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Sales Playbook: Tool for Success

Get ready for the economic recovery with a renewed focus on selling faster and better. Now is the time to educate and equip your sales force to sell your product or service as effectively and consistently as possible.

An innovative way to educate your sales team is to provide them with a "sales playbook." A sales playbook is a tool (in print form or online) that can be used by both your internal sales force and your reseller channels. It complements sales training with crisp explanations that will be of immediate and direct use to anyone trying to position your product or service.

What Does a Sales Playbook Accomplish?

A sales playbook:

• Puts your salespeople on the same page, working together, sending a consistent and well-planned message to the market

• Provides a training tool for current and new salespeople

• Provides a sales kit of information all in one place, at the salesperson's fingertips

What are the Components of a Sales Playbook?

Start with the Basics

The playbook should:

1. Explain the value proposition of your product or service

2. Describe its features, advantages, and benefits based on the value proposition

3. Characterize your target markets: their motivations, their business needs, and the market threats they face

4. Position your product or service as a solution: describe life without it and then with it

After all, successfully making a technology sale depends on understanding the product being sold and the motivations of potential buyers.

Focus on the Substance

Potential customers want to know how your product will solve their business problems. So, be sure to make an explicit link between your prospect's business requirements and the value propositions you are presenting.

Beyond that, the playbook should provide a business-oriented explanation of your technology. Salespeople need to know—in straightforward business terms—how your technology supports your value proposition. The sales playbook creates a chain that clearly explains the link between your market, value proposition, product solutions, and technology.

Include the Nitty Gritty

The playbook can also include reference information such as competitive data, FAQs, contract templates, pricing, training offerings, collateral, presentations, and other background information that helps close a sale.

Tips for Developing a Sales Playbook

1. Establish the Key Message. Make sure that from top management down, you have a well- defined message to convey to customers.
2. Write Clearly. Keep the writing clear, concise, and direct. A salesperson on the go needs quick, to-the-point information.
3. Use Diagrams. Add visuals, especially when explaining complex technology.
4. Use a Quick Reference Chart. Show at a glance the target customers, motivators, market challenges, and value propositions for each target group.
5. Show Before and After. What is life like for your prospect without your product? Describe the prospect's pain. Then clearly demonstrate the significant improvement with your product.
6. Make it Easy to Use. Whether electronic or printed, make your playbook easy to use and navigate.

What we do

Cambridge Publications is a full-service outsourcing provider of training, e-learning, software documentation, online help, and best-practice based methodologies. Our customers include IBM, Lotus, SAP, and many smaller, venture- funded companies as well.

We've worked closely with clients to produce sales playbooks with highly successful results. One of our clients described their playbook as “a usable, easy-to-navigate training tool that continues to be successfully deployed and accepted by a diverse audience.”