Sales executives often lack the ability to execute their vision for the new go-to-market strategy. Sales playbooks enable their vision to become reality.
Many sales organizations fail to develop and train their sales forces on a consistent set of plays. Shorter seller onboarding and training programs contrast with more sophisticated buyers and solutions. Increased complexity and proliferation of roles and channels require more collaboration across a greater number of team members than ever before. The need for guided selling has never been greater. Done right, sales playbooks help sales leaders realize increased productivity from their teams.
Research conducted by Aberdeen Group found that companies that document and distribute their high performer best practices experienced sales cycles that are 10 percent shorter, sellers achieve 4 percent higher quota attainment, and most importantly, overall revenue growth is 7.9 percent better than peer companies.
Sales Playbooks come in four common forms:
- Sales Process Playbooks: Addressing inconsistent seller execution, a sales process playbook acts as a guide providing specific details on how to access buyers, incorporate marketing collateral, and effectively utilize vignettes, case studies and scripts.
- Manager Coaching Playbooks: Frequently first line sales managers act more like super sellers than managers. The coaching playbook promotes rigor and consistency and addresses all three of the key aspects of the role: people management, region/ district development and business improvement.
- Jumpstart Playbooks: Used when a new sales strategy, new product launch or a sales transformation or merger causes an immediate need for a defined change in the way the sales team executes, this playbook dictates not only what the seller needs to start doing, but also what they need to stop doing.
- On-boarding Playbooks: These playbooks accelerate the new hire ramp up process, guiding managers and representatives to reduce the time to benefit so new hires are fully productive faster.
Interested in learning more about how Alexander Group can help you design, implement and get the most out of sales playbooks within your organization? Contact us today.
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