By now, you’ve probably heard a lot of noise about marketing and sales team alignment. You might have also heard talk about internal alignment for sales teams.
Alignment isn’t just the sales enablement topic du jour.
It comes up in conversations a lot because it’s a must-have if you want to hit those lofty sales targets. Sales and marketing misalignment costs companies an estimated $1 trillion each year. The outlook isn’t much better for misalignment within the sales team itself.
We all understand how important alignment is for sales teams. The problem is getting there. And the solution isn’t what most people think.
Here’s how it usually goes down:
When a sales team struggles with alignment, everyone assumes the problem is a lack of communication. And it is. Good so far. But then they decide (incorrectly) that the solution is to increase the volume of communication.
That’s where everything gets wonky. Pumping up the volume of communication sends the sales team down a rabbit hole of email overload, and communication protocols, and CRM data entry requirements.
This creates bureaucracy and noise. It doesn’t create better alignment. Your team is communicating itself to death but no one is really listening, or paying attention, or remembering the message.
The solution isn’t communication quantity. It’s communication quality. You need to stop over-communicating and find a way to do less with more. Short, focused, and engaging communication is the key to aligning your sales team. Here’s how it’s done.
Create videos that drive action
Activate your audience with impactful, on-brand videos. Create them simply and collaboratively with Biteable.
It all starts with better internal communication
Sales team alignment revolves around good internal communication.
If your communication is poor, team goals and expectations are muddy. Sales reps share less relevant information or simply share less information altogether. They don’t understand the big picture, and they don’t have the tools they need to make split-second decisions when a sales call takes an unexpected turn.
Your team wastes valuable time and money trying to find information, or heading in the wrong direction because of misinformation, or going to the sales manager for face-to-face guidance.
But subpar communication isn’t necessarily your fault. For years, we’ve all been communicating in a similar way, using a standard set of tools. The problem is, these tools no longer get the job done like they used to.
Where traditional communication tools fail us
Simply equipping your sales team with a playbook and market information isn’t enough anymore. Markets change quickly, customers are fickle and better informed about their choices. Deals are often time-sensitive, and sales reps must solve problems on the fly.
To truly succeed, sales teams need to freely exchange important information and reps must have that information on-hand when they need it, either off the top of their head or from a quickly accessible resource.
This requires nimble communication tools that make information engaging, easy to absorb quickly, and more memorable.
Email, PowerPoint, and long-form sales playbooks are good for equipping sales teams with a large repository of information. But they aren’t so great for ensuring sales reps can use that information in real-time.
If the information they need is buried in their email inbox, at the back of a PowerPoint presentation, or hidden somewhere on a spreadsheet, it’s nearly impossible for reps to get what they need while they’re on the phone or writing emails.
Those same reps are forced to spend extra time prepping between calls, or worse, they end up having to tell the customer they’ll get back to them later with the information.
The problem gets worse when managers diagnose the problem as too little communication. Reps get saddled with even more emails, PowerPoint presentations, spreadsheets, and CRM data entry. And your sales team ends up spending even less time actively selling.
If you’ve ever felt like your efforts to improve internal communication are just making things worse, that’s probably exactly what’s happening.
Returning to the original point, it’s not a problem of internal communication quantity. It’s a communication quality issue.
Better alignment requires better communication tools
Before we dive in here, it’s worth noting that traditional communication tools are still important.
There are plenty of situations where a spreadsheet is the best tool for the job. PowerPoint presentations are great for covering reports and sales strategies, or for outlining new processes in detail. And we’ve all sat through meetings that definitely should’ve been an email.
But when it comes to making information sharable and engaging, and creating quick-access sales resources, video is king.
Why video produces better internal communication
Unlike more traditional tools, video can convey a lot of information in a very short time span.
It’s much faster and easier to extract key information from a few minutes of video than it is to dig through a spreadsheet or PowerPoint presentation. And a video can present action steps, so sales teams know exactly what to do with the key information.
This is where video really shines for sales enablement. Giving sales teams as much information as possible is good. But getting your teams to improve their selling skills and behavior based on the information you provide is what you really need.
Video is perfect for drawing important points out of large pools of information and prompting viewers to act on that information, all in a quick, easy-to-process package.
Research also shows our brains respond differently to video. We remember up to 95% of a video message, compared to just 10% of a written one.
A versatile tool that catches attention
Beyond all this, video is also surprisingly versatile.
It’s compact and easy to share, so it’s compatible with the communication channels you already use. And it even helps you communicate better in email and instant messages.
People get a ton of emails and messages, most of which are entirely text. Embedding a video in an email or sending an instant message with video grabs people’s attention because it’s something different.
Movement, color, and sheer novelty catches the eye and piques interest. That’s one reason why social media posts with video get 48% more views. You aren’t communicating with your reps through Instagram, but you still have to find a way to “stop the scroll”.
Just like with social media, your reps are far more likely to watch a video than read a long email to the end or catch a Slack message before it disappears in the message flow.
Do more with less
Lastly, video naturally helps you say more with less. Or more accurately, it helps you say only what really needs to be said and let the fluff fall away.
As you make videos, you have to pick and choose what information to put in each scene. There’s only so much screen real estate and so many seconds in a short video. (We recommend a 2-minute limit to keep people’s attention.)
On the other hand, PowerPoint presentations and spreadsheets tend to be information dumps. It’s easy to add as many slides or spreadsheet rows as you have ideas, without realizing how much time it will take for readers to slog through it all.
But when you make a video, it’s easy to understand the amount of time and effort it will take your team to watch it. It’s right there in black and white timestamps. You’re forced to pick and choose only the most crucial information so you don’t run over time. A win-win for those of us who tend toward long-windedness.
Why isn’t everyone using video?
All in all, video promotes concise, efficient communication. And it makes all your sales intelligence easily accessible, so sales teams can reference it in real-time with a few clicks, without sacrificing sales activities to get information.
That’s why video should be part of every internal communication strategy, especially in sales enablement: it’s engaging, memorable, and helps people quickly understand what you need them to do with the information you give them. And action improves sales performance.
But most sales enablement professionals don’t use video yet.
Why not? Because they don’t think they have the skills or resources to do it. But creating and distributing videos can actually be quick and easy.
First, videos can be created from templates. That way you don’t actually need any formal video production skills. The template handles all the scene length and shot composition. All you have to do is plug in your message.
And videos are incredibly shareable.
If you use a video maker like Biteable Teams, all you have to do is send people a link to your video and they can watch it with one click. If you have to go back and change the information later, the link automatically updates with your new video version.
In short, video is engaging, and making videos is incredibly simple if you have the right tools. That makes it a totally viable addition to your internal communications. Watch your team alignment soar.
Watch your alignment soar with Biteable
Engaging communication is a key part of sales team alignment, and Biteable can help you get there.
Create videos in minutes with an easy-to-use platform and hundreds of professionally designed templates. Customize as much or as little as you like. Biteable has over 24 million stock images, video clips, and one-of-a-kind animations to choose from.
Brand your video in seconds with Biteable’s smart editor tool, and send it all off with a trackable link. You’ll be the hero of your sales team faster than you can say, “We beat our goals this month!”