SALES AND TERRITORY PLAN

Sales and Sales Planning

In sales, your goal is revenue-driven. How much money do you want to make? Or a better question: How much profit do you want to make? Then, how are you going to achieve that? Accurately forecasting your sales and building a sales plan or sales territory plan can help you to avoid unforeseen cash flow problems.

A sales or sales territory plan is more than having your sales force know their product pricing, features, and capabilities. In order to be successful in today's highly competitive sales world, a sales manager and individual sales person must have a plan. Our templates will help you define your own individual, territory, or regional plan, and help you define your sales team’s approach.

Your basic plan should start with a dollar amount and work backwards. If, for example, you want to gross $500,000 in sales this year, on average, how many sales would that be? What is your average sale? On average, how many prospects do you have to see or speak with to close one sale? So, how many prospects would you need to see or speak with to close the number of sales you would need to reach your goal of $500,000? What steps do you need to take to see or speak with that many prospects?

A sales forecast is an essential tool for managing a business of any size. It is a month-by-month forecast of the level of sales you expect to achieve. Most businesses draw up a sales forecast once a year. Armed with this information you can rapidly identify problems and opportunities - and do something about them.

While it's always wise to expect the unexpected, a well-constructed sales or sales territory plan, combined with accurate sales forecasting, can allow you to spend more time developing your business rather than responding to day-to-day developments in sales and marketing.

The following templates take you well on your way to developing your sales and sales territory plans and sales forecasts.