Boost SDR Success with a Winning Sales Playbook

Are you tired of seeing missed sales targets and non-progressive performance from your sales team? 

Sometimes, all it takes to close a deal is a person's charisma, inventiveness, and personality. However, possessing solid sales fundamentals is what enables someone to perform well.

Enter sales playbooks.

According to Salesforce and The TAS Group, companies that follow an organized sales process are 33% more likely to perform better than those that do not.

Guides empower salespeople with everything they need to know to bring your sales strategy to life simply and repeatedly.

This article will walk you through the steps to develop a powerful sales playbook to transform your team's performance and drive substantial revenue growth.

Let's get started!

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What Is A Sales Playbook?

A sales playbook outlines your company's steps, strategies, and tactics to make sales. It usually contains information on the target market, customer personas, messaging, and sales process.

Organizations usually create sales playbooks based on the practical information they have already gathered.

A playbook is essential for onboarding new hires or providing more support to your current salespeople.

What Is A Sales Play?

Plays are plans that outline the steps to achieve a specific goal.

Sales plays are like chapters in a playbook, providing you with proven steps or guidelines for a particular topic. 

For example, you might have several plays in your sales playbook, such as:

• A guide to asking important questions to understand your customers better
• A checklist to help you identify good leads
• An infographic that explains who your target customers are 

These plays are helpful for B2B sales teams because they provide a clear roadmap for achieving specific goals.

So now, how do you write a sales playbook?
Let’s look at the steps below.

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How to Write a Sales Playbook

While every sales playbook is specific to each business, general steps can be followed to create a playbook for any sales team.

Evaluate Your Sales Procedure

Your sales playbook is an important part of your sales process, and you must ensure it fits perfectly with your team's selling style. 

It is essential to analyze your sales process regularly. 

By doing so, you can ensure that your sales process is up-to-date and aligned with your current goals, how your sales reps interact with customers, your latest products and features, and your understanding of your buyer personas. 

This is why the first step in creating a sales playbook is to examine your current sales process closely.

Define The Objectives Of Your Sales Playbook

The next step in creating your sales playbook is outlining your goals. 

Consider what you want the playbook to accomplish and what specific aspects of the sales process and buyer's journey it should cover. 

The playbook should include sample questions and frameworks to assist your sales team in lead qualification and address specific challenges they may encounter.

Ensure your goals are highly specific to provide your sales representatives with a focused and relevant playbook.

If your main objective is to improve the quality of product demos, for example, your playbook should guide presentation strategies, value propositions, and messaging.

Identify The Participants

Before creating your sales playbook, you must determine who you want to involve.

Do not leave anyone with valuable insights or perspectives out.

Invite sales reps, leaders like VPs, directors, and managers, marketing team members who work on content, product, and sales enablement materials, and subject matter experts.

Additionally, you should identify a team member who will be directly responsible for leading the creation of the sales playbook. 

This person will be the go-to contact for any questions or concerns, so be sure everyone knows who this person is

Synchronize Your Sales Team With Your Marketing Team

Marketing and sales teams must work together when creating a sales playbook.

Sales and marketing teams must collaborate closely, aligning efforts to create impactful content, sales enablement resources, and educational materials for sales representatives to optimize sales effectiveness.

Keeping an open line of communication between the two teams allows the sales team to express themselves to the marketing team about what content and materials they need to improve the selling process.

The marketing team can also inform sales of new campaigns and content related to new products or feature updates that may be useful for sales reps. 

This collaboration is key to ensuring that the sales playbook meets the needs of both teams and is effective in helping reps close more deals.

Gather Your Customer Profile Data

Your sales reps must deeply understand your business's buyer personas. 

After all, your sales playbook is here to help your representatives connect with potential customers and guide them through the sales process. 

That is why it is important to gather information about your buyer personas and share it with your reps, so they can use it as a reference while using the sales playbook and working with customers.

Remember that as your business evolves and expands, your customer base will likely change, and you'll need to update your buyer personas to keep them accurate and up-to-date.

