business plan example sales rep

The Best Free Business Plan Template For Individual Sales Reps

Published: August 14, 2023

Working in sales is challenging at times, and after a while, you may begin to feel fatigued or experience low motivation. Drafting a strategy using a sales business plan template can be just the thing to help refocus your goals.

As a sales rep or account executive , a business plan requires you to think about your efforts from a high level. Who are you targeting? What are your performance goals? How do you plan to achieve them? Not only will a high-level view of your audience and goals help you meet and exceed them, but it might even help you climb the sales career ladder .

Next, I'll share the key elements of a sales business plan as well as provide templates to help get you started.

Sales Business Plan Layout

Free business plan template, the sales plan.

• Individual Business Plan Examples
• High-Level Review
• Tactics and Actions
• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• Sales and Marketing Alignment
• Obstacles to Success
• Personal and Professional Development

Fill out this form to access your template.

Before writing your plan, doing a bit of work prior to getting started with a template will help you better organize the information you'll need to include. Here's a roadmap to help you brainstorm:

The essential document for starting a business -- custom built for your needs.

• Outline your idea.
• Pitch to investors.
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I’ve found it easiest to start with the end in mind and work backward from there. Naturally, your goals will include your company’s expectations (i.e., quota), but why not go even further?

Be more specific. What do you want to achieve?

A promotion? A certain level of income? A certain number of conversions per month? X number of new clients acquired over the year? How about increasing your average deal size? Whatever it is, put it down in writing and build a plan to get yourself there.

It’s powerful to write down our goals. One year, I decided to write five goals on the whiteboard in my office. At year-end, I had hit four of them, including finally buying the classic car I have had my eye on for 30 years.

2. High-Level Review

Got your goals on hand? Great. Now take a few minutes to ponder the strategies you pursued previously. Which ones worked well and made sense to incorporate again this year? And which didn’t work at all and either need to be adjusted or scrapped altogether?

This review will be your guidepost as you create a strategy and action plan. Be honest with yourself during this reflection. Consider asking for feedback from managers, peers, and clients. You might even seek feedback from prospects who didn’t end up buying from you. What can you do better? Was there anything about your sales tactics that put them off ? Why did they choose a competitor over you?

If this all sounds vague, take a numbers approach to this review. Instead of reviewing your sales strategies , review how your numbers fared throughout the year — revenue generated, number of meetings, number of proposals, number of demos, close rate, and so on. (Your review will be even more telling and powerful if you combine that qualitative review with a quantitative one.)

3. A Strategy

Once you have articulated what you want to achieve, here are the next logical questions to ask:

• How will you do better to reach your goals?
• What new markets will you approach?
• Which customers and prospects will you target?
• How will you frame the sales conversation or sharpen your sales story?
• What new things will you try on the phone, online, or face-to-face?

See that review that we did in that last step? This is where it’ll come in handy. Having a clear idea of what worked and what didn’t will tell you what you should keep or remove from your new strategy. For example, if last year you sent follow-up emails three days after a demo, you could try sending follow-up emails two days this time. This is one of the tactics you could use.

That brings me to my next point. After creating a strategy, it’s time to come up with some tactics and take action.

4. Tactics and Actions

This section is critical because sales is a verb (it may not be in the dictionary, but in my book, it is).

The most well-intentioned goals and the soundest strategies mean nothing if you don’t know what steps to take to achieve them. So for this section of your plan, ask yourself, "What activities am I going to commit to?"

For example, you’ll have X number of face-to-face conversations per month or make Y prospecting calls per week. Whatever the activities are, they should drive what ends up on your calendar on a daily or weekly basis.

Let's say your goal is to make more sales in a shorter time. Include the resources and tools you'll use to achieve that goal in your business plan. In this case, one option would be to use a CRM database to help you keep track of your prospects and eliminate manual data entry (e.g., logging emails and calls), ultimately increasing your efficiency.

5. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Action is action, but if there’s no way to measure its success, you won’t know what worked and what didn’t. You’ll therefore want to put metrics in place to monitor your progress. I recommend setting target numbers for the following KPIs:

• Raw number of deals closed
• Close ratio
• Revenue per account
• Customer retention rate
• Calls and emails
• Quotes or proposals

Remember, set a target number for each of these metrics. That way, you have something to reach toward. You can manually keep track of this information or use dedicated sales software . Or you can ask your manager to give you the performance data.

6. Sales and Marketing Alignment

You know what you want to do, how you’re going to do it, and which metrics you want to track. As you carry out your strategy, be sure to align your efforts with the efforts of your company’s marketing team.

Aligning your sales plan with a whole other department may sound over-the-top, but hear me out: sales teams depend on marketing teams to deliver leads. Even when you’re prospecting, marketing has likely identified the types of companies — and the best job titles — you should use for outreach.

When those leads get to your desk, it’s time to sell to them in a way that continues the nurturing process that marketing started. Say the lead was acquired when they downloaded an ebook on how to improve their productivity. When that lead gets assigned to you, propose your company’s product as a solution. Don’t try to sell it as if you don’t know the person and why they’re there.

It’s helpful to have a CRM that keeps track of your leads’ marketing-related activity. That way, you know which pages they’ve visited, what they’ve downloaded, and whether they’ve reached out to your company before. When carrying out your sales strategy, do so in a way that can fulfill the promises extended by marketing. Take a look at the content on your website, your company’s slogan, and your buyer personas . Use this information to create the perfect pitch.

After, connect with the marketing team to let them know whether that was a good lead or whether the buyer personas and the content on the website need adjustment. If your team does not meet regularly with marketing, bring the issue to your manager. Marketing and sales alignment is critical for your plan’s success.

But there are other obstacles to look out for, too — and you must have them.

7. Obstacles to Success

This is a unique addition I haven’t seen in many plans, but I think it’s an important component. This is where you lay out what could prevent you from reaching your goals and highlight areas where you might need some help. The truth is that you likely know what will get in the way of your success. So instead of using these obstacles as excuses later, point them out at the beginning.

Think carefully: What obstacles will keep you from succeeding?

Do you need new tools or different technology? More flexibility? Better internal support? Put it down in writing now. That way, when you present your plan to your manager (and I strongly encourage you to present your plan to your manager and maybe even a few peers), you give them a chance to support you.

They can either remove the obstacle or tell you it can't be removed in the short term. Either way, it’s in your best interest to declare these potential pitfalls now so that they’re not excuses down the road.

8. Personal and Professional Development

This is another important aspect of the business plan that's often overlooked. I regularly see salespeople fail because they’ve stopped learning and growing.

Many have become stale. Others are bored and ineffective from deploying the same techniques year after year. You wouldn’t go to a doctor that didn’t read medical journals and was treating patients with the same protocol he used twenty years ago, would you?

So commit to growing as a sales professional this year. What are you going to do to grow in your career?

What conferences are you going to attend? Which books are you going to read? Which sales blogs will you follow?

Now, once you have the layout for your sales business plan solidified, you must do two things:

• Get it down on paper - You’re more likely to achieve goals if you write them down. Just trust me on that.
• Get more specific - Using an actual business plan template can prompt you to think deeper about your motivation and action plan.

Below is a free business plan template you can use to get started.

Start building your business plan with this free template.

Featured Resource: Free Business Plan Template

Click Here to Download the Template

Your goal is to think like a business. I’ll teach you how to adapt each section of this general business plan to fit your role as a sales representative.

Business Plan Sections Explained

1. the business opportunity.

The business opportunity is an overview of why you’re doing what you’re doing, who you’re doing it for, and what you hope to achieve. Include your mission statement as a sales representative and why you’re working with the leads and accounts you chose.

In a typical business plan, this section is called an executive summary and highlights the most crucial information for readers. This means you can get creative and inspirational with it, summarizing the information that will motivate you most.

2. Company Description

The company description can refer to the organization(s) you sell for, or you can consider yourself the business being described. Because this is a personal document, choose the format that will most benefit you.

