Sales Playbook: What is it & How To Create? (Free Template Included)

Want to create a sales playbook to drive more sales? You are at the right place! Read on…

Having access to the right knowledge at the right time can be crucial, especially if you work in sales. In the competitive field of sales, even the slightest edge can make or break a deal.

This is why it’s important to equip your sales reps with everything they need to do their jobs more effectively and close more deals. However, data shows a different picture-

67% of sales professionals do not attain individual quota.
Over 1/2 of all salespeople close at less than 40%
40% of salespeople can’t understand customer pain
Only 46% of reps feel their pipeline is accurate
A shocking 90% of marketing content is rarely or never used by sales

As you can see, salespeople are performing nowhere near their potential and it’s not entirely their fault. Not providing enough training and not equipping them with proper information and resources is one of the main reasons for sales failure.

In fact, 40% of sales teams don’t even have a playbook, despite the fact that a playbook or sales strategy makes you 33% more likely to close sales at a higher rate!

If you are part of that 40 percent and don’t have a sales playbook yet, don’t fret. We have created an awesome sales playbook template for you to use.

But before we dive into our awesome sales playbook template, let’s take a quick look at what exactly is a sales playbook document, what are the things one needs to include in these documents, and how can one create such playbooks quickly and most effectively. Read on…

What is a Sales Playbook? (Definition)

A sales playbook is reference documentation that is for new and existing sales professionals. A sales playbook teaches everything from the internal sales organization structure, company information, target market, sales strategies, software tutorials, and much more. It provides a framework for salespeople to follow and close more deals effectively.

A sales playbook contains methodologies, resources, information, tutorials, hacks, email scripts, competitive intelligence, buyer personas, sales enablement content, and much more. It basically contains all the strategies and content a sales rep needs to close more deals and do their jobs more efficiently.

Why Sales Playbooks are Important?

Sales playbooks are an important resource for sales teams to ensure that everyone has the same knowledge and access to resources as they strive to hit their goals.

Research by the Aberdeen Group reveals that 54% of salespeople using Sales Playbooks are likely to meet their sales target versus just 46% when no Playbook is available to the sales team. Moreover, “Best in Class” sales teams (top 20%) are more than twice as likely to deploy sales playbooks compared to Laggards (bottom 30%).

The playbook should evolve as the business, products, target market, strategies, and goals evolve. Hence, the sales playbook should be a “living document” which any sales rep can access quickly and make changes if necessary. This living resource becomes the go-to resource for your team as they strive for success.

How to Create Sales Playbook? (Things to Include)

Having a standardized sales playbook ensures everything gets covered and no vital information is left out. A typical sales playbook contains the following elements:

Title

Introduction to Business & Sales Organization

Mission
Vision
Founding Story
Core values
Product & Services
Company Organization Chart
Office rules

Sales Team Roles & Responsibilities

Buyers Persona & Buyers Journey

Time Management & Structuring Your Day

Products & Pricing

How to Use CRM & Sales Related Software

Commissions & Incentives

Selling System

Measuring Sales Activities & Results

Now that you know the importance and elements of a sales playbook, it’s time to put that information to test by using a documentation tool like Bit.

Key Benefits of Creating Your Sales Playbook on Bit.ai

Salespeople often find themselves making a lot of documents in the form of sales playbooks, sales processes, presentations, scripts, persona documents, proposal documents, case studies, sales decks, etc. Hence, having a tool to create and store all these documents becomes a necessity. This is where Bit comes in!

Bit is a modern-day workplace collaboration tool that empowers sales teams to make marketing and sales materials while collaborating in a common workplace. The sales team can create, customize, collaborate and share sales playbooks, processes, proposals, sales decks, and other internal as well as client-facing material

Bit.ai: Document collaboration tool for Creating Sales Playbooks

Whether your team is creating sales playbooks, process documentation, training manuals, best practices, client support material, etc, they can easily add videos, PDFs, Slideshare decks, spreadsheets, and more directly into a Bit document. It’s a smart way to add context to the content you are sharing.

Create Interactive Documents: You can add content from over 100+ various applications that will live inside of your Bit documents. Add Excel spreadsheets, PDFs, Google Forms, Gantt charts, social media posts, YouTube videos- basically anything on the internet with a link, and Bit will automatically convert that into live content living inside your sales playbook!