Train Sales Reps On Products And Features

Your sales representatives must know your product inside and out, not just when creating a sales playbook but in all aspects of selling. 

Even if your sales playbook is top-notch, your reps cannot apply it properly unless they have a solid understanding of your product.

This understanding includes all of your product’s capabilities and features.

You may want to consider organizing training sessions or workshops to help your representatives acquire a comprehensive understanding of your product.

Review And Refresh Your Sales Support Materials

The next step in creating your sales playbook is to look at your current sales enablement materials. 

Doing so lets you assess what you already have that can be used, what you must modify, and what new materials you must create.

This is where the sales and marketing teams must work together and ensure all necessary materials are covered.

Select Your Plays

You have a variety of plays to choose from when you want to decide on the focus of your sales playbook.

You should decide based on several factors, including which parts of the sales process your reps need help with, the type of product or service you're offering, your buyer personas, and your overall sales objectives. 

Careful consideration of the plays to include in your playbook can significantly impact the success of your sales team, emphasizing the importance of selecting the right combination.

Roll Out And Distribute Your Sales Playbook

After finalizing your sales playbook, you must implement it! 

Ensure that the sales team, from reps to managers and VPs, can access the playbook. 

By sharing the playbook and fostering collaboration and alignment, you can facilitate maintaining open lines of communication between the sales and marketing teams.

This allows you to continue working together towards your sales goals and ensures everyone is on the same page.

Evaluate Your Sales Playbook

Equally to all other aspects of your business, analyzing the success of your sales playbook is important.

After reps have used the playbook for a while, you should track how relevant, successful, and helpful it has been for them.

One way to get feedback on the playbook is to ask reps for their opinions. 

Continuously updating and revising the playbook allows for ongoing improvements, ensuring its continued value as a valuable resource for the sales team.

How to Put Together an Effective Playbook

With a clear understanding of the essential elements of a strong sales playbook, let's explore the key strategies to help you create an impactful and successful playbook.

Gather Your Sales Playbook Team

To ensure the success of your sales playbook, you must involve the right individuals right from the start.

Your team members may vary depending on your organization, but there are typically a few key players you must include:

Sales Leaders And Representatives

Involving sales leaders, top performers, and sales development representatives (SDRs) helps you create a successful sales playbook.

It ensures the playbook includes best practices tailored to the actual sales process.

Additionally, involving these key players can make the playbook easier to use and more relevant to the sales team's needs.

Marketing

Your marketing team is a valuable asset for knowing your customers and their needs. 

Working closely with marketing leaders can help ensure you have customized your sales strategies for the right target audience. 

By collaborating with them, you can better understand your customers and craft effective sales processes to meet their needs.

Subject Matter Experts

Gather input from your internal experts when creating your sales playbook. 

Product designers, customer success teams, field technicians, and IT professionals can all provide valuable insights to enhance the playbook. 

C-Suite

You must have the support and involvement of top executives like CEOs and COOs when creating your sales playbook. 

This ensures that your playbook aligns with the overall business goals and strategy. 

Also, involving top executives helps to drive adoption and support for the playbook throughout the organization.

Finally, you need a manager to coordinate the process and ensure the project is completed successfully. 

The individual leading the project can be a project manager, a sales leader, or anyone within the company with the necessary skills to effectively guide the initiative.

Review Current Materials And Procedures

Before creating a new sales process, take the time to evaluate your current practices. 

This helps you determine which tactics and materials your team already uses daily and whether you can incorporate any of them into your new process.

Involve your sales representatives in this process, as they will have valuable insights about what works best for you.

You can have a group discussion or conduct one-on-one interviews to gather this information. 

Being open and receptive to feedback is essential for the continuous improvement of your sales process.

Collaborate with your sales representatives to go over the following:

Find The Sales Scenarios Where You Can Reproduce Positive Results

Looking at past successes and identifying which parts of the sales process worked well helps you build more effective sales plays.

Consider all existing best practices for each step and assess if any areas need improvement. 

If there are any issued areas, address them directly in your playbook.

