How to Develop — and Maintain — a Sales Playbook Your Team Will Actually Use

by Alton Zenon III
July 6, 2020
Team working on sales playbook
shutterstock

Collect feedback and improve. Collect more feedback and improve again. Then again. 

This loop is one Colorado sales leaders employ when creating a playbook for their teams. No playbook is ever perfect because products, markets and customers are always evolving. Reps on the sales floor have first-hand accounts of the processes and tools that may or may not be working as conditions change over time. 

If strategies grow outdated, salespeople may feel less inclined to employ a playbook. So it’s up to sales leaders to empower their teams to speak up so that — in a addition to keeping a constant pulse on the team’s needs — the toolkit doesn’t grow obsolete. Then, those leaders must iterate and refine their playbooks with new tactics that give reps exactly what they need to create wins.

Sometimes a major process change can come from a suggestion an entry-level rep makes. So leaders should be impartial to who feedback comes from, so long as it’s solutions-oriented. And when a playbook is changed, training on the new implementations and strategy can be shared by the entire team, even if they’re dispersed globally. 

But playbook training, employing the new practices, collecting feedback, refining strategies and retraining should be continuous. Leaders can’t be afraid to repeat that process. 

 

Jolene Jacobs
General Manager of Caliper Ingredients • Caliper Holdings

“Salespeople should always be involved in the development of the playbook,” said Jolene Jacobs, GM of caliper ingredients at Caliper Foods. “They are closest to the customers and should be bringing the insights from the street into the organization.”

The leader at the soluble cannabinoids company shared the importance of keeping salespeople involved in optimizing the playbooks they use.

 

How do you format and deliver your sales playbook to the team, and why? 

The foundation of the sales playbook should stem from company objectives. Once a foundational company roadmap is set, it allows the sales team to format their playbook to support those goals. The link between the two is critical to success and also dovetails into performance. Too often there’s a disconnect between the sales playbook and the company objectives, and it’s something that can be easily avoided. 

I think of formatting our playbook in a few sections. First, we identify the categories we want to play in, like beverage, confection or skin care. Then, we determine our points of differentiation that will enable us to win within those categories. But it’s also necessary to highlight points of parity so that prospects see the full picture of what our business can offer. And we need to identify key customers within the “where to play” categories we chose. It is important to differentiate the audience based on complexity or “ability to convert.’’

 

Provide salespeople with an open forum where they are encouraged to challenge the status quo.”

What processes do you have for keeping your playbook up to date? 

The playbook should be something that is referred to on an ongoing basis to ensure that progress is being made. It also makes certain that there have been no major shifts in the industry that would force a need to pivot. And avoid pivoting unnecessarily. 

It is important to continue to make the critical phases of the process as lean as possible while not allowing “squirrels” to distract teams from the strategy. A playbook should always be evolving. As a team works the playbook they should be encouraged to find better ways to move customers through the sales process while supporting clients. I like to reexamine the playbook yearly, and I am a fan of monthly check-ins or business updates to measure progress.

 

How do you include your salespeople in the process of developing your playbook?

Handing a team a playbook and simply telling them to go execute leaves a lot of talent on the table. Provide salespeople with an open forum where they are encouraged to challenge the status quo or voice a new way to approach an idea that was turned down. This creates an environment of solution providers. There are always going to be problems to solve, and it is OK to bring them up. But when surfacing an issue, I encourage my team to proactively come with a solution or a starting point that may lead to one.

And recognize people’s strengths. A great sales team is made up of different personalities and skill sets. So one person may be a better fit for a certain customer or company personality. Balance that individuality with knowing when to team sell. 

 

Ryan Pryor
Senior VP of Global Sales • Quantive

Continuous knowledge sharing plays a vital role in how the sales team at objectives and key results platform Gtmhub keeps their playbook in winning form. Senior VP of Global Sales Ryan Pryor said weekly teamwide learning sessions keep sales best practices top of mind while a data-sharing platform keeps information accessible to everyone.

 

How do you format and deliver your sales playbook to the team, and why? 

The initial delivery of the sales playbook, or iterations on it, are presented and explained in a group setting. Typically, we set up team training in a lunch and learn, presenting to the entire global sales team. This environment allows the team to learn and grow as a unit, not disproportionately over different regions. Reinforcement of the central concepts and ideas are then taught weekly in a workshop where team members role-play and practice with one another. 

From a technology perspective, we use Confluence, which is a workspace where teams can create, collaborate and organize all the work in one place. It’s an open, connected structure that allows information to flow freely among everyone in sales and the broader organization with integrations with other data repositories.

 

There is always room for iteration to provide a more powerful buyer journey.”

What processes do you have for keeping your playbook up to date? 

Procedural obstacles that impact the sales team become apparent during customer calls, one-to-ones, continuous learning and deal strategy sessions. When situations arise that are not one-off scenarios, we make it a priority to change. Furthermore, as we refine our global go-to-market strategy, focus is put on what processes need updating to empower our sales professionals. Our fundamental value-based sales motion supports and aligns with our direction, but there is always room for iteration to provide a more powerful buyer journey.

 

How do you include your salespeople in the process of developing your playbook?

I solicit feedback and suggestions from the sales team, then enable them to make the necessary changes. Recently, we deployed a persona-based account executive outbound channel focused on strategic accounts in the given territories. As part of that deployment, we needed the right approach to personalize our outreach to senior leaders at these high-profile companies. Initially, I proposed a methodology and reached out to the team to get their opinions. One of our sales reps proposed a different way of going about it and the reasons why. The team voted and chose the AE’s solution, who then built out the process and trained the team — and produced instant results.

 

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