The Best Free Business Plan Template For Individual Sales Reps

Mike Weinberg

Published: August 14, 2023

Working in sales is challenging at times, and after a while, you may begin to feel fatigued or experience low motivation. Drafting a strategy using a sales business plan template can be just the thing to help refocus your goals.

Salesperson looking over a free sales business plan template

As a sales rep or account executive , a business plan requires you to think about your efforts from a high level. Who are you targeting? What are your performance goals? How do you plan to achieve them? Not only will a high-level view of your audience and goals help you meet and exceed them, but it might even help you climb the sales career ladder .

Download Now: Free Business Plan Template

Next, I'll share the key elements of a sales business plan as well as provide templates to help get you started.

Sales Business Plan Layout

Free business plan template, the sales plan.

  • Individual Business Plan Examples
  • High-Level Review
  • Tactics and Actions
  • Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
  • Sales and Marketing Alignment
  • Obstacles to Success
  • Personal and Professional Development

Fill out this form to access your template.

Before writing your plan, doing a bit of work prior to getting started with a template will help you better organize the information you'll need to include. Here's a roadmap to help you brainstorm:

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I’ve found it easiest to start with the end in mind and work backward from there. Naturally, your goals will include your company’s expectations (i.e., quota), but why not go even further?

Be more specific. What do you want to achieve?

A promotion? A certain level of income? A certain number of conversions per month? X number of new clients acquired over the year? How about increasing your average deal size? Whatever it is, put it down in writing and build a plan to get yourself there.

It’s powerful to write down our goals. One year, I decided to write five goals on the whiteboard in my office. At year-end, I had hit four of them, including finally buying the classic car I have had my eye on for 30 years.

2. High-Level Review

Got your goals on hand? Great. Now take a few minutes to ponder the strategies you pursued previously. Which ones worked well and made sense to incorporate again this year? And which didn’t work at all and either need to be adjusted or scrapped altogether?

This review will be your guidepost as you create a strategy and action plan. Be honest with yourself during this reflection. Consider asking for feedback from managers, peers, and clients. You might even seek feedback from prospects who didn’t end up buying from you. What can you do better? Was there anything about your sales tactics that put them off ? Why did they choose a competitor over you?

If this all sounds vague, take a numbers approach to this review. Instead of reviewing your sales strategies , review how your numbers fared throughout the year — revenue generated, number of meetings, number of proposals, number of demos, close rate, and so on. (Your review will be even more telling and powerful if you combine that qualitative review with a quantitative one.)

3. A Strategy

Once you have articulated what you want to achieve, here are the next logical questions to ask:

  • How will you do better to reach your goals?
  • What new markets will you approach?
  • Which customers and prospects will you target?
  • How will you frame the sales conversation or sharpen your sales story?
  • What new things will you try on the phone, online, or face-to-face?

See that review that we did in that last step? This is where it’ll come in handy. Having a clear idea of what worked and what didn’t will tell you what you should keep or remove from your new strategy. For example, if last year you sent follow-up emails three days after a demo, you could try sending follow-up emails two days this time. This is one of the tactics you could use.

That brings me to my next point. After creating a strategy, it’s time to come up with some tactics and take action.

4. Tactics and Actions

This section is critical because sales is a verb (it may not be in the dictionary, but in my book, it is).

The most well-intentioned goals and the soundest strategies mean nothing if you don’t know what steps to take to achieve them. So for this section of your plan, ask yourself, "What activities am I going to commit to?"

For example, you’ll have X number of face-to-face conversations per month or make Y prospecting calls per week. Whatever the activities are, they should drive what ends up on your calendar on a daily or weekly basis.

Let's say your goal is to make more sales in a shorter time. Include the resources and tools you'll use to achieve that goal in your business plan. In this case, one option would be to use a CRM database to help you keep track of your prospects and eliminate manual data entry (e.g., logging emails and calls), ultimately increasing your efficiency.

5. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Action is action, but if there’s no way to measure its success, you won’t know what worked and what didn’t. You’ll therefore want to put metrics in place to monitor your progress. I recommend setting target numbers for the following KPIs:

  • Raw number of deals closed
  • Close ratio
  • Revenue per account
  • Customer retention rate
  • Calls and emails
  • Quotes or proposals

Remember, set a target number for each of these metrics. That way, you have something to reach toward. You can manually keep track of this information or use dedicated sales software . Or you can ask your manager to give you the performance data.

