Here’s the setting; you’re getting a new sales team together as you’re about to launch a fantastic new product. Your firm has been working on this product for the last 18 months and it’s a deal-breaker. Your team of talented sales guys needs to hit the targets management have set them. Are you ready? Do you have a sales playbook? No? Then you might not be as ready as you initially thought.

Why do you need a sales playbook? Because it will help your sales team. In it, you’ll have tactics that your inexperienced sales guys will view as invaluable. Let’s get started!

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Ultimate Sales Playbook – Tips on how to get started

Sales Playbook Tip 1 – Defining the key objective of your sales playbook

Before you do anything else, the first thing you need to do is know the objective behind your sales playbook. The main reason for creating your sales playbook is to train your sales reps in closing deals. Thing is, to be able to close sales, your sales guys – and by “sales guys”, we’re referring to both men and women here – need to know your product. Going on the example we started with at the top of this blog post, your company has been developing a product that will make or break the firm, so it’s super important for your sales team to know the product and all it’s features. Knowing this however, poses an important question; is your sales playbook going to be based around the product features, getting your sales team to have strategic conversations with their prospects, or a mixture of both?

Before getting to work on building your new sales playbook, it’s fundamental that you know the key reason for building it. As long as you have a plan and stick to it, we’re pretty confident that you’ll create an outstanding playbook that all your sales team can use to hit their targets.

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Sales Playbook Tip 2 – K.I.S.

That’s right, K.I.S., which stands for Keep It Simple. If you create a sales playbook that baffles your sales team, the results won’t be great. I know a lot of sales people out that won’t like me saying this, but sales people on the whole, are straightforwardly simple. Let me qualify that before I get bombarded with emails! Sales people like their routines. They don’t want to be hampered with having to learn new and difficult things each and every day. Once they master something, they sell it, their way.

Remember, the main reason for having a sales playbook in the first place is to guide your sales team. If you start adding way too much complexity to it, even if your intentions are pure, you’re going to lose your sales guys. Not literally misplace them, but their minds might be elsewhere instead of trying to understand your playbook. One key thing to remember when creating your playbook is to leave room in it for your sales guys to respond to situations. Allow your sales team to put on their critical thinking hats. If you’re micromanaging every thought process, you’ve missed the point. If you’ve added too many steps, you’ll lose them. Not enough, and they’ll see no real value in your sales playbook.

In the next blog post, we’ll take a look at getting inside your customer’s mind.

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