Planning is everything in business. The old adage, mentioned in previous commentaries, still rings true: Plan your work and work your plan. A Sales Plan is related to but not the same as having no Marketing Plan. Think about it this way- marketing’s job is to get the right fish into your fishbowl, so that sales can catch them. Marketing is about positioning the company to be seen as a viable and preferred choice and sales is about capturing the customers...lots of them!
A good sales plan has a number of elements and for a small business owner or sales manager it starts with a written summary of the coming year’s sales objectives and how they will be accomplished, including growth in dollars and percentage, growth in market share and units sold, the cost of sales as a percentage of sales revenue, training initiatives to improve closing ratios and improve customer retention, an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the team and individual sales people, resources and tools needed to assist in achieving the goals; among other topics. All of this must be aligned with and in concert with the marketing plan. They are not separate or acting in competition with one another. This is usually a problem for larger companies but never should be for smaller organizations.
Next is an overall plan for the fiscal year that captures the projected (forecasted) sales for each sales person, month by month. This is the top page of a detailed report. This summary shows the aggregate for all sales people and should be segmented by product type. And, it should show the projected gross selling margin by product type. It can be broken into territories or regions if need be.
Beneath this page are the plans for each individual sales person. Again, this is an account, by account listing with projected sales and/or units and selling margins by product type for each month. It should include projections for target accounts and a summary page of strategies and tactics to reach the goals written by each sales person and approved by the manager.
Digging deeper- how the heck does a sales person get an accurate forecast? And by accurate, I mean within 10% of reality, whether it’s aggressive or conservative. Talk to your customers! Get two to three levels deep with the customers who provide 80% of your business. Find out what they’re growth plans are for the coming year- where they expect to be up and why & when.
Even if you’re a solopreneur’ you’d be wise to spend time developing a formal sales plan. Why? Because when you go through the act of creation and writing things down, what you create becomes more real in your brain. It becomes something that you attach to and aspire to. To close with a twist on another saying, You Become What You Think About and What You Think About You Become. So, get working on your sales plan- even if you’re already well into the year!
BTW, I’ll be holding another teleseminar on April 16th; check out the details at www.performabusdev.com.
0 comments:
Post a Comment