Sales Playbooks Provide Guidance to Success

There is often a very long list of skills, resources, and procedures that someone who wants to contribute to your organization must master within a given role. As a leader, you must recognize that it’s sometimes going to be a challenge for any one individual to master everything that’s necessary in a short amount of time. And you must make the transition to mastery as easy as possible.

In sales organizations the focus is typically on client retention, new client acquisition, and go-to-market strategies. Obviously we are looking for positive results in all those categories but what is often overlooked is that solid processes need to be established to achieve these ends.

That’s why I really liked Alex Paladino’s comments on the announcement that she was named Chief Revenue Officer of Prometric. She specifically states that she intends to establish organizational models to achieve greater value.

Leaders can’t answer every question personally, and shouldn’t try. Your goal as a leader must be to create and support teams that are self-sufficient. That means you must give your people the tools, resources, and insights they need to become as productive as possible, as quickly as possible.

Begin by setting aside self-deceptive talk like, “We only hire bright people who can figure things out for themselves,” or “So-and-so will hit the ground running.” They won’t hit the ground running without guidance, and they shouldn’t be expected to do so. You don’t want them taking months or years learning from making mistakes that could have been prevented. You want them to capitalize on other people’s previous successes, people who have been doing the job at a superior level and/or have experience that they can share and transfer to others. So enlist the help of your top performers. Create a playbook . . . and update it regularly!

An inescapable reality of the working world is that we can’t expect our people to be great at everything. It’s virtually impossible for everyone to become an expert in all the areas that our organization hires for. Even if they somehow could, it would take them far too long to reach that point. Here’s another inescapable reality: At some point, if people don’t have experience or guidance as they enter a new situation, and can’t get it, they will make up the best answer they can. It won’t always be the right answer.

Your sales people want to do the right thing . . . but if there’s no playbook for them to look to, if there’s no experience that they can rely on, and no one to turn to, they will improvise – or not do it at all. While improvising is sometimes necessary, it’s not really an effective daily strategy when it comes to growing your business!