5 items that need to be in your strategic sales plan!

A sales strategy is a plan by a business on how to go about selling products and services and increasing profits. A plan is an outline of what needs to happen at which phase. In order to succeed one needs to plan accordingly and strategically for eventualities which haven’t yet occurred.

Have you ever been asked to do a strategic sales plan and your first reaction was “what are you talking about? Strategic what?” Well I’ve come to your rescue with the 5 items to include when drawing up your strategic sales plan:

• Assess performance As a sales manager you need to assess your performance. In this manner you’ll be able to plot where you are, what your team’s capabilities are and more especially what your target will be for the following financial year. It is very important in the sales field to be honest with yourself in that manner you will be realistic in your planning. The sales force needs motivation especially if they didn’t meet the targets they were supposed to, as the sales leader your responsibility is to make sure your employees are motivated. Have a one on one with them, have team building exercises or start the day with a short motivational talk to boost their levels of motivation.

• Evaluate organisational design Organisational design is the process of aligning the organisation’s structure with its mission. This entails looking at the complex relationship between tasks, workflow, responsibility and making sure that everyone is in support of the objectives of the business. It is of utmost importance to align the organisation’s structure to the mission, this will allow for flexibility in terms of making certain decisions for leaders. When an organisation has an alignment between its structure and mission it means there is a possibility of achieving the mission. There needs to be a cohesive relationship between tasks and workflow, as a sales leader one needs to take into consideration what the sales force has to deal with and what responsibilities they have. This will increase productivity, so when you plan, look at the points mentioned in this part because they might solve many labour related issues one has to face as the year continues.

• Conduct competitive analysisWhat is the point of competing if you don’t know who you’re competing against. It is important to know your competition in order to stay ahead of them and to make sure they don’t put you out of business. When you know your competition you can anticipate what they might do so your plan must contain ways of competitor analysis, trends in the market and how to use the information received wisely. Additionally, it’s important to make sure that the organisation doesn’t focus too much on the competition and forgets to run its own race. Competitor analysis is about making sure that your products/services are constantly improving at all times. Always be aware of the smaller competitors, because it’s the small organisations that can cause the greatest harm to your sales profits.

• Develop buyer personas When you know who to sell to half the battle has been won already. As the sales leader, you need to gather the team and have a chat with them about whom they ideally sell to or who their everyday customers are. This will allow to tailor your whole message, product or service to the customer, as customers want to feel known and appreciated by the company this will come in handy. When you sell to someone you know you have a way of convincing them that whatever you’re selling to them is actually a need for them. This all has to be included in the plan.

• Develop a roadmap

When you have all the above then you can plan your way through for the year. What is better than knowing what to implement by which time in the year, this should be in the sales force’s vicinity as well because they need to see where all the roads are leading. The bureaucratic leadership style is sort of outdated. employees want to be included in the process so they have a sense of “we made it” and not a “we helped management make it”. They want a sense of belonging too.

Now go out there and plan properly at your next planning session!