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Sales | How To

How to Create a Sales Plan in 10 Steps (+ Free Template)

Published March 9, 2023

Published Mar 9, 2023

REVIEWED BY: Jess Pingrey

WRITTEN BY: Jillian Ilao

This article is part of a larger series on Sales Management .

• 1 Establish Your Mission Statement
• 2 Set Sales Goals & Objectives
• 3 Determine Your Ideal Customer
• 4 Set Your Sales Budget
• 5 Develop Sales Strategies & Tactics
• 6 Implement Sales Tools
• 7 Develop Your Sales Funnel
• 8 Create Your Sales Pipeline
• 9 Assign Roles & Responsibilities
• 10 Monitor Progress & Adjust Accordingly
• 11 Examples of Other Free Small Business Sales Plan Templates
• 12 Sales Planning Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
• 13 Bottom Line

Sales plans enable businesses to set measurable goals, identify resources, budget for sales activities, forecast sales, and monitor business progress. These all contribute to guiding the sales team toward the company’s overall strategy and goals. In this article, we explore how to create a sales plan, including details on creating an action plan for sales, understanding the purpose of your business, and identifying your ideal customers.

What Is a Sales Plan? A sales plan outlines the strategies, objectives, tools, processes, and metrics to hit your business’ sales goals. It entails establishing your mission statement, setting goals and objectives, determining your ideal customer, and developing your sales strategy and sales funnel. To effectively execute your sales plan, assign roles and responsibilities within your sales team and have metrics to measure your outcomes versus your goals and objectives.

Ten steps to creating an effective sales plan

Download and customize our free sales planning template and follow our steps to learn how to create a sales plan to reach your company’s revenue goals.

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Free Sales Plan Template

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💡 Quick Tip:

Once you’ve created a sales plan, give your sales team the tools to execute it effectively with robust customer relationship management (CRM) software.

Use a CRM like HubSpot CRM to help your sales team collaborate on deals, develop sales reports, track deals, and create custom sales dashboards

1. Establish Your Mission Statement

A mission statement summarizing why you’re in business should be part of your action plan for sales. It should include a broad overview of your business’ products or services and your brand’s unique selling proposition. For example, you wouldn’t say, “We provide customers with insurance policies.” Instead, you might frame it as “We provide customers with cost-effective financial risk management solutions.”

It’s essential to fully understand your unique selling proposition before creating a mission statement. This allows you to learn why you’re different from competitors in your industry. It also helps you determine how your unique proposition suits a niche market better.

Steps on how to create a unique selling proposition

For instance, using the same insurance example above, you may realize specific markets are easier to sell based on that selling proposition. Therefore, it’s a good idea to narrow in on your mission statement by saying, “We provide startup businesses with cost-effective risk management solutions.”

2. Set Sales Goals & Objectives

Once you have summarized why you’re in business in a mission statement, begin setting sales goals . Typically, business goals will include one year, but may also include three- or five-year projections.

Steps on how to set sales goals

Here are a few options for how to set sales revenue goals for your business:

• Set sales amount: You may have a specific amount in mind for a sales goal. For instance, you may determine that $200,000 is a reasonable sales goal based on prior sales and your company’s ability to generate new business.
• Desired profitability: First, calculate the total anticipated expenses for the set time period to find the break-even point. From there, you can calculate how much revenue your team needs to bring in to make a certain profit margin. For example, if annual operating costs are expected to be $100,000, and you want to make a 30% profit, your sales goal is $130,000.
• Projected sales forecast: Based on an industry-standard or estimates you attained by running a sales forecast, you may find it’s better to use a projected sales forecast as your sales goal.

Pro tip: Projecting sales can be challenging without a suitable sales forecasting model. Our free sales forecast templates help you create simple, long-term, budget-based, multi-product, subscription-based, and month-to-month business sales forecasts. Some customer relationship managers (CRMs) like Freshsales have sales goal-tracking functionalities that allow you to set and assign sales goals for your team.

Five-year sales forecast template example (Source: Fit Small Business )

Sales goal tracking in Freshsales (Source: Freshsales )

Sales goals must reflect new business revenue and sales from existing or recurring customers. Then, you must add specific sales objectives that identify and prioritize the sales activities your team needs to complete to meet sales goals. This creates an objective way to measure success in hitting goals at all levels: organizational, sales department, team, and individual sales rep, which is an essential part of sales management .

For example, imagine your total revenue goal is $200,000 in year two and $300,000 in year three. You then add an objective, such as stating you want your business’ revenue from existing customers to grow 15% in year three. This can be measured by evaluating your percentage of revenue from existing customers in year three compared to year two.

3. Determine Your Ideal Customer

Determining the ideal customer or target market is the next step of your business plan for sales reps. It may have been accomplished when you developed your mission statement, but also when you set your sales goals and discovered how broad your market needs to be to reach them. Describing your ideal customer helps dictate who you’re selling to and your selling approach.

One way to establish your ideal customer is by creating a series of unique customer profiles . Each profile specifies key demographics, behaviors, interests, job positions, and geographic information about one of your ideal buyer types. Based on your customer profiles, you can then develop more targeted marketing strategies for lead generation and nurturing to move leads through the sales process more efficiently and close more deals.

Pro tip: Making a customer persona can be challenging, especially if it is based on the wrong data or if you just focus on the demographics. Check out our article on creating a customer persona to help you define your company’s ideal buyer types and guide your lead generation and marketing activities.

4. Set Your Sales Budget

After establishing your objectives and identifying your ideal customer personas—and before developing your actual strategies and tactics—you must identify a sales budget to work with. It should include estimated expenses for salaries, travel expenses, and the cost of any software tools or service providers used to help with sales and marketing. While these are meant to be estimates, research and due diligence should be done to avoid financial errors.

One way to set your sales budget, particularly for software tools and services you may be interested in, is to create and issue a request for proposal (RFP). Issuing an RFP allows you to post a summary of your needs to solicit proposals on potential solutions. In addition to providing accurate budget estimates from various qualified vendors and contractors, it may also help you discover cost-effective or high-performing options you were previously unaware of.

5. Develop Sales Strategies & Tactics

A sales strategy explains how you plan to outsell your competitors and accomplish your sales goals. It defines specific, detailed tactics your team will use to pursue your sales goals. These may involve using Google Ads, cold calling, and drip email marketing campaigns as part of a lead generation strategy. Available strategies differ depending on your company’s resources, skill sets, sales operation, and product or service offerings.

Strategies and tactics should be personalized for your ideal customers based on their unique interests, behaviors, and the best ways to connect with them. For example, some customer profiles show your ideal buyer generally only makes purchases based on trusted referrals. In this case, you could implement a referral strategy that provides incentives to generate more customer referrals .

Plus, different sales strategies will be needed to acquire new business vs keeping existing customers. When selling to existing customers, for example, your strategy could include cross-selling tactics where additional products are recommended based on prior purchases. The short-term cross-selling tactics could require customer service reps to send 30 emails per week recommending a complementary product to existing customers.

For a new business strategy, sales reps might rely on emotional selling methods when using cold calling as a tactic. Instead of product features, cold calling scripts would be geared to evoke feelings that lead to buying decisions. Tactics could reflect the objective of having reps make 15 cold calls each week. They could use a script that opens with a story about how a purchase made a customer feel or how someone felt because they didn’t purchase the product.

Pro tip: Ensuring your strategies are properly executed requires excellent sales leadership and a healthy environment for sales reps to operate in. Our how-to guide for building a positive sales culture shows you how to create an environment that promotes high job satisfaction, low employee turnover, and profitability.

6. Implement Sales Tools

Your sales strategy template should reference the software, hardware, and materials you use to manage the sales operation and make each team member more efficient. One of the most notable tools to include is the customer relationship management (CRM) system . It allows your team to organize contact information, streamline sales tasks, and facilitate communication with customers and leads.

HubSpot CRM , for instance, makes it easy to organize information about leads, contacts, and deal opportunities. Additionally, from a HubSpot CRM lead profile, you can initiate a conversation with that contact by calling, emailing, or scheduling an appointment.

HubSpot CRM contact profile (Source: HubSpot )

CRMs are also used to monitor and report sales progress. For example, many have dashboards and functionality, such as alerts, which make it easy to identify where your team may be underperforming. These could also tell you which leads are most likely to convert and should be focused on. Sales information such as deals closed, revenue generated, and leads created can be presented in a detailed report .

These types of insights can also be shown on the CRM’s system dashboard . Pipedrive is an example of a CRM that has a customizable dashboard that displays both activity information and performance-based data. Activity data include emails sent, received, and outstanding tasks to be completed. Performance-based data, on the other hand, have deals lost or the average value of won deals.

Pipedrive’s customizable dashboard (Source: Pipedrive )

Other sales enablement tools can make your sales team more effective. These include voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) phone systems , lead generation platforms, email campaign tools, content creation platforms, and task automation software. These tools can be found within CRM software or through CRM integrations and standalone applications.

In addition to technology tools, sales and marketing templates should be used to streamline outreach initiatives. Scenario-based, premade sales email templates , for instance, allow salespeople to have an email already crafted for their specific situation.

Creating and storing business proposal templates in your CRM also streamlines the contact procurement and business proposal generation process . This way, whenever a prospect says they’d like to receive a quote or you’re responding to a request for a proposal, you already have a customizable template ready to go.

Pro tip: Effective cold calling scripts sales reps can use as a guide when placing calls to new leads is a tremendous sales tool to include in your action plan for sales. Get started using our guide for writing a cold calling script , which includes examples and free templates.

7. Develop Your Sales Funnel

Setting up a sales funnel within your sales strategy template lets you visualize the stages of the customer journey, from becoming aware of your business to buying from it. By creating and understanding the different statuses of your leads, you can track progress and determine how effective you are at converting leads to the next stages in the funnel.

Using a sales funnel with conversion rates also makes it easier for you to adjust your sales strategies and tactics based on how effectively you’re getting leads through the funnel. For instance, let’s say you have 100 leads in the awareness stage of the funnel. You decide to cold call 50 of them and write a sales email to the other 50 to qualify leads by setting up a product demonstration.

After each campaign, you find you were able to qualify seven of the leads that were cold-called and only two of the leads you had emailed. Based on these funnel conversion rates of 14% (7/50) from cold calling and 4% (2/50) from emailing, you would likely adjust your tactics to focus more on calling instead of emailing.

Do you need help creating a sales funnel for your business? Our guide to creating a sales funnel explains the step-by-step sales funnel creation process and provides free templates and specific examples.

8. Create Your Sales Pipeline

Once your sales process’ sales funnel stages are identified, develop the sales pipeline stages . These stages include your team’s sales activities to move leads through the funnel. For example, you need to get a lead from the sales funnel stage of brand awareness to show interest in learning more about one of your services. To do this, you could add a sales pipeline activity like setting up a demo or presentation appointment through a cold call.

Adding your sales pipeline to your sales strategy is essential because it describes all the activities your sales reps need to do to close a sales deal. CRM systems like Freshsales allow you to create and track the pipeline stages for each lead or deal within the lead record.

Funnel view of Freshsales’ deal pipeline (Source: Freshsales )

Listing each pipeline stage also helps you identify tools and resources needed to perform the activities for each stage. For example, if you use phone calls to initiate contact with or introduce a product to a lead, you could develop outbound sales call scripts for your team.

After the initial contact by phone, you may use email to follow up after a call and then nurture leads throughout the sales process. As part of your follow-up, create and automate a sales follow-up email template to get them to the next pipeline stage.

The sales funnel shows where a lead is in the sales process. The sales pipeline, on the other hand, lists activities needed to drive leads to the next stage in the sales funnel. Both should be used in your sales strategy when defining the repeatable steps required to generate leads and close deals. Check out our article to learn how to create a winning sales process with insights on both creating a sales process and measuring its success.

9. Assign Roles & Responsibilities

Regardless of the size of your business or sales operation, your business plan for sales reps should include the role and responsibility of each person in the sales team. Each role should have a name, such as someone being a sales development representative (SDR). There should also be a summary of their responsibilities, such as “the SDR is responsible for setting up sales appointments using the activities listed in the sales pipeline.”

Measuring the performance of any sales position is simple through key performance indicators (KPIs). Specific KPIs should be used to measure performance for each role and should be included in your plan. Below are some examples of KPIs that can be used by the members of the sales team and their respective responsibility:

• Sales development representative: Responsible for introducing products and services, qualifying leads, and setting up appointments for the account executive. Performance is measured by calls placed, emails sent, and appointments generated.
• Account executive: Responsible for nurturing qualified leads, delivering the sales pitch , sending quotes, and closing deals. Performance is measured by business proposals sent, the average time in the proposal consideration stage, deals closed, and deal closing rate.
• Customer service representative: Responsible for managing customer needs, handling billing, and managing service tickets by assisting customers. Performance is measured by customer satisfaction, retention rates, and total tickets resolved.
• Sales manager: Responsible for the entire sales operation or team for a specific region or product/service line. Performance is measured by job satisfaction rates of sales reps, pipeline and funnel conversion rates, team sales deals closed, and team revenue growth.

While assigning roles in your plan, a sales rep’s territory could be based on geography, industry, potential deal size, or product/service line, creating more specialization for better results. Our six-step process on proper sales territory management is an excellent resource for segmenting, creating, and assigning sales territories.

This section of the business plan is also a prime spot for individually setting sales quotas for each rep or team needed to hit your organizational sales goals. Sales quotas should be a specific KPI for that sales role and be set based on the experience, skill level, and resources of that individual or team. These quotas should also be based on your organizational, department, and team goals and objectives.

10. Monitor Progress & Adjust Accordingly

Once the strategic business plan is in motion, monitor its progress to make any required adjustments. For instance, while your sales operation is running, you may find certain sales tactics are working better than expected, and vice versa. Your sales goal template should account for using that tactic more, as well as any new sales tools, budgetary changes, new roles, and possibly even a new sales goal.

As in the earlier example, if you found that cold calling was significantly more effective than emailing, reduce or abandon the email method in favor of cold calling. You could also invest in sales tools especially useful for cold calling, such as power dialing using a voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) phone system, or hire additional staff to place calls. All of these will be part of your updated business plan.

Pro tip: Focusing on the big picture by creating, executing, and adjusting a strategic business plan is one of the most critical traits of an effective sales leader. For more insights on what it means to be a sales leader and how to become one, check out our ultimate guide to sales leadership .

Examples of Other Free Small Business Sales Plan Templates

Apart from our free downloadable sales strategy template, other providers have shared their version of a free strategic sales plan examples. Click on our picks below to see if these templates fit your business process better:

HubSpot’s free sales planning template helps users outline their company’s sales strategy. It contains sections found in most sales plans, as well as prompts for you to fill out your company’s tactics and information. These include company history and mission, team structure, target market, tools and software used, positioning, market strategy, action plan, goals, and budget.

HubSpot sales strategy template (Source: HubSpot )

HubSpot’s sales goals template with the mission, vision, and story of the company (Source: HubSpot )

Visit HubSpot

Asana’s free sales plan template helps organizations analyze their current sales process, establish their sales objectives, identify success metrics, and plan actionable steps. The sales business plan template is embedded within Asana’s platform, automatically integrating aspects such as goals and measuring them against results or sales performance.

Asana sales plan example (Source: Asana )

Visit Asana

Sales Planning Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is sales planning.

Sales planning is creating a document that outlines your sales strategy, objectives, target audience, potential obstacles, and tools to achieve goals within a specified period. This may include your daily, monthly, quarterly, yearly, and long-term revenue objectives.

What is included in a sales plan?

A sales strategy plan template typically includes the following key elements:

• Target customers, accounts, or verticals
• Stock-keeping units (SKUs)
• Revenue targets or forecasts
• Strategies and tactics
• Pricing and promotions
• Deadlines and directly responsible individuals (DRIs)
• Team structure and coordination
• Market conditions

What are the different types of strategic sales planning?

The type of strategic planning for sales that you choose for your team ultimately depends on different factors. These include your revenue goals, available resources, the ability and bandwidth of your sales team, and your personal commitment to your plans. Once you have determined the details of these factors, you can choose from these types of strategic sales planning:

• Revenue-based sales action plan template: This is ideal for teams aiming for a specific revenue goal. It focuses on in-depth sales forecasting, improvement of conversion rates, and closing more deals.
• Sales business plan based on the target market: This plan is best for businesses that cater to several markets that are different from each other. In this situation, you must create separate sales goal templates for enterprise companies and small businesses.
• Sales goals plan: This focuses on other goals such as hiring, onboarding, sales training plans, or sales activity implementation.
• New product sales business plan: This plan is developed for the launch and continued promotion of a new product.

Bottom Line

While any business can set bold sales goals, creating a sales plan outlines how your team will achieve them. By following the best practices and 10-step process laid out above, your sales goal template defines what your sales process will look like. It will help establish baselines for accountability and identify optimal strategies, tactics, and the tools needed to make your team as efficient as possible.

About the Author

Jillian Ilao

Jill is a sales and customer service expert at Fit Small Business. Prior to joining the company, she has worked and produced marketing content for various small businesses and entrepreneurs from different markets, including Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Singapore. She has extensive writing experience and has covered topics on business, lifestyle, finance, education, and technology.

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How to Create a Sales Plan: Tips, Examples & Free Sales Plan Template

Tactics and strategies are great. But when you create a sales plan, you set a clear path to success, with each step mapped out ahead of you.

The Internet is full of people who will tell you all about the success they’ve found from their strategies, whether it's personalizing a newsletter subject line or changing the color of the 'Buy Now' button.

But, news flash—these tips and tricks aren’t actual sales strategies .

To create real, lasting growth for you and your company, you need to create your own grand strategy. And that starts with a solid sales plan .

So, what’s your plan? How do you build it (and stick to it)?

We’re about to take a deep dive into sales plans. By the end of this guide, you’ll be completely equipped to win the fight for business growth. And we can't recommend it enough—grab our free sales plan template here in the Sales Success Kit today:

GET THE SALES SUCCESS KIT →

What is a Sales Plan? (And What Makes for Successful Sales Planning?)

Armed with the information you'll compile within your sales plan, you can quickly identify any upcoming problems, sales droughts, or opportunities—and then do something about them.

If done correctly, the right sales plan template empowers you to spend even more time growing and developing your business, rather than responding reactively to the day-to-day developments in sales.

Sound exciting? Let’s jump right in.

Download Your Free Sales Plan Templates Today

Want to build your own sales plan template that'll clarify your business plan and accelerate your growth? Grab the Sales Success Kit , including...

...and more to help you set up strategic sales planning and quotas for your team.

Want to stand out in the competitive market? Explore the insights of challenger selling .

What’s in a Sales Plan? 6 Elements Every Sales Plan Needs

In basic terms, a sales plan template includes:

• Sales forecasting and goal-setting
• Market and customer research
• Prospecting and partnerships

Each part of the sales plan naturally works itself into the next, starting with your high-level goals, then considering market factors, and finally looking at who you know, and how to find more prospects to help hit your sales goals .