Keep in mind that there are a few elements to include in this section:

3. Company Purpose

This is a short description of the business, providing a high-level overview of who they are, what they offer, and who they offer it to. You might consider creating multiple purposes if you sell on behalf of more than one organization or outlining your purpose as a salesperson.

4. Mission Statement

A mission statement is a formal summary of the aims and values of an organization. If you’re making multiple company descriptions, include one for each organization. You can also include a personal mission statement for why you’ve chosen this organization and how you plan to support their success.

For example, say I’m a sales rep for an editorial company. My mission statement might be “to reach out to writers suffering from imposter syndrome and encourage them to consider editorial help so they can publish with confidence … and inspire future writers who dream of doing the same.”

5. Core Values

Use the core values for the organization(s) you work for, why you chose them, and how they will manifest in your interactions with prospects. For example, HubSpot’s values are humility, empathy, adaptability, remarkableness, and transparency.

If your organization doesn’t have clear core values defined, feel free to come up with your own that will serve as your modus operandi. Three to five values are what you want to have.

6. Product & Service Lines

This section will include:

• Product or service offerings - What are the lines you’re trying to sell, and what functionality does each have?
• Pricing model - How much does each product or service cost prospects, how much commission do you make for each sale, and what parameters do you have for discounts or special deals?

Outline this information in an easy-to-scan table.

In a typical business plan, this would manifest as an overview of the company and all the key leadership roles. However, the most relevant information could be key contacts at your company or companies you sell to, including your sales and marketing contacts (if applicable). If you’re filling out the template to create your sales plan, you’d simply include yourself.

8. Industry Analysis

In this section, you’ll take a look at the state of the industry, including your company’s competitors and your prospect’s competitors. You’ll ask:

• Is the market in growth or decline?
• Who are your competitors?
• What edge do they have over your product?
• How can you get your prospects to buy into the product you’re selling instead?

Your sales manager might already have answers for you or relay new information as it becomes available.

If you’re filling out a business plan to understand your prospects, you’ll want to answer similar questions:

• Who are their competitors?
• What challenges are they looking to solve?
• Is their industry in decline, and if so, can your product help them grow during this decline?

9. Target Market

This will manifest in your business plan as an overview or outline of whom you’re targeting, including general demographics and psychographics. You might want to include:

• Business title
• Location and language
• Pains or problems they're looking to solve

Consider consolidating this information and creating dedicated buyer personas .

10. Buyer Personas

Buyer personas are fictional representations of individuals within your target market. The best practice is to create a buyer persona for each “type” of customer you serve. You can do so using HubSpot’s Make My Persona tool and exporting the information into your business plan.

If you’re filling out the template for a prospect, come up with a buyer persona for the target audience they serve.

11. Location Analysis

Where is the geographic location of your target market? Explain why you’ve chosen the location and the benefits of it. Do the same for your prospects and customers if you’re using the template for them.

Here’s a template you can use:

[Organization name] serves [Location] because [reason]. We found that one of the key drivers of a successful acquisition is [key element], which means our target buyers tend to be in [more specific location descriptor]. We plan to tap into this market by [method].

This might manifest as something like:

“Editorial Company serves authors throughout the United States because editorial work can be done online with virtual meetings and file sharing. We found that one of the key drivers of a successful acquisition is participation in online writing groups, which means our target buyers tend to be active in social media circles. We plan to tap into this market with inbound marketing.”

12. Implementation Timeline

In this section, a business typically specifies how long it will take for its operation to be up and running. They take logistics, partnerships, and other operational elements into account. For your sales plan, you might specify an implementation timeline for various checkpoints, including software adoption, sales-marketing meetings, and more.

Say you told your sales manager you need sales software to keep track of the KPIs you identified earlier. You should take into account the time it will take for that CRM to be purchased and distributed to your team.

If you’re filling out the template to understand a prospect, consider laying out a timeline that specifies when they’ll buy the product, when you’re to follow up with them, and so on.

13. Marketing Plan

If your organization is an inbound sales organization with a marketing department, you might include your marketing and sales service-level agreement (SLA) in this section.

On the other hand, if you’re responsible for cold outreach and prospecting, this section might be helpful to complete on your own. The elements you’ll need to consider are:

Positioning Strategy

• How is this product or service unique and unbeatable compared to its competitors?
• Why are potential buyers going to be interested in the product or service?
• How will you address the buyer persona’s biggest challenges and goals?

Acquisition Channels

• What are your main lead acquisition channels (e.g., search engine marketing, event marketing, blogging, paid advertising, etc.)?
• What do you plan to prioritize this year for lead acquisition?

Tools and Technology

• What tools or systems are you equipped with (e.g., CMS , marketing automation software , etc.)?

14. Financial Considerations and Funding Required

This section is likely more suited for sales reps who are commission-only. You’ll want to consider how much financial collateral will be your responsibility as you sell for the organization. You’ll want to outline:

• Startup costs
• Sales forecasts
• When you'll break even
• Profit and loss projections

These things can be estimated and calculated in Excel and then imported into the template. There’s also a section on the funding required, but you won’t need to fill it out as an individual sales representative. And since your prospects have already secured funding or are established firms, you won’t need to fill this out to understand their business.

Now, finally, we’ve reached the sales plan. This will be done in a separate worksheet — a Google Doc or Word document that you can continue to edit as you evolve in your sales role. You will likely be able to draw on your experience to outline the following:

Sales Methodology

• How will you reach and engage with new leads?
• Are you pursuing an inbound or outbound sales strategy?
• Why does your prospecting strategy make sense for your business?

Sales Organization Structure

• Who do you report to within the organization?
• Is there a marketing department and existing SLA between the departments?
• How are leads qualified?

Sales Channels

• What are your main customer acquisition channels (e.g., online purchasing, through a rep, on location, via email, etc.)?
• What tools or systems are you equipped with (e.g., CMS, live chat , etc.)?

We've covered the different parts of a sales reps' business plan, but what does one of these plans actually look like? Here are five amazing examples of individual business plans for sales reps.

Individual Business Plan Examples for Sales Reps

1. individual development plan.

Image Source

An individual development plan (IDP) is a document that you would make to identify your goals and objectives to your employer. After identifying your goals, ensure that your objectives follow the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goal framework. Lastly, for each action, assign a target date. While it does not need to be a specific day of the year, set your timeline by quarters of the year — as seen in the above example.

In addition to the long-term and short-term goals that the above example from Simplicable demonstrates, the resources required section is another useful component of the individual development plan. It directly informs your employer that you require support to achieve the goals and objectives that will ultimately benefit the entire company.

2. Medical Sales Business Plan

Automotive sales business plans are slightly more challenging than other business plans because there are a lot of factors to consider. When building your plan, you need to start with an analysis. It includes an analysis of your company, industry, customers, and competitors.

Once you have included in-depth analysis, focus on demonstrating your ideas with the four Ps of marketing . The four Ps of marketing are product, price, place, and promotion.

First, outline your focus products. Second, discuss price. You can include current pricing and any proposed changes. Further analysis would include how these prices stack up against competitors and how they affect your customers.

Third, concentrate on your location. This information should detail how your location either adds or decreases traffic and propose solutions for the latter. Lastly, recommend promotions. In the automotive industry, customers are always looking for the best deal.

You also have to be very visible with your marketing. Possibly one of the most important sections of your automotive sales business template, include a detailed course of action for promotional ideas and plans.

4. Territory Business Plan

A territory business plan should cover your sales territory. Historically, sales territory is the division of geographical regions for assignments to sales representatives. These representatives are responsible for all customers or clients within that area. This template from Slide Team is for convenience stores, but it can be adapted to suit your business type.

Now, industry, sales potential, and customer type affect territory business planning. An example of customer type is focusing your territory planning on individuals with the same median income. Instead of using geography, this alternative can lead to more strategic success.

When creating a territory business plan, you want to start by analyzing your business goals and objectives. As you build your plan, include an analysis of your prospects and a SWOT analysis . It’s a planning technique that identifies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This information will allow you to propose strategies for sales territories and devise an action plan.

