Enterprise sales can be a long and tiring process. From prospects having varying expectations to budgets, sales teams have a lot to handle. On average, salespeople spend up to 3 months or more to close a sale.
But what if they had a one-stop guide for all things sales? That’s what an enterprise sales playbook is for.
In this guide, we’ll talk about how to free up your sales reps' time and bring out the best in them by creating a go-to enterprise sales playbook.
What is an enterprise sales playbook?
An enterprise sales playbook is a document that B2B sales teams use to follow sales best practices and outline strategies and tactics across the various sales funnel stages. For example, it outlines steps a sales rep must take during prospecting, follow-up, negotiating, lead nurturing, etc.
A sales playbook can include the following information:
Sales enablement materials
KPIs
Buyer personas and ICP
Sales process stages
Sales tools and technologies
Strategic objectives
Why is a sales playbook essential?
Sales playbooks are a must-have for modern sales teams for the following reasons:
1. Onboarding and training new salespeople is easier and faster
A sales playbook clearly outlines your target customers' pain points, what to offer, how to reach out to them, and more. Moreover, straightforward sales tactics and best practices curated into a handy guide will give your new hires a quick push.
2. Frees up sales reps’ time for selling
A lack of effective sales-ready content can force your sales reps to spend too much time searching for or curating content rather than working on business-critical activities, such as personalized outreach, lead nurturing, and closing deals.
A sales playbook, on the other hand, offers them ready-made content so they can focus on selling.
3. Centralize the processes
A sales playbook highlights every sales methodology, process, tool, resource, and technology used. Thus, every sales rep finds it easier to review and incorporate each component into their daily work.
4. Best place to collect and share the most effective selling techniques
Say you notice your top-performing sales reps doing email outreach differently. You can encourage them to add their tips and techniques to the playbook and share them with the rest of the team. This way, your sales playbook can be used as a manual filled with high-performing sales techniques.
Key components of an effective sales playbook
Although there’s no single blueprint of elements forming a sales playbook, the following components remain the same, irrespective of the industry:
1. Company information
Start your sales playbook by briefing the company’s activities, mission, and how the sales team contributes to the overall dynamic.
Company information can be broken down into crucial elements like:
The company’s sales strategy — Explain how your sales strategy aligns with your business strategy. For example, what problems does it solve, and what specific role does the sales team play in solving them?
The company’s mission — Share your company’s mission statement and core values to ensure the sales team is on the same page and inculcates your brand’s voice into their sales activities.
Hierarchy — Create a pictorial representation outlining your company’s hierarchy and how and where the sales organization fits. For example, map out the various organizations and who reports to whom.
Individual roles and responsibilities — Add the various roles and responsibilities across the sales organization. Explain what your business expects from each of these roles and how performance is measured.
2. Products and pricing plans
Cover your products in and out in this section.
For example:
What are the products or services?
How much do they cost, and what are the various pricing plans?
What are their features and benefits?
Who are its target users?
How do you use them?
3. Sales methodologies
Sales methodologies are a collection of frameworks to explain how your sales team engages, nurtures, and converts potential customers.
Add what made you choose a specific methodology to help sales reps navigate their daily tasks.
4. Sales processes
Sales processes form the central crux of the playbook. Your goal is to cover every step salespeople take, from identifying prospects to converting them across every touchpoint.
This section gives reps a better understanding of the following:
The stepwise flow the sales team follows for successful conversion
How prospects are moved across stages
What to do and say in a specific scenario to keep the flow on
5. Target customer personas
Don’t leave any room for doubts about who your target customers are. Use this section to clarify who your ideal customers are, their pain points, preferences, etc.
For example, a B2B buyer persona may include data such as the industry, job position, geographical region, company size, goals, needs, and more.
These data points can be gathered via:
Sales and support team interactions
Online reviews
Surveys and feedback
Social media mentions
Interviews
Website, email, and social media analytics
6. Sales plays
Sales play provides a stepwise guide on a typical set of actions in a specific situation, such as lead qualification, outreach, etc.
Some sample sales plays are:
Lead qualification play - Focuses on how sales reps can conduct product demos, explain features, and more
Personalized content play - Focuses on how reps can personalize their interactions and content with segmented prospects
Closing play - Focuses on how reps can smoothly move a lead into the closing phase
7. Sales tools
Introduce the sales team to your internal tool stack and explain how to use the right tool at the right time in a sales funnel stage.
If you’re using a digital assistant like Docket, break down the many use cases of using the tool with real-time examples. For instance, how and when can it be used to answer customer or prospect queries and verify answers.
8. Key performance indicators (KPIs)
KPIs outline the sales metrics and objectives your team must aim for. These data points help measure success, dictate sales efforts, and highlight problem areas.
This section can include key metrics to target, like the average deal size, conversion rate, lead response time, CLV, and customer satisfaction scores.
9. Messaging
The messaging section in a sales playbook tells your team how to handle questions regarding your products or services and how to approach prospects by hitting the right brand tone.
What should be inside the messaging section:
The ultimate value proposition
The elevator pitch
Key messaging templates
Discovery questions
Product or service FAQs
10. Resources and sales enablement materials
A sales playbook must have the right resources and sales enablement materials for effective hand-holding throughout the sales process.
Resources can be internal to educate sales reps and support their work, and external content, such as whitepapers, case studies, product presentations, etc., to attract potential customers.
