Why do I need a sales plan?

Sales planning is critical to sales success. Return on Time Invested (ROTI) should be key criteria that every salesperson should use when evaluating their account base. The biggest asset a salesperson has is their time. It is imperative that they manage this asset carefully. Time management is called the queen of the management sciences and the reason why they call it the queen of management sciences is that time management – needs to be “romanced” –salespeople need to go through a fundamental management course every 12- 24 months.

A 120 Day Sales Plan is a great first step. This plan is the company’s first attempt to build an integrated business plan. Start by evaluating your territory with respect to economic conditions, competitive pressures, opportunities, threats and key customer and vendor objectives. What is really needed is to step back from the trees so you can see the forest. Some quality thinking will give you your baseline and then you can set your own goals, as well as plan out the major actions to achieve them.

You will repeat this process later in the year. You should strive to be realistic and also stretch in setting your objectives. This means that your “gut feel” says there is an 80% chance that you will achieve 100% of your goal. The company is going to be making investments in resources and support so that a significant growth rate can be achieved. There will be some ramp up benefit during this planning window, so be open minded rather than optimistic or cynical.

Your actual performance should be tracked against your goal to help develop some planning and forecasting skills.

First you need to list your key objectives for the next 120 days. Next list the key action items that are required to achieve your plan. Each section item must have a brief task description, a tangible output (i.e. meeting held, quote submitted, credit approved, management visit made, return authorized etc.), a person named who is responsible for the output and a due date. Then interview your top 10 customers and work out your best estimate of their predicted sales and gross profit volumes. Finally, do this again except from a supplier perspective. It is not important to tie supplier volumes to specific customers. This forecast will be used for two purposes; To make sure that your inventory is adequate to support your efforts, and to see if any of the combined volumes are large enough to help negotiate a better purchase price. Build a sales and gross margin forecast of your top five vendors in terms of year to date gross profit volume. For planning purposes assume that volumes of all other vendors add up to your total customer forecast.