To create full funnel freedom our sales team needs playbook.
A playbook reduces time to self-sufficiency for new hires and increases effectiveness of existing salespeople.
When we first hear about a playbook it may sound like a daunting task, but as my friend, Karen Meracle said at the recent Sandler Summit, “create one thing. That’s a playbook, you can build from there.”
Below four best practices for building and maintaining playbooks with our sales team.
- Checklists are better than scripts – as Sandler said, “we don’t give our prospect our script” and checklists give our team members freedom to check the list in their own way
- Video and audio are better than text – giving new team members examples to learn from and veterans examples to refer back to in audio and video makes our playbook a rich learning experience
- Let the playbook live – what worked two years ago might not work now. Make a point to regularly ask team members, especially newer ones, if the examples in the playbook are current. If not, challenge them to create updated examples
- Make information easy to find – a playbook is meant to be a quick reference guide, not a dictionary. Create a naming scheme that clearly identifies what a team member could learn in that section (e.g. “Objection – Prospect Already Has Supplier”)
Creating a playbook is a collaborative, iterative project with our sales team. To get started, or update, pick a topic that regularly comes up in coaching sessions and create a checklist. Then record, or ask a team member to record, a one-minute-or-less example of how to address that topic and share with the team. By creating small wins in building our cookbook we’ll create momentum and excitement in us and our team, which makes building and maintain a playbook more likely to happen.
Until next time… go lead.
