January 14, 2010

How to Create a Killer Sales PlaybookRich Berkman

VP Sales Enablement Strategies

January 14, 2010

Mass TLC

Sales Playbook Workshop Agenda

Agenda

Introduction – Brief Kadient Overview

Sales and Marketing Business Challenges

Sales Playbook Overview

Case Studies / Situational Playbooks

ABLE Methodology

Assess & Build Your Sales Playbook

Launch & Evolve Your Sales Playbook

Discussion / Q & A

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Twitter: @richberk #Kadient #MassTLC

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Meet Max

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The Kadient Suite

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Integrated with

Dynamic

Sales

Content

Interactive

Sales

Playbooks

Sales

Performance

Analytics

Exercise #1: Assess the performance of your sales team

Sales Performance Measures How Important is it to Improve

This?

Overall win rates

Forecast Accuracy

Ramp up time for new salespeople

Length of sales cycles

Reinforce sales process / training

Drive consistent sales messaging

Average deal size

Number of deals reps can work

Percentage of reps hitting quota

New product / service offerings rollout velocity

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Business Challenges of…

▶ Ramping up new reps / dealing with turnover

▶ Introducing new or acquired products

▶ Increasing productivity - doing more with less resources

▶ Drive repeatable and consistent sales / prospect interaction

▶ Reinforcing sales process / methodology / training

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How Sales People Operate Today

subject matter experts

sales tools technology

contentresources

documents

presentations

social

product spec

price lists

competitive intelligence

battle cards

sales guides

external data

prospect development CRM

tools

communications

collaboration

specialists

product marketfield market

sales training

sales operations

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Improving Sales Performance

Discovery Qualification Solution Fit Proof Close

Awareness Alternatives Problem Fit Assess Risk Value

Sales Process

Buying Process

Why should I listen to you?

What does your company do?

What problems do you solve?

Who else have you done it for?

Can you send me some

information?

What is your solution?

Will it meet the following needs?

What makes it different?

How much will it cost?

Can you show me how it works?

How does it solve my problem?

How does it fit into my

business?

What will it take to implement?

How long will it take?

Who has to be involved?

What ROI can I expect?

Can I talk to others who have

done this?

What proof do you have it will work for me?

How will you support me?

Let’s discuss with management.

What’s your best and final offer?

Will you accept these terms?

Who needs to approve this?

How do we get started and

when?

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What is a Sales Playbook?

▶ Playbook [ˈpleɪˌbʊk] n

1. (Team Sports / American Football) a book containing a range of possible

set plays

2. a notional range of possible tactics in any sphere of activity

▶ Sales Playbook

1. Pitch book, sales training manual, sales primer, battle cards

2. All that stuff marketing created and put in the 25lb binder on my desk

▶ Kadient Interactive Sales Playbook

An Interactive Sales Playbook aligns situation-specific sales and marketing

strategies, content, tools, and coaching with the customer’s buying cycle,

all within a CRM system, so a salesperson is armed with what’s proven to

work for each selling situation.

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Effectiveness (quality & results)

Effic

iency (

tim

e &

energ

y) Productivity

Process/

Skills/Tools

Content/

Knowledge

Increased Productivity:o More Opportunities

o Shorter Sales Cycles

o Larger Deal Size

o Higher Win Rates

Activities

Home-

Grown

Sales

Portal

Integrated

Sales

Playbooks

SiriusPerspective: Integrated sales playbooks are critical in an

organization’s drive to improve sales productivity.

Sirius Decisions on Integrated Sales Playbooks

Source: SiriusDecisions9

Interactive Sales Playbooks

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Exercise #2: Identify Playbook Focus

• Lead Management• New Opportunity• Retention• Cross-sell, Up-sell• Vertical / Industry• Customer Segment• Account Management• On-boarding / Ramp Up• Delivery / Implementation• Proposal Management• Many others….

Build a Variety of Playbooks for Different Selling Situations

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Kadient Sales Playbook Template

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 4

Stage 5

Stage 6

___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________

___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________

___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________

___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________

___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________

Activity / Content / Link

Activity / Content / Link

Activity / Content / Link

Activity / Content / Link

Activity / Content / Link

__________ __________ __________ __________ __________ __________

Playbook Type/ Name: ______________________________________

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PLAYBOOK DESIGN CASE STUDIES

Support a highly collaborative sales cycle

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C h a l l e n g e s ? R e s u l t s A c h i e v e d !

• Lots of content, knowledge repositories, case studies, etc that needs to be available to their employees

• Realize playbooks can enforce their sales process, and link to critical content to support sales efforts

• Use playbooks internally and also sell/implement Playbooks with their customers

• Playbooks allow them to access content no matter where it resides (currently have LOTS of repositories)

• Facilitates their collaborative sales process which is so integral to their deal process

Co

ns

ult

ing

Se

rv

ice

s F

irm

Reinforce a Newly Launched Sales Process

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C h a l l e n g e s ? R e s u l t s A c h i e v e d !

