Jason M. Lemkin explains why SaaS startups need sales playbooks to scale. He brings a 100-page playbook to every company, references Salesforce's 11 laws, and compares team practice to Peyton Manning drilling routes 200 times so players can adapt when things change.
About a 100-page sales playbook.
200 times per route.
And building your playbooks. And this is something now across companies. So once Matt and I learned how to sell, we started writing it down. And we now have about a hundred page sales playbook we take to every company and we keep tuning it. But to teach new salespeople how to do those great demos, how to sell with passion, how to sell as a team. And there's also a great playbook out there from Salesforce. If you just Google, I believe, Salesforce sales playbook. But he has kind of the 11 laws of how Salesforce became so successful. But really you have to write your own playbook and to be able to scale. But once you have your playbook, I think the beauty of it, just like my meeting with Marc Benioff, you have to audible. And, you know, you might have the perfect pitch prepared, but the customer wants to hear something else, wants to see the demo now be ready to do that. And I think also why Peyton Manning was such a great football player. Tony Dungy, his first coach with the Colts, he could audible so well because he was so well prepared. He knew the playback so well. He practiced every route 200 times. So when the game changed, he could change on the fly. And this is what we also try to drill into our teams is, hey, you have to know the standard plays so you can audible.