Here are the key elements to include in your plan:

1. Mission Statement

What gets your sales reps out of bed in the morning? What’s the clear mission that pushes your team to keep fighting for that win?

Your mission statement is a concise statement of the ‘big picture’—the main idea and goal you want to achieve. Think about your company mission and how the sales team forms part of that overarching goal.

2. Sales Goals and Revenue Targets

A sales plan must include achievable sales goals and the targets your sales reps will be working to reach. Use previous years' results to tell you what's reasonably possible for your team to do. Include specific metrics and KPIs , how these are performing currently, and what you plan to do to improve them.

This may also include information about your product’s pricing , planned discounts, and how your team can focus on the right customers to get the most revenue possible. Link these sales goals to the business goals your company is working to achieve.

3. Analysis of the Target Market

Your plan should clearly identify your ideal customer profile and information about the target market and demographic you plan to sell to. Are you breaking into a new market? Are you targeting small business or enterprise customers ? Give a concise description of your target audience and the stakeholders you’ll need to sell to.

4. Sales Strategy Overview and Methods to Reach Target Customers

This should include a brief overview of the customer journey , pain points , and how your salespeople will engage and follow up with new prospects throughout their journey to purchase. You'll likely outline specific sales activities you'll focus on, such as improving referral numbers, testing new cold-calling email strategies, or dipping your toe in social selling.

You may also include information about the marketing strategy and lead generation methods used to gather new leads and how sales managers will support the team.

5. Use of Resources and Sales Tools

How much does it cost your team to close a new deal? What is your budget for the sales team, or for sales tools ?

Inside your plan, list the resources you have available to you, and how you plan to use them during the year. This includes monetary resources, as well as human resources.

Next, show how your resources will be used. For example, how much will you spend on sales tools? Which CRM software is your team depending on? Briefly explain how you plan to use each tool and why you’ve allocated resources in that way.

6. Sales Team Structure

The structure of your sales team includes which reps are available during what times of the year, their specialties and skills, and where they focus in the sales process .

Also, include information about the sales managers, their teams, and the incentives you offer your reps.

The Benefits of Sales Planning: Why You Need a Sales Plan

Creating a sales plan from scratch can be daunting, even with the right sales planning template. So, why should you have your sales strategy written down and ready to act on?

Let’s talk about the benefits of sales planning to attract new business and grow your market share.

Clear, Time-Bound Goals Help You Reach Revenue Targets

There’s a reason they say, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

If you want your sales team to execute on and accomplish your sales goals, you need to have a plan in place. When targets are linked to specific timeframes and actions, your whole team will see how their individual work is involved in reaching your sales goals.

Prioritize Time and Resources

Without a specific action plan in place , your team won’t be able to prioritize their time with the right sales tactics and strategies to hit their targets.

With a clear outline of the tactics that bring the most significant ROI for your team, each rep can get the best results for the time they spend selling.

Clear Action Plan to Reach Your Goals

With an action plan in place, each team member knows what they’re supposed to be doing, and why they’re doing it. This keeps them motivated and helps them see how their individual efforts make a difference.

4 Types of Sales Plans (How to Choose Which Planning Style is Right for Your Sales Team)

It’s difficult to templatize a good sales plan since every plan is unique to the business and team it applies to. So, what are some examples of the types of sales plans you might create, and how can you choose between them?

• Revenue-based sales plan: If you’re aiming for a specific revenue goal, this type of sales plan will be focused on in-depth sales forecasting and specific actions to improve conversion rates and close more deals.
• Sales plan based on the target market: If you’re selling to vastly different markets, you may want to create a different sales plan based on the market you’re targeting. For example, your sales plan for enterprise companies would differ from your sales plan for selling to SMBs.
• Sales goals plan: A plan that’s focused on goals (other than revenue) may include hiring and onboarding, sales training plans, or plans to implement a new type of sales activity into your process.
• New product sales plan: When launching a new product, it’s a good idea to develop a specific business plan around its launch and continued promotion. This plan may include finding and contacting strategic partners, building a unique value prop in the market, and creating new sales enablement content for the team to use when selling this product. This type of sales plan can also apply to launching new features in your SaaS product.

How to Choose the Right Sales Planning Style

Ultimately, this will depend on factors such as:

• Your revenue goals
• The resources at your disposal
• Your sales team’s abilities and bandwidth
• Your personal commitment to seeing this plan through

When you’ve determined who is involved in sales planning, how committed they are, and the resources you can use to make this plan happen, you can start building your own sales plan.

9 Steps to Create a Sales Plan to 10x Your Sales Team’s Results

It may seem like a lot of work to develop a sales plan at this point. But once you do, you’ll be in a place to take your sales (and brand) to the next level.

Let’s break down this process, step-by-step, so you can start achieving greater results.

1. Define Your Sales Goals and Milestones

With a sales plan, we begin at the end: an end goal.

Start by choosing the sales metrics that matter most to your overall business. This could be:

• Annual or monthly recurring revenue (ARR or MRR)
• Retention or churn rates
• Average conversion time
• Average conversion rate
• Customer lifetime value (CLV)

It doesn’t matter so much which metric you choose —the important point is that it can tell you whether your work has succeeded.

Next, look at last year’s forecast and results . Were you being realistic? How did sales revenue increase annually? How does that compare your company to the industry standards? Use this information to determine what realistically you can bring in based on the size of the market, your company goals, and the experience and resources available to your sales team .

After setting clear sales goals, it’s time to set milestones . This involves breaking that big number down into smaller expectations with strict deadlines. These should challenge and motivate your sales team , without being so difficult they kill morale.

Lean on your sales team during this process. After all, they’re in the trenches with you and probably have the best knowledge about your customers. Learn about what they do during the workweek to close deals. Ask how much they’re currently doing, and how much bandwidth they have to do more. This will give you a real, frontline take on what goals and milestones to set in your sales plan template.

Finally, create specific targets with clear deadlines . For example, to achieve a sales goal of increasing revenue by 15% YOY, you might set the milestone of increasing your customer base by 20%, or increasing sales by 50% for a specific product.

Brought together, these milestones inform and support your overall sales plan, giving you a clear, actionable workflow to hit your overall goals for the year.

2. Clearly Define Your Target Market or Niche

You need to know the market you’re in and the niche you’re going to occupy so you can properly position your business for growth.

What’s a business niche? It’s more than just what your business specializes in—a niche is the space your business occupies, with your products, content, company culture, branding, and message. It’s how people identify with you and search you out over the competition.

As serial entrepreneur Jason Zook explains: “ When you try to create something for everyone, you end up creating something for no one. ”

Don’t do that.

Instead, start by looking at a niche and asking yourself these questions:

• How big is the market?
• Is there a built-in demand for what you're selling?
• What’s your current market position?
• Who are your competitors? What are their strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats?

If you’re stuck, start by going back to your own strengths . List out your strongest interests and passions. Pick a field where the odds are already in your favor—where you have a proven track record, more expertise to offer, an extensive contact base, and people who can provide you with intros.

These kinds of strategic advantages will help you clarify your buyer persona and amplify the results of your planning.

Start with one product in one niche—you can always branch out to a complementary niche later. Sell beautiful, handcrafted tea cups? How about a booming doily business? Or customizable teaspoons?

A niche doesn’t limit you. It focuses you.

3. Understand Your Target Customers

Chasing the wrong customers will only waste your time and money, so don't allow them to sneak into your sales plan.

Your best customers are the ones that are successful with your product and see the ROI of it. Talk to them, and find out what they have in common.

While defining ideal customers depends on your company and market, here are some basic characteristics you’ll want to identify:

• Company size (number of employees, number of customers, yearly revenue)
• Size of the relevant department
• Geographical information
• Job title of your POC
• Buying process
• The goal they’re trying to achieve with your product or service

Also, don’t forget to think about whether they will be a good ‘fit’. If this is a long-term relationship you’re developing rather than a one-night stand, you want to ensure you speak the same language and share a similar culture and vision.

Use this information to build out an ideal customer profile . This fictitious organization gets significant value from using your product/service and provides significant value to your company. A customer profile helps you qualify leads and disqualify bad-fit customers before you waste time trying to sell to them.

Once you know the type of company you want to target with your sales team, it’s time to get inside their head. Start by hanging out where they hang out:

• Are they on social media? What’s their network of choice?
• Are they members of any Facebook or LinkedIn groups?
• Can you answer industry questions for them on Quora or Reddit?
• What podcasts do they listen to or what resources do they read?

Get in your customers’ heads and you’ll be in a much better position to sell to them.

GET THE IDEAL CUSTOMER PROFILE KIT →

4. Map Out Your Customer’s Journey

The next part of an effective sales plan must address how that ideal customer becomes your customer. Do this by mapping out their journey, including actions and events during the different stages of the sales funnel :

• Consideration

Conduct a customer survey , or chat directly with your current, happy customers to gather valuable sales planning insights. Ask them:

• When you became a customer, what did you want our product to do for you?
• What features were important to you? Why?
• What was your budget?
• How were you solving this problem before using our product?

To fully understand their journey as a customer, you can also ask about past buying experiences:

• When was the last time you bought something similar?
• Was that a good or bad experience? Why?
• What was the decision-making process like?
• How did you evaluate different offers?
• Which factors made you choose that particular solution?

Once you’ve identified the awareness, interest, and consideration stages, let your prospects and new customers build the rest of their roadmap by asking them: ‘what’s next?’

"What needs to happen to make you a customer?"

If, for example, they say they’ll have to get approval from the VP of Finance. Ask:

"Ok, and let's say he agrees that we're the right fit, what's next?"

We call this the virtual close , a way to put your prospect in a future-thinking state of mind that makes them imagine buying from you. Asking this question to several high-quality prospects will tell you those final few steps in the customer journey until they’ve signed on the dotted line.

Finally, piece together the post-sale journey. Once a prospect becomes a customer, what’s next? How do you enable them to use your product and be successful with it? What happened to create your most loyal customers? Understanding this piece of the sales process is essential to managing and increasing customer retention .

5. Define Your Value Propositions

You know your customers. You know their journey. Now, define where you fit in by looking at your competitive advantage . Fully articulating what sets you apart from the competition is a crucial element of your sales plan template.

Start by asking a few simple questions:

• Why do customers buy from us?
• Why do customers buy from our competitors and not us?
• Why do some potential customers not buy at all?
• What do we need to do to be successful in the future?

Remember that customers buy benefits, not features. When describing your value proposition , it’s easy to get caught up in talking about you. What you’ve made. What you do. Instead, flip the script and talk about what your product will do for your customers . A strong competitive advantage:

• Reflects the competitive strength of your business
• Is preferably, but not necessarily, unique
• Is clear and simple
• May change over time as competitors try to steal your idea
• Must be supported by ongoing market research

For example, the competitive advantage of help desk software has nothing to do with its social media integrations and real-time ticket tracking. It’s the fact that it allows its customers to focus on creating a great customer experience.

Here’s the point: Focus on value, not features in your sales plan template.

Your competitive advantage will inform everything your company does moving forward, from marketing to product development. It’s a great example of where sales can influence the development of a product and the direction of a business.

6. Organize Your Sales Team

The way your sales team is organized can enable them to better serve their customers and bring new revenue into your business faster.

Here are three basic structures for your sales team :

• The island: Individual reps work alone.
• Assembly line: Each sales rep is assigned a specialized role such as lead generation, SDR (qualifier), Account Executive (closer), or Customer Success (farmer).
• Pods: Each sales rep is assigned a specialized role in a pod, or group, that’s responsible for the entire journey of specific customers.

Think about the strengths and weaknesses of your sales team members, and how they will truly thrive as part of the team.

7. Outline the Use of Sales Tools

Now it’s time to think about the tools you’re using. Building out your sales stack takes time and effort, but listing out that stack in your sales plan will help you avoid getting caught up with new tech that may or may not help your sales team.

Basically, you’ll need tools for these areas to cover all aspects of the sales process:

• CRM software (like Close )
• Lead generation and prospecting tools
• Internal communication software
• Engagement and outreach tools
• Documentation software
• Sales enablement stack

Think about how all of your sales tools work together through integrations and where automation comes into play to save your team time, and how you'll drive CRM adoption across your team members.

8. Build a Prospecting List

A prospect list is where we take all the theory and research of the last few sections of our sales plan template and put them into action.

At its core, a prospect list is a directory of real people you can contact who would benefit from your product or service. This can be time-consuming, but it's essential for driving your sales plan and company growth.

First, use your ideal customer profile to start finding target companies:

• Search LinkedIn
• Check out relevant local business networks
• Attend networking events and meetups
• Do simple Google searches
• Check out the member list of relevant online groups

Target up to 5 people at each organization. Targeting more than one individual will give you better odds of connecting by cold email outreach as well as a better chance that someone in your network can connect you personally.

Remember, this isn’t just a massive list of people you could sell to. This is a targeted list based on the research you’ve done previously in your sales plan.

Once you have your list, keep track of your leads and how you found them using a sales CRM. This will keep historical context intact and make sure you don’t overlap on outreach if you’re working with teammates.

9. Track, Measure, and Adjust As Needed

Just because you’ve made a solid sales plan template to follow, doesn’t mean you get to sit back and watch the cash roll in.

Remember what Basecamp founder Jason Fried said about plans:

“A plan is simply a guess you wrote down.”

You’re using everything you know about the market, your unique value, target customers, and partners to define the ideal situation for your company. But yes, try as we might, very few of us actually see anything when we gaze deep into the crystal ball.

Instead, remember that your sales plan is a living, breathing document that needs to account for and adapt to new features, marketing campaigns, or even new team members who join.

Set regular meetings (at least monthly) to review progress on your sales plan, identify and solve issues, and align your activities across teams to optimize your plan around real-world events and feedback. Learn from your mistakes and victories, and evolve your sales plan as needed.

Create a Strategic Sales Plan to Grow Your Business

You’ve just discovered the basics—but I’ll bet you’re ready to go beyond that. Here are some final ideas to take your sales plan from a simple foundation to a strategic, actionable one.

Avoid Moving the Goalpost

Avoid making adjustments to the goals outlined in your sales plan—even if you discover you’ve been overly optimistic or pessimistic in your sales planning. When you're developing your very first sales plan template, it's natural to be wrong in some of your assumptions—especially around goals and forecasting .

Instead of letting it get you down, remember your plan serves as a benchmark to judge your success or failure. As you see places where your assumptions were wrong, carefully document what needs updating when it's time to revise your sales plan.

Invite Your Others to Challenge Your Sales Plan

Never finalize a plan without another set of eyes (or a few sets.) Get an experienced colleague—an accountant, senior salesperson, or qualified friend—to review the document before solidifying your sales plan.

Your sales team is another strong resource for reviewing your sales plan. Ask their opinions, give them time to think about how it relates to their daily work, and agree on the key points that go into your sales plan.

Set Individual Goals and Milestones for Your Sales Team

We talked about creating milestones for your business, but you can take your sales plan to the next level by setting individual milestones for your sales team as well.

These individual goals need to consider the differences in strengths, weaknesses, and skills among your salespeople.

For example, if someone on your team is making a ton of calls but not closing, give them a milestone of upping their close rate . If someone’s great at closing but doesn’t do much outreach, give them a milestone of contacting 10 new prospects a month.

Doing this will help your individual reps build their skills and contribute to their company and career growth.

Ready to Hit Your Sales Goals?

In most sales situations, the biggest challenge is inertia. But with a solid, detailed sales plan and a dedicated team with clear milestones, you’ll have everything you need to push through any friction and keep on track to hit your goals!

All jazzed up and ready to put together your own sales plan? Download our free Sales Success Kit and access 11 templates, checklists, worksheets, and guides.

They're action-focused and easy to use, so you can have your best sales year yet.

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How To Build a Strategic Sales Plan + 10 Examples

• March 28, 2024

Every sales team has some sort of plan, even if it’s just “sell more of the product/service that you’re employed to sell.”

A sales plan is a portfolio that includes a layout of your processes, target audience, objectives and tactics. It’s used to guide your sales strategy and predict cost and returns. 

Yet without a codified sales plan, it can be difficult to give a sales team the motivation and purpose they need to successfully engage customers and continue to generate revenue.

Not having a sales plan that’s written down and signed off on by stakeholders can lead to confusion around what sales reps should and shouldn’t be doing , which can be demotivating.

It might seem daunting or time-consuming to put together an entire sales plan, but it doesn’t need to be. Here’s how to create a thorough sales plan in 10 simple steps. 

What Is a Sales Plan? 

A successful sales plan defines your target customers, business objectives, tactics, obstacles and processes. An effective plan will also include resources and strategies that are used to achieve target goals. It works similarly to a business plan in the way it’s presented, but only focuses on your sales strategy. 

A sales plan should include the following three components: 

• Ideas: If you use specific business methodologies, you may choose to outline key principles and examples of them in action within your sales plan. An example could be conversation tactics when pitching your product to your target customer. 
• Processes: In order to streamline productivity and business strategy, you’ll want to make sure your processes are defined within your sales plan. Your sales team should be able to refer to the sales plan when they’re in need of direction. 
• Tools and tactics: The most effective sales plans include not only high-level business strategies, but also step-by-step approaches for your sales team to utilize. These tools can include key conversation pieces for your sales reps to use when pitching a product or content to close out a deal. 

Solidifying a sales plan is crucial for a strong business model. Taking the time to narrow in on the components above will set you and your business up for success down the road. 

Sales Planning Process

It’s important to keep in mind that sales planning isn’t just about creating a sales plan document. A sales plan should be a go-to item that’s used every day by your team, rather than sitting on your desk collecting dust. Creating an effective sales plan requires high-level strategy.

You should: 

• Decide on a timeline for your goals and tactics
• Outline the context
• Write out the company mission and values
• Describe the target audience and product service positioning
• Include sales resources
• Draw out an overview of concurrent activities
• Write an overview of your business road map
• Outline your goals and KPIs
• Outline an action plan
• Create a budget 

 Below we dive into each of these steps to create your ideal sales plan. 

1. Decide on Your Timeline

Setting goals and outlining tactics is not going to be productive if you’re not working toward a date by which you’ll measure your efforts.

Determining the timeline of your sales plan should therefore be your number one consideration. When will you be ready to kick-start your plan, and when is a reasonable time to measure the outcomes of your plan against your SMART goals?

Remember that you need to give the plan a chance to make an impact, so this timeline shouldn’t be too restrictive. However, you also want to make sure that you’re flexible enough to adjust your plan if it’s not producing the desired results.

Most sales plan timelines cover about a year, which may be segmented into four quarters and/or two halves to make it a little more manageable.

2. Outline the Context

Use the first page of your sales plan to outline the context in which the plan was created.

What is the current state of the organization? What are your challenges and pain points? What recent wins have you experienced?

Do you have tighter restrictions on cash flow, or does revenue appear to be growing exponentially? How is your sales team currently performing?

While you’ll discuss your business plan and road map later in the document, you can also outline the long-term vision for your business in this section. For example, where do you want to see the business in five years?

Tip: Comparing the current situation with your vision will emphasize the gap between where you are now and where you need to be. 