5. Quarterly Business Plan

Creating a business plan for an entire year can be too complex. By separating the year into quarters, you can make your business strategy more actionable. Quarterly business planning is when you set goals and objectives and measure performance after each quarter. Typically, the year segments into Quarter 1 (January 1 to March 31), Quarter 2 (April 1 to June 30), Quarter 3 (July 1 to September 30), and Quarter 4 (October 1 to December 31).

Quarterly business planning focuses on short-term goals that ultimately help fulfill any long-term goals. Your quarterly business plan should include your focus areas, metrics for determining success, and your action plan.

Crush Your Sales Goals with a Business and Sales Plan

With the plan I’ve shared, you'll be prepared to take on any goal or challenge in your career. Consider it a gift to yourself that keeps on giving. Use your plan like a living document, review it weekly, and make tweaks as necessary along the way. Let it dictate what makes it onto your calendar. At year-end, you will be amazed at what you accomplished and thankful you invested the time to do this now.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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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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6 Steps to Create a Successful Sales Business Plan

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How to Create a Sales Plan: Strategy, Examples and Templates

By Aditya Rana , Mar 25, 2024

The difference between a company struggling to drive sales and one that’s hitting home runs often boils down to a well-crafted sales plan.

Without knowing how to write a sales plan , your sales reps will lack vision, not understand the market, and be ineffective at engaging potential customers.

Most businesses fail in sales planning because they don’t focus on their unique value. If you’re struggling with sales, here’s what you need to do: define your goal(s), create customer personas, and create an action plan for success.

One of the best ways to organize this information in one place is to use sales planning templates . In this post, I’ll show you how to write a sales plan (…with plenty of template examples included of course!).

Click to jump ahead:

What is a sales plan?

Benefits of a sales plan, how to create a sales plan, sales plan example, sales plan templates.

A sales plan is a strategic document that outlines how a business plans to convert leads into sales. It typically details the target market, customer profile, and actionable steps that must be taken to achieve revenue targets.

Here’s a great example of a sales plan that includes all these elements neatly packed into one document.

Every company needs a sales plan, but have you ever wondered why?

Why should businesses invest time and resources in creating sales plan when they could…well…be focusing on sales?

Sales plans are worth it because they tell sales employees what to do.

Without a sales plan, your sales efforts will end up becoming a disorganized mess. Let’s explore the benefits of sales plans in detail.

Help you identify and target the right market

A sales plan helps you figure out the target market that’s most likely to be responsive to your messaging.

I mean do you really want to waste your time trying to sell to someone who has no need for your product or isn’t interested in your offering?

But if you know who your customer is, you can target their pain points.

Help you set goals

All great sales plans require you to set goals that are actually attainable and budgeted for.

Without goals, your sales team essentially operates in the dark unsure of what success looks like and how to achieve it.

One of the best ways to set goals is by conducting a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) to understand the market landscape.

Help you forecast sales

Since sales plans require you to study historical sales data , you have the ability to understand trends, seasonality, and customer buying patterns.

This information can be used to accurately forecast future sales performance.

And when you chart it out visually like in this example, you can make data-driven decisions to optimize your sales strategy.

Help you identify risks

Because sales plans require you to study the market, you’ll be able to uncover risks such as market saturation, competitors, and shifting customer needs.

With this knowledge, you have the ability to be flexible in your approach.

Besides market risks, sales plans also help you pinpoint risks within your company such as a lack of qualified leads or unclear communication between departments.

Improve customer service

It may sound counterintuitive but creating a sales plan also actually improves your customer service.

Researching and trying to understand customer needs means new insights that you can share with the customer service team which allows them to tailor their approach.

You’ll also be able to train sales service reps to anticipate questions and concerns so that they can communicate effectively.

Increases sales efficiency

Sales plans help standardize sales tactics and ensure sales reps follow the same best practices to reduce inconsistencies and improve effectiveness.

One of the best ways to standardize practices is to use a flowchart like in this example to make sure everyone knows what to do when facing a decision.

Increases your profits

Sales plans generally guarantee a boost in profits because it allows sales team to laser-focus on high-value opportunities instead of being headless chickens.

Reducing wasted effort and a higher frequency of closed deals is a win in my book any day.

One of the best ways to measure changes in profits is to use a simple template to review performance like in this example.

Help you understand customer needs

Contrary to what you might think, sales plans aren’t just about selling but also about understanding customers at a deeper level.

The process of creating a plan forces you to analyze customer data, buying habits, and pain points, all of which will help you understand what makes your customers tick and build trust and loyalty.

Here’s a great example of a customer persona you can edit to include in your sales plan.

A sales plan is a document that helps you maximize profitability by identifying valuable segments and outlining strategies to influence customer behavior.

Common elements most sales plans include:

• Sales goals : Information on revenue, market share, and more.
• Sales strategy: Information on how to reach potential customers and convert them.
• Target audience: Information on ideal customers and their needs.
• Metrics : Methods to track progress.
• Resources :  Tools, budget, and personnel needed to achieve sales goals.

Let’s take an in-depth look at how to create a sales plan.

( Note : You don’t need to include each of these points in your sales plan but I recommend you cover most of them to build a plan that’s well-rounded).

Define your business mission and positioning

Before you jump into tactics, build a strong foundation by defining your company’s mission and positioning.

Here’s why this step is a must-do:

• Your mission statement defines your company’s purpose and values and gives your sales team and customers something to relate to.
• Your positioning statement defines how your product or service meets a specific need and sets you apart from the competition.

Trying to sell without any alignment to company values will lead to inconsistent messaging and damage your brand reputation.

Here’s a great example of a sales plan template you can customize with your own brand’s mission and positioning statements.

Define your target market

Unless you think you can sell to every person possible, you’ll need to define your ideal target market.

Study your customer base and ask questions like: do most of the customers belong to a specific industry? Or do they all face the same pain point?

Also, keep in mind that target market can change over time due to changes in your product, pricing, or factors out of your control, so it’s important to review and update your target market frequently.

Understand your target customers

This step often gets mixed with the previous one, so pay close attention.

Your target customers are those who your business wants to target because they’re most likely to make a purchase.

You can figure out who your target customers are by creating customer profiles by breaking down your target market into smaller groups based on geography, behavior, demography, and more.

Here’s a great sales plan template where you can edit in your own customer persona.

When making your buyer personas, make sure you answer the following questions.

• Motivations and challenges:  What are customer pain points? What drives purchasing decisions?
• Behaviors and preferences:  How do customers research products? What communication channels do they prefer?
• Goals and aspirations:  What are your prospective customers trying to achieve? How can your product or service help them get there?

Define sales objectives and goals

Setting clear, measurable goals gives you a method to measure performance of your sales strategies.

More importantly though, they give your sales team targets to aim for which then allows them to work in a structured and focused manner.

Your sale goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). This is to make sure they’re realistically achievable within a set timeframe.

Here’s a comparison of good sales goal setting vs a bad one.

• ✅Drive $100,000 in sales of product X by Y date using Z tactics
• ❌ Increase overall sales in each product line

You can organize this information using a template like in this example, especially if you have multiple product lines.

Define your value proposition

Your value proposition is a concise statement that explains why a customer should choose your product or service over the competition.

Here’s an example of a value statement:

“For busy small business owners, we provide a user-friendly accounting software that saves you time and money, allowing you to focus on growing your business.”

Here are some tips on defining your value proposition:

• Identify customer needs:  What are the core challenges and pain points your ideal customer faces? Understanding their needs allows you to position your offering as the solution.
• Highlight your unique benefits:  What sets your product or service apart? Focus on benefits you deliver that address the customer’s needs.
• Quantify the value:  When possible, quantify the value you offer. Can you demonstrate a cost savings, increased efficiency, or improved outcomes?

Map out the customer journey

Unless you’re extremely lucky, no one is going to purchase from you during the first interaction.

That’s why it’s crucial for you to know the steps a customer takes from initial awareness to purchase. Mapping out their journey allows you to personalize messaging and influence behavior.