6. Sales and Marketing Alignment

You know what you want to do, how you’re going to do it, and which metrics you want to track. As you carry out your strategy, be sure to align your efforts with the efforts of your company’s marketing team.

Aligning your sales plan with a whole other department may sound over-the-top, but hear me out: sales teams depend on marketing teams to deliver leads. Even when you’re prospecting, marketing has likely identified the types of companies — and the best job titles — you should use for outreach.

When those leads get to your desk, it’s time to sell to them in a way that continues the nurturing process that marketing started. Say the lead was acquired when they downloaded an ebook on how to improve their productivity. When that lead gets assigned to you, propose your company’s product as a solution. Don’t try to sell it as if you don’t know the person and why they’re there.

It’s helpful to have a CRM that keeps track of your leads’ marketing-related activity. That way, you know which pages they’ve visited, what they’ve downloaded, and whether they’ve reached out to your company before. When carrying out your sales strategy, do so in a way that can fulfill the promises extended by marketing. Take a look at the content on your website, your company’s slogan, and your buyer personas . Use this information to create the perfect pitch.

After, connect with the marketing team to let them know whether that was a good lead or whether the buyer personas and the content on the website need adjustment. If your team does not meet regularly with marketing, bring the issue to your manager. Marketing and sales alignment is critical for your plan’s success.

But there are other obstacles to look out for, too — and you must have them.

7. Obstacles to Success

This is a unique addition I haven’t seen in many plans, but I think it’s an important component. This is where you lay out what could prevent you from reaching your goals and highlight areas where you might need some help. The truth is that you likely know what will get in the way of your success. So instead of using these obstacles as excuses later, point them out at the beginning.

Think carefully: What obstacles will keep you from succeeding?

Do you need new tools or different technology? More flexibility? Better internal support? Put it down in writing now. That way, when you present your plan to your manager (and I strongly encourage you to present your plan to your manager and maybe even a few peers), you give them a chance to support you.

They can either remove the obstacle or tell you it can't be removed in the short term. Either way, it’s in your best interest to declare these potential pitfalls now so that they’re not excuses down the road.

8. Personal and Professional Development

This is another important aspect of the business plan that's often overlooked. I regularly see salespeople fail because they’ve stopped learning and growing.

Many have become stale. Others are bored and ineffective from deploying the same techniques year after year. You wouldn’t go to a doctor that didn’t read medical journals and was treating patients with the same protocol he used twenty years ago, would you?

So commit to growing as a sales professional this year. What are you going to do to grow in your career?

What conferences are you going to attend? Which books are you going to read? Which sales blogs will you follow?

Now, once you have the layout for your sales business plan solidified, you must do two things:

  • Get it down on paper - You’re more likely to achieve goals if you write them down. Just trust me on that.
  • Get more specific - Using an actual business plan template can prompt you to think deeper about your motivation and action plan.

Below is a free business plan template you can use to get started.

Start building your business plan with this free template.

Featured Resource: Free Business Plan Template

business-plan-template-sales-rep_3

Click Here to Download the Template

Your goal is to think like a business. I’ll teach you how to adapt each section of this general business plan to fit your role as a sales representative.

Business Plan Sections Explained

1. the business opportunity.

The business opportunity is an overview of why you’re doing what you’re doing, who you’re doing it for, and what you hope to achieve. Include your mission statement as a sales representative and why you’re working with the leads and accounts you chose.

In a typical business plan, this section is called an executive summary and highlights the most crucial information for readers. This means you can get creative and inspirational with it, summarizing the information that will motivate you most.

2. Company Description

The company description can refer to the organization(s) you sell for, or you can consider yourself the business being described. Because this is a personal document, choose the format that will most benefit you.

Keep in mind that there are a few elements to include in this section:

3. Company Purpose

This is a short description of the business, providing a high-level overview of who they are, what they offer, and who they offer it to. You might consider creating multiple purposes if you sell on behalf of more than one organization or outlining your purpose as a salesperson.