3. Company Mission and Values

It’s essential that you put your mission and values at the heart of your business. You need to incorporate them into every function – and this includes your sales plan.

Outlining your mission and values in your sales plan ensures that you remember what the company is striving for, and in turn helps ensure that your approach and tactics will support these objectives.

Remember: A strong brand mission and authentic values will help boost customer loyalty, brand reputation and, ultimately, sales.

4. Target Market and Product/Service Positioning

Next, you’ll need to describe the market or markets that you’re operating in.

What is your target market or industry? What research led you to conclude that this was the optimal market for you?

Who within this industry is your ideal customer? What are their characteristics? This could be a job title, geographical location or company size, for example. This information makes up your ideal customer profile .

If you’ve delved further into audience research and developed personas around your target market, then include them in here, too.

5. Sales Team and Resources

This step is simple: Make a list of your sales resources, beginning with a short description of each member of your sales team.

Include their name, job title, length of time at the company and, where appropriate, their salary. What are their strengths? How can they be utilized to help you hit your goals?

You should also include notes around the gaps in your sales team and whether you intend to recruit any new team members into these (or other) roles.

Tip: Communicate the time zones your team members work in to be mindful of designated work hours for scheduling meetings and deadlines. 

Then, list your other resources. These could be tools, software or access to other departments such as the marketing team – anything that you intend to use in the execution of your sales plan. This is a quick way to eliminate any tools or resources that you don’t need.

6. Concurrent Activities

The next step in creating your sales plan involves providing an overview of non-sales activities that will be taking place during the implementation of your sales plan.

Any public marketing plans, upcoming product launches, or deals or discounts should be included, as should any relevant events. This will help you plan sales tactics around these activities and ensure that you’re getting the most out of them.

7. Business Road Map

For this step, write up an overview of your business’s overall road map, as well as the areas where sales activities can assist with or accelerate this plan. You’ll need to collaborate with the CEO, managing director or board of directors in order to do this.

In most cases, the business will already have a road map that has been signed off on by stakeholders. It’s the sales manager’s job to develop a sales plan that not only complements this road map, but facilitates its goals. 

Tip: Highlight areas of the road map that should be touchpoints for the sales team. 

Ask yourself what your department will need to do at each point in the road map to hit these overarching company goals.

8. Sales Goals and KPIs

Another important part of the sales plan involves your sales goals and KPIs.

Outline each goal alongside the KPIs you’ll use to measure it. Include a list of metrics you’ll use to track these KPIs, as well as a deadline for when you project the goal will be achieved.

It’s vital to make these goals tangible and measurable.

A bad example of a goal is as follows:

Goal 1: Increase sales across company’s range of products and services.

A better goal would look something like:

Goal 1: Generate $500,000+ in revenue from new clients through purchases of X product by X date.

9. Action Plan

Now that you’ve laid out your goals, you need to explain how you will hit them.

Your action plan can be set out week by week, month by month, or quarter by quarter. Within each segment, you must list out all of the sales activities and tactics that you will deploy – and the deadlines and touchpoints along the way.

Tip: Organize your action plan by department – sales, business development and finance. 

While this is arguably the most complex part of the sales plan, this is where sales leaders are strongest. They know which approach will work best for their team, their company and their market.

Budgets vary from team to team and company to company, but whatever your situation, it’s important to include your budget in your sales plan.

How are you going to account for the money spent on new hires, salaries, tech, tools and travel? Where the budget is tight, what are your priorities going to be, and what needs to be axed?

The budget section should make references back to your action plan and the sales team and resources page in order to explain the expenditures.

6 Strategic Sales Plan Examples 

You can create different types of strategic sales plans for your company, depending on how you want to structure your sales plan. Here are a few examples.   

Customer Profile 

A customer profile outlines your ideal customer for your service or product. It will usually include industry, background, attributes and decision-making factors.  

Creating a customer profile helps narrow in on the target customer your sales team should focus on while eliminating unproductive leads.  

Buyer’s Guide

A buyer’s guide is an informational sheet that describes your company’s services or products, including benefits and features. This document is useful both for your sales team but also for a potential customer who requires more information on the product before purchasing. 

30-60-90-Day Plan

This plan is organized based on time periods. It includes outlines of goals, strategy and actionable steps in 30-day periods. This is a useful sales plan model for a new sales representative tracking progress during their first 90 days in the position or meeting quotas in a 90-day period. 

This type of sales plan is also ideal for businesses in periods of expansion or growth. It’s helpful to minimize extra effort in onboarding processes. 

Market Expansion Plan

A market expansion plan clarifies target metrics and list of actions when moving into a new territory or market. This sales plan model is typically used with a target market that resides in a new geographical region. 

You’ll want to include a profile of target customers, account distribution costs and even time zone differences between your sales representatives. 

Marketing-alignment Plan

Creating a marketing-alignment sales plan is useful if your organization has yet to align both your sales and marketing departments. The goal of the sales plan is finalizing your target customer personas and aligning them with your sales pitches and marketing messages. 

New Product/Service Plan 

If your organization is launching a new service or product, it’s best to create a sales plan to track revenue and other growth metrics from the launch. You’ll want to include sales strategy, competitive analyses and service or product sales positioning. 

Sales Plan Template

4 additional sales plan templates.

Here are some additional templates you can use to create your own unique sales plan. 

• Template Lab 
• ProjectManager

5 Tips for Creating a Sales Plan 

Now that you’ve seen and read through a few examples and a sales plan template, we’ll cover some easy but useful tips to create a foolproof sales plan. 

• Create a competitive analysis: Research what sales strategies and tactics your close competitors are using. What are they doing well? What are they not doing well? Knowing what they are doing well will help you create a plan that will lead to eventual success. 
• Vary your sales plans: First create a base sales plan that includes high-level goals, strategies and tactics. Then go more in depth on KPIs and metrics for each department, whether it’s outbound sales or business development . 
• Analyze industry trends: Industry trends and data can easily help strengthen your sales approach. For example, if you’re pitching your sales plan to a stakeholder, use current market trends and statistics to support why you believe your sales strategies will be effective in use. 
• Utilize your marketing team: When creating your sales plan, you’ll want to get the marketing department’s input to align your efforts and goals. You should weave marketing messages throughout both your sales plan and pitches. 
• Discuss with your sales team: Remember to check in with your sales representatives to understand challenges they may be dealing with and what’s working and not working. You should update the sales plan quarterly based on feedback received from your sales team. 

When Should You Implement a Strategic Sales Plan? 

Does your organization currently not have a sales plan in place that is used regularly? Are you noticing your organization is in need of structure and lacking productivity across departments? These are definite signs you should create and implement a sales plan. 

According to a LinkedIn sales statistic , the top sales tech sellers are using customer relationship management (CRM) tools (50%), sales intelligence (45%) and sales planning (42%) .

Below are a few more indicators that you need an effective sales plan. 

To Launch a New Product or Campaign 

If you’re planning to launch a new service or product in six months, you should have a concrete marketing and sales strategy plan to guarantee you’ll see both short- and long-term success. 

The sales plan process shouldn’t be hasty and rushed. Take the time to go over data and competitor analysis. Work with your team to create objectives and goals that everyone believes in. Your sales plan should be updated formally on a quarterly basis to be in line with industry trends and business efforts. 

To Increase Sales

If your team is looking to increase revenue and the number of closed sales, you may need to widen and define your target audience. A sales plan will help outline this target audience, along with planning out both sales and marketing strategies to reach more qualified prospects and increase your sales conversion rate. 

Now that you’ve seen sales plan examples and tips and tricks, the next step after creating your sales plan is to reach those ideal sales targets with Mailshake . Connect with leads and generate more sales with our simple but effective sales engagement platform.

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How to Create a Sales Plan: A Complete Guide (Tips + Examples)

Write a sales plan that can adjust to change, and zero in on the actions that will hit your goals.

Paul Bookstaber

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There is a world where sales planning happens once a year. You draw it up in January — “Whew, I’m glad that’s done!” — and everything goes as you planned. You hit your goals.

Meanwhile, on Earth, you create a sales plan, start to act on it — and everything hits the fan. A competitor launches a new product, an analyst switches up their report, and your best sales rep quits. Now what?

Below we share tips for how to create a sales plan that can bend to change and not break. You’ll learn why a sales plan is so important, see examples of the different types, and discover how to create one that brings you closer to your big hairy revenue goals — while also driving down costs.

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What is a sales plan?

A sales plan is a blueprint for hitting revenue targets. It begins when sales leaders define long-term company goals. Then, sales managers create an annual sales plan to achieve those goals, adjusting it as market conditions change. They make decisions around hiring, quotas, compensation, territories, and customer segments. Finally, sellers translate the annual sales plan into account plans to close individual deals.

What are the benefits of creating a sales plan?

The key benefits of creating a sales plan are about  hitting your targets with the resources you already have . First, it allows you to spot the gaps  in your sales process  that block you from your goals and address them with the best actions. Second, it sets you up to adapt fast to changing business and market conditions.

Let’s take a closer look.

Finding the actions to achieve your goals

A sales plan lets you test and measure how different actions will affect your numbers, so you can choose the right path forward to hit your goal.

You begin by adding up the numbers you know — how much your team will likely sell (based on past performance) and how much it will cost (based on your current resources). You’ll arrive at a prediction of the numbers you’ll hit.

If the prediction falls short of your targets, a sales plan helps you test different scenarios so you can find the action that forces the equation to spit out your target number in the most cost-effective way.

What if you hire more people? Increase your quotas? Level up your enablement program to increase win rates (the number of deals that close)? A sales plan gives you the framework to crunch the numbers until you find the reality that matches your dream.

Your business is more resilient to change

The traditional sales plan is something you create once a year. An agile sales plan is something you revisit, test, and adjust continually. The benefit is that even as market conditions change or surprises happen within your company, you can study the impacts of those changes and adapt to stay on track.

The path to agility is to do away with your disconnected tools and bring all of your sales plan data into the same system — your customer relationship management (CRM) system — where you sell. With this in place, changes in the real world show up as threats to your target within your plan. You can react in real-time, studying the data, testing different scenarios, and adjusting your sales plan to get back on track.

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Sales plan types and examples

The different types of sales plans are meant to bring together your company’s long-term vision, short-term tactics that get you there, and everything in between. Leaders set a five-year track for where the company is heading. Then, sales managers step into a new time frame — the year — with  sales forecasts  and territory plans that help sellers hit their numbers. They come up with capacity plans to make sure teams are running lean and mean. Finally, sellers create account plans for every deal.

Let’s take a closer look at these different types of sales plans with the examples below.

Long-Range Sales Plan

This is where leadership comes together — people like the CEO, chief revenue officer, CFO, and VP of sales — and set the long-term path for the company. They’re thinking about where the opportunities are and how to seize them. For example, they might decide to grow annual contract value (ACV) by $30 million in the next five years, while also slowing the rate of hiring — because they want to make existing sellers more productive instead.

Annual Sales Plan

The sales manager creates an annual sales plan to  set immediate targets and decisions  that will help the company get closer to the goals established in the long-range sales plan. This plan begins with an understanding of the team’s capacity, or how much revenue they’re likely to produce. From there, territories, quotas, and compensation plans are set to ensure that sellers hit their numbers.

If, for example, the long-range sales plan is to achieve $30 million in ACV over the next five years while also making sellers more productive. Then a sales manager might set targets of $4 million in ACV in the first year and increase the quotas that sellers carry to hit that goal rather than hire more people.

Territory Plan

Don’t just segment customers based on geography. You should also segment them based on categories meaningful to the business. For example, if you want to sell to more enterprises, you might want to segment customers based on their size, and match sellers with enterprise expertise to enterprise companies. You can also segment customers based on industry and assign them to sellers with industry expertise.

Account Plan

Now that sellers know their targets and their territories, they take on planning of their own — customer by customer — with account plans. They strategize how to bring more value to every conversation and  close individual deals . They research the needs of the customer, identify obstacles that stand in the way of selling, and list action items for how to build relationships to move each deal forward. Then, they work with different people within their company to execute on their account plans. They might connect with business development representatives (BDRs) to get a foot in the door with new leads, or with solution engineers to create demos for presentations.

How to create a sales plan

To create your annual sales plan for the year and make sure it can adapt to change, bring all of your sales data into one place. Then, study how much your people can sell (based on historical data), and set targets and incentives that will make your goal a reality. Use technology that can update all your sales plan data in real-time, so you can measure the impact of change and adjust to stay on track.

Ready to create your sales plan? Here’s how to take it one step at a time.

1. Connect sales plan data with your CRM

It’s important to build your sales plan in customer relationship management (CRM) software. When you have all your sales data in one central place, updated in real-time, real world changes show up as misalignments in the data. You have visibility into changes that put your targets at risk.

Without this single source of truth, you’d be spending weeks manually pulling in data from different systems, trying to understand the impact of the disruption. With every passing day, the gap between your plan and your reality widens.

Imagine that you begin an  enterprise sales  push with 50 sellers in January, but two have quit by March. A CRM can send you an alert that you’re under target. That real-time data is critical if you want to adjust your plan quickly to stay on track.

2. Understand your team’s capacity (how much they can sell)

Using your CRM data, take a look at capacity — that’s how much revenue you predict your team can sell during the coming year. To calculate capacity, look at all metrics that affect sales output, including hiring data, a review of quotas and targets, and historical sales rep performance data to predict future sales.

Following the example above, you might determine that based on the previous year’s performance, each seller, on average, can bring in $120,000 worth of revenue. However, now that you’re short two sellers, you’re short $240,000 in your capacity.

3. Measure the gap between your reality and your dream

Now that you understand the reality of who’s under your roof — and how much you think your team can sell — determine the gap between your revenue predictions and your revenue targets.

For example, imagine your target from the long-range sales plan is to hit $6 million in ACV this year. With $240,000 down in your capacity, as we showed above, you’ll need to figure out how to still meet the goal.

4. Find the actions to fill the gap and reach your goal

It’s time to write your sales plan to achieve your targets. Begin with the backbone — your team — and outline what’s expected (quotas), what the rewards are (compensation), how to organise customers (segments), and how to assign the reps (territories).

Then, to close the gap and hit your targets, create “What if?” scenarios to test the impact of different possible actions. The guideposts here should be cost savings and efficiency — how to hit your target by making the most of what you have. What if you hire two more people? (Straight-forward, sure, but hardly cost-effective.) What if you assign your highest performers to more lucrative territories? What if you create an enablement program that trains your sellers in a strategic industry?

In the example above, you’re trying to find a way to add $240,000 to your capacity without adding cost. One of the scenarios you tested shows that a new enablement program might do the trick, because training your sellers to sell more effectively can help you close more and bigger deals. This can be your Plan A. But since it will require investing in a new enablement program, you might want to come up with a Plan B as well that doesn’t require additional budget. For example, you might propose increasing each seller’s quota.

5. Present your proposed actions to leadership and execute

Make your case to leadership to get the rubber stamp on your proposed best action. Show them the data in your sales plan to demonstrate why your proposed solution will hit your targets and be cost-effective at the same time.

You might make the case for Plan A: investing in a new enablement program. If leadership balks because of cost, then it’s time to roll out Plan B: Increase each seller’s quota instead. Sales reps might protest at first, but you can reframe it as an opportunity to make more money. You’re in sales, remember? Finding the positive spin is what you do.

6. Keep adjusting and stay on target even as market conditions change

Change will come — whether from outside forces (think a disruption in your customer base) or inside forces (think a pivot in your product roadmap). The mindset shift is to take your sales plan off the shelf, dust it off, and reimagine it as a living, breathing thing. It’s something you adjust continually throughout the year — with your sights pinned to your goal.

Ready to turn your sales plan into a reality?

With the steps above, you’re ready to go. Study the real-time sales plan data in your CRM, measure the impact of the change on your goals, test different possible actions, and go with the best one. This is agile sales planning. It says, “Bring it on!” to change.

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Paul Bookstaber is a writer at Salesforce. He has a decade of experience in content marketing in B2B tech. Before that, he published a magazine and ran a tabloid blog. Today, he splits his time between Florida and the Mountain West, and loves to hike, ski, and watch Bravo. He is in a polyamorous relationship with Luke and Roger, who are cats.

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Strategic Sales Plan Examples: 13 Sales Plan Templates

Casey O'Connor

What Is a Strategic Sales Plan?

When you should implement a strategic sales plan, what to include in your sales plan, 13 sales plan template examples, put your sales plan into action with yesware.

A strategic sales plan is a must-have for any business looking to increase their sales, amp up their revenue, bring a new product to market, or branch into a new territory.

In this article, we’ll go over everything you need to know about strategic sales plans: what they are, when to create one, and exactly what they need to include. We’ll also show you a handful of real-life, tangible sales plan template examples and tips for implementation. 

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• When You Should Implement a Strategic Sales Plan 

A strategic sales plan is designed to guide a sales organization through their overarching sales strategy. It provides them with access to the resources needed to prospect, pitch to, and close new accounts.

Strategic sales plans can include any combination of the following:

• Ideas: If you utilize a certain sales methodology — consultative selling or target account selling , for example — you might outline its key principles and a few tactical examples of it in action in your strategic sales plan. Your strategic sales plan should also include an overview of your target customer.
• Processes: In order for your sales team to reach maximum productivity, it’s important that your sales processes are clearly defined and standardized. Your sales team — both new hires and seasoned vets alike — should be able to refer to your sales plan for a repeatable, scalable process that’s backed by solid metrics. The processes should provide direction to sales reps that allow them to contribute to the company’s goals.
• Tools & Tactics: The best strategic sales plans are more than just high-level strategy and goals. They also include specific, step-by-step strategies that sales reps can implement in sales conversations, as well as the specific tools and content that reps need to close more deals.

Sales plans also typically spell out the organization’s revenue and overall business goals, as well as the KPIs and benchmarks that sales managers and other stakeholders will monitor to determine whether or not those goals are being met.

They should also outline management’s strategic territory design and quota expectations, with specific indicators and data to back those decisions. 

Finally, these sales plans should take into account your current team’s sales capacity and specifically address the acquisition plan for any resources that are not yet available but may be necessary for future growth.

If your sales team doesn’t already have a strategic sales plan in place — that is, one that’s referenced and updated regularly and the product of careful data analysis and inter-team collaboration — you may want to consider creating one. 

Research shows that the majority of the highest-performing sales teams operate under a formalized, closely monitored sales structure. 

On the other hand, most underperforming sales teams lack this structure. 

It’s clear that a well-defined sales plan is one of the prerequisites to optimized sales productivity and success; every salesforce should strive to create and adopt one if they want to meet their sales goals more efficiently.

That being said, there are a few key indicators that signal a need for more urgency in putting a strategic sales plan in place. 

You’re Trying to Increase Sales

A strategic sales plan will help your sales and marketing teams align their processes so that your outreach efforts are tailored to your target audience. 

You’re Looking to Amp Up Your Revenue

For startups and small businesses, attaining as many new customers as possible is usually the name of the game.

For larger or more established businesses, however, the business plan may instead emphasize revenue goals. In other words, the deal size starts to matter much more than deal volume. 

