Most companies have a form of internal siphon that silently drains away cash.

It lies deep in the gap between what your marketing messages say and what your prospective customers need to know in order to make a decision to buy from you.

You are losing cash into that gap because, chances are, your marketing messages do not satisfy your buyers' decision-making needs.

In an often-quoted study, the American Marketing Association estimates that the field sales force never uses up to 90% of the marketing materials developed in a corporate marketing department.

Another study found that sales people spend about 40% of their time creating their own sales materials.

I can say from personal experience in the field that both of those percentages are accurate, perhaps conservative.

Here's how it works in the field.

You receive an overnight package containing all new sales collateral or an email stuffed with new PDFs. You take one look at the content and realize it doesn't come close to addressing the key issues your prospects face, the questions they ask, and the way they make decisions.

So you toss it all and make up your own.

Then you develop an underground network with other reps, sharing the best of what's working with your sales pals.

To succeed, everyone is forced to burn precious selling time creating sales materials that work. That puts opportunities at risk because your sales team is heads down at their keyboards instead of face-to-face with prospects.

You can stop the hemorrhaging. To begin, apply a tourniquet.

Go immediately to your top sales people and find out what tools they are using to drive their success and which have been a waste of money.

You may encounter resistance. Many companies have a culture that "requires" salespeople to use the materials produced by the corporation. If your company has operated this way, provide diplomatic immunity to any rep with the courage to tell you what's what.

Now you can stop wasting money on materials that don't work and start focusing on sales messages that deliver results.

Next Steps

Upcoming posts will provide more specifics on how to refine your sales messages and marketing spend so you can increase productivity and efficiency.

For immediate help, go to our parent website at www.B2BGrow.com and download the PDF Defeat the Commodity Trap: Three Steps to Differentiation and Growth. It's listed in the Featured Articles section on the right-hand column.

This article has information you can use, starting today, to improve your sales messages, reduce your cost of sales, and close more business.