“In order for us to move forward, we have to have this right. We were not reaching out to people we should have been reaching out to so we needed a long-term solution. Since we created and implement our sales playbook we’re very pleased with our cadence. Our results have been strong and we know we’re going to reach out to everyone we want to reach out to this year.”
That’s a quote from Michael Wolaver, the founder of Magellan Promotions. Michael Wolaver and Steve Baker joined us as our special guests at our very first skummunity meetup session to share why it’s important to build a sales playbook for your company plus the five essential elements you should include in your own:
A client ranking system and scorecard: Do you know who your most important clients are by gross sales? By gross profit/profitability? How do you classify your clients? Are you sure you are working on the most profitable accounts possible? By categorizing their clients, Magellan is able to focus on the right kind of business at the right time.
A sales contact plan: One of the number one reasons a client fires a promotional products distributor is because the client isn’t receiving enough attention from their distributor. By creating an engagement plan, Michael and Steve can tell you how many times they will contact their VIP’s throughout the upcoming year: an excellent safeguard to keeping accounts but also growing accounts! They can cite how many meetings they are planning per month, per client, plus track their progress using tags and statuses (below).
A marketing and sales coordination plan: Marketing is sales (as we’ve written about before) and your sales playbook should include all aspects of your sales and marketing. By defining who is responsible for what, both working in harmony create far more impact plus, marketing is able to help alleviate the number of outbound touches while scaling the sales process.
A CRM component: One of the most important tools in your sales arsenal is your CRM. Client relationship management has become more important than ever and the team at Magellan uses it obsessively, taking copious notes of client conversations as well as using tags to make note of significant upcoming events, sales opportunities, and much more.
Specific targeted accounts: During our breakout, one attendee mentioned their TOGA accounts, “top growth accounts” citing that everyone should have a target list of top accounts they are trying to land. A sales playbook, that you create and review regularly, is critical for helping you stay focused on the right target prospects.
After our interview with Steve and Michael, we gathered in smaller groups and in a micro-workshop attendees shared whether they had a sales playbook and if so, which components were most important to them. Attendees also received a worksheet that they could take and work on with their team after the event.
Thanks to Michael and Steve for being so transparent with their process and giving each of us insight into how to create our own sales playbook!
Join us for our next skummunity meetup on April 21st from 4-5 ET when we’ll be joined by Kelli Bernd, the Director of Marketing at INM Marketing Group to talk about “Does Your Marketing Make Sense?!”
It’s a fast hour with friends and you’ll walk away with real-time tactics from pros! Register here and come meetup with us!