A sales strategy plan can help salespeople target and nurture higher-value accounts. Sales planning can also boost your revenue by illuminating untapped potentials for revenue growth within your existing customer base through cross-selling, upselling , and referrals .

You’re Gearing Up to Launch a New Product

A sales strategy plan is crucial for businesses that are preparing to bring a new product to market.

One last note: for businesses that already use strategic business planning (or for those on their way after reading this article), be sure to update your plan at least yearly. Many businesses at least review their plan, if not update it more formally, on a quarterly basis.

Ultimately, your strategic sales plan will be unique to your company and its specific goals.

Consider including the following components in your strategic business plan. 

Mission Statement

Industry & Market Conditions

Great sales planning cannot be performed in isolation. Your plan must take into account the current market conditions, including any challenges, recent disruptions, or upcoming notable events.

Organization Chart

A sales org chart can range in scope from very simple, like the one above, to more complicated. Some go as far as naming individual employees and outlining their specific responsibilities. 

A detailed org chart is especially helpful for efficiently onboarding new hires.

Product Info & Pricing

No sales plan would be complete without a one-sheet that outlines the features, benefits, and value proposition of your product or service.

It’s also helpful to include information about pricing tiers, as well as any discounts or promotions available for leverage at a sales rep’s discretion.

Compensation Plan

While we have no doubt that you’ve hired only the most intrinsically motivated salespeople, remember the bottom line: cash is king.

Money is the primary motivator for most salespeople, regardless of how truly loyal and hard-working they may be.

With that in mind, it’s a good idea to include your company’s compensation plan and commission structure in your sales plan. This is a surefire way to motivate your team to continuously improve their sales performance. 

Target Market & Customer

Sales Enablement

With the tremendous rise in content marketing, it can be challenging for salespeople to keep track of the various materials available for generating new business.

Branding & Positioning

The strategic sales plan should offer at least a high-level overview of your brand and messaging specifics, including social media presence. Take the time to optimize your company’s LinkedIn presence — it’s a goldmine of new business opportunities.

Marketing Strategy

In today’s day and age, it’s unlikely that your sales and marketing team are working in isolation from one another. At a certain point, sales and marketing strategies start to flow together until they (ideally) perform in harmony.

Still, it’s important to outline the perspective of the marketing team within your strategic sales plan. This will help your salespeople fine-tune their sales pitch and speak more meaningfully to the needs of the customer. 

Prospecting Strategy

Most salespeople report that their number one challenge in lead generation is attracting qualified leads. 

Prospecting can certainly be daunting, but it’s worth the effort to get it right. Tweak and fine-tune the process until you’re sure it’s as efficient as possible. Make sure it’s repeatable and scalable, and map it out within your sales plan. 

Action Plan

Any good strategic sales plan will also include a step-by-step section, much like a playbook. Here, you’ll outline the specific tactics and processes — including scripts, demos, and email templates — that have been proven to move prospects through the sales funnel . 

Be as specific as possible here. This will act as a blueprint for the day-to-day sales activities for your team.

It can be tempting to leave the numbers with the finance department, but financial transparency can go a long way in creating a culture of trust among your sales team.

You don’t need to go through every line item in the spreadsheet, but it’s not a bad idea to include a high-level look at where the dollars are flowing. 

KPIs, Metrics, and Benchmarks

Be sure to give your team a snapshot of how they’re currently performing, with real numbers to back it up.

By doing so, you help them self-initiate regular SWOT analysis of their own sales actions and processes. This will give them an opportunity to right the course if things aren’t going according to plan. 

Tip: Looking to fuel your sales plan with data-backed findings? Grab our free ebook below.

Remember that your company’s strategic sales plan will be highly unique. It may take some time and tweaking to find the components and format that best meet the needs of your business.

Here are 13 sales plan templates to help you get started.

1. Product Launch Plan Template

Sales and marketing teams create a product launch plan when they’re preparing to launch a new product. 

A product launch plan should include your product’s positioning statement, a SWOT competitive analysis, detailed market analysis, sales strategies and tactics, and details about the target market. 

2. Ideal Customer Profile Template

One way to avoid wasting time on unproductive leads is to include an ideal customer profile (ICP) in your sales plan. Here’s a sample : 

This will help ensure your prospecting campaigns are targeted and attract only the most qualified leads from the get-go. 

3. Microsoft Word Sales Plan Template

Here’s a great example of a sales plan goals template , easily accessible through Microsoft Word. 

4. 30-60-90 Day Sales Plan Template

5. Buyer’s Guide Template

A buyer’s guide is a short, simple information sheet that describes your product or service, its features and benefits, and its use. Below is an example of a buyer’s guide from Wayfair . 

In many cases, this document is as useful internally as it is for the customer. 

6. Marketing Alignment Sales Plan Template

If your company hasn’t already formally aligned sales and marketing, start with this type of sales plan template (basic example below), as most traditional sales plans already assume that these two teams collaborate regularly. 

One key component of a marketing alignment sales plan template is the presence of an ideal customer profile and buyer personas. 

The marketing alignment sales plan template should also focus on cohesive, on-brand messaging between marketing campaigns and sales conversations . 

This type of sales plan template helps keep everyone on the same page, increases efficiency, and improves sales effectiveness. 

7. Battle Card Template

8. Territory Design Template

Well-designed sales territories see a 10% – 20% increase in sales productivity. Be low is a basic example of a territory design map.

9. Market Expansion Plan Template

A market expansion plan outlines the strategies, tactics, metrics, resources, and more that teams will use when expanding into a new market or (more commonly) a new geographical territory. 

Market expansion plans also need to include details about distribution expenses and timelines, time zone variations, industry notes or important compliance information, local/cultural expectations and laws, and sometimes more. 

10. Compensation Plan Template

Your compensation plan (including a specific commission structure) is one way to motivate your sales reps.

While it may seem controversial or sensitive, the compensation plan is an important component of a strategic sale plan.

11. Sales Funnel Template

The sales funnel is a visual representation of the sales process. 

12. Marketing Plan Template

Your salespeople should be extremely familiar with the marketing strategies your company is using to attract new leads. Here’s a great example of a template you can use in your sales plan that outlines the different campaigns at work.

This kind of resource will help your reps know who to contact, when, and with what kind of content throughout the sales cycle .

13. B2B Sales Strategy Template

A B2B sales strategy template helps sales teams outline their goals, as well as the specific methodologies and tactics they will use to achieve them. Here’s an example :

The B2B sales strategy plan will vary widely depending on your team’s specific goals and strategies, but most teams include at least the categories highlighted in the template above. 

Yesware is the all-in-one sales toolkit that helps you win more business. It can be an invaluable resource for putting your sales plan into action in a way that’s streamlined, productive, and intuitive.

Communication

Yesware’s meeting scheduler tool helps you skip the back-and-forth when scheduling meetings.

Meeting Scheduler integrates with your Outlook or Gmail calendar and helps your clients automatically schedule meetings with you during times of availability. New events will automatically sync to your calendar. 

​ It can also create meeting types for common calls, like a 30-minute intro call or a 60-minute demo call. These templates can be automatically saved and generated with custom descriptions and agendas so everyone can come prepared. 

Prospecting

One of Yesware’s most popular features is its prospecting campaigns .

This feature enables salespeople to create automated, personalized campaigns with multi-channel touches. 

The tool tracks communication and engagement throughout the process and helps move prospects through the pipeline with little administrative effort from the sales team.

Yesware’s attachment tracking feature helps you find your winning content by tracking which attachments are most often opened and read by your prospects.

You can use these insights to sharpen your content and increase your engagement.

The reporting and analytics tools are also extremely valuable in optimizing your sales plan.  These reports enable salespeople to use data to win more business. The feature generates daily activity, engagement data, and outcomes to show you what is/isn’t working across the board.

Try Yesware for free to see how it can help your team carry out your sales plan today.

This guide was updated on March 6, 2024.

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How to Write a Sales Plan

Table of Contents

Every business needs a business plan as well as more detailed road maps that offer guidance to each department working toward that common goal. As the revenue-generating engine of your company, the sales department should be a top priority for this type of document, aptly named the “sales plan.” This guide introduces the concept of a sales plan and gives you all the guidance you need to create a sales plan that works for your business.

What is a sales plan?

A sales plan details the overall sales strategy of a business, including the revenue objectives of the company and how the sales department will meet those goals. This may also include revenue goals, the target audience and tools the team will use in their day-to-day. In addition, the sales plan should include examples of the hurdles and pain points the team might encounter, as well as contingency plans to overcome them.

“[A sales plan] is essential to support the growth of an organization,” said Bill Santos, vice president of the ITsavvy Advanced Solutions Group. “A sales plan helps individual reps understand the priorities of the business as well as the measurements by which they will be evaluated.”

Business plans vs. sales plans

Business plans and sales plans are closely linked. A sales plan, though, should outline the actions that the sales department will take to achieve the company’s broader goals. A sales plan differs from a business plan, though both work toward the same end.

“A business plan is a ‘what’ [and] a sales plan is a ‘how,'” said James R. Bailey , professor of management and Hochberg Professional Fellow of Leadership Development at the George Washington University School of Business. “Business plans are where a firm wants to go. A sales plan is a part of how they can achieve that. A business plan is direction; a sales plan is execution.”

For example, a software company that developed a new mobile application might state in its business plan that the app will be installed by 1 million users within a year of launch, while the sales plan describes how that will actually be achieved.

How to write a sales plan

Every sales plan should suit the individual needs of a different company, so they come in all shapes and sizes. There is no one-size-fits-all sales plan; the one you create will be unique to your business. With careful planning, you’ll have a much clearer vision of what you need to accomplish and a road map for how to get there. 

Chris Gibbs, vice president of global sales at Centripetal Networks, named some additional items that every sales plan should include.

• Targeted accounts: Assign each salesperson a few key accounts to focus on, and grow from that base.
• Targeted verticals: Sales teams might focus on specific market segments or verticals, such as a particular industry.
• SKUs: Salespeople should emphasize certain SKUs or inventory items rather than get lost in a broad catalog of merchandise to sell.
• Sales and marketing coordination: Sales and marketing teams should work together to create promotions to help generate sales.
• Product road maps: Every company has a road map, and each product should have a road map that shows the plan and direction for a product offering over time to chart out when a product will launch and when it might sunset or be replaced by a newer model.
• Forecasts: Sales forecasting is projecting sales volumes and expectations by comparing them historically to sales of previous years, and then conducting market comparison to determine where sales will fall against the competition.

“Sales plans are extremely important to ensure there is cohesiveness between product teams, sales and marketing,” Gibbs said. “In addition, they’re important for ensuring that timing of new products and/or new version releases coincide with sales objectives and forecasts.”

What are the steps to create a sales plan?

A sales plan is necessary for businesses of every size, from an individual entrepreneur to a Fortune 500 company. When you’re ready to actually write your sales plan, follow these steps:

1. Define the objectives. 

Clearly outlining your goals and stating your objectives should always be the first step in creating a sales plan or any other business venture. You should include the expected sales volume and any markets or territories you expect to reach. 

For example, let’s say you own a retail store selling household goods and electronics. If your purpose is to establish yourself as a trusted local retailer, ask yourself the following questions:

• If so, are they purchasing anything or just browsing?
• Was it word of mouth?
• Was it through marketing efforts, such as email marketing, direct mail or social media?
• How many are new customers?
• How many are repeat customers?
• Where do you want your sales to come from? 
• What are some external and internal factors that could impact your sales? These include industry trends and economic conditions.

When you can precisely state your key objectives, you are setting yourself up to plan later steps around achieving your goals.

2. Assess the current situation.

The next step is to create an honest overview of your business situation in relation to the goal you set in the first step. 

Review your strengths and assets. Take a look at your resources and how you can apply them to your goal. This can include personal relationships and competitive advantages like new products or services.

For example, if your goal is to enhance your relationship with your customers, you’d need to ask yourself some questions to examine your current situation:

• What is your current relationship with your customers?
• Where did most of your sales come from?
• Where would you like to expand your sales?

When examining your strengths and opportunities, conduct a SWOT analysis to get a clearer picture of where your business stands.

3. Determine and outline the sales strategies. 

Sales strategies are the actual tactics your team will use to reach customers. They can include marketing channels as well as procedures for lead generation and client outreach employed by your salespeople.

Here are two examples of potential sales strategies: 

• Use your POS system to retain customer information so you can track current and new customers.
• Employ email marketing, text message marketing , social media, outbound call center services and direct mail marketing campaigns.

4. Define roles for the sales team. 

Each member of the sales team should be assigned clear roles, whether they vary from person to person or everyone performs the same functions.

Defining the sales direction of the team is crucial, as it shows the focus of the company and helps the team target and execute sales most effectively.

The plan of attack for the sales team should be communicated clearly by leadership, whether it is from team leaders or the CEO.  

5. Inform other departments of sales objectives.

A sales plan shouldn’t just update a company president or C-suite; it should inform the whole organization of the sales team’s objectives. 

Clearly outline your plan for the rest of the company to help them understand the goals and procedures of the sales team. Other departments become more efficient when interacting with the sales team and clients. This also conveys a certain level of quality and professionalism to the clients about the company.

6. Provide tools for the sales team.

Provide the tools each member of the sales team needs to achieve the stated goals, such as customer relationship management (CRM) software. The best CRM software is customizable to meet a company’s needs, making it much easier for your team to use the software and work efficiently.

7. Detail how the department will track progress. 

Offer strategic direction and insight on how progress will be monitored. Having a quarterly review to assess whether the company is on target is just as important as the plan itself.

Markets change, and so should your sales plan. Keeping it up to date will help you capitalize on the market and achieve your goals. Tracking progress is made easier by the tools you use to collect data. That data will then have to be analyzed and presented in a way which all departments can understand and use for future growth. 

Key elements of a sales plan

Every sales plan should also include the following elements.

Realistic goals

You need to set achievable goals . Challenge your sales team, but don’t push too hard. Bailey said that these “deliverables” are among the key points to include in a sales business plan. 

“Deliverables need to be as specific as possible and moderately difficult to achieve – specific inasmuch as being measurable in a manner that is uncontested [and] moderately difficult inasmuch as making sales goals too difficult can lead to failure and discouragement.”

Midpoint goals also help build morale and keep the team working toward a larger goal. Instead of having one giant goal, creating smaller goals to achieve along the way will keep your team focused.

Set milestones that give you the opportunity to regularly determine whether you are on track to achieve your sales goals or need to make adjustments.

Sales tools

Tracking sales throughout the term is helpful, and you can employ tools to keep track of each team member as well as the department overall. It also helps establish a culture of accountability among salespeople.

“Tools can help, especially project management and CRM software,” Santos said. “Having a weekly cadence of update and review is also important, as it sends a message that ownership and updates are important.”

Clear expectations and a defined commission structure

Assign goals and responsibilities to each team member to make expectations clear. This is true whether or not each team member has the same goals.

“We meet with each individual to come up with a plan that works for them so that they can reach their goals,” said Leah Adams, director of client success at Point3 Security. “We measure results based on numbers. Each team member has his own plan and how they’re going to get there.”

It’s also necessary to spell out the commission structure in full detail.

“The only real difference is how sales count,” Bailey said. “In petroleum-based products … a few big clients are necessary. Compensation needs to be structured not just in contract value, but in graduated terms: Above $1 million, commissions move from 5% to 9%, and so forth. In smaller-volume enterprises, commissions might be front-loaded with higher percentages early, then graduated down. You have to reward what you want.”

Training programs

Along the way, some training might be necessary to maintain the momentum.

“What’s important to us is that we’re teaching these individuals to be the best salesperson they can be,” Adams said. “We help them do that by constantly training them and giving them knowledge of what’s going on in our industry. Everything stays on track because each member of the team knows their individual goal; though each person has a number, they also know the ultimate goal is for the entire team to hit.”

Adams said that an effective CRM keeps things organized and helps delegate tasks and responsibilities on a schedule that uses the company’s lead information.

Key steps to follow when devising a sales plan

Here are some best practices for creating a sales plan:

• Refer to the business plan. The sales plan should directly address the objectives of the business plan and how those objectives can be achieved.
• Advance clear objectives. The clearer the objectives are, the easier it will be to reach your goals.
• Reference prior sales data. Chart sales over the previous few terms, and project the trend for the current term. New businesses can create sales projections based on expectations.
• Outline the commission structure. This will help motivate your team and help you calculate anticipated costs.
• Be clear about how progress is measured. There should be no dispute about this. If larger clients carry more weight than lower-volume buyers, that should be stated upfront.

The benefits of a sales plan

A sales plan keeps the sales department on track, considering the details of how they must operate to hit their targets and achieve company objectives. Because the sales team is the primary driver of revenue, it is an incredibly important document. [Related article: Adopting a CRM? How to Get Buy-in From Your Sales Department ]

“It’s extremely important to have a sales plan in place, almost a must,” Adams said. “Without this plan, it’s almost impossible to get through the year and hit the company’s sales goals.”

It’s not uncommon to encounter obstacles along the way, however. A good sales plan accounts for that.

“Almost always, you’ll run into the speed bumps along the way, but with a plan in place, it makes it a whole lot easier to navigate through it all,” Adams said. “The sales plan allows you to adjust when necessary so the goal can still be hit. I strongly believe a plan allows you to stay in control and reduce the risk while being able to measure the team’s results along the way to that finish line.”

A solid sales plan helps you deal with unexpected events and acts as a benchmark for where your company is and where you want it to go.

Sales plan templates

Sales templates are helpful in that many of them are based on tried-and-true formats that have been used by businesses across several industries. They can also provide structure so that it is clear to each employee what their role and responsibilities are. 

Create your own sales plan by downloading our free template .

“A template helps plan each individual’s daily activities in a structured way,” Adams said. “If you know what each person is doing daily, it’s easier to help correct what’s going wrong. It helps with things like conversion rates, etc. Yes, these templates can be customized in any way a team’s manager sees fit, based on how he believes the team will perform better.”

Sales plans should be unique to the company; however, there are key components they should always include. Because there is somewhat of a formula, you can use a template.

Templates are extremely helpful, Gibbs said. “It creates uniformity for the team, as well as a yearly or quarterly sales plan to present to senior management.”

Gibbs added that templates can easily be customized to meet the needs of a particular business or sales team.

Keeping your team on track with a sales plan

Planning is vital for any business, especially when dealing with sales targets. Before selling your product or service, you must outline your goals and ways to execute them. Essentially, a sales plan enables you to mitigate problems and risks. When there is a clear plan of action, you will know how to proceed in order to attain your goals. 

Enid Burns contributed to the writing and reporting in this article. Source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.

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10 Free Sales Plan Templates for an Effective Sales Strategy

Praburam Srinivasan

Growth Marketing Manager

February 15, 2024

Every sales team wants to win more leads and close more deals. But how do you make that happen? With a solid sales plan, of course! 

A sales plan gives your team a way to focus on your goals while taking only the necessary steps to get there. It has everything you need to win, which means it’s often a comprehensive guide—and that takes time.

