How To Create A Winning Sales Playbook (incl. Examples)
The Strategies for Creating a Winning Sales Playbook
A sales playbook is an essential tool for any sales organization. It's a comprehensive guide that outlines a company's sales process, strategies, and messaging.
With a well-developed sales playbook, teams can quickly and effectively close deals, increase sales, and boost customer satisfaction. In this article, we'll provide strategies for creating an effective sales playbook that can help your sales team achieve success.
Don't expect your sales team to perform, when there is no sales playbook built and rolled out to the team. Especially for sales beginners, a well-defined sales playbook including the most important enablement materials, processes, video training & scripts is essential.
Ultimately, a sales playbook is there to enable your sales team and give them the right guidance starting from day one already.
Understanding the Basics of a Sales Playbook
Before you can create a winning sales playbook, it's important to understand the basics.
A sales playbook should include a clear description of your sales process, including the steps and tactics you use to generate new leads, qualify them, and close deals.
It should also include essential information such as customer personas and ideal customer profiles. This information should be used to tailor your messaging and ensure that you're targeting the right audience.
In addition to the customer-focused information, your sales playbook should also include a detailed description of your sales team's roles and responsibilities.
This will help ensure that everyone is on the same page and that each team member is aware of their individual tasks. It should also include a list of best practices and strategies that have been successful in the past.
By having this information readily available, your team can quickly and easily refer to it when needed.
Ideally, you have content in form of video training, scripts, and templates ready for your team. We strongly recommend you take time in building up your sales playbook.
If you don't take this seriously, you are going to become a problem once you onboard and train new sales team members.
Here is an example of a sales playbook 👇
Developing a Strategic Plan for Your Sales Playbook
Once you have a basic understanding of your sales process, it's time to develop a strategic plan for your sales playbook.
The plan for creating your sales playbook should include the following:
Objectives you want to achieve with your playbook
Tactics you'll use to reach your objectives
Types of content you want to include in your playbook
Organization and structure of your playbook
Make sure all these elements are clearly outlined in your plan.
When creating your plan, it's important to consider the resources you have available - internally within your team and externally with playbook templates and coaches or consultants.
Think about the budget, personnel, and technology you have access to, and how they can be used to support your plan.
Additionally, consider the timeline for implementing your plan and the metrics you'll use to measure success. By taking the time to plan out your strategy, you can ensure that your sales playbook is effective and successful.
Create also a group of team members responsible for developing the stratic plan as well as the playbook itself.
Part 1: Effective Messaging for Your Sales Playbook
Once you have a plan in place, it's time to craft effective messaging for your sales playbook.
Start by developing buyer personas and creating messaging that resonates with them. Consider what they need to know and tailor your messaging accordingly.
Your messages should be clear, concise, and engaging for your target group. If done correctly, your messaging should help convince prospects to jump on a meeting with you and become customers at a certain stage.
Consider also having different messaging for different phases of your sales process (attention, interest, desire, action).
When crafting your messaging, it's important to keep in mind the tone and style of your brand. Your messaging should be consistent with the overall look and feel of your brand.
Ideally, you also include someone from marketing or have already material developed for the overall messaging part. Additionally, make sure to use language that is easy to understand and avoid industry jargon.
Finally, be sure to test your messaging to ensure it resonates with your target audience. A good way of testing your messaging is by interviewing your customers about it or asking your customers for help.
So in short effective messaging includes:
Target Industries
Target Accounts
Target Personas and Buyer Profiles
Messaging for all of the above and for different channels (e.g. email, LinkedIn, calling, etc.)
Part 2: Goals and Objectives for Your Sales Playbook
Your goals and objectives should be clear and measurable. Think about what success looks like for your team and how you'll evaluate it.
It's important to set different objectives and goals depending on the role of your sales reps. Every role should have clear objectives and goals.
Ideally, you add activity targets and what an ideal day for a role looks like as well.
Consider what metrics you'll use to measure your progress and set targets for each objective.
This will help ensure that everyone on your team is working towards the same goals and staying on track.
It's also important to ensure that your goals and objectives are realistic and achievable.
Everything else will frustrate your team and you won't reach your goal either.
Consider the resources available to your team and the timeline for achieving the goals. Make sure that the goals are specific and actionable, and that everyone on the team understands their role in achieving them.
Finally, make sure to review and adjust your goals and objectives regularly to ensure that they remain relevant and achievable.
1) General Expectations and Job Description
These are typically how you find in the sales org overall and what the team values are.
In addition, add the commission plan as well as a potential performance improvement plan.
Example job description for an Sales Development Rep:
Develop new business leads and enhance existing relationships.
Utilize prospecting and research tools, coordinate with assigned reps to qualify opportunities; prepare for and book pitch meetings with target prospects.
