A sales business plan is a strategic document that outlines how a company will generate revenue through sales activities. When your sellers head into a new quarter with a solid sales business plan, they’re more likely to attain quota and meet your organizational goals.
Research shows companies with documented strategies have a 30% higher chance of sales growth and even the potential to double their business.
What is a Sales Business Plan?
A sales business plan is a roadmap for the sales team and aligns sales efforts with broader business objectives.
The plan serves multiple purposes: guiding day-to-day sales activities, securing funding or buy-in from leadership, coordinating with other departments like marketing and operations, and providing benchmarks for measuring success.
It’s typically reviewed and updated regularly to adapt to market changes and performance results.
Common components of a sales business plan include:
- sales goals and objectives
- target market analysis
- sales strategy and approach
- product/service positioning
- sales process and pipeline workflows
- resource requirements
- pricing strategy
- sales forecasts and projections
- performance metrics
How to Create a Business Plan for Sales
With these six simple steps, you can help your sellers define their strategy and create a sales business plan they can use to crush their sales targets.
Step 1: Determine the Sales Target
Before your sellers can begin creating an effective business plan, they need to be comfortable with the sales target you’ve set for them.
As a sales leader, you should examine each seller’s performance data for the past six to twelve months and identify key numbers, including gross sales, profits, win/loss ratio, deal size, and other KPIs that are important for your organization.
If available, include weekly, daily, and monthly activity numbers such as calls, meetings, and emails.
Based on this data, your company’s overall sales projections, and corporate strategy, determine the sales target for each team member. Then, meet individually with each to review their previous performance data and present their new sales quotas.
This will help your sales professionals see where they need to be versus where they were in the past.
Step 2: Break the Numbers Down
As the sales leader, coach your sellers to break their targets into “chunks” that they can organize and attack more effectively.
For example, a $5,150,000 sales target might break down like this:
- $3,500,000 existing account maintenance
- $500,000 new product or service sales from existing accounts
- $300,000 new accounts with existing opportunities
- $500,000 new opportunities from dormant accounts
- $250,000 new accounts from marketing leads
- $100,000 new accounts from prospecting
Looking at the target this way makes it more manageable and easier to develop a detailed plan for.
Step 3: Prepare for Obstacles
Salespeople who understand obstacles they’re likely to face can prepare for them. As part of the planning process, have your sellers brainstorm what might get in the way of achieving their goals, as well as tactics for overcoming those obstacles.
Barriers might be external, such as a disruption in your industry or a contact within an account leaving. They can also be internal, such as failure to align your company’s marketing strategy with your sales strategy, resulting in poor quality leads.
Sales training can help your team identify and handle obstacles and give them a greater chance of success.
Step 4: Establish an Action Plan
Once your sales professionals understand what numbers they need to attain and where the opportunities and obstacles lie, they can create an action plan.
Have your sellers identify specific strategies or tactics that will help move them towards their goals. Be sure they list high-gain activities on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis to get them where they need to be.
For example:
GOAL: Your seller may seek to increase sales of a specific product to current customers by nurturing relationships.
STRATEGY: One way to achieve that goal could be to target professional networking groups current customers are members of.
ACTIVITIES: They can ask to join the networking groups, send notes to their customers who are members, and attend meetings and/or professional events.
This top-down approach will help keep your sales professionals organized and manage their time better on a day-to-day basis. It will also give them a clear path to reaching their sales goals.
Step 5: Collaborate with Marketing
Sales and marketing alignment is key and can give your organization a competitive advantage. Suggest that each of your salespeople meet with the marketing team to discuss their one-page business plan.
When the marketing department understands your team’s sales strategy, they can create a marketing plan to support the sales team and drive quality leads.
Step 6: Execute the Sales Business Plan
The final and most important step of the business plan is execution. Urge your salespeople to keep their sales action plan where they can see it each day and have them schedule the activities they committed to on their personal calendars.
By prioritizing the plan and carving out the necessary time, your sales team will have no excuses when it comes to execution and they’ll be well on their way to success.
Sales Plan for Success This Quarter
The process of creating a business plan will help your sales professionals manage their daily activities in a way that moves them towards achieving their long-term goals.
This quarter is a great time to give your sales reps the skills they need to build their own sales plans and overcome any challenges they’re up against.
See how sales training from The Brooks Group can help your team improve sales performance.