Talk To Sales Representatives

Understanding which resources are most effective in helping sales reps close deals is essential in creating your sales playbook.

To do this, you should ask your reps about their experiences. 

For example, you might ask whether they find video content more effective than PDFs or if they have better results with LinkedIn prospecting than email or phone calls. 

You can determine the most valuable resources to incorporate into your playbook by conducting a thorough evaluation.

Discover Your Team's Selling Process

• What methods are used by high-performing salespeople to advance through each stage of the sales process? 
• Which communication and content strategies are most effective at each touchpoint?
• What obstacles do salespeople encounter, and how can they be overcome?

Align Sales Process With Buyer Journey

Gaining insights into potential customers' buying and selling processes and understanding their unique needs and challenges at every stage can help you develop a powerful sales playbook. 

This playbook is valuable, equipping sales representatives with the guidance they need to navigate obstacles and drive successful sales interactions.

For example, the following diagram illustrates some common obstacles that can stop buyers from progressing:

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To gain a better understanding of the buying process, you can take the following steps:

1. Create a map of both the buyer and seller journeys, divided into stages
2. Determine what actions by the buyer indicate a successful conversion at each stage
3. Identify which strategies and materials are most effective for moving prospects through the process

Once you know how to interact with prospects at each stage, you can improve their overall experience. 

For example, suppose your target audience prefers to educate themselves before talking to a sales representative. 

In that case, you can use email or paid advertising to provide prospects with the information they need before making contact.

Create Strategies Based On Proven Methods

When creating new plays for your sales playbook, ensuring they have a proven record of success is important. 

Sales playbooks allow sales reps to learn from each other, so it's helpful to look to your top performers for guidance when selecting plays to include.

For newer businesses, gathering input from your sales team and examining the buyer's journey map may be beneficial to determine best practices for each touchpoint.

Consider the following factors when designing plays:

• The industries you operate in, as well as those you sell to
• The target personas and their unique buying journeys
• Common pain points, questions, and objections that arise at each stage
• The typical length of your sales cycle.

Provide Instant Availability

Playbooks are sometimes paper documents or PDFs. 

It’s impractical for sales teams to look into different papers for various sales calls. 

It also does not make sense to force reps to pinch and scroll through PDF content from their phones.

No matter how good the materials are, if reps cannot easily find the right content, they cannot use it.

The objective is to equip sales representatives with readily accessible resources they can refer to in real time, even while interacting with a potential buyer.

Uploading your sales playbook online allows sales reps to identify situational sales plays, catch up on training materials, or enhance their interactions with buyers from anywhere.

Cloud-based sales management platforms\ make it easy for sales teams to find and access the necessary information.

For example, the intelligent search functionalities enable you to swiftly input the desired topic and locate the relevant information within seconds. 

This rapidity can prove highly valuable, particularly when sales representatives require real-time insights, such as addressing objections, while engaged in a call with a potential customer.

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Sales Plays To Include In Your Playbook

Each organization has unique sales plays based on its specific goals and needs.

Nonetheless, several examples can be incorporated into your playbook to provide valuable guidance to your sales team.

The sales plays you choose will depend on your company's specific goals and needs.

Below, you will find a list of the most effective sales plays to incorporate into your organization's playbook:

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Customized Content Play

These plays help sales representatives understand how to make the buyer's journey more personal for each lead or prospect. 

It includes guidance on interacting with them in a way that feels specific to their needs and preferences and sharing relevant and interesting content with them. 

Lead Scoring Play

This playbook helps sales representatives identify the leads most likely to result in successful deals. 

It guides how to efficiently categorize leads to find those who are highly qualified and worth reaching out to.

Product Demonstration Play

This playbook allows sales representatives to effectively showcase specific product features and benefits to their prospects. 

It shows how to prepare for a demo, what to say during the demo, and how to address common questions and objections. 

Scenario-Based Selling Play

This playbook aims to help sales representatives understand and address a specific use case that many members of the target audience encounter.

With its emphasis on a particular use case, this playbook enables sales representatives to customize their approach and address their target audience's unique needs and concerns.

