Creating a Powerful Sales Plan

Field salespeople have a unique aspect to their jobs--they have the ability to decide what to do every moment of every day. The need to make this decision--where to go, who to see, who to call, what to do--distinguishes the sales profession from most others.

I've often thought that the

quality of this decision, more than any other single thing, dictates the quality of the salesperson's results. Consistently make effective decisions, and your results will improve. Make thoughtless, habitual or reactive decisions, and your results will be sub-par.

One of the ways to ensure that you make good decisions about your selling time is to create a comprehensive sales plan.

What's a sales plan? A written, thoughtful set of decisions about the most effective things you can do. A sales plan should be the result of some good thinking, wherein you analyze and prioritize a number of different aspects of your job.

A good sales plan addresses different time durations and different aspects of your job.

Part of it, for example, should be done on an annual, once-a-year basis. The sales plan begins with a specifying of a series of annual sales goals. What, specifically, do you want to accomplish this year in your job? I recommend no more than five specific sales goals. Typically, one of these goals describes the total volume of sales dollars you want to create; another may describe the number of new customers you want to acquire; yet another may relate to the number of high potential customers with whom you want to increase your business. Regardless of what your goals are, an annual, written, specific set of goals is the beginning of a sales plan.

At the same time, it's wise to give some thought, and to express that thought on paper, as to your basic strategy to accomplish those goals. If you are going to acquire 20 new customers, for example, exactly what are you going to do in order to accomplish that annual goal?

This annual exercise is the first part of a good sales plan.

Next, you should develop a more detailed plan every month. Produce a one or two page document which contains your specific commitments to the most effective actions. Once again, you are required to analyze and prioritize your efforts in regards to a number of issues.

First, your monthly objectives: What do you want to accomplish relative to the annual goals that you set? If you said you wanted to sell $2,000,000 worth of your goods this year, how much do you have to sell this month? Each of your annual goals should have a monthly component.