Optimise Your Sales Process with HubSpot Playbooks

Companies keep growing every day, looking for more efficient and structured processes to save time or safeguard quality. A useful option is the Playbooks that HubSpot offers. Perhaps a tool that sometimes stays underexposed, but is an important link nonetheless. It's a handy tool to streamline your processes further. In this blog we discuss how to make the best use of Playbooks within HubSpot.

What are HubSpot Playbooks?

A Playbook is a tool for teams during sales or service conversations. It helps structure conversations and capture important information. A Playbook essentially safeguards your best practices, templates and strategies. You no longer need to think about how to approach a conversation, as the structure is always at hand. Imagine this: Kim, a new employee, needs to put together a quote. Without much experience, this feels like a challenge. But thanks to the quote playbook in HubSpot, she can easily ask the right questions and log the answers directly in the customer record. This example illustrates how playbooks simplify the work process and make it more efficient, which is especially useful for new employees.

The benefits of Playbooks

1. Efficiency: Playbooks provide a step-by-step guide for carrying out specific tasks, which helps streamline processes. This reduces the time needed to complete tasks.

2. Consistency: Playbooks ensure that everyone follows the same processes. This improves consistency in communication.

3. Performance improvement: Playbooks contain the proven strategies and tactics that have shown to be effective in the past. By safeguarding this knowledge, it can help companies achieve better results.

4. Onboarding: Playbooks are ideal for training new team members. They help new employees learn the tricks of the trade faster and put them to use for the company.

5. Collaboration: With Playbooks you have a central place to store information that's accessible to everyone. This improves collaboration and communication within teams, as everyone has access to the same information.

By integrating these aspects of Playbooks, companies can significantly improve their efficiency, leading to a more structured process, better dynamics and ultimately better business results.

Create your own Playbook in HubSpot

Before you start creating a Playbook, you first need to map out the process. Without a process, you won't know where it applies and which questions you want to ask. Every company has its own processes within sales and service, so make sure you take the time to understand them properly. 

Think of a sales process like this, for example:

Step 1: Leads come in via inbound or outbound marketing in HubSpot.

Step 2: The lead is nurtured into a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) and assigned to the sales team for qualification.

Step 3: The salesperson qualifies the lead with a 'Qualification Playbook’. Assess whether the lead fits your ideal customer profile (ICP) and gather key data such as job title, industry, company name, company size, etc.

Step 4:  The salesperson gives a demo to the prospect using a 'Demo Playbook’. During this conversation, gather information according to BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing) or other criteria you set.

Step 5: The salesperson has a follow-up conversation, the 'Follow-up meeting Playbook’. Focus on learning about the prospect's pain points and goals, possibly using various sales techniques.

Step 6: The deal is closed and reaches the Closed Won stage in HubSpot.

Step 7: The account manager runs a kick-off meeting, the 'Kick-off Playbook’. Manage the onboarding process for new customers.

Determine your qualification criteria

After defining your process, as in the example above, you need to establish the criteria. What does your ideal customer profile look like exactly? What does a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) mean to you? And what does a potential opportunity look like for you?

Start writing your Playbook

Just start with a simple version of your Playbook, a handful of bullet points if needed. Add interactive questions to it to gather your information. With the Enterprise version, you can even automatically update HubSpot properties with this input. And don't forget to add useful resources to your Playbook, such as images, videos or articles.

Conclusion

Playbooks in HubSpot are not meant to be a static document, but move along with your growth. Just start with a simple version and expand it as your process develops. Be flexible and stay open to feedback from your team. This way you can further optimise your Playbook.

Want to know more? Schedule a free conversation with Carel or get in touch with Sander!