Sales Playbook 2024: What Are the Essentials for Startups? - Podcast Recording

Automated Transcript

Alastair Cole  1:01  

Hello, good afternoon and welcome to another edition of the sales scoop, necessarily live recording. And it's a show for startups who want to improve how they sell. We tackle the hottest topics in sales and bring you the juiciest pearls of wisdom from experienced sellers across the board. I'm Alastair Cole, your host for this session and a co-founder of the partnership. My background is as a software engineer and ex computer scientist. And I have 20 years experience in marketing and for years now experience in sales, specifically sales for startups. And I'm joined by my co-founder, Kiran Gill. Hi, Kiran.

Kiran Gill  1:46  

Good afternoon, or good morning, Alastair, depending on where you are in the world - might be even some good evenings. Hi, everybody. My name is Kiran. I'm a co-founder of the uplift partnership. Also, I've got 25 odd years now experience in b2b business. I've worked in business development, I've worked in tech, I've worked in sales operations. I've also worked in finance. So yeah, bring all that to the party as well.

Alastair Cole  2:12  

Thank you. And together, we accelerate sales for startups through our unique combination of sales, marketing, product and technology experience. And today's topic is all about the sales playbook for 2020 For what the essentials are for startups. It's a really important topic, isn't it? My friend?

Kiran Gill  2:35  

It is fundamental to your business. You know, especially in b2b, we, you know, I've been doing this now, where I've been working in sales operations for a lot of large and small companies for the last 10 years. And fundamentally, this is where it's success or not. Some companies have a sales playbook that they use, some companies have a sales book, they never use. And some companies don't even have a sales playbook. And just make it up on the fly as they go along. Obviously, the companies that tend to have a sales playbook and use it are the ones that are successful. That's what I've seen in the last 12 to 15 years of doing this Aleister.

Alastair Cole  3:15  

Yeah, you know, writing it down, creating a home for your thoughts, and your sales approach is absolutely critical. I think of all the startups that we've worked with in the last four years, and many of them almost 50 have been through our 360 sales diagnostic tool. The average score for sales methodology is just 42.8, which isn't super high. And across different sectors, we see different scores. So professional services, as you might expect, lead the way in terms of that definition, their sales methodology, then Software as a Service, and at the bottom of the pack, their nonprofits and social services are not as good as others at creating a playbook and defining their methodology. So kind of no surprise there. And like you say, those who we see with more advanced playbooks are doing much better. And today, we're going to break it down into three areas. We're going to look at the cornerstone, the fact that sales play what used to be the cornerstone of your sales. The second key area is that it should be simple and friendly. And the third that it needs to be used as a living, breathing document that you use on a regular basis. Before we get into that, have you got any memories of where say sales playbooks have been used brilliantly in the last four years or where they've been used? Terribly?

Kiran Gill  4:42  

I've got some great stories. You know, the good ones are the ones that you don't tend to remember. Unfortunately, the good ones are the ones where you know, the sales function or the sales operation of that company is working really well. And, you know, the sales playbook is doing what it's supposed to do and everybody's reading from the same Same kind of, you know, book itself and making sure it's all implemented, where I've seen some disasters, some real disasters, where companies, you know, even think that they have it, but no one's actually looking at it. And everything, it's ad hoc. So the whole solid sales process, you know, the, the understanding of what the sales strategy is, and once you start digging away at it, and you know, as, and that was my job, as a consultant, I used to go in and help companies implement this and still do that with us to uplift partnership. And what you would find would be, they have all the information, but yet, everyone's doing something different. It was just crazy to see that, that the time and effort had been put in to build a sales playbook. And then it wasn't implemented and telling the truth that those companies were, they were missing a trick by not using it for what it was supposed to be used for.

Alastair Cole  5:50  

It's one of the documents that we're in all the time, we're kind of living and breathing in there refining, especially now in January, the start of the year, we're refining our ideal customer profiles, we're looking at our value propositions we're using it as, as a kind of live document, I'm I'm in there almost every day, if not every day. And, and I think that that adds a lot of value. So, you know, at the end of this session, we're going to talk a little bit about an exciting new prototype. We've got a sales playbook generator that is hot off the production line. We're part of that a little bit later. That's very exciting. Let's dive into these three areas. So let's talk first about why and and how it should be the cornerstone of your sales function with a startup. You alluded to it a little bit, a little bit, just then. But would you like to elaborate?

