Think about sales “teams” you’ve been around in the past that have not adhered to an established sales playbook. Each salesperson uses their own methodologies and processes and every time they lose a deal to the competition or a no-decision, everyone points fingers at each other instead of identifying the root cause. Without this process, there is no sharing of information that will allow the rest of the team to avoid repeat mistakes.

Teams like this lack efficiency. Their results are unpredictable and difficult to track. Without knowing what is and what isn’t working and why, it is impossible to make changes that will lead to continual improvement and success. That’s where establishing a sales playbook can make a huge difference.

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An effective sales playbook includes everything a sales team needs to close deals from buyer personas, elevator pitches, competitive positioning, qualifying questions, and value propositions to sample emails and scripts. It should include detailed information about your company, products, solutions, and services as well as tools for your salespeople to effectively position, differentiate, and convey value to prospective customers. It should be dynamic and easily accessible across different platforms. Bear in mind; however, a comprehensive playbook is not a repository for all your company information.

To put into perspective just how important it is to establish an effective sales game playbook, here are a few facts and highlights about sales playbooks to keep in mind:

If your sales team isn’t performing at the standard you expect; creating an effective sales game playbook is undoubtedly one of the best tools you can invest in to boost performance. If you implemented a sales game plan and didn’t see the results you expected, it may be worth revisiting your content and strategy. Here are a few tips you can utilize for your sales team to establish a working sales game plan that works.

Start by forming a team that includes key players from all the relevant departments and allow it enough time to create a playbook that has everything your sales team needs to close deals. If you have a small company, this step may seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s merely gathering data that you should already have and putting it into a format that is accessible and easy to understand.

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Your playbook will need to contain specific motivators and pain points by position to help your salespersons have relevant, personalized conversations with prospects. Your message to a Chief Marketing Officer is entirely different from that to a Chief Financial Officer. Plus, to help keep your pipeline full, it should include tools that help salespeople with prospecting, outbound approach strategies, campaigns and tactics to move the sale forward.

Everyone should stay engaged with your company’s sales playbook. Whether it’s the Sales Department, Sales Enablement, Sales Engineering, Marketing, Product Management, or Customer Service, everyone should stay engaged with the sales playbook. Your sales teams contributions and updates to the sales playbook will make or break the success of your business. Some of the most critical areas to consider are:

An effective sales playbook increase performance and efficiency by allowing for faster onboarding more effective training, and skill development. They support team culture, promote repeatable processes and help find gaps in your sales, marketing, and product by highlighting why opportunities are not progressing in the pipeline.

 When executed properly, sales playbooks can have a tremendous impact on your revenues, sales efficiencies, and profits. Playbooks create healthy interactions between Sales, Sales Engineering, Services, Product Management, and Marketing. Using it as a starting point, these units will be better able to work together to systematically review assumptions, discuss where opportunities lie and distill best practices.

Contact us to learn more about creating an effective sales playbook for your sales team!