
Have you ever had an experience where you’re preparing for a meeting and the preparation itself is overwhelming? Yeah, we’ve all been there. Unfortunately, this is how a lot of your salespeople feel before their meetings. They brace themselves to dig into content ahead of a meeting, having numerous windows open on their computer monitor; sifting through countless email threads, 200-paged PDFs, old memos, and training videos that may not be from this decade. I’m sure your eyes are glazing over just thinking about it.
Fortunately, there is a better way. A great starting point is to develop a sales playbook that has content, tools, and training to enable your reps to deliver the conversations that lead to closed deals. Sounds great, right? Although a sale playbook is an important step to your sales enablement strategy, you risk your content going unread and unused if you don’t ensure that you’ve deployed the playbook in a way that your reps will actually use it.
The key here is to have something that is modern and sales-friendly.
Modern Sales Playbooks
So what does a modern sales playbook look like? The first and maybe the most obvious thing is that it is digital. With a digital playbook, all of your salespeople can get access anywhere at anytime to the same information. Many sales teams are spread out geographically and constantly on the move. They need a mobile tool that they can access in a lobby, in the back of a cab, or while their next flight is taking off. If admins and managers want to update existing information, they should be able to automatically update the content for everyone.
Additionally, a modern playbook isn’t limited to static PDF or PowerPoint documents, it can leverage more engaging content types such as infographics, videos, podcast recordings and more. Sales reps are looking for quick-hitting information that they can consume and put to use as soon as possible. This means situational role-play videos, an infographic covering industry trends, or an audio recording of how to handle typical objections.
Sales-Friendly Content
Another aspect of a modern sales playbook is that it leverages content that is sales-friendly. To be sales-friendly a playbook must include the depth of knowledge that sophisticated buyers expect, but it has to be easy for reps to access, understand, and share. Sales reps should be able to quickly go into a playbook, grab the content they need, and be on their way. When educating salespeople on a new topic, a playbook should be capable of providing bite-sized content that enables them to grasp key concepts in less than three minutes. The key to sales-friendly content is making sales enablement quick and easy.
Instead of having to sift through endless PDFs, salespeople can use a navigation bar that breaks out the knowledge they need in an easy-to-digest way. For instance, in vPlaybook, many of our clients have sections labeled: 2 Minute Conversations, Industries, Talk Tracks, Products, Competitors, etc. Having these points labeled increases the usability of virtual playbooks over static materials; your users can simply login and quickly find the content they are looking for.
Modern, Sales-Friendly Playbooks with vPlaybook
With vPlaybook, an administrator can put content into playbook format with simple click and drag features, templates that guide them through the process, and a customized resource drawer. Instead of having salespeople sift through knowledge banks and email threads, they’d now have a source that they can log in to and see what they need for their next meeting or conversation.
Using a tool that is intuitive, easily accessible, and sales-friendly is one of the best things you can do for your sales team and your company. vPlaybook, which is a video-based sales enablement platform that houses playbooks, can offer just-in-time sales content and training to take salespeople from preparation to presentation. As an HTML5 web app, vPlaybook can be accessed on any device; phone, tablet, laptop, and computer. Digital playbook admins can rest easy knowing that users have access to relevant sales information all of the time.
Read the eBook: 6 Traits of a Modern Sales Playbook to learn more about creating effective sales enablement content for your organization.