Are you looking to become a successful salesman? This blog post is for YOU if so. Learn 16 proven sales strategies that will help you attract the right customers. These strategies can be implemented in your business by using examples.

Salesforce.com is the best example of a sales playbook I’ve seen. It describes a “high-performance, step-by-step guide to closing the right deal at the right price with the right customer.” “

This definition is made up of three parts, as you can see. Let’s take a closer view.

What is a Sales Playbook and how do you use it?

It is a “high-performance step-by, step guide”. Reps who are high performers excel at their jobs. They close many deals each month and reach their quota. Leaders in sales know that success begins with all of their reps being on the same page regarding selling techniques and strategies when closing new businesses. A playbook that is well-written provides all the information needed for sales reps to succeed when selling your product/service.

The second is a sales playbook. It’s “a step-by-step guide.” Each play in the playbook gives reps concrete steps to follow as they go through each stage of the buying process. This is the key to ensuring reps don’t get stuck and instead move on to the next play.

Third, It is “the right company at the right price for the right customer.” If you have a great play that leads customers to purchase, but they aren’t big spenders, it doesn’t matter if your competitor was able to get more from them. Maybe they’re big spenders but not the right decision-maker. It is important to provide steps that help customers make smart business decisions and buy at a price they are comfortable with.

A lack of a high-performance plan can cause salespeople to lose focus and become frustrated by the overwhelming amount of choices for selling their products or services. Reps will have more time to sell and less time trying to figure out what next.

Benefits of a High-Performance Playbook

Your sales team will be able to close more deals quickly if they have a well-written playbook. They also save valuable time because there is no confusion about which techniques are best and they don’t have to spend too much time training. Salespeople who are the best work full-time on revenue generation and see their time saved as a benefit to the bottom line.

A playbook reveals the best-selling strategies. Reps will naturally choose proven methods that work when they are free to decide how to sell, rather than following strict guidelines. This helps to avoid making mistakes and ensures that nothing is left out.

The Advantages of Having an Extensive Playbook

Because each play was designed with every stage of the buying cycle and different customer types in mind, a strong playbook of sales will ensure no gaps in coverage and play execution. This requires a lot of thought and effort to ensure your team has everything they need to succeed.

Who Should Use A Sales Playbook?

A playbook helps salespeople have everything they need and saves them time on other tasks, such as forecasting, account planning, and working with the sales leadership. This is especially useful for companies with complex sales processes as it helps reps know what to do next and avoids common mistakes consumers make when purchasing business solutions.

Sales organizations often include contextual information such as how many seats their solution will require or pricing details to help people who are not familiar with the company’s products get up-to-speed quickly. This information should be kept short and simple so that everyone can quickly understand what they need during the initial conversation.

It is essential to create a high-performance playbook. You can’t improve or build upon something you don’t already have.

There are many ways to write a playbook. Some of the best ones include beginning with play design guidelines and then adding sections that discuss topics such as how to use the book and information about your business model. All content must be concise, understandable, and actionable.

Formats to Help You Sell!

Today’s sales organizations use digital playbooks to make sure that all reps have the information they need, regardless of where they are located. It is also much easier to share, update, and distribute them. You can also keep things simple and write your playbook on a whiteboard or wall for everyone to see in the office.

These are the most common formats for playbooks:

1. Sales methods with slides linked together in a presentation
2. Digital format
3. Combination of digital/paper

Whatever approach you choose, make sure you include play design guidelines. Next, add topics such as how to use the playbook and any additional context about your business model. Use relevant examples to keep the content concise and understandable.

Next, conduct customer research to identify which plays are most popular and what should be changed.

Talk to as many sales reps as possible and find out if they are using it effectively. Then, look at how each play has performed in the past. You should ensure that everyone has access to rich data such as which leads were targeted, whether they converted, top messages used during those conversations, and the results, including revenue or forecast demand for each play.

To get feedback on what works best, people use their network of contacts within a company’s customers. It is important to understand how this information was collected and where it came from. A customer interview conducted by someone other than the person conducting it is one way to guarantee accuracy.

Another option is to run a survey. This can be done by compiling questions that include two categories: play design guidelines and performance metrics.

Questions Design Guidelines

1. What are the most important messages this playbook should communicate?
2. What can we do to distinguish it from what reps are currently using?

Performance Metrics Question

1. What plays were executed?
2. Which leads are being targeted for each play?
3. Are targeted leads being converted over time?
4. How many closed deals were made by each play?
5. Based on your experiences, what messages were used to address the main objections or reasons customers didn’t buy?
6. What were the most effective and least successful plays for you?
7. What could reps do to make this playbook more accessible or better than what’s currently in place?

Share the results of the survey with your sales team to ensure everyone is involved in improving and maintaining the way you work. This not only encourages internal buy-in but also establishes consistency about how customers should be approached when you use any of your playbooks going forward.

