Sales Playbooks and Process

Playbooks have Changed!

Sales Playbooks have been around for ages … in the form of one-page summaries of the key steps in a sales process. But Sales Playbooks have changed.

Playbooks are now dynamic, online and available wherever you are via whatever device you prefer to use. Convenience and dynamism are guiding sales people to higher levels of performance.

Today’s dynamic, situationally aware Sales Playbooks are helping sales people focus on exactly what they should be doing to progress a deal through each of the sales stages quickly and successfully.

The Playbook Advantage

Research by the Aberdeen Group’ shows that organisations that have deployed a Sales Playbook sell 8% more against target than organisations that have not yet deployed a Sales Playbook.

54% of salespeople using a Sales Playbook are likely to meet their sales target. That figure drops to just 46% where there is no Playbook is available the sales team.

Sales Playbooks are helping sales organisations meet sales targets more easily and with greater predictability.

The problems that a lot of B2B sales organisations face is that any given sales process can be complex with twists and turns that are not always predictable.

And even with less complex sales your salespeople may be handling so many opportunities at any one time that it is impossible for them to be do exactly the right thing all of the time.

A Sales Playbook builds upon your established sales process to embed best practice into every-day selling, thus increasing the success of your salespeople.

A Sales Playbook is a sales tool which takes existing best practice in Sales and turns it into a step-by-step guide for each deal for all.

Everyone in the Sales team has the benefit of access to the tool and a well-designed Playbook is referenced and used every day by the majority of sales professionals.

Benefits include:

- - Superior guidance and coaching for salespeople
  - Salespeople provided with the right information at the right time – information that is directly relevant to their unique selling situation
  - Meets the need for improved speed and efficiency in Sales
  - Drives improved consistency within the team, holding excellence as a realistic target for every sale
  - Harnesses the value of team working
  - Improves sales forecasting accuracy
  - Delivers more sales and bigger sales – faster

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“In six weeks they [Quantum] helped grow our funnel by £65m, £31m of which became closed business within four months – a fantastic achievement!”

Strategy and Marketing Director, Healthcare, Colchester

Download the Brochure (PDF)

Boring?

Boring, boring, boring! What sales person wants to get bogged down worrying about a silly sales process when they could be getting on with what they are paid to do – adding value to clients – and so earning peer respect, the respect of internal management and – more often than not – fat, juicy commissions?!

You certainly don’t want your sales people getting bogged down in unnecessary process.

But conversely, would you be happy if your people working entirely without regard to any sales process or method?

Asking how we might be able to do things better and optimising the type and sequence of sales steps to get to the closed deal might make obvious sense.

But so often sales organisations apply the sales ways of working and partially formed processes to every sales situation – a very common situation (and Einstein’s definition of insanity!).

The most successful B2B (business to business) sales people and sales organisations are those that work together as a well-co-ordinated and practised team, adhering to a tried, tested and optimised way of selling. Which is a considered sales process, as boring as that might sound.

Whilst we would never suggest that an organisation or sales person not following a sales process proves madness, what is incontrovertible is that it makes sound business and financial sense to make sure you know what methods, messages and tools work best with your prospects.

Then, once you know what works, continue to repeat what has been proven to work well in the past. (Why wouldn’t you … a reasonable definition of sales sanity, perhaps?).

By documenting and sharing best practice across the sales organisation you are spreading the necessary foundations of team level success. And success breeds success.

Sales Playbook Sales Process Development Process

Workshop

The sales process workshop is the cornerstone of optimisation and future sales success. In order to get the most from the workshop we will meet with a representative sample of your sales team, as well as with those performing support functions around sales (e.g. Marketing, Product Management, Operations etc.).

These intimate discovery interviews point the way to how processes can be bettered and on this basis the workshop is designed and structured for maximum participation and impact.

The workshop brings together your nominated sales professionals to discuss, share and agree best practise. These facilitated workshops are great opportunities to reflect on what has worked well in different sales situations, and what has worked less well.

The key attributes of success and best practice are identified and retained. This is best practice which is documented and reviewed with your sales leaders until approved; at which point the new process is shared with everyone in and around the sales team.

How do you want to Access your Playbook?

The format of the final output is entirely down to you. The established standard used to be a hardcopy flow chart or one page summary. But increasingly the need is for interactive sales playbooks embedded into the corporate CRM system.

In a world where everything is increasingly just one tap of the finger away via a tablet, phone or PC, why shouldn’t an optimised, tried-and-tested sales process be accessed like this too?

“[Quantum] enabled Castleoak to formalise a structured sales process. His facilitated workshops worked well, encouraged positive collaboration and achieved a swift outcome. This groundwork enabled us to improve and formalise the sales process, and provide our developers with a blue print to implement Salesforce CRM. The process was swift, professional and got senior colleagues on the same page quickly.”

Head of Marketing, Construction, Cardiff

Get the Playbook Guide

Want you to know more?

Learn about the different types of playbooks to find out which playbook/s is going to best meet your business objectives.

Download our guide: “Why and How to Develop a Sales Playbook“

Get the Playbook Guide

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Sales Playbooks and Process

Playbooks have Changed!

Playbooks are now dynamic, online and available wherever you are via whatever device you prefer to use. Convenience and dynamism are guiding sales people to higher levels of performance.

The Playbook Advantage

Research by the Aberdeen Group’ shows that organisations that have deployed a Sales Playbook sell 8% more against target than organisations that have not yet deployed a Sales Playbook.

A Sales Playbook builds upon your established sales process to embed best practice into every-day selling, thus increasing the success of your salespeople.

“In six weeks they [Quantum] helped grow our funnel by £65m, £31m of which became closed business within four months – a fantastic achievement!”

Boring?

But conversely, would you be happy if your people working entirely without regard to any sales process or method?

By documenting and sharing best practice across the sales organisation you are spreading the necessary foundations of team level success. And success breeds success.

Workshop

The workshop brings together your nominated sales professionals to discuss, share and agree best practise. These facilitated workshops are great opportunities to reflect on what has worked well in different sales situations, and what has worked less well.

How do you want to Access your Playbook?

In a world where everything is increasingly just one tap of the finger away via a tablet, phone or PC, why shouldn’t an optimised, tried-and-tested sales process be accessed like this too?

Get the Playbook Guide

Learn about the different types of playbooks to find out which playbook/s is going to best meet your business objectives.

Improve Sales Performance

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What’s in a Word? (Video)

What’s in a Word? (Article)

Proposals and presentations

How to Make a Business Video

Prospect says: “email me your proposal”. What should you do?

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