How to make a sales plan?

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Any organization involved in the sale of goods and services, first of all, seeks to increase the volume of sales. For this reason, the sales plan is considered the main document. This document is not an imaginary document containing data that the manager has arranged in a table based on his desires and preferences. This document is considered very important in the organization, it is able to balance the planned and actual income from the sale of goods and services. Such indicators are compiled individually for each staff member or for the entire department.

Many managers make a number of gross shortcomings when drawing up a sales plan. The most common mistake is setting indicators that none of the employees can cope with, even with a great desire. This puts pressure on employees and causes tension in the team.

Other entrepreneurs tend to believe that draftinga sales plan is a waste of a manager's time. They simply entrust this business to their employees, who, in the process of work, decide on their own how much sales they should make. There are managers who initially recruit employees in the sales department incorrectly, and this leads to disastrous consequences.

Such approaches have a negative impact on the activities of the organization. An individual sales plan must be developed for each individual employee. It doesn't have to be just numbers. The leader should first of all focus on the abilities of his staff, on work experience. If a new person is hired in the state, then the indicators for him should be lower. At first, he must get comfortable, understand the essence of the work, and only after that it is possible to gradually increase the performance.

When compiling indicators, all organizations should pursue certain goals and objectives that are set in the course of work:

• Systematize everyone's work day. Regardless of the functions performed, the employee has a clear idea of what is expected of him at the end of the month. In such cases, he himself develops a work schedule for himself throughout the working day. Also, everyone knows what threatens him if the plan is not fulfilled, which can discipline.
• Motivation. Each specialist knows his plan, which is issued for a certain period. Such data motivates for performance and results, since everyone knows that the implementation of the plan entails a bonus. ithelps to keep you interested. A specific goal and aspiration helps to work better.
• Business development is possible only when each employee adheres to his individual plan and fulfills it. From this, the organization receives the desired profit, which allows it to grow and develop.

All staff should be aware, looking at the plan, that they can do it, that they will be able to do it and ultimately receive encouragement. It is also worth considering the fact that the organization will not be able to conduct its activities fully and successfully without the competent development of such a document.

Requirements for sales team

Being a sales manager is a very responsible job. After all, the level of profit and the image of the organization is completely affected by the efficiency of the sellers. It is quite difficult to fulfill a quality sales plan.

It is problematic to find a good team at the initial level, it needs to be constantly trained, and most importantly, motivated to achieve results.

Each firm plans to develop a sales department. Not a single well-implemented advertising campaign can help to make a profit and develop. It all depends on the employees and their work.

Developing a plan for the sales department allows you to solve the following tasks:

• increase sales;
• get more profit;
• increase efficiency;
• motivate employees to attract big customers.

Small companies are not affected by the lack of a plan. ATIn most cases, employees perform the work of several specialists, and the effectiveness of the work done is evaluated by the head of the business.

Large enterprises are developing a database, which helps to increase regular customers. In this case, it is possible to make a profit by reissuing old contracts.

Fulfillment of the plan

Performed sales plans are different. Tasks are objective and unrealistic. Approximately 90% of employees believe that their plans are too high, and at the same time do not ask questions about how to fulfill it. The rest of the managers perform the tasks assigned to them. This is what a low bar says, or it is set in such a way that it does not require much effort to complete.

To fulfill the sales plan, each employee must answer a series of questions:

1. What guided the leader when drawing up the plan? The first step is to understand how the boss sees the performance of duties. If an algorithm of all actions and the tools necessary for this were prepared in advance, then you need to try out the method. If after this the result is not achieved, then you can ask the manager for help and clarify what you did wrong.
2. What to do to find clients? Cold calling is about performance. If you make up to 50 calls daily, you may not fulfill the established plan. At the same time, calls need to be increased. In the event that the plan is fulfilled, in no case should you stop lookingpotential customers.
3. Where to look for clients? Finding a client is the most important moment when working as a manager. Clients that are almost impossible to reach are the most profitable ones. This item is the most difficult, especially if the organization is selling business plans. You don't have to stop at rejection. After all, this is the beginning of a dialogue. You always need to know that many people give up at the first refusal, so you need to make every effort and make an agreement out of the refusal.
4. Make calls to customers who have refused. This will help you not lose your cold calling skills. As practice shows, when you call again, you can get the consent of the client.
5. Increase the cost. If you have regular customers, you should try to offer them other services at a higher cost. Many clients do not know the list of services that organizations provide, some do not have an idea that it will be useful to them.
6. Don't give up. Even if the client refused, you need to continue the dialogue.

