When the owner of Brantley Sign Works was out for two weeks, a part-timer covered the phones and quoted a vehicle wrap at the price of a window decal. Nobody had told her the pricing rule, because the rule lived in the owner's head. A sales playbook is how you move that rule, and the other rules like it, onto a page.
A sales playbook is a short written guide to how your business wins customers: who you sell to, what you say first, what you ask, how you follow up, how you price, and who does what. Big companies keep playbooks that run to dozens of pages. A business of one to five people needs one page, and it's more useful. Here is the outline, then a filled-in version for a four-person sign shop.
What a playbook is for
It does three jobs. It lets a new hire or part-timer sell the way you do on day three. It stops you from quoting differently on Tuesday than on Friday. And it shows you where your process is a guess, because it's hard to write down a rule you don't have. If you've ever tried to explain to a helper how you decide to discount, you know the gaps it exposes.
It is not a script to read from. It's a set of decisions made once, ahead of time, so you stop remaking them under pressure. Closing without a process shows what the lack of one costs.
The one page, filled in
Brantley Sign Works makes signs and vehicle wraps with four people. Dev owns it and does the selling, Maya runs the shop, Tomás handles the phone and scheduling, and Lena installs. This is their page.
1. Who we sell to
First: contractors and fleets with 3 to 15 trucks that need lettering. Second: restaurants and shops within 90 days of opening. Third: property managers who need building signage. We skip one-off jobs under $250.
2. What we say first
"We make signs and truck lettering for local contractors. We handle the design, the permit paperwork if you need it, and the install, so you get one bill and no calls to three vendors. Could I look at your trucks this week and send you a price on lettering all of them?"
3. What we ask
What is the sign for, and where does it go? When do you need it? Does a landlord or the city need to approve it? Who decides, and what budget range did you have in mind? Can you send a photo of the wall or the truck?
4. How we follow up
Quote goes out the same day. Text on day 2. Call on day 5. Last note on day 10. After install, ask for a review on day 7 and check in at one year.
5. How we price
Materials cost times 2.5, plus install at $85 an hour. Minimum job $250. No discount over 5 percent unless there's a deposit of half. Example: a 4 by 8 foot sign with $210 of materials is $525 plus 3 hours of install at $255, so $780.
6. Who does what
Dev: outbound email and quotes. Tomás: phone, scheduling, confirming installs. Maya: reviews anything over $3,000 before it goes out. Lena: measures on site and takes photos. Monday, 9:00, 20 minutes: look at open quotes, count what went out and what closed, change one thing.
That's under 300 words. It fits on a page, and every line is something you could use on Monday.
Why each section earns its place
Who we sell to is a ranked list, not a promise to serve everyone. The "we skip" line matters as much as the list, because it gives a person on the phone permission to say no. Getting this section right is the same work as describing your buyer in one sentence.
What we say first is the pitch from what is a sales pitch: who, the problem, the result, the next step. Writing it once keeps the shop, the phone and the email saying the same thing.
What we ask is five questions, not twenty. They're the ones whose answers change the price or the timeline. If an answer wouldn't change what you do, drop the question.
How we follow up is a schedule with dates, so it doesn't depend on anyone's memory. This is the section most businesses don't have and most need; the lead you never followed up explains why it breaks.
How we price is a formula plus two limits (a minimum, and a rule about discounts). The part-timer's mistake in the opening would have been prevented by this section alone. When someone asks for a discount, the person on the phone needs to know the answer without calling the owner. The reasoning behind that is in how to deal with price objections.
Who does what names an owner for every step, and the Monday review makes the page a living document. Without a name next to a step, the step happens when someone remembers.
Keeping it to one page
Add a line only after something went wrong twice. Delete a line the first time nobody follows it, or admit you disagree with it. Read the page aloud at the Monday review for the first month. When it grows past a page, you're writing a policy manual, and nobody reads those.
What a playbook lets you hand off
The sections that are most mechanical are the ones software can run: following up on schedule, sending the first message, answering replies, booking the visit. Rocketship's AI workers do that work from your description of who you sell to and what you say first, so a clear page becomes the brief. The parts that need your judgment stay on the page for people: the price rules, the review of big jobs, the site visit. See sales automation for small business and founder-led sales for where that line falls, and the AI workers page for what runs on its own.
A playbook tells you how to treat a lead once you have one, and leads still have to arrive. Rocketship finds the buyers, emails them from your own Gmail, follows up, and books the meeting on its own. Plans that get you customers start at $24.99 a month (Launch), and every monthly plan starts with a 7-day free trial, card required.