Did you know that 40% of businesses didn’t meet their goal in 2020?
The primary reason is that businesses don’t have the right sales strategies. So, they’re not able to plan well.
Effective sales planning involves:
- Understanding the prospects.
- Considering the product-market fit.
- Tailoring your sales strategy to cater to market demand.
Knowing the ins and outs of sales planning will help you track your goals and identify the bottlenecks.
This article will help you learn what sales planning is and what goes into it.
We’ll be discussing:
- What is Sales Planning?
- Why do you need a Sales Plan?
- Elements of effective sales planning
- Are you ready to ace your sales numbers?
What is Sales Planning?
Sales planning is the process of defining the strategic path to achieve the sales objectives.
Sales planning helps to get a birds-eye view of the overall sales strategy.
It provides actionable steps that you should implement to meet the required objectives. It’s an estimation of what the selling process looks like, potential risks, and rewards.
Sales planning acts as a roadmap for every stage of the sales process.
A sales plan is a 5 -10 pages document that includes the following.
1. Mission and vision
” Create sales plans or sales actions based on your sales goals.
Decide to take one action a day that will help you reach your sales goals.”– Iain Swantson
What’s the purpose of your organization? What’s your long-term vision behind the process?
Having clarity about these aspects helps to reach sales goals faster. Knowing “why” will help you to stay aligned with your goals. ai in sales intelligence.
2. Sales targets
You need to know your sales targets. It could be 2x your revenue, reach more people, get new leads, and increase cross-sell/up-sell rate.
3. Sales strategies
Sales strategies are the heart and soul of your business, and sales success depends on how effective those strategies are. It includes activities such as prospecting, cold calling, objection handling, following up, asking for referrals, and maintaining client relationships.
4. Know your customers and segment
Customers are the backbones of your business. There could be more than one buyer’s persona. Accordingly, the pain points, choices, and interest preferences change.
The critical aspect of sales strategy is to segment the audience into different categories to personalize the messaging.
5. Pricing and packaging
Last but not least, decide the value of your product. What does it cost? Is it worth the cost? Does it fit into the prospect’s budget? Are you open to negotiation?
Why do you need a sales Plan?
Here’s why you need a sales plan:
#1 Helps to achieve revenue goals.
How do you measure the success of your sales strategy?
By calculating revenue that you generate out of the process, correct? Though it may not be the only thing to measure. Sales planning allows you to set up each sales process step based on your goals.
For instance, If you have an income goal of $10 000 per month. You could work with five clients that’ll pay you $2000, or 2 clients that’ll pay you $5000 per month. Depending on your ability and skillsets, you will decide how to reach your goal.
#2 Determine potential risks.
As you understand the facts better, your business will have potential risks. So it’s a good idea to analyze it and determine whether the chances are worth the time and energy you’d put in.
Moreover, sales risks could lead to failure if not managed well. Sales planning allows you to reduce those risks by training your sales team to determine, evaluate, and keep track of those risks.
#3 Drives creative thinking
Sales planning involves enormous brainstorming. Sales leaders need to discuss campaigns with the marketing team and sales strategies with the sales team. Also, branding with UI/UX designers.
These processes require creative, analytical thinking and problem-solving, which is a needed advantage for any entrepreneur.
That’ll enhance your abilities to think, execute and make decisions. Creative thinking allows for better decision-making.
#4 To stay aligned with your goals
Perfect alignment with your long-term visions is a critical aspect of the company’s success.
You can create a sales plan based on the business objectives you want to achieve.
For instance, if you wish to generate more leads, you should concentrate more on prospecting and learning more about your clients. You can tailor your sales strategy based on the goals you wish to achieve.
Elements of effective sales planning
1. Prospects
Prospects are the foundation of your sales planning. You need to tailor the sales strategies according to your audience’s needs.
Who’s your ideal customer? What are they looking for? Is your solution a perfect product-market fit? Prospects are the backbone of your sales strategy.
2. Sales Strategy
Although sales strategy and planning go hand in hand, they serve different purposes. Sales strategy answers critical questions such as Who, Why, and What. Whereas sales planning provides guidelines for when and how to act based on the strategy.
3. Data Analysis
Have a complete audit of your past sales strategies. Analyze the data regarding your customer acquisition rate, conversion rate, and no leads you made in a specific period. Analyze the graph; was it exponential? How many accounts did you reach?
What was the revenue? Did you make a profit or loss? If you succeeded, what approach did you follow?
4. Vision
Your vision drives you to keep going even after failures and obstacles.
Building a successful business requires being persistent, resilient, and patient.
That’s when you’ll be able to push yourself in times of uncertainty.
Are you ready to ace your sales game?
Sales planning is a strategic process that requires the right tools and resources for a smooth workflow.
Convin is an AI-powered conversation intelligence platform that helps businesses record sales conversations, analyze, transcribe, and share sales recordings to convert more leads.
Convin’s sales strategy software helps companies craft the sales plan based on the insights they get from it.
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