Business owners, sales leaders, and even salespeople know they need a sales plan that clearly outlines how they’ll achieve their annual goals. The question is, what to include so it’s a valuable, useable tool?
You’ve heard the adage, fail to plan, plan to fail. Nowhere is that truer than in sales. If you don’t have a plan:
Sales as an organization has a tendency to chase the latest opportunities and leave the planning for later. Sometimes later never comes. Whether your sales organization is you or a team, that means wasted time, lost opportunities, and poor conversion ratios.
While creating a sales plan takes you out of the field or away from your team and client-facing activities, it’s a necessary activity. Without it, you have no binoculars to guide you.
Key Sections of a Sales Plan
A sales plan focuses on what the sales organization is going to do to achieve their targets for the time period of the plan. You may be the whole sales team, or you may have a sales organization comprised of regions with vice presidents, directors, managers, and salespeople.
The Type of Plan Depends on Your Sales Role: Regardless of your role or company size, you need a sales plan. Each person in the sales organization should have a sales plan. The depth and breadth of your plan will be dependent on your role.
The Goal of a Sales Plan: Your sales plan is literally your plan for how you’re going to make the sales goals you’ve set or been given. Without a sales plan, you have no roadmap for what activities you will do, or who you will target.
Three things to keep in mind as you develop your sales plan:
What To Include in Your Sales Plan
As you prepare your sales plan, include the following 7 sections:
Embrace Your Plan
Present your sales plan to anyone you need to support you in successfully implementing it. Get their buy-in and engage with them frequently throughout the year so you stay on track.
When you’re tempted to push your sales plan aside, bury it a drawer, remove it from your desktop, or forget to review it in next week’s sales meeting, stop! This is your plan to achieve your goals – both personal and professional. Embrace it like the lifeline it is. Use it. I guarantee you’ll have greater success with it than if you attempt to go rogue.
Contributed blog courtesy of KLA Group and authored by Kendra Lee, CEO of KLA Group. Read more contributed blogs from Kendra Lee here.