4. Mission Statement

A mission statement is a formal summary of the aims and values of an organization. If you’re making multiple company descriptions, include one for each organization. You can also include a personal mission statement for why you’ve chosen this organization and how you plan to support their success.

For example, say I’m a sales rep for an editorial company. My mission statement might be “to reach out to writers suffering from imposter syndrome and encourage them to consider editorial help so they can publish with confidence … and inspire future writers who dream of doing the same.”

5. Core Values

Use the core values for the organization(s) you work for, why you chose them, and how they will manifest in your interactions with prospects. For example, HubSpot’s values are humility, empathy, adaptability, remarkableness, and transparency.

If your organization doesn’t have clear core values defined, feel free to come up with your own that will serve as your modus operandi. Three to five values are what you want to have.

6. Product & Service Lines

This section will include:

  • Product or service offerings - What are the lines you’re trying to sell, and what functionality does each have?
  • Pricing model - How much does each product or service cost prospects, how much commission do you make for each sale, and what parameters do you have for discounts or special deals?

Outline this information in an easy-to-scan table.

In a typical business plan, this would manifest as an overview of the company and all the key leadership roles. However, the most relevant information could be key contacts at your company or companies you sell to, including your sales and marketing contacts (if applicable). If you’re filling out the template to create your sales plan, you’d simply include yourself.

8. Industry Analysis

In this section, you’ll take a look at the state of the industry, including your company’s competitors and your prospect’s competitors. You’ll ask:

  • Is the market in growth or decline?
  • Who are your competitors?
  • What edge do they have over your product?
  • How can you get your prospects to buy into the product you’re selling instead?

Your sales manager might already have answers for you or relay new information as it becomes available.

If you’re filling out a business plan to understand your prospects, you’ll want to answer similar questions:

  • Who are their competitors?
  • What challenges are they looking to solve?
  • Is their industry in decline, and if so, can your product help them grow during this decline?

9. Target Market

This will manifest in your business plan as an overview or outline of whom you’re targeting, including general demographics and psychographics. You might want to include:

  • Business title
  • Location and language
  • Pains or problems they're looking to solve

Consider consolidating this information and creating dedicated buyer personas .

10. Buyer Personas

Buyer personas are fictional representations of individuals within your target market. The best practice is to create a buyer persona for each “type” of customer you serve. You can do so using HubSpot’s Make My Persona tool and exporting the information into your business plan.

If you’re filling out the template for a prospect, come up with a buyer persona for the target audience they serve.

11. Location Analysis

Where is the geographic location of your target market? Explain why you’ve chosen the location and the benefits of it. Do the same for your prospects and customers if you’re using the template for them.

Here’s a template you can use:

[Organization name] serves [Location] because [reason]. We found that one of the key drivers of a successful acquisition is [key element], which means our target buyers tend to be in [more specific location descriptor]. We plan to tap into this market by [method].

This might manifest as something like:

“Editorial Company serves authors throughout the United States because editorial work can be done online with virtual meetings and file sharing. We found that one of the key drivers of a successful acquisition is participation in online writing groups, which means our target buyers tend to be active in social media circles. We plan to tap into this market with inbound marketing.”

12. Implementation Timeline

In this section, a business typically specifies how long it will take for its operation to be up and running. They take logistics, partnerships, and other operational elements into account. For your sales plan, you might specify an implementation timeline for various checkpoints, including software adoption, sales-marketing meetings, and more.

Say you told your sales manager you need sales software to keep track of the KPIs you identified earlier. You should take into account the time it will take for that CRM to be purchased and distributed to your team.

If you’re filling out the template to understand a prospect, consider laying out a timeline that specifies when they’ll buy the product, when you’re to follow up with them, and so on.

13. Marketing Plan

If your organization is an inbound sales organization with a marketing department, you might include your marketing and sales service-level agreement (SLA) in this section.

On the other hand, if you’re responsible for cold outreach and prospecting, this section might be helpful to complete on your own. The elements you’ll need to consider are:

Positioning Strategy

  • How is this product or service unique and unbeatable compared to its competitors?
  • Why are potential buyers going to be interested in the product or service?
  • How will you address the buyer persona’s biggest challenges and goals?