Reviewing feedback from customers, focus groups, surveys or other research methods will help you create better-performing playbooks. This can be done in various ways, including combining plays, splitting them up, or removing plays that are not performing well.

After making changes to your playbook make sure everyone is following the same procedure. This can be done by writing the play design guidelines on a wall and having the reps practice together. After six months of consistently running new playbooks, it is time to look at all metrics, including which playbooks were most effective when compared across your entire company. This will allow you to determine if the playbooks still work for your company’s current strategy.

Sales Play to Include in Your Playbook

1. Hello Play

This simple but effective move starts every sales pitch by making sure that the customer is available and ready to have a conversation.

Can be used to find leads or opportunities

2. Account Review Play

It helps you to understand the relationship between an account and your company’s goals, objectives, plans, and plans. This allows you to determine if the account requires more attention or follow-up.

Account Review Play can include asking questions like:

• What are the most pressing challenges for your company today?

• What are your current solutions to this problem?

• How long has this problem been a challenge?

• What have you tried thus far?

• These challenges are getting easier or more difficult?

• Do you think that your company could be restructured to address these issues?

• Do you see specific areas that need improvement?

• What’s stopping you from moving forward so far?

3. Competitive Activity

This tool will help you to understand the relationship between your business and another company.

May be used to find leads or opportunities

4. Reply to Objection Play

This allows reps to address customer concerns in advance. These questions include “Why should you trust what I’m hearing?” Ask “Why now?” Customers can feel more confident in their next steps by asking for a Reply To Objection play before they hear an objection.

Reply to Objection play examples include:

• I’m sure you’ve had disappointments with past vendors. So why should we be any different?

• Why would you believe that a competitor is better right now?

• Do you know of any other companies that have offered similar solutions to your business? What was your experience with these companies?

• What are the signs that indicate things are going according to plan?

• What makes you think this approach is better for your company than their solution or any other on the market?

5. Upsell:

Reps can suggest complementary products and services increase the value of a deal. This is a “for more value” or a “for an even greater experience” nudge.

6. Play Competitive Differentiation

Reps can differentiate their product/service from the rest in a positive way. Customers also learn about what makes your business stand out from others.

Examples of Competitive Differentiation plays, such as:

• What is our approach to the market?

• Please share your views on how our product/service differs from X company.

• What do you think? Would you buy from us if we sold the same product? Why or why?

• What are you expecting to be different about this service/product than you have experienced?

• “How many times have you used similar products before?”

7. No-obligation Trial Plays

Representatives can offer a free trial of their product. This is a great way to show the value of your product. Customers can also try it out before they commit to buying.

Free Trial Opt-In Plays, including:

• Are you more comfortable with paid plans that allow unlimited usage? Do you prefer unlimited usage? If so, how many users/point sources do you think it would make sense to buy and why?

• “Would it be possible to have a free seven-day trial of our platform before you make any commitments?

• “What is the best time frame to allow us to explore this further together?”

• “Would it be possible to have a 7-day free trial, so that we can show you what our platform has to offer and how it can help you?”

8. Customer Value Proposition play

Reps can use this play to emphasize the benefits of their product or services. Reps can use this to communicate clearly to customers what they should expect when they make a purchase. Reps can also use this opportunity to show why their company is worth the investment.

Customer Value Proposition Plays include:

• What are you most impressed by our product/service?

• “What is the best way to convince your leadership that this investment will solve your problems moving forward?”

• How would this impact your business operations every day?

9. Customer Pain Point Plays

Marketers should include Customer Pain Points in their playbook. It allows reps to identify areas of stress and anxiety for potential customers. They can use it to find gaps and create new opportunities.

Customer Pain Point Plays, including:

• What keeps you awake at night?

• How does this impact your current processes?

• “What concerns do you have about the future of this process?”

• “What if there weren’t any limitations on this process/project?

• What challenges have your past projects presented you with? What did they score on a scale of 1-10 (lowest being the most stressful to highest being the most stressful)?

10. Go-to-market Play

This is a play that sales reps can use to explain how their product/service can help customers succeed. This play also allows reps to offer potential cross-sells or upsells.

Examples of Go-to-market strategies include:

• “What are your top priorities for the next year?” These will tie in with our joint solution/offering today?

• “How can you see our products/services affecting those goals?”

• “How does this project fit in with your larger company picture?”

• “What are your goals with this project?”

• “Would it be possible to create an ROI for this project?”

11. Account-Based Play

This play helps reps qualify accounts and establish business value. This helps sales reps to identify the companies that will most benefit from their product/service.

Examples of Account-based Plays, including

• “What is it that separates the top five in your industry?”

• How do you get to the top of your market?

• “How does our software stack up to X company?”

• “Who are your closest competitors?” What makes you different from your closest competitors?

