Standing Out in CPG Sales: Strategies to Overcome 3 Critical Challenges

Christian Pieper

November 12, 2024

The consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry has a long tradition of sales innovation. Recent market pivots and technological investments are again testing CPG companies.

As a result, smart CPG sales organizations are modernizing their approach to ensure their sellers are prepared for every interaction and gain an edge on less adaptive competition.

Evolution of CPG buyers

Global regulatory complexity

Competition for attention

Let’s examine these three challenges these teams face today and how smart, tailored strategies for sales enablement for CPG can earn them that edge.

Challenge #1: The evolving CPG buyer

Due to new generations making buyer decisions, advances in e-commerce, and behavioral shifts triggered by the Covid response, buyers aren’t making purchasing decisions like they did for the last several decades.

CPG buyers are spending less time with reps, doing more of their research, and entering field interactions with more sophisticated questions and higher expectations.

This has ratcheted the pressure on each sales interaction, making it essential that CPG sales organizations adopt enablement strategies that help their reps get the most out of every minute they have with their buyers.

The old mix of basic initial onboarding, one-size-fits-all training, and periodic informal coaching just isn’t enough to get it done.

Instead, smart CPG sales orgs are shifting toward a just-in-time approach to training that allows reps to rise to the unique occasion of every buyer interaction. With easily queried content libraries and AI sales assistants, reps can find the up-to-date, accurate information they need, right when they need it to answer buyer questions, overcome objections, and more.

Challenge #2: Global regulatory complexity

CPG companies seek expansion into global markets more nimbly than ever in pursuit of every available market. While expanding their total available market, this expansion also carries weight on the cost side of the ledger.

One barrier to expansion that impacts CPG sales is the multiplicity of regulatory environments into which consumer goods are sold. One might argue that the regulatory impact occurs primarily upstream from sales, as CPG sales reps largely know which products they can sell into which territories.

But that neglects the prioritization of compliance that flows from the buyers’ side of the equation.

Buyers want confirmation of product compliance and lean on their account teams to provide that, meaning individual reps frequently need to be fluent in at least one regulatory environment (although often more than one). Reps also must maintain compliance with the regulations concerning the promotion and sales of the products they represent.

Sales enablement for CPG companies can help address this challenge by providing a repeatable, documented process for communicating new regulatory requirements while assessing and certifying their understanding. Critically, advancements in AI are allowing enablement teams to generate and launch updated programs faster than ever before.

Challenge #3: Competition for attention

With an endless stream of new products (both from your company and others) fighting over dwindling shelf space, it can feel like a CPG sales rep’s relationship with a buyer is always at threat.

If they can’t create and maintain a signal that rises above the noise, their critical relationships are at risk of attrition. But when everyone tries to be heard by the same people, how can you make your voice stand out?

Sales enablement platforms help solve this by providing tools that make it easier for CPG reps to share engaging, custom content that speaks to their buyers’ specific questions and needs. Brands are gaining influence with their buyers via easy-to-curate, bespoke Digital Sales Rooms, where they share important updates, answer questions and align around the buyer journey.

These rooms also generate valuable buyer signals that sales and marketing can leverage to tailor their message more effectively to those buyers while informing their general understanding of the voice of the market.

What’s next for sales enablement at CPG companies?

So yes, CPG sales organizations are facing new obstacles, but partnering with the right Sales Enablement technology can help your CPG reps rise to the challenge. It’s time to modernize and future-proof your approach to sales enablement for CPG.