Strategize with team members to innovate & improve the overall sales development process
Conduct sales development best practices with email, phone, and social drips using enablement technology to connect with new prospects.
Work closely and collaboratively with the sales team to develop and implement appropriate prospect communication plans
Work internally with other departments to ensure proper quality and quantity of demonstrations
2) Promotion Path
Every great sales playbook should always contain a promotion path.
Here's an example promotion path from a B2B SaaS organization:
3) SDR Team Structure
How does your company structure the SDR function?
This could be by pod, territory, vertical, etc. Example:
Our SDR Team is split by territory and it should be defined who is working in which territory or on which accounts.
Northeast
Mid-Atlantic
Southeast
Midwest
Southwest
West Coast
4) Activity Expectations
We are not a big fan of activity expectations as they can lead sometimes to confusion. But also clear is, SDRs, BDRs, and Junior Sellers need to do a certain # of activities to learn as fast as possible and be in touch with as many people as possible.
You can use the following structure:
Daily | Weekly | Monthly |
# calls # emails # Leads contacted | # meetings scheduled # meetings completed | # calls # emails # meetings # sales accepted opps. 24h inbound lead SLAs etc |
5) Standard Day of Success
What does a successful day at your org look like?
Examples
Two active cadences in sales tool (outreach/salesloft)
40 emails
40 LinkedIn
40 phone calls
1 demo scheduled
0 overdue tasks
Utilizing Technology to Streamline Your Sales Playbook
Technology can be a powerful tool when it comes to creating a successful sales playbook.
Utilizing software such as CRM systems can help streamline your sales process and make it easier to manage customer data. Investing in tools such as automation tools can also help automate tedious tasks and free up time for more important activities.
In addition to CRM systems and automation tools, there are other technologies that can be used to improve the efficiency of your sales process.
For example, using analytics tools can help you gain insights into customer behavior and preferences, allowing you to tailor your sales approach accordingly. Additionally, leveraging artificial intelligence can help you identify potential leads and automate follow-up activities.
Furthermore very important is an easy-to-access place for your sales playbook where you also can monitor who of your team completed steps of the sales playbook.
Training Your Team on the Use of Your Sales Playbook
Once you have created your sales playbook, it's important to train your team on its use and also make sure everyone completes the sales playbook training.
Make sure everyone understands the objectives, strategies, and processes outlined in the playbook. Provide examples of successful sales pitches and discuss best practices for communicating with prospects.
Quizzes, feedback via videos, and regular training sessions can help ensure that everyone is following the same playbook.
In addition to providing training on the use of the sales playbook, it is also important to provide ongoing support and feedback.
Encourage team members to ask questions and provide feedback on their experiences.
This will help to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that the playbook is being used effectively.
Additionally, it is important to provide incentives for team members who demonstrate success in using the playbook.
Provide learning material for your technology stack and for all relevant playbook contents:
Video Training for your CRM
Marketing & Sales Service Level Agreements (Quality and quantity of leads, response times)
Rules of engagement: Activities and ownerships
Fields to set in the CRM
Lead assignment rules
Lead ownership and lead management
Video Training for your Outreach software
Qualification criteria
Example sequences and templates
Analyzing the Performance of Your Sales Playbook
Once your sales playbook is up and running, it's important to regularly analyze its performance.
Look at the metrics you established in your strategic plan and measure how well they are being met. Analyze customer feedback and look for areas where you can improve. Regularly assessing your performance can help ensure that your sales playbook is staying effective.
It's also important to review the performance of individual sales reps. Look at their individual metrics and customer feedback to identify areas where they can improve.
You can also use this data to recognize reps who are performing well and reward them for their efforts.
By regularly assessing the performance of your sales reps, you can ensure that your sales playbook is being implemented effectively.
Refining Your Sales Playbook For Maximum Results
As your customer base grows, you may need to refine your sales playbook further. Consider adding new strategies or expanding on existing ones.
Think about how to best target different customer segments and develop new messaging tailored to them. By constantly refining your playbook, you'll be able to maximize its results.
Make sure you use a system that makes it easy to update your sales playbooks and also notifies your team about updates so you don't have to explain everything over and over again.
We recommend using software for building your sales playbook and software to monitor the learning and adoption of your sales playbook.
Tips for Making Sure Your Sales Playbook Stays Relevant
Your sales playbook should be constantly updated with new information and strategies. Keep an eye on changes in the market and adjust your approach accordingly.
Take customer feedback seriously and use it to improve your messaging. Finally, make sure everyone on the team is regularly trained on the use of the playbook so they stay up-to-date with any changes.
Example Sales Playbook for SDRs, BDRs, and AEs
Here's an example of a sales playbook for Sales & Business Development Representatives as well as Account Executives.
Sign up at https://app.kickscale.com/ to get full access to them.
Here are some other Playbook relevant resources that might be helpful for you: 👇
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