---
title: "How to Build a Sales Playbook in 2026 (Example + Template)"
description: "How to build a sales playbook step by step, with a copyable template and a worked example. Includes BANT, SPICED and MEDDPICC versions you can use on calls."
canonical: https://www.itsconvo.com/blog/sales-playbook
markdown: https://www.itsconvo.com/blog/sales-playbook.md
last-updated: 2026-10-18T00:00:00.000Z
---

# How to Build a Sales Playbook That Works on Real Calls

> How to build a sales playbook step by step, with a copyable template and a worked example. Includes BANT, SPICED and MEDDPICC versions you can use on calls.

Source: https://www.itsconvo.com/blog/sales-playbook

A sales playbook brings together who you sell to, why buyers should choose you, and how to handle each stage of the sale. Include qualification questions, demo examples, objection responses, proof and purchase steps. Convo lets you customise BANT, SPICED or MEDDPICC, or build your own playbook. Answers fill in during the call, and you can ask Convo for real-time help with what to say or ask next.

SEP '26 [BLOG](https://www.itsconvo.com/blog) / SALES 13 min read

Markus Kellermann

[Markus Kellermann](https://www.itsconvo.com/about/markus) Founder & CEO Updated 18 October 2026

How to build a sales playbook step by step, with a copyable template and a worked example. Includes BANT, SPICED and MEDDPICC versions you can use on calls.

## TL;DR: Build a Sales Playbook That Helps You Sell

1. Your sales playbook should help you decide what to do next with a buyer. Knowing who approves a purchase helps you involve the right person before spending time on a proposal.
2. Start with the situations you need to handle, then prepare the questions, responses and proof that help. The template below covers the full sale, including who to approach, what to demonstrate and how a purchase gets approved.
3. If a buyer says they tried something similar and nobody used it, find out what went wrong before defending your product. Their answer should change what you show them and how you propose testing it.
4. [Convo](https://www.itsconvo.com/) brings your playbook into the conversation. Build your own or customise BANT, SPICED or MEDDPICC. Answers fill in as you talk, and you can ask Convo for real-time help whenever you need it.

Sales playbooks poster pairing the buyer's objection, We tried this before, with the follow-up question, What made people stop using it, on warm-white and pale-lavender panels

## The Problem With Sticking to Your Playbook

For a long time I ran my sales calls like a questionnaire. A buyer would start telling me why the last tool they bought had failed, and I was already looking at the next question on my page. The most useful thing they said went straight past me.

So I stopped using someone else's list and built my own. BANT, SPICED and MEDDPICC give me somewhere to start, but the questions worth keeping are the ones about what I sell and what this buyer has to decide. If someone has been let down by a product like mine before, I keep a question ready for it, what went wrong and what would need to change this time, next to the usual qualification ones.

Writing better questions only helps if I can keep track of them live. Buyers rarely answer in order. They'll cover three of mine at once, or raise something I'd planned to ask later. When I can see their answers appear next to each question as they talk, I can stay with a surprising one and still see what we haven't covered before the call ends.

Want the short answer?

[Convo](https://www.itsconvo.com/) helps you build your own sales playbooks and it fills in the answers as the buyer talks. You can see that they’ve explained the budget but haven’t said who approves it. And if you’re unsure how to respond, ask Convo during the call.

Convo's Ask AI panel suggesting follow-up questions during a live call between Iván and Markus

Ask Convo for help with a response or follow-up while you are still talking to the buyer.

## What Is a Sales Playbook?

A sales playbook is a guide to how you sell a particular product to a particular kind of customer. It brings together who you approach, why they should care, how you run the sale and what you say or show when a buyer needs help deciding. Qualification questions, objection responses, demo examples and the steps towards a purchase all belong in it.

The sales process gives you the stages. The playbook explains how to handle them. A script might give you an opening sentence, while an individual sales play explains how to approach a situation such as a competitive comparison or a buyer who needs approval.

I think the distinction matters most when you hand the playbook to someone who has not sold your product before. "Find out who makes the decision" is a reasonable instruction. Explaining how to ask for an introduction, what to prepare for that person and what to do if your contact says no gives them something they can use.

## How to Build a Sales Playbook in Five Steps

This is the order I would follow if I had to build a playbook from nothing again.

