Writing it once
A playbook that is not updated from calls goes stale within a quarter.
Free sales template
Sales playbook template
A sales playbook is the shared document that tells every seller who to target, what to say, how to qualify and what to do next in each common situation. This template covers the five parts of a B2B outbound playbook, from ICP and personas to plays, conversation rules and handover, with a plays table you can fill in for each persona and trigger.
What it is and when to use it
A sales process tells you the steps. A playbook tells you how to win at each one. It holds the ideal customer profile and personas, the triggers that make an account worth calling now, the plays (a trigger, a persona, a message and a channel sequence), the qualification questions, the common objections and the handover rules.
The best playbooks are short and specific. 'Lead with value' is not a play. 'When a logistics company announces a new warehouse, call the operations director within two weeks, open with the new site, and offer a 20-minute comparison of pick rates' is a play. One page per persona is usually enough.
A playbook earns its keep when someone new joins. A new SDR, a new AE or an outsourced team should be able to read it in an afternoon and make good calls the next morning. If they cannot, the playbook is missing something.
Who uses it
Sales managers
Own the playbook, update it from call learnings each month and use it to onboard every new rep.
Founders
Write the first version from what has worked in founder-led sales, before you hire or outsource.
SDRs
Use the plays, openers and objection responses on every call, and feed back what is and is not working.
The sales playbook template
Every section and column, with what to write in each. Use the fill-in version below to type straight into it and copy, print or download the result.
1. Who we sell to and why they buy
| Field | What to write |
|---|---|
| Ideal customer profile | Industry, size, location, operating model and the signals that a company fits. |
| Why customers buy from us | The two or three outcomes customers say they got, in their words. Use quotes from your own customers, not marketing copy. |
| Who is not a fit | Companies or situations you should walk away from early, and why. |
2. Personas
| Persona | Job titles | What they care about | What they hate hearing | Best channel |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Economic buyer | Titles that sign off spend | Cost, risk, growth, board priorities | Feature lists, jargon | Phone, then email |
| Day-to-day owner | Titles that run the process you improve | Time, workload, team performance | Being told their process is wrong | Phone, LinkedIn |
| Influencer or blocker | IT, procurement, legal | Security, integration, terms | Surprises late in the deal | Email, via the owner |
3. Plays
One row per play. A play is a trigger, a persona, a message and a channel sequence. Start with three to five.
| Play | Trigger | Persona | Core message | Channel sequence | Success measure |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Play name | The event that makes the account worth contacting now | Who you contact | One or two sentences on why now and what you offer | For example: call, email, LinkedIn, call | Meetings booked per 100 accounts in the play |
| Play name | Trigger | Persona | Core message | Channel sequence | Success measure |
| Play name | Trigger | Persona | Core message | Channel sequence | Success measure |
4. The conversation
Keep the detail in the linked script and email libraries. The playbook holds the rules.
| Field | What to write |
|---|---|
| Opener rules | How the first 20 seconds should sound: name, reason for the call, a question about their world. Link to your scripts. |
| Discovery questions | The five questions every first conversation should cover. |
| Qualification framework | The framework you use, such as BANT or MEDDIC, and the minimum you need before booking or creating an opportunity. |
| Top objections and responses | The three to five objections you hear every week and the response that works, in one or two lines each. |
5. Cadence, handover and metrics
| Field | What to write |
|---|---|
| Cadence | Number of touches, channels and days. Link to the sales cadence template. |
| Qualified meeting definition | What must be true for a meeting to count, agreed with the AEs. |
| Handover rules | What goes in the CRM before the meeting and when the AE takes over. |
| Playbook metrics | How you will know the playbook is working: meetings per play, meeting to opportunity rate, win rate by play. |
| Compliance rules | Do Not Call Register washing, consent and unsubscribe rules for email, and any market-specific rules for New Zealand or Singapore. |
Fill it in online
Type into the template, or load the worked example and edit it. Nothing you enter is stored or sent anywhere: it stays in this browser tab until you copy, download or print it.
Empty fields copy as {{placeholders}} so you can see what is left to fill in.
Worked example
An Australian B2B company using outsourced SDRs. The company is described, not named, and the figures are illustrative.
Worked example: a Melbourne cloud cost management company
A Melbourne company helps mid-market businesses cut their cloud bills. It runs outbound with an outsourced SDR team into Australia and New Zealand. The founder wrote the first playbook from 18 months of founder-led selling, and the SDR lead now updates it monthly.
Plays and messages are illustrative.
1. Who we sell to and why they buy
- Ideal customer profile
- Australian and New Zealand companies with 100 to 1,500 staff, spending on public cloud, with an in-house IT or engineering team.
- Why customers buy from us
- Customers say they got a clear view of where the money goes and a bill that stopped rising every quarter.
- Who is not a fit
- Companies with no cloud spend or where an outsourced provider controls the cloud account and will not share access.