Acquisition Channels

  • What are your main lead acquisition channels (e.g., search engine marketing, event marketing, blogging, paid advertising, etc.)?
  • What do you plan to prioritize this year for lead acquisition?

Tools and Technology

  • What tools or systems are you equipped with (e.g., CMS , marketing automation software , etc.)?

14. Financial Considerations and Funding Required

This section is likely more suited for sales reps who are commission-only. You’ll want to consider how much financial collateral will be your responsibility as you sell for the organization. You’ll want to outline:

  • Startup costs
  • Sales forecasts
  • When you'll break even
  • Profit and loss projections

These things can be estimated and calculated in Excel and then imported into the template. There’s also a section on the funding required, but you won’t need to fill it out as an individual sales representative. And since your prospects have already secured funding or are established firms, you won’t need to fill this out to understand their business.

Now, finally, we’ve reached the sales plan. This will be done in a separate worksheet — a Google Doc or Word document that you can continue to edit as you evolve in your sales role. You will likely be able to draw on your experience to outline the following:

Sales Methodology

  • How will you reach and engage with new leads?
  • Are you pursuing an inbound or outbound sales strategy?
  • Why does your prospecting strategy make sense for your business?

Sales Organization Structure

  • Who do you report to within the organization?
  • Is there a marketing department and existing SLA between the departments?
  • How are leads qualified?

Sales Channels

  • What are your main customer acquisition channels (e.g., online purchasing, through a rep, on location, via email, etc.)?
  • What tools or systems are you equipped with (e.g., CMS, live chat , etc.)?

We've covered the different parts of a sales reps' business plan, but what does one of these plans actually look like? Here are five amazing examples of individual business plans for sales reps.

Individual Business Plan Examples for Sales Reps

1. individual development plan.

business-plan-template-sales-rep_1

Image Source

An individual development plan (IDP) is a document that you would make to identify your goals and objectives to your employer. After identifying your goals, ensure that your objectives follow the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goal framework. Lastly, for each action, assign a target date. While it does not need to be a specific day of the year, set your timeline by quarters of the year — as seen in the above example.

In addition to the long-term and short-term goals that the above example from Simplicable demonstrates, the resources required section is another useful component of the individual development plan. It directly informs your employer that you require support to achieve the goals and objectives that will ultimately benefit the entire company.

2. Medical Sales Business Plan

business plan for sales person

Automotive sales business plans are slightly more challenging than other business plans because there are a lot of factors to consider. When building your plan, you need to start with an analysis. It includes an analysis of your company, industry, customers, and competitors.

Once you have included in-depth analysis, focus on demonstrating your ideas with the four Ps of marketing . The four Ps of marketing are product, price, place, and promotion.

First, outline your focus products. Second, discuss price. You can include current pricing and any proposed changes. Further analysis would include how these prices stack up against competitors and how they affect your customers.

Third, concentrate on your location. This information should detail how your location either adds or decreases traffic and propose solutions for the latter. Lastly, recommend promotions. In the automotive industry, customers are always looking for the best deal.

You also have to be very visible with your marketing. Possibly one of the most important sections of your automotive sales business template, include a detailed course of action for promotional ideas and plans.

4. Territory Business Plan

Individual Business Plan Examples for Sales Reps: Territory Business Plan

A territory business plan should cover your sales territory. Historically, sales territory is the division of geographical regions for assignments to sales representatives. These representatives are responsible for all customers or clients within that area. This template from Slide Team is for convenience stores, but it can be adapted to suit your business type.

Now, industry, sales potential, and customer type affect territory business planning. An example of customer type is focusing your territory planning on individuals with the same median income. Instead of using geography, this alternative can lead to more strategic success.

When creating a territory business plan, you want to start by analyzing your business goals and objectives. As you build your plan, include an analysis of your prospects and a SWOT analysis . It’s a planning technique that identifies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This information will allow you to propose strategies for sales territories and devise an action plan.

5. Quarterly Business Plan

Individual Business Plan Examples for Sales Reps: Quarterly Business Plan

Creating a business plan for an entire year can be too complex. By separating the year into quarters, you can make your business strategy more actionable. Quarterly business planning is when you set goals and objectives and measure performance after each quarter. Typically, the year segments into Quarter 1 (January 1 to March 31), Quarter 2 (April 1 to June 30), Quarter 3 (July 1 to September 30), and Quarter 4 (October 1 to December 31).

