From newest sales gurus to seasoned oldest Indians, whole world is praising value of good sales playbook to an organization. And the respect is truly due – as it tackles on of biggest management problems. The knowledge transfer. Knowledge transfer is a problem for every organization bigger than a shop you run with your relative… This issue is especially hurting business area’s with relatively flexible processes and high employee turnover. Flexible processes? High employee turnover? Does anybody mentioned sales?

From science perspective – sales playbook refers to any means of codifying and documenting sales best practices. A good sales playbook should tell reps specifically what to know, say, show, and do for any given scenario across sales cycles, industry factors, specific buyers’ journeys, and unique pain-points of consumers. Typical elements of well-designed sales plays are covering Your:

• Company’s position on the market and those of your competitors (can be e.g. Porter 5 Power’s analysis)
  – where are we in the market and why
  
• Product & Competition Overview
  – what we lead with and why
  – who we compete with
  – outlook on the product market
  
• Customer persona, their typical interests and pains
  – identifying the decision committee and their interests
  – who is the buyer and at what stage of purchase process
  – responding to needs of particular buyers in the cycle
  
• Sales proces with „plays”:
  – How to qualify leads?
  – How to Prospect?
  – How to Forecast?
  – How to Close?
  
• Messaging:
  – What questions to ask and at what stage?
  – How to conduct a good discovery?
  – How to well address product/company?
  – Elevator pitch
  – Objection handling
  
• Operations & Procedures:
  – Creating the offer
  – Cooperation with Marketing
  – Engaging the Legal
  
• Tools & Materials:
  – reports, battle cards, data sheets…
  – CRM, content management system, E-mail cadence calendar, LinkedIn SalesNav etc…

…and a key thing is that above is based off real experience of company’s sellers NOT a purchased, general sales methodology „proven to work in XYZ industry”.

So, if you are…
Looking to help your Customer in organizing evaluation process around your solution?

Procurement asked you about adding to offer industry recognitions of your product?

Financial Customer asking for set of best practices for their industry?

Onboarding a new Sales and need a one-stop-shop document?

Wanting to build yourself a cadence to be more effective with Prospecting?

Preparing Yourself or that webinar, presentation, meeting…

…these are only few things to where well crafted Sales Playbook proves invaluable. Think of days of time saved on training, having the base for future knowledge transfer processes and enjoying well developed pipeline thanks to sales reps getting to speed quicker and surer. You’re welcome!