Playbooks can be amazing tools in your sales training process if they are made and used correctly. Unfortunately, they are often overlooked or underused. A successful company will use any advantage they can get, and playbooks can be a valuable resource.
Here are a few difficulties you can face when making your sales playbook, as well as some sales training best practices to help improve your adoption rates without sacrificing too much time or speed.
Playbook Challenges
Creating, maintaining, and utilizing a sales training playbook is worth the effort it takes, but you need to go into the process with your eyes open. Otherwise, you might be tempted to give up when you run into the following challenges.
It’s a mistake to create a playbook as an unchanging or inaccessible document. This might be a problem in limiting who has the authority to make changes, as well as the format or application you’re using. Both additions and edits need to be possible to your playbook. Otherwise, it will quickly become outdated and not as useful, and all that time you spent making it will be wasted.
What works well today might not work at all next year, and your sales training playbook needs to keep up with those changes. Your sales product training playbook should be a living document that can grow when you need it to. The program or document should be easy to access and edit as your sales team, the market, and economy changes.
Some companies make their playbooks too expansive. These playbooks cover every contingency, in multiple ways, and keep outdated tactics and sales practices “just in case” they are needed.
Outdated procedures or information are never needed and there is no reason to keep them in your playbook. A playbook that is too broad becomes bulky and cumbersome and won’t be used as often as it should, so only pertinent information should be included.
Your playbook needs to be usable. A large document that is difficult to sift through is not easy to use and will turn users away. The design and structure of your playbook are just as important as the information. Not only do you need to have relevant and concise information, but it also needs to be easily accessible.
Solutions With Tiled
Tiled can solve all of these common sales playbook challenges. With Tiled microapps, you can:
Training helps make your sales team better. From the most veteran salesperson to the newest hire who has never made a sale in their life, sales training ensures consistent results from your team. Here are a few sales training ideas to implement as best practices, including how they can lead to success.
Onboarding new team members should include a thorough, well-designed program that can take even the most novice new hire and help them do their best as soon as possible. One of the best ways of doing this is to have your training content online so salespeople are able to access and interact with the information.
Tiled worked with HubSpot to make their training engaging, personalized, and relevant. We helped create a dynamic playbook that had multiple ways to engage with it. This created an environment where recruits could easily access important onboarding training in an intuitive manner so they didn’t require additional instructions to complete it. It became the library to get new hires off on the right foot while improving the speed of their training.
In sales, there are always changes and developments. New products come out, old products are updated, and the market is constantly changing. If your sales training modules are going to remain relevant, they have to always support your team by providing up-to-date, relevant information and training. If the information in your training is continually being updated and improved upon, your team will learn to use the playbook as a reliable source of information they can pull from.
Tiled worked with Vivint Smart Home to deliver a media-rich experience that needed to be easy to use and provide real-time updates. Tiled made sure the team at Vivint Smart Home could update and share the information they needed. This guaranteed that with every use of the microapp, the user was getting accurate, up-to-date information.
Sales training is more than just teaching people about a product; it is about creating a relationship. Sales training should include how to build a relationship with the customer by being pleasant, honest, direct, and personable.
Not everyone is naturally charismatic, but soft skills can be taught. Including them as part of your training strengthens your team and helps build a better relationship with your brand. Soft skills will help your team be approachable and friendly, which will help build a positive customer experience.
Coaching takes time, but it is also one of the most effective approaches to consistently improve your team. Consistent and frequent one-on-one coaching gives your team the opportunity for feedback, which can help them improve.
It’s not just for the new hires. Even the most veteran team members have room to grow and should be coached on how to improve. Coaching also ensures there is a consistent approach to how your brand is represented.
Implement These Best Practices With Tiled
Tiled can help your sales training process become a unified experience without sacrificing important details. We know that training isn’t a one-size-fits-all experience, and that is why our resources help you create sales playbooks that meet your needs. Request your demo today to see how Tiled can help transform your sales training playbook.