Here are some tips on how to create a customer journey map:

• Identify the stages:  Break down the journey into distinct stages, such as awareness, consideration, decision, and post-purchase.
• Define touchpoints: Pinpoint the different touchpoints where your customer interacts with your brand (example: website, social media, customer reviews).
• Understand customer needs at each stage: What information are they looking for at each stage? What are their concerns and motivations?
• Identify opportunities to engage:  Identify opportunities to engage with your potential customers and move them along the buying journey.

Want some help creating customer journeys?

This customer journey map template is an excellent way to bring customer journeys to life.

Gather existing sales data

This step involves collecting and analyzing all available data on past sales performance.

This data is critical in helping you spot trends, patterns, and areas for improvement in your sales operations.

Perform sales forecasting

Sales forecasting is the practice of estimating future sales which can be presented as a report highlighting expected sales volume weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually.

Though not always 100% accurate, sales forecasting is key to writing sales plans because it’ll provide you with a clear picture of the ground reality which leads to better decisions on budgeting.

Here’s a template you can use to perform sales forecasting to makes the sales planning process effective.

Define your sales KPIs

KPIs are a fancy way of saying that you need to set metrics to track effectiveness of your sales strategy and team’s performance.

Some example KPIs you can include in sales plans are:

• Number of sales
• Sales revenue
• Average deal size

This sales report template is a great example of how you can include KPIs in your meetings to test performance and adjust strategy.

Identify gaps in the sales process

This step is all about analyzing your current sales process to figure out gaps and/or potential obstacles preventing you from achieving goals.

When you identify a gap, brainstorm potential solutions so that you can create a specific action plan.

Understand the sales stages

When writing a sales plan, make sure you cover each stage of the sales cycle. If you’re unsure of what the sales stages are, here’s a quick recap.

Prospecting

This is the foundation of the sales process where you identify potential customers who might be a good fit for your product or service.

Preparation

Once you have a list of prospects, you need to research their needs, challenges, and buying habits.

This is all about how you contact and communicate with prospects.

Presentation

This section is your opportunity to showcase the value proposition of your product or service. Tailor your presentation to address the prospect’s specific needs and demonstrate how your offering can solve their problems.

Handling objections

Identify common objections your sales team might encounter related to price, features, competition, or need. Develop clear and concise responses to address these concerns proactively.

Equip your sales team with effective closing techniques to secure commitments from prospects who are interested but might hesitate.

Plan your follow-up strategy based on the prospect’s decision timeline and the stage of the sales cycle.

Organize the sales team

Organizing the sales team entails defining roles and responsibilities clearly to cover all aspects of the sales process effectively.

This might involve segmenting the team based on product lines, customer segments, or territories.

Here’s an example of how it might look:

Sarah — Sales Director — will lead the sales team, set overall strategy, goals and direction. Michael and Jessica — Business Development Executives — will focus on prospecting new leads. They will research potential customers, identify those who might be a good fit for the product, and qualify leads by gathering information and assessing their needs. William — Sales Development Manager — will manage the business development executives and ensuring they follow best practices. Chris and Lisa — Account Executives — will handle qualified leads. They build relationships with potential customers, present product demos, address objections, and close deals.

Using an org chart like in this example is a great way to visualize this information.

Outline the use of sales tools

Sales tools play a crucial role in streamlining the sales process and enhancing productivity.

Make sure you outline the tools your team will use, how they fit into different stages of the sales process, and any training required to maximize their utility.

This ensures that your team has the resources needed to engage effectively with prospects and customers.

Set the budget

Setting the budget involves allocating resources efficiently across various sales activities to achieve your objectives without overspending.

This includes expenses related to personnel, sales tools, marketing initiatives, travel, and customer entertainment.

A well-planned budget balances investment in growth opportunities with the overall financial health of the business.

Create a sales strategy and action plan

Now that you’ve laid the groundwork of what you want to achieve and how you plan to achieve it, it’s time to bring it all together into a single view.

Create an action plan which not includes your strategy but also concrete steps.

Your action plan should outlines specific activities for each stage of the sales funnel from prospecting (lead generation channels) to closing (structured process and follow-up strategy with timelines) and everything in between.

Performance and results measurement

Last but not least, your sales plan should present a clear and quantifiable means to track the effectiveness of sales activities.

How are you going to measure outcomes against predefined targets?

Performance measurement is key because it builds accountability and allows you to always have a pulse on customer behavior, preferences, and trends that’ll help you make decisions based on data.

If you’ve made it this far, give yourself a pat! I’ve covered A LOT on elements that you can include in a sales plan.

However, in most cases, you don’t always need to go that in-depth and instead should aim for brevity so that anyone in your team can stay up-to-date without having to worry about the nitty gritty details.

Here’s a sales plan example that’s brief but highly effective. It includes a summary of all you need in one document, a target market analysis, a customer profile, and an action plan.

Want even more sales plan templates for design inspiration or to customize and make your own?

This 30-60-90 day sales plan provides a great way to organize goals, priorities, performance goals, and metrics of success over three three timeframes: first 30 days, first 60 days, and first 90 days.

This sales plan is structured around key components that drive the sales process: objectives, strategies, tactics, and key metrics. It emphasizes a multi-channel approach to sales,, with a strong focus on measuring performance through metrics.

This sales roadmap is a great way to visualize activities such as defining strategy and generating leads to more advanced steps.

Conclusion: Save time on designing and updating sales plans and focus on growing your business with Venngage templates

Though there’s no secret formula for effective sales plan design, it’s good practice to include the basics or information on the target market, a customer persona, and a strategy on how you plan to sell.

What you definitely shouldn’t do is write a sales plan and then never look at it again.

And trust me, I know how time-consuming and frustrating it can be to edit your sales plan especially if you don’t have design skills. One small change might make the icons or numbers go all out of whack.

That’s why I recommend customizing our sales plan templates instead so that you can focus your energy on strategy.

How to Create a Sales Plan in 8 Steps: Guide + Free Template for 2023

It can happen to the best of us. We start off the year with big ambitions, certain our sales team is gonna crush it. We’re making lots of calls, selling to new customers, and getting our product out there. 

But soon, we wonder: how are we actually doing? Are we on track to meet our revenue goals for the year? Should we focus on building outreach or closing more deals? 

This is where a sales plan can make all the difference. Goals and objectives are clearly stated, day-to-day tasks are aligned with company priorities, and sales reps are working towards individual goals. It’s a beautiful thing. 

And it doesn’t have to be hard. In fact, we’ve put together this guide to make the sales planning process as easy as following a template. Let’s get started. 

What’s a Sales Plan?

A sales plan is a forecast of the sales you expect to achieve and how you’re going to get there. It typically covers important elements like:

• Past performance numbers
• Sales operations strategies
• Sales forecasting
• Current goals and objectives
• An action plan for finding and selling to new customers

Having an action plan in place for your sales process aligns your team’s day-to-day actions with your company’s priorities and business goals.

So, for example, if you’re trying to sell to a very specific target market, your team should focus on account-based selling as opposed to lead generation. If you’re looking to generate new business or break into a new market, you should focus sales activities more on outreach and prospecting. 

An action plan also empowers you to spend more time intentionally working towards your revenue targets, rather than getting stuck in reactionary mode dealing with daily hiccups and distractions.

What’s Inside a Typical Sales Plan? (Plus a Free Sales Plan Template)

While there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for developing a strategic sales plan, a good plan usually includes the following: 

• Company mission and vision statements
• Realistic, time-based goals with action steps to achieve them
• Purposeful tasks and daily activities for your sales reps to achieve
• Proven sales strategies to improve outcomes and get results
• Lead generation tactics for finding new customers
• Metrics you’ll use to see how your team is progressing

Download Your Free Sales Plan Templates Today

Want to build your own sales plan that kick-starts growth? Grab our Sales Success Kit. You won’t only get a sales strategy , you’ll get:

• Templates for sales planning
• Checklists for things like sales calls and hiring
• Worksheets for overcoming objections
• Guides for writing sales scripts

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

8 Steps to Build a Sales Plan that Drives Revenue

In this section, we’ll go over the steps you need to take to build a strategic sales plan that gets the kind of results you’re looking for. 

