👓 Product-Led Sales - Playbooks 101

Author

Ben Williams
June 18th, 2024

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Product-Led Sales - Playbooks 101

Product-Led Sales (PLS) is so hot right now.

And its hotness is entirely justified.

When implemented the right way, you can expect to reduce sales cycle time and lower CAC (relative to traditional outbound sales).

And if you’re coming from the other direction extending a previous self-serve only motion, then you get to go upmarket and reach bigger deals with higher ACVs.

But there’s also a lot of misunderstanding about how to implement an effective PLS initiative.

It can be difficult to know where and how to start.

Let’s first take a step back and get on the same page about where playbooks fit into the big picture.

The product-led sales process

The product-led sales process at a high level is very simple, and can be distilled to 4 key steps:

  1. Collect data about accounts (product usage ++)

  2. Objectively score each account

  3. Act on the subset of accounts that meet scoring criteria

  4. Periodically review performance to improve each of the first 3 steps.

Product-Led Sales @ 50,000 ft

Accounts that meet your scoring criteria are Product Qualified Accounts (PQAs).

The scoring is dynamic and typically includes a recency component, and over time, accounts can go above or below thresholds you define in the scoring criteria.

In other words a PQA today may no longer be a PQA tomorrow, so timely action is imperative.

But what action do you take?

Playbooks, enter stage left.

The anatomy of a PLS playbook

A playbook is a term that’s been used in B2B sales for as long as sellers have been selling.

Playbooks provide a guide for the GTM team that helps bring structure and method to how they work. Their scope can be pretty wide. I’ve seen playbooks including ICP definition, end-to-end sales processes, scripts and templates, competitive positioning, objection handling, metrics, tool enablement and education and more.

When leveraged effectively, they bring consistency to the go-to-market motion that enables more repeatable results and more predictability in revenue.

When establishing a PLS motion, starting small and staying agile is key to create a high learning velocity that allows faster iteration towards a model that reproducibly gets results.

For that reason, I favour early PLS playbooks to be minimal, supporting creativity and experimentation amongst the team.

Playbooks have a goal / objective, and are composed of multiple steps, each taking the account towards the goal.

Some steps will be automated, some will be semi-automated, and other steps will be manual.

Step Type

Example

Automated

Send a message to a Slack channel to notify the sales team of a new PQA or notify sales management when PQAs have no assigned owner

Semi-Automated

BDR tailors then sends a templated Salesloft email to one or more PQLs within the account.

Manual

Calling a PQL within the PQA

System of Record

Where these playbooks are defined and stored or what medium they’re documented in is less important. Notion, Google Docs, Slides, whatever - use company norms to make sure they’re easy to find, easy to digest, and easy to reference.

It is critical to track the execution of your playbooks though. This can be as simple as a pipeline kanban view in your CRM:

Or you can consider adopting a dedicated PLS tool like Pocus that’s more opinionated but integrates concepts like playbooks out-of-the-box.

Regardless, for every account entered into a play, your reps should know exactly what’s happened to date, and should know the ideal next action they should take to progress the account through the playbook toward the goal.

Automate appropriate parts of your playbooks using the workflow capabilities and integrations of the tool you use.

Geek Tip: Make sure ICP matching is part of your PQA criteria that puts accounts into plays. It’s much easier and faster to iterate your way to predictable playbooks if you focus on potential customers that look and behave similarly.

Where to start with PLS Playbooks

In companies new to PLS, starting with more than one playbook is ill advised.

Always focus on a single playbook to start with.

Identify the top objectives you have for your PLS initiative, and prioritise them.

Typically, you’ll want to focus on the #1 priority objective, but occasionally there will be lower priority objectives that have similar upside while also being less complex to operationalise, and focusing there to build muscle can be preferred.

Get reps in.

Focus on learning, and the feedback loops that will let you iterate to the point where your playbook (and signals/scoring) is leading to repeatable wins.

Then consider expanding to additional plays.

Geek tip: Accounts will become eligible for a play because they have met the criteria you’ve defined.

But not all PQAs are created equal, so you do need to objectively score them so that reps can prioritise their time effectively.

There you have it, a 101 (or foundation, for fear of alienating my fellow Brits) level overview of PLS Playbooks.

In next week’s newsletter, I’ll break down the five most common PLS playbooks.

  • Unblocking

  • Conversion

  • Expansion

  • Consolidation

  • Churn Prevention

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