Simplify Sales Planning to Win

Posted by Ron Snyder in Sales planning | 0 comments

If you are engaged in proactive selling, without a plan you are likely to run into the following problems:

• An inefficient sales process that increases sales cycle length.
• Creating unnecessary stalls in the sales process.
• Losing business you could have won.
• Selling at a greater discount than necessary.

Here are 6 ways to simplify sales planning and, thereby, avoid these undesirable outcomes and dramatically improve your sales results.

1. Clarify your sales planning needs- based on the type of selling that you do. In strictly reactive selling, focus the team on how to respond to customer questions. In proactive selling, a sales plan is necessary. The more complex the sale, the more detail required in the plan. Create a sales planning template accordingly.
2. Plan at the appropriate level; opportunity, account, territory, vertical market. Make sure your plan addresses strategy at the appropriate level. Further, it should provide strategy appropriate for the type of partnership activity you engage in.
3. Have a simple template that is easy to use. You must make sure the template covers the key elements of a good plan, yet does not require more detail than is appropriate for the selling situation.
4. Ensure the template is readily available in your CRM system or whatever system you use for managing sales. Without this, it will not be used on a regular basis. Further having it in your CRM, enables you to create reports and dashboards to track progress- at the sales rep and management levels.
5. Use the plan on a regular basis. It is important that management reviews and uses the plans on a regular basis. Make it part of the weekly routine to review the sales plan and fine tune sales campaigns. Without this reinforcement, the team will resist making a plan.
6. Show the impact on results that sales planning is having. Have team members share their successes and discuss how the plan helped them win. This reinforces the use of the plan. Gather feedback and fine tune how you use your sales plans.

Our apps can help you simplify your sales planning process and dramatically improve sales results.