Ready Sales Plan Template: How to prepare and implement a sales plan
Most people are familiar with a marketing plan, which is a document that describes how you intend to attract quality leads and convert them into customers. The sales plan differs from the marketing plan in that it provides a road map and procedural steps for achieving sales goals.
A sales plan is a document that describes your goals and outlines the strategies and tactics you will implement to achieve those goals.
You will learn how to prepare your own sales plan using this guide (+ downloadable sales plan template):
1. Determine the strategies for achieving targeted sales.
Every salesperson has a sales goal that he is expected to achieve. Creating a sales plan helps define the strategies and tactics that will be used to achieve and exceed the goal:
Start your plan by setting a sales goal—weekly, monthly, annually, or otherwise—and then outline several overarching strategies you’ll use to achieve it.
Strategies to improve sales might include increasing community awareness of your product or brand, getting more referrals from existing customers, or adding weekly “cold calls” to potential customers.
2. Define your tactics to increase sales volume.
If the strategies you define are general clauses and lines, the tactics you describe are the specific actions you will take to make sales.
For example, if one of your strategies is to increase product awareness, your tactic might include attending or organizing at least a number of events per month/quarter/year.
If one of the tactics is to boost your social media presence, you should provide specific details. For example, how many average posts do you intend to make per day on social media?
3. Determine how you will remain relevant to existing customers.
For many salespeople, holding on to existing customers is just as vital as attracting new ones. Here again, you have to lay out some of the main strategies that you will use, and then add some specific tactics that you will use.
One strategy, for example, is to increase your chances of interacting at least monthly with each of your existing clients.
If this is the case, your tactics might include calling once a month with a relevant idea or tip, or setting up an interactive newsletter.
4. Determine how you will increase the sales of your existing customers.
Obviously, you want to keep your existing sales with existing customers at least. But even better than that is to succeed in increasing the volume of your sales with existing customers first. Of course this should be in conjunction with your strategy of expanding your customer base.
In fact your strategies could be listed here as “Increasing sales within my existing client base” and “Identifying new clients with my existing client base.”
Your tactic here could include including promotional materials with every delivery of goods or services.
5. The stage of preparing the sales plan.
Sales plans should be short, and generally shorter than sales business plans. One page is ideal. It is advisable to use clear and concise titles.
Simple and direct is the key. You want something, that your boss or someone else who wants to research can quickly look it up and understand. Think of it as something you could (and might actually want to) post on a bulletin board.
Simple and straightforward plans are easy to revise as times and circumstances change. You should really review and review your individual sales plan regularly.
Consider the following example of four possible headings for a short sales plan. Each section includes three to five strategic or tactical examples:
1. Strategies for attracting new clients
2. Tactics to attract new customers
3. Existing customer retention strategies
4. Existing customer retention tactics
6. A ready-made sales plan template
The above items represent a concise and practical sales plan template. Fill in each section as a starting point for creating your template.
Your sales line templates are ready
If you’re having trouble setting up your sales plan from scratch, try any of these templates:
- One page sales plan
- Advanced sales plan