Quarterly business planning focuses on short-term goals that ultimately help fulfill any long-term goals. Your quarterly business plan should include your focus areas, metrics for determining success, and your action plan.

Crush Your Sales Goals with a Business and Sales Plan

With the plan I’ve shared, you'll be prepared to take on any goal or challenge in your career. Consider it a gift to yourself that keeps on giving. Use your plan like a living document, review it weekly, and make tweaks as necessary along the way. Let it dictate what makes it onto your calendar. At year-end, you will be amazed at what you accomplished and thankful you invested the time to do this now.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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6 Steps to Create a Successful Sales Business Plan

6 Steps to Create a Successful Sales Business Plan

Written By Summer Sturgill

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Summer Sturgill

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How to Write a Sales Plan

Table of contents.

Elizabeth Veras

Every business needs a business plan as well as more detailed road maps that offer guidance to each department working toward that common goal. As the revenue-generating engine of your company, the sales department should be a top priority for this type of document, aptly named the “sales plan.” This guide introduces the concept of a sales plan and gives you all the guidance you need to create a sales plan that works for your business.

What is a sales plan?

A sales plan details the overall sales strategy of a business, including the revenue objectives of the company and how the sales department will meet those goals. This may also include revenue goals, the target audience and tools the team will use in their day-to-day. In addition, the sales plan should include examples of the hurdles and pain points the team might encounter, as well as contingency plans to overcome them.

“[A sales plan] is essential to support the growth of an organization,” said Bill Santos, vice president of the ITsavvy Advanced Solutions Group. “A sales plan helps individual reps understand the priorities of the business as well as the measurements by which they will be evaluated.”

Business plans vs. sales plans

Business plans and sales plans are closely linked. A sales plan, though, should outline the actions that the sales department will take to achieve the company’s broader goals. A sales plan differs from a business plan, though both work toward the same end.

“A business plan is a ‘what’ [and] a sales plan is a ‘how,'” said James R. Bailey , professor of management and Hochberg Professional Fellow of Leadership Development at the George Washington University School of Business. “Business plans are where a firm wants to go. A sales plan is a part of how they can achieve that. A business plan is direction; a sales plan is execution.”

For example, a software company that developed a new mobile application might state in its business plan that the app will be installed by 1 million users within a year of launch, while the sales plan describes how that will actually be achieved.

How to write a sales plan

Every sales plan should suit the individual needs of a different company, so they come in all shapes and sizes. There is no one-size-fits-all sales plan; the one you create will be unique to your business. With careful planning, you’ll have a much clearer vision of what you need to accomplish and a road map for how to get there. 

Chris Gibbs, vice president of global sales at Centripetal Networks, named some additional items that every sales plan should include.

  • Targeted accounts: Assign each salesperson a few key accounts to focus on, and grow from that base.
  • Targeted verticals: Sales teams might focus on specific market segments or verticals, such as a particular industry.
  • SKUs: Salespeople should emphasize certain SKUs or inventory items rather than get lost in a broad catalog of merchandise to sell.
  • Sales and marketing coordination: Sales and marketing teams should work together to create promotions to help generate sales.
  • Product road maps: Every company has a road map, and each product should have a road map that shows the plan and direction for a product offering over time to chart out when a product will launch and when it might sunset or be replaced by a newer model.
  • Forecasts: Sales forecasting is projecting sales volumes and expectations by comparing them historically to sales of previous years, and then conducting market comparison to determine where sales will fall against the competition.

“Sales plans are extremely important to ensure there is cohesiveness between product teams, sales and marketing,” Gibbs said. “In addition, they’re important for ensuring that timing of new products and/or new version releases coincide with sales objectives and forecasts.”

What are the steps to create a sales plan?

A sales plan is necessary for businesses of every size, from an individual entrepreneur to a Fortune 500 company. When you’re ready to actually write your sales plan, follow these steps:

1. Define the objectives. 

Clearly outlining your goals and stating your objectives should always be the first step in creating a sales plan or any other business venture. You should include the expected sales volume and any markets or territories you expect to reach. 

