it's okay, probably to tell the marketing team that, Hey, this isn't working. So I think open and honest communication and that collaboration is super important. and then shared KPIs, right? Like sales and marketing, they should have shared, you know, KPIs and that align with their goals. So I think, I think those are probably the two most important things for me. And maybe even that number one is being just the collaboration aspect.

Measuring Content Effectiveness

Ben:  
I love that, I love that. So you talked about finding content that does and doesn't work and giving that feedback to marketing. How are you analyzing if content does and doesn't work? Like what are the big indicators for you to say, yep, that didn't sit right, that didn't help me. Like what are some of those things that you look for?

Duncan Alger:  
Yeah, I would say purely the feedback from, you know, my response from the customers or the outreach, you know, obviously cold outreach. I would say I'm taking purely that based off of the response from the potential customers or, you know, the deals that are in my pipeline. I would say.

Ben:  
I love it. So when you get that feedback that something works well or doesn't work well, how can marketing do a better job of collecting that feedback from you? Like, do you prefer meetings? Do you prefer slacks, emails, regular cadence? You know, obviously you're busy. You have plenty of calls and things to do. What would be a good way to increase the collaboration? So marketing and say, Hey, here's the new case study. How's it working? And for you to be able to say, Hey, it sucks. We need to fix it. Like how would you prefer marketing kind of, you know, logistically gets that feedback?

Duncan Alger:  
Yeah, that's a great question as well. I would say, you know, cadence would be whatever the preferred cadence is, you know, for me, I would say meetings works best. But have it be consistent, because if it's not consistent, then you know, if it's one-off, it's not going to get done on both sides. Obviously, as sales reps, you know, time is very important to us. So I am constantly slacking things rather than hopping on a 30-minute meeting. But if I have a 30-minute block, you know, set aside, whether it's weekly or monthly, right, but set aside and I have that cadence continuously or consistently, excuse me. I think it's much, you're much more likely to get open and honest feedback, as I mentioned earlier, from both parties and, you know, at the end figure out what works and what doesn't.

Accessing and Using New Content

Ben:  
I love it, that makes sense. So let's say marketing has created new material and they're excited to get into the hands of sales. How do you prefer to actually get that content and start using new content? Like obviously informing people about new materials can be a difficult task. How do you prefer that? How have you seen it done well in the past?

Duncan Alger:  
You mean getting that new material from marketing, is that what you're saying? Yeah, I think, again, I think meetings are a great resource, but I think there has to be actionable items, right? Like, from my perspective, at least Ben, if a marketing team tells me something or tells a sales team something, it's great, but there needs to be some action items in place that need to happen in order for us to actually get that information. And then, you know, put that to action, right? I think, again, I am biased because I'm on the sales side, but I think a lot of sales reps will get into meetings, they'll hear that information from marketing, and then we don't actually take action on that. And that's on us as sales reps. So I think, from my perspective, if marketing made some sort of effort to make, make us put action into that, so to speak, or take action, I think it would be a higher adoption rate by sales reps to actually use that content. Cause sometimes we just hop on there and we don't really, you know, take action on that. We listen and then we get off and go about our normal day, which I think sales reps can, can definitely work on.

Challenges in Accessing Content

Ben:  
That's cool. That's cool. Well, and again, you have a process, right? And if you've got the process, interruptions to the process, you know, often are detrimental. So that makes perfect sense on that side as well to give sales rep credit on that side of things. How do you currently find and access content in your current situation and past situations? And what do you like and dislike about that?

Duncan Alger:  
I mean, we have the standard kind of library, if you will, of content that we can get our resources from. The thing I don't like about that, to be transparent, Ben, is sometimes it can be cumbersome. It can take a lot of time to get the piece of content or information that I'm looking for. So yeah, just something that is very easy to access. And again, as I mentioned previously, like real-time alerts. Sales reps need to be notified immediately, whether it be a qualified lead or new content, you know, an update to the company's website, you know, as, as sales reps, we know that time kills all deals. So the sooner we can be notified about that information, the better. I think, you know, in my previous role at Weave, they did such a good job of that because every time there was an update, we were immediately notified and then we were able to get that information super easily. And, and again, use it or take action on it.

Importance of Real-Time Information

Ben:  
I love it. I also, as someone who used to run demand generation, I love that you talk about the real-time information for leads and content, because I have a big passion for the real-time lead stuff. I cannot tell you how many hoops you have to jump through with systems just to notify something that a lead filled out a form. It's shocking how sometimes that takes so long. That brings back the fun times at Weave with that memory.

Duncan Alger:  
Yeah.

Ben:  
We're coming close to time and this has been super insightful. Again, I love the perspective from sales to help marketing better work together and collaborate. Any final tips or advice or things that you just appreciate about the collaboration with marketing, ways to be better, things that you appreciate, anything at all that we can kind of send the episode off with.

Duncan Alger:  
Yeah, I would say just kind of the four main points I touched on is, you know, relevant content, collaboration, so meaning open and honest communication between marketing and sales, leading into shared KPIs that really align with both marketing and sales goals. And then just that last thing we touched on, Ben, is real-time alerts. So I think those are the four main things that I would take away to really create a positive relationship between marketing and sales. And I think if you have those four pillars, so to speak, I think your organization or your marketing and sales team will be in a good spot.

Ben:  
I love it. I love the four actionable things to do. This is great. Well, Duncan, thanks again for the time. If anyone wants to connect and reach out and find you online, where can they go?

Duncan Alger:  
Yeah, feel free to take a look at my LinkedIn. It's just Duncan Alger. And yeah, always happy to connect, network, meet new people, and happy to help in any way I can.

Ben:  
Love it, love it. Well, Duncan, again, thanks for the time today.

Duncan Alger:  
Yeah, Ben, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

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