In sales, like in any sport, success comes with practice. Think about professional athletes. They have playbooks, they train every day, and they continuously refine their skills.

Your sales team may have a playbook, but are you practicing it? If not, you’re missing out on one of the most critical drivers of success: consistent skills development.  

This is Growth Blocker #10, the last of the most common blockers Eric Rudolf and I identified in our conversations about tech businesses scaling from $1M to $10M in revenue.

If a sports team didn’t practice its playbook, we’d question their professionalism. So why do many companies expect sales teams to excel without a similar discipline?

It is not just having a playbook—it’s the lack of regular practice and repetition. Too often, businesses build out sales strategies and training materials, only for them to gather dust on a shelf.

A Sales and Marketing Association study found that while 77% of companies built playbooks, the average coaching time per sales rep was just 45 minutes per month. That’s far below the one-hour-a-week recommended to yield performance gains of 17% to 19%.

Just one hour a week of targeted skills coaching can lead to significant improvements, but this needs to be a consistent ongoing process. It’s about more than simply reading the playbook; it’s about refining how your team applies it in real-world scenarios.

Eric and I have found that many organizations struggle with this practice gap. Having a well-documented playbook is only half the battle. The true value lies in making sure that it is actively used, coached, and iterated upon. 

Much like the modern sales playbook, marketing processes should follow the same principles. Both sales and marketing teams need to be aligned and continuously improve their skills to stay competitive and ensure sustained growth.

By investing in continuous skills development, you’re not only enhancing individual sales performance but also empowering your team to adapt to changing markets and customer expectations. This is where consistent growth happens.