How to create a sales playbook

I help business owners build their dream company.

To build your dream company, you must have these 4 elements. 

• Strategy 
• Systems and Processes
• Sales and marketing
• Strong Team

In this blog post, I am going to talk about Sales 

I believe to bring consistent business you must have 2 things: 

1.Marketing system to generate leads on a consistent basis. 

Note: You can refer to my other blog post where I share how you can build your personal brand and marketing system to generate leads consistently. (blog post coming soon)

2. Sales system to close the leads and you must document your sales system so anyone in your team can replicate it. 

This document is called the sales playbook. 

Have you ever heard about this document called a sales playbook? 

In this blog post, I’m going to share with you:  

• What exactly is the sales playbook?
• Why you must have a sales playbook in your organization
• What you must include in the sales playbook.

So what exactly is a sales playbook?

A sales playbook is a written document outlining your company’s

• Sales Process
• Sales Scripts
• Sample Emails
• Responses to different situations
• Guidelines for different scenarios

In short, it includes everything relating to selling your company’s products/ services

If you want to watch a video of me explaining the same, here is the video:

Why the sales playbook is important and why you must have a sales playbook?

1. A sales playbook brings consistency, 
2. With a sales playbook, you can identify gaps in your sales process. In a sales playbook, you put down everything on paper.  Once you put down everything on paper, anybody can see it and review it. You will receive feedback on where you can improve your sales process and system. Without a written process, it’s difficult to identify specific challenges and improve them. 
3. I think the biggest benefit of a sales playbook for me is it creates healthy interaction between the sales team and it helps to build culture.
4. It’s a great training tool for sales executives and it reduces your time after hiring new sales executives.

How will it reduce your involvement in the sales process?

Once you hire a new sales executive, on day 1 you need to hand them the sales playbook. It will give him/her an overview of everything about the company and what is expected of him. 

Initially while building the team, you need to sit with him and explain all the processes, all the systems and about your products.

Having a sales playbook reduces training time drastically. 

Once you have built a decent team, you can ask existing sales managers to train new hires. 

Because you have documented the entire process, you can be assured that they will be trained the way you want them to be trained. 

Now let’s understand, What must include in a sales playbook:

There is no fixed format or template for the sales playbook. Every company will have its own version. No matter what format you use, I believe your sales playbook must have these 13 elements:  

1. About Company + Products/ Services we offer

Start the document mentioning what your company does, products/services you offer, Vision, mission etc.

2. KRAs/ KPIs of Sales Managers and Sales Executives: I am very surprised when I go to a company and notice that sales managers are actually not given targets or sales managers don’t know what to do or on what basis their performance is judged.

It’s important that your team is aware of what is expected of them. For this, you must draft their Key Responsibility areas (KRAs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
If you haven’t already done it, write KRAs and KPIs for both sales managers and sales executives.

3.Who are your Customers?
It’s important for everyone in the team to be clear about whom you serve. For this, you need to list down who your ideal customers are. Write down the demographics and psychographics of your prospective customers.

4.Sales Process of the company
The sales process, in short, is a series of steps a sales team needs to do to take from a customer or a prospect from an awareness stage to a closing stage where he collects the money.
So some of the steps could include – prospecting, setting up appointments, giving presentations, handling objections and closing.
So based on your experience, write down what is the sales process of your company?

5. One Liner
One liner is like an elevator pitch.  For example, let’s say if somebody comes and asks your sales manager, like, what does your company do?
What is that one statement he needs to tell to that person who has asked?
And it needs to be uniform.
Make sure that you train your sales team to see the exact same thing or similar statement.
That is the one-liner.

6. Cold calling scripts
And the next element of a great sales playbook is cold calling scripts. If your sales team does the cold calling, it’s very important to tell them what exactly they need to say over the phone.
It’s very important to write down what they should say or ask while they are doing cold calling.
You must document, how should they open the call, what questions should they ask, how should they close, answers to FAQs Etc.
Sit with your sales team and write down the cold calling script

7. Sales Pitch during Meetings / Presentations
And this is one of the most important elements of the sales playbook.
Imagine that you or your sales guy gets an appointment with your ideal customer.
What exactly should you or your team need to say during the meeting and how should you say it?
It’s important to have the sales pitch and rehearse it multiple times.
You can have multiple sales pitches depending on whom you are speaking to or which products/services you are pitching to the client.
So, the next action for you is Write down the sales pitch for your company.

