Step 1: Design a sales management blueprint

A sales management plan is essential to a carefully-coordinated endeavor into your desired industry. Planning is essential for current and future success in any sales efforts. You can manage the sales process much easier when you have a well-crafted plan you can reference and use to track daily efforts.

Creating your sales management plan

Effective planning takes time, so make sure to dedicate as many resources as possible to the creation of a strong plan. A good sales management plan will include:

• An executive summary of your company and goals
• Your company’s mission statement
• Clear objectives
• An honest assessment of your company’s strengths and weaknesses
• A defined sales call plan
• A list of marketing plans, programs, supplies and other needs required to accomplish your goals
• An action plan that schedules the activities that will manage the above sales management processes

Sales planning templates are available to help you organize your business’s needs. Look for one that helps you outline your sales goals, market expectations and the strategies your team comes up with. Templates typically include target customers and revenue, strategies, pricing, market research, team structure and deadlines. A quick Google search will provide you with a list of template options. Once you’ve entered your information, you can see a draft of your sales plan and edit it as needed to create the perfect blueprint for your business efforts.

Step 2: Organize your sales project team

Qualified candidates to head your sales management team will have the appropriate educational and real-world experience needed to navigate the unique challenges they will encounter in their position. The process of sales management includes many turning wheels, so make sure you find a highly competent and reliable sales team to spearhead your company’s efforts.

On top of direct sales representatives, sales projects have many needed specialists including inventory managers and account executives among many other possible roles. Market research needs can be filled with a market research executive, who should have extensive education in the industry and overall market to help you figure out the best approach to selling your product. If specialized software is vital to the operation of the project or product, you should consider adding a technical support specialist to your sales or IT team. You can easily outsource your IT and accounting services, as well as your marketing and inventory services, if it doesn’t make sense to hire full-time employees for a project.

Direct sales representatives — the face of your company

A typical sales team will include employees of different hierarchies to increase accountability within the department. Depending on the size of the company and project, you might need multiple sales representatives who report to a department manager or directly to the company head. Sales managers will make or break your efforts, so look for a team leader who will inspire your sales crew and help ensure they perform up to your standards.

Under the managers will be sales associates as well as office clerks who will keep operations running smoothly in the background. When interviewing your next sales rep, the face of your business essentially, look for these important traits:

• Coachability: The perfect sales rep for your company will be a person who is coachable on the fine details of your product and company culture . They should be able to retain knowledge and apply it to their individual sales strategies. This will help them succeed in learning the intricate details of your product or service.
• Charismatic: As the person who will be interacting most with your clients or customers, the sales rep needs to be highly personable and able to make instant connections with strangers, turning them into clients with ease.
• Creativity: Navigating any industry can be tricky, especially when you’re trying to convince a client to buy into your vision. You can accomplish this much more easily with a sales rep who can read the room and use their interpersonal logic skills to identify what can drive sales for a particular client.

Teams will look different depending on your industry. For example, medical sales teams will be comprised of more executive talent with high-level degrees, and there will be a higher budget for travel expenses. These reps will also need more direct experience in the medical industry so they can adequately communicate details about their products.

The communications industry will have a need for specialized sales team members as well, but there is also a need for entry-level reps who can communicate basic information with new clients and focus on customer service over relaying complex information. This industry will also have inventory storage needs, as much of the product is likely intangible, such as software. Make sure to staff your sales team with the quality low and high-level candidates you need to sell your products, referring to your sales plan to determine what areas need extra hands on deck.

Step 3: Draft sales projections and set goals

By figuring out exactly what your market looks like, you can determine your production and staffing needs as well as your expected revenue. With an accurate sales forecast, you’ll be able to create financial documents to present to investors and maintain records for proper reporting.

Market research is key to sales planning

One of the most labor-intensive aspects of crafting a sales plan is the research required to define market and revenue projections. Initially, the executive sales manager will be responsible for determining the current market environment and projecting expected revenues within it. The same person can perform ongoing research. Alternatively, you can onboard a market research analyst to offer an expert touch to projections in upcoming years.