• Provide the reps with new/continually changing sales tools and information

• Increase the confidence of the reps in selling new solutions

• Understand what’s working, what’s not working in the sales process

• Continually provides the latest information to salesreps on proof points, whitepapers, case studies in support of new opps

• Provides analytical reports to supplement current sales operations reports

Our internal Opportunity Playbook to assist our salesreps with net new opportunities.

So

ft

wa

re

Co

mp

an

y

Move from Product Focus to Consultative Focus

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C h a l l e n g e s ? R e s u l t s A c h i e v e d !

On

lin

e M

ed

ia S

er

vic

es

• Dramatic shift over the last year from print basis, to the on-line distribution (reps need to ramp-up)

• Focus is on Consultative-Selling/Relationship Selling; moving away from feature sales process

• New marketing department; lack of consistency in content/image being presented by the reps

• Armed reps with new content/terminology to sell online services vs. print media

• Created playbooks to outline new sales process (can’t depend on old sales techniques)

• Put a lot of new imaging & content into the reps hands• Parsed the information out to less experienced reps in the

context of the deals they are working on• Gave management the analytics they need to determine

pipelines/probability on a more timely basis

Increase Conversion of Leads to Opportunities

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C h a l l e n g e s ? R e s u l t s A c h i e v e d !

So

ft

wa

re

Co

mp

an

y

• Provide access to a newly designed call script • Link in a ‘Champion Kit’ for reps to follow-up with prospects• Track where leads are converting and average length of time

to convert

• Increased the conversion rate as reps use the newly presented sales tools

• Increased the throughput of lead processing by putting all the key lead mgmt tools in one playbook at their fingertips

Need new reps to hit the ground running

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C h a l l e n g e s ? R e s u l t s A c h i e v e d !

MR

M S

aa

S C

om

pa

ny

• The company has grown rapidly over the past 2 years; high number of new sales reps that need information

• Complex sales organization/hierarchy that has evolved over the past 5 years

• Long, complex sales cycle with heavy competitive pressures

• Delivered just-in-time information to the fingertips of their salesreps

• Facilitated their highly collaborative, virtual sales teams working opportunities w/interactive playbooks

• Replaced their existing reliance on analytics being produced by their CRM plus Excel with analytics from Kadient

PLAYBOOK DESIGN BEST PRACTICES

Four Simple Steps to Create Your Sales Playbook

Assess• Identify recurring selling situations• Profile winning sales engagements• Look for patterns, align with sales process

Build• Identify playbook stages and activities• Assign content, tools, and media to activities• Add coaching tips for stages and activities• Identify and fill information gaps

Launch• Start with pilot group, get feedback• Roll out to sales team with support from cross-

functional management

Evolve• Monitor usage• Measure impact • Leverage analytics to find opportunities to

optimize playbooks

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Structure of Sales Playbooks

Content

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• Who are the playbook users? o Reps - Experience Levels / Direct vs. Indirecto Sales Teams – Collaborationo Subject Matter Expertso Delivery or Engagement Team Resourceso Biz Dev or Call Center staffo Partners or Channels

…..anyone that touches the account?

• What are the playbook goals? o Reinforce a Sales Process, Methodologyo Accelerate Sales Cycle, Less Admin Worko Knowledge Transfer, Propagation of Best Practices/Winning Techniqueso Brand Messaging, Consistency of Content

Primary Playbook Considerations

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Exercise #3: Structure of a Sales Playbook

Identify the Stages of your Sales Playbooks

Playbooks are made up of Stages and Activities. Stages are the first level you define in a playbook. For example, here are a sample of 5 stages that might be set up for an opportunity playbook:

- Stages represent the major phases or milestones of a selling cycle- They can be used to represent any sequence of activities where you are trying to drive repeatable behavior - They can also simply be categories or containers of information to support a sales activity- They can reflect the stages of a standardized sales methodology (e.g., The Complex Sale, CCS, SPI, etc…)

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 4

Stage 5

Stage 6

__________ __________ __________ __________ __________ __________

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• Identify 5 or 6 major sales stages for your sales playbook.

• For example, Qualify , Define Solution, Propose, Negotiate….

• Begin to think about the activities that group under stages to create focus.

• Use internal terminology that will resonate with your sales team.

• Identify factors that help determine when a stage is complete:

o The sales person is making the decision to proceed or not proceed. o The deal is moving to a whole new level of interaction with the buyer.o The sales person is bringing in a new set of resources (SMEs) to move the deal along.o The deal is requiring a bigger commitment (time/content) - you & the buyer.

• If you use a sales methodology, leverage it to frame your stages

• Consider the stages you have in your SFA/CRM.

Best Practices for Identifying Stages

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Exercise #4 Structure of Sales Playbooks

Identify the 3-5-8 primary activities within the stages of the playbook

Within each of the stages, you can have a variety of Activities. For example:

These would be the activities within the “Discovery” Stage

___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________

___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________

Activity / Content / Link

Activity / Content / Link

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• Identify repeatable activities sales people are currently doing/need to be doing.

• Push and automate non-value-added, administrative, data-entry activities for the rep.

• Focus on your target buyer needs and marry them to sales process activities

• Activities should begin with an action verb (e.g., Research Prospect, Conduct Discovery, Prepare Proposal).

