Creating a Sales Manual

What is a sales manual?

A sales manual is a how-to guide that teaches your team how to close prospects. Your sales manual should be a living document that is updated continually to reflect current policies and practices. This document should be written in a similar style as an instruction manual. The goal is for anyone to be able to pick it up and learn how to make a successful sale for your company. 

However, this is just a document; it doesn’t replace hands-on employee training. Your sales manual should complement the one-on-one training you provide each member of your sales team.

Kasey McCormick Lyding, founder of ManagerStreet, suggested approaching the compilation of your sales manual in bite-size pieces and keeping it concise and practical. “People aren’t looking for a novel, and that would be ineffective anyway,” she told us. “Much better to have a collection of one-sheets or quick guides on the processes your team needs most. That way, they can reference them quickly and build confidence in day-to-day tasks.”

How do you create a sales manual?

Here is more on each step of creating a sales manual.

Step 1: Get organized.

To get started, determine how you plan to deliver the sales manual to your team members. Get organized before you decide which components to include in the manual. Many managers find that an outline is an excellent way to ensure you have all of the necessary information.

If you don’t get organized and create an outline first, you will likely fill the manual with unnecessary information. Create a draft for your outline, and use the main subjects you want to cover as chapter headings.

From there, you can use essential steps as subheadings. Here is an example:

Chapter 4: Keeping Consistent Sales Records

• Importance of Recordkeeping
• Tools for Issuing Accurate Sales Receipts
• Follow-up Using Sales Records

Mike Thompson, CEO of Learner Mobile, recommended that companies make their sales manuals digital. “The days of the three-ring binder sales manual are over,” he said. “Why? Because the speed of business — and, therefore, the speed of sales — moves too fast and changes too often. These manuals become outdated in a matter of weeks, not months — and certainly not years.”

A digital manual makes sense for other reasons, too. “Make sure your digital manuals have ‘searchability,’ so your reps can quickly pull up a part of the manual while on a call, to find answers for a potential lead and move that lead into the closed-won column,” Thompson said. “No more flipping through hundreds of pages of a sales manual to find the relevant content.”

Step 2: Describe what you sell.

One of the most important topics to cover in your sales manual is company inventory. In this chapter, it’s essential to keep the formatting simple so your employees can quickly scan the document. Use lots of bullet points and illustrations to highlight critical information. Include a table of contents to make the information easy to find.

Your sales team can’t sell a product they don’t understand. Be sure to detail the following information about your products:

• Product features and benefits
• Product demos
• Sales volume
• Product costs
• Wholesale and retail prices
• Manufacturing specifics
• Potential problems or objections
• Return policies

McCormick Lyding emphasized the importance of these descriptions, especially for new hires. “Put yourself in the shoes of someone coming in and starting from scratch — even though these things might seem apparent, they are all worth documenting,” she said. “Taking the time to set the stage properly allows the person using your manual to operate off facts and not assumptions.”

Step 3: Outline your ideal customer.

In addition to understanding your product, your sales reps must know who they are selling it to. Provide them with actionable information about your customer demographics, like age, gender and income.

You can also describe your average customer’s lifestyle and personality, consumer expectations, and market potential. This information and the other details in the manual will change periodically, so it’s important to update your customer information regularly.

If you create a cloud-based sales manual, you can easily update this information as it changes. Thompson also suggested introducing interactivity into a sales manual. “Build a loop where reps can contribute insights on emerging customer behaviors, objections or preferences,” he said. “It keeps your ideal customer personas grounded in reality and empowers your teams to adapt faster.”

Step 4: Explain your sales process.

Next, explain the process your sales reps will go through to sell to a potential customer. Describe the entire sales funnel, including how you find leads, how to make the initial point of contact and how to eventually make the sale. This information will enable your sales team to convert more prospects into customers.

Include resources your team members can access to follow your company’s preferred sales strategies. Multimedia formats are popular for modern sales manuals. 

Also, consider including outbound links to videos that demonstrate examples of a successful sales interaction. This is an improvement over a bunch of sales scripts, which lack personality. 

Simon Bowen, founder of The Models Method, told business.com that most effective sales manuals “visually codify how your top performers think” into the documentation. “The secret isn’t in exhaustive documentation but in creating visual frameworks that capture the ‘choreography’ of sales conversations — the precise moments when mindsets shift and decisions happen,” Bowen said.

Make sure your staff understands any software or digital systems you have in place to support your sales process. This includes top CRM software, like Salesforce or Freshworks. To learn more, read our review of Salesforce or our Freshworks review.

Step 5: Describe your business model.

It’s important to equip your team with knowledge of your business as a whole. Do you run a brick-and-mortar business or an e-commerce business? If you have a physical store, explain your location strategy, your real estate profile and how you stock inventory. If you have an online business, provide a site map of your website and detailed instructions for finding products online.

