In football, a play is a plan of action to get the ball down the field. Similarly, in business, a sales play is a strategy to close a deal. Without a playbook in football, players would act independently, leading to chaos and defeat. Again, it’s no different in business. That’s why having a sales playbook is so important.
But what does a sales playbook look like? How exactly does it help? And how do you make one you know will work? Let’s take a look.
What’s a sales playbook and what is it used for?
A sales playbook describes policies, workflows, and procedures for sales reps to follow during specific selling situations, such as a particular campaign, the launch or update of a certain product, or any other sales initiative.
A sales playbook is important because it equips reps with everything they need to know—the training they should take, the marketing content they should share, the slides they should present, and the talk tracks they should follow. This ensures each prospect and customer has a consistent buyer experience, filled with only the most relevant and impactful interactions.
Benefits of a sales playbook
Consistency is a pillar of the perfect sales playbook. Success is more likely when your entire salesforce is aligned on key messaging, what content to show to whom and when, how to handle objections, and how to execute the latest sales techniques.
A sales playbook also facilitates efficiency by ensuring sales reps focus on activities that add customer value. Rather than spending hours or days searching for relevant content, creating unique presentations, and reaching out for advice from colleagues, they can leverage that time to tackle high-value activities like prospecting and nurturing relationships with buyers.
Challenges when creating a sales playbook
There are several reasons why creating an effective sales playbook is easier said than done. First, typically, only one team takes responsibility for creating it. Sometimes it’s the sales team, product marketing, or enablement team. Regardless, creating a sales playbook should be a collaborative process that results in a document that all go-to-market (GTM) stakeholders are aligned on.
Another common challenge when creating a sales playbook is including too much content, which can completely undermine the purpose of the sales playbook in the first place. Remember, a sales playbook is all about keeping sales reps focused on a specific initiative, so they tell a consistent story to buyers and can become more efficient in their jobs overall. If they’re inundated with too much information, you’re back at square one.
Finally, there’s the matter of updating a sales playbook. It goes without saying that if you’re not using a digital sales playbook, you’re asking for a world of headaches. Imagine trying to deliver hard copies to every person who needs them, hoping they don’t misplace them, and praying new changes aren’t on the horizon. A digital sales playbook is a must so it can be accessed and revised on demand.
Sales playbook best practices
Having a digital sales playbook is just the first of several sales playbook best practices. As mentioned, a sales playbook should be easily discovered. Unfortunately, a lot of businesses have a disconnected collection of content that makes it difficult to find any particular asset. So, ideally, you would house your playbook—along with all your other content—in a single, centralized library that features intuitive navigation and sophisticated search capabilities.
As for the digital sales playbook itself, how much content it links to should be limited to only the most relevant training lessons and marketing assets. As discussed, featuring too much content defeats the purpose of even having a sales playbook because it overwhelms sales reps, undermining the focused guidance it’s supposed to provide. And, just like the library it resides in, it should be easy to navigate.
This is where a standardized sales playbook template can help. It provides parameters to follow when creating a sales playbook, making it easy to restrict how much content and text is presented. This, in turn, encourages more careful thought about what’s truly relevant to include. The sales playbook template should also incorporate visual elements and quick links, enabling sales reps to scan it and jump around within it at their discretion.
In addition to lessons, marketing assets, and other materials about the sales play, a digital sales playbook should feature instructions on how to use those materials, informing sales reps on when they should be presented, to which personas, and why.
Finally, your digital sales playbook should be trackable. The platform on which it lives should provide metrics and analytics that show when sales reps reference it and how it influences won deals.
Creating a sales playbook with enablement technology
To create a successful digital sales playbook, you need the right software. The Seismic Enablement CloudTM offers a unified platform to efficiently create content, build training and coaching programs, and measure the impact of it all. For sales playbooks specifically, Seismic provides a native content type called Pages that are easily finable within a single, centralized library.
Pages lend themselves perfectly to the creation of an effective sales playbook and sales playbook template because they offer a variety of widgets and display options for bundling materials in a context-driven and easily scannable way. Be it text, images, icons, lists, columns, carousels, and even auto-populating options, Seismic Pages make it easy to create a concise, interactive digital sales playbook in just a few clicks and drag-n-drops every time.
To learn more about creating the perfect sales playbook, check out Sales Playbooks 101: Best Practices & Strategies for Success and The Sales Playbook Blueprint. Or, to get started with Seismic, speak to our team today.