How to put together a sales playbook
The following steps can help you build a successful enterprise sales playbook, irrespective of your industry:
1. Relook your existing sales process
The first step in creating a sales playbook is ensuring an up-to-date sales process that seamlessly integrates with the playbook. So, review and update your sales process if necessary.
An updated sales process complements your sales goals, reps’ selling styles, products, targeted ICP, and more.
2. Outline sales playbook goals
Have concrete playbook goals so your reps quickly adapt and stay focused. Keep the goals precise instead of long and complex.
For example, if your goal is to increase product demo sign-ups, the playbook should explain product benefits, cover messaging related to the product’s features, and mention various value propositions.
3. Get the right team on board
Pulling together a practical sales playbook from scratch needs the right collaborators.
Some of the major teams and individuals who can make this happen are:
Sales reps
Marketing team
Customer service executives
Sales VPs, managers, and directors
Subject matter experts across product design, customer support, and HR
C-level execs
4. Align your sales and marketing teams
We have already seen how content and sales enablement material play a significant role in building a sales playbook. Marketing is one team that can contribute to sales and educational content.
Maintain constant collaboration between both sales and marketing. This way, sales can inform marketing of the necessary materials to improve their selling process, while marketing can reach out to sales for the latest campaign information.
5. Collect your buyer persona information
Sales reps must know their target audience by examining buyer personas. This information helps them navigate messaging and build better prospect relationships.
Remember, as your business and products evolve, so will your buyer personas. So, it’s best to continuously update your sales playbook with the necessary changes.
6. Map the buying and selling processes
Understanding how each prospect navigates the buying and selling processes can help sales reps better comprehend prospects’ needs and pain points.
Here are some steps you can take:
Map the buying and selling processes across each stage of the sales process and buyer’s journey.
Define what buyer actions or signals may indicate a conversion at each stage.
Identify the content and engagement tactics that are the most and least effective in moving buyers through the sales funnel.
Mapping out the buying and selling processes can help sales reps improve the buyer experience.
For example, most prospects enquire about the product’s specific feature in detail before booking a product demo. Then, sales reps can send FAQ emails proactively to give prospects firsthand information.
7. Choose your plays
Choose your sales plays based on your playbook’s focus. It can depend on factors like:
What is the product for?
Who your target audience is?
What your overall sales goals are?
What are the pain points, questions, and objections at each stage?
The parts of the sales process where sales reps need help.
8. Implement and share your sales playbook
Upload your sales playbook online and allow access to every sales rep. Sales managers, directors, VPs, and the marketing and customer service teams should also have seamless access to the playbook.
9. Analyze the success of your sales playbook
Once your playbook has been implemented and shared among users, you must analyze your work to monitor its success, such as how relevant or helpful the content was.
You can ask reps for direct feedback via surveys or one-on-one interviews.
How to keep your sales playbook up to date
A sales playbook is not a one-off document. Changes in buying behavior, market trends, and industry dynamics are inevitable. So, consider your sales playbook a dynamic tool needing regular updates.
The following tips can keep your sales playbook up to date:
Review internal usage data: Track playbook engagement. Identify which parts of the playbook are or aren’t helpful. Identify and close gaps, if any.
Schedule playbook reviews: Set up regular in-depth reviews with every collaborator to ensure the content stays relevant to new products and company strategy.
Maintain an internal feedback loop: Allow sales reps collaborative access to your playbook, where they can leave comments based on their selling experiences.
Collect customer feedback: Send regular surveys to incorporate customer feedback for a customer-centric sales playbook. You could also collect anonymous feedback for suggestions on improving the sales process.
Must have sales playbook templates
Templates can help you create and share a sales playbook quickly. You can include multiple templates to create a full-fledged sales playbook. For example, combining a call scripts template, an email template, and a closing template into a playbook.
Below are some templates to use in your playbook:
1. Sales call script templates
These script templates ensure your sales reps are ready to tackle prospect and customer interactions.
Your sales call script template can include scripts for calls like:
Discovery calls
Standard outreach calls
Gatekeeper calls
Referral calls
Connection calls
Follow-up calls
Each template should explain its best use case and give various routes the prospect may take during the conversation.
A good find: Sales call script templates
2. Sales email templates
Emails come with multiple scenarios, such as:
First-touch emails
Follow-up emails
“Bumping up” ghosting emails
Upselling emails
Drip campaign emails
Writing emails from scratch can be physically and mentally taxing. Sales email templates save your team hours, which they can spend on more productive activities.
A good find: Sales email templates and examples
3. Sales qualification question templates
Asking your leads the right questions lets you nurture the most promising, high-intent ones. You can understand their current budget limits, awareness levels, expectations, challenges, etc.
A good find: 12 qualifying questions for sales
4. Objection handling templates
Handy objection handling tips for every possible objection can help your sales reps face pushback and handle it well. When sales reps are confident about their responses, it makes more room for empathy in understanding the prospects’ underlying fears.
A good find: Objection handling templates for B2B sales
5. Sales closure guide
This is one of the most critical sections you can add to your sales playbook, as sales closure is the biggest plus a sales rep can have.
Since there is no single way to close a deal, this template can instead be a guide to closing sales through different closure techniques.
Wrapping up
A sales playbook is an extensive, single source of truth your sales reps and everyone in the sales process can rely on.
However, the best sales playbooks continuously evolve with your business, products, and target customers. So, it’s highly critical to tweak your sales playbook repeatedly.
Top your efforts with an influential digital sales engineer like Docket.
It learns from knowledge sources across your enterprise and offers instant Q&A assistance to client-facing teams at each sales process step.
