Last updated on December 28th, 2018 at 09:45 am
Business Marketing Planning : 8 Steps Tips for Making a Sales Plan for selling products
Sales Ideas for small business owners
In this case, the company’s activities will be based on a vision of direction in which the organization will move. The second important caveat is the corresponding budget planning according to the general plan of sales.
The sales plan should be formulated according to competitors activities, forecasts of market dynamics and the pace of company’s development. Top 10 social media sites for small businesses.
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Guide for Making a Sales Plan for Business Marketing |
How to make a sales plan?- 8 Steps guide for Beginners
Step №1: (Analyse and asses the market changes )
Analyze the macroeconomic and political trends. Development of the sales plan for the next year is recommended to start in late October – in early November. First of all, you should assess the current political situation and try to predict possible changes.
At the same time the analysis of a number of economic indicators is carried out. It can include oil prices, GDP
levels, construction activity, industrial production, net exports, growth of investment in fixed assets.
Step №2: (Market Assessment and comparison )
Analyze the situation on the market. Do you expect a decline in demand for the products of your company? Maybe the number of competitors increased? Was it easy to meet the planned sales in the past year?
By comparing the actual performance and forecasts, it is possible in the future to judge the attainability of the desired result, which will meet your expectations and requirements of the shareholders.
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Step №3: ( Learn the Trends from available Statistics )
Consider the sales of the previous years. You should analyse all the sales statistics for the past years. The more complete sales statistics greatly simplifies the preparation of the forecast. You should draw a graph with the reflection of all the results by months and years.
This information can be transformed into the average sales for each month which can be the basics for your new plan.
Step №4: ( Calculate Seasonality factors )
Is there seasonality in your business? Take a clear look at the sales decrease in previous periods. Was it due to the crisis or dismissal of employees? Or just because you have some seasonality factors?
If you have those factors, you will need to add or subtract the appropriate interest from the period’s plan. You can find this appropriate interest only by analyzing data from previous years.
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Step №5: ( Analyse records for Sales managers and marketing Teams)
Make personal records for each sales manager. For each employee the characteristics should be identified. Here you need to specify the number of meetings, cold calls. Using this numbers you will be able to analyze the productivity of each team member.
After that make the average for the entire department. It is better to be guided by the averages to plan future sales activities.
Step №6: (Make Forecasts for new contacts and customers )
Make a forecast number of customers that you will be able to attract. Also the value of the first purchase for new customers should be calculated. It is necessary to plan the number of new contacts that can be enclosed.
Divide the number of manager’s contacts with customers by the number of working days and calculate the total number of meetings, which can realistically be accomplished by a manager.
Based on these statistics a rough plan of the sales of goods and services to new customers will be compiled.
While drawing up a personal plan for the sales manager take into account his interest in the result, personal qualities and other factors.
Step №7: (Goal Setting )
Set a goal! Analysis of the data is obligatory basis for setting realistic goals. For example, according to an analysis of last year’s situation, we can see that there are chances of increase in sales in the current year, about 25%.
Consequently, the sales plan will take into account these prospects. Also we recommend to set some big goal, which is impossible to achieve. Setting this goal will give some extra motivation and strength to achieve the main, real target.
Step №8: (Discussing with the staff and drawing conclusions )
Discuss the final plan with the sales staff. After drawing up the sales plan you can discuss it with employees. Perhaps subordinates can add something. Set the required deadlines. The result must be divided by weeks. Then staff will be able to make the necessary changes in their work, if something went wrong previously.
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