What is a sales playbook?

* ICP = Ideal Customer Profile is the FIRST thing you must get right. And note that it changes as your business evolves. As you scale, you need to recognise the ICP will almost certainly change: you will need a larger market for larger revenue, your product will evolve, you will grow into your ambitions,….

* Opportunity Qualification. Make sure you are only chasing the deals that are worth closing. In my language, you want a customer with a pain you can solve and a contact who has the ability to drive a commercial discussion. See 40:30 in the video for Vince’s view.

* Sales process/sales stages. Make sure you have clear definitions and exit criteria. Examples at 45:00. For me, less is more – don’t have too many stages. Vince likes more. Ultimately, you need to make it work for your business.

* Sales Methodology. I’ve mentioned this in my blog before. Challenger Sales, Solution Selling, SPIN,… The trick is to find what works for your business. For a start-up creating a new market, Challenger may well be the natural option.

* Give the sales team guidance on: Messaging for different buying Personas; Objection handling; the sales tools you use; the lead generation they must do; demos and presentations; guardrails for price negotiation; competitive analysis; …

* Start small. You don’t have to launch into a full sales playbook end-to-end when you are just getting going. Piece-by-piece and evolve. Start with ICP and buying personas, and how you generate leads from that group.

* Someone needs to own this. Vince talks about RevOps coordinating the collateral and working with the sales leader. If your RevOps is primarily tech and insights, then you need an enablement person who does this. Again, not day one – but before you start to on-board significant numbers of salespeople.