Build a Sales Plan to Build Sales Income

IBM called this the Territory Plan

Our sales software company is lead centric. The more leads flowing into our business, the more money we make. Our sales team needs needs a steady flow of new blood, new sales leads, to fuel our growth. This simple fact, that sales leads make us go, drives lots of thought and creates lots of strategies to keep the leads coming in. Our lead systems do work and if we have learned any marketing secrets at all, the best is the harder which we work at understanding our customers needs the smarter our marketing is. The lead systems goal is to force an avalanche of incoming sales leads careening into our company, from all sources, which we can not dig out from. Incoming sales leads are routed to our sales people. My goal is to keep the sales team in-front of opt-in prospects that can get value from our online sales software. When our sales people are working a list of incoming leads, not cold calling to get leads, we all make the most money and our salesmen are happy. 

Each new year we create the sales plan. The plan, built with several factors, drives our business into the new year. I ask my sales people to think big. To plan a year which will top all years in sales revenue attainment and personal income. We do not care about the economy or industry state, we just put an income number down on paper and figure out the achievement roadmap. The roadmap is built with several signposts. One is our close rate, another is our average sales size. Another is our lead flow and lead conversion rate. With this data we can see what we need to do.

Take the average deal size, multiply by the commission paid. Then the number of deals to be won, to achieve income goals, is known. Apply the close rate to this and how many qualified business opportunities we need is also clear. Figure in the lead conversion rate to opty and the needed lead count is know. I found that sales training can boost the lead conversion rate and the close rate. I monitor our best sales people in these two categories and use this as the baseline for all. There you are. A good rule in our business is to get 4x pipeline potential revenue in the pipe by end of Q1. This makes leads and lead conversions important early in the year. New lead generation never stops. But jamming hard for Q1 to get the pipeline built is a good idea. 

I know salespeople and business owners that have the Midas touch and that do not put a sales plan in place. These super productive people just have a knack for doing high value activities and not letting the noise get in the way. Most sales people need a map and the map will help reach expectations and goals. These salespeople following the signposts, the needed leads, the needed opportunities, and needed improvement of personal skills, to achieve what is best for them, their families and their companies. 

Often, as the sales days come and go, the plan objectives seem distant and hard to reach. And the sales person will have monster days and days which test the nerves. The testers are ok, they keep us sharp, and keep us laser focused.