Lead Generation Play

This playbook allows sales representatives to effectively find and engage with potential customers on a specific platform or channel or use specific tactics to identify ideal prospects. 

It guides conducting research and gathering information about prospects, how to reach out to them in a personalized and relevant way, and how to continue building relationships with them over time. 

Sales Negotiation Play

This playbook helps sales reps learn how to effectively move a lead ready to make a purchase decision into the closing phase of the sales process.

They do this in a natural, professional, and effective way. 

Post-Sale Relationship Building Play

This is all about helping sales reps connect with leads at different points in their buying journey. 

This playbook offers practical advice on following up with leads seamlessly and contextually appropriately, considering their position within the sales process.

It also offers tips and tricks for communicating with prospects in a personalized and meaningful way. 

It provides insights into the best times to reach out to leads for maximum impact. 

Why You Should Have a Sales Playbook

Despite the importance of a sales playbook, 40% of sales teams don't have one.

Creating a sales playbook may seem time-consuming, but it is worth all your effort as you constantly see the results.

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Here is what you achieve by having a sales playbook:

Streamline the Onboarding Process for New Employees

Bringing new salespeople onto your team requires you to get them up to speed as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The best way to achieve this goal is to provide a comprehensive sales playbook outlining all the important information they need.

This information includes details about your target customers, their purchase decisions, challenges, and the best way to engage with them.

Without a playbook, new sales reps may struggle to gather this information independently, which slows down their training and leads to frustration. 

Free Up Valuable Time for Reps

A sales playbook is like having a cheat sheet that helps sales reps be more efficient and effective.

It makes things easier for salespeople by providing them with pre-made materials they can use with potential customers. 

This means they will save time making content or searching for things to share with prospects. 

They can spend more time selling and closing deals when they have everything they need in one place.

Identify The Most Successful Sales Techniques

Having a sales playbook helps your team learn from each other's successes. 

If a team member has an effective technique that yields positive results, incorporating it into the playbook can facilitate sharing with everyone. 

This allows for seamless knowledge transfer and enables the entire team to benefit from successful strategies.

This way, everyone can benefit from the best practices and techniques working for the team.

Additionally, the playbook can highlight and share the most effective sales plays for different scenarios.

Components Of A Successful Sales Playbook 

Though every company has its unique sales playbook, certain elements are generally included in most playbooks, regardless of the industry or business. 

Several common chapters will likely provide essential information and guidance within a sales playbook.

Business Summary

If your sales team needs to understand how their role connects to those of other departments, it could lead to missed opportunities for collaboration and the use of company expertise. 

For example, if salespeople understand how marketing generates leads, they can suggest ways to target specific customer types.

To ensure your sales team is aligned with the larger organization, begin your sales playbook with an overview of the company that highlights the responsibilities of each department.

This overview is especially important for companies with multiple product lines or business units. 

Sales representatives need to know if they are working with a central or separate marketing team for each product, geography, or vertical. 

Providing a business summary shows sales reps who to speak with for specific information, avoiding time wasted trying to track down the right person or department.

The business summary should include:

• A diagram displaying the organizational structure, including all product lines
• The key responsibilities of each department for transparency and accountability
• The point of contact for common questions or feedback
• Include the primary contact's name, job title, and contact information, along with a backup contact in case the primary contact is unavailable.

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Sales Organization Chart

Understand the roles and responsibilities of each sales team member, regardless of whether they work in an assembly line, pod, or island structure. A visual representation of the team structure helps representatives see how each role contributes to the sales process and where the prospect is passed to a different team member. 

This visual aid also helps clarify which metrics each role is responsible for. Create a more detailed sales organization chart compared to a business summary.

This includes an organizational chart of the sales team, including each employee's name and respective role. Remember to mention if any external contractors are involved in the sales process.

Outline each role's responsibilities, including the stage of the sales cycle they own, such as making first contact with leads or closing deals. Also, include each role's key objective, such as qualifying leads for account executives or communicating opportunities to upgrade existing customers. 

Finally, identify which team members have expertise in key areas, such as working with niche verticals or having an in-depth understanding of a particular product.

