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BLUEPRINT TO CREATING
EFFECTIVE SALES
PLAYBOOKS
 BLUEPRINT TO CREATING
EFFECTIVE SALES
PLAYBOOKS

Driving to someplace new can be Regardless of how experienced

tricky.
You know where you have to go
but not necessarily ​how to get
there.
You pull over to ask passersby
from time to time to learn if
you are still going in the right
direction, or you rely on your GPS
to guide you. If not for posted
signs, passersby or GPS, it would
be next to impossible to find your
way; and sometimes it even takes
a few trips before you can finally
do so without help.
Consider sales playbooks to be
the GPS of the sales process.
your salespeople may be, there
is the possibility of their getting
lost or stuck at some point or
other. Playbooks are designed to
help your sales reps get out of
any situation and be entirely self-
reliant.
An internal sales playbook can
be the know-all, tell-all guide that
you can hand over to your reps
when they join the company, or
are introducing a new product or
service. In this e-guide, we will
look at what goes into making a
carefully crafted playbook that
becomes the bible for your sales
team.

Blueprint to creating effective sales playbooks 02

 WHAT IS A SALES PLAYBOOK?
A sales playbook is a systematic
organization of all marketing and
sales assets that salespeople
need when interacting with their
prospects throughout the buyer’s
journey. Each asset is mapped to
the buyer’s position in the sales
cycle. A good sales playbook is
like a GPS: it provides the clear
directions your salespeople
need to reach their ultimate
destination—closing a lead.
A Sales Playbook tells your
salespeople exactly…
 When to say
 What to say
 How to say
A Sale Playbook makes
sales success repeatable by
documenting every step of the
sales process and mapping the
right assets to those steps.

STEPS TO CREATING
AN EFFECTIVE SALES PLAYBOOK
 Define your sales process

 Know your buyers and tell your salespeople who they are

 Prepare a content inventory and plug the gaps

 Connect your content to the buying stages

 Monitor, measure, coach, change

The ultimate guide to enablement of Direct Sales Teams 03

DEFINE YOUR
SALES PROCESS Define your
target audience

Define your
What happens
contact
after the sale?
Companies with a well-defined touch-points

sales process are 33% more likely

to outperform the competition
What buying
Define the
stages does your
timeframe of
prospect pass
your sales
through,
process
typicaly?

STEP ONE
DEFINE YOUR
SALES PROCESS Identify the
What is your
linear and
overall closure
non-linear sub
rate?
processes

Define the
Define the sales
triggers you use
tools / best
to demarcate
practices
prospect journey
currently being
How do you from one stage
used
keep prospects to another
engaged at
each stage?

Who are
KNOW YOUR BUYERS
your ideal
buyers? AND TELL YOUR
Perform a
competitive
What business
vertical do they SALESPEOPLE WHO
THEY ARE
analysis belong to?

Study Investment in tools that provide

Who is
vertical
your
background prospect insight help businesses
competition?
in detail
enjoy more accurate sales
forecasts, faster and better
STEP TWO
closure rates
PERSONA
What are What are your
the common ANALYSIS buyer’s core
Objections of challenges or Aberdeen Group
your buyers? pain points?

FAQs by What are

prospects/ they buying? You need: Tools that offer you a
buyers
How much
and when
360-degree prospect view
are they
buying?

The ultimate guide to enablement of Direct Sales Teams 04

PREPARE A CONTENT
INVENTORY AND PLUG
THE GAPS Document
all the assets
you have

Did you know that over 50% of

marketers reuse content two to
five times? Consider content Consult with
restructuring the salespersons
and re-use at this on their asset
stage requirements

STEP THREE
PREPARE
You need: An asset repository
ASSET INVENTORY
where all your assets can be stored
and a mechanism to track asset
effectiveness Put the
marketing team Decide
in-charge of what assets
creating new you need
assets

CONNECT YOUR CONTENT

TO THE BUYING STAGES
 Map your sales assets to the relevent point in the buyer’s journey
You need: Tools that allow your
 Give sales easy access to all the assets in the playbook salespeople easy access to all the
assets in the system.

25% of an employee’s workday is consumed by information search,

while 70% of customer facing team members report lacking the
information they need to adequately perform their jobs.