• What other companies do you think of when we think about customers like yours who align with your core values? Are you familiar with them?

• “Who was your greatest pain point in the past year?”

• “Which companies are facing similar challenges?” What makes you different?

• “How do they currently solve this problem today?”

• “What other resources would you recommend to our team?”

12. Sales Check-in Play

The Sales Check-In Play is intended to assist reps in confirming whether a potential customer will be a client. This is especially useful after demos, pitches, or meetings.

Examples of Sales Check-in Plays, include:

• Would you like us to send you information/materials that will help solidify what we discussed?

• “May I contact you within the next few days?” Before we move forward, there are a few things that I would like your feedback on.

• “Is there something about our conversation that you are concerned about?”

• “Would it be possible for me to make an offer/proposal regarding this project?”

13. Opportunities Seeding Play

Reps should be motivated to find new opportunities by playing a good opportunity seeding game. They can use it to help them think of new ways to approach their pipeline and prevent them from falling into the trap that sending out informational updates.

Opportunities Seeding plays include:

• How would you like to see us involved in other initiatives?

• “What other issues do you face about X industry problem?” “Who should we talk to?” How can we contact them the most effectively?

• “Is there anyone else I should meet in your organization?”

• Which company do you think is most aligned with our vision and values?

• “What other organizations could we help in the future?”

14. Customer Success Play

Reps can quickly update customers about their account health with this play. This play provides information on how frequently accounts use a product or service and whether they have seen any ROI. Reps can also use this information to help customers succeed when making changes to their systems.

Customer Success Plays, including:

• “How has [our product/service] affected your business?”

• “Have there ever been any changes in the way you allocate resources since we started working together?”

• “Which service has provided you the highest ROI?”

• “What have you noticed in your life since using our product/service?”

• “What are some of the new opportunities that have emerged as a result of this project?”

15. Trust Seeding Play

A trust seeding play helps to establish rapport between the customer and the rep. It is used to build credibility, support, and empathy for future conversations.

Trust-Seeking plays include:

• “Who was at your company involved in our decision to work with you?”

• “Which feedback did you consider when making this decision?”

• “To what other stakeholders should we speak to move forward?”

• “You have many competitors. What are the difference between [our company/product] and them?”

• “What has been your greatest challenge in the last few years?”

• “How has [our product/service] been able to help you solve this problem?”

• “What would you like to see happen in this situation?”

16. RFP/Demo Play

Reps should start every meeting with a Demo play, not just an introduction and pitch. They also make sure that they give the best information possible and don’t leave any stone unturned.

Demo plays including

• “Thanks for inviting us to meet. Let’s start by giving a demo. We’ll be able to ensure that we use our time as efficiently as possible.

• “What I would like to do is show you exactly how [our product/service] functions so you can leave this meeting confident in making your decision.”

• “I know where my bread has been buttered. Let’s get to the demo.”

• “If you don’t know our product well, let’s start by giving you a quick demo.”

Questions to Ask at the End of a Demo!

Reps will be more likely to ask questions at the end of demos, which can help cement their expertise and demonstrate their value. These questions also provide more opportunities for follow-up and help to ensure that you are qualified!

Some questions reps asked after demos, including:

1. “What is the timeline for deciding on this project?”
2. “Are there any roadblocks that you think we will encounter in the next few months?
3. “What is your greatest concern about using our product/service?”
4. If they are not concerned, let’s schedule a time for us to meet up three or four weeks later.
5. “How can I help you today (or move forward)?”

One Minute pitch

Reps won’t ramble on about their presentations with this play. This helps them to keep their presentations short and sweet.

Example of a 1-Minute Pitch.

1. “Thanks for inviting us today to speak with your organization. Let me give you a brief overview of our business and then I’ll go into detail about how we can help your company.
2. We work with companies like yours that are interested in making a positive impact on productivity and sales. I’ll be sharing what we have done with clients in similar situations. I’ll also answer any questions you may have and address any concerns.
3. “So let’s get right in: What’s your greatest challenge with _____?”
4. “If you could make one change about ______, what would it be?

Rep Length

This play ensures reps don’t talk to prospects for too much time. This play ensures that reps are not talking to prospects for too long and that they keep up with their close during the conversation.

Rep-Length plays including

1. “Thank you for your time today. Let me give you a quick overview of the topics we have covered and the next steps.
2. “I am sure our team is very knowledgeable in this field and they will be able to answer any questions that you may have. It would be okay if you sent me an email to ask them questions.
3. (Pending their reply) “Great!” Perhaps we could arrange a time for them next week?
4. “Thanks so much for taking the time to answer our questions today. Do you have any other questions or concerns before we move on?

In Conclusion

Reps can use the sales playbook to help them sell more. They guide them through the steps to close a deal and help them follow up with prospects. A Sales Playbook is a great way to have a structured approach to your prospects.