1. Determine Your Primary & Secondary Sales Goals & KPIs

A successful sales plan begins with setting goals. These goals will be the targets your sales reps are working to reach—so it’s important to define them carefully.

When determining your goals, keep the S.M.A.R.T. system in mind. Company goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. Here’s an example: 

• Bad goal: “Grow sales.”
• SMART goal: “Hit $100k in revenue by the end of the 1st quarter.”

Also, keep in mind that the right sales goals are those at the edge of achievable and challenging. If a goal is too easy or too hard, your team’s motivation will probably plummet. 

For example, if you’re a small business or startup that just reached $50k in revenue last year, shooting for $500k is a bit of a stretch, while $60k is probably too easy. 

That said, you’ll also want to determine specific metrics and KPIs in this step, including how they’re currently performing, and how you plan to improve them. 

Author’s note: If you’re using a tool like Close to manage your sales team and processes, you get a KPI dashboard that looks something like this—so your team can better align and track progress:

But remember this golden rule when choosing key performance indicators:

You don’t need to track every sales KPI. You just need to track the right ones.

Here are ten benchmarks and KPIs worth tracking that are commonly used by sales teams: 

• Monthly sales growth
• Calls and cold emails per rep (daily, weekly, monthly)
• Sales opportunities created
• Monthly onboarding and demo calls booked
• Lead conversion rate
• Sales by contact method
• Average conversion time
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
• Customer lifetime value (LTV)
• New and expansion monthly recurring revenue (MRR)

2. Find Your Target Customers’ Needs

One of the best ways to find the needs of your target audience is to develop an ideal customer profile (ICP). An ICP is an example of the perfect customer for your business. 

Normally used by B2B companies, this profile defines the characteristics of a company that would buy your product or service. 

Here are some of the traits to look out for in them:

To get started, think of your top ten to twenty customers. These should be customers who say your solution is so valuable, it outweighs the cost. 

Then, gather information about each customer and identify traits they have in common. Write a description of your ideal customer that includes data like what we’ve shared earlier: 

• General information about the company or customer, such as size, demographics, and industry
• Typical budget and revenue
• Location, if it’s applicable to what you’re selling
• Main challenges and pain points the customer is looking to solve
• Common objections that are raised during the sales process
• Typical purchase process, including decision-makers
• Timelines and deadlines to purchase

By identifying these common traits, you can better target the market that is best suited for your product and really hone in on their needs. 

3. Define Your Value Proposition

Now that you know what your customers need, it’s time to explain how your company meets that need. Enter: the value proposition . 

A value proposition describes the specific value your company provides to your customers. It should focus on benefits, not features. And it should explain how you stand out from the crowd. For example:

• What problem does your product solve? Is it a new product? 
• What does your product do for your customers? 
• How does your product stand out? 
• What makes you different from the competition? 

One of the best ways to nail down your value proposition is to talk to actual customers or prospects. Ask them how they would describe your product to a colleague. How would they sell it to them if asked for a recommendation? 

You can also look up reviews on websites like G2 and read what your customers are raving about online. Is there a common thread? What benefits do your customers keep bringing up, especially as it relates to the competition? Is there something your company is doing that others aren’t? 

4. Choose a Structure for Your Sales Team

Just as there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to creating a sales plan, there isn’t one right way to structure your sales force. What works best depends on your product, team, and sales processes. Here are three common sales team structures to choose from: 

• Island: Individual reps work through the sales process alone. This means they handle everything from cold calling and outreach to closing major deals.

• 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 group that’s responsible for the entire journey of specific customers.

No matter what structure you choose, determine which reps are available during what times of the year, their specialties and skills, and what they’re responsible for in the sales process. It’s also important to include information about the sales managers, other team members, and the incentives you offer your reps.

5. Create a Plan For Execution

At this point, you know what you want to get done. You know your goals, you know your customers, and you know how your sales team will be organized. Now it’s time to come up with a specific plan of attack. 

To do this, take a look at your overall goals and figure out how to create milestones. This involves breaking down that big number into smaller expectations with strict deadlines. Milestones should challenge and motivate your sales team , without being so difficult they kill morale.

Involve your sales team during this process. Learn what they do during the week 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 your team can execute.

Then, create specific milestones 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% at the end of Q1, or increasing sales by 50% for a specific product during Q3.

Finally, break these milestones down into action items. If you’re trying to increase your customer base, for instance, your sales team will need to increase prospecting and lead generation activities. How will your team approach this? Assign specific tasks to team members with daily, weekly, or monthly targets.  

Here’s an example to show how your goals, milestones, and action items are related to each other: 

Goal: Increase revenue by 15% YOY

Milestone: Increase customer base by 20% by the end of Q1

Action items: Each sales rep makes 10 new prospecting calls per week and spends 30 minutes qualifying leads

6. Evaluate Your Existing Sales Tools

In this step, take a look at your existing sales tools. Ask your team the following questions about each one: 

• How are we using this tool? What sales tactics does it help with? 
• Do we have another tool that does the same thing? 
• How much does this tool cost? 
• What’s the learning curve with this tool in the short term? 
• How easy is it to onboard new team members? 
• Is there anything we wish this tool did better? 
• What’s customer support like when we have issues? 
• Does this tool integrate easily with our other tools? 
• How does this tool make our lives easier? 
• How does this tool help us close more deals? 
• Where does it fit in the sales funnel? 

Once you’ve answered these questions for all of your sales tools, decide if there are any you don’t need in your stack anymore. Also, make note of any gaps in your capabilities or areas you feel could be improved with a better tool. 

Then, list the resources you have available and how you plan to use them. For example, how much will you spend on your sales tools? Which CRM software or prospecting tools are your sales professionals lost without? Briefly explain each tool’s value and why you’ve allocated resources towards it.

7. Build a List of Dream Clients 

If you could close the deal with anyone you wanted, who would it be? Write it down. Then, go back to your ideal customer profile and find more companies that fit the bill. 

Using this strategy is called target account sales or account-based selling. It’s a sales strategy where every prospect is handpicked and matched to your ICP. This means you know their pain points , their competitors, and how you’ll sell to them—long before you pick up the phone. 

Using the target account method will help you fill your pipeline with high-value leads that are a perfect fit for your product. It’s also a great way to build confidence with your reps since they can do a lot of legwork before making a call. 

8. Schedule Progress Checks 

A sales plan is a living, breathing document that needs to adapt to the dynamic world around it. New features, new marketing campaigns, new team members—all of these things can change the game. 

With that in mind, the last step in creating your sales plan is to set regular meetings (at least monthly) to review progress towards hitting your sales targets. At each meeting, plan to identify and solve any new issues and re-align activities across teams to adapt to real-world events and feedback. 

That said, try to avoid moving the actual goalposts—even if you discover you’ve been overly optimistic or pessimistic in your forecasting . Instead, carefully document what needs updating so you’re prepared when it comes time to make your next sales plan. 

5 Best Practices for Creating a Profitable Sales Plan

Now that you know how to build your plan, here’s a list of best practices to make sure you’re successful. 

1. Touch Base with Existing Customers  

Existing customers can be a huge source of knowledge when building your sales plan. After all, they’re using your product and can provide valuable feedback on what’s working and what’s not. 

But knowledge isn’t the only thing existing customers have to offer. They’re also a goldmine for generating new leads. In fact, according to SaaStr founder Jason Lemkin , “At least 20% of your new customers should come from referrals and word of mouth.”

If you’re still in the early stages of business development, use your sales plan to show your team how to leverage their own network to get introductions to new prospects. If you’re at a later stage, build a referral program for customers that refer new leads. 

2. Get Input From Colleagues Outside of Sales

It’s easy to get caught up in our little sales bubble and forget the outside world. But you’d be doing yourself and your company a disservice if you don’t get input from people on the outside. 

