Most of the recommendations for improving Marketing and Sales alignment revolve around how these two organizations need to work together. Misalignment is often attributed to a variety of factors, such as different goals, different timelines, and different psychologies. Market dynamics such as commoditization, the Internet, mobility, and virtualization, and changing business models only compound the problem.

Trying to tighten the alignment of marketing program activities within the sales cycle, improving coordination around lead generation, creating service level agreements, and increasing Sales force participation in the Marketing process are approaches many organizations take to improve alignment of the functions. Regardless of various approaches taken by companies to address this issue, the lack of alignment and collaboration between Marketing and Sales persists.

While no one can offer any guarantees, aligning Marketing and Sales makes good business sense and ultimately has an impact on the bottom line. The alignment of those two organizations determines how well a company attracts buyers and sells to them. The relationship is more than just a simple handoff at the point a lead is generated; it is the foundation for profitable revenue growth.

The conversation about aligning Sales and Marketing is most often around lead management. But Sales and Marketing need to be aligned in at least these four areas:

1. Market and customer segmentation
2. Go-to-market strategy, process, and planning
3. Sales enablement
4. Opportunity management

One of the most critical sales enablement and alignment tools is the Marketing and Sales playbook.

What is a Marketing and Sales Playbook

A Marketing and Sales playbook is a collection of tactics or methods that characterize the roles and responsibilities for both functions. It lays out clear objectives, identifies metrics for measurement, and provides a common framework and approach for finding and acquiring customers.

The playbook helps you implement a common marketing and selling methodology that leverages the processes used by high performers. The outcome? You can more effectively anticipate and address different selling scenarios, position against a particular competitor, or communicate the value proposition to each person in the buying process.

What Makes A Good Playbook that Facilitates Alignment

In the sports world, a “play” is an action designed to achieve a specific purpose in specific conditions. When you design a playbook, you need to define the conditions.

A good playbook that facilitates alignment has these five characteristics:

1. Define your sales process and methodology
2. Identify how your process maps to your customer’s buying process
3. Tell you how to engage with a prospective customer
4. Diagram the engagement experience
5. Accelerate sales effectiveness and accuracy

At a minimum, the following knowledge needs to be integrated into the playbook:

1. Customer analysis
   Identifies the market, key trends, key buyers and influencers, a profile of the ideal customer, the customers’ pain points and preferences, and the critical business issues customers are trying to solve. This often takes formal research where expertise is essential.
2. Buying process
   Identifies conditions or events that trigger consideration, evaluation, and purchase. What are the behaviors of a qualified lead?
3. Company offer and value proposition
   Describes and clarifies what your company offers and the ways in which your products and services address the customer’s pain points and business issues. This is the place to explain why your company exists and how your company makes a difference to the customer and in the market. This section of the playbook is not complete until it clearly answers two questions. First, “Why should people buy this product from you?” Second, “What is the value they receive by buying this product from you?” Part of this section should be dedicated to giving examples of questions that draw out the customer’s business needs and pain points. This section is also a good place to include use case scenarios.
4. Competitive analysis
   Details how competitors position themselves in the market and what their selling process is, as well as typical moves by each competitor and recommendations on how to counter these moves.
5. Selling methodology
   Maps your selling methodology to the customer buying process. While this section should outline the stages your customers move through as they investigate, evaluate, and select solutions, it should go beyond just describing the steps in the sales cycle.It should provide instructions on what content and touchpoints are needed at each stage in the process, identify the players in each step, and explain how to assess the opportunity. The opportunity assessment information should recommend standard methods and tools that help determine where customers are in the buying process, enable them to analyze the situation, and anticipate what they might do next. This section of the playbook should also provide the guidelines for entering and exiting opportunities and a list of the resources, skills, knowledge, and tools needed for each stage in the process.
6. Countering objections
   Gives specific instructions on how to address each common objection sales might encounter. This section should include a message map (your visual guide for identifying and prioritizing relevant and compelling messages) for each primary competitor.
7.  Best practices
   Lists proven tips, techniques, and under what circumstances to use them. This section should also capture what hasn’t worked in the past and associated lessons learned.
8. Your buyer roles, profile,s and personas
   A section that provides insights into the influencers, recommenders, and decision makers, and their associated roles, profiles, and personas

Why Invest in a Playbook

While developing a Marketing and Sales playbook is an extensive investment of your time, it has a big payoff in that it surfaces customer pains and preferences, improves selling effectiveness and productivity, and exposes and corrects weaknesses in the way you currently operate.

When completed, your playbook becomes a living document of your SELLING methodology and provides tactical guidelines and instructions that enable you to discover important ways to address the vulnerabilities of both your company and competitors. With a practical playbook, you can leverage strengths, differentiate offers, prove business value, and ultimately improve your win/loss ratio. More importantly, a SELLING playbook serves as a powerful alignment tool for the Marketing and Sales functions with everyone operating from the same page.

A working session is a valuable and efficient way to begin crafting your playbook. Reach out for specific guidance and help in crafting your playbook

FAQ:

• Market and customer segmentation
• Go-to-market strategy, process, and planning
• Sales enablement
• Opportunity management
  When these areas are not aligned, lead management improvements alone cannot overcome inconsistent targeting, messaging, qualification, and deal progression.

1. Defines your sales process and methodology
2. Maps your process to the customer buying process
3. Explains how to engage a prospective customer
4. Diagrams the engagement experience
5. Accelerates sales effectiveness and accuracy

• Customer analysis: market context, trends, key buyers/influencers, ICP, pain points, preferences, and the business issues customers are trying to solve (often requiring formal research).
• Buying process: triggers and behaviors that signal consideration, evaluation, and purchase; what “qualified” looks like.
• Company offer and value proposition: what you offer, how it addresses pains/issues, why you exist, and how you make a difference. This section is not complete until it answers: Why buy from you? and What value do they receive? Include discovery questions and use-case scenarios.
• Competitive analysis: how competitors position and sell, their typical moves, and recommended counter-moves.
• Selling methodology: stages mapped to the buying process, required content/touchpoints by stage, key players, and opportunity assessment guidance (including entry/exit criteria and required resources).
• Countering objections: specific guidance for common objections, supported by message maps by competitor.
• Best practices: proven techniques, when to use them, and what has not worked (with lessons learned).
• Buyer roles, profiles, and personas: insights for influencers, recommenders, and decision-makers.