Planning

Let's start with the fact that this item is extremely important to achieve the goal. To draw up a sales plan for products, you need to approach, taking into account the performance of competitors. It should be borne in mind that it is extremely difficult to fulfill the plan 100%. This is due to accidents and unforeseen circumstances that are possible in the conduct of activities. For a competent and clear plan, you need to consider the following data:

• Assess the political situation in the country - this will allow us to make a forecast of the expected changes. Notit will be superfluous to study economic indicators. All of this will help in the preparation of the annual plan.
• Make an analogue of the market situation. In this case, we study the demand for goods sold in the same category as yours, competition. It will not be superfluous to pay attention to the plan of the previous year and how it was carried out.
• Department data for the previous year. Be sure to keep a record of all transactions carried out over the past few years. It will not hurt to draw up a graph of indicators by year and month, as well as the average sales volume.
• Take seasonality into account. It is necessary to take into account at what time there was a decrease in demand for goods and services. A decrease in profits may be due to the dismissal of an employee, a crisis, or seasonality. This is especially true if the organization sells business plans.
• Specialist sales report. This helps to analyze the work of the department and find out the average for each specialist and the entire department.
• Profit from loyal customers. You need to find out the frequency of contracts concluded with them and the goods that are popular with them.
• Number of attracted clients. For each new customer, the cost of the average check should be calculated.
• Discuss planned sales volume with staff. A completed sales plan is a sample of the results of work, which is discussed at a meeting with employees. It shows achieved goals and identifies possible shortcomings.

If the plans include an increase in indicators, unlike the previous ones, then you need to think about changing the scale of work. Needtake into account that opportunities do not depend on production, but on demand.

Varieties of planning

At the heart of any sales plan for the month is the fact that the company sets itself limits on minimum and maximum sales. For start-up organizations, the most important thing is to sell the minimum value that will allow you not to work in the red, but to reach at least zero. There are several types of planning:

1. Promising. The longest plan that makes coverage for the next 10 years.
2. Current. Developed for 1 year. Adjusted periodically.
3. Operational. Developed for a short period of time. Mostly for 1 month.

The choice of planning depends on the entrepreneur's plans and preferences.

Problems with the implementation of the plan

In most cases, failure to meet the sales plan depends on motivation. To do this, you need to consider some rules:

• When drawing up a plan, the manager does not take into account the needs of employees.
• There are times when motivation is floating, constantly ceasing - this is unable to interest the staff in productive work.
• Motivation should be simple and clear. It should be clear not only to the entrepreneur, but also to subordinates.
• To achieve the set goals, the manager must not go out of his way to achieve results. The plan must be accessible and executable.
• In cases where income depends on sales volume, you must be able to correctlymotivate.

There are a number of additional reasons:

• the most requested product is out of stock, and there are difficulties with its purchase;
• on sale there is something that is not popular with consumers;
• staff are not properly qualified;
• the organization's warehouse is completely out of stock;
• the item on sale has no price;
• the product being sold is unfamiliar to the buyer - this is due to the lack of advertising;
• The stated price does not match the quality;
• displayed price is much higher than competitors;
• Product is incorrectly placed on store shelves.

In order to increase the flow of buyers, you will need to attract advertising, but it will require a significant amount of money to spend on it. The most popular option is the Internet, outdoor advertising, television. The development of a sales plan must be approached responsibly and take into account all the nuances that may affect it.

Sales volumes

There are several steps to consider when planning your sales volume.