And we’re guessing you’re already pressed for time. ⏲️

Fortunately, creating a plan doesn’t have to be complicated—with the right template, you can simplify the process.

That’s why we’re sharing this list of the best sales plan templates. Not only are these sales strategy templates absolutely free but they’ll also save you time so you can start closing those deals faster. ⚡

What Is a Sales Plan and Why Create One?

1. clickup sales plan template, 2. clickup sales and marketing plan template, 3. clickup sales strategy guide template, 4. clickup sales pipeline template, 5. clickup sales kpi template, 6. clickup b2b sales strategy template, 7. clickup sales calls template, 8. word sales plan template by business news daily, 9. word sales plan template by templatelab, 10. excel sales plan template by spreadsheet.com.

A sales plan is your roadmap for how to make sales effectively. Think of it in the same way that a business plan guides the strategy for your company or a marketing plan sets out how you’ll find, reach, and serve your ideal customers. 

A good sales plan sets out your sales goals , objectives, and sales activities. It considers your target audience, brand, products, services, and needs—and covers which sales tactics and strategies you’ll use to close deals, as well as which metrics you’ll use to measure success. 

Your sales plan is a practical plan that outlines who’s responsible for what, the resources you’ll need, and the overall goals you’re working toward. Without one, your sales team will feel lost and struggle to connect with your customer base.

With a strategic sales plan, though, the sales manager and the entire team will know exactly what you’re trying to achieve and the steps needed to get there. 📚

How to choose the best sales plan template

There are so many different sales plan templates out there. Some are designed for specific niche audiences, while others are more generic and easier to customize. How do you know which is the right template for you?

When you’re thinking about using a sales plan template, consider the following: 

• Ease of use: Is the template easy to use? Will everyone in the team structure and sales planning process be able to understand it fully?
• Customization: Can I personalize the template to match my sales goals?

• Collaboration: Can my sales team work on this template together?
• Integrations: When I create a sales plan, can I integrate this template with other aspects of my sales pipeline or workflow, like task management?
• Artificial intelligence: Can I use a built-in AI writing tool or copywriting tool to help me complete the template? Are there automation features that speed up the process?
• Platform: Which sales app is this template for? Do I have it already, or should I invest in it? What’s the pricing like?

Asking yourself these questions will help you figure out what your needs are, so you can then choose a template to match. 

10 Sales Plan Templates to Help You Close Your Next Deal

Now that you have a better idea of what you’re looking for, let’s explore what’s out there. Take a look at our hand-picked selection of the best sales plan templates available today for Microsoft Word and sales enablement tools like ClickUp.

Smart sales teams use a sales plan to map out their route to success. The best sales teams use the Sales Plan Template by ClickUp to simplify the process and ensure they don’t leave anything out.

This template is designed with all the structure you need to create a comprehensive sales plan that can drive results. Use this template to set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) business goals; plan strategies and tactics; and organize all your sales ideas in one place.

The list-style template is split into sections that cover the executive summary all the way through to specific tactics and strategies. Beneath this, you can arrange tasks and subtasks, and see the progress at a glance. View task titles, deadlines, who’s responsible, approval status, and a visual progress bar.

Use this template if you want to consolidate all your sales tasks and initiatives in one area. Add your sales tasks and tactics, then tag team members so you can see what’s happening and hold everyone accountable. ✅

While sales and marketing teams often work independently, sometimes it’s useful to collaborate on shared goals. With the Sales and Marketing Plan Template by ClickUp , you can organize and run your sales and marketing operations from one location.

Our collaborative template makes it easy to set sales and marketing goals and objectives, visualize your tasks, work together on sales and marketing campaigns, and track your results in real-time. View the status of your sales and marketing projects, adjust your plans, and monitor your key performance indicators (KPIs)—all from one view.

This sales and marketing plan template allows you to split your tasks into sections. The examples in the template include revenue goals, competitive analysis, and action items, but you can customize these to match your needs exactly.

View tasks beneath these categories to see at a glance whether there are any roadblocks when a task is due, and who is responsible for it.

Add this template to your collection if you want to work more collaboratively with your marketing team—especially on preparing assets for sales calls or outreach programs. 📞

Before you can plan your sales tactics, you first need to decide what your overall goals are. The Sales Strategy Guide Template by ClickUp is your go-to resource for determining your approach.

This sales process template explains the benefits of having a well-defined approach and gives you a central place to create, review, and store your own. Everyone on your team can then access your sales strategy guide to help them understand what to do when prospecting and closing deals.

Our sales goals and strategy guide template is presented in a document format. Some sections and headings allow you to split your guide into different areas, making it easier to read and understand.

Use the prompts to fill out your own strategy guide details like your target market, sales strategies, and how you’ll monitor progress.

Use this sales strategy guide template to create a resource for your team. Make it the only destination for everything your sales reps need to know to execute an effective sales plan. 📝

Sales strategies are a must-have for any great sales team, but beyond that, you need a way to record and monitor specific tasks or initiatives. That’s where the Sales Pipeline Template by ClickUp comes in handy whether you need a visual into sales forecasting or your specific sales goals.

This sales pipeline template gives you one place to store all your daily sales-related tasks. With this template, it’s easy to work toward your sales goals, track leads, map out each step of the sales process, and organize all your tasks in one place.

You can view a task’s title, assignee, status, due date, complexity level, start date, and department—or customize the experience with your own custom fields. 

With ClickUp’s Sales KPI Template , you and your team can create and manage goals surrounding your sales initiatives. See instantly what’s in progress and when it’s due, alongside the task’s impact level.

This allows you to identify high-priority tasks to focus on and to react quickly if it looks like there’s a roadblock.

This sales KPI template includes:

• Custom Statuses: Create tasks with custom statuses such as Open and Complete to keep track of the progress of each KPI
• Custom Fields: Utilize 15 different custom attributes such as Upsell Attempts, Value of Quotes, Product Cost, No of Quotes by Unit, Repeat Sales Revenue, to save vital KPI information and easily visualize performance data
• Custom Views: Open 4 different views in different ClickUp configurations, such as the Weekly Report, Monthly Report, Revenue Board per Month, and Getting Started Guide so that all the information is easy to access and organized
• Project Management: Improve KPI tracking with tagging, dependency warnings, emails, and more

This template gives you a simple way to see which tasks are complete or in progress, so you can monitor the progress of your project and crush your sales KPIs. 📈

While there’s not a huge difference in the way we market to business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) customers these days, it’s still useful to have specific templates for niche needs. If you’re driving sales in the B2B space, you need the B2B Sales Strategy Template by ClickUp .

Like our first sales plan template, this one gives you space to communicate your sales objectives and revenue targets, but it also introduces other areas—like market research, stakeholder analysis, customer relationships, buyer persona, and customer pain points. 

This document-style template is highly customizable so you can make it match your brand style and sales approach. Fill in each section and use the supplied prompts to complete your B2B sales strategy document even faster. 

Add this template to your collection if you’re working in B2B sales and want to approach your process in a more organized way. Use the template to build a strong sales strategy, then share it with the rest of your sales team so they know how to execute against your sales and company goals. 🎯

ClickUp’s Sales Calls Template is designed to streamline the sales process, from tracking contacts and calls to managing sales opportunities.

The template includes custom statuses for creating unique workflows, ensuring that every call and client interaction is accounted for. It also provides an easy-to-use Sales CRM to manage and track leads, visualize sales opportunities in the sales funnel, and keep all contacts organized.

With additional features like the Sales Phone Calls SOP Template, sales professionals can empower their teams to make every call count and close more deals. ClickUp’s Sales Calls Template is a versatile solution for sales teams, aiding in everything from daily calls to long-term sales forecasting.

We’re big advocates of using ClickUp as the go-to place to store everything about your sales workflow, but if you’re limited to using Microsoft Word or Google Docs, then this template is a great option.

This sales business plan template has sections for your executive summary, mission statement, target customers, sales targets, benchmarks, and more. Each section has useful prompts to guide you on completing your new sales plan.

Use this template if you’re tied to using Microsoft Word and want a comprehensive guide on how to create your own sales plan or sales strategy. 📄

If you want a free sales plan template or want to choose from a variety of options, this collection of Word templates by TemplateLab is a good place to do that.

There’s a wide range of options available including sales process plans, lead generation plans, sales action plans, and sales report templates . Each template works with Microsoft Word, and you can customize the look and feel to match your brand or your sales goals.

Use this resource if you prefer to see a range of templates on one page, or if you’re not sure exactly what you’re looking for until you see it. You can easily set your sales goals and the action steps needed to achieve them. 📃

Successful sales strategies need to be integrated with other teams—like your marketing department—to ensure your sales objectives are clear and possibly align with the overall marketing strategy too. Choose your specific sales goals, set revenue targets, and describe everything in detail with these Word sales planning and sales process templates.

The Excel Sales Plan Template by Spreadsheet.com is a comprehensive and user-friendly tool designed to assist businesses in developing effective sales strategies and managing their sales activities.

T his template is crafted with the aim of providing a structured framework for sales planning, enabling organizations to set clear objectives, track performance, and optimize their sales processes.

Reach Sales Goals With Free Sales Plan Templates

A strategic sales plan makes it easier to achieve your goals. Give your team the guidance and support they need with the help of a well-crafted free sales plan template.

If you’re considering making even more improvements in how you work, try ClickUp for free . We don’t just have incredible sales process templates: Our range of features and AI tools for sales make it easy for you to optimize and run your entire sales funnel and CRM system from one place. ✨

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22 Best Sales Strategies, Plans, & Initiatives for Success [Templates]

Discover sales strategy examples, templates, and plans used by top sales teams worldwide.

FREE SALES PLAN TEMPLATE

Outline your company's sales strategy in one simple, coherent plan.

Updated: 03/07/24

Published: 03/07/24

A strong sales strategy plan creates the foundation for a cohesive and successful sales organization.

Sales strategies and initiatives also align salespeople on shared goals and empower them to do their best work — keeping them happy and successful, too.

In this guide, I’ll dig into some sales strategies and initiatives that I’ve found can help you generate more leads and close more deals. But first, let’s define what a sales strategy is.

Table of Contents

What is a sales strategy?

Why is a sales strategy important, the most effective sales strategies, sales strategy types, sales planning: how to build a sales strategy plan, sales initiatives, sales strategy examples from successful sales teams.

A sales strategy is a set of decisions, actions, and goals that inform how your sales team positions the organization and its products to close new customers. It acts as a guide for sales reps to follow, with clear goals for sales processes, product positioning, and competitive analysis.

A clear sales strategy serves as a map for the growth of your business. Your sales strategy is key to future planning, problem-solving, goal-setting, and management.

An effective sales strategy can help you:

• Give your team direction and focus. Strategic clarity can help your sales reps and managers understand which goals and activities to prioritize. This can lead to improved productivity and outcomes.
• Ensure consistent messaging. Your sales strategy can help your team deliver a consistent message to prospects, partners, and customers. This can increase both trust and effectiveness.
• Optimize opportunities. Strong sales strategies will help you target the right prospects and customize your approach. This can help your team make the most of every sales opportunity.
• Improve resource allocation. Your sales strategy outlines your priorities and resources. In turn, this can help your sales team use their time, effort, and other resources more efficiently, boosting your team’s ability to focus on high-potential deals.

Next, let’s cover some of the sales strategies that I’ve found can be most effective.

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2. Become a thought leader.

Sharing your advice, tried-and-true best practices, and niche expertise are some of the most long-lasting ways to build your personal brand and lend more credibility to your organization. After all, nobody wants to feel like they’re being sold to. Instead, it’s better to help people by offering solutions to their problems.

That’s what thought leaders do. Indeed, a recent report found that “Thought leadership is one of the most effective tools an organization can use to demonstrate its value to customers during a tough economy — even more so than traditional advertising or product marketing, according to B2B buyers.”

According to the study, 61% of decision-makers believed that thought leadership could be moderately or very effective in demonstrating the value of a company’s products. Moreover, more than half of C-suite executives in the study believed that thought leadership has a greater impact on purchases during an economic downturn, making this an even more important element of a sales strategy in today’s uncertain economic times.

So what’s the catch?

Not all thought leadership content is created equal.

When done right, thought leadership can have a huge positive impact, but poor thought leadership can be devastating to a company’s sales goals. So, before you plan a spree of LinkedIn posts to drive leads, consider who your audience is, what they need to know, and how your organization can help.

Also, it may not hurt to have a second set of eyes from your marketing, communication, and PR departments review your plan first to make sure everything is on-brand (and trackable!).

3. Prioritize inbound sales calls as hot leads.

There’s an age-old question in sales: “Should I discuss product pricing with a prospect on the first sales call?” The honest answer is: It depends.

You and your sales team know your process better than anyone. So take it from me — if you’ve seen success with pitching with pricing first, last, or somewhere in between, stick with what’s working for you.

But beyond that, your team should always prioritize the prospects who come to you. These hot leads are definitely interested in what you have to sell, and before they make a decision, they want to get the information they need about how it will benefit them.

By prioritizing talking to these prospects as soon as they call in or send an email, you’re putting your best foot forward and showing them that you’re helpful, solutions-oriented, and considerate of their time. And if that means closing a deal on the first call, there’s nothing wrong with that — as long as the customer has the information they need to make an informed decision.

4. Properly research and qualify prospects.

I’ve personally discovered that even the strongest sales strategy can’t compensate for targeting the wrong customers. To ensure your team is selling to the right type of customer, encourage reps to research and qualify prospects before attempting to discuss your product. Indeed, throughout my career, I’ve found that more work on the front end can lead to smoother closing conversations later on.

Outline the criteria a prospect needs to meet to be qualified as a high-probability potential customer. These criteria will depend on your unique business and target audience, but they should generally be based on a prospect’s engagement history and demographics.

Free Guide: 101 Sales Qualification Questions

101 Questions to Ask Contacts When Qualifying, Closing, Negotiating, and Upselling.

• Budget Questions
• Business Impact Questions
• Competitor Questions

5. Implement a free trial.

Offering a free trial or freemium version of your product can be a highly effective way to convert prospects. In fact, HubSpot’s sales strategy report found that 76% of sales professionals feel that free trials are effective in converting prospects into paying customers, while 69% of professionals believe that freemium offerings are effective.

Keeping a list of proven, go-to closing techniques will help salespeople routinely win deals. Some of my favorite techniques include the ‘now or never close’ — i.e., “If you commit now, I can get you a 20% discount” — or the ‘question close,’ i.e., “In your opinion, does what I am offering solve your problem?”

Free Sales Closing Guide

An easy-to-use sales closing guide with three tactics you can use right away.

• Using an ROI calculator for your prospects
• How to ask confirmation questions
• Sales question templates you can use today

To further improve your closing techniques and learn to close deals with confidence, check out this free, downloadable Sales Closing Guide .

11. Nurture existing accounts for future selling opportunities.

Once a deal is done, there’s no need for a sales strategy, right? Wrong.

Account management is an incredibly important part of the sales process, as this is how you foster loyal, happy customers and identify cross-selling and upselling opportunities.

So, after your sales team sees success with its sales strategy, it’s vital to form a partnership between the sales team and customer service/success teams.

Remember: Ensuring customers’ continued satisfaction with your product or service will make them more likely to do business with your company again. You may even inspire them to advocate for it proactively.

Connect individual goals to organizational goals.

Finally, if you’re creating a team-specific strategy, you may also want to set goals for individual team members. Building ownership and accountability into sales goals can help keep your team aligned, and it also makes your sales strategy more cohesive.

2. Create a customer profile that is tailored to a specific product offering.

A detailed profile of your target customer — a buyer persona — is an essential component of an effective sales strategy. Below, I’ve outlined the key steps to take when creating a buyer persona to ensure you come up with a useful profile:

Find target markets and segments.

First, look at your industry as a whole. Get a sense of your ideal customer’s company size, psychographics, and buying process. You may want to look at industry trends, too.

Conduct market research to understand customer needs and preferences.

Next, do some market research. This template can help you streamline the process and understand which types of research will be best for your business.

You may also want to do some competitor analysis at this stage. Once you know the strengths and weaknesses of competing brands, you can more easily find gaps that you can fill for specific customers.

Create a clear value proposition to attract your ideal customer to your product or service.

Finally, make sure your product offering outlines the benefits of your product for your target customer. It’s important to use insights from your customer profile to emphasize features that solve your target customer’s pain points.

Your business may already have a clear value proposition — but if not, you can use these free value proposition templates to draft one.

Quick tip : Be sure to schedule time to update and refine your buyer persona to make sure it stays aligned with current customer trends and expectations.

3. Hire, onboard, and compensate sales team members adequately.

To develop an effective sales strategy, you need to have a powerful sales team in place. That means investing in hiring, onboarding, and retaining top talent. Specifically, I have learned that there are three key components of building (and keeping) a supportive, successful sales team:

Create great processes for hiring new members of your sales team.

First and foremost, create a list of criteria for sales managers to screen for when interviewing candidates. A well-defined job description and competency framework are also useful. These tools can help your team recruit and retain top talent.

Develop sales onboarding, training, and development programs.

Your training and onboarding program should prepare your sales team to sell effectively and efficiently. It should also help sales reps build advanced skills and industry knowledge.

But what if you don’t have the resources to develop comprehensive training in-house? In these situations, it may be worth considering combining organization-specific training with online sales training programs .

Create a motivational compensation and rewards plan.

Finally, once you’ve built a strong team, it’s vital to ensure your compensation plan is set up to motivate and retain them.

Many organizations connect sales compensation to organizational sales goals, but regardless of the specific compensation plan you choose, make sure that it meets or exceeds industry expectations. It should also inspire your team to celebrate individual and team achievements.

4. Create a plan to generate demand.

Now, it’s time to put together a detailed plan for how to target potential customers and increase their awareness of your offering. This may include using paid social acquisition channels, creating e-books, hosting webinars, and the many other strategies laid out in this article.

Featured Resource: Sales Plan Template

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• Marketing and Sales Strategy
• 11 July, 2022

10 Steps to Create a Complete Sales and Marketing Business Plan [Templates included]

Jump to the end of the post to get access to our free sales and marketing business plan templates.

Turning an idea into a functional business requires laser-sharp focus. You must take care of development, marketing, sales, customer success, and whatnot. 

While most entrepreneurs start with some form of a plan, they often forget about it soon after. 

Blame it on changing dynamics, trial and error to find a product-market fit, or blatant ignorance. But overlooking the planning process is a sure shot reason for failure — as the common saying goes, failing to plan is planning to fail.

An essential part of this document is the sales and marketing segment. The sales and marketing plan outlines everything you need to do to promote your products and generate revenue for your business. 

Why do you need a sales and marketing plan? 

Having a revolutionary product that solves a genuine problem is great. But it won’t mean anything if people don’t know about you. 

A sales and marketing plan helps you get discovered, structure your activities, and move forward with your growth goals. 

It’s more or less like a roadmap about what you should do to make things work in your favor. 