2. Personas
| Persona | Job titles | What they care about | What they hate hearing | Best channel |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Economic buyer | Chief financial officer, finance director | Cost growth, forecasting the bill | Engineering detail | Phone, then email |
| Day-to-day owner | Head of IT, head of engineering, cloud lead | Time, not being blamed for the bill | Being told they wasted money | Phone, LinkedIn |
| Influencer or blocker | Managed service provider, security lead | Access and control | Surprise requests for credentials | Email via the owner |
3. Plays
| Play | Trigger | Persona | Core message | Channel sequence | Success measure |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price rise | Cloud provider price change announced | Finance director | Your bill is about to change. We can show where in 30 minutes. | Call, email, call, LinkedIn | Meetings per 100 accounts |
| New tech leader | New head of IT or engineering in the last 90 days | New tech leader | New leaders often inherit a bill nobody has reviewed. | LinkedIn, call, email, call | Meetings per 100 accounts |
| Funding or growth | Funding round or rapid hiring | Head of engineering | Growth usually means cloud spend grows faster than revenue. | Call, email, call | Meetings per 100 accounts |
4. The conversation
- Opener rules
- Name, company, the reason for the call in one sentence, then a question about how they track cloud spend today. No pitch in the first 30 seconds.
- Discovery questions
- How is cloud spend tracked today? Who sees the bill? What happened to it in the last year? What has been tried? What happens if it keeps rising?
- Qualification framework
- BANT-style minimum for booking: owns or influences cloud spend, spend above the threshold, interested in a review this quarter.
- Top objections and responses
- 'We already have a dashboard': ask who acts on it. 'Our provider handles it': ask when they last renegotiated. 'No budget': offer the review as a way to find budget.
5. Cadence, handover and metrics
- Cadence
- Eight touches over about 24 days: four calls, three emails, one LinkedIn connection.
- Qualified meeting definition
- IT or finance leader who owns or influences cloud spend, at a company in the ICP, attended a 30-minute review call.
- Handover rules
- SDR writes current spend range, provider, who sees the bill and the trigger in the CRM the same day.
- Playbook metrics
- Meetings booked per 100 accounts per play, held meeting to opportunity rate by play, win rate by play.
- Compliance rules
- Australian lists washed against the Do Not Call Register. Emails identify the sender and include a working unsubscribe. New Zealand emails follow the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act.
What to notice
- The plays table made it easy to see which trigger worked. After two months the new tech leader play was booking twice the meetings per 100 accounts of the funding play, so the SDRs moved more time to it.
- Detailed scripts and emails sit in separate libraries. The playbook only keeps the rules and links, so it stays short enough to read.
How to use it, step by step
- Start from your wins. Interview the people who closed your last ten deals. Write down who bought, why, what triggered it and what was said on the first call.
- Write the ICP, value and not-a-fit sections. Use customer words. Keep each to a short paragraph.
- Define two or three personas. For each, the titles, what they care about, what turns them off and the best channel.
- Build three to five plays. Each play is a trigger, persona, message and sequence. Give each a success measure.
- Add the conversation rules. Opener rules, discovery questions, qualification minimum and top objections. Link to scripts and email templates rather than copying them in.
- Add cadence, handover, metrics and compliance. These are what make the playbook usable by a new or outsourced team on day one.
- Review it monthly. Add what is working, cut what is not and date each change.
Common mistakes
Too long to read
If it is 60 pages, nobody uses it. Keep rules in the playbook and detail in linked libraries.
Plays without triggers
A play without a trigger is just a pitch. The trigger is what makes the call timely.
No success measure
Without meetings per play, you cannot tell which plays to keep.
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Want the meetings, not just the template?
Nousu Collective runs phone-first outbound for B2B companies selling into Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, with Australian callers in-house in Sydney. Our outsourced SDR service builds the list, runs the calling, email and LinkedIn cadence and books qualified meetings into your calendar. If you only need calls made, see cold calling or appointment setting.
In our data from 218,000+ dials into Australian businesses, Australian callers booked 1.3 meetings per 100 dials, against 0.3 for offshore teams. Pricing is starting at $7,000 a month.
FAQ
Sales playbook template questions
Straight answers from the team that runs outbound for Australian B2B companies.
Still have questions?
Book a 30-minute callA shared document that tells sellers who to target, what triggers make an account worth contacting, what to say, how to qualify, how to handle common objections and what to do next. It turns what works for your best seller into something the whole team can repeat.
The ideal customer profile, value and not-a-fit rules, personas, plays, opener rules, discovery questions, qualification framework, top objections, cadence, qualified meeting definition, handover rules, metrics and compliance rules.
A play combines a trigger, a persona, a core message and a channel sequence. For example: a new IT leader started in the last 90 days, call them, reference the new role and offer a short review.
Short enough to read in an afternoon. One page per persona and play, with detailed scripts and email templates kept in separate, linked libraries.
The sales manager or SDR lead, with input from the founder and the sellers. One owner keeps it consistent; everyone else feeds in what they hear on calls.
Yes. It is the fastest way to get an outsourced team calling well. Share the ICP, personas, plays, qualified meeting definition and handover rules before launch.
Need a team to run the plan?
Book a 30-minute call. We will map your market and buyers and show you what a phone-first campaign would book.
Starting at $7,000 a month. Exact fee quoted after a 30-minute call.