What Is A Sales Plan: Basic Few Valuable Points

What is a Sale Plan

The sales plan of a company is a document in which the sales of a business will estimate for a certain period. This tool describes the business objectives, scenarios, characteristics and challenges the company must face to achieve the estimates.

In general, the sales plan differs from the commercial plan in that the first is more specific, and the actions the company will take are drawn up in a detailed and step-by-step manner. In addition, the commercial plan usually develops tactical elements, while the sales plan presents both tactical and strategic points.

By including strategic elements and the estimate of the total sales, this document needs to build with qualitative data on the market and the strategy and quantitative factors such as estimates, investments, liabilities, etc.

Need a Sales Plan?

The sales plan is significant for the company because it determines the objectives and path the commercial strategies will follow during the following months. In addition, it helps create a structure and determine the resources chosen to achieve the established goals.

It is important to remember that the sales plan is essential to establish other company documents, such as the marketing plan and internal growth projects. A company must have these documents to know when is the best time to grow and when should  implement strategies to protect the company’s finances.

One of the most common mistakes made by startups or SMEs is the absence of realistic planning regarding the company’s sales forecast.

For example, many businesses create very high sales expectations, which can be challenging for a company without market positioning. The problem is that when investors review the results, they can see that they will not achieve, so they get discouraged and decide not to continue with the venture.

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10 Steps To Create An Effective Sales Plan

On the internet, you can find many sites and blogs with different steps to create an effective sales plan; however, this depends on many factors, and, usually, it may vary depending on the author. Therefore, we will show you the ten most important steps so that you can start from a broad base:

• Know your product or service

Knowing the characteristics of your product or service will allow you to have a broad panorama and understand the possibilities it has to achieve a large percentage of participation in the market in which it operates.

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• Define your market segment

The total estimated sales in a specific time depend directly on the market segment’s purchasing power and the market segment’s availability to buy the product or service. If the market segment is poorly defined, it will not be inclined to purchase, and a realistic sales plan cannot be arrived at.

• Analyze your competition

You need to know how significant your competitors’ market share is to understand how to develop sales strategies that allow you to achieve market share by leveraging your company’s strengths.

• Do a trend analysis

One of the most critical elements that will carry out is to analyze the trends and behaviour of the market where will market the product. For example, if the consumption trend is downward, we must design sales strategies to increase this percentage.

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• Set a goal

Once you know the general panorama of the company, it is time to establish public and specific objectives where you can structure the path your company should follow in the future.

• Establish sales strategies

When you have established the objectives, you must generate the necessary techniques. It includes everything from marketing strategies (email-marketing) to sales strategies (Sales Page, sessions, etc.)

• Set sales forecasts

It is the quantitative part of the sales plan. Here you are going to create a section with all the income from sales that you will make in the determined period.

Budget. But to achieve these sales forecasts, it is necessary to make fixed and variable investments. For this, it will require to generate budgets.

• Write the document

Finally, all that remains is to write the paper with all the results of the steps above.

Set follow-ups. Having your sales plan does not mean that you have everything solved. It is essential to control the results, develop metrics and monitor what they will meet.

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