1. Start with the situations where you lose deals. A blank outline is harder to fill than a list of the calls you find difficult, such as a buyer who has been let down by a similar product or a demo where nobody who can approve the purchase turns up.
2. Write the questions for each situation. The useful ones tell you what to do next. "How do purchases like this usually get approved?" gives you more to work with than "Do you have budget?"
3. Add your responses and proof. For each answer you are likely to hear, note what you would say or show and which customer example or document backs it up.
4. Map how the buyer buys. Write down who approves the spending, which purchasing or security checks exist and what has to happen before a contract is signed.
5. Use it on real calls and change it every few weeks. After each call, note which question helped and which one you never asked. Remove what nobody uses.

The template below puts these steps on one page.

## A Sales Playbook Template You Can Make Your Own

You need enough structure to cover the sale without turning the playbook into a second product manual. Charles Talbot at Closing Foundry recommends [building it around what you need to know, show and do at each stage](https://www.closingfoundry.com/insights/how-to-create-a-sales-playbook-that-works).

Copy this outline and replace the example column with your own material. I have used Convo to make the examples concrete.

**Sales playbook for [product] / [customer segment]**

Owner: [name]. Last reviewed: [date].

| Section | What to write down | Example using Convo |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Who you sell to | The person, their problem and the circumstances that make your product useful. Include poor-fit cases. | Someone running sales demos who gets stuck on unexpected questions. A buyer who only wants an archive of internal meetings has a different priority. |
| Why they should choose you | What they do today, what they want to improve and the advantage you can demonstrate. | They prepare questions before a call but struggle to keep track while talking. Show how a live playbook captures answers and leaves the gaps visible. |
| First contact | The reason to contact this buyer, the opening message and the useful conversation you are offering. | For an inbound enquiry about playbooks, offer to work through a call situation they find difficult, using their own questions. |
| Sales stages | Your stages, who owns each action and what the buyer needs to agree before moving ahead. | [Discovery](https://www.itsconvo.com/blog/discovery-call), demo, evaluation and purchase. Before an evaluation, agree what the buyer wants to test and how they will judge it. |
| Qualification | The questions you need answered, what counts as a useful answer and what makes a deal worth pursuing. | Keep "How would this be funded?" separate from "Has that spending been approved?" A possible budget is not an approved purchase. |
| Demo and proof | What to show for each use case, supporting evidence and limitations you need to explain. | Demonstrate a question being answered during a conversation, then ask Convo for help with a follow-up. Let the buyer judge the help against their own situation. |
| Objections | The concern, a question to understand it and responses for the different answers you might hear. | "Nobody used our last tool" needs a conversation about what made it difficult to use, before a pitch about features. |
| Purchase and handover | Full scope and cost, approvals, any purchasing checks, next actions and promises made. | Confirm who approves the subscription and what they need to see. Pass on the buyer's intended use and any unresolved setup questions. |

The example column will change as you learn more about your buyers. That is expected. What should stay clear is the job of each section. If you cannot explain how an entry helps someone approach, understand or win a customer, it probably belongs somewhere else.

## BANT, SPICED or MEDDPICC?

BANT covers Budget, Authority, Need and Timeline. It is a sensible starting point when you need a clear view of whether a purchase can happen. The mistake is treating those four labels as the whole playbook. "Budget: not allocated" tells you something about the deal, but it still leaves you to decide what to do about it.

The next question could be "How do purchases like this usually get approved?" If the buyer has a process for new spending, you can help them prepare the case. If they do not yet see enough value, asking more approval questions will get you nowhere. You need to understand what would make the product worth paying for. And if spending is frozen with no exception, a discount does not solve that.

[SPICED, from Winning by Design](https://winningbydesign.com/spiced-framework/), gives more room to the buyer's Situation, Pain, Impact, Critical Event and Decision. It is useful when you hear plenty about what is annoying someone but very little about why they would do anything about it. An upcoming deadline only matters if you understand what happens when they miss it.

[MEDDPICC](https://www.itsconvo.com/blog/meddpicc-sales-methodology) goes further into the people and work behind the purchase: Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Paper Process, Identify Pain, Champion and Competition. That detail earns its place when several people can influence or stop a deal. For a straightforward purchase, you may not need all of it.

I would not change frameworks just to make the playbook look more sophisticated. Use the one that helps you understand your buyers, then add the questions it misses. Convo includes all three as editable templates, and you can also build your own without starting from a preset.

## The Buyer Who Has Already Tried This Before

"We tried something like this last year. Nobody used it."

If someone said this while I was selling Convo, explaining our features would be premature. I would want to know why they stopped using the previous product. Until I understand that, I cannot give them a convincing reason to try ours.

I would ask:

> "What made people stop using it?"

