If your business has a strong and achievable sales plan, your sales staff (whether that's you as a small business owner or your employees) will be able to focus on selling to the plan. As a manager of sales people, it's your responsibility to build the sales plan.
Building the sales plan means more than just in-putting numbers into a spreadsheet; and that's why many small business owners and sales managers get stumped and why sales plans are often far from reality. Most sales plans are created with only the sales numbers in mind. But to build an effective sales plan, you need to consider more than the numbers.
The sales plan needs to be valid and real; you will use it to plan many other aspects of your business (such as cash flow, capital expenditures, hiring, expansion and more). Test your sales numbers against the market: you need to know market size and your share of the market for this to be effective.
First, your sales plan must define the time period for your sales forecast (1 year, 2 years, and 5 years). Second, it must consider the products you will sell (and potential new products you will develop and need to sell) over the determined period of time. Third, it must identify the number and type of customers you will sell to. Finally, it will identify the resources (human and equipment) you will need to supply to support your plan. And in these four steps, what must be thoroughly considered are the assumptions you are using in each step as well as the assumptions further on.
A sales plan is only useful if you track and compare actual results to the plan. On a regular basis (monthly, quarterly, etc.) make sure that you update your sales plan with comments to highlight why, where, what, when, and how the actual results differ from the planned results.
As you build your sales plan, you have to make assumptions. The top 10 assumptions I've used in sales planning are:
US/Canada dollar exchange rate - and the impact on sales on either side of the border (globally use your strongest trading partner country).
Inflation rate projections - for each year of the plan period - and its impact on costs, wages and prices.
Market growth in relation to Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Market growth in relation to a planned event (elections, etc.).
Impact of new competitors on market share.
Impact of mergers and acquisitions within the industry on market share.
Impact of rapid sales growth.
Impact of market shrinkage (product entering the mature or declining stage of its life-cycle).
If an existing product, what are historical sales (last 5 years) in terms of trend-lines - assume that trend line for the next 5 years unless you are planning something that will impact the trend.
If a new product, are your sales assumptions supported by your market research.
Use some or all, and if necessary use additional, assumptions in your sales plan. Make sure that you identify all assumptions clearly in the plan and that you use those same assumptions in your other business plans (e.g. human resources plan, capital expenditures plan, operations plan, etc.).