Your sales and marketing plan will help you: 

• Identify the bridge between where you are today and where you want to reach your business goals. 
• Get much-needed clarity and avoid conflicts and confusion in case of any disruptions.
• Gain and document insights about your target audience, industry, trends, costs, etc. 
• Justify your business model in front of investors and lenders in case you need to raise funds.
• Stay focused on a north star metric, improvise growth tactics and achieve harmony between various growth activities. 
• Promote sales and marketing alignment.

Your sales and marketing plan would also help you avoid distractions and save time and money lost. 

And you know how easy it is to lose direction and get distracted when starting or running a startup. Documenting everything as a plan will help avoid confusion and add clarity to your everyday affairs and long-term mission. 

However, different companies need different plans based on the stage of operations and their unique growth goals. 

A clear marketing and sales plan promotes alignment between marketing and sales departments at every stage . This reduces resource waste and creates fewer “blame-game ” occasions in your meetups. 

What to include in the marketing & sales plan? 

Planning is a subjective activity. 

You’d receive several different answers if you read, talk to, and consult multiple experts on what to include in your marketing and sales plan. 

So, how should you decide which elements to include in your marketing/sales plan? 

Let’s take a step back and understand the “why” of planning. 

You need a plan so you don’t get confused and can keep walking towards your goal.

Your plan should: 

• Serve as a roadmap for everything related to sales and marketing for the first few months if you’re just starting. 
• Outline and articulate the core strategies you’ll experiment with, the desired outcome, and the KPIs to measure performance. 
• Set realistic KPIs, outcomes, and objectives based on market understanding, competition, funding requirements, and your target audience’s pain points. 

Marketing plan for your startup: The what and why

In an ideal world, every penny you spend in marketing should enhance your visibility, take you closer to your audience,  and increase your conversion rates. 

But in reality, it takes a lot of effort, time, and investment to make it happen. 

A marketing plan helps you navigate through the tricky maze called marketing without getting lost in the process. 

Basically, you build a marketing plan to gain enlightenment about how you’ll promote and stay relevant to your audience. 

You do it beforehand so that when things get tricky, you have a directional beacon to guide you.  

Creating any plan should start with an understanding of the purpose. The same applies to marketing, too. Try to find the reason behind marketing your product – why are you working towards your goal. 

Knowing your why would help you gain clarity – an essential element for the success of any activity on the planet. Before you begin, you should try to find answers to the following questions: 

• Why are you making the marketing plan?
• What do you want to accomplish with the marketing?
• What will be the value proposition? 
• What are the goals that we want to achieve?

These answers will allow you to think better and prepare for strategizing your plan with a better perspective. 

Also, while at it, remember that your marketing plan is not a rigid document etched in stone. Instead, it’s a result of an iterative process that depends on five fundamental aspects: 

1. Product: What are you marketing? 

The product section should explain what you are selling exactly. 

• What do you sell? 
• How is your offering different from your competitors?
• What are the benefits your potential customers would derive from your offerings? 
• What is your core USP? 

Answering these questions would help you craft a great positioning statement and marketing message for your marketing campaigns. 

2. Place: Where are you available? 

This section should outline where you will sell or market your products. How will you get customers to reach out to buy your product or service? 

Though this will depend on the nature of business — online or offline, manufacturing or services, answers to the following questions would help you gain clarity: 

• Where will you be available for your customers? 
• Which distribution channels would you use to be more accessible to customers? 
• What percentage of sales/conversions do you expect from different distribution/marketing channels? 

3. Price: How much will you charge? 

This is an essential part of your planning process. Your pricing decisions would decide how you will generate revenue for your startup . 

Your pricing decision should be based on market analysis, competition, value offering, buying behavior, etc. 

• What will be the pricing model you’ll adopt to generate revenue? 
• What is the most favorable price point that your customers are ready to pay for your offering? 
• Will you make any profit/loss at this price point? 
• How soon can you break even based on your pricing strategy? 

4. Promotion: How will you promote your offering? 

You can have the best product, but no one would care if you’re not promoting it. 

Moreover, one of the primary reasons to create a marketing plan is to help you promote your offering. 

• Who is your target audience? 
• How will your reach your target audience? 
• What strategies will you adopt to convert your audience into customers? 
• Which channels of promotions will you use to promote your offerings? 
• How much will you spend on promotions and marketing? 
• What will be your team structure for the next quarter, year, and long term?
• How will you track the marketing effectiveness? 

5. People: Who will do the marketing?  

While most marketing plans you see out there would cover the traditional 4Ps of marketing, often the fifth P, people, is ignored. 

And you know there’s no growth or promotion without your team – your people. 

This aspect should help you understand your current capabilities and the resources needed in your team. Think about how you will find them, their responsibilities, and where they stand in the big picture. 

• Who will do the marketing for you? 
• What do you look for in a human resource?
• At what point do you start expanding the team? 
• Who are you going to hire first?
• How do you plan to hire for marketing? 
• What will be the core responsibilities and KPIs for your team? 
• How will you set KPIs/OKRs and analyze your team’s performance? 

Sales plan for your startup: The what and the why

Your sales plan would help you generate revenues from your marketing efforts by completing the journey from generating leads to turning them into customers. 

A sales plan defines your sales goals, the strategies you’d bet on, your desired results, your challenges, the solutions you have for them, and the structure (people, budget, process, and tools) you need.

Your sales plan would cover everything you need to register sales and generate revenue for your business. 

A sales plan is created to: 

• Provide a strategic direction to your sales team
• Define the core objectives and goals in terms of sales 
• Outline roles and responsibilities
• Analyze and measure your wins in terms of sales. 

These reasons help you succeed more than experimental businesses that beat around the bush while trying to make things work in a world where everyone’s selling something. To ensure your sales plan is effective, it should include: 

1. Sales goals — What do you want to achieve? 

Like any other activity in the world, your sales planning process should also revolve around the end goals for sales

Saying that you want more customers is a generic goal that doesn’t have any tangible metrics attached. Moreover, saying that you wish for more sales is too broad a goal that would involve outlining several action steps. 

So, it’s always better to have a SMART goal and break it down into tangible, measurable, and KPI-driven objectives. You can say that you want to: 

• Nurture 10% more MQLs into SQLs, and ultimately, customers.
• Reduce your churn rates by 5% before the end of Q1.
• Expand your sales team with 3 people to nurture and convert leads faster — reduce time to conversion by 5 days.
• Increase the customer lifetime value through upsells or cross-sells by $200.
• Expand your sales activities into new territories or regions.
• Optimize your pricing strategy to improve your conversion rates by 8% for new accounts.

2. Tactics — The process and activities

This segment will include the specific tactics, processes, and activities you’ll use to generate revenue for your business . 

A solid understanding of your target audience, goals, and capabilities would help you discover exciting and profitable tactics for your industry. 

Try to pick and choose the tactics in line with your ideal customer profile. You can conduct a survey and get insights from your marketing team to align your sales efforts accordingly. 

An aligned sales and marketing team will help you accelerate sales enablement and strike gold with more leads, higher conversions, and better results. 

Interested in exploring new sales tactics? Read this blog on popular sales strategies and techniques for your business. 

3. Timelines — The time you’ll need to make things happen

A plan without a timeline is just a wish. You must link your goals, tactics, and sales strategies with realistic deadlines. This will ensure that everyone’s motivated to work towards your goals. 

Keep all the stakeholders in the loop by developing a realistic growth goal and attaching a practical timeline to it. 

While you’re at it, don’t forget to assign one person who’ll be responsible for ensuring compliance. 

This tactic is known differently in business circles. 

Some call it a key Point of Contact (POC) for an activity; others call this person a Directly Responsible Individual (DRI). 

Another popular approach includes assigning OKR (Objective and Key Results) to an individual in a team who owns up the responsibility of making this happen. 

Whatever you may do, make sure you are realistic, practical, and sensible in creating achievable deadlines for your sales teams. 

Failure to do so would lead to dissatisfaction among sales team members, ultimately harming your bottom line. 

4. KPIs — the metrics you’ll track to determine success 

KPIs will help you understand if your sales tactics align with your revenue generation goals. These metrics help enhance sales teams’ performance, optimize the sales funnels, and improve conversion rate. 

If you want a solid sales plan, you need to tie everyone (and everything) to a tangible sales metric. 

You also need to ensure proper sales and marketing alignment so that all your marketing spends get attributed to some kind of improvement in KPIs. 

Here are some questions and corresponding KPIs you can think of adding to your sales plan: 

If you track these KPIs well, you’ll understand the challenges better, predict future problems, and get better at generating revenues from your sales activities. 

Moreover, the answers you gather and the KPIs would help you keep an eye on the overall efficiency of the sales process and build a strong sales team. 

Apart from these standard inclusions to your sales plan, you can also add the following information: 

• Team structure: How big your sales team should be, and what will be the responsibility (job role and KPIs) of each member of the team? 
• Resources/tools required : What tools and resources do you need to execute the sales tactics and strategies you’ve planned? 
• Current market trends: How is the present market regarding customer interest in your product, competition landscape, and overall sentiment in your industry? 

Rethinking the traditional plan for digital businesses, service companies, and SaaS startups 

The traditional ways of creating a sales and marketing plan are geared more toward the product economy. 

Today, most businesses don’t even have a physical “product”.

Distribution and conversion cycles are not so simple, too.

The sales and marketing ecosystem has transitioned from a single-sales mindset to a culture of lead nurturing , upsells/cross-sells, and experiences to enhance the customer’s lifetime value. 

Even users don’t look at companies, products, and solutions like they used to anymore. 

Don’t you think the old ways should be reimagined? 

In his book, Subscribed, Tien Tzuo mentions how the world economy is transitioning to a digital era powered by subscription-based startups and digital businesses.

Naturally, with changing consumer mindset, the traditional business planning models (including sales and marketing plans) should change, too. 

There has been a hot debate about reimagining marketing and sales operations for the future — digital businesses, SaaS products, and the subscription economy. 

PADRE is a promising framework with all the elements of a traditional business plan, reimagined for the modern digital economy. 

The PADRE framework keeps the customer at the heart of everything and divides all activities (including sales and marketing) into eight subsets: 

• Position: How will you create awareness, turn it into demand for your product and build a pipeline of leads? 
• Acquire: What is your ICPs buyer’s journey? How will you address their pain points and turn them into customers? 
• Deploy : How will you onboard , service, and delight your customers as efficiently as possible so they can use your product, service, or SaaS quickly?   
• Run:  How will you ensure that your customers get what they expect (and deserve) from your product or service? 
• Expand: How will you grow your company through retention, growth, and customer advocacy? 
• Product: How will you evolve your product, service, or offering and manage everything? 
• People:   How will you recruit, onboard, train, and retain the best talent to serve your customers? 
• Money: Where and how will you fund and fulfill your need for running and growing your business most efficiently? 

If you look at the PADRE model carefully, it has almost all the elements discussed above for sales and marketing plans, just in a different way. This differentiation makes more sense for a dynamic digital business than the traditional sales and marketing business plan. 

You can take ideas from the PADRE model to create your version of a dynamic business plan based on your unique business idea. 

10 steps to create a solid sales and marketing plan

Regardless of your approach to creating a business plan, you will have to gather data, make some important decisions, and collate everything together. 

Remember, your sales and marketing plan is a living document that should be revisited repeatedly for optimization. 

Here are the steps you can take to create an actionable plan based on the insights shared above: 

Step 1: Gather data based on company insights and external trends

“Always measure the depth of the pool you’re diving in!” 

Before you start planning your sales and marketing observing and documenting macro-level industry trends is a must. It will give you an understanding and insight into what to expect in the future. 

You can use industry insight to strengthen your assumptions, understand the market, add clarity to your sales and marketing mix, and refine your plan. 

Always look for industry insights around sales and marketing trends — what worked in the past, how things are changing, and what future trends will drive growth. While industry trends are not a full-proof solution, it gives you a direction to provide a concrete shape to your plans. 

Use industry trends to add “meat” to your hypothesis, and see if you can get data about: 

• Consumer behavior and psychology that drives sales. Use the Facebook Ads manager audience tool to find your audience’s topics of interest and behavior trends.
• Psychographic analysis of your target audience.
• Marketing effectiveness of different channels. You can use platforms like Similarweb to peak into the traffic sources of your competitors and get an estimated idea of the volume.
• Sales trends of lateral and complimenting businesses. 
• Competitor analysis, including their past financial performance and effectiveness in generating revenue. 

Step 2: Create your ideal customer profile (ICP) 

As a business owner, you must know everything about your target audience. 

Without a deep understanding of your ICP, you could end up like a door-to-door salesman trying to sell but end up annoying everyone. 

This information helps you take the necessary steps to add context and relevance to your marketing and sales plan. 

You should break up your ideal customer persona (ICP) into several sections covering all aspects of your persona’s — the demographic profile, what they think, believe, and trust in, their needs, motivations, drives, and psychographic profile. 

Sample questions for building an Ideal Customer Profile

Knowing your audience allows you to talk the way they want to be talked to. Also, you get to understand what makes them buy, their problems and pain points, and where they spend most of their time. All this is crucial for creating an effective marketing strategy. 

You can even use this knowledge to segment your audience personas and personalize your marketing campaigns — a powerful tactic to market your brand in 2022. 

Step 3: Assess your current situation 

Once you’ve gathered data and foresight, start the self-introspection process. 

Ask yourself where you stand in your startup journey. 

✓ How is your business performing right now? 

✓ Are you performing according to your revenue estimates and KPIs? 

✓ Do your business and revenue generation efforts align with market and industry trends? Do they need to align?

✓ Are you marketing and selling where your customers are looking for options? 

✓ What are your strengths and weaknesses? 

✓ What challenges are you facing in getting your business to the next level? 

✓ Is there any better way of doing things than you do now? 

All these questions will give you ideas to start the actual planning process. Moreover, you’d understand if whatever you did was even worth it. 

Step 4: Define metric-driven objectives and goals

Have you ever traveled without a destination? 

Well, maybe you have. But that’s not how you run a business. You need to have an exact destination in mind — where you’re headed to. 

That’s why having an objective and goal is essential for making a sales and marketing plan. Tangible and realistic goal-setting should be the #1 priority of anyone trying to succeed as an entrepreneur. 

Your goals will will allow you to track if you’re making a real impact on your business. Plus, having a metric-driven goal gives you an understanding of what you need to do for success. 

Your goals and objectives should be tied to your business vision and mission.

Often, we see there’s a misalignment between sales and marketing objectives. That leads to confusion and, thus, poor performance. Hence setting a SMART goal is critical for ensuring clarity.

SMART objectives for your sales and marketing plans should be: 

• Specific: The goal is clearly defined, and everyone within your team understands the goal and its importance. 
• Measurable: The goal/objective should be tied to key performance indicators (KPIs) and visibly measurable.
•  Achievable: Being realistic is an important factor in setting an attainable goal. Look at your team’s ability, budget, and current situation to ensure the goal is within your limits. Setting the bar too high will only lead to disappointment and wasted time and effort. 
• Relevant: Your objectives should be aligned with your business vision and mission. If your marketing and sales aren’t aligned to your bigger picture, it will lead to losses (and potential conflicts). 
• Time-bound: Any objective you define must have a clear timeline, which means there should be a start and end date. Without that, your goal is just a wish. 

Step 5: Determine metrics for success (KPIs) 

You know you need to measure your goals and objectives in real-time. 

That would ensure everything’s on track and help you red flag any deviations from your desired path. 

But setting a measurable KPI for any business is a tricky business in itself. Especially when there’s a lot to plan in sales and marketing, and every business is different. 

KPI or key performance indicators should be planned based on industry best practices, prevailing marketing trends, and taking stakeholders in confidence. 

You can align standard industry KPIs with your business or marketing/sales goals to create your version of KPIs that will objectify your success figures. 

Standard Goals and KPIs you should track

Always ensure that each KPI you track links to the bigger picture — where and how it contributes to your business’s mission and mission. This will add relevance to your sales and marketing plans giving you more accurate insights for the future periods.

Step 6: Build a forecasting model

Forecasting is an activity that predicts what your sales and marketing efforts will lead to on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. 

Creating a sales or marketing forecast involves taking the opinions of industry leaders, financial consultants, CPAs, marketers, sales managers, and your team members. It also will involve studying and analyzing the insights you gathered in step one.

A forecast will help you make better hiring decisions, budget for your expansion in a better way, and linearly predict your revenues. You can also add dynamic variables to the forecasts to analyze how your KPIs would perform under real-life situations. 

Creating a forecasting and budgeting model for your sales and marketing team is highly essential to keep things in check. However, it would be best if you didn’t fall into the lure of creating forecasts for more extended periods as things are changing quite rapidly, especially after COVID-19. 

Better to create a forecast for a quarter, review it based on actual expenses and performance, and keep iterating. You can also take advantage of popular forecasting tools for more accurate models. 

Step 7: Identify gaps within your assumptions 

By this step, you’d have a clear idea about your capabilities, the goals you want to achieve, the industry trends and the forecasts for the future.

This will give you an opportunity to get a bird’s eye view of your sales and marketing activities in terms of your revenue growth. 

You can use this information to plug in gaps because of your assumptions and biases, analyze what’s required and the challenges you’d face to make things happen. 

Identifying gaps between your existing situation and your goals based on forecasts would help you make informed decisions. 

You can choose to hire more people in sales and marketing, increase your budget, try new marketing tactics, or even start an entirely different lead generation and nurturing channel to achieve your goals. 

Step 8: Create a team structure and involve stakeholders. 

The most important part of the planning process is to understand your capabilities. If you’ve assessed your current scenario correctly, you’ll have a clear picture of who’s responsible for growth, marketing, sales, etc. 

And if you’re just starting, this is a great time to start planning a structure for your marketing and sales team, starting with: 

• How many people will be needed for each team? 
• Who will be responsible for specific KPIs?
• What will be the responsibilities of each member of the team? 
• How will teams communicate with each other and ensure alignment between efforts? 
• How will the performance be measured? 
• What are the challenges marketing and sales teams face in your company (or industry)? 
• How will expansion needs be identified?  

Remember, if you’re just starting to build a team and have existing team members, take them in confidence and involve every stakeholder before creating a structure.

The more aligned and closely knit your sales and marketing, the faster you achieve your growth goals. 

• Build a Strong B2B Marketing Organization Structure for Modern Teams
• Sales Operations Responsibilities: Roles, duties, and obstacles
• Revenue Operations Roles: Who do you need to build a RevOp team?

Step 9: Outline action items 

By this step, you’re almost done with the planning. You just need to answer two more questions:

• What do you need to do to achieve your goals? 
• How will you do what you need to do? 

This means outlining action steps, developing marketing and sales tactics, and finalizing the cogs required to run your marketing/sales engine. 

You can start by putting together a rough draft of all the insights you’ve gathered, the available resources, the budget, best industry practices, trends, and growth projections. This will give you foresight into what can work in your favour. 

Build a list of action steps that you need to take to move in the direction of your goals. 

Step 10: Identify and implement tools and systems

Okay! This is the last step of the planning process. After this, you will be left with the exact steps you need to take daily to achieve your KPIs. 

But don’t take this step lightly. Think of this as the building blocks of a bridge that would take you from “here” to “there”. 

