Are you confident that every member of your sales team has the ability to engage with prospects, discover their needs, and quickly produce accurate pricing and quotes to meet those needs?
If not, it’s time to discover the advantages of using a sales playbook to guide selling.
The annual State of Sales report from Salesforce reveals that “high-performing sales teams are 2.3 times more likely than underperforming teams to use guided selling.” Guided selling provides a situational framework, such as a predictive sales playbook, to direct sales reps through the sales process. It increases efficiency, productivity, and effectiveness, thereby creating a high-performing sales team.
Guided selling works regardless of who the buyer is or what product or service is being sold.
How Guided Selling Accelerates the Sales Process
Studies repeatedly show that sales teams who provide accurate, personalized quotes in a timely manner consistently close more deals faster. Salespeople who use a sales playbook aren’t spending time searching for the information needed to personalize a sales quote. Instead, they’re selling—and closing deals.
The key to closing more sales is to accelerate the sales process. There are several ways in which guided selling helps:
Onboarding new hires faster
With a sales playbook in place, newly hired sales reps have a step-by-step guide to help them engage with customers almost immediately without sounding like the “new guy.” Instead, they’ll understand the buyer’s needs quickly because the system triggers relevant questions to walk them through the sales call.
Personalizing sales calls and subsequent sales proposals
50% of buyers select the vendor who responds first, so it is critical to be the first vendor to get a personalized sales proposal in front of the buyer.
By allowing salespeople to adjust quickly to various sales scenarios, sales playbooks help them to provide a personalized sales call and, later, a sales proposal without spending hours digging for relevant pricing sheets and content assets. They can produce dynamic, personalized sales proposals for customers quickly and efficiently, saving them time and allowing them to be the first to the table with the information their buyers seek.
Shortening the sales cycle
Using a sales playbook to inform guided selling shortens the sales cycle in several ways. First, when everyone on the team is using the same sales technology, the sales process becomes clear, concise, and easy to follow. Everyone is on the same page, and this helps prevent time-consuming missteps. Next, with a standardized sales playbook in place, eliminating poor leads becomes simpler, freeing up more time to spend on qualified leads. Finally, guided selling allows salespeople to truly focus on what’s going to make the sale: solving the customer’s pain points. The faster you can get to this part of the process, the shorter the sales cycle will be.
How to Set Up a Sales Playbook
A sales playbook contains all the information a salesperson needs to take a sale from quote to close. This can include everything from an overview of the company, detailed information about the sales process, guidance on the CRM, product offerings, each product’s USPs, customer personas, competitor analysis, messaging templates, resources, key performance indicators, dynamic guided flows, and more. Setting up your guided selling sales playbook is a simple step-by-step process:
- During the CRM Opportunity stage, define your master playbook.
- Select which content assets should be part of the master playbook.
- Set up dynamic guided questions and rules, so your playbook quickly leads salespeople to the information they need.
- Define the various user groups or roles, and then segment the sales guidance accordingly.
- Define the approval workflow process.
- Preview the sales proposal. Once it’s approved, publish and send it to the customer.
- Use AI insights to determine what worked and did not work throughout the process. Use this information to optimize the guided sales process for the next sales opportunity.
Advantages of Integrating CPQ into Your Sales Playbook
A sales playbook takes most, if not all, of the guesswork out of the sales process. The purpose of configure-price-quote (CPQ) software is to accelerate deals by quickly producing price quotes based on the right product configurations for each customer. Using a CPQ ensures consistency in pricing, discounting, and approvals.
By integrating CPQ solutions into your sales playbook, you can create a workflow that drives scalable and predictable results. Other advantages of integrating your CPQ solution into your sales playbook include:
Defined Roles and Responsibilities
When your CPQ solution is part of the sales playbook, everyone understands the process from start to finish, and productivity improves for everyone from new hires to seasoned pros.
Complete Buyer Personas
The target sales audience is clearly and concisely defined in one place, making it easier for the sales team to ask the right questions to determine the proper sales technique for that customer.
Efficient Time Management
Integrating a CPQ solution into the sales playbook streamlines the sales process, reduces lead times and sales cycles, and improves efficiency for all stakeholders.
Integrated Products and Pricing
Sales personnel won’t have to rely on their memory or outdated spreadsheets to recommend the appropriate product or bundle to a buyer. When the salesperson answers the guided questions set up in the sales playbook, the CPQ solution then provides the best recommendation in moments instead of hours. Further, pricing and discounts can be calculated automatically so the salesperson can provide an accurate quote quickly.
Efficient Sales Processes and Planning
When the CPQ solution is integrated into the sales playbook, lead qualification, pitches, and sales quotes become automated processes rather than time-consuming team training needs.
Accurate Results Measurement
Using CPQ, your sales team has an efficient and reliable method for tracking sales metrics. This allows sales managers to be aware of what’s happening with their team even from a distance, and it allows the team to have accurate tools for analyzing and providing even more effective guided selling with the next sales cycle.
Learn more about the benefits of CPQ in our online Guide to CPQ.
Master the Art of Guided Selling with DealHub CPQ
DealHub’s sales playbook is an integral part of our CPQ solution. A Playbook offers unique guided selling flows that adjust to every sales scenario, empowering sales reps to work faster and smarter while providing an outstanding customer experience. By utilizing the playbook, sales reps can dynamically generate the most personalized and relevant content to engage with their prospects and drive deals forward. A Playbook can dynamically adjust to all users – from new sales hires to experienced reps and/or channel partners – ensuring optimal engagement at every customer interaction.
“DealHub provides guided selling capabilities improving the time to first sale of all our new sales reps. DealHub provides a completely digitized sales workflow on one platform.”
– Ulises Gonzalez, Pricing Analyst – Revenue Operations
What does this all mean for your sales organization? With guided selling workflows within DealHub CPQ, you’ll reduce the sales cycle, close more business, and grow revenue.
Ready to learn more about how DealHub’s Sales Playbook and CPQ can accelerate your sales process and help your sales team close more deals? Request a demo today