Messaging and Positioning

This section briefly summarizes your product's key benefits and explains why it is worth purchasing. This way, your sales reps can prioritize the most important points and effectively communicate the value to prospects, even if they only have a moment to engage them.

Developing core messaging and sharing it with marketing and sales teams can also ensure a unified approach to promoting the product, resulting in a seamless customer experience from awareness to purchase.

The messaging and positioning sections usually cover the following areas:

Value Proposition

• What practical advantages does your product offer customers? 
• In what ways does your product differentiate itself from competitors in the market?

Product Positioning

• What is the position of your product in the market compared to competitors?
• Does it have the lowest price point?
• Is it the most flexible and easy to expand?
• Does it provide a high-end user experience?
• Does it have a unique advantage in serving a specific market segment?

Elevator Pitch

A brief, engaging overview of your product should highlight the issue it addresses, how it solves the problem, and the key advantages. 

Include the Unique Selling Proposition (USP) or primary factor that sets your product apart from competitors.

Product Summary

Including a dedicated section in the sales playbook highlighting your product's features and benefits is crucial. 

This helps your sales team better understand how the product solves customer problems and positions them as trusted advisors. 

By equipping your team with authoritative information, they can effectively engage with customers, address their pain points, and provide tailored solutions. 

By incorporating these sales plays into your playbook, you can improve the customer experience, increase the likelihood of closing deals, and drive revenue growth for your business.

This section should be straightforward to understand.

The product summary should focus on the benefits and advantages of your product rather than just a list of features. 

For example, instead of highlighting your software's technical details, focus on how it can make a customer's life easier, such as showing all their data in one easy-to-read dashboard.

When dealing with multiple products, it is essential to provide an overview of each one and demonstrate how they synergistically work together.

This can help your sales team identify cross-selling opportunities and provide a more comprehensive solution to customers.

The product summary should also cover any services you offer to customers, such as onboarding, support, and training. 

It would be best to mention any upcoming features in the works, but make sure to caution your sales team not to make promises on specific launch dates.

Keep this section up-to-date and assign someone to update it if any plans change regularly. 

Distinctive Features

Providing your salespeople with distinctive features helps them convince prospects to choose your product over similar options.

It is crucial to support these distinctive selling points with concrete evidence, such as 3-5 specific examples: 

• Lower price
• Established reputation
• Niche specialization
• Excellent customer support
• Additional features
• Regular software updates

For each distinctive feature, include relevant links to supporting materials on your website, such as case studies or pricing pages. 

Also, provide talk tracks that clearly explain how each feature sets your product apart concisely and convincingly.

To help your sales reps identify the most effective distinctive features to emphasize, list your main competitors and specify which features to highlight when competing against each one.

Customer Profiles

Creating customer profiles in the sales playbook assists new team members who need to be well-versed with your target market.

These profiles will help your reps tailor their pitch to a prospect's potential concerns and responsibilities. 

Additionally, these guidelines will enable your reps to recognize when a prospect does not match these profiles and may not fit your product well.

For each customer profile that your sales team is likely to engage with, add the following information to the sales playbook:

• A summary of the customer profile
• Job title and responsibilities
• Level of authority in the company
• Type of business
• Number of employees in the company
• Internal obstacles they may be facing
• Personal motivations and goals

Create guidelines in the sales playbook for selling to each customer profile you have identified. 

Provide tips and suggestions for your sales team to customize their pitch to each customer's specific needs, including: 

• Whether the customer has the purchasing authority or if the sales team will need buy-in from another team member
• Distinctive product features to highlight that are relevant to their business
• Benefits of the product that are specific to their department or industry
• The main concerns that reps may need to address to reassure them about the product's effectiveness
• Specific assets that reps should share with the customer based on their role in the buying process

According to a recent survey on B2B buyers, over 80% arrive at the initial meeting with a sales representative with a list of preferred vendors and their selection criteria already established.

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Practical Examples

Real-world scenarios or practical examples help them present a strong case for the product's value to the customer's specific needs.