Suppose they say the assistant gave answers they couldn't trust. Telling them Convo uses their company knowledge would explain how our product works, but they would still have to take my word that it works well enough.

I would ask them to bring a question their buyers actually ask, along with the product information needed to answer it. We could use that material in Convo and check the answer together. They should choose the question. A demonstration built around something I already know the product handles well would tell them very little about their concern.

> "Would you be comfortable using this answer in front of a buyer? What would you need to check first?"

Their response would tell me whether to suggest a trial. If the answer was inaccurate or needed so much checking that it became another task, I would need to address that before asking them to involve colleagues.

That is the reasoning I want in a sales playbook. "We use your company knowledge" is a product fact. Someone selling Convo also needs to understand why that fact may be insufficient, what to ask next and what evidence would give this particular buyer confidence.

You can apply this to your own product. Take [an objection you hear regularly](https://www.itsconvo.com/blog/how-to-handle-objections-in-sales) and look at the response in your playbook. Does it give the buyer a reason to believe you? If the whole response depends on them accepting your claim, there is more work to do.

## Build Your Own Sales Playbook in Convo

I want you to be able to listen to that difficult answer without also trying to remember your remaining questions and write everything down.

[Matt Bolian, co-founder of Supered, argues for putting playbooks inside the tools you use to sell](https://www.supered.io/blog/sales-playbook/). I agree with him on access. But having the questions beside me would not be enough if I still had to fill them in while listening. Convo handles that part, so I can spend more of the call understanding the answer.

Open **Settings**, then **Playbook**. You can start with BANT, SPICED or MEDDPICC and edit the sections and questions, or build your own playbook from scratch. You can also add steps for things you need to do during the conversation. Keep the qualification questions that help you understand the deal, then add what you need for the situations you encounter. Knowing someone's budget will not tell you why they are reluctant to spend it with you.

For the buyer above, I would add a section called **Previous purchase**, with questions such as:

1. What made you stop using the previous product?
2. What would you need to test before trying another one?
3. Who would need to be comfortable with the result?

These are things I would want to understand before asking someone to spend time testing Convo. If they have already explained what went wrong, I would stay with their answer and ask what we would need to prove, rather than start the list again.

During the call, open the **Playbook** tab in **Live Insights**, beside the transcript. As Convo captures answers to open questions, it displays the information beneath them and crosses the questions out. The unanswered ones stay visible. If the buyer has explained why they stopped trusting the previous assistant, you can see that answer and check whether you also know what they would need to test. You do not have to type everything as they speak.

I would still read what Convo captured before moving on. "It needs to be more accurate" gives you something to ask about, but it is too vague to agree on a useful test. Find out which answers went wrong and what the buyer would accept as a good result.

Keep the questions in your playbook and put the supporting product information in your [company knowledge base](https://www.itsconvo.com/help-center/ai-knowledge-base). For this example, that means adding the documentation behind the answers you want the buyer to test. Convo can draw on that material when you ask for help during the call. The [playbook setup guide](https://www.itsconvo.com/help-center/sales-playbooks) covers the editor in more detail.

### Ask Convo whenever you need help

You can also ask Convo for help at any point during the actual sales call. For example:

> "They stopped using their previous assistant because they couldn't trust its answers. What should I clarify before suggesting a trial?"

Ask AI uses the live conversation and can draw on relevant company knowledge you have provided. You can ask your own question or use prompts such as "How can I answer?" and "Follow-up question." [See the on-demand help options](https://www.itsconvo.com/help-center/real-time-suggestions).

You still decide what to say. But you have somewhere to turn while the buyer is waiting, with the context already available.

The video shows Convo's live-call support. The [sales playbooks setup guide](https://www.itsconvo.com/help-center/sales-playbooks) covers the editor, and our [Ask AI guide](https://www.itsconvo.com/help-center/real-time-suggestions) explains the on-demand help.

## Use What Has Already Helped You Sell

The best material for your first playbook is in conversations you can explain. Look at a recent customer who chose you. What did they need to understand before buying? Which example helped? What nearly stopped the deal? Save the exchange itself, not just your summary that the demo went well.

[April Dunford makes a useful point about studying wins](https://aprildunford.substack.com/p/the-no-differentiation-illusion): knowing why good-fit customers choose you helps you understand your value, while obsessing over unsuitable lost deals can distort it. Your playbook should reflect the customers you can help. It should not teach you to argue your way into a sale with someone who needs a different product.

