Sales playbook

This part of the playbook outlines everything about the company: how it's organized, including structure, as well as sales contacts, and any other necessary information about other departments key to a sales rep doing their job well.

Similar to the company information, the sales team structure outlines the organizational chart and hierarchy of the sales team.

This includes who reports to whom, which teams are responsible for which tasks, regions, and customer segments, and any subject matter experts or ancillary roles that are involved with the sales process.

The mission statement and core values should be a short section with a few pillars that guide the efforts of the sales team.

Don't overthink the mission statement. A sales mission statement can reflect and expand on different parts of a company’s overall mission statement.Core values can also echo ‌company values, but it's helpful to identify specific guiding principles for the sales team. 

For example, core values could be:

• Be a trusted advisor

• Always be learning

• Be honest and lead with integrity

These values differ from organization to organization and should provide guardrails and parameters for all sales plays and efforts that the team engages in. They can be used for hiring, firing, and promoting sales team members.

Messaging, positioning, and unique selling propositions are the cornerstones of a sales playbook. They should be crafted to appeal to the right buyers and clearly explain how the company's product or service is superior to others in the market.

The messaging should be well-researched and tailored to buyer personas. Messaging and positioning are often combined efforts uniting company leadership with marketing and sales to form a cohesive position in the market.

This artifact explains why the company exists and what value it provides the target audience. The unique selling proposition is then the section outlining how the company is different and what sets it apart from competitors.

What does a sales rep need to know about the product? Include that information in the sales playbook.

This doesn't need to be a comprehensive technical document. It simply needs to include core benefits and features of the product or service the organization is selling.

What is it? How does it work? Why would someone use it?

This section can also include ‌screenshots, demos, or visuals of the product in action.

Flowing from the product overview should be a small section on how the features and benefits differ from the competition.

Sometimes a product is completely innovative, standing alone in a blue ocean. More often, its success hinges on finding some small differentiator that really matters to a specific customer segment and leaning into that difference.

Competitive battlecards summarize the core product benefits and use cases and position them against specific competitors.

Battlecards require an understanding of the most common competitors and their strengths and weaknesses. These are often included in individual sales kits for sales account executives at the closing stages of a deal.

An understanding of the market and buying group is critical for success.

Marketers often use the term "buyer personas." Sales teams often use "ideal customer profile." Whatever the case, including information on who the sales team is targeting helps sales development reps reach the right audience with the right message.

It also helps when it comes to lead scoring and qualification.

An ideal customer profile can be as detailed as necessary. For example, an enterprise IT services company might target customers with the following characteristics:

• 500+ employees

   

• Fortune 1000 status

   

• Located in the US

   

• In the pharmaceutical industry

   

• With an IT budget of $2M/year.

Most organizations choose a sales methodology used by the sales team. Examples include SPIN selling, Challenger Selling, or the Sandler Selling System.

Sales playbooks can include basic information on the sales process alongside links and training materials on the specifics of the program.

The sales plan details each step of the sales process and describes how a prospect goes through the funnel to become a customer.

This is usually visualized in a deal board, which may contain stages like discovery, qualification, scoping, nurturing, proposal, negotiation, contract, and closed.

At each step in the sales process, there are typically templates and plays to guide sales reps. Each step also outlines who is responsible for that stage of the sales process. For example, a sales development rep might be responsible for discovery and qualification, and then the lead is passed to an account executive for the rest of the sales process.

What's a sales play? A repeatable sales motion or tactic that aligns with the strategic goals of the sales team.

Simply put, it's something a sales team does to generate leads and customers.

For example, a sales play for an enterprise software solution could include field marketing combined with invite-only dinners and invites for their target accounts and clients.

A freemium product-led growth company might have a sales play that qualifies freemium product users based on their usage and company signals, triggering automated sales emails to start the discovery process.

The individual sales plays that an organization uses are highly variable and evolving all the time, subject to experimentation and changing market dynamics.

Sales kits include everything that helps sales reps do their job, including:

• Email outreach templates

• Email sequences

• Shared LinkedIn prospecting lists

• Case studies

• Content for sales enablement

• Interactive product demos

• Slide decks and pitch decks

This section will also evolve depending on the increased needs of sales reps, learnings from the field, and changing sales plays and market dynamics.

Sales kits can also be lightweight prompts that list questions and conversation points for sales reps.

While lead sources and lead goals tend to fall on the marketing side of the business, it helps to create shared goals and handshake agreements on where leads are coming from and how many are coming in.

Additionally, sales teams can source their own leads through outbound efforts, complementing the efforts of marketing teams.

Lead qualification determines which leads are good fits, which are bad fits, and how to prioritize them.

Advanced sales teams can include a lead scoring model as well as score thresholds to determine when to pass leads to account executives.

At a very basic level, sales playbooks should include who they're willing to talk to and who to deprioritize.

A living, breathing section on common objections as well as talking points to handle them is incredibly helpful.

This can start as a hypothesis, but with time, sales reps will find themselves fielding the same questions and answering the same questions. Add them to this document, and save new reps tons of time.