For example, let’s say you own a retail store selling household goods and electronics. If your purpose is to establish yourself as a trusted local retailer, ask yourself the following questions:

  • If so, are they purchasing anything or just browsing?
  • Was it word of mouth?
  • Was it through marketing efforts, such as email marketing, direct mail or social media?
  • How many are new customers?
  • How many are repeat customers?
  • Where do you want your sales to come from? 
  • What are some external and internal factors that could impact your sales? These include industry trends and economic conditions.

When you can precisely state your key objectives, you are setting yourself up to plan later steps around achieving your goals.

2. Assess the current situation.

The next step is to create an honest overview of your business situation in relation to the goal you set in the first step. 

Review your strengths and assets. Take a look at your resources and how you can apply them to your goal. This can include personal relationships and competitive advantages like new products or services.

For example, if your goal is to enhance your relationship with your customers, you’d need to ask yourself some questions to examine your current situation:

  • What is your current relationship with your customers?
  • Where did most of your sales come from?
  • Where would you like to expand your sales?

When examining your strengths and opportunities, conduct a SWOT analysis to get a clearer picture of where your business stands.

3. Determine and outline the sales strategies. 

Sales strategies are the actual tactics your team will use to reach customers. They can include marketing channels as well as procedures for lead generation and client outreach employed by your salespeople.

Here are two examples of potential sales strategies: 

  • Use your POS system to retain customer information so you can track current and new customers.
  • Employ email marketing, text message marketing , social media, outbound call center services and direct mail marketing campaigns.

4. Define roles for the sales team. 

Each member of the sales team should be assigned clear roles, whether they vary from person to person or everyone performs the same functions.

Defining the sales direction of the team is crucial, as it shows the focus of the company and helps the team target and execute sales most effectively.

The plan of attack for the sales team should be communicated clearly by leadership, whether it is from team leaders or the CEO.  

5. Inform other departments of sales objectives.

A sales plan shouldn’t just update a company president or C-suite; it should inform the whole organization of the sales team’s objectives. 

Clearly outline your plan for the rest of the company to help them understand the goals and procedures of the sales team. Other departments become more efficient when interacting with the sales team and clients. This also conveys a certain level of quality and professionalism to the clients about the company.

6. Provide tools for the sales team.

Provide the tools each member of the sales team needs to achieve the stated goals, such as customer relationship management (CRM) software. The best CRM software is customizable to meet a company’s needs, making it much easier for your team to use the software and work efficiently.

7. Detail how the department will track progress. 

Offer strategic direction and insight on how progress will be monitored. Having a quarterly review to assess whether the company is on target is just as important as the plan itself.

Markets change, and so should your sales plan. Keeping it up to date will help you capitalize on the market and achieve your goals. Tracking progress is made easier by the tools you use to collect data. That data will then have to be analyzed and presented in a way which all departments can understand and use for future growth. 

Key elements of a sales plan

Every sales plan should also include the following elements.

Realistic goals

You need to set achievable goals . Challenge your sales team, but don’t push too hard. Bailey said that these “deliverables” are among the key points to include in a sales business plan. 

“Deliverables need to be as specific as possible and moderately difficult to achieve – specific inasmuch as being measurable in a manner that is uncontested [and] moderately difficult inasmuch as making sales goals too difficult can lead to failure and discouragement.”

Midpoint goals also help build morale and keep the team working toward a larger goal. Instead of having one giant goal, creating smaller goals to achieve along the way will keep your team focused.

Set milestones that give you the opportunity to regularly determine whether you are on track to achieve your sales goals or need to make adjustments.

Sales tools

Tracking sales throughout the term is helpful, and you can employ tools to keep track of each team member as well as the department overall. It also helps establish a culture of accountability among salespeople.

“Tools can help, especially project management and CRM software,” Santos said. “Having a weekly cadence of update and review is also important, as it sends a message that ownership and updates are important.”

Clear expectations and a defined commission structure

Assign goals and responsibilities to each team member to make expectations clear. This is true whether or not each team member has the same goals.

“We meet with each individual to come up with a plan that works for them so that they can reach their goals,” said Leah Adams, director of client success at Point3 Security. “We measure results based on numbers. Each team member has his own plan and how they’re going to get there.”