8. Success Stories / Case studies
Write down the case studies/ success stories of your existing customers. Write down what challenges your customers were facing, what solution did you offer and how you solved it.
When you share real case studies with your prospects, their resistance will reduce and it will build authority in your prospects mind about you and your product.
It becomes easier to convince them and sell
So, document case studies and include them during your next presentation.

9. Objections + Responses
In every sales presentation, your prospects will give some or other objection.  Objections include “price is too high”, “ I am happy with my existing vendor”, “I don’t need it right now”, or “I don’t make these decisions / I have to ask my partner”
I’m sure you would have noticed by now that all your prospects give similar objections.
With your experience, You know your prospects will give you an objection. When they share an objection, how should you respond?
The responses to these objections are the next element of the playbook.
I recommend you sit with your team and make a list of all objections you receive and how you should respond with.
Document both objections and responses.

10. Trackers / Formats
As a business owner, you must track and measure all the important numbers in your company.
It’s even more important to track what’s going on in the sales department of your company.
It’s very important to have solid trackers and formats the sales guys need to fill on a daily basis and on a weekly basis.
With trackers, you track the activities of your sales team and their performance. Some of the numbers you could track include, Number of calls made, number of meetings done, leads generated, revenue generated Etc. 

You can use CRM software to track this or you can create simple formats in google sheets.
Freedom business tool kit
Based on my consulting experience, I have created checklists, trackers for my clients. You can get all the trackers I have made. I call it the Freedom business tool kit.
Click here to know more about Freedom Business Toolkit

11. Target Achievement plan / Growth plan
As a business owner, you must have a solid target achievement plan and growth plan for the sales team in your company.
It’s very important to have targets for your sales team. What are the incentives that they will get or if they achieve the targets?

What is their career roadmap?  

So sit with your team and draft the target achievement plan/growth plan So everybody is on the same page and clear with what is expected of them.

12. Weekly Review and Discussion Meetings
I believe it’s best practice to meet your sales manager and sales executives on a weekly basis or on a daily basis if necessary. I recommend you to create a checklist where you list down what exactly you are going to discuss during these meetings?
It’s not recommended to have random discussions during these meetings. They must be focused and to the point.

13. Training Methodology
The last important element of a great sales playbook is you must include how you are going to upskill yourself and your sales team.
There are multiple ways you can train and upskill your sales team. Some of the ways include field trips, role plays. 

whatever way you are going with include them in your playbook. 

These are the 13 elements you must include in your sales playbook. Now, let me answer some questions you might have

What is the ideal size/format of the sales playbook?
It could be in any format. You can use a simple word file to document it or you can use PowerPoint.
You can create flowcharts or videos to explain a few points and include the links in the documents. 

Regarding the size, it could be five pages, 250 pages or more. Size of the playbook is not relevant. What’s important is, have you included everything that is necessary? 

It looks like a lot of work. How can I do it faster / effectively?
Once you create a sales playbook, it brings a lot of clarity for everybody in your company and it makes your life as a business owner easy.

So, all the effort is completely worth it. 

Now, here are the two tips you can use to prepare the playbook: 

1. 1. You don’t have to prepare it as a business owner. Get your team involved, ask your sales team, come together and let them make a sales playbook. Once they make it you can review it and share your points with them.
      
   2. Don’t get overwhelmed.

You don’t have to prepare it in one day. It’s a process and it will take time.

Even after preparing a great sales playbook, you will need to update it on a regular basis.

So my suggestion for you is to document one element at a time. Give yourself one week to document/test each element. In a few weeks, you will have prepared it completely. 

Should I build a sales playbook even if I don’t have a team?
Yes, You must.
The benefits of creating a sales playbook are numerous. It will make your life much easier in the long run. 

I have made the sales playbook, Now what?
Start following the process you have documented. Revisit it on a consistent basis and see if you can improve the process in any way. 

Preparing the sales playbook is not a one-time activity and you must constantly improve it. 

I have more questions…
And if you have any questions about how to prepare sales playbook, you can send me an email to srinivas@srinivasvakati.com

What next?
Start preparing the sales playbook. Before that, if you found the blog post valuable can you please share it with one colleague who could benefit from this or share it on your social media. 

Till next time…
Go and build your company
Srinivas Vakati