Kiran Gill  6:46  

Yeah, so. So the thing is your sales playbook, it can be different for all companies. And what we're talking about is the uplift way of trying to do this. So the years of experience that Allison and myself are bringing to uplift is what we're trying to talk about here. So sales playbooks, if you put that general kind of term into Google, you'll get all sorts of different things depending on where you're looking at it from which kind of direction for us a sales playbook theoretically needs about 12 different sections, I think, or 11, said, the sections that we got Alastair, of that, you've got the strategy part that's at the top, where that's all your you know, your target market, your metrics, everything that you're trying to accomplish all the things that you should have in there. And then towards the end, or towards the bottom of the playbook. That's where your meaty kind of processes, your methodologies, and all of that stuff comes into play. The reason that you keep it in one place, and you have it as a living document is that it's somewhere that your sales operation lives, and that as your company grows, everybody goes to the same document to find the same thing to make sure that it's happening. Now, if your processes are in one place, it's quite easy to see if things are going wrong, or if things are going right and what's there. Now, if you haven't got them documented somewhere, that's a disaster for you because you don't really know where to improve things. And again, that's the same place where your target analysis would be, or your target market analysis. So your ideal customer profile, your buyer personas, all the market information that you need, your competitor analysis would be in another section. So this document really is a living, breathing document that your company is going to use to basically make sure that they are selling as efficiently as they possibly can.

Alastair Cole  8:32  

And as Reggie James just made a great comment on LinkedIn about how vital sales strategy is and this is a key part of sales strategy. And a lot of the founders and the sales leaders that we talked to, they've got a lot in their head, maybe they're solopreneurs, they've got a small team. And actually, they think that that's okay. And so what we've seen is by them, even writing it down, even just for themselves, they're able to consider it, pontificate on it, evolve it and end up with even better value propositions better ideal customer profiles and better message templates, because that's, that's a key sections, you can go in and copy and paste something out. So it really is that kind of Cornerstone. Right? And I think about it, like our HQ, you know, it has links out to other documents, you know, image libraries, and post generation tools and all the other tools that we use as links to links out to stuff but that sales playbook in the form of either kind of Microsoft Word or we use Google so a Google doc in that format is that is that is the best way.

Kiran Gill  9:35  

Yeah, totally. And the great thing about Alastair, you know, where we've implemented with companies, and when we put this in place, isn't brilliant when you see that the salesperson or the sales or you know, the sales, development rep goes into the document goes to the point where their lead generation is and they're looking for that particular marketing asset that they want to send to a to a to a prospect, and it's there. No messing around. I'm not hunting for it. And also from a marketing point of view, you're updating these documents in the background. And you know that the salespeople have that document that you want the, you know, the best version of that document in that link. So there's no none of this kind of, Oh, are they sending something from 2012? That hasn't been updated, and the branding is all wrong? No, you go to the sales playbook, you go to the link, you click the link, and it takes you straight to where the marketing asset is. And the people from marketing, whoever it is, whether it's a small team, big team, whatever it is, they've updated, and you've got the best version that needs to be sent to that prospect.

Alastair Cole  10:40  

And you talked about going into Google and searching for it. And there are lots of different places where you can get sales playbooks, I mean, notion and other places have templates that you can download, you can use, you can even create your own templates, you can get it from kind of everywhere. One of the reasons that we've built the sales playbook generator is like you said, it's the uplift way and the sections that we think are relevant for startups and those smaller businesses. And that is being that cornerstone, right? I see that as being really important in terms of also including some of the company's mission, vision, and, and the overall sales targets. They're absolutely critical to kind of business basics, the sales strategy, other stuff you've talked about, but then getting right down into the technology and tools list of tools, and messaging templates, I find myself in our in our messaging template section the whole time, copying something and then refining it and showing it how. Let's and we know that this works. But like you say, it's great to see the faces of founders and sellers. But it isn't just isn't just our clients across the board. You know, we're seeing companies that have a strong, ideal customer profile. And that is written down in their playbook. Those that have that in place, as two thirds of them are winning more accounts than their peers, because they've, they've defined it and it's written down everybody on the team is, is clearly moving in a direction. So absolutely critical. Cornerstone. Let's move on to section two. So making it simple and friendly, friendly to us. What are your thoughts? What are your thoughts on that? How can I start up to do that?

