Successful B2B Sales Assets Checklist

How often do your sales reps contact you for updated “compete” materials or product validation data? Running sales in any sized organization requires a well-equipped team capable of addressing prospect inquiries promptly. Sales assets are as crucial as training and tools, yet some companies focus on minimal assets due to perceived resource constraints in product management or marketing.

So, what are the essential B2B software sales assets? Here is my TOP 10 list for your review:

1. Product Sales deck. We all have one, right? Want to mention here several “must-have” components:

• Start with your company validation (brief history, customer quotes, analysts' reviews, numbers to illustrate product footprint)
• State the problem you are trying to solve with your solution: articulate the pain
• Explain what your product does. I am a big fan of the one-pager “marketecture” — a visual illustrating product technology components, feature set, and positioning. It's a so-called “anchor slide” where you expect to spend at least 30% of your pitch time
• Your product features story: usually it takes several slides to explain your feature set
• Sales process steps (or diagram): explain to your potential customers what are the sales process requirements and timeline (including follow-up steps after the first demo call)
• Keep it short (10–12 slides altogether), keep in mind that you expect to use your pitch as a conversation opener (guidance) and your main objective is to learn as much as you can about your prospect's needs and plans. So, you should target your prospect talking more than 50% of the allocated call/meeting time.
• There is always a management dispute if Sales Reps should be allowed to customize Sales materials and tailor their sales pitch to particular prospect needs. I believe that it's reasonable and recommend HighSpot — a great tool that can allow you to customize (pick and choose) the right slides and distribute sales materials with your prospects (track consumption and make it personal).

2. Fresh (up-to-date) ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) with well-articulated personas and pain points. Many sales professionals tend to lose their grip on ICP verification, particularly when they deal with good sales lead volume. ICP validation usually sits with BDR’s responsibilities and is quite critical for lead quality validation. I always recommend my Account Executives validate ICP “fit” with extra online research before a demo (sales) call.

3. Product battle cards with key competitors. I recommend here to keep them accessible (publish on your product website) and have 1 (or 2 max) pager ready to share with your prospects. Many vendors have their battle cards outdated which creates sales friction and I have witnessed many painful conversations where I had to learn about new competition features from my prospects. Keeping battle cards up to date is an ongoing engineering (or product management) task, so I recommend Battlecard automation tools like Klue or Crayon. These tools will save time and will always keep your battle cards up to date.

4. Case studies and/or customer referrals. That's a key part of the product validation for many prospects, particularly in the Enterprise space. I suggest having case study videos (apart from slides/brochures), it makes it more personal. If you have invested in a customer referral program, your sales team should have a short list of customers handy — the ones who are willing to take a call and put in a good word about your product.

5. Product demo videos. Ideally, your sales reps should be able to run their own product demonstrations. That helps to build trust with prospects and immediately elevates the discussion level. But I suggest having a short library of 2–5 min videos to demo your product feature set — a great asset for intro call follow-up messages.

6. Objections handling “cheat sheet”. I believe that it is a “must-have” sales instrument. Every skilled Sales Manager creates one independently, but I suggest establishing a common one (in your team wiki space) where the entire team can contribute and learn from each other.

7. Pricing information. Keep it as simple as possible and pivot your pricing around the process (feature set) you can track. Have a licensing guide ready in case you have a complicated model — which requires extra explanation.

8. Your company engineering/processes certification (if any). Nowadays, it's hard to imagine any sales conversation with a vendor who is not SOC2/ISO/GDPR/HIPPA certified.

9. Industry analyst's reviews. It's great to have your product sitting at the top right corner with Gartner, IDC, or Forrester “magic quadrant” reports. It takes resources (expensive) and time to get there. It's not a linear or predictable process and can take many years for any young software vendor. You can get elevated to the “top right corner” fast driving your customer reviews with G2 and Capterra.

10. Legal documentation. Have your NDA, EULA, SLA and sales agreements templates ready. I always prefer to have them published at your company website. There is nothing to hide here.

This comprehensive set of assets covers various aspects, from addressing specific client needs to showcasing industry credibility. While additional materials like brochures, Sales Playbooks, documentation, and support forums are valuable, the primary goal is to equip the sales team for the initial sales stages, with Sales Engineering taking over for technical discussions during later stages.

Happy selling and talk soon!