21+ Sales Plan Templates
When it comes to testing your product’s viability in the market, relying on Lady Luck alone is like walking blindfolded on a road full of sharp tacks it spells for catastrophe. If you want to boost your sales but don’t want to be overcome with the thousands of decisions you have to make, then creating a sales plan template will provide you with a fool-proof map in treading through the troubled waters.
Business Sales Plan Template
Basic Sales Plan Template
Simple Short-Term Sales Plan Template
Product Sales Plan Template
Monthly Sales Plan Template
Sample Retail Sales Plan Template
Printable Real Estate Sales Plan Template
Sample Software Sales Plan Template
Sample Sales Plan Template
Basic Sales Plan Sample
Annual Sales Plan Template
A sales plan is a powerful business tool that serves a variety of purpose: it sets a sales target, defines the set of steps you need to take to reach this target, and helps mitigate risks that can potentially bring ruin to your business. When written correctly and executed effectively, it can give you a comprehensive insight in your product’s current market performance. Take a look at the following sections below to know more about the processes and complexities involved in building a sales plan.
Elements of a Good Sales Plan
1. Targets: A sales plan exist because you want to accomplish a certain goal or reach a defined target. There are three types of targets that you want to hit on your sales plan: sales, consumers, and territories. Your sales target is the quota that you want to attain to increase your revenue or profit. Your target consumers refer to the market that will buy your product as defined by age, social status, and other economic factors. Your target territory is the geographical location of where you can sell your product.
2. Product Information: The description of your product helps the members of your sales team be more knowledgeable about what your company is selling. Product information basically refers to the product price and description, but it may also extend to the viability of the product against the current market, its competitors, and trends of its sales.
3. Strategies and Tactics: These are the two major components that comprise the big bulk of the sales plan. The sales strategies refer to the overview of your goals and the status quo of your company in the midst of the current market. The sales tactics, meanwhile, refers to the series of action plans you want to take to achieve that strategy.
4. Support: This refers to the forms of support that your marketing team will be getting to reinforce the attainment of your targets. This element may pertain to the marketing support, or the efforts your company has done to promote your product such as in social media, and training programs of your sales team, or the seminars and orientation they can attend to improve their skills and be informed about company’s newest products. Incentive programs and prospects of promotions are also forms of support you can state in your sales plan.
Monthly Sales Plan Example
Personal Sales Plan Example
30-60-90 Day Sales Plan Sample
Steps to Make a Great Sales Plan
A basic sales plan has five basic parts or components: the sales targets, product description, new business acquisitions, existing customer businesses, and market analysis. The steps below outlines the making of each section:
1. Identify your sales targets: As mentioned in the preceding part, you have three targets in your sales plan: your quota, customers, and territories. First, determine if your sales quota is revenue-based, one which focuses on the annual or monthly profit gained, or volume-based, one which focuses on the number of new consumers acquired.
Second, identify which demographic will most likely buy your product, and present their compare its population against the total population of your territory. And lastly, define your territory to help you establish important geographical decisions like choosing the location of an office branch or setting up the starting point of your sales team.
2. Define your product: This section describes your product and enumerates all of its important characteristics, specifically the factors that make it unique from the competing products and the specific benefit it provides. You would want to be clear in stating the need or the gap in the market you are filling in through your product. You can also include in this part a short background of the company and connect it somehow to the product’s conception.
3. Choose your strategies and tactics to acquire new businesses: Keeping only one type of account can be risky for a company, which is why most companies always try to acquire other types of businesses to grow. In your sales plan, enumerate the strategies and tactics that your company can take to achieve this external growth. Most of the steps in this section focuses on increasing awareness to the new business and building a customer base.
4. Formulate your strategies and tactics in maintaining existing businesses: While it is beneficial for the company to continually widen the horizon with new procurement, the older businesses must not be left carelessly. This section is where you identify which strategies and tactics must be taken in order to still gain revenue in existing business accounts. Methods that you can mention in these steps can include creating a touch-point program and customer referrals.
5. Present your market analysis: This section can be treated as an extension of the product description section, but with a more in-depth focus on the product’s pricing and performance in the market. State your product’s competitive advantage, the trend in sales, and other features of your product that defines your spot in the market.
Sales Report Plan Template
Operational Sales Plan Template
Weekly Sales Activity Plan Sample
Free Sales Development Plan
Tips for a Great Sales Plan
- Update your sales plan regularly: The responsibility that comes with your sales plan does not end after you are done writing it. As unprecedented market factors will always seem to affect your strategies and tactics, you must always conduct a regular check-up on your team regarding your plan’s performance. Impose small changes during these small meetings and update your sales plan every 6 to 12 months.
- Lay out a timeline: Set deadlines for each sales quota and conduct reviews after each deadline. This will let you know if you are keeping up with your goals or not. Identify top performing salespersons and award incentives to motivate them. Sticking with your marketing timeline despite difficulties will help you determine performance factors as well as accurate trends in sales that are useful for your business forecasts and sales plan revisions.
90 Days Sales Management Plan Template
Marketing Sales Plan Example
meetingsyukon.comSample Sales and Marketing Plan
goodeggmarketing.comSales Plan Outline Sample
integrityworkscoaching.comTypes of Sales Plans
Sales plans come in a variety of forms and types depending on your type of business. However, there can be considered five main types of sales plans that are classified according to their execution and set goal. These types are the following:
- Situation Analysis: This sales plan is made from the analysis of the external and internal factors affecting the company’s market niche to get a good grasp of the current situation. Sales executives make use of various techniques to achieve this analysis, but the most common one is the SWOT analysis, or the study of the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
- Sales and Operations Plan: It is a type of sales plan that is conceived with the production process at its core. Sales and operations plan aligns all the important factors that are required in boosting sales with the complexity involved in the operation. It is a common business management tool that paves way for the synchronization of sales and operations.
- Budget-based Plan: This plan centers on the strategies and tactics involved to execute the sales plan. It is like a budget proposal that centers on the company’s projected expenses for the marketing efforts and sales team budget that are integral to the plan.
- Communication and Engagement: This type of sales plan execution encourages the involvement of the sales team in decision-making processes to achieve full support to your plan. Keeping constant communication and promoting engagement leads to a boosted morale to the members of the sales team, which makes up for a positive attitude that paves way for lively spikes in sales.
- Controls and Monitoring Plan: This type focuses on the careful execution of the plan through control and monitoring. Most sales executives who employ this kind of sales plan conduct weekly meetings to monitor the progress of the sales team and enforce quick actions to remedy problems.
Sales Plan Template Sizes
Sales plan templates are available on standard sizes of US Letter (8.5 inches by 11 inches), US Legal (8.5 inches by 14 inches), and A4 (8.27 inches by 11.69 inches).
Sales Plan FAQs
What are touch-point programs?
In sales terminologies, touch-point is defined as the point of interaction where a salesperson keeps in “touch” or contact with the customer to close a deal. They are very important scenarios in businesses as they help gather data for you to gain insight into the changes you can impose on your sales development.
What are the factors I should consider when determining the commission I pay for my salespersons?
You can consider two factors. First is the amount you can afford to pay the salesperson and second is the amount that the salesperson thinks he deserves. Try to come up with a value that can satisfy both factors and not only either.
A sales plan is like a breathing being, it grows and changes with your business. Challenges are inevitable, sure, but with each re-work of your sales plan, while applying all the lessons you learned, you will be more confident in raking in risks that will surely take your company and business upon another notch.
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