How do you create a sales playbook for standardizing your sales policies and procedures?

1 Assess your current situation

Before you start writing your sales playbook, you need to evaluate your current sales performance, challenges, and opportunities. You can use data from your CRM, sales reports, customer feedback, and market research to identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). You should also interview your sales reps, managers, and leaders to understand their pain points, needs, and expectations.

2 Define your sales process

Your sales process is the sequence of steps that your sales reps follow to move a prospect from awareness to purchase. It should be clear, consistent, and measurable. You need to define your sales stages, activities, milestones, and metrics for each stage. You should also specify the roles and responsibilities of your sales team, the tools and resources they need, and the best practices they should follow.

3 Establish your sales policies

Your sales policies are the rules and guidelines that govern your sales operations. They include your pricing, discounting, invoicing, payment, refund, and commission policies. You need to document your sales policies in a clear and concise way, and explain the rationale and benefits behind them. You should also communicate your sales policies to your sales team and other stakeholders, and ensure they comply with them.

4 Create your sales scripts

Your sales scripts are the templates and examples of what your sales reps should say or write to prospects and customers at different stages of the sales process. They help you standardize your sales messaging, improve your sales communication, and increase your conversion rates. You need to create your sales scripts for various scenarios, such as cold calls, emails, presentations, demos, objections, and follow-ups.

5 Provide your sales collateral

Your sales collateral are the materials and documents that support your sales process and help you persuade your prospects and customers. They include your brochures, flyers, case studies, testimonials, proposals, contracts, and FAQs. You need to provide your sales collateral in a format that is easy to access, use, and update. You should also align your sales collateral with your brand identity, value proposition, and buyer personas.

6 Update your sales playbook

Your sales playbook is not a static document that you create once and forget. It is a dynamic tool that you need to review and update regularly to reflect your changing sales environment, goals, and strategies. You need to monitor your sales performance, feedback, and trends, and use them to improve your sales playbook. You should also solicit input from your sales team and other stakeholders, and involve them in the revision process.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?