Getting a different point of view can open doors you didn’t even realize were there. Or keep you from wasting time going down a road to nowhere. 

So reach out to colleagues in other departments (i.e. marketing, tech support, human resources, etc.) Ask them to look over your sales plan and give you feedback. What have they heard from customers? Is there a marketing strategy that could work in tandem with your efforts? You may be surprised at what they have to offer. 

3. Include Your Sales Team in the Planning Process

As we mentioned earlier, your sales reps can be super helpful during the planning process. They know your customers and they know the daily grind. So they usually have valuable insight in terms of realistic goal-setting, how customers may respond to certain strategies, and more. 

Plus, including your sales team in the process is a great way to get buy-in. People are way more likely to get on board with a plan if they were involved in its creation. On the flip side, if you just drop a plan on your team without getting their input, you’ll likely face some pushback. 

So get your team involved early in the process. Schedule planning meetings and quick brainstorming sessions. Explain why the plan matters and why you want their participation. 

4. Compare Plans with Strategic Partners

Strategic partners or stakeholders are usually other businesses that benefit in some way from your success. These can be suppliers, retailers, or companies with complimentary products or services (also known as Complementary Service Providers, or CSPs). 

If you have a good working relationship, ask them to compare notes. You take a look at their sales plan and have them look at yours. After all, you’re typically targeting the same type of customers. 

Maybe they’ve tried something you’re planning to implement and can give you feedback on how it went. Or maybe you’re planning similar strategies and can piggyback off each other or refer leads. 

5. Set Individual Goals for Your Sales Team

Finally, take your overall goals and break them down into individual goals for your sales team. Not only will this make your plan more actionable but it’s a great opportunity for professional development if you take into account the differences in strengths, weaknesses, and skills among your salespeople.

For example, if someone on your team is making a lot of calls but not closing many deals, set an individual goal of upping their close rate . On the other hand, if someone’s great at closing but doesn’t do much outreach, give them the goal of contacting ten new prospects a month.

Create a Sales Plan That Drives Growth 

Taking the time to create a solid, effective sales plan (or business plan) is always worth it. It gives you the roadmap you need to push through the inertia and stay on track to meet your goals. 

We’re here to help. Download our free Sales Success Kit and get access to 11 different templates, checklists, worksheets, and guides. All are action-oriented and easy to use, so you can have your best sales year yet.

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Create a sales plan: tips and templates

Posted May 31, 2023

By Serena Miller

Editor, Sales Best Practices at Outreach

The sales world is ever-changing. Customer demand and expectations, market conditions, technological advancements, evolving techniques, shifting employee demographics, and more threaten an organization’s ability to stay ahead of the curve and be successful.

Simply improvising in the face of change isn’t an adequate strategy to ensure your team will meet their goals. While flexibility is a vital quality for any great sales team, proper planning is crucial for reaching your goals consistently and predictably. 

A strong sales plan can help your team boost alignment and collaboration, better understand competitors and the broader market, effectively analyze performance, and improve future outcomes.

Let’s explore some important elements of sales plans, including key process steps and elements, real-world examples, tips and tricks for getting it right, and the template you’ll need to get started.

• What is a sales plan?
• Key elements of a sales plan
• Examples of strategic sales plans
• Tips for creating an effective sales plan
• Sales plan templates

What is a sales plan? 

A sales plan is a document that outlines your specific objectives, challenges, strategies, and target audience. It’s a sales-specific illustration of exactly what steps your team will take to succeed. While a business plan lays out your organization’s broader goals, a sales plan maps out how you’ll actually achieve them.

What are the benefits of a sales plan

Effective sales plans help organizations align their sales and marketing teams and avoid conflicting efforts. It’s an essential part of a strong sales management process because it reduces distractions and helps managers and sellers focus on selling to the right prospects at the right time. When used as an ongoing process, sales planning enables teams to track their progress, boosts rep motivation, and reduces wasted time. 

The sales planning process

Nothing about sales is static. Sales planning should therefore be a living, breathing process that managers review as new products are updated or released, market conditions change, or their team scales.

Nothing about sales is static. Sales planning should therefore be a living, breathing process that managers review as new products are updated or released, market conditions change, or their team scales. 

The typical sales planning process includes 5 key steps:

1. Align your mission statement with your sales plan

Take the first step by crafting an awesome mission statement. This will establish your company’s purpose and unify your team around a succinct principle. 

But it is vital to bring that mission statement to increase employee engagement, boost productivity , and commit everyone to the same goals and objectives. To keep your big-picture strategy from floating around in the stratosphere, tie it together with your already-established mission statement. 

For example, if your mission statement centers around finding the best possible solutions for each customer’s unique problems, your sales plan should mirror that same sentiment—and offer ways you can actually deliver. 

Once you’ve ironed out these details, be sure to clearly communicate them with your team. Explain how your sales plan aligns with your mission statement and the importance of maintaining that continuity. 

2. Analyze your market 

Your business doesn’t operate in a vacuum, and neither should your sales plan. Take a close look at each of your competitors and your own company’s current performance in the market and incorporate that data into a holistic plan. How do your competitors serve your target audience? How do your own strategies stand up to — or fail to meet — market demands?

In order to identify your ideal customers, as well as their product and service needs, you should utilize customer feedback, user research, client surveys, sales team and service team interviews, social listening, keyword research, and competitive analysis.. Instead of assuming that you already know what customers want, potentially wasting time, resources, and revenue, take the time to pinpoint their demands, expectations, and requirements. Then train and develop your sales plan to address them. 

Remember that 77% of B2B customers find their buying journey difficult, so a sales plan that takes their unique needs into account can make all the difference when it comes to attracting and retaining clients. 

3. Set sales goals and targets 

Setting both short- and long-term goals and targets is sometimes challenging. Managers often scramble to improve everything all at once without a clear understanding of how to do it. The foundation for strong goal-setting is a healthy mix of the right sales metrics (e.g., activity metrics, pipeline metrics, lead gen metrics, and productivity metrics) and measuring them against the right KPIs . 

The best way to set realistic, yet challenging targets for your sales plan is to collect and make effective use of high-quality data. Powerful, fully-integrated sales tools help your team accomplish this by eliminating the need for manual data entry and updating. Your team can glean a comprehensive, up-to-date understanding of where they are and where they want to go; all without missing a beat. 

Over time, you can use metrics and KPIs from previous periods to fine-tune your targets. Integrate both your sales and marketing metrics to help you refine your goals and find more opportunities to improve your processes. 

4. Define your sales team’s roles and responsibilities

Each sales team member plays a crucial role in the success of the larger unit:

• Inside and outside sales reps focus on making contact with prospects
• Account managers retain, engage, and satisfy clients
• Regional sales managers support their direct reports and coordinate sales operations 
• Sales operations managers improve team efficiency, productivity, and effectiveness
• Sales development reps (SDRs) research, prospect, and qualify leads
• Account executives (AEs) run demos, conduct compelling presentations, identify and resolve purchasing challenges, and negotiate buying terms
• Sales engineers address in-depth product questions, identify customers’ technical needs, and develop demos

While this isn't an exhaustive list of each individual role’s responsibilities, it illustrates how many moving parts a well-oiled sales team needs to run. Executive sales team members (like the Director of Sales, VP of Sales, and Chief Sales Officer) focus on higher-level sales initiatives, and their knowledge and expertise is crucial to the team’s overall success.

Because there are so many different sales career pathways , managers should clearly define each person's responsibilities and outline how their efforts will contribute to the sales plan. Break down tasks and targets for each team member and measure their performance alongside those larger KPIs. For example, you might measure SDRs against number of deals closed, number of calls, or number of meetings, while evaluating account executives using number of demos, opportunities won, and win rate.

5. Evaluate results

Your sales plan should never be rigid. Even if you think you’ve crafted a sales plan masterpiece, it’s essential to follow up after implementation and evaluate your results. Using robust sales technology, you can easily track every activity within your sales process and evaluate how the execution of each task reveals your team’s strengths and shortcomings. 

