Sales Planning: Sales Leadership and Sales Execution
At this time of year all the planning, budgets and compensation plans are done or should be.
Excellent sales organizations will have each salesperson complete a six month detailed sales business plan that will include defined personal and professional goals and depending on the type of product/services an organization offers, a forecast that equals 3X assigned quotas. This forecast maybe created by product type/vertical/geographic market along with a high, most likely and minimum sales values. In addition this plan should include personal training requirements, selected activity goals and personalized marketing programs. While this tool important to have for purposes of coaching and planning (I have written often around this topic), brilliant execution on a quarterly basis is critical for success.
The quarterly sales plan by salesperson must be much more tactical.
The quarterly plan takes the six month plan and breaks it into a much more tactical plan. The Salesperson Quarterly format will review existing short-term pipeline values vs quotas (by product/service) measured against specific short term active deal flow. The purpose is to ensure the salesperson understands their quota expectations and to analyze their opportunities are available to exceed the number. In addition, any networking events, salesperson personalized marketing activities or corporate marketing programs would be defined as well as any specific key customer meetings. The salesperson will also review their YTD actions vs their planned Six Business Plan. This plan is used to ensure the salesperson and sales management can accurately begin to predict. Like a sample? Send me an email [email protected]
What you do this quarter pays off next quarter. Make it happen this quarter.
By creating six month salesperson plans and tying those to quarterly execution the sales leader can begin to create the focus necessary for success.