You’ll need to make a list of tools, systems, and solutions you’d need to make things happen. 

For example, if you’ve concluded that you need to set up a lead nurture campaign , you need a tool or platform that makes that happen. 

You’ll need to evaluate the available options and pick a tool that aligns with your goals and budget. 

While picking up any tool, make sure that it should: 

• Save time, money, or effort for your marketing and sales team members.
• Have prominent success stories and case studies that closely relate to your goals, tactics, and life stage.
• Is reliable and doesn’t use any under-the-hood tactics to make things happen. 
• Has an active developer and customer success team.
• Is supported by a thriving public community of happy users. 

Make sure that whatever tech stack you’re finalizing has a solid mechanism to track success and your KPIs. 

This will help you ascertain success quicker. Also, communicate with all the stakeholders about the tools and success metrics. 

Ready-to-use sales and marketing plan templates

To make things easy for you, we have prepared comprehensive templates for both your sales and marketing plans. To download the template click on the links below and duplicate the document. Then, fill in the blanks.

Download the Marketing Plan Template

Download the Sales Plan Template

Your sales and marketing plan is a living document. Keep revisiting! 

If you’ve come this far with your planning, you should have a functional plan for supercharging your marketing and sales operations in the coming weeks and months.. 

But remember, sales and marketing planning isn’t a one-time activity. Keep optimizing your plans with fresh insights to stay on track with changing dynamics. And don’t forget to track the right metrics and KPIs.

A marketing automation platform like Encharge can help you to execute your marketing and sales plans. Don’t believe us. Check the success stories to see how others businesses are amping up their marketing and sales game now.

Meet your new marketing automation platform

“encharge helped us visually redesign our onboarding flow resulting in a 10% increase in our trial activation rate .", top 7 marketing automation trends in 2022 according to 103 experts.

Marketing rapidly changes.  Despite all the alterations, one thing remains ― marketing is tricky. The principles remain the same, but

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Top 10 Sales Business Plan Templates with Examples and Samples

Taranjeet Singh

A well-crafted sales business plan is essential for any company that wants to succeed. But creating a great sales plan can be time-consuming and challenging. That's where sales business plan templates come in.

Sales business plan templates provide a pre-made framework that you can design according to your plan and thus saving you time and effort. Furthermore, it helps you ensure that your plan is comprehensive and well-organized.

The best business plan ppt are 100% editable and customizable. Change the images, colors, and text to match your company's branding. You can also add or remove slides as needed.

If your requirement is to create a great sales business plan, then a sales business plan template is the perfect solution. 

With the below-mentioned templates, you can quickly and easily build a plan to help you achieve your sales goals.

Let’s begin!

Template 1: Sales Plan Presentation Template

This content-ready PPT template focuses on helping businesses decide their mission, drive business growth, and cultivate repeat customers. This concise and informative PowerPoint presentation is designed to equip your sales team with necessary skills and knowledge to elevate your company’s growth. It provides you with valuable insights and strategies for achieving sales objectives, capturing new markets, and fostering customer loyalty. Elevate your sales approach with this dynamic presentation, available for download to maximize your business potential.

Download Now!

Template 2: Sale Action Plan PPT

Experience the transformative potential of our ready to use PowerPoint slide.  This meticulously crafted presentation is your key to unlocking sales success. With in-depth market analysis and strategic insights, it equips you with the required tools to optimize your advertising campaigns to make sales. Seamlessly navigate market trends and consumer behavior to enhance your brand's impact. To access this invaluable resource and drive your business forward, download our PPT. Embrace the power of data-driven decision-making and elevate your sales performance.

Template 3: Sales Strategy Plan PPT

Introducing our professional and appealing curated PowerPoint template. This is a top-notch PowerPoint template to you effectively outline and convey your sales strategy. With a visually captivating layout and content that effortlessly highlights your market analysis, target audience, competitive advantages, and action plans, leave a lasting impression on your audience. Unlock the power of persuasive presentations and grow your business to unparalleled heights. Download now!

Template 4: Sales and Marketing Plan for Business Growth PPT

This PPT delves into crucial topics of sales such as, goals, targets, strategies, measurement, and tactics. This dynamic presentation provides you with a roadmap to propel your business toward success. By defining clear objectives, identifying the target audience, devising practical strategies, measuring performance, and implementing tactical approaches, this plan ensures a comprehensive approach to sales and marketing. Download this insightful resource now to gain valuable insights and actionable steps to accelerate your business growth.

Template 5: Business Sales Growth Strategy Plan Model PPT

Leverage the power of our PPT, covering key topics such as products, strategy, customers, geographical segments, and distribution channels. It consists of different segments and tools to help you identify growth opportunities, develop strategies to capture them, and track your progress. It is a valuable resource if you want to increase your sales. Download this template today and embrace the path to sustainable growth.

Template 6: Sales Strategy of Business Plan PPT

This is a content-ready PowerPoint template exhibiting six-stage process to optimize your sales approach. With visually captivating graphics and intuitive design, showcase different stages of sales, including its process and strategy, market knowledge, science metrics, sales excellence and performance, sales skills, and customer knowledge. This actionable PPT slide empowers you to present your sales strategy with precision and impact. Enhance your presentations today and achieve sales success by deploying this PPT.

Template 7: Sales Strategy Business Plan Template 

Designed by our experts, this professional and visually appealing template offers a streamlined six-stage process to guide you through your sales strategy. Whether you're focusing on marketing, channels, advertising, collateral, or training, this template has got you covered. Its clean & modern design makes it perfect for showcasing your business plan to your clients or team members. Grab this powerful PPT today.

Template 8: Strategic Sales Growth Action Plan PPT

This comprehensive presentation showcases a roadmap for success, emphasizing the key components necessary to reach new customers and expand into untapped markets. With estimated cost analysis, projected sales figures, actionable steps, and achievable targets, this PPT provides you the blueprint for sales growth. Deploy this PowerPoint slide now to to unleash your organization's potential for unparalleled success. It's time to seize opportunities and fuel exponential growth in the competitive business landscape.

Template 9: Framework of Business Plan for Sales Growth PPT

Achieving substantial sales growth requires a well-structured business plan. This content-ready PowerPoint presentation outlines critical components essential for success. It covers vital topics, such as, business strategy, sales strategy, resource development, technology, and sales operations. Discover strategic approaches to optimize your business's growth potential and enhance sales effectiveness. Unlock valuable insights and actionable steps to drive revenue and maximize profitability. To access this informative presentation, download it now.

Template 10: Key Sales Action Plans for Business Growth Template

This ready to use template is designed to help you drive success and achieve exponential growth. Focusing on strengthening and developing your sales strategies covers essential stages such as planning, budgeting, expenses, and revenues. Harness the well-crafted sales plan and unlock your business's full potential. Download this invaluable resource to transform your sales approach and propel your organization toward unprecedented success.

A well-crafted sales business plan is a critical component for any organization looking to thrive in the market. By outlining clear objectives, strategies, and tactics, it provides a roadmap for success and empowers businesses to effectively navigate challenges, capitalize on opportunities, and achieve sustainable growth. Therefore, SlideTeam brings you a collection of content-ready and custom-made PPT templates as a valuable tool for organizations seeking to achieve their revenue targets and drive growth. Deploy these premium slides for setting goals, defining strategies, and implementing effective sales tactics. With careful execution and adaptation, the sales business plan template becomes a roadmap to sustainable sales success.

FAQs on Sales Plan

What is a sales business plan.

A sales business plan is a strategic document that outlines the objectives, strategies, and tactics a company will employ to achieve its sales targets and generate revenue. It serves as a roadmap for the sales team, providing a clear direction and structure to follow. A well-crafted sales business plan includes thorough market analysis, target customer identification, sales goals, budgeting, and sales forecasting. It also outlines the sales strategies, such as pricing, promotional activities, distribution channels, and customer relationship management. A sales business plan is a blueprint for success, helping businesses align their efforts and maximize their sales potential.

How Do I Write a Sales Business Plan?

Writing a sales business plan requires careful consideration and attention to detail. Here are essential steps to guide you:

• Define objectives: Clearly state your sales goals and desired outcomes.
• Conduct market analysis: Understand your target market, competitors, and industry trends.
• Identify target customers: Define your ideal customers and their needs.
• Develop sales strategies: Outline lead generation, customer acquisition, and retention tactics.
• Set sales targets: Establish measurable and achievable sales objectives.
• Create a budget: Allocate resources for sales activities, marketing, and sales team development.
• Develop a sales forecast: Estimate sales projections based on market analysis and historical data.
• Define sales processes: Detail the steps involved in the sales cycle and align them with the customer journey.
• Monitor and evaluate: Establish key performance indicators and review progress regularly.
• Adapt and refine: Continuously refine your plan based on feedback and market dynamics.

What are the 4 Common Sales Strategies?

Four common sales strategies used by businesses are:

• Consultative Selling : This approach builds solid customer relationships and understands their needs. Salespeople act as consultants, providing personalized solutions and guidance.
• Solution Selling : This strategy involves identifying customer pain points and offering tailored solutions. It requires understanding the customer's business and aligning product/service features with their needs.
• Relationship Selling : This strategy centres around developing long-term relationships with customers. Salespeople focus on building trust, providing exceptional customer service, and nurturing ongoing partnerships.
• Social Selling : With the coming of social media, this strategy leverages platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter to connect with customers, share relevant content, and engage in conversations that can lead to sales opportunities.

Businesses can effectively engage customers, differentiate themselves, and drive revenue growth by employing these sales strategies.

Why is a Sales Plan Important?

A sales plan is crucial for the success of a business for several reasons. Firstly, it provides the sales team with a clear roadmap and direction, ensuring everyone is aligned and working towards common goals. It helps set realistic sales targets and objectives, allowing businesses to measure progress and make necessary adjustments. A sale plan also aids in identifying and understanding the target market and customers, enabling businesses to tailor their sales strategies and approaches accordingly. Moreover, it assists in allocating resources effectively, optimizing budgeting and forecasting, and maximizing sales opportunities. A well-defined sale plan ultimately increases the chances of achieving sales targets, driving revenue growth, and outperforming competitors.

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550+ Business Plan Examples to Launch Your Business

Need help writing your business plan? Explore over 550 industry-specific business plan examples for inspiration.

Find your business plan example

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View all sample business plans

Example business plan format

Before you start exploring our library of business plan examples, it's worth taking the time to understand the traditional business plan format . You'll find that the plans in this library and most investor-approved business plans will include the following sections:

Executive summary

The executive summary is an overview of your business and your plans. It comes first in your plan and is ideally only one to two pages. You should also plan to write this section last after you've written your full business plan.

Your executive summary should include a summary of the problem you are solving, a description of your product or service, an overview of your target market, a brief description of your team, a summary of your financials, and your funding requirements (if you are raising money).

Products & services

The products & services chapter of your business plan is where the real meat of your plan lives. It includes information about the problem that you're solving, your solution, and any traction that proves that it truly meets the need you identified.

This is your chance to explain why you're in business and that people care about what you offer. It needs to go beyond a simple product or service description and get to the heart of why your business works and benefits your customers.

Market analysis

Conducting a market analysis ensures that you fully understand the market that you're entering and who you'll be selling to. This section is where you will showcase all of the information about your potential customers. You'll cover your target market as well as information about the growth of your market and your industry. Focus on outlining why the market you're entering is viable and creating a realistic persona for your ideal customer base.

Competition

Part of defining your opportunity is determining what your competitive advantage may be. To do this effectively you need to get to know your competitors just as well as your target customers. Every business will have competition, if you don't then you're either in a very young industry or there's a good reason no one is pursuing this specific venture.

To succeed, you want to be sure you know who your competitors are, how they operate, necessary financial benchmarks, and how you're business will be positioned. Start by identifying who your competitors are or will be during your market research. Then leverage competitive analysis tools like the competitive matrix and positioning map to solidify where your business stands in relation to the competition.

Marketing & sales

The marketing and sales plan section of your business plan details how you plan to reach your target market segments. You'll address how you plan on selling to those target markets, what your pricing plan is, and what types of activities and partnerships you need to make your business a success.

The operations section covers the day-to-day workflows for your business to deliver your product or service. What's included here fully depends on the type of business. Typically you can expect to add details on your business location, sourcing and fulfillment, use of technology, and any partnerships or agreements that are in place.

Milestones & metrics

The milestones section is where you lay out strategic milestones to reach your business goals.

A good milestone clearly lays out the parameters of the task at hand and sets expectations for its execution. You'll want to include a description of the task, a proposed due date, who is responsible, and eventually a budget that's attached. You don't need extensive project planning in this section, just key milestones that you want to hit and when you plan to hit them.

You should also discuss key metrics, which are the numbers you will track to determine your success. Some common data points worth tracking include conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, profit, etc.

Company & team

Use this section to describe your current team and who you need to hire. If you intend to pursue funding, you'll need to highlight the relevant experience of your team members. Basically, this is where you prove that this is the right team to successfully start and grow the business. You will also need to provide a quick overview of your legal structure and history if you're already up and running.

Financial projections

Your financial plan should include a sales and revenue forecast, profit and loss statement, cash flow statement, and a balance sheet. You may not have established financials of any kind at this stage. Not to worry, rather than getting all of the details ironed out, focus on making projections and strategic forecasts for your business. You can always update your financial statements as you begin operations and start bringing in actual accounting data.

Now, if you intend to pitch to investors or submit a loan application, you'll also need a "use of funds" report in this section. This outlines how you intend to leverage any funding for your business and how much you're looking to acquire. Like the rest of your financials, this can always be updated later on.

The appendix isn't a required element of your business plan. However, it is a useful place to add any charts, tables, definitions, legal notes, or other critical information that supports your plan. These are often lengthier or out-of-place information that simply didn't work naturally into the structure of your plan. You'll notice that in these business plan examples, the appendix mainly includes extended financial statements.

Types of business plans explained

While all business plans cover similar categories, the style and function fully depend on how you intend to use your plan. To get the most out of your plan, it's best to find a format that suits your needs. Here are a few common business plan types worth considering.

Traditional business plan

The tried-and-true traditional business plan is a formal document meant to be used for external purposes. Typically this is the type of plan you'll need when applying for funding or pitching to investors. It can also be used when training or hiring employees, working with vendors, or in any other situation where the full details of your business must be understood by another individual.

Business model canvas

The business model canvas is a one-page template designed to demystify the business planning process. It removes the need for a traditional, copy-heavy business plan, in favor of a single-page outline that can help you and outside parties better explore your business idea.

The structure ditches a linear format in favor of a cell-based template. It encourages you to build connections between every element of your business. It's faster to write out and update, and much easier for you, your team, and anyone else to visualize your business operations.

One-page business plan

The true middle ground between the business model canvas and a traditional business plan is the one-page business plan . This format is a simplified version of the traditional plan that focuses on the core aspects of your business.

By starting with a one-page plan , you give yourself a minimal document to build from. You'll typically stick with bullet points and single sentences making it much easier to elaborate or expand sections into a longer-form business plan.

Growth planning

Growth planning is more than a specific type of business plan. It's a methodology. It takes the simplicity and styling of the one-page business plan and turns it into a process for you to continuously plan, forecast, review, and refine based on your performance.

It holds all of the benefits of the single-page plan, including the potential to complete it in as little as 27 minutes . However, it's even easier to convert into a more detailed plan thanks to how heavily it's tied to your financials. The overall goal of growth planning isn't to just produce documents that you use once and shelve. Instead, the growth planning process helps you build a healthier company that thrives in times of growth and remain stable through times of crisis.

It's faster, keeps your plan concise, and ensures that your plan is always up-to-date.

Download a free sample business plan template

Ready to start writing your own plan but aren't sure where to start? Download our free business plan template that's been updated for 2024.

This simple, modern, investor-approved business plan template is designed to make planning easy. It's a proven format that has helped over 1 million businesses write business plans for bank loans, funding pitches, business expansion, and even business sales. It includes additional instructions for how to write each section and is formatted to be SBA-lender approved. All you need to do is fill in the blanks.

How to use an example business plan to help you write your own

How do you know what elements need to be included in your business plan, especially if you've never written one before? Looking at examples can help you visualize what a full, traditional plan looks like, so you know what you're aiming for before you get started. Here's how to get the most out of a sample business plan.

Choose a business plan example from a similar type of company

You don't need to find an example business plan that's an exact fit for your business. Your business location, target market, and even your particular product or service may not match up exactly with the plans in our gallery. But, you don't need an exact match for it to be helpful. Instead, look for a plan that's related to the type of business you're starting.

For example, if you want to start a vegetarian restaurant, a plan for a steakhouse can be a great match. While the specifics of your actual startup will differ, the elements you'd want to include in your restaurant's business plan are likely to be very similar.

Use a business plan example as a guide

Every startup and small business is unique, so you'll want to avoid copying an example business plan word for word. It just won't be as helpful, since each business is unique. You want your plan to be a useful tool for starting a business —and getting funding if you need it.

One of the key benefits of writing a business plan is simply going through the process. When you sit down to write, you'll naturally think through important pieces, like your startup costs, your target market , and any market analysis or research you'll need to do to be successful.

You'll also look at where you stand among your competition (and everyone has competition), and lay out your goals and the milestones you'll need to meet. Looking at an example business plan's financials section can be helpful because you can see what should be included, but take them with a grain of salt. Don't assume that financial projections for a sample company will fit your own small business.

If you're looking for more resources to help you get started, our business planning guide is a good place to start. You can also download our free business plan template .

Think of business planning as a process, instead of a document

Think about business planning as something you do often , rather than a document you create once and never look at again. If you take the time to write a plan that really fits your own company, it will be a better, more useful tool to grow your business. It should also make it easier to share your vision and strategy so everyone on your team is on the same page.

Adjust your plan regularly to use it as a business management tool

Keep in mind that businesses that use their plan as a management tool to help run their business grow 30 percent faster than those businesses that don't. For that to be true for your company, you'll think of a part of your business planning process as tracking your actual results against your financial forecast on a regular basis.

If things are going well, your plan will help you think about how you can re-invest in your business. If you find that you're not meeting goals, you might need to adjust your budgets or your sales forecast. Either way, tracking your progress compared to your plan can help you adjust quickly when you identify challenges and opportunities—it's one of the most powerful things you can do to grow your business.

Prepare to pitch your business

If you're planning to pitch your business to investors or seek out any funding, you'll need a pitch deck to accompany your business plan. A pitch deck is designed to inform people about your business. You want your pitch deck to be short and easy to follow, so it's best to keep your presentation under 20 slides.

Your pitch deck and pitch presentation are likely some of the first things that an investor will see to learn more about your company. So, you need to be informative and pique their interest. Luckily, just like you can leverage an example business plan template to write your plan, we also have a gallery of over 50 pitch decks for you to reference.

With this gallery, you have the option to view specific industry pitches or get inspired by real-world pitch deck examples.

Ready to get started?

Now that you know how to use an example business plan to help you write a plan for your business, it's time to find the right one.

Use the search bar below to get started and find the right match for your business idea.

