In this article, learn how to create a sales plan to increase your chances of reaching your short, medium, and long-term sales goals.
To become a successful salesperson and achieve all of your goals, planning a sales strategy is a key step. Thanks to our advice, learn how to use the right tools and to implement essential actions to easily sell your products and services. In fact, it is the daily mission of a Business Developer !
Sales plan: definition
If he does not exist no universal sales plan template for all sectors and businesses, however, we agree that any sales plan includes these fundamental elements:
- La definition of business goals (whether these are sales figures, a number of customers to reach or prospects to find, etc.) fixed for a single salesperson or an entire team;
- Of tools to use to make sales.
The goals of an effective commercial sales plan
To be determined effectively, goals can for example follow a SMARTER planning. That means they need to be:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Realists
- Temporally limited
- Writings
- Revisable
For perpetuate the commercial activity of the company, the sales plan will need to be updated quarterly. The sales director will be in charge of presenting it to the company's management each time.
What should you do before creating a plan to sell a product or service?
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The creation of a sales plan should not be left to chance and should, on the contrary, be the product of a prior reflection on strategies, resources and growth prospects of the company.
It is important to have figures and to know the market situation before planning. Indeed, following a poorly constructed sales plan or underestimating the difficulties of executing it can cost a lot of money and time.
Here are the steps we recommend that you follow:
- Define your goals
As explained above, having clearly defined business goals in mind helps to indicate the direction to take in building the plan. Whether these are quantitative or qualitative, it is important that they reflect the overall marketing strategy of the company. They must also be known to the entire sales team so that they can implement coherent actions.
- Choose your KPIs
KPIs are indicators Indispensables to measure performance and results of a company. We recommend choosing a North Star Metrics: a performance indicator that determines the success or failure of a strategy over several months. Examples of North Star can be the turnover generated, the Up-sale, the Cross-selling or the decrease in the churn rate.
- Analyze past deals
The practice of doing a Post mortem of lost deals is a great classic for sales teams. Once this analysis is done, it should be followed by that of the deals won in terms of:
- Vertical customer
- Average basket
- Sales cycle length
This assessment will lead to the creation of a much more effective sales plan.
- Evaluate your situation
Make a SWOT analysis early in sales planning can be a good way to understand the market situation. This study will take into account customers, competing businesses, the company itself as well as its activity. You may have to determine a sales plan for the very first time, or renew one that was ineffective or out of date. It will then be important to be aware of the weaknesses and strengths of the business plan, marketing and commercial strategy of the company. Both internally and externally.
- Identify key actions
If defining business goals answers the question “what?” , the question “how?” still needs to be answered. by determining the actions to be put in place for the successful execution of the sales plan. For example, these can be:
- Telephone prospecting
- Sending email sequences
- Participation in fairs
At this stage, it is not yet appropriate to choose precise methods and techniques to achieve a goal, but ratherGlobally estimate what types of actions make it possible to obtain the expected results according to the strategy chosen.
- Assess the resources needed
Boosting your sales does not happen in a snap and necessarily requires an investment, whether this is financial, technological or human. Before creating a sales plan, you must therefore not only do The current state of the resources at our disposal to grow business results, but also to start think about what's missing : whether it is a question of specific tools, a budget or a reinforcement in the sales team.
You can create an Excel summarizing all of this information which will be the business plan for your commercial strategy.
- Assign activities to specific people
Depending on the company's commercial strategy and business plan, the various tasks can be divided up precisely between several teams, or on the contrary be treated simultaneously by different salespeople. To ensure the success of a sales plan, however, the first option seems to be the best because it allows greater efficiency and limits the risks of error, each salesperson being thus specialized in his field and his missions.
How to structure a sales plan or even Sales Plan?
Again, it is good to remember that not all sales plans are the same and that these must above all be the reflection of the commercial and marketing strategies of companies. Despite everything, we find in all the best sales plans a certain framework, a structure which ensures a good ROI and real efficiency.
Descriptions of target customers
It is crucial to be able Determine the Individual Customer Profile (ICP), In other words the ideal customer, the one you want to target. Its definition must be precise, the aim being to gather as much data as possible to be relevant in its approach:
- In a B2B context, knowing the profession of potential customers and their sector of activity is fundamental.
- In a B2C framework, we will instead rely on the tastes and consumption habits of customers.
Distinguish between different sales segments is also one of the important steps for Take care in the presentation of the company's products and services to the buyer: the commercial discourse will actually not be the same depending on whether it is a prospect or a regular customer.
Sales goals
Beyond the SMARTER model mentioned above, The planning of a sales objective must also be done in several stages to effectively boost the growth of the company and its activity.
Indeed, if we can choose a overall objective in terms of turnover, it is also necessary to determine a more detailed action plan at each level: by setting a goal to be achieved in terms of sales of a product or service, a number of prospects to find or even customers to retain. These objectives must of course be consistent with market trends, the marketing positioning of the company and its available resources.
The sales strategies and methods chosen
Each defined objective must imperatively correspond one or more methods, specific processes to achieve these goals that we have set for ourselves. Of course, while it is first necessary to agree on specific methods at the time of creating the plan, these can be revised over time Or so refined with the help of training followed by the sales team, in person or online.
The deadlines
In addition to the methods defined for each objective, it is also necessary to set a deadline for the completion of each of them.
Each date must be realistic and clearly communicated to the salesperson during the presentation of the sales plan. It is in fact these deadlines that allow everyone to better organize themselves and prioritize their missions when implementing this new action plan.
Market conditions
After carrying out an initial analysis of the market prior to the planning stages, conclusions of these must therefore be used to create the sales plan for help justify the choice of such a marketing and commercial strategy, and guide employees on the directions to take when implementing the action plan.
How do I make a sales plan?
Ideally, the sales plan is done at the very end of the year when the company's global strategy was being considered. Its presentation is generally carried out using software such as Powerpoint or Google Slides: the aim is to be concrete and to provide numerical and pictorial data in your explanations.
As the year progresses, use an application such as Notion allows everyone to keep an eye on the missions he is responsible for and their deadlines, but also to communicate online with colleagues to monitor the sales cycle.
How to ensure the management of the sales plan over time
Create a monthly or quarterly steering committee with the different teams is a good way to make sure that you respect the deadlines and reach the goals you set in the allotted time.
In general, waiting too long to ensure that everyone contributes can be risky, so we recommend that youuse a tool to monitor the progress of each process on a daily basis and to organize fairly regular steering meetings, every month or every three months.
How do you align your sales plan with the marketing plan?
The use of a CRM tool is essential for aligning sales and marketing in that it allows you to centralize the customer file and the company's strategy to facilitate prospecting.
This type of software allows you to:
- Contact numerous potential customers with a personalized message
- Segmenting different lead groups
- Follow the evolution of the sales cycle and then analyze performance to give recommendations on prospecting methods.
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