Research comes in two phases: primary and secondary. The initial, or primary, phases of research include direct contact with the market to discover trends. Conduct exploratory research using open-ended interviews and group studies to find out how your target audience interacts with your product. Offering promotions like free samples or trials to get feedback can also offer the type of unique response that helps a company refine their products. Specific research can help perfect a product or discover solutions to a current problem. This involves taking a smaller consumer group and asking them questions that pertain to a specific issue.

Secondary research involves looking into public sources to find out statistics and trends in your industry. Websites such the Bureau of Labor and Statistics can provide valuable insight into current market trends regarding wages and what benefits to offer your workforce. The U.S. Census Bureau also offers information like sales numbers for current and past years that you can use to base your projection calculations.

Leading research agencies provide annual reports on various topics and sectors, focused on providing businesses in-depth analysis of industry trends. Companies such as the Pew Research Center and Forrester provide insight into current trends along with predictions for upcoming quarters. These groups charge for access to their studies and articles, so be prepared to incorporate this expense into your research budget. Apply information garnered from your market research efforts to your sales management planning, setting reasonable goals based on your expected sales environment.

Make predictions and set goals

Create a targeted sales forecast for your product or service and use it to set sales goals. Whether you’re attempting to predict the financial future of your entire company or a specific product, begin by determining the scope of your target market. You can calculate this figure with some simple research, starting with figuring out the number of consumers who purchased your type of product in past years.

For example, in recent years more than 17 million passenger vehicles were purchased annually in the U.S. Depending on your location and marketing strategy, you might expect to reach 1 percent of the market base. This figure is your share of the market (SOM). Once you’ve determined what percentage of leads convert to sales, you can figure out what volume to expect to move once your product hits the market. Be mindful of the various key performance indicators (KPIs) you can use to measure your project’s success. In order to create your sales forecast, follow these steps:

1. Identify what products and services you want to forecast sales for.
2. Using the SOM figure you calculated, determine how much product you can sell.
3. Calculate the value per unit sold and multiply that by the projected amount sold.
4. Determine the cost of each unit sold and multiply it by the forecasted sales volume.
5. Subtract the cost (#4) from the profit (#3) to see your projected revenue.

Once you have a clear vision of the sales and profits you can expect, you can apply those figures to your company’s current structure and future growth plans. Accurate projections can help you manage inventory effectively, train your workforce in a timely manner to accommodate growth and set appropriate goals to get your company where you want it to be.

Step 4: Measure performance and adjust your goals annually

Once you’ve compiled your sales projections and created your plan, create a system to monitor performance and track your goals to make sure you meet them. Write a sales report at least annually — though larger companies often elect to do quarterly reporting. This report should convey the company’s performance and compare metrics to the goals you set earlier in the year.

On top of sales statistics, you’ll need to measure employee performance using activity metrics. This includes keeping track of calls made, hours logged in software and sales presentations performed. Lead generation metrics measure the sales success of a rep, such as leads discovered and contacted. Sales conversion metrics such as overall sales generated can be a valuable tool to understand an employee’s overall contribution to the company’s sales efforts.

The annual review process offers a wider view of how processes perform throughout the year. Reviews give employees an incentive to meet goals and maintain high performance metrics. They also provide in-depth views of a project’s financial success. A sales performance report should include information like:

• Overall sales figures with growth charts. Calculating your sales growth is easy — just subtract your previous year’s sales from the current year. Divide this number by your prior period’s sales and multiply by 100, and you have your sales growth rate.
• Overall sales department performance if there are multiple teams working.
• Market comparisons showing your growth next to other companies in the industry.
• Consumer feedback.
• An outline of the company’s goals and how they have been met or exceeded.

With all of this in mind, you’ll be able to generate an accurate report of your company’s recent activities to analyze internally and share with interested parties such as investors. Use your findings to adjust your goals and set the bar higher for the next big idea coming down the pipeline.