It’s also necessary to spell out the commission structure in full detail.

“The only real difference is how sales count,” Bailey said. “In petroleum-based products … a few big clients are necessary. Compensation needs to be structured not just in contract value, but in graduated terms: Above $1 million, commissions move from 5% to 9%, and so forth. In smaller-volume enterprises, commissions might be front-loaded with higher percentages early, then graduated down. You have to reward what you want.”

Training programs

Along the way, some training might be necessary to maintain the momentum.

“What’s important to us is that we’re teaching these individuals to be the best salesperson they can be,” Adams said. “We help them do that by constantly training them and giving them knowledge of what’s going on in our industry. Everything stays on track because each member of the team knows their individual goal; though each person has a number, they also know the ultimate goal is for the entire team to hit.”

Adams said that an effective CRM keeps things organized and helps delegate tasks and responsibilities on a schedule that uses the company’s lead information.

Key steps to follow when devising a sales plan

Here are some best practices for creating a sales plan:

  • Refer to the business plan. The sales plan should directly address the objectives of the business plan and how those objectives can be achieved.
  • Advance clear objectives. The clearer the objectives are, the easier it will be to reach your goals.
  • Reference prior sales data. Chart sales over the previous few terms, and project the trend for the current term. New businesses can create sales projections based on expectations.
  • Outline the commission structure. This will help motivate your team and help you calculate anticipated costs.
  • Be clear about how progress is measured. There should be no dispute about this. If larger clients carry more weight than lower-volume buyers, that should be stated upfront.

The benefits of a sales plan

A sales plan keeps the sales department on track, considering the details of how they must operate to hit their targets and achieve company objectives. Because the sales team is the primary driver of revenue, it is an incredibly important document. [Related article: Adopting a CRM? How to Get Buy-in From Your Sales Department ]

“It’s extremely important to have a sales plan in place, almost a must,” Adams said. “Without this plan, it’s almost impossible to get through the year and hit the company’s sales goals.”

It’s not uncommon to encounter obstacles along the way, however. A good sales plan accounts for that.

“Almost always, you’ll run into the speed bumps along the way, but with a plan in place, it makes it a whole lot easier to navigate through it all,” Adams said. “The sales plan allows you to adjust when necessary so the goal can still be hit. I strongly believe a plan allows you to stay in control and reduce the risk while being able to measure the team’s results along the way to that finish line.”

A solid sales plan helps you deal with unexpected events and acts as a benchmark for where your company is and where you want it to go.

Sales plan templates

Sales templates are helpful in that many of them are based on tried-and-true formats that have been used by businesses across several industries. They can also provide structure so that it is clear to each employee what their role and responsibilities are. 

Create your own sales plan by downloading our free template .

“A template helps plan each individual’s daily activities in a structured way,” Adams said. “If you know what each person is doing daily, it’s easier to help correct what’s going wrong. It helps with things like conversion rates, etc. Yes, these templates can be customized in any way a team’s manager sees fit, based on how he believes the team will perform better.”

Sales plans should be unique to the company; however, there are key components they should always include. Because there is somewhat of a formula, you can use a template.

Templates are extremely helpful, Gibbs said. “It creates uniformity for the team, as well as a yearly or quarterly sales plan to present to senior management.”

Gibbs added that templates can easily be customized to meet the needs of a particular business or sales team.

Keeping your team on track with a sales plan

Planning is vital for any business, especially when dealing with sales targets. Before selling your product or service, you must outline your goals and ways to execute them. Essentially, a sales plan enables you to mitigate problems and risks. When there is a clear plan of action, you will know how to proceed in order to attain your goals. 

Enid Burns contributed to the writing and reporting in this article. Source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.

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How to Create a Sales Plan: Tips, Examples & Free Sales Plan Template

Tactics and strategies are great. But when you create a sales plan, you set a clear path to success, with each step mapped out ahead of you.

The Internet is full of people who will tell you all about the success they’ve found from their strategies, whether it's personalizing a newsletter subject line or changing the color of the 'Buy Now' button.

But, news flash—these tips and tricks aren’t actual sales strategies .

To create real, lasting growth for you and your company, you need to create your own grand strategy. And that starts with a solid sales plan .

