Of all the tools available in Microsoft Dynamics 365 to fuel and further guided selling, none make more immediate sense to sales reps (and to sales managers looking to optimize the sales process) than Playbooks.
With Playbooks, an automated event or a user action can trigger a set of tasks that essentially take a rep step-by-step through the action to complete the event.
While you can use the guided selling tools in quoting software (a sales proposal app you can add to Dynamics) to move a prospect from requesting a quote to signing it, Playbooks can help you with every step that precedes the quote, and many that may come afterward.
Recurrence: a key ingredient in guided selling
A playbook is not necessarily a workflow — think of it as more of a subroutine in a business workflow.
For example, the creation of a sales quote could in fact be a playbook: a series of tasks that launches once a rep clicks into the quoting software to make a quote. (In most cases, those tasks will be automated in the quoting software itself, but a playbook is an excellent way to help reps get into the flow).
The key thing to keep in mind with playbooks is that they work best primarily with recurring tasks. Fortunately, most B2B sales processes are composed entirely of recurring tasks and templated approaches, but there are anomalies. (Seems elementary but the reason we mention is that we’ve seen organizations go all-in on playbooks to where they’re trying to playbook every conceivable task before it occurs, which makes for both rarely or unused playbooks and wasted time.)
Ideal tasks for the building of playbooks include:
Converting a Lead to a Contact and Account (one that includes an Opportunity, one that does not)
The creation and sending of a sales quote (naturally)
Client contract renewal (happens every year in most cases: make it faster/easier with a playbook)
The introduction and/or departure of a decision maker
Playbooks should be “customer agnostic.” Don’t look for recurring processes within a specific Account (unless, say, that Account is a GE-type Account with dramatically different processes across its departments). Rather, look at your business as a whole, see which processes carry over between customers and verticals and are playbook-ready.
Playbooks within playbooks: the Russian nesting doll of guided selling
We mentioned earlier that playbook is akin to a subroutine in a business workflow: absolutely true. Playbooks “live” within workflows.
But a playbook may also live within another playbook. Let’s take the sales proposal as an example. You may have a playbook initiated the moment a client requests a quote — excellent! In the creation of that quote, you may enter a geo-code or other signifier that alerts the system to launch another playbook.
E.g., you’re selling field service equipment to supply chain managers. Supply chain manager X requests a quote, and lives in North Dakota and it’s January. A “playbook” launches within your sales quote playbook alerting the rep to next steps and subtasks to ensure fulfillment in that geo and / or time of year.
Again, seems elementary, but imagine what happens if that second playbook isn’t launched. Your rep may guarantee delivery by a specific date that weather or other external factors may hinder, if not entirely prevent. Having a playbook kick-off automatically ensures that a rep accounts for those factors and doesn’t make promises that can’t be kept.
Playbooks are available in the Sales Hub app of D365 for Sales. (Quoting software? That’s available right here.)
