Making a Sales Plan- 8 Steps Guide for Small Business Owners

Last updated on December 28th, 2018 at 09:45 am

Business Marketing Planning : 8 Steps Tips for Making a Sales Plan for selling products

 

Sales Ideas for small business owners

Realistic and correctly compiled sales plan is essential to the prosperity and stability of the entire company. Actually, company’s sales determine the level of income of a whole company. Why does experts strongly recommend to make a sales plan? It’s worth considering that the sales plan will help to define a specific goal for the development of the organization for the next year at least.

In this case, the company’s activities will be based on a vision of direction in which the organization will move. The second important caveat is the corresponding budget planning according to the general plan of sales.

The sales plan should be formulated according to competitors activities, forecasts of market dynamics and the pace of company’s development. Top 10 social media sites for small businesses.

 

making-sales-plan-for-business-promotion-marketing-412x360
Guide for Making a Sales Plan for Business Marketing

How to make a sales plan?- 8 Steps guide for Beginners

It should be understood that the sales plan can be absolutely feasible. Business always faces different elements of randomness. But thanks to planning you can designate boundaries of the enterprise while using the existing resources.

Step №1: (Analyse and asses the market changes )

Analyze the macroeconomic and political trends. Development of the sales plan for the next year is recommended to start in late October – in early November. First of all, you should assess the current political situation and try to predict possible changes.

At the same time the analysis of a number of economic indicators is carried out. It can include oil prices, GDP
levels, construction activity, industrial production, net exports, growth of investment in fixed assets.

Step №2: (Market Assessment and comparison )

 

Analyze the situation on the market. Do you expect a decline in demand for the products of your company? Maybe the number of competitors increased? Was it easy to meet the planned sales in the past year?

By comparing the actual performance and forecasts, it is possible in the future to judge the attainability of the desired result, which will meet your expectations and requirements of the shareholders.

Social media tools that are used by most of the small businesses for Marketing

Step №3: ( Learn the Trends from available Statistics )

 

Consider the sales of the previous years. You should analyse all the sales statistics for the past years. The more complete sales statistics greatly simplifies the preparation of the forecast. You should draw a graph with the reflection of all the results by months and years.

This information can be transformed into the average sales for each month which can be the basics for your new plan.

[ How to Find what are the best Markets for selling your products ]

Step №4: ( Calculate Seasonality factors )

 

Is there seasonality in your business? Take a clear look at the sales decrease in previous periods. Was it due to the crisis or dismissal of employees? Or just because you have some seasonality factors?

If you have those factors, you will need to add or subtract the appropriate interest from the period’s plan. You can find this appropriate interest only by analyzing data from previous years.

[ How to start selling your biz products in global markets ]

Step №5: ( Analyse records for Sales managers and marketing Teams)

 

Make personal records for each sales manager. For each employee the characteristics should be identified. Here you need to specify the number of meetings, cold calls. Using this numbers you will be able to analyze the productivity of each team member.

After that make the average for the entire department. It is better to be guided by the averages to plan future sales activities.

 

Step №6: (Make Forecasts for new contacts and customers )

 

Make a forecast number of customers that you will be able to attract. Also the value of the first purchase for new customers should be calculated. It is necessary to plan the number of new contacts that can be enclosed.

Divide the number of manager’s contacts with customers by the number of working days and calculate the total number of meetings, which can realistically be accomplished by a manager.

Based on these statistics a rough plan of the sales of goods and services to new customers will be compiled.
While drawing up a personal plan for the sales manager take into account his interest in the result, personal qualities and other factors.

How to increase your sales in Festival seasons

Step №7: (Goal Setting )

 

Set a goal! Analysis of the data is obligatory basis for setting realistic goals. For example, according to an analysis of last year’s situation, we can see that there are chances of increase in sales in the current year, about 25%.

Consequently, the sales plan will take into account these prospects. Also we recommend to set some big goal, which is impossible to achieve. Setting this goal will give some extra motivation and strength to achieve the main, real target.

How to make leads and sales without cold calling

Step №8: (Discussing with the staff and drawing conclusions )

 

Discuss the final plan with the sales staff. After drawing up the sales plan you can discuss it with employees. Perhaps subordinates can add something. Set the required deadlines. The result must be divided by weeks. Then staff will be able to make the necessary changes in their work, if something went wrong previously.

Using all the steps mentioned above can help you to plan your future year.But, remember that “real” plan is so undervalued. If in January you know how to achieve the full sales plan, it is understated. If you know how to do just a half of it, the sales plan can be considered the best.

It’s more important for CEO to decide what to do than to understand how to achieve this. The responsibility for implementation of the sales plan is assigned to the entire company.
Therefore, the sales plan should be drawn up with the direct participation of the heads of all departments.
No need to make a plan of sales for every good, if there is no understanding, who will be engaged in the production, delivery and sale of goods.To implement the ambitious sales plan it is often necessary to attract new employees and motivate the existing sales managers.

Facing recruitment needs in your organization? Try these –  Free Job Posting Websites for recruiting sales and marketing employees 

About ads2020.Marketing

If you are a beginner marketer then don't forget to subscribe our blog Ads2020.Marketing as we mainly focus on the content related to digital marketing for beginners. You would get all kinds of resources (free/paid) required for digital marketing success.

Check Also

Question_and_Answer_Websites-best-sites-ask-questions-600x360

Ask the Internet – Top 10 Q&A Websites List to Post Questions and Answers [2023 Updated]

Question and Answer Sites List: Best Online Places to Ask Questions related to Personal, Professional, …

One comment

  1. Nice post!!If anyone here is looking to start a new business then you might need professional business plan consultant for creating B plan for your dream company. You can contact planthybusiness.com for this.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

1 × 2 =