What is a Sales Playbook?

A small company can individually train its sales team members so that they follow negotiations according to a pre-established flow.

But as the company grows, it is necessary to go beyond traditional conversations to ensure that negotiations are being executed within the expected quality standard, thus ensuring the desired performance. This is when the need to create a Playbook arises.

But do you know what a Sales Playbook is?

The Sales Playbook is a guide that aims to direct all the actions that the sales team must follow. This document must contain all the information on how negotiations should be executed and how salespeople should proceed through the different stages of the funnel.

Understanding what a sales funnel is

Divided into three stages, top, middle and bottom, the sales funnel is a representation of the path that the customer must follow until purchasing your product or service.

The funnel is used to map and monitor the customer from the moment they become aware of the product (top of the funnel) until the deal is closed (bottom of the funnel), and thus determine each action to be executed, both marketing and sales, according to their stage within the sales funnel.

What are the objectives of the Sales Playbook?

The creation and content of the Sales Playbook will depend on the profile and product offered by the company. From there, it is possible to create a step-by-step description of the entire negotiation flow, sales tactics and arguments for known objections, and even the definition of the Persona (a fictional character, with the greatest number of details, created to represent the customer). Even though it is a personalized document, in most cases, the Sales Playbook aims to achieve the following objectives:

assist in researching potential clients;

validate customer patterns;

filter customers with the best purchasing potential;

assess whether the solution offered is a good option for the prospect ;

train salespeople to handle objections;

define a pre-sales process;

organize the negotiation stages and how they should be conducted;

teach how to create a better customer relationship.

Why create a Sales Playbook?

By creating a sales process through a document, it is possible to standardize and parameterize the tactics used by employees. This allows new formulas to be tested over time in an objective manner, continually improving the process and thus increasing the efficiency of your company's sales team.

See the main reasons to create a sales playbook:

easy dissemination among the team;

standardization of actions;

improved management with the possibility of parameterizing actions;

can be modified over time;

promotes seller learning;

assists in team management.

Are you ready to start your playbook?

To create a Sales Playbook you must evaluate the aspects and needs of your company, taking into account each stage of this process.

A good start would be to analyze the performance of each member of your sales team, and establish a pattern based on the actions of those with the best performance.

Finally, an important point to note before preparing your playbook is that it must be in line with the established sales policy, ensuring that the entire sales area is aligned with the company's objectives.