Compile a list of your product's most common application scenarios, each with a corresponding customer case study highlighting the benefits. 

Note which scenarios apply to each customer profile or industry to help reps choose the most relevant examples for each prospect.

Sales Process Framework

Defining your sales process framework helps your sales team sell more effectively.

This ensures that everyone on the team follows the same process, which leads to a more consistent and positive customer experience. 

Additionally, it simplifies the process of team growth and scalability.

Not everyone is familiar with sales frameworks like Challenger, Sandler, or SPIN; each business may interpret them slightly differently. 

To avoid confusion, your playbook should include:

• The basic principles of the process framework
• How to apply the framework to sell your product
• Why this framework is effective for your target audience
• The best practices for applying this framework
• Examples of the process framework being used successfully
• Resources or tools that assist sales representatives in implementing this sales process structure.

Providing this information helps your reps understand the communication styles they should use and how to direct conversations with potential customers. 

Sales Plays

Having experienced salespeople on your team allows you to discover some effective techniques that work for different types of customers and situations. 

This valuable knowledge saves new salespeople from wasting time trying different approaches and potentially losing sales. 

By including these successful sales strategies, or "plays," in your playbook, new salespeople will have a step-by-step guide to follow when they encounter similar situations.

You must only include sales plays that have proven successful and can be used for multiple companies. 

Organize the plays by industry, company size, or buyer persona so that reps can easily find the most relevant one for their situation.

You must clearly describe the target audience, why the play works, and what steps to take for each play.

This includes outlining: 

• The situation in which the play should be used
• The main pain points of the buyer persona
• The insights to share with the customer
• The value propositions to highlight
• The key messaging
• Common objections
• The most common competitor
• Tools that help reps execute the play include talk tracks, scripts, and email templates.

Prospecting Channels

By educating your sales representatives about the types of leads from each source, you can increase their chances of success.

In this section of your sales playbook, list every active lead source and provide information about the proportion of leads from each source. 

For example, you might include affiliate/partner programs, blog posts, downloadable assets, email campaigns, paid searches, social ads, and events.

For each lead source, suggest what the source might show about the lead and provide a recommended sales approach. 

Consider questions like: 

• Are they struggling with a specific challenge? 
• What type of company is it? 
• Where are they based?

It is also helpful to include details about how "sales-ready" the leads are from each source and provide a link to the landing page they converted on. 

By providing this information, your sales team can customize their pitch to be more effective and improve their chances of closing deals.

Sales Workflow And Terminology

While the sales process framework gives your reps a general idea of how to approach selling, the sales workflow focuses more on the actual steps in closing a deal. 

It is like a roadmap that shows reps where they are in the sales journey and what they need to do to keep moving forward.

Outlining the various stages of the sales journey and developing a customized sales workflow are essential to optimizing your team's sales process.

For example, you might start with prospecting, move on to qualification, present a proposal, and close the deal. 

Make sure to clearly define what each stage entails, what your reps should do at each stage, and who is involved.

Sales Material

You must make it easily accessible to ensure salespeople can access the right sales material at the right time. 

In this playbook section, you can list the various sales assets available to support different scenarios and link to them quickly.

You can organize the assets by sales stage or vertical to make it easy to find what they need. 

This will help ensure reps use the appropriate sales material for each situation and persona without wasting time searching for it.

Some examples of the types of assets you can include are product or service brochures, ROI calculators, buyer's guides, industry-specific one-pagers, slide decks, battle cards, and talk tracks.

Success Stories

Provide your salespeople with case studies demonstrating how your product has helped previous customers. This will help them provide real-world evidence of your product's benefits. 

These case studies are essential in demonstrating the value of your product, and including metrics makes them even more powerful.

To streamline the process of finding relevant case studies for specific prospects, categorize them by product, persona, industry, and use case for easy access by salespeople.

For each case study, include key data such as ROI, why your client chose your solution, and the main benefits they've seen from using your product. 

This will help salespeople identify the right case study and highlight key evidence to share with prospects.

Competitor Profiles

In the sales process, you must anticipate that potential customers may also look at your competitors. 