Use those conversations to fill the template. Keep the wording that sounds natural when spoken, attach the proof behind it and make clear which situation it applies to. Then try the play on a colleague who gives you a difficult answer. A response that only works when the buyer agrees with everything is not ready for a real call.

Once you start using it, update the parts that leave you stuck. If you keep asking Convo how to explain the same product limitation, prepare a better answer and add it to your company knowledge. If the question you need is missing from your playbook, add it. Remove questions that repeat information you already capture.

Give one person responsibility for keeping the material current. Review the conversations and the resulting deals, including the ones you stopped pursuing. For the example above, check whether you learned why the earlier purchase failed and agreed on how to test the buyer's concern. Those are useful things to coach. Counting how many questions you got through tells you much less.

## The Bottom Line

A buyer saying "we tried this before" can be the point where you start defending your product, or the point where you finally understand what they need from it. Your playbook should help you have the second conversation.

Build it around the situations you face, with questions and responses you can use. Then bring it into [Convo](https://www.itsconvo.com/ai-sales-assistant), let the answers fill in while you talk, and ask for help whenever you need a better response. That is how the preparation starts earning back the time you spent on it.

## Frequently Asked Questions

**What should I include in a sales playbook?** Include who you sell to, why they should choose you, first-contact messages, sales stages, qualification questions, demos and proof, objection responses, and the steps towards purchase and handover. For each recurring situation, explain what to ask, how to respond to different answers and what to agree on next.

**How do I build a sales playbook from scratch?** Choose a product and customer segment, then review sales conversations you understand. Use the template above to document what helps those buyers decide. Add examples, current product information and responses to recurring concerns. Test the wording in conversation and update it as you learn.

**Is a sales playbook the same as a sales script?** No. A script gives you wording. A playbook explains when to use it, what you are trying to understand and how your response changes with the buyer's answer. It also covers the wider sales process and supporting material.

**Can I create my own sales playbook in Convo?** Yes. You can customise BANT, SPICED or MEDDPICC, or build your own sections, questions and steps from scratch. Playbooks are available on the Professional plan. See the [setup guide](https://www.itsconvo.com/help-center/sales-playbooks) and [plan details](https://www.itsconvo.com/pricing).

**Does my playbook update during the sales call?** Convo captures answers to open questions as the conversation develops. Answered questions display what was captured, and unanswered ones remain visible. Each call starts with fresh answers while your template stays in place. Review any corrections the buyer makes; an already-filled answer is not automatically revised.

**Can I ask Convo for help while I am on the call?** Yes. Use Ask AI at any point during the call, with your own question or a prompt such as "How can I answer?" or "Follow-up question." Convo uses the live conversation and relevant available sources to help you respond. This is separate from the playbook filling in automatically.

Learn more about this topic with AI

[Ask ChatGPT](https://chat.openai.com/?q=Tell%20me%20about%20How%20to%20Build%20a%20Sales%20Playbook%20in%202026%20(Example%20%2B%20Template)) [Ask Perplexity](https://www.perplexity.ai/search?q=How%20to%20Build%20a%20Sales%20Playbook%20in%202026%20(Example%20%2B%20Template)) [Ask Claude](https://claude.ai/new?q=Tell%20me%20about%20How%20to%20Build%20a%20Sales%20Playbook%20in%202026%20(Example%20%2B%20Template))

[Make Convo a preferred source](https://www.google.com/preferences/source?q=itsconvo.com)

Markus Kellermann

Written by

[Markus Kellermann](https://www.itsconvo.com/about/markus)

Founder & CEO

Markus is the founder of Convo, building an AI meeting assistant that automates everything after the call. Years of experience building AI products. Believes technology should help people in the moment, not just analyze the past.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TL;DR: Build a Sales Playbook That Helps You Sell The Problem With Sticking to Your Playbook What Is a Sales Playbook? How to Build a Sales Playbook in Five Steps A Sales Playbook Template You Can Make Your Own BANT, SPICED or MEDDPICC? The Buyer Who Has Already Tried This Before Build Your Own Sales Playbook in Convo Use What Has Already Helped You Sell The Bottom Line Frequently Asked Questions

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CONTINUE READING

[What Is MEDDPICC? Example, Questions and Template [2026] 9 min read](https://www.itsconvo.com/blog/meddpicc-sales-methodology) [Discovery Call Guide: Questions, Script and Template 8 min read](https://www.itsconvo.com/blog/discovery-call) [Best B2B Sales Tools in 2026 (Full Stack Guide) 14 min read](https://www.itsconvo.com/blog/b2b-sales-tools)