Infocentric
STEP FOUR
ASSET
MAPPING
Brochures
Emails Product
Product Specs
Drip Assets Databases
Sales and Marketing
Mobile SMS Specification
Information

Stage I Stage II Stage III

Social Posts: Blogs
Twitter Web Content
Facebook Landing Pages
& LinkedIn Videos

The ultimate guide to enablement of Direct Sales Teams 05

MONITOR, MEASURE,
COACH, CHANGE

 Is everyone using the playbook  What are the open,

download, click rates for
 Who is not using it MONITOR MEASURE
assets in the playbook
 Reason behind not using

STEP FIVE

 Gather feedback from  Coach salespeople who are

sales team CHANGE COACH not using the right assets


Update playbook  Train new salespeople to use
dynamically the right assets

You need: Tools that allow you to update assets You need: Tools that allow you to visibility into playbook
consistently, across the board usage and asset performance

WHY MEASURE, MONITOR,

COACH & CHANGE

Only 15 percent of
Over 50% of sales
50-90% of collateral executives say that
managers are too busy
created for salespeople their meetings with
to train and develop
is never used salespeople meet
their sales teams
expectations

90% of marketers
Only 7 percent of
are uncertain about
executives report
whether their key
scheduling follow-
content metrics are
up meetings with
effective in measuring
salespeople
business results

The ultimate guide to enablement of Direct Sales Teams 06

KEY FEATURES OF AN
EFFECTIVE SALES PLAYBOOK:
 Spells out every precise detail/step in the sales process

 Contains all the assets your salespeople need for each step in the
sales process

 Is scalable, repeatable and dynamic

MORE TIPS FOR A GREAT PLAYBOOK:

A playbook is more than just a Playbook is not a high-level Don’t straitjacket your
collection of sales assets handbook salespeople

 Include any additional assets
that may of use to the
salespeople such as FAQs,
training materials, product
updates and more
 Include every detail in your
playbooks… every minor
situation or milestone that’s
part of your buyers journey
should make it into the
playbook
 Encourage your salespeople
to stick to the playbook, but
allow them some room to
experiment and create ‘new’
best practices

THE ESSENTIALS OF A SOLID PLAYBOOK:

The deal with internal playbooks
is that they are exclusively for
use within your organization.
Remember that whatever
content you wish to add to your
playbooks should reflect the
personality and style of your
company and product. If you
are a traditional business , then
use a more formal language
and presentation style for your
messaging. If you are a relatively
young and playful enterprise, you DID YOU KNOW ?
can use a lot of colors and cool
videos to engage your sales team. 50% of sales teams
Whatever style you choose, do not own a
remember to keep your playbooks playbook
informative and interactive.
Here are some basic ingredients
that you will need to create your
playbook

