With marketing so busy generating leads and getting the sales process started, where is the plan to engage the sales people and motivate them to work on all of these new opportunities? Observe the typical sales launch and you’ll find an audience filled with bored reps who are reading their email or merely pretending to listen. The reason that most sales launches fail to inspire action and uptake is that marketing and sales people just don't speak the same language.

This seminar explores the use of buyer personas to align sales and marketing around a compelling premise—that both groups can succeed by focusing on the language of the buyer. We'll illustrate the use of buyer personas to capture and communicate relevant insights about the target buyers' priorities, problems and attitudes. Companies will see that they can anticipate the way each of the different types of target buyers will react to their product, service or solution, and that this is what marketing needs to be presented at the sales launch.

Look closely at your industry's most successful companies and you'll find a sales force that can confidently relate the company's solutions to the needs of an established set of buyers. An experienced rep knows how to sell current solutions to known prospect types because he's heard their story before. But introduce a product or service that involves a new sales process, or more critically, requires the rep to call on a different type of buyer, and that rep needs to know much more than product positioning and marketing tactics. It's easy to see why sales people will resist developing new product opportunities or market segments if he thinks he can make his numbers without all that risk.

Companies will learn how to leverage buyer personas to prepare for success at every step in the sales process. When sales and marketing can anticipate their buyers’ questions, concerns and objections, they can confidently develop training and tools that establish the perfect answer to their buyers’ needs.