Kiran Gill  12:28  

So the thing is, first of all, the document needs to be accessible to everybody who needs to use it. And you know, so keeping it in a drive is probably the best place to be. Because it's a living document, that means everybody's got access to it. And when it becomes simple, the way I always think about it is that whoever is looking at it understands exactly where they are, what they're doing and what needs to be done. So that language needs to be done in a way that everybody gets what that has to happen in that particular section. So it's written very simply. So the template that we've created, and the template that we implement into other companies is that we keep it if we don't want to make it into something that's so complex, that no one is able to understand what's going on there. It's got to be simple to the point that you go in. And realistically a child would be able to go in there and say, Okay, I understand this, this has to go, this is what I need to send to a prospect. This is where I need our pricing lists, whatever it is, it just has to be easy.

Alastair Cole  13:31  

Yep. And we've toyed with different formats. But I think we've settled now for 2024 on this on a kind of Google Doc or Word doc version, plain text. And I mean, I love being able to go in there on my phone, if I'm out and about so that accessibility is critical, written in plain English, links out to other documents, and the deep complexity can be elsewhere. If you need to get into diagrams and fine details and deep dives into other areas of business, then that can be left in a separate document with a link to get in there. And it's important to go and refine your playbook continuously. So you're as you're adding to it maybe pieces chunks need to be moved out into other documents so that the playbook stays light, and, and high level. So yeah, and something that's really important to me is about making it friendly. It is the kind of culture that doesn't make it boring or stressful, or that I want to be able to go there. It's not a dirty word or something I'm scared of that I do infrequently. I wouldn't want it to be a regular thing that people get into. i can’t complain because everything is really fun. Kevin, what do you think?

Kiran Gill  14:49  

Well, I don't know about being fun. But for a sales team. It's , you know, fundamental. It's your foundation. I wouldn't, I don't think I've seen many fun ones. But what I've seen is some very practical ones. And I've seen some playbooks that are very, very difficult to understand or tell, you know, it's just, it's become a place where everybody's thrown in something, and you can't really find anything. And that's why I think what you know, as you've said, I listed the structure is so important. You know, I find, I find, you know, the fun comes out of it being usable. Yeah, that's the thing. Yeah, maybe

Alastair Cole  15:27  

That's me, it's because of our business so for me going in there and playing with it is always changing it and using it on a daily basis, I find it quite fun. So maybe it's fun, isn't it fundamental. And then that last, that last section, the third bit, right, so it is the cornerstone, it needs to be simple and easy to use. And the third section needs to be a living document in our eyes, you need to be able to immerse in it on a regular basis. I mean, it's one of my permanent, the open tabs. So I'm in there, I keep it open, I'm in there all the time and referring to it with polishing it, considering it. And, you know, I talked a little bit about moving sections out, what are your What are your thoughts on maybe stuff that definitely should be in there or definitely shouldn't be in there for startups that are watching now and watch out?

Kiran Gill  16:25  

Yeah, well, the thing is, as your company grows, it gets more complex and you're selling so you know, you might have different targets in different markets and and those different targets and different markets, your sales book is going to slowly yourselves playbook is slowly going to grow. So where you definitely don't want to be, you've got to keep it usable. That's the big thing I would always say. So the big thing I can say at the start of your sales playbook is to look at the sections and really think about whether you need to have those sections in there. Because as a solo entrepreneur, there are going to be big gaps in your playbook that you don't really need to worry about. You don't need to worry about team structure and bits like that, to tell you the truth. Because at this moment in time, you haven't got a team, or you might not need to think too much about your learning documents and things that so look at the parts that you need. And that's why I think it's important to speak to someone who knows how to do this, at the start to make sure that you've got the main parts in there. So your sales strategy parts of your sales strategy. So as your metrics are in there, your target market, those kinds of fundamentals are in there. And then your lead generation and your way you're going to close deals are in there. And some of the other resources or some of the other sections, you might lightly touch on. But you don't really need to go into there too, too much. But as time goes on, you'll notice that just out of just doing the work, you're going to be filling up the other sections, because you'll get more and more information about your sales operation. And as you do that, you'll be able to go back to your sales playbook and then review it and update as it's required.

