How many times have you asked this? How many times have you heard it? In the workplace, it’s often uttered when a suggestion or request isn’t acted upon as you expected. This “signal amplification bias,” as psychologists call it, explains why miscommunication is so common. We often overestimate how much we’ve communicated.
Remote work only makes this worse. Email, text, Slack, and Zoom increase the potential for misunderstanding. And if you think you’re safe because your team shares a mental shorthand, think again. Researchers found that miscommunication happens even more frequently among people in close relationships. (Yes, my spouse just nodded in agreement.)
With AI and technology automating more content, miscommunication – particularly between marketing teams and the rest of the business – is growing.
The failure to communicate
A recent client of mine, a B2B tech company, struggled with content chaos. The sales team ignored most of what marketing created, opting to use ChatGPT to whip up their own emails and social media posts. But they still requested new content from marketing, causing backlogs and conflicts. Should marketing stick to its thought leadership plan or cater to these new requests?
This problem is common in sales enablement and B2B marketing circles. Gartner found the top reason for sales-marketing misalignment is that each team has its own view of what drives customer action. CMI research echoes this, listing the top challenges as lack of resources, aligning content with the buyer’s journey, and aligning efforts between sales and marketing.
Two sides of the same problem
Both teams agreed on using up-to-date content but saw the problem differently. Sales struggled to find the right content and understand how to use it. For marketing, creating content tailored to sales’ requests meant shifting focus from the audience, diluting its thought leadership and differentiation.
The issue wasn’t content quality or usage; it was communication.
Sales enablement saves the day
As I often say, “90% of a content strategy has nothing to do with content; it’s all about communication.” My client’s solution lay in better communication and sales enablement. The marketing team began creating not just content but also clear instructions for sales on how to present and use it. Training was provided to help sales become informed storytellers.
The teams then developed a process to identify prospects’ pain points, select the right content, and measure its effectiveness. Sales became more than just a distribution channel; it became a key part of a personalized, content-driven experience for customers.
Did you make yourself clear?
It’s easy to assume everyone understands your strategy. But in today’s fast-paced, remote-working world, oversights are common. Recently, I worked with a Fortune 100 company where a critical website update required an absurdly convoluted process. When I asked the person in charge how long it had been that way, he shrugged and said, “I assume everybody knows.”
No one did.
When you hear yourself saying, “Isn’t it obvious?”—stop. Chances are, what you think goes without saying, needs to be said.
Obviously.
It’s your story. Tell it well.