Your sales representatives must explain why your solution is superior to your competitors to convince prospects to choose your product.

With enough information about your competitors, your sales team may be able to present a compelling argument and could win a sale.

To help your reps prepare, create battle cards that concisely summarize each competitor's product and how to position yours against it. 

For each of your top 3-5 competitors, create battle cards that cover the following:

• Products they offer
• Price comparison
• Strengths of their product
• Weaknesses of their product
• Potential challenges when competing against them
• Strategies for winning against them

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Investor Deck

This section of the sales playbook focuses on preparing sales representatives to effectively present your company and solutions to potential customers using investor decks. 

A successful presentation requires more than just showing the right slides. 

It involves three key aspects: the visuals, the speech, and the presentation style.

To help reps prepare, list your major investor decks and identify the ideal audience for each, including their vertical and persona. 

Provide a link to each deck, talk tracks for each slide, and a recorded video of your top sales representative or sales manager presenting it. 

This will help ensure that reps are fully equipped to deliver compelling presentations and effectively communicate the value of your solutions to potential customers.

Resolving Doubts

Objections and doubts from prospects can be real roadblocks in the sales process.

However, if sales reps are prepared to handle objections professionally and proactively, the encounter can become a positive one for the prospect and strengthen the relationship. 

Addressing their concerns and offering content that can help shows that your reps understand their needs and are there to help find a solution.

Allocate time to review past objections faced by your sales team, ensuring their preparedness to handle common objections.

These can include objections related to pricing, features, integrations, contracts, or budget limitations. For each objection, include some tips and talking points that your sales team can use to effectively handle the objection and turn it into a positive outcome. 

Remember to use your sales team's expertise and include their tips and tricks for overcoming the objection before it becomes an issue.

Tools And Software

It is crucial to have a central location to list all the tools and software salespeople need to use, especially if your tech stack is complex. 

Incorporating this in your sales playbook can eliminate any confusion and guarantee that your sales reps start using the correct software accurately right from the start. This can prevent the duplication of work to fix incorrect software use and ensure that your sales team records precise data on sales performance.

In the playbook, provide a comprehensive list of the tools and software the sales team will use, such as CRM, CRM integrations, call recording, deal forecasting software, and shared drives.

For each software, describe:

• The purpose of the tool
• The individual rep's responsibilities for using the tool
• The data they need to enter or update
• How frequently should they add their updates?
• Any reports they need to generate based on this software
• How to access the tool
• Whether they have an individual login or use a shared team account
• Whether the login uses single sign-on or is stored in a password vault
• Whom to contact for questions about using the tool
• Links to any user guides or process documentation for each software

Dashboard And metrics

Include metrics and performance tracking in the onboarding process to ensure that data and KPIs are a priority for all sales reps. 

By providing salespeople with a clear understanding of their performance against targets, they can identify areas for improvement and take accountability for each sales stage. 

Create a list of KPIs for each sales role, such as the number of converted opportunities, calls booked, accounts closed, and revenue booked. 

You may want to consider adding a hyperlink to the sales dashboard that enables your sales representatives to monitor their individual and team performance, as well as the overall company performance.

Note how often sales reps update these dashboards and include any additional competitive elements, such as leaderboards or incentives like spiffs. 

Also, consider including a bell that reps can ring to celebrate closed deals.

Final Thoughts

Are you ready to elevate your sales team to new heights?

In the next year, most (75%) of B2B sales teams will supplement their conventional sales playbooks with AI-powered sales solutions.

This is why you need to consider implementing a sales playbook! 

Sales playbooks are crucial tools for any organization that wants to enhance its sales strategies and attain improved outcomes.
By creating a sales playbook that aligns with the buyer's journey and sales process, sales teams can improve their productivity, effectiveness, and, ultimately, their revenue.

We offer a free expert-led guide to help you delve deeper into the world of sales playbooks, plays, and strategies. Explore our pre-designed templates to build a sales playbook that will revolutionize your sales strategy with AI-powered playbooks.

Get your free guide here!