Alastair Cole  18:09  

Yeah, you're absolutely spot on that it's that kind of constant updating, I find myself almost ideating in there. So I'll be looking at a particular customer ID customer profiles that we've reviewed, and then I start making notes about how we might engage them and I start thinking about the kind of imagery and the creative concepts that might and it all starts to fill out there, then I have to go and grab that and take it out because obviously that isn't the place for kind of like, you know, marketing campaign ideas or visuals and that stuff, but it tends to start for me in in the playbook. Right? It's the kind of DNA that the startup and then, you know, tell me about the kinds of good habits that you would expect startups to, to have and to be, you know, what behaviours should should they be having and looking from the playbook and you doing in their in their day to day operations or sales function?

Kiran Gill  19:09  

Okay. So that is the major thing that I would say is the strategy part, you're not going to go into that too often. You know, you're going to do that work, especially from a solo entrepreneur or a startup point of view, you should have an understanding who your target market is, who your you know, your best fit customers are, and who you're chasing, and you know, how much you're expecting to turn over all of those kinds of things. These things cadence wise, once they're done, you probably don't need to visit them every week, you can probably leave that to every three months, six months, depending on you know what you're doing. And then we're realistically the bottom part of your playbook where you're more about your methodologies and your processes. That pretty much you're going to be in there most days, because you're going to be building your processes and you want to make sure that whatever however you're selling, that you're doing it in a process you don't want Want this to be an ad hoc kind of kind of thing that you do, and you don't, you know, one day you do it this way, and the next day, you do it another way, you want to try to keep it together. And that's why the playbooks are a great place to be, because that will keep us straight and true. You know, it's your North Star, it makes you keep, you know, makes you go that way. And if you're a solo entrepreneur, or you're a small startup, or even a larger startup, everybody's then doing the same thing. Everyone goes to the playbook. And they can see it. So some parts of the playbook are you're going to have, like you said, Alastair, they're going to be open all day, they're going to be the parts that you've got your templates there, you've got your lead generation process there. And as time goes on, you might not even need to open it so often, because it's already ingrained in you in what you're doing. So at the start, the habit is to do the main sections, and then put them to one side and then review them every so often. And then the bottom part where it's your lead generation, your deal closing and your customer access success, you probably want to be in there every day to make sure that you're you're you're following the processes that you've built, or the processes that you're following that somebody else might have built for you.

Alastair Cole  21:08  

You make a good point about ad hoc there, because that's that level of maturity is something that we help startups identify themselves, whether they are you know, ad hoc, whether they are basic, whether they have some standardisation and formality or they become data driven, and then ultimately they move to a kind of super dynamic and agile approach. But working out where you are from informal to hyperdynamic is, is, is an important early step. It's one of the things that we cover off when we engage startups through a 360 sales diagnostic product to work out exactly where they are, where they should be going. And now's a great time as well, isn't it to be reviewing your playbook? I mean, we're doing it. It's January, we've already reviewed our sales activity from last year, what was working and what wasn't what we're going to do differently this year. And now we're, you know, updating our ideal customer profiles, and I only have compositions and everything where we're reassessing everything at the start of the year. So whether you're a startup that has a playbook, or doesn't have one, now, this month is a good time to really come into it and review and make sure that it's working out for you. So, I talked to the top of the show about an exciting new prototype that we've got, which you know about obviously, as part of the business, I have a exciting update for you, my friend that I think we're basically there as as as a prototype we were hoping would be but it's there as that kind of prototype, not a fully fledged product just yet, but it's there as a prototype, which we're calling the sales playbook generator. And that's very exciting. And you were hoping that we would have that ready that we'd be able to share that with our viewers and I can confirm that we can, Mr. Gill, right. And I can answer any questions you might have about how that works. Okay, or any thoughts?

Kiran Gill  23:12  

Okay. So for well, what is the sales book, playbook generator? Aleister? Why, why would I ask you for one?

Alastair Cole  23:24  

Well, we realised that in creating playbooks for a lot of our startups that obviously there's, there's a similar kind of template, right, there's the uplift way of doing it. And that's a combination of our experience working with startups over the last four years, and also our wider sales experience. Beyond that, we realised that it's a similar kind of template that's tailored for them. And so we can put our heads together to create a prototype that will generate a playbook. Okay, it's a starter, it's not the full finished thing that will generate a playbook for a small business in a matter of minutes. So that we can help startups create that playbook if they don't have it really quickly. start refining and start getting into it. Okay, so

Kiran Gill  24:16  

industry wise, is there a particular industry I need to be from to get this playbook from? You?

