Well worded post by Jeff Ernst @jeffernst, from June 11, 2009:
Read and discuss the full blog post at thesalesenabler.com
“[…] what salespeople really want to know: What other salespeople are using and doing to win deals
No matter how much time marketers and product managers spend with salespeople and customers, they just don’t see enough of what happens at the moments of truth—the points in time at which the buyers are receiving and responding to the messages the sales team delivers. Look how fast the competitive landscape, the needs of the marketplace, and the product portfolios change.
A top-down approach will never keep up. So salespeople spend way too much time creating their own materials and rarely reach out to marketing unless they want that new product data sheet or more company-branded tchotchkes they can give to customers. So it shouldn’t be surprising that they ignore 90% of the “stuff” that the folks in corporate give them.
OLD RULE: The folks in corporate know best what the sales people need in the field.
NEW RULE: The most effective selling content, messages, and strategies are discovered from experience with buyers. […] this is the hardest mindset shift for marketers to make […] If you are a marketer, don’t feel bad, it’s not your fault. We’ve been classically trained to work this way. […]”
B2B Sales Enablement and Sales Tech SaaS 
Great post,
Unfortunately too many companies emasculate their salespeople when times get tough verse enable them.
I talk about this in my recent post: Are you Enabling your Sales Force or Emasculating them? http://nosmokeandmirrors.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/are-you-enabling-your-sales-force-or-emasculating-them/
Market leaders create new tools to keep the conversation flowing to close.
Market losers say “just make it happen”.
Mark Allen Roberts
LikeLike