1 stage. Determine how quickly the organization will return the funds invested in business development and start earning on sales. Breakeven analysis is used for this:

• Fixed expenses. Regardless of activities and revenues, every organization has fixed costs. However, they only increase with sales growth.
• To determine the breakeven point, you need to build a chart anddraw two lines. One reflects fixed costs, and the second variable. The third line will display the amount of profit received. In the event that all three lines converge at one point, the organization is break even.

2 stage. At this stage, the volume of sales is determined. To calculate it, take into account:

• market saturation with a similar product;
• requirement level;
• average cost per item sold;
• number of potential consumers;
• carrying out an advertising campaign, and how effective it is.

Market situations tend to change constantly, so the manager must constantly motivate staff to increase sales.

Sales development

Many tend to assume that the sales development plan is the most important thing in a business. But it is not so. In those cases where the sales system is compiled correctly and at the same time functions effectively, the development of the sales plan occurs automatically. So it affects the sales department:

• commodity properties are improving;
• manager gets proper training;
• improving business processes;
• employees start to work better to attract customers.

Many tend to ask the question - what to do to develop the organization. This question can only be answered for sure after the sales funnel has been studied. When a small number of customers are added to the database, then you need to work on attracting. There are times when sales are lame fromproblems with the service or due to the slow work of employees. Then you need to improve your workflow.

You can plan to increase sales when everything else is running smoothly. Initially, you need to pay attention to the performance of employees. Only after that move on to increase sales.

Why do I need a sales plan?

It's safe to say that every person involved in business at least once asked this question. At the moment, there are disputes as to why to use planning.

• Why do sales managers need a plan? Let everyone sell the maximum amount.
• Making a plan is problematic without proper statistics.
• This increases employee stress. Since motivation increases the amount of work, and the approved plan can be unnerving.

But you need to consider that the plan must be set real, which can be carried out. When drawing up a plan, the following data should be taken into account:

• based on past months;
• analyze the performance of each employee individually;
• take into account the competitive environment;
• focus on the needs of the enterprise.

Do not forget that each of the above methods is not perfect.

Past performance can be significantly underestimated, which makes it easy for employees to meet them. Therefore, the manager will remain in the dark that there is an opportunity to sell much more.

He alth analysis can be subjective. For example, the best employee in an organization may be the worst employee in the competition. In each working group, there is a presence of strong and weak workers. The work is entirely dependent on the group.

Searching for information about competitors is quite difficult, and it may not be suitable for a particular activity. The best way to find information is to invite former or current employees for an interview. This will help you find out all the information you need.

Planning the number of employees

When developing a sales plan for a year or more, you need to consider the number of department employees. There is nothing difficult in this matter, the main thing is to take into account the capabilities and scale of the organization. To do this, you can build several options for doing business, which use a different volume of goods / services sold. This will help determine the desired sales volume and the number of employees that will be required to implement the plan. It is necessary to take into account only one point - the increase in sales should occur smoothly, without sudden jumps. Such jerks can have an impact on the activities of the entire enterprise.

Proper formulation of goals

"If people don't laugh at your goals, then your goals are too small," said Azim Premji, an Indian businessman and philanthropist.

Before you make a sales plan, you need to clearly articulate and set goals. For example, when developing a plan, you need to set a goal to increasecurrent sales figures by 20%. No need to set yourself the task of getting as much profit as possible.

Every goal should be measured. It doesn't matter what. It can be a percentage or a monetary value. This will allow you to evaluate the result.

Achieving the goal is possible with the availability of resources. For example, if a store sells goods for 15 thousand rubles a month, then you don’t need to try to get 150 next month. Not only the employee, but also the manager should understand their capabilities.

Everything should be tied to a specific date on which the entrepreneur wants to see the result of the plan he developed.

Having a properly drawn up plan of goals and a planned list of the number of employees, you notice a strong increase in overall productivity, as well as an increase in the efficiency of each employee individually. Particular attention should be paid to communication both between employees themselves and communication between superiors and their colleagues.

In conclusion, it should be said that the implemented sales plan is an example of well-coordinated and efficient work of the entire team. They should never be neglected. It is also worth considering the fact that sometimes it is not possible to fulfill the sales plan, and both subordinates and superiors, that is, the entire team as a whole, can be to blame for this.