The ultimate guide to enablement of Direct Sales Teams 07

1. Company and product
background:​
You can create interactive videos,
images or slide decks
(whatever you feel would be
most interesting yet informative)
about your company and
products. Including a timeline
of a company’s growth over the
years is a great way to acquaint
your reps with the organization’s
history. Include videos that give a
demo of the products or services
that you sell.
Tip
Everyone likes to read
interesting or quirky facts
associated with something.
If you have some unusual
or amusing facts to share
about your company,
products or employees, feel
free to include them in your
playbooks.
2. Buyer persona and
customer
demographics:​
Your playbooks must explain in
detail who your target audience
is. Identify demographics, job
profiles, their pain points, and
anything that will give the reps
an in-depth analysis of the
buyer. Your reps must have an
The ultimate guide to enablement of Direct Sales Teams
understanding of the buying
behavior of your key buyer
personas.
3. Product positioning:​​
One of the reasons you use a
playbook is to ensure that all
your reps are on the same page.
Include slide decks and videos
that demonstrate how you
position yourself and why.
4. Sales tools:
For every task undertaken by
your reps, there are some useful
tools that make the process a
little easier. Installing a sales
enablement system is an ideal
way to provide an all-in-one
platform for your reps. However,
you can choose to share tips and
tricks like which tools to use for
designing an asset, how to get
the best out of your CRM tool,
which are the best tools to cold
call prospects (telephone is an
important sales tool, isn’t it?).
5. Product catalogs/
updates:​​ ​
Much like the buyer persona, it is
imperative that sales reps have
an inside-out understanding
of your products and services.
If the category and range of
products is extensive, these need
to be listed in ways that make
specific products easy to find.
For instance, you could segment
the different categories and list
products as you might in an
inventory list on an e-commerce
website. You can also be creative
and design a timeline of the
facelifts that your product has
undergone over the years.
6. Pricing and discount
information:​​ ​
Are you offering any discounts
this season? Any ongoing sales
for your premium customers?
Or are some offers specifically
designed for your bottom of
the funnel leads? Make sure
you include all this detail in
your playbooks. If your sales
reps aren’t aware of or don’t
understand your pricing tactics,
then your marketing efforts are
being wasted.
7. Parameters for
qualifying leads:​​ ​
How do you define leads at
different stages? It is imperative
that your sales team understands
the basic segmentation process
and also the methods of
segmenting leads. Explain your
lead scoring parameters with
insight about lead behavior at
each stage. Also, teach them how
they can categorize customers to
whom they can upsell or cross-
sell.
08
8. Sales Collateral:​​ ​
Include sales collateral in your
playbooks. This can range from
brochures to email templates
to SMS templates. These
assets must be accessible
and customizable by your reps
anytime and anywhere. This
is possible if you use a Sales
Enablement software that lets
sales reps access important
assets from their mobile devices
and also customize them as
required.
9. Social selling
strategies, tips and
tools:​​ ​
Do not forget to give a special
focus on social selling in
HOW TO CREATE
AN EFFECTIVE PLAYBOOK
With the basic elements of
playbooks in place, let’s look at
the different types of playbooks
that should be created and which
elements should be in each of
them.
The ultimate guide to enablement of Direct Sales Teams
your sales process. Create a
document for your social media
strategies, since it is a broad topic
and you may encounter reps who
are novices. Give them a heads up
on what networks you want them
to be active on and your social
strategy for the buying cycle.
10. Answers to FAQs by
customers and other
tips:​​ ​
Apparently, 60% of sales reps
lose out on a deal due to lack
of preparation. Compile a list
of FAQs related to the products
and get your top salespeople to
contribute to the answers. They
could even share some situation
that they may have faced or
how they may have pushed a
1. Map your playbooks to
the different stages of
the buying cycle ​
Elements required
 Product information
 Buyer persona
 Social strategy
 Lead qualification process
lead that was stuck in the sales
funnel. Sharing these useful tips
with peers acts like a knowledge
bucket for your team.
11. Training material:
You can include extensive training
materials for your sales reps in
your internal playbooks. From
onboarding new reps to refresher
skills for the old, from interactive
training tests to pre-recorded
seminars and conferences you
can include almost any file.
If your sales reps can access
these playbooks on their mobile
devices, you will be taking sales
enablement to the next level.
 FAQs mapped to each stage
 Case studies
2. Onboarding playbooks
and Sales training ​
To make your new reps feel
at home and to constantly
reinvigorate your existing reps,
devise a playbook that includes
training materials. Make sure this
09
playbook is co-created by your
top performing and experienced
salespeople. This playbook, like
all others, must be dynamic
in nature. Ensure that your
documents are not out of date or
boring.
Elements required
 Company and product
background
 Training materials
 Product catalogs/ updates
 FAQs
3. Seasonal selling
strategies ​
Your sales strategies tend to be
more aggressive during special
times of the year like holidays,
Super Bowls, certain seasons,
etc. Keep a separate playbook for
such occasions that includes
 Pitching strategies
 Customized collateral
 FAQs
 Social selling tips
 Pricing and discount
information
Whenever you run an exclusive
campaign (read: product launch,
rebranding, seasonal offers and
discounts, etc.) you must create
a playbook that will include every
detail, document and description
about it. Your reps can also use
the playbook to communicate
directly with your clients, if
required.
Sales playbooks are crucial
to the growth of your teams.
Apart from being an excellent
source of information, they also
promote transparency between
management and sales and also
within the sales team.
They are an essential tool for
arming your sales organization
with a proven sales process and
training methodology to increase
their effectiveness.
With effective playbooks
accompanied by the right sales
enablement tools, you needn’t
worry about your reps getting
stuck at any junction on their
journey to the end of the sales
cycle.

Mindmatrix offers Channel & Sales Enablement software for direct and indirect sales
channels. Mindmatrix is the only provider of a Single Unified Platform that combines
PRM software, Direct Sales and Channel Enablement, Channel Marketing Software,
Marketing Automation software and Marketing Asset Management. Mindmatrix takes you
through every step in the sales process from lead to revenue, enabling your salespeople
and channel partners to sell more, faster.

2403 Sidney Street, Suite 150, Pittsburgh, PA 15203

Phone: 412-381-0230, Fax: 412-774-1992
www.mindmatrix.net