I think back to my onboarding at another company a few years ago. On the first day, they distributed 50-page inside sales playbooks to everyone… in thick 3-ring binders. Every page was dense with product descriptions, and we only spent 5 minutes on each page.

By the end of onboarding by brain was spinning. During my time with that company, I may have referred back to one or two pages, but mostly it collected dust somewhere on my desk.  When I didn’t know something, it was easier to ask my colleagues or ping someone in marketing.

We now have the ability to create inside sales playbooks that can improve our team’s results on a daily basis. These playbooks are modular, targeted, and can be easily updated as markets and products change.

Here’s how to create inside sales playbooks that will continually win you more business.

 

Inside Sales Playbooks Go Further Than Product And Sales Stage

Most reps prefer playbooks organized by product for fast reference. Once they know the products, then reps organize information by sales stage. This is essential for getting the right information at the right time in the sales cycle.

This is a good start, but don’t stop there. Knowing WHAT you’re selling is necessary, but much more important is knowing WHY:

• Why do CXO buyers have different priorities for our solution compared to Directors?
• What types of buyers choose our solution at different types of companies?
• Why do our products offer a superior value to that of our competitors?

But in today’s market, reps need to know more than just product and sales stage. Buyer personas and industry also affect your sales cycle, plus you’ve got details that are unique to your business model. Make inside sales playbooks that capture the complete environment of your ideal customers with these simple steps:

1. Extend playbooks from product and sales stage to include buyer personas and industry
2. Shift the focus from what your product can do to what your prospects need
3. Identify pain points unique to each buyer persona
4. Clarify decision makers that advance deals from one sales stage to the next
5. Iterate steps 3 and 4 to shorten the time deals spend in any one stage
6. Return to step 3 frequently to increase the value you deliver at each stage

Questions about buyers’ process and pain come first. Features come last. Adding these new dimensions into your playbooks helps sellers qualify leads more efficiently, but it also means your reps have to deal with much more information. Modular playbooks make it easier for reps to manage all this data, but the first step is to make them searchable. See our guide on developing dynamic playbooks here.

 

Give The Gift Of Time: Make Your Playbooks Searchable And Modular

The amount of time that reps lose every year by searching for content is staggering. If you can solve the problem of rep inefficiency, then you’ve made huge strides towards better results.

Give your reps intelligent search capabilities so they can find exactly what they need. This way, reps won’t have to search their local computers for content that’s already outdated. They won’t waste time sending messages to their co-workers to find the content they need. Once they have the ability to search all content instantly, they’ll enjoy more productive conversations and shorter sales cycles.

Make inside sales playbooks searchable, and you’ll immediately help your team’s effectiveness. But for even better results, we need to apply the findings of brain science research. Even if I could have found the right content in that giant 50-page PDF at the right time, each page was still dense with text and figures.

I didn’t want to spend time trying to re-learn that content when I needed it. I wanted to sell.

Break-up your inside sales playbooks into a variety of modules that take no more than 3-5 minutes to review. Once you’ve created a few of these modules, add engaging elements like video coaching and knowledge checks to build interaction and make key points stick. If they ever need a refresher, then reps can easily find what they need with a quick search.

 

 

Add Inside Sales Playbooks To Your CRM

Give reps a holistic view of your ideal customers, and you’ll see more of them achieve quota and increase their average deal size. Now, take the next step and add playbooks to your team’s workflow within their CRM. Sales enablement platforms like Veelo let you deliver targeted playbook modules as deals move from one sales stage to the next. While intelligent search can save your reps hours every week, adding the right content to their CRM is what makes those hours count.

It’s time to put all the pieces together:

1. Empower reps with intelligent search. Now, sellers can find what they need in seconds, not hours.
2. Organize your playbooks into a variety of modules. Give reps tailored recommendations for each sales stage and buyer persona.
3. Deliver content in your reps’ workflow to keep them focused on prospecting, qualifying, selling, and closing more valuable deals.

 

Playbooks only work if your reps use them.  Make it easy for them by creating inside sales playbooks that are targeted, modular, and accessible in their CRM.