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• B2B Sales and Marketing

How to Create a Winning B2B Sales Plan [+ Free Template]

• Last updated December 20, 2022
• By Jessica Huhn

ON THIS PAGE

Are you ready to be the next rockstar of your company’s sales meeting? Whether you work for a new business or an established one, keep reading to learn everything about how to create a sales plan that brings you more clients. And after that, you can download our free sales plan template and get started making one of your own.

What is a B2B sales plan?

Before diving too deep, it’s helpful to go over a quick sales plan definition. These plans are ways for companies to strategize and set goals for their sales departments.

There are several beneficial reasons to create this type of action plan. One reason is because these plans give your team clear objectives to carry out. Also, the research you perform while creating this type of business plan often uncovers new opportunities for your team. Lastly, these types of plans also allow for performance and goal tracking. This is a great way to find out if your team is growing stronger in their sales skills or if problems need addressing.

Now, let’s go over what you need to include in your company’s sales plan.

What should you include in your strategic sales plan?

There are many sections you’ll want to include in this type of action plan for your team. Considering that, it’s helpful to learn more about these important sections. Here is a quick overview of each section of a standard sales plan.

1. Introduction

Typically, the beginning of this plan is where you give a brief introduction of what this plan is going to cover. While it’s usually at the beginning, most people find it easier to create this 2–3 sentence introduction after formulating all other sections of this plan.

2. Sales team structure

This next section provides key information about the structure of your team. This includes roles and responsibilities, as well as how general reporting flows through the entire department. Sales team structures also often include information about new hires, recent promotions, location changes, sales process changes, and other updates to the structure of your team .

3. Market position/industry

Another important part of this kind of plan involves listing information about your position within your industry. To do this, you’re going to need to find and report information about your competition. You might think that this sounds impossible, how can I find information about how well a competitor is doing? Fortunately, digital marketing tools make it easy to research your competition and find out more about traffic totals, brand reach, and other important metrics.

4. Target audience

It’s also a good idea to research your company’s ideal customers while creating this type of business plan. One reason to do this is because the audience a sales team is targeting can change due to lots of factors. By keeping this information updated, you’ll be able to let everyone reading your plan clearly know who your target customers are and why.

5. Challenges

Think of your company’s sales plan as a story. And no good story is complete without challenges for the characters to overcome. With that in mind, this section is where you’ll list the challenges your team faces and how you’ll overcome them. Think hard about this – you don’t want any unexpected surprises catching your team off guard.

6. Sales goals (short/long-term)

It’s also important to include a goals section in this plan. Challenges your team faces, listed in the section above, focus on things that are out of your team’s control . Goals, while still challenging, deal with things that your sales team can control.

Short-term plans measure goals that span from weeks to quarters, while longer-term plans can range from six months to years.

Also, use this section as a quick way to set any goals or key performance indicators for your sales team to achieve. This can include celebrating a certain number of new clients , a growth in total sales over the last period, expansion into new territories, and similar types of information.

7. Plan of action (sales strategy)

No sales plan is complete without a plan of action. Here, you’ll want to list the specific steps your team will use to achieve their individual and group goals. To make sure everyone is on the same page and has a clear direction of the end goal, include lots of data and actionable steps in this section of your sales plan.

8. Finances

Whether it’s a small business or large corporation, every company operates on some type of budget. Considering that, it’s essential to include financial information in your company’s sales plan. You’ll want to present accurate sales budget information including what’s available and how you plan on allocating this budget across your department. This is also a great opportunity to list sales totals and revenue targets compared to previous weeks/months/quarters/years. Also, make sure you use this section to list other types of financial goals your team is going after.

You don’t need to overthink your plan’s summary. Much like the introduction, use the summary as a way to frame a nice 2–3 sentence wrap-up that focuses on the future of your sales team.

5 steps to create a winning B2B sales action plan

Now, it’s time to learn a few tips on how to best write one of these plans. By using these tips, you’ll have plenty of information to include in your company’s sales plan.

1. Have realistic goals

It would be nice to impress your boss with a lofty goal that would make any sales manager raise their eyebrows. But struggling to meet nearly impossible goals isn’t going to end up pleasing anyone. Instead, make sure your goals are realistic, based on previous sales information and accurate forecasting.

For help with creating goals, use the SMART system , which stands for:

Using this system can help ensure your sales team are creating goals that are challenging yet achievable. Also, by digging deeper into proposed goals with the SMART system, you can easily remove those that aren’t worth pursuing.

2. Back up what you’re saying with data

While creating this type of plan, it’s easy to make general statements about upcoming goals. However, without data, it’s hard to back up anything you’re saying. Essentially, this creates a plan that might look great and read well but has nothing concrete to back up the statements it makes.

3. Research your company’s target audience

Every company has its own type of target audience. You might even have multiple target audiences. To make it easier to reach this audience, take the time to find out more about their specific needs. Performing this type of research can also help you uncover lots of prospecting opportunities with possible new customers.

4. Involve all sales employees during the sales plan creation process

What group of people know the most about the challenges and opportunities your sales department faces? Your sales team. As you prepare this type of plan, make sure to get your sales team’s opinion and thoughts. Chances are, you’ll gain valuable insights and have a much stronger presentation with your whole sales team behind you.

5. Take a closer look at your competitors

If you’re like most people, you don’t want to dwell on your company’s competition. However, this is necessary if you want to create a strong plan that succeeds in the market. You can gain lots of valuable insight by looking at competitor data. Of course, no competitor is going to give you the keys to their kingdom. Instead, find the information you need by using digital marketing tools and programs to get the upper hand.

You’ll want to look for publicly available information about your competitors including:

• Social media : Utilize social listening to take a close look at your competitors’ followers, shares, likes, and similar engagement metrics.
• SEO results : With the help of a few marketing automation tools , you can learn more about the online presence of your company’s competition.
• Competitor news: While looking over this type of information, look for anything else your brand’s sales team can capitalize on.

Download our exclusive, free sales plan template

If you don’t want to create a plan from scratch, we completely understand. Most salespeople find themselves dealing with lots of things to take care of and simply don’t have time to sit down to create a lengthy sales plan.

No need to worry, we’ve got you covered with our downloadable sales plan template, just click the image below to download it. This template includes everything we’ve covered above in a clean layout. Feel free to make it your own, and share this page with other colleagues you feel would benefit from this template.

To wrap things up, sales plans are great ways to take a closer look inside of your sales department. With these clear steps and the right relevant data, you’ll be able to create an effective sales plan that gives everyone on your team a clear picture of the road that lies ahead.

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How to Create a B2B Sales Plan: Template + Examples

A sales plan is an essential tool for any business, especially in B2B. It provides a roadmap for achieving your sales goals. By clearly outlining your strategies and tactics, a well-crafted sales plan will keep you on track and help you measure your progress along the way.

Creating a sales plan can seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. This article lays out a structure for a sales plan. We will extend this article over time.

In this post, we’ll cover

What is a sales plan, what is the sales planning process, what are typical elements of a sales plan, executive summary, key assumptions for this sales plan (examples), target customers and related products / services, business planing, initiatives and measures, required resources, overall outcome of a sales plan, sales plan in one sentence, sales plan examples.

A sales plan is a document that encompasses goals, target customers, and sales strategy aimed at attaining necessary results. It enables a company’s leadership and sales team to plan concrete measures and initiatives to achieve the defined business outcomes as well as predict business-related risks and steps to avoid them.

• Gather historic sales data
• Define your objectives including existing business plans
• Define your assumptions going into sales planning
• Determine metrics for success
• Determine current situation
• Start sales forecasting based on current performance
• Identify gaps to success metrics and business plan
• Ideate new initiatives to close gaps
• Involve stakeholders for feedback
• Outline action items and determine ressource requirements

A typical sales plan includes the following sections:

• Key assumptions
• Revenue Targets, Business Plan
• Strategies and Tactics (incl. Marketing initiatives)
• Pricing and Promotions, marketing and sales channels
• Deadlines and responsibiliites
• Team structure
• Market Conditions

Structure of sales strategy / quarterly sales plan

A structured sales plan provides clarity and guidance in a turbulent environment. Based on over 100 projects, we provide you with a suggested structure to map out specific goals, action items, and target dates for progress.

• What targets will you hit
• Which measures are you taking
• Which (incremental) ressources do you need
• Focus on product A and region B to generate the revenues
• Keep existing product mix
• Product improvements / innovation
• Other departments plans / confirmed actions
• Customer segments, ABC-analysis
• Geographical split
• Market size and penetration today and in future
• Performance based on previous performance (“bottom-up 1”) potentially: variance analysis of actual results vs. plan of previous timeframe
• Performance based on realistic & ambitious estimates from managerial experience (“bottom-up 2”)
• top-down targets from business plan (communicated towards shareholders) (“top-down”)
• Gap analysis between today “bottom-up 1”, “bottom-up 2” and “top-down”
• Decision, which plan (named “ sales plan “) will be basis for next timeframe
• number of resources / seller
• avg. revenue per deal
• ramp-up time per seller
• target achievement per seller
• product / country / margin mix
• Employee churn
• Customer churn
• As needed: “sales plan” breakdown to quarters, months, weeks and days.
• As needed: breakdown “sales plan” to teams and individuals incl. 10-20% buffer for every hierachy level
• Prepare: Development of measures to fill gap to get to “sales plan”

• 3-5 key initiatives to deliver the “sales plan” as outlined above
• Each initiative is linked to 3-7 specific measures linked to metrics and financial outcomes
• employee churn
• customer churn
• Each measure is linked to one person responsible and has a clear timline
• Ideally: every initiative can be measured by specific KPIs (to see if progress is made)
• FTE resources Marketing
• FTE resources Sales
• Budgets (team, budget for marketing, new tools or incentives / SPIFFs)
• IT support for implementation of new sales tools
• Product management for changes to product / services
• Customer Success / Account Management
• Which marketing channels will be used
• Which sales channels will be used
• Overview: which team approaches what type of customers through which channel and which product / service offering
• Planning of all initiatives and tasks for upcoming timeframe incl. responsibilities
• Financial planning sales / P&L in collaboration with controlling department
• Overview of all requirements to other departments / companies and shareholders to achieve the plan
• Outlook for timeframe following the planned timeframe (t+1)

We will achieve an overall goal of 1,3 m€ in net new ARR in Q1/23. For this I need 500 k€ (in budget and headcount, 100 k€ incremental budget required) and the defined support from the organization / shareholders.

Over time, we will link examples of sales plans in this section.

Jens Hutzschenreuter

Jens is a previous B2B Sales leader (Groupon, ryd), ex-Management Consultant with Boston Consulting Group and is now supporting ~50 B2B sales organizations annually in developing systems, structure and processes to scale an organization up to 250 sellers.

Small Business Trends

What is a sales strategy.

A clear and well-defined sales strategy can be the difference between stagnation and growth. But what is a sales strategy, what are its various components, and how can it be the cornerstone of success for small businesses?

Keep reading for the full scoop on how you can create an effective sales process that boots your small business into the stratosphere.

Defining Sales Strategy

For anyone learning how to start a business that revolves around sales, creating a sales strategy should be a huge part of your business plan .

Imagine a game of chess. A sales strategy is much like your game plan – your moves are designed to checkmate your competitor while safeguarding your own pieces.

It is a well-thought-out plan for reaching sales targets in a way that optimizes resources, capitalizes on strengths, and manages weaknesses. Key characteristics include clear objectives, an understanding of the target audience, and a roadmap to achieve those objectives.

The Role of an Effective Sales Strategy in a Small Business

A sales strategy should be part of every business startup checklist . Building a sustainable sales strategy is all about positioning your products or services favorably to your target customers and finding effective ways to communicate your selling points.

Consider, for example, a local bakery that introduced gluten-free items after observing a rising demand. This pivot expanded its customer base and positioned it as a forward-thinking enterprise.

Thus, the power of an effective sales strategy – it can guide businesses to identify and seize opportunities, leading to increased profitability and market share.

Types of Sales Strategies

Small businesses can choose to embrace a variety of sales strategies, but most of them fall into either of two primary categories.

Inbound Sales Strategy

An inbound sales strategy focuses on attracting customers by offering value. Think of it as a magnet pulling customers in through useful content, SEO, and social media marketing.

How does an inbound sales strategy benefit a small business?

• Higher customer trust: Inside sales strategies often involve direct and personalized communication with customers, leading to a deeper understanding of their needs and preferences. For instance, a sales rep using a CRM tool might remember a client’s past purchases and tailor their pitches accordingly, fostering a sense of trust.
• Cost-effective: Unlike field sales which might involve travel, lodging, and other related expenses, inside sales strategies are typically conducted from a centralized location, often over the phone or through online platforms. This reduces overhead costs and allows reps to reach out to more customers in a shorter time. For example, virtual product demos can be presented to clients globally without ever leaving the office.
• Blogging : A tech company writing detailed blogs about the latest industry trends can become a go-to resource for information.
• Webinars : Hosting webinars on niche subjects showcases a brand’s in-depth knowledge, drawing in an audience keen to learn.
• Educational videos : A short video explaining a complex product feature can educate potential customers and highlight the company’s expertise.

Outbound Sales Strategy

An outbound sales strategy is more traditional, where businesses reach out to potential customers. It’s like casting a net – some fish will get caught while others won’t.

Remember the following benefits that can be achieved through outside sales strategies:

• Direct approach: Outside sales strategies often involve face-to-face interactions, which allow salespeople to address any concerns or objections in real time. This directness can lead to a deeper understanding and quicker resolution of potential barriers to sales. For example, at trade shows, sales reps can directly interact with potential clients, showcasing their products and answering questions on the spot.
• Quicker results: Outside sales strategies often yield faster outcomes than passive methods by reaching out to potential clients directly and proactively. Immediate feedback allows for rapid adjustments and immediate next steps. For example, cold calling can result in immediate feedback, be it a rejection, a request for more information, or even a commitment.
• Easy to measure: The success of outside sales tactics can often be quantified easily based on direct metrics such as the number of leads generated, deals closed, or revenue earned from a specific campaign. For example, the response to advertisements can be tracked regarding engagement metrics or direct inquiries, offering clear insight into their effectiveness.

Components of a Successful Sales Strategy Plan

A winning strategy for sales is like a puzzle with multiple pieces fitting seamlessly.

If you’re unsure where to begin, you can start by addressing the following elements.

Identifying Your Target Market

Recognizing and understanding your audience is paramount. It involves grasping their demographics, psychographics, and buying behavior. After all, a product meant for teenagers will be marketed differently than one for senior citizens.

Analyzing the Competition

Businesses can spot gaps, seize opportunities, and sidestep potential pitfalls by observing competitors. For instance, a cafe observing a competitor’s success with vegan options might consider a similar offering.

Building a High-Performance Sales Team

A strong sales strategy requires an even stronger team to execute it. Key attributes include:

• Communication skills: Clearly convey value propositions.
• Adaptability: Adjust to changing market dynamics.
• Product knowledge: Deep understanding of what they’re selling.

Crafting Your Unique Value Proposition

Your value proposition is your signature tune – it tells customers why they should choose you. Whether it’s unmatched quality, innovative features, or exceptional after-sales service, it’s what sets you apart.

Setting Sales Goals

Clear goals act as the North Star, guiding the sales team’s efforts. Whether it’s achieving a 10% sales growth or capturing a new market segment, these goals mold the strategy’s direction.

Designing and Implementing Effective Sales Processes

A streamlined sales process is essential from the initial contact to the final handshake. Steps might include:

• Lead generation: Attracting potential customers.
• Lead nurturing: Developing a relationship with potential buyers.
• Closing the sale: Finalizing the deal.

Choosing the Right Sales Channels

Where you sell can be as crucial as what you sell. An artisanal soap maker might flourish at local farmers’ markets but struggle in big department stores.

Customer Relationship Management

Maintaining strong relationships, post-sale can turn one-time buyers into lifelong customers. Tools like CRM software can help businesses keep track of customer interactions and preferences.

Regular Review and Adjustment

Like a ship’s captain adjusting course based on the winds, businesses must frequently revisit and tweak their sales strategy based on feedback, performance metrics, and market shifts.

Sales Strategy Template: A Practical Example

Imagine “HealthyMunch,” a startup selling organic snacks.

Its sales strategy could involve targeting health-conscious millennials, analyzing competitor offerings like “OrganicBites,” training sales teams skilled in nutrition knowledge, and crafting a value proposition around ‘100% natural ingredients.”

The sales team might set a goal of 500 units sold in the first month, using social media for lead generation and selling via an online store and local gyms. Further, the CRM system ensures follow-ups on every purchase, seeking feedback and offering loyalty discounts.

Creating a Winning Sales Strategy in E-commerce

In the digital age, e-commerce businesses require a specialized approach. Considerations for creating a winning sales strategy for e-commerce might include the following:

• User experience: A seamless, intuitive website.
• Personalization: Tailored recommendations based on browsing behavior.
• Mobile optimization: Ensuring a smooth mobile shopping experience.
• Secure payment gateways: Trustworthy and fast.
• Customer reviews: Leveraging positive feedback as social proof.

FAQs: What is a Sales Strategy?

How do sales leaders contribute to the execution of a great sales strategy.

Sales leaders are the navigators of a sales team, providing not only direction but also inspiration. Their role extends beyond mere oversight. They set clear expectations, establish measurable goals, and continuously monitor team performance. They may even include fun initiatives like sales contest ideas .

By fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation, sales teams ensure that the strategy doesn’t just stay on paper but is actively executed. Their insights into market trends and foresight in identifying opportunities further align the strategy with the broader business objectives.

What role do sales reps play in shaping a good sales strategy?

Sales reps are the foot soldiers in the business battlefield. Their day-to-day interactions with clients offer a treasure trove of insights. These insights, when channeled correctly, can influence and shape a sales strategy profoundly. For instance, your most successful sales reps may emphasize that paying attention is good sales strategy , helping other reps improve their numbers as well.

Their feedback regarding customer preferences, objections faced, and competitive positioning can be invaluable. By constantly communicating their on-ground experiences, sales reps ensure that the strategy remains dynamic, relevant, and responsive to real-world scenarios.

How can a well-defined sales funnel improve a business’s sales strategy?

A well-defined sales funnel is analogous to a roadmap for customer conversion. By outlining each stage of a potential customer’s journey – from awareness to the final purchase decision – it provides a structured approach to sales.

Clarity ensures that resources are allocated effectively, marketing campaigns are targeted accurately, and potential drop-off points are identified. By understanding the nuances of each stage, businesses can refine their one page marketing plan and sales strategies, leading to improved conversion rates and higher sales.

How can a sales process be improved with feedback from sales reps?

Feedback from sales reps acts as a reality check for any sales strategy. Given their direct interaction with customers, reps can highlight what’s working and what’s not. They can shed light on emerging market trends, competitor tactics, and changing customer preferences. Since they are motivated to increase their sales commission , they’ll be likely to share suggestions that can improve your overall sales numbers.

Such feedback can identify gaps in the current strategy, leading to timely adjustments. By integrating these ground-level insights, businesses can ensure their sales strategies remain agile, effective, and aligned with market demands.

Image: Envato Elements

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