A strong sales tool offers a variety of features that help you assess performance—one of which being a sales dashboard . Dashboards standardize, centralize, and visually illustrate all of your sales data in a single place, helping managers evaluate team performance and progress against their set goals in real time.   

Then, armed with those deep insights, you can adjust your sales plan as needed for even better outcomes in the future. 

Key elements of a sales plan 

Though your specific sales plan will vary depending on your unique business, goals, target audience, team size, and industry, there are several common elements you should always consider.

Set realistic goals

Goals motivate sellers and keep them excited about their work. Since highly-engaged teams are 14% more productive than those with low engagement, taking the time to create achievable targets based on market conditions and your customers’ needs, which tie into the things that engage your sellers.

A varying combination of daily, weekly, and monthly goals can help managers keep sales people inspired. Make sure you clearly establish how these smaller goals impact the success of the sales plan to get reps fully committed. 

Explore sales tools

Many of today’s sales teams rely heavily on their tools, but some still struggle with lackluster, disconnected, or outdated technology. To create and carry out a seamless sales plan, your team needs tools that are completely integrated and offer the type of transparency that streamlines your entire operation.

Most sales teams use customer relationship management (CRM) tools to organize contacts and optimize sales management. In fact, 50% of top tech sellers use CRM tools, while 97% of sales professionals say that their CRM is important for closing deals. 

While your CRM is crucial , that one tool alone is not enough to support your team at every step of the sales process. Your team needs a full suite of integrated features, like dashboards, forecasts, automation, and buyer sentiment analysis . With the right SalesTech , your team can improve productivity, communication, and lead conversion to ultimately build and execute excellent sales plans. 

Communicate clear expectations 

Establishing and enforcing expectations is critical to just about every part of a business. After all, how are employees supposed to know what they should do and whether they’re doing it properly without understanding what’s expected of them? 

In sales, this is especially important. Success often hinges on specific, time-sensitive activities that are properly executed. For instance, swift customer follow-up can make or break a deal. A rep’s failure to understand where their co-worker’s responsibility ends and theirs begins can change a success into a failure. 

To anticipate or resolve any existing confusion, managers should define crystal-clear expectations both for the team and for individual sellers. Document those expectations in an easy-to-access place. Each seller should have the right resources and direction to execute every sales task in a timely manner. This builds trust and communication within the team, which is the key to the success of  any sales plan. 

Develop training programs 

Organizations that invest in training receive about $453 for every dollar invested (a 353% ROI). Top-performing sellers are more likely to spend a significant amount of time training with their managers. It’s no wonder 89% of sales leaders have invested or plan to invest in internal sales training. Those that fail to prioritize skill development will likely fall behind their competitors. 

There are many different types of training programs , each with varying benefits and costs. One thing to note is that regardless of which type of training program you choose, make sure your team has the right tools and the training to effectively use those tools to help everyone get the most out of the investment.

Examples of strategic sales plans 

There are several different types of sales plans that might be useful to your specific business and team. Here are some examples of the most commonly used strategic sales plans.

Customer profile  

Developing an ideal customer profile (ICP) is an excellent way to make sure your team targets the right prospects. An ICP can fine-tune messaging, and establish a strong overall sales strategy. To get started building this type of sales plan, identify your best current customers, reach out to those customers for feedback, and study your customer and sales data. Then, use those insights to craft a valuable ICP that’ll drive even more business from new verticals . 

30-60-90-day plan

It’s helpful to break your sales plan up into more digestible chunks. A 30-60-90-day plan divides goals, activities, and metrics into 30-day intervals, each with progressively challenging steps. It’s a great way to set reps up for continuous improvement without overwhelming them right off the bat. 

Market expansion plan 

Stimulating growth in new markets is a daunting task, but a market expansion sales plan gives your team clear direction on how to break through. This model is best used for new territories or regions where your ICP, account distribution costs, time zones, and other key factors differ from those in your typical market. 

Marketing-alignment plan 

Getting your sales and marketing departments on the same page can ameliorate many issues that might hinder your sales success—like inconsistent messaging, uncoordinated strategy, disparate data, disconnected tools, lack of understanding, differing priorities, competition for funding, and more. A sales plan that’s grounded in sales-marketing alignment can effectively bring both teams together for greater cohesion, better resource sharing, more scalable playbooks, and shorter sales cycles .

New product/service plan

If your organization plans to launch a new product or service in the near future, it’s probably ideal to create a sales plan around that debut. This will help your team properly track revenue, understand subsequent growth, and identify areas of strengths and weaknesses. 

Tips for creating an effective sales plan 

Regardless of the type of sales plan you choose, there are some well-established best practices that’ll help your team translate the plan into real-world success.

Create a market analysis

Fluctuating market trends make it difficult to stay on top of the competitive landscape and customer demands. Be sure to conduct an in-depth market analysis to better understand how to reach your target audience. Then, create a sales and prospecting approach geared to those insights. 

If your sales plan is founded upon hard facts and data, like industry standards, previous performance data and sales forecasts, and qualitative and quantitative feedback from sales and marketing teams, you can make meaningful adjustments that will garner better results at a faster rate. 

Utilize your marketing team 

If you establish your marketing team as your collaborative partner on your sales plan, they become your team’s secret weapon. Ask your marketing team to share their insights, and regularly voice their questions and concerns about your strategy. The effort required for getting sales and marketing teams in rhythm is worth it to make your plan more optimized and robust. 

Communicate with your sales team

At the core of any great sales plan is effective communication, so make sure your team has everything they need to receive updates, share input, and explore their colleagues’ challenges. Encourage them to let you know what’s working and what isn’t. Company chat applications (e.g., Slack) are great, but they don’t always enable the seamless communication required for a fully-optimized sales operation. Leverage tools that act as a central hub for all things sales.

Sales execution platforms , for example, offer centralized communication in a single place. Team members can always access and share updates and communication histories, collaborate, and work efficiently toward the same goals. 

Sales plan templates 

Even with a deeper understanding of what your sales plan needs and why it’s important, crafting one of your own can be confusing. Sales plan templates can help guide your process and ensure nothing falls through the cracks. An effective template should include spaces for key elements, strategy specifics, roles and responsibilities, KPIs, short- and long-term goals, and deadlines. 

To help get your sales planning juices flowing, we’ve created a sales plan template with everything you’ll need for success:

A powerful platform for effective sales planning

Your sales plan acts as your team’s guiding light for developing a clear, effective strategy. Effective planning aligns sales and marketing, helps teams progress and performance, and improves seller engagement, motivation, and productivity. But the various moving pieces of a strong sales plan require the support of an intelligent system of action.

Outreach’s Sales Execution Platform reduces the time-consuming, manual activities typically associated with sales planning. As the only AI-powered Sales Execution Platform, Outreach unlocks seller productivity to create more pipeline and close more deals.

Learn more about how Outreach helps managers boost their team’s productivity , or request a demo today.

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Discover the sales execution platform.

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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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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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Business Plan Template for Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives

• Great for beginners
• Ready-to-use, fully customizable Subcategory
• Get started in seconds

Selling pharmaceutical products in a competitive market requires a well-thought-out plan. That's where ClickUp's Business Plan Template for Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives comes in! This template is specifically designed for pharmaceutical companies and sales reps to outline their sales goals, target customers, and strategies for success.

With this template, you can:

• Develop a comprehensive approach to selling pharmaceutical products
• Identify key performance indicators to measure success
• Collaborate with your team to align sales efforts and maximize results

Whether you're launching a new drug or expanding your market presence, this template will help you create a winning business plan and achieve your sales targets. Get started on ClickUp today and make your pharmaceutical sales soar!

