Grow Revenue Faster with Messaging Chapter 6 Alignment, Playbooks, and Onboarding Take a look at the following trends in sales learning: Trend #1: Bite-Size, “Snackable” Content Trend #2: Crowdsourcing Best Practices Trend #3: Closed-Loop Performance Correlations Applying these trends to how sales and marketing work together is crucial to hitting revenue goals faster, and ramping up sales teams faster, with better messaging alignment, onboarding, product launches, competitive battle cards, and certifications. Certifications When I was at Salesforce, we certified thousands of sales professionals every year. We were disciplined and maniacal about it. When Marc Benioff created a new corporate pitch, we were on a strict timeline to get everyone certified and on message, and we were better for it. As a startup, resources are thin but the discipline and focus to certify must be strong. It’s a winning formula that produces results and brings teams together. We all know too well how the certification process works for most companies. The typical practice is to publish a pitch, maybe with video, maybe with speaker notes, and then pray for the best. I’m here to tell you that approach is outdated, and in short, just won’t get the results you’re looking for. Here are some examples: Fly around the world and have reps present pitches in local offices. Result: Reps feel inspected. Experience isn’t real-life. Cost is high. Have reps present pitch to sales manager. Result: After a few slides, many sales managers will say, “You got it, let’s look at your forecast,” and the pitch review isn’t completed. Have reps upload their pitches to a central doc library. Result: No one watches the pitches. They just sit in a folder collecting Internet dust. The larger consequence of these unsuccessful scenarios is that our salespeople miss out on the opportunity, and benefits, of watching one another pitch. There is data to prove that reps will see a productivity lift after integrating peer-pitch best practices with their own pitch style.