Sales Plays: The Pipeline Powerhouse Your Business Needs

There's a palpable buzz around Sales Plays in the world of Enablement right now. And for good reason!

While Bain & Co have been champions of Sales Plays and the Sales Play System for years, recently the term has exploded into Enablement job descriptions, and surveys consistently show that Sales Leaders are fully bought in.

But what exactly are they, and more importantly, how can they genuinely help your business to drive pipeline and supercharge growth?

I'm going to give you a quick overview of what I believe a Sales Play is, and crucially, what it is not. I'll also share a few must-haves to create a truly functioning Sales Play structure in your business.

Sales Plays: An Evolution, Not a Revolution

Let's be honest, Sales Plays aren't necessarily brand new. The core idea – of intensely focusing on a particular subject or tactic, matching it with the ideal customer, and building a structured sales campaign around it – has been a winning strategy for a while.

However, I think the reason this has become such a phenomenon, and why it's gaining such significant traction now, is because data and analytics now allow us to be far more targeted and precise. We can accurately select the topics, the customers, and the messaging we bring together, and precisely measure the impact of our sales team's efforts.

If we go for a more polished definition: "A sales play is a structured, repeatable sequence of actions designed to guide sales professionals through a specific selling scenario. It outlines the optimal steps, content, and messaging required to effectively engage prospects, uncover opportunities, and achieve a defined sales objective.”

Putting that into reality, Sales Plays are the magic behind unifying the efforts of Product, Marketing, Enablement, and Operations. They deliver a truly cohesive prospecting strategy that cuts through the noise. This powerful alignment empowers sellers to zero in on the ideal customer for a particular message, and leverage a standardised, repeatable methodology that sales support teams have meticulously built to optimise the chances of sales success.

What a Sales Play Isn't (And Why It Matters)

To truly understand the transformative power of Sales Plays, it helps to understand what they are not. Let's look at a common scenario that many businesses unwittingly fall into:

Imagine a new product has just launched. It's innovative, exciting, and promises to add significant value to customers. Product Teams are naturally thrilled, and they want the Sales Team to go out there and make some sales.

Okay, great. The standard next step for many businesses is to educate the seller on the product. Perhaps the Enablement team builds a product certification, or maybe it's just a quick webinar. Then, the sellers go to their prospects and existing customers, positioning the product in any way they choose. There might or might not be a supporting marketing campaign to aid the sales efforts.

This, my friends, is not a Sales Play. Yes, there's a bit of coordination – "here's a new product, let's make a conscious effort to sell it" – but you can hardly call that a strategic or structured approach. It's reactive, uncoordinated, and utterly lacks the precision needed for consistent, repeatable success.

The Sales Play Motion in Action: A Coordinated Approach

Now, let's look at this exact same scenario through the powerful lens of a true Sales Play structure and system.

The coordination starts much earlier. Product gives Marketing, Enablement, and Operations a significant heads-up that a release is coming, and that aligned sales efforts will be absolutely crucial.

• Operations gets in touch with Product to determine the ideal customer for the product. They'll dig into existing customer usage data points that support demand, and identify intent signals from new business prospects. Ops then compiles a data-backed, defined target list of ideal customers, based on the specific value the new product innovation provides. Ops also works closely with Marketing to ensure these customers and prospects are considered in any account-based marketing efforts.

• In the meantime, Marketing builds a comprehensive campaign (social media, website, blogs, whitepapers) specifically around this new product launch. Crucially, they also prepare rough email and call copy for sellers to use – these are templates they can easily personalise to the specific needs of a customer, ensuring consistent messaging.

• And Enablement? Enablement meticulously plans out sessions that cover not only what the new product innovation is and what it looks like, but also, and most critically, how the sales teams will go about selling it. They seamlessly integrate insights from Ops and Marketing: who to sell to, the compelling reasoning behind this targeting, and precisely what support sellers will have to execute flawlessly.

• Finally, let's not forget the ultimate conductor of this sales orchestra: Sales Leadership. For a Sales Play to truly sing, leaders must do more than just understand the timeline; they need to grasp the 'why' behind the play – whether it's boosting pipeline, driving new product adoption, or something else entirely. Their enthusiastic buy-in is the absolute make-or-break factor, as they're the ones who galvanise their reps to act. Without that visible and enthusiastic leadership, all the meticulous planning and cross-functional effort can simply fall flat.

Then, and only then, do we put it all into motion: strategic Enablement sessions, followed by the product launch, then the targeted marketing campaign, leading directly into structured sales outbound efforts targeting that data-backed, defined list of ideal customers and new business prospects. All sales support teams work in concert, creating the perfect conditions for salespeople to ride the wave to better, more impactful conversations with customers, clearer calls-to-action, with the ultimate aim of significantly improved pipeline generation.

For a Sales Play to truly fly, these cross-functional teams aren't just participants; they're essential collaborators. Success hinges on a shared understanding of goals, crystal-clear communication channels, integrated planning from the outset, and a deep commitment to joint measurement. Without this deep alignment and collaborative spirit between Product, Marketing, Sales Operations, and Enablement, even the best-conceived Sales Play will struggle to gain traction and deliver consistent results.

Recap: Sales Play – What It Is & What It Isn't

To crystallise our understanding, let's quickly recap:

• A Sales Play IS:

  • A structured, repeatable sequence of actions.

  • Designed for a specific selling scenario (e.g., new product, specific industry).

  • Built on deep cross-functional alignment (Product, Marketing, Ops, Enablement, Leadership).

  • Driven by data-backed targeting of ideal customers.

  • Aims for consistent, measurable sales success and pipeline generation.

• A Sales Play IS NOT:

  • Just a product launch announcement or a quick training session.

  • A reactive, uncoordinated effort by sales teams.

  • Left to individual sellers to "figure it out" with their own messaging.

  • Lacking a defined target audience or clear objective.

  • A siloed activity; it requires unified strategic effort.

Beyond New Products: Versatility for Growth

While I've used the powerful example of a new product launch, Sales Plays are incredibly versatile and can be leveraged for a multitude of strategic objectives. They can be used to:

• Drive up interest in an underperforming product or service.

• Target specific use cases or industries with tailored messaging.

• Generate pipeline from customers currently working with competitors (a potent "compete" sales play).

• Penetrate specific accounts with a highly tailored message and approach.

The Proof is in the Pipeline

So, do they actually work? Well, if you don't listen to me, listen to Bain & Co. In their illuminating article, "The B2B Growth Divide: What Sets Winners Apart," they emphatically stated:

“Companies that ran a genuine Sales Play System—one with targeted, repeatable go-to-market motions—were more likely to achieve their revenue targets in 2024 and posted 2.2 times the average growth rates vs. those that did not run such sales plays.”

And remember, what makes them so profoundly effective is the robust structure built through seamless collaboration between Product, Marketing, Sales Operations, and Enablement. Once that cross-functional muscle has been created, you can truly create a play for anything, adapting to market shifts and business needs. This ensures you're always hitting your pipeline goals and are firmly on track to meet your revenue and growth targets, no matter what.

If you need support creating your Sales Play structure, please don't hesitate to reach out to Krishin.Assomull@enablesmb.com.