Fixing the Disconnect Between Marketing and Sales with Talya Heller

14 snips

May 15, 2025

Talya Heller, founder of Down to a T, is a B2B consultancy expert skilled in converting competitive positioning into effective sales tools. In this discussion, Talya dives into why typical sales decks and battle cards often fail and offers innovative replacements. She emphasizes the role of empathy in buyer enablement and outlines her unique framework for aligning marketing, sales, and product teams. Talya also shares insights on creating impactful assets that truly resonate with sales teams, urging marketers to consider the buyer's perspective.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

ANECDOTE

Talya's Career Evolution

Talya Heller shares her journey from industrial engineering to product marketing and finally solo consultancy focused on competitive positioning.
Her diverse experience helps her bridge gaps between marketing, product, and sales by understanding product and organizational dynamics.

INSIGHT

Understanding Buyer Enablement

Buyer enablement means empathetic marketing that helps buyers understand if a solution fits and how to advocate internally.
Many champions struggle to push purchases internally, so marketing should support this internal selling process.

ANECDOTE

Failed Software Purchases

Danielle and Talya both recount experiences pushing for software that later didn't meet expectations, causing frustration and deal non-renewal.
This highlights how sales promises don't always translate to product reality, impacting buyer trust and outcomes.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

#246 Sales Alignment | Danielle welcomes Talya Heller, founder of Down to a T, a B2B consultancy helping marketers turn competitive positioning into high-impact sales assets. With experience in engineering, product management, and product marketing, Talya knows how to bridge the gap between what marketing builds and what sales actually uses.

Together they unpack:

Why most sales decks and battle cards go unused and what to build instead
How to enable your champion to sell internally with confidence
Simple frameworks for mapping competitive positioning that teams will actually use

Talya also breaks down how she researches, builds, and delivers assets that align sales, marketing, and product, all rooted in buyer empathy.

Timestamps

(00:00) - – Intro & Talya’s background
(02:08) - – From engineering to B2B marketing
(08:53) - – What is buyer enablement?
(11:08) - – Why deals stall after vendor selection
(13:23) - – The problem with sales decks
(15:53) - – Why battle cards don’t work
(18:08) - – Talya’s competitive positioning map
(24:19) - – Grouping competitors by approach
(26:49) - – Market maps for sales
(28:49) - – Where to get the best insights
(31:19) - – New formats for enablement
(33:34) - – Why context matters
(35:19) - – Empathy for your sales team
(37:04) - – Closing thoughts on empathy
(38:09) - – Where to find Talya online

Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.com
Join the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Check out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/
Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership

***

Today's episode is brought to you by Knak.

Email (in my humble opinion) is the still the greatest marketing channel of all-time.

It’s the only way you can truly “own” your audience.

But when it comes to building the emails - if you’ve ever tried building an email in an enterprise marketing automation platform, you know how painful it can be. Templates are too rigid, editing code can break things and the whole process just takes forever.

That’s why we love Knak here at Exit Five. Knak a no-code email platform that makes it easy to create on-brand, high-performing emails - without the bottlenecks.

Frustrated by clunky email builders? You need Knak.
Tired of ‘hoping’ the email you sent looks good across all devices? Just test in Knak first.
Big team making it hard to collaborate and get approvals? Definitely Knak.

And the best part? Everything takes a fraction of the time.

See Knak in action at knak.com/exit-five. Or just let them know you heard about Knak on Exit Five.

***

Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.

They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.
Visit hatch.fm to learn more