Sellers 111% More Likely to Use Content Recommended by a High-Performing Peer According to New Allego Data

Sales enablement platform provider analyzed B2B sellers’ willingness to use content when shared by sales leader, product manager, and high performer and best approach to get buy-in

Allego, the leading sales enablement platform provider, announced new research on sales content in partnership with B2B DecisionLabs, a B2B research and advisory firm. Getting Sellers Engaged provides the results of a two-part behavioral research study that reveals the most effective approach to get sellers to use a piece of product-focused content.

According to Forrester, up to 70% of sales content provided by marketing is never used. Low use of marketing-created sales content is a perennial struggle for many companies that wastes manager time, results in rogue seller-created content, and leads to inconsistent product information and messaging in the market. Sales content can have a significant, positive impact on productivity, win rates, and deal sizes. A study by LinkedIn found that sales reps who use content in their sales process outperform their peers who do not use content by over 50%.

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The Getting Sellers Engaged report reveals how the messenger affects sellers’ likelihood of using sales content and the factors that increase sellers’ willingness. The real-world field trial, led by Dr. Leff Bonney, behavioral scientist and Research Director at B2B DecisionLabs, observed behavior of over 300 novice and experienced sellers working at two enterprise sales organizations.

Sellers split into nine groups and watched a recorded video of a sales manager, a product marketer, or a high-performing seller introducing a new piece of marketing collateral. Each group watched one of three different presenters share the content using one of three different story methods. Every presenter followed the same scripts and used the same piece of content.

The report reveals that sellers were more likely to use collateral when they learned about it from a high-performing peer vs. a sales leader or marketer.

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The data revealed:

• Using a high-performing seller to present new collateral increased the likelihood of use by 61% over a similar presentation made by the product specialist.
• Presenting new content with a case study or a demonstration increased likelihood of use by roughly 30% over basic information alone.
• When a high-performing seller presented new collateral with a demonstration, the  likelihood of use increased by 111% over the least effective combination, which was a product specialist presenting only basic information.
• Asking reps to create a plan for how they would use new collateral in their sales motions drove a 98% increase in likelihood of use over the control, which was not asking the reps to do any learning activity.

“It’s a common problem: The marketing team creates content for sales, but sellers don’t use it. Companies in this uncertain economy cannot afford to waste time, money, and effort this way,” said Mark Magnacca, president and co-founder of Allego. “The research shows that a comprehensive sales content management platform that is able to generate and manage relevant field-generated and top-performer content, support peer-to-peer knowledge sharing, and offer content in context is a powerful option for B2B sales organizations.”

“The data is clear. And while the results might seem obvious, I’m not sure this approach has been common practice,” said Tim Riesterer, Chief Visionary at B2B DecisionLabs. “But now that you know there’s a significantly better way to increase content usage, it would be malpractice not to do it.”