e-Book: PART2

In part 1 of our e-book series, we introduced the concept of playbook-based selling and explained why modern B2B sales organizations can massively increase their sales success with playbooks. Sales is not about the "luck" or "talent" of the salesperson!
Rather, companies need a structured sales process from start to finish. In part 2, we will explain how to set up such a process in practice with playbooks and present the most successful sales playbook for IT sellers, with practical examples.  

What is a playbook?

Digital playbooks map a structured sales process from start to finish. They capture best practices across the entire customer journey and make them available to your ^SDRs1, ^BDMs2, ^AEs3, ^SEs4 and ^CSMs5 to improve the overall organization's win rates.

Like the customer journey, a sales playbook is also divided into individual phases. These can look different depending on the product, company and target customer. Nevertheless, there is a basic methodology that has proven successful in practice. This playbook is divided into six phases:

Sales managers say that more than 50% of all leads never had a legitimate interest in buying their product or ^service6. This clearly shows that the prospecting phase lays the foundation for sales success. Only if the right prospects come in at the top of the funnel can deals come out at the bottom.

The aim of the prospecting phase is to:

• Identifying the right prospects
• Finding the best way to reach these prospects.

Prospecting Playbook

Let's assume you use LinkedIn for your prospecting. Your SDRs look at the LinkedIn profiles of potential prospects and decide whether or not to send them a message. Three points are crucial here:

1. What criteria do your SDRs use to select the prospects?
2. How do SDRs contact prospects (LinkedIn message, e-mail, telephone)?
3. What message do SDRs send to prospects?

The purpose of the discovery call is to qualify the prospects identified in phase 1 for a sales call. The call is conducted by an SDR.

There are two reasons for discovery calls:

• Your sellers - whose time is usually more expensive for your company than that of the SDRs due to their skills - only receive qualified leads.
• In the discovery call, SDRs can identify the lead's biggest challenges so that your sellers can address them specifically in the next call.

Discovery Playbook

A discovery playbook must provide the SDR with targeted questions to identify the prospect's problem. This also includes a scoring system to prioritize the customer's challenges. All of this helps the seller later in the sales conversation.

Following the discovery call, your SDRs can share content with the prospect to build trust, such as a white paper or case studies. However, you should not share any promotional content at this point, as the discovery phase is not yet about selling, but about identifying the problem and building trust.

After the discovery call, the prospect is considered a "warm lead" and is handed over to the seller by the SDR. Depending on the company and product, the seller also carries out the discovery call. The next step is to position the product or service as a solution to the lead's problems. You should also submit a commercial offer in this phase.

Solution Fit & Offer Playbook

The playbook contains a sales presentation and an offer that shows both the lead's required investment and the return on investment from your solution. The seller has all the information that was discussed in the discovery call to prepare for this meeting. They are therefore aware of the lead's challenges and can prepare their presentation and offer accordingly.

The aim at this stage is not yet to close the deal. Instead, the aim is to confirm the lead,

• that he has a serious interest in buying,
• that he has a sufficient budget,
• that he has the authority to make the final purchase decision.

Only if all of this is the case does the lead move on to the next phase. Otherwise, the product solution fit may need to be sharpened or another person with budget authority may need to be brought in.

This phase is about convincing the lead of your product. A demo is not primarily a sales pitch, but your opportunity to show the lead the added value of your product.

Demo & Deal Playbook

The playbook contains a script for the demo. This can be a live presentation of the product or a video. A discussion with a reference customer could also be part of a demo.

If your lead has not made a final purchase decision at the end of this playbook, you need to find out what exactly is still missing for the closing and take the appropriate steps for another closing call.

Once the lead has signed the contract, they become a paying customer. The following customer onboarding has two main purposes:

• You provide your customers with the knowledge they need to use the product correctly.
• You want to make sure that your product really solves the customer's problems to enable a long-term customer relationship.

Onboarding Playbook

Depending on the company, onboarding is carried out directly by the seller or by a CSM. The playbook guides the relevant employee through all the onboarding steps so that the customer can solve their problems with the product.

The final phase of the customer journey is about placing additional products with the customer. These can either represent an upgrade ("up-selling"), i.e. solve the customer's problem better, or solve a different problem for the customer ("cross-selling").

Cross- & Upselling Playbook

Since you are selling a new product, you have to start the playbook all over again. The sales process is usually the same, so you can use phases one to five of the playbook again. However, the action cards must be tailored to the new product, as the customer's problems are different and you will need different sales arguments and expertise. Only the prospecting no longer needs to be carried out, as the customer is already known. However, you may need to identify a new contact person for the customer.

The playbook could look like this:

Phase 1: Check-in call with the customer
Phase 2: Introduction of a new contact person, if necessary
Phase 3: Discovery call with the new contact person
Phase 4: Solution fit and offer
Phase 5: Demo and deal
Phase 6: Onboarding

Concluding words

The Sales Playbook presented here works! We designed it specifically for IT, SaaS and technology companies and it is already being used widely. The results are quantifiable:

Conversion rates: With the help of objective lead scoring criteria, sellers can reduce the time required to acquire high-quality leads and increase their conversion rates by 30%.

Shorter sales cycles: The optimized sales playbook shortens sales cycles for complex products by 25 %.

Lower churn rates: A structured customer experience and well-trained CSMs reduce churn rates by 20%.

Higher win rates: Playbook-based selling provides salespeople with the best sales techniques and arguments as well as in-depth product knowledge, which increases win rates by 30%.

Up- and cross-selling: With playbooks, sellers can sell different products to their existing customer base and increase their cross-selling revenue by 20%.

As Linkando, we use our own technology every day. From the start, Linkando Playbooks have increased our win rate by 50% and shortened our sales cycle from 9 months to 4 months. Our solution is revolutionizing the way sales enablement leaders capture best practices and share them with their entire team at the click of a button.