Alastair Cole  24:24  

I don't think so. I mean, we've got experience across, you know, lots of different sectors for startups, professional services, med tech, nonprofits, SAS, IT software services. So there's like five big areas that we get across and I think we can help with all of them. So, you know, we tailor that playbook based on the sector that the startup is in. And of course, it includes the aspirations of the sales function of that company, which we take those during an hour's meeting, and we feed those to our experience plus there as their aspirations into, we feed that into our uplift template, and we use our AI powered tools to then create a five to 10 page sales playbook that is personalised for that company. And then, and then our final stages that we are using the human touch our personal human skills and experiences and how to refine that and make sure that it is ready for them. And then we can, and then we can hand it over. So it's fast tracking the creation of a personalised and hopefully highly valuable sales playbook.

Kiran Gill  25:31  

Wow. So how do I get one? So

Alastair Cole  25:35 

that the sales played a generator, we haven't yet worked out what we're doing about pricing. However, the prototype is hot off, that was early days, we haven't had that discussion. The product prototype is hot off the press. I propose live on air with you that we offer it to anybody watching now, or is registered for this event, that we have a limited number of 100% free AI generated playbooks that we'd like to hand out using our new product, or what do you think?

Kiran Gill  26:14  

Do I hope you'd spoken to me before you said the word free? You know, I'm gonna have to live with it. No, no, that's great. Well, you know, a part of our part of our kind of mantra, Alastair, as we've started the uplift partnership, that it wasn't always to do. It was about helping companies to sell better, you know, simplify sales, sustainable performance, we've played around with a lot of different terms. And I think, you know, the one thing that both you and I have been speaking about a lot in the last six months is about playbooks and how you know, there is an uplift way of doing this. And we want to share that, and I think this, you know, if it's aI generated, and everything seems to be aI generated nowadays is great, because it means less work to be done by me. So I'm all in good.

Alastair Cole  27:00  

So anybody on the call, hit us up on LinkedIn, or email if you'd like to take advantage of a limited edition of free inaugural outputs from our exciting new prototype sales playbook generator. Something else that I should mention that we talked about earlier was our our 360 sales diagnostic tool that has formed the basis of a lot of the data that we've captured from startups over the last four years. It's a 75 minute meeting with us, and then we create a score, deep score, and a personalised 25 page report that we do another session with presentation and questions and the sales plate, the 360 sales, diagnostic is an excellent way to accelerate your sales across the board if you're a startup. So that's it, we're kind of coming to the end. Great to have talked about that. The Playbook again, I think in my mind here is that I always feel a bit anxious that it's quite, it feels like quite a basic thing, right? Because ultimately, we're talking about a document and I have to keep reminding myself that that's how it should be, you know, it should be a kind of a really simple, easy to access on any device rather than a complex tool. And that it is highly valuable in that format. And I'm kind of inspired to kind of back into ours and set it up for the rest of the year. So before we wrap up, any final thoughts on playbooks people's takeaway on the new Sales Playbook Generator?

Kiran Gill  28:45  

I know you call it simple, and I think it is a bit simple. But the thing is, like most sales people know or people who've worked in sales, sales is a combination of two things. It's a part of art. And it's part science. Where I like to think is the playbook is the science part. It's where it's documented. It's very formulaic. It has the formulas in there and everything. The art part of sales is implementing that and making sure that the methodologies, it doesn't take the human element away from it. You know, your playbook is there to make sure that you keep the processes and I know so many people in sales, we all talk about the sales process. It's crazy when you walk into a company, how many people are just doing ad hoc, weird things, and then they wonder why their sales aren't happening. And you think, because you're not following the process. So the major thing I would turn around is, get a playbook. If you want one from us, great. If you don't want one from us, just get a playbook and then stick to it. That's the major thing and you'll be successful. Honestly, I've seen so many companies that were really bad products, just because they have a great playbook. It works. So there you go.

Alastair Cole  29:59  

Absolutely. Fantastic. An absolutely perfect way to sign off. Just thank you to all of our watchers and listeners - live -  and if you're watching this on record, that's us for today. A great way to finish - a Sales Playbook will make you more successful. Thank you very much for your time my friend.

Kiran Gill  30:19  

And you Alastair, I'll see you soon. See you later everyone.

Alastair Cole  30:22  

Bye bye