This past week I was fortunate enough to join a couple hundred of the smartest marketers at the annual SiriusDecisions event in Scottsdale, AZ.  This is the second one I’ve been to and both times I come back feeling revived and optimistic of the new changes I plan to roll out based on what I learned.  For those of you who weren’t able to attend, no worries, in my next couple of posts I’ll share with you the highlights.

This year I went hoping for something to help our marketing team better align with and drive more productive sales activity.  I feel like we’re working harder than we ever have but maybe not as smart as we should be.

Here’s my first golden nugget from this year’s event– sales enablement strategies, sales playbooks to be more specific.  Do you have them?  If so, are they working for you?  I’m not talking about your sales portal with every piece of collateral, PR and case study you’ve ever written.  Instead, I’m talking about situation based scenarios that your sales team has run into before and won.  How did they do it? What supportive materials did they need?  Were there pieces missing?

Here’s 3 steps to help you  started on your Sales playbooks, compliments of Alden Cushman, Research Director at SiriusDecisions.  Remember, you’re not creating these alone.  Get product marketing, field marketing and sales involved.

1. Identify Situational Elements –things like Organization Size and Structure, Vertical/Sub-Vertical Industries, Geographic Characteristics, Individual Roles and Responsibilities
2. Collect and Position Content, Knowledge

• Products/Solutions – Features, advantages, benefits
• Pricing – Competitive info, volume discount
• Partners – Channel Positioning OEMs, VARs
• Market Forces – Complete market landscape and trends
• Objection Handling – Sticking points and best responses

3. Run a Controlled Pilot – here is Alden’s example

• Situational elements
  • CIO in a hierarchical insurance company, in education phase, with budget and need for an easy to use but sophisticated business intelligence offering
• Relevant available content and knowledge
  • Phase-based BI implementation case study (education, active buying and closing)
  • Archived Webcast of the return on and merits of BI solutions
  • Web-based demo of new SaaS-based BI solution
  • SaaS-based BI product features and function spec sheet

• Order of potentially appropriate sales plays
  • Email industry white paper
  • Three days later, send phase-based case study (tailored to CXO audience)
  • One day later, call to discover unique pain points, invite to upcoming Webcast
  • Email after Webcast and set up call for Web-based demo with SME
  • Set up face-to-face meeting, bring positioning and value literature
  • Ask for RFP, respond with detailed proposal

I plan on getting started on our sales playbook really soon.  I know this will be a big project that will take a lot of thought and a lot of support from our sales team and product marketing team but the end result will change our business.  As we get started on this journey, I welcome any ideas or feedback you may have.  Please share what you learned putting these together and don’t leave out the parts that didn’t work.