Business Plan Template for Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives Benefits

When using the Business Plan Template for Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives, you can expect the following benefits:

• Streamline your sales process and improve efficiency by having a clear plan in place
• Set realistic and achievable sales goals that align with your company's objectives
• Identify and target the right customers for your pharmaceutical products
• Develop effective strategies to promote and sell your products in the market
• Track and measure key performance indicators to assess your sales performance
• Stay organized and focused on your sales objectives with a comprehensive approach

Main Elements of Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives Business Plan Template

ClickUp's Business Plan Template for Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives provides a structured approach to sales planning and strategy. Here are the main elements of this template:

• Custom Statuses: Track the progress of your business plan with statuses like Complete, In Progress, Needs Revision, and To Do, ensuring clear visibility and accountability.
• Custom Fields: Utilize custom fields such as Reference, Approved, and Section to organize and categorize important information within your business plan.
• Custom Views: Access different views like Topics, Status, Timeline, Business Plan, and Getting Started Guide to gain a comprehensive overview of your sales goals, strategies, and progress.
• Document Collaboration: Collaborate with your team in real-time by utilizing ClickUp's Docs feature, allowing you to create, edit, and share your business plan seamlessly.
• Task Management: Break down your business plan into actionable tasks, assign them to team members, set due dates, and track progress using ClickUp's tasks feature.

With ClickUp's Business Plan Template, pharmaceutical sales representatives can streamline their sales planning process and effectively sell pharmaceutical products in the market.

How To Use Business Plan Template for Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives

If you're a pharmaceutical sales representative looking to create a comprehensive business plan, follow these four steps using the Business Plan Template in ClickUp:

1. Define your target market

Start by identifying your target market. Determine the specific healthcare professionals and institutions that are most likely to prescribe or use your products. Consider factors such as geography, specialty, and patient demographics.

Use custom fields in ClickUp to categorize and track your target market data, including key contacts and prescribing habits.

2. Set strategic objectives

Next, establish your strategic objectives for the year. These objectives should align with your company's overall sales and marketing goals. Think about what you want to achieve in terms of market share, sales growth, and customer relationships.

Create tasks in ClickUp to outline your strategic objectives and assign responsibilities to team members.

3. Develop your sales tactics

Once you have your objectives in place, it's time to develop your sales tactics. These are the specific actions and strategies you will implement to achieve your objectives. Consider tactics such as product presentations, educational events, relationship-building activities, and promotional campaigns.

Use the Board view in ClickUp to create columns for each sales tactic and move tasks across the board as they progress.

4. Monitor performance and adjust

As you execute your business plan, it's crucial to monitor your performance and make adjustments as needed. Regularly review your sales data, track the success of your tactics, and gather feedback from healthcare professionals.

Use Dashboards in ClickUp to visualize your sales performance, track key metrics, and identify areas for improvement. Set up Automations to receive real-time alerts and notifications based on specific performance thresholds.

By following these steps and utilizing the Business Plan Template in ClickUp, you'll be well-equipped to create and execute an effective business plan as a pharmaceutical sales representative.

Get Started with ClickUp’s Business Plan Template for Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives

Pharmaceutical sales representatives can use this Business Plan Template for Pharmaceutical Sales to help them outline their sales goals and strategies, track progress, and stay organized.

First, hit “Add Template” to sign up for ClickUp and add the template to your Workspace. Make sure you designate which Space or location in your Workspace you’d like this template applied.

Next, invite relevant members or guests to your Workspace to start collaborating.

Now you can take advantage of the full potential of this template to create a comprehensive business plan:

• Use the Topics View to organize your business plan into different sections, such as market analysis, sales strategies, and target audience.
• The Status View will help you track the progress of each section, whether it's complete, in progress, needs revision, or still to do.
• The Timeline View will allow you to set deadlines for each section and visualize the overall timeline of your business plan.
• Use the Business Plan View to get a holistic view of your entire plan, including all sections and their statuses.
• The Getting Started Guide View will provide you with step-by-step instructions on how to use the template effectively.
• Create custom fields like Reference, Approved, and Section to add additional information and categorize your business plan.
• Update statuses and custom fields as you work on each section to keep track of progress and approvals.
• Monitor and analyze your business plan to ensure it aligns with your sales goals and objectives.
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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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• 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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Home \ Blog \ Why Salespeople Should Write and Present Individual Business Plans

• Front , Leadership & Management , Productivity , Select

Why Salespeople Should Write and Present Individual Business Plans

• By Mike Weinberg
• November 15, 2017

It is surprising how few sales organizations ask their people to draft annual sales (business) plans. For fifteen years I I’ve witnessed the power of having every member of the sales team write, and when possible, present, business plans to sales management, senior execs, or even better, to the members of sales team.

Why Individual Business Plans?

• People who write down their goals are significantly more successful than those who don’t. We all know there is a ton of data to support this claim. I won’t even begin to cite sources.
• Writing a plan causes the rep to take ownership of his/her business (territory, book, etc.).
• The process drives big-picture creative thinking.
• Forces the salesperson to examine what has worked and what hasn’t. (Remember the definition of “insanity”?)
• Presenting the plan to the team is a powerful way of sharing best practices and allows everyone to learn from each other.
• We learn a ton about reps when they present their plans: who can sell, who can think, who brings passion and fresh ideas to the job, who can present well, who “gets it” and who doesn’t .
• The business plan serves as a powerful and automatic accountability tool.   The very act of presenting the plan publicly and articulating what you are going to do to achieve your goals creates energy, competition and accountability!
• The plan serves as a valuable  roadmap to help keep the salesperson on track throughout the year.
• The plans is a gift to the sales manager! How easy it is to grab the rep’s plan before a phone call, coaching meeting, monthly 1:1 accountability meeting , or day in the field with them? “Sarah, let’s take a look at your plan together to see if YOU are DOING what YOU SAID YOU NEEDED TO DO in order to be successful.”

There is too much benefit derived from this process not to do it. Customize the template offered below. Or even better, salespeople can use the expanded template along with the coaching provided in Chapter 14 of New Sales. Simplified ., while sales leaders can get that info better tailored to their needs in Chapter 26 of Sales Management. Simplified.  Provide the template to each member of the sales team and ask them to write and prepare to present their own plan to the team (or just to senior management). I’ve found it works well to give the team a few weeks to go through the exercise and to be very specific about how long they will have to present their plans. Typically, I’ve observed 20-30 minutes to present and ten minutes for Q & A usually works nicely.

Essential Components of the Plan

I think there is a lot of room for flexibility as far as what goes into the template. Every business and sales role is different and that is why each company needs a customized plan. Having said that, there are five categories or sections that I believe are essential:

• Goals – What are you going to achieve?  We always start with the end in mind!  Possible bullets in this section include total revenue or gross margin goals for the year, # of new accounts or new pieces of business acquired, $ from existing accounts and $ from new accounts, specific product-mix goals, and even asking the rep to “name and claim” the monster account or dream client they will nail this year.
• Strategies – How are you going to do it? Where is it going to come from? In this section I like to ask questions about market focus, target account lists, major cross-sell opportunities, most growable or most at-risk accounts, what new approaches will the rep take to get in front of new prospects, how will they better penetrate current customers, where will they concentrate their efforts and so on.
• Actions – What are you going to do? In this section I want to hear about activity and metrics. What’s “The Math?” How many calls, initial face-to-face meetings? What type of commitment to time-blocking? To what activity goals and metrics will you/the rep be accountable?
• Obstacles – What’s in the way? I don’t believe in excuses. And I do believe that almost every salesperson could tell you on day one what is likely to get in the way of achieving their goals for the year. So I like to ask for a list of known obstacles right up front so we can address and help remove them. Failure is not an option; let’s figure out how to overcome those obstacles or how we need to help that salesperson now! Obstacles take many forms: personal health, distractions, lack of training or knowledge, family issues, travel  budgets, old technology, the anti-sales department. Just ask. Believe, they’ll have a list.
• Personal Development, Growth & Motivation – How do you want to grow this year? If we are not growing then we are dying. Salespeople need to invest in themselves. Ask how they will do that. Courses, training, peer-mentoring, outside coaching, sales books, blogs?  Are there certain areas where they/you need to develop professionally in order to get to the next level? I also like to ask the salesperson to share some of their personal philosophies about sales and what they do to keep themselves motivated throughout the year. You get some really fun answers and can learn a lot about what drives your people.

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