How to help your reps personalize their sales materials in regulated industries.

Let’s face it; there are only so many hours in the day. Your budget, knowledge, or skill set can expand, but you still only get roughly 40 hours a week to do it all.

Surely you’d rather be setting marketing goals or speaking to buyers than wasting time on busywork.

Administrative tasks are the number one time-waster for sales reps. Twenty-five percent of sales teams say they are misaligned with their marketing team. Misalignment leaves reps wasting time rooting around for content.

Adding to these admin woes are compliance considerations. If you're in a highly regulated industry and your sales processes lack structure, you're at risk of making multi-million dollar marketing mistakes. Conversely, your sales support system might be too restrictive. In this case, your sales reps can’t customize their sales content for a particular pitch and run into issues getting on-demand content from marketing. What’s the solution?

You need a system that meets all your needs. It needs to put sales reps in control, avoid penalties, and maintain brand consistency.

Automation, real-time data insights, and content optimization can provide your solution. Using the latest technology, you can produce winning sales materials that are efficient and compliant.

Common issues for sales reps in regulated industries

Some of the most highly regulated industries include:

• Manufacturing
• Franchises
• Non-profits
• Healthcare
• Education
• Finance

Many leaders in these industries would argue that heavy regulation is bad for business. Compliance requirements can decrease investment, employment, and entrepreneurship. Similarly, sales managers might argue that the compliance burden holds back sales reps. Sales reps are just trying to sell more, so why punish them with difficult-to-follow regulations?

“There were 33 healthcare data breaches … [and] 490,937 healthcare records exposed [in January 2019].” — HIPAA Journal.

Regulation is essential; it protects the consumer. Businesses don’t need to combat regulation. Instead, they need to find the systems that work within community expectations. For example, a platform can use automation to tie content creation to compliance. A central portal for knowledge can prevent wasting time on a flurry of emails to get approval.

Technology is accelerating, and the marketplace is moving fast to keep up. Traditional ways of selling are disappearing faster than ever. What’s precise and compelling as sales material today could be unsuitable tomorrow.

Sellers need to meet customers where they are. Reps need material that adapts to customer needs using real-time intelligence.

Impersonal and rogue: What could go wrong?

This misalignment of sales, marketing, and technologies can seem trivial to management, but it doesn't to your sales reps that are only able to spend a third of their time selling. The other two-thirds are consumed by administrative tasks, meetings, and an inefficient sales cycle. With their time eaten up by day-to-day tasks, your reps don't have time to even think about compliance.

Misalignment of sales, marketing, and technology can also lead to:

1. Rogue sellers — reps using their own content because they can’t find what they need
2. Team divisions — teams blaming others when inefficiencies come to bear
3. Resource imbalances — funds going to the wrong place or having staff in inappropriate roles
4. Low morale — inefficiencies causing frustration and discord and, eventually, the loss of your best people
5. Poor revenue results — signs of failure showing up in missed quotas

Alignment is challenging, especially within large and distributed sales forces. Even small inefficiencies due to misalignment can cause severe damage.

What’s the solution?

When working within strict legal boundaries on content, you need alignment to create close cooperation. Poor communication and flawed processes will create costly mistakes. How do you create alignment for your organization?

First, determine your perfect customer. Without an idea of who your customer is, how do you grow your target audience? Look at who are currently your high-paying and long-term customers. Try and think about every aspect of their lives, including their work, education, likes, and dislikes.

Next, take control of marketing assets. How do they directly address the above? Conduct an audit to get an idea of what you have. Identify where you’ve been making mistakes. Then, chart an optimal future course.

Then, create a base of brand must-haves in design, text, images, and colors. Separate the items that might require a look over from legal, such as product statements or testimonials.

Finally, single out areas for further customizing the message. Ways to personalize include using customer details like their name, their account history, preferred products, or geographic details.

To streamline this process, invest in technology.  You can find technology to audit content, automate compliance, or personalize content. The challenge doesn’t lie in selecting and buying an ecosystem of platforms or an all-in-one tool. The real challenge is adopting and fine-tuning the solution that integrates with sales reps so that they work smarter, not harder.

Smart tools can both personalize and stay tight on compliance.

If time is an arrow, then technology is a bow.

The latest tech tools allow you to get more out of your workday. Apps can collect feedback and insights which can inform the creation of new sales materials. You can gain data not only on customers but from the original customers — sales reps. They are, after all, the people who judge all sales content first.

Through technology, you can personalize and improve the success of your sales content. This is a solution that makes sales reps happier. A technology solution frees up their time for selling, improves their quotas, and boosts their morale.

Triptych has extensive expertise in assisting sales organizations in becoming streamlined. By cutting away at inefficient processes, we free up sellers and marketers to do what they do best. Contact one of our experts today to find out more.