It always presents a challenge to work with large sales teams, but when they have different missions, different messages, different audiences, it becomes even harder to help them create presentations and sales collateral that are consistently on brand, on message and … well … not awful.

Here are some key areas I focused on at Nasdaq as well as with other companies that I’ve supported large numbers of sales people:

Audience.

It’s critical to understand how the sales process works and who the audience is. It matters if people present sheets of paper or show presentations on laptops or projected or whatever. I find it very helpful to go to as many sales pitches as possible while building sales materials so you have a real feel for the context of the pitches. The sales people don’t know what to tell you about what they need and it means more to see it for yourself. Like mini-focus groups. With lunch (sometimes).

Message.

If they had one elevator ride (you know the drill) to convince the prospect, what would they want them to know? If there’s one thing the prospect should take away from the pitch, what would it be? Does it sync with your unique selling proposition? Do you have proof points to support that? The message absolutely must be consistent.

Look and Feel.

Whatever the medium, whatever software you use, it has to be on brand. The presentation/collateral should look like it comes from the same company as everything else. We’ve all seen companies who have slides that look like an excel spreadsheet, a website that looks like a chinese menu and handouts that look like a futuristic travel agency. Look and feel consistency is as important as message consistency. Without it you lose major credibility points with prospects.

Templates.

The easier you can make the process of putting together each presentation and/or sales kit on the fly for your sales people, the less customization you’ll have to do. I find you can get many sales teams to be fairly self-sufficient as long as you and or a designer can help with higher profile pitches. I like to put together a core deck of slides and a standard kit of sales materials and provide a library of as many standardized pages as you can that the sales people can pull from. Then continue to add to the library as your team adds to their arsenal. But always keep the core presentation as a complete presentation that anyone could just use as-is.

Media Training.

Sales people are good at raising the level of excitement and closing the deal, but they may or may not be great at presenting. I like to work individually and in groups with sales people to help them raise their games. You’d be surprised how quickly they can improve with some coaching about staying on message. It’s hard for them to know how they look in front of people and your feedback can be invaluable. Just throw some tough questions at them and help them learn not to squirm under pressure. Don’t forget, public speaking is the number one fear.