The Sales Playbook: Your Ticket to Sales Success

Part one of a 4-part series focusing on giving you the information contained in Championship Selling's popular “Playbook,” a highly-effective and fun tool that maximizes a hands-on approach to mastering the top core sales skills that form the cornerstones of success: Planning (part 1), Account Management (part 2), Time Management (part 3) and Selling Techniques (part 4).

Ever wish your 1:1 sales meetings and coaching sessions would go smoother and be more productive? While there’s no magic bullet, the Sales Playbook can be your roadmap to results.

Just like sports teams rely on a Playbook to map out plays and plan their strategy, you can use the Sales Playbook to zero in on key skills necessary for sales success.

In baseball, for example, a great player must be a “5 tool player.” He must be excellent at running…throwing… fielding…hitting…and getting on base to become a superstar. So, too, in sales, the Playbook encompasses four areas your team must master to realize their potential and snag the big contracts.
 
 

It all starts with Planning
 

You can use the Playbook to organize your coaching/training sessions by focusing on a different subset each week. The first cornerstone, Planning, involves three subsets: Professional Image, Earning Potential and Goal Setting.

Professional Image: To lay the groundwork for success, get your team in networking mode, discuss branding within the industry and cultivating advocates. You need not come up with the right answers, just pose the right questions:

  • What are you doing to enhance your professional development on a weekly basis?

  • Are you attending networking events monthly?

  • How do you leverage existing contacts?

  • How do you stay on your contacts’ radar during down time?
 

Discuss “Developing Brand You” with your team. Explain that branding involves differentiation, standing out from the competition. Ask your team to:

  1. Think about and write down what they stand for.

  2. Develop a clear-cut identity that leaps into people’s minds.

  3. Showcase their assets and exude a positive persona.

  4. Create a vivid verbal snapshot of who they are.

  5. Strengthen their brand through repetition (phone calls, networking meetings, Emails, presentations).

  6. Deliver consistent satisfaction at each contact point…and be themselves. If they are genuine, positive and real they’ll build their brand…and enjoy the rewards of being valued by others.

Remember, all things being equal, people buy from those they like.

Encourage your team to develop advocates – influential individuals with the right connections and a willingness to help, who can refer business, introductions to helpful resources, provide you with ideas and vouch for them. Each of your sales-people should identify 25 advocates who they regard as their sales team. Then, stay in touch monthly and reward with little niceties.

Keep in mind, you must give in order to receive.

Earning Potential: Surprisingly, many salespeople are out of touch with their finances. Explore this topic with your team so they can quantify their activities:

  • How much did you earn last year?
  • What are your annual expenses?

  • How much revenue and commission do you need to cover current and future expenses?

Requisite sales activities – calls, appointments, proposals and deals required on a weekly basis to generate the desired commission can be calculated from there.

Let’s say a salesperson has to bring in $100,000 in new business each month. Her average deal size is $30,000. This means she needs to close roughly three new deals each month. And we know from our Championship Selling client surveys, that any sales-person on average has to make about 100 new phone calls to new contacts to close one deal (the survey includes all vertical markets).

Here’s the math: She needs to make 300 new business phone calls a month (3 deals x 100 dials per deal), which translates into 15 new business calls to new contacts a day (300 dials divided by 20 working days). Since each new phone call takes about 4 minutes (this is an average since some will take more and many will take less), this means she needs to book 1 hour every day in her calendar for new business development phone calls.

Goals: Follow the S.M.A.R.T Goals methodology – specific, measurable, action-oriented, results-driven and time sensitive.

Ask your staff if they’ve quantified the activities required to realize earning potential:

  • How many clients or what size or type of client do you desire?
  • How will you reach quota?
  • How will you get your next promotion (or get to the next level)? Break into new markets? Sell a new product?

On the individual side, encourage your team to set spiritual, intellectual, personal and community goals. Emphasize the importance of balance and becoming a well-rounded, likeable person who makes others feel important.

Coach Nick’s Axiom: "To become a better sales professional, you must become a warmer, more likeable human being

Part 2 of this 4-part series covers Account Management.
   
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