“Your business model — or go-to-market model [GTM] — represents the mechanism through which every customer is delivered the value,” Bowen said. “Describe your business model or GTM model in a way that makes your salespeople feel like it is as much a part of the value proposition as the solution itself.” 

Thompson recommended tying the business model to the customer experience. “If a brick-and-mortar shop has weekly in-person perks not offered online, then the sales team needs to clearly convey these points in the pitch,” he said. “Many sales teams these days are selling software products in a B2B environment. The sales manual needs to include a description of the business model that highlights how the software will eventually benefit the end user of the business buying that software.”

Step 6: Communicate why you sell.

Your salespeople aren’t just selling your products; they’re selling your company, too. Write a company history in your sales manual to outline your mission statement and values. “A shared mission and values might seem cheesy, but the team can lean on them when faced with tough challenges,” McCormick Lyding said. “Who are you helping? What ethics guide you? Answering those questions helps you define a succinct and impactful mission.”

Thompson agreed. “In our mission statement, we remind our staff that we love people and believe everyone has potential,” he said. “We lift others through learning. That vision is vital for frontline workers who rarely get traditional training. They feel valued because they see how they fit into our bigger picture.”

At this point, you might consider giving a rough draft of your sales manual to key members of your team and asking them to provide feedback. Your initial drafts should be interactive, since you want to make sure your sales team is getting everything they need from the manual. 

Ask for feedback on not only the information but also the length and format. Do your employees find the manual easy to read? Is it easy to locate important information? Is the length appropriate?

Step 7: Manage who sells.

A complete sales manual should also include information on human resources procedures, including sales-specific policies on hours, travel, expense reporting and compensation. This information is especially important if your team works on commission. “The more you can have a ‘one-stop shop’ for your team members instead of leaving them wondering where to find current information, the better,” McCormick Lyding said.

Thompson noted that a sales manual can also be used as a motivational tool. “Clearly define each sales role, and outline potential career paths within the organization,” he said. “Reps need to understand where their roles can lead and how to get there. It’s a strong motivator and gives them a goal for which to strive. Empower them to take ownership of their own career development with tools they can find within the sales manual, such as links to training materials on the go.” 

What are the benefits of a sales manual?

Having a well-thought-out sales manual provides your business with a variety of benefits.

• It keeps employees on the same page. A sales manual can improve the transfer of learning in your workplace. It ensures your messaging is consistent across all of your employees so there is no confusion when multiple people are dealing with prospects.
• It aligns your sales team with company priorities. A good sales manual helps your sales team see how their efforts benefit the rest of the company. By creating a repeatable process that all of your sales staff can follow, you’ll improve your onboarding and create a positive sales culture.
• It improves sales and marketing alignment. The manual can educate your sales reps on your marketing goals and initiatives. This understanding helps promote better sales and marketing alignment.
• It equips your sales team with the necessary tools. A proper manual gives your reps the tools they need to close sales and turn prospects into buyers. Your reps will understand how to overcome rejections and speak to your company’s value proposition. In the long run, this will help you increase your sales and thus your bottom line.

Although it can be a tedious process, be thorough when you’re drafting your sales manual. The effectiveness of your sales manual can have a major impact on your company’s overall success.

Key tips for building your company sales manual

Keep your manual consistent, flexible, clear and indispensable to your sales staff by following these tips.

Anticipate challenges.

The process of creating and rolling out a sales manual will be tough at first. You’ll find yourself reminding staff about the manual. “That’s normal,” McCormick Lyding said. “The payoff starts a couple of months in, when you see your team helping themselves. They won’t depend on you as much, and they’ll step up in ways that help the entire organization. Think long term, and watch the front-end work make your job easier down the line.”

Have multiple manuals. 

Thompson advised against using the same sales manual for different teams. For example, the inside sales team in a business-to-business software company might need a different manual than the field-based sales team. “Different teams need different details, and they need them when it’s time to sell,” he said.

Use visuals. 

Bowen told us that when his firm turned a client’s old sales manual into a more visual document, it transformed performance. “New hires reached competency 67 percent faster,” he said. “Veterans also discovered insights they’d missed.” 

Thompson also recommended helping staff adapt faster by “embedding microlearning links that lead to short videos, quizzes, [and] pop-out guides within the digital sales manual. When reps can access bite-sized learning moments on the go, they’re far more likely to retain and use what they’ve learned in real conversations to make a sale.”

Update it regularly. 

Annual updates of sales manuals no longer work because markets move too fast. “We often update our sales manual daily or weekly,” Thompson said. “We track our customers’ emerging needs, competitor moves, trends or data that exposes gaps. We see this fluid process as a better fit for modern sales, especially for businesses that want to adapt in real time.”

Mark Fairlie contributed to this article.