• Incorporate activities that have specific content or tools that you want sales to use (e.g., research links, brand-enhancing / company sanctioned collateral, latest case studies or references).

• Introduce activities where you can promote best practices and coaching tips from what your best reps are doing or sales methodology(e.g., How to negotiate with procurement, getting appointments with C-level execs).

• Add activities where you would like to obtain analytics, such as key milestones / compliance actions they must complete or to understand usage.(e.g., How many times has a custom demo led to a winning deal?).

Best Practices for Identifying Activities

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Exercise #5: Structure of Sales Playbooks

Identify examples of supporting content, and websites or other tools and workflows for the playbook

Activities can have ‘content’ linked to them. Content can be any type of Word doc, PPT, Podcast, Video, URL Link, or Tactical Coaching Tips.

This activity might have sample research steps for the salesrepto perform to get ready to meet with the prospect

This activity might contain the Discovery Questionnaire that the rep wouldfollow to begin scoping out the project

This activity would contain a sample war book template that the rep would fill out for this opportunity

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Content Examples for Your Sales Playbook

Activities and their Content

Some other examples of types of content that are linked to activities:

• Case studies and Business Case Scenarios• Presentations, Product, Service or Solution information• Podcasts (e.g., Coaching, Objection Handling, etc..)• Pricing Forms and Worksheets• Coaching Tips on How to Setup Face-to-Face Meetings• Agreements and Contracts• Sample Letters and Email templates• Organizational Charts• Graphics• Sample Winning Proposals• Marketing Brochures• Links to Internal Marketing Calendars• Executive Bios and Resumes• Company History Presentations

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• Go back through the stages and activities to determine if you:o Can consolidate any activities within a stageo Missed any activities that need to be thereo Placed activities in the appropriate stageo Have gained better utilization of ‘people’ resourceso Incorporated all the mandatory compliance activities o Need to make some of the activities ‘required’ or simply recommendedo Will get the ‘analytics’ and insight you are planning on obtainingo Maximized your ability to meet your original playbook goals for the sales person

First Draft of Playbook Complete

• Review with others within your organization for feedback.o New and Experienced Sales People o Marketing Executive(s)o Sale Manager(s) and Executive(s)

o Sales Operationso Trainingo Implementation

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Launch Considerations

Begin your roll out with a pilot team

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Keys to Planning a Successful Launch

▶ Form a cross-functional team to plan and support the launch

▶ Put executive muscle to work

▶ Start with a pilot/early adopters launch

▶ Educate your internal stakeholders about sales playbooks

▶ Think about your end users and make it fun, quick and painless

▶ Drive home the value of playbooks with each type of

user/stakeholder. Your messaging will be most important!

▶ Engage education resources

▶ Run a teaser campaign leading up to launch

▶ Anticipate change management issues

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Evolve: Analytics from Sales Playbooks Spotlight What to do Next!

What are Playbook Influenced Sales Performance Analytics?Kadient provides unique actionable insights that help your sales team close business at each stage of the buyer process.

How are these Sales Performance Analytics different from what I already get from my CRM?Sales Playbooks deliver new insight into how your sales activities impact the sales cycle allowing various stakeholders to take immediate action to improve sales performance.

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Evolve: Greater Visibility, Metrics Not Hunches!

• How can I improve my confidence in forecast accuracy?

– Spotlight which deals are real by opportunity

– Compare what a rep reports to actual events

• How can I identify the choke points in deals and the sales process?

– Analyze activities that cause a deal to stall

– Compare velocity of playbook stages to forecast stages

• What value and impact are the content, tools

and other resources having on sales?

– Marry activity usage with deal outcomes

– Highlight activities that advance and drive deals to close

– Eliminate ineffective sales activities

On average, over 50% of forecasted deals don’t close and more than 40% of sales reps fail to hit quota.

CSO Insights 2008 Sales Performance Optimization Survey

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Improve Sales Performance

• How can I improve overall sales team and process performance?

– Identify what A players do to consistently win deals

– Identify and take action to improve sales velocity

• How can I better coach my sales reps to improve sales performance?

– See details for what goes on inside an opportunity

– Identify situational coaching opportunities

– Reps pointed to the next activity that advances a deal

Sales reps

PerformanceAbove quotaBelow quota

43%

The top 20% of sales reps is contributing more than 3X their share of revenue.

CSO Insights 2008 Sales Performance Optimization Survey

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Get Your Sales Playbook Effort Started Today!

• What would it take to get a playbook effort going in your organization?

• Target a specific sales initiative

• Create a draft playbook

• Share it and gather feedback from key stakeholders across your organization

• Determine best way to push and embed with CRM

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Contact Info

Kadient, Inc.

175 Cabot Street, Suite 210

Lowell, MA 01854

USA

Phone: +1 (877) 523 4368

Fax: +1 (978) 703 7631

Email: [email protected]

http://www.kadient.com

Rich Berkman

VP Sales Enablement Strategy

[email protected]

978-703-7694

Twitter: @RichBerk

Tweet Event #MassTLC #Kadient

Download Guide “How to Create a Killer

Sales Playbook” and other resources:

http://www.kadient.com/form.aspx?id=621

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