Sales Star

Developing your Sales Plan begins with asking the right questions. No two sales plans will be the same because of the differences in products, markets, and companies; however, there are common questions to all sales plans that you should ask yourself. If you can find the answers to these key questions, then you can formulate a custom plan for your territory and product. Here are some important questions you need to answer to develop your plan:

Key Questions about Your Customers:

Who: Who are your customers? You must know who your customers better than they know themselves. Look to your past clients for answers and patterns. Define the typical profile of your best customers so you will be able to look for other prospects who have similar characteristics.

What: What do your customers do? This will provide clues about what they need. Before you can sell anything to anyone, you must be able to define what they need. Hopefully your product or service will fulfill their needs better than your competitors’ products and services.

Why: Why will customers buy from you? Know what distinguishes you and your company from your competition. Use this unique selling point to differentiate yourself from your competitors in a positive way.

When: When will you be able to contact your customers? Is there a best time of day or time of the year?

Where: Where will you find your customers? Do they gravitate to particular places? Are they on the Internet. Do they work from home or at an office?

How: How will you reach them? Do you call them, write to them, or contact them by email?

Key Questions about the Market:

Size: How big is the market? What is the total market in terms of sales volume in units and dollars? Is the market growing or shrinking?

Geography: Is the market local, regional, or national. Are there differences from one territory to the next?

Competition: Who are your competitors? What products and services to they offer that you don’t? What are the differences between the products and services on which you both compete? What are their strengths and weaknesses? How can you best distinguish yourself from your competition?

Key Questions about Your Sales Performance:

Sales volume: How many sales have you closed in the past year or years? Did you improve year over year? If not, why not? If you did, why did you improve?

Sales activity: What is your record for accomplishing typical sales activities like the number of contacts, interviews, and presentations?

Sales Skills: How effective are you? Are you proficient at the key steps in the sales process? Are there skills that you need to improve? If so, what is the best way for you to improve your skills?

Key Questions about Your Target Objectives:

Objectives for the period: What are your target objectives in terms of numbers of sales or gross dollar volume for the next time period- weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually?

Metrics: How will you measure success? What will you need to do to accomplish your overall sales goals: number of contacts, appointments, interviews, and closed sales? How will you accomplish these sales goals on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis? What are the goals for each individual product or service?

Customer base: Can you categorize your customers into useful categories like A, B, and C – where “A customers” are your very best ones and “C customers” are more like potential customers or prospects. Alternatively. some customers might be categorized by product or service that they are likely to use. If you can categorize them into useful “buckets,” then perhaps they would be easier to manage and guide your work plan on a daily or weekly basis.

Like other Business Plans, sales plans can either be simple or complex. The best plans are practical. They strike a balance between enough detail to be meaningful, and too much detail to effectively manage. If you can achieve the right balance and keep your plan as short as possible while still being useful, then you are more likely to follow it and accomplish your goals. The purpose of planning should be to develop a roadmap that you can follow. It serves no purpose to prepare a plan that will simply sit on the shelf. Use these questions as the basis for developing the sales plan that will drive your future success.