Recommended power links and files you can add to your Bit document sales playbook:

Weblinks
Sketchfab, Figma, Marvel
PDFs, PowerPoint in Google Drive/OneDrive
Google Sheets, OneDrive Excel, Airtable
Social Media posts
YouTube, Vimeo
Draw.io, Lucidcharts

Collaborate in real-time: Salespeople people can simultaneously collaborate on a Bit smart document in real-time. Employees can collaborate to create Sales playbooks, Process documents, Case studies, White paper, Ebooks, Blog posts, Persona documents, Training documents, Presentations/Sales Decks, Email templates, Datasheets, Social media content, Competitive Intelligence documents, Sales scripts, Product pages, and more.

It’s a wonderful way to manage projects, create client-facing material, brainstorm, share meeting agendas, create proposals, and most importantly, share the knowledge! Bit’s sleek, minimal and distraction-free editor makes a great tool for documentation.

Avoid Confusion: With the ability to tag co-workers, interlink documents to create wikis, collaborate on a document in real-time, and chat functionality makes it very easy for everyone (especially remote teams) to stay on the same page and avoid confusion and chaos.

Track Documents: With Bit, you can track the time spent by employees on these sales playbooks, how frequently they were viewed, or if they were viewed at all. This is extremely helpful as it gives you an idea of whether new employees have actually read the training material given to them. Bit allows you to track your documents and gain amazing insights, helping you create an even better version of your playbooks.

Multiple ways to share: Bit documents can be shared in a live state meaning that all changes that you make to the document will update in real-time. If you are sharing your playbook with outside partners and clients, they will always get your most up-to-date changes.

You can even embed these playbooks on any website or blog. Since Bit documents render and are responsive, any changes made to these documents will reflect live on the site! Moreover, features like document tracking, password protection, file access restrictions, etc. help keep your playbooks and other workplace documents safe.

Bit provides a common workplace for salespeople to collaborate, document, share their knowledge, brainstorm ideas, store digital assets, and innovate together. The best part is that this knowledge is safely secured in your workspaces and can be shared (or kept private) with anyone in your organization or the public!

Here are some of the main benefits of using Bit:

Collaborate in real-time
Interlink sales playbooks and other documents
Create fully responsive documents
Create private sales playbooks only visible to yourself or your team.
Track engagement on shared sales playbooks with publishers, partners, etc.

Sales Playbook Template

To make the process of creating your sales playbook easier, we have created a ready-made sales playbook template for you! Check it out below:

How to use Sales Playbook Template with Bit

The process of creating a sales playbook on Bit is insanely easy! Just follow these four simple steps to create a sales playbook quickly:

Step 1: Create a Bit Account

Go the home page of Bit.ai and click on Get Started for Free or Sign Up to get started. Enter your email address to sign up. Once in, you can create your personal profile.

Preview of creating account on bit

Step 2: Create a Workspace

Workspaces are where the work gets done. Click on the ‘Create Workspace’ button on the right. A popup will show up prompting you to add a name for your new workspace. You can create a workspace around a team, department, large project, client, partner, etc.

Preview of creating a workspace on bit for sales team Inside each workspace, you can create an unlimited amount of Bit documents and access your content library (storage area for all of your digital assets – web links, files, cloud files, rich embeds, etc.).

Step 3: Add Team Members

Bit allows your team members to collaborate in real-time and get work done. Collaboration starts at the workspace level.

Preview of adding sales team members You create private workspaces by default. However, you can invite others to join you inside of a workspace and collaborate together with the knowledge, projects, documents, and content inside of the workspace.

Step 4: Create Your Desired Document

Once you are in the workspace, click on the ‘Create New’ button. Select ‘From Template’ in the dropdown.

Preview of creating sales playbook on bit A pop-up will display allowing you to select a template from the gallery. In the search box on the top left corner, you can search for a “sales playbook template”. Once your desired template pops up, click on it and click on the “Use Template” button on the bottom right corner.

That’s it! Your sales playbook document is ready for use!

Over to you

Even though creating a sales playbook can be a time-consuming endeavor, the return on investment of creating one is tremendous.

Equipping your sales team with a playbook can increase your sales effectiveness and productivity multifold. The more productive your sales team is, the more customers your business will have, which ultimately leads to more revenue.

According to research by the CMO Council, sales reps spend 40% of their time searching for or creating content. By creating a sales playbook, you free up a considerable amount of time for your sales team, allowing them to focus on things to do best- selling!

Using a playbook template can significantly reduce the time and effort required to create such sales documents, equipping sales reps with everything they need to be successful. If you need any help with the sales playbook or want to know how Bit can help your sales team, let us know by tweeting us @bit_docs. Cheers!