Do you ever wish you could take your team’s best sale to date and clone it over and over? While there’s no magic sales button, there are ways to make your team’s process more efficient and consistent.
Much like a playbook for your favorite football team, a sales playbook is a guide that details all of your top-performing sales plays. When created and implemented correctly, a sales playbook:
– Makes onboarding new sales team members easier
– Provides a consistent guideline for evaluating sales performance
– Creates an efficient sales process that can be duplicated
Are you sold yet? If you want to help your sales team be the best versions of themselves, check out the essential elements of a sales playbook below.
What Goes into a Sales Playbook?
The length and level of detail in a sales playbook will vary based on your business and buyers. However, a good starting point when creating your guide is to walk through the entire sales cycle. Let’s explore some of the areas your playbook needs to cover.
How your company and sales team operates
Since your sales playbook will be used in onboarding new hires, it needs to provide an overview of your team. Cover topics such as sales territory mapping, team structure, company mission and values, and how members of the team work together.
Lead scoring
Next, your sales playbook needs to clarify who your customers are, and how leads are qualified. Clarity at this stage in the sales process helps your team prioritize their efforts.
The contact and follow-up process
How quickly do you expect your sales team to follow up with a new lead? What’s the ideal method and timing of follow-up, and are there relevant scripts? These are all appropriate topics to expand on in your sales playbook. Consistency in these actions helps you deliver the same experience every time, as well as test new sales tactics in a controlled manner.
Buyer Pains
Before your sales team can help a lead, they need to know everything you know about the target customer. List out common pain points or objections, as well as how to negate those fears.
Winning value propositions
In addition to common buyer pains, use your sales playbook to collect the very best selling points. Your sales team needs to be well versed in the value proposition of your company, as well as how to frame their talking points to be as effective as possible.
Team tools
Whether your team likes your current CRM or not, everyone needs to be on the same page about how and when to use it. Set expectations around what information goes into your shared tools.
A great sales playbook doesn’t end where the sale happens. If there are handoff procedures for transitioning accounts from one team member or department to another, put those here. You’ll also want to include any best practices for maintaining relationships in the long run.
How to Introduce the Sales Playbook To Your Team
It would be a waste to put time and energy into creating a sales playbook, only to have it collect dust. Here are a few tips for making sure your team puts this resource to use:
– Consult your team during playbook creation by asking what they’d like to reference
– Make sure the playbook is easy to use. Use clear organization, include bullet points for quick reference, and incorporate it into your team’s digital workflow
– Go through the playbook as a team once it’s completed
– Check back in as a team after a few months. Assess what parts have been useful and how it’s fitting into their workflow
A sales playbook is a unique and evolving document that can grow alongside your sales team. By consolidating your best practices, you’ll be able to help your sales team grow and learn.
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Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at [email protected].
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