So, what’s your plan? How do you build it (and stick to it)?

We’re about to take a deep dive into sales plans. By the end of this guide, you’ll be completely equipped to win the fight for business growth. And we can't recommend it enough—grab our free sales plan template here in the Sales Success Kit today:

GET THE SALES SUCCESS KIT →

What is a Sales Plan? (And What Makes for Successful Sales Planning?)

Armed with the information you'll compile within your sales plan, you can quickly identify any upcoming problems, sales droughts, or opportunities—and then do something about them.

If done correctly, the right sales plan template empowers you to spend even more time growing and developing your business, rather than responding reactively to the day-to-day developments in sales.

Sound exciting? Let’s jump right in.

Download Your Free Sales Plan Templates Today

Want to build your own sales plan template that'll clarify your business plan and accelerate your growth? Grab the Sales Success Kit , including...

...and more to help you set up strategic sales planning and quotas for your team.

Want to stand out in the competitive market? Explore the insights of challenger selling .

What’s in a Sales Plan? 6 Elements Every Sales Plan Needs

In basic terms, a sales plan template includes:

  • Sales forecasting and goal-setting
  • Market and customer research
  • Prospecting and partnerships

Each part of the sales plan naturally works itself into the next, starting with your high-level goals, then considering market factors, and finally looking at who you know, and how to find more prospects to help hit your sales goals .

Here are the key elements to include in your plan:

1. Mission Statement

What gets your sales reps out of bed in the morning? What’s the clear mission that pushes your team to keep fighting for that win?

Your mission statement is a concise statement of the ‘big picture’—the main idea and goal you want to achieve. Think about your company mission and how the sales team forms part of that overarching goal.

2. Sales Goals and Revenue Targets

A sales plan must include achievable sales goals and the targets your sales reps will be working to reach. Use previous years' results to tell you what's reasonably possible for your team to do. Include specific metrics and KPIs , how these are performing currently, and what you plan to do to improve them.

This may also include information about your product’s pricing , planned discounts, and how your team can focus on the right customers to get the most revenue possible. Link these sales goals to the business goals your company is working to achieve.

3. Analysis of the Target Market

Your plan should clearly identify your ideal customer profile and information about the target market and demographic you plan to sell to. Are you breaking into a new market? Are you targeting small business or enterprise customers ? Give a concise description of your target audience and the stakeholders you’ll need to sell to.

4. Sales Strategy Overview and Methods to Reach Target Customers

This should include a brief overview of the customer journey , pain points , and how your salespeople will engage and follow up with new prospects throughout their journey to purchase. You'll likely outline specific sales activities you'll focus on, such as improving referral numbers, testing new cold-calling email strategies, or dipping your toe in social selling.

You may also include information about the marketing strategy and lead generation methods used to gather new leads and how sales managers will support the team.

5. Use of Resources and Sales Tools

How much does it cost your team to close a new deal? What is your budget for the sales team, or for sales tools ?

Inside your plan, list the resources you have available to you, and how you plan to use them during the year. This includes monetary resources, as well as human resources.

Next, show how your resources will be used. For example, how much will you spend on sales tools? Which CRM software is your team depending on? Briefly explain how you plan to use each tool and why you’ve allocated resources in that way.

6. Sales Team Structure

The structure of your sales team includes which reps are available during what times of the year, their specialties and skills, and where they focus in the sales process .

How to Develop a Sales Team Structure (in Your Sales Plan) Group Session Image

Also, include information about the sales managers, their teams, and the incentives you offer your reps.

The Benefits of Sales Planning: Why You Need a Sales Plan

Creating a sales plan from scratch can be daunting, even with the right sales planning template. So, why should you have your sales strategy written down and ready to act on?

Let’s talk about the benefits of sales planning to attract new business and grow your market share.

Clear, Time-Bound Goals Help You Reach Revenue Targets

There’s a reason they say, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

If you want your sales team to execute on and accomplish your sales goals, you need to have a plan in place. When targets are linked to specific timeframes and actions, your whole team will see how their individual work is involved in reaching your sales goals.

Prioritize Time and Resources

Without a specific action plan in place , your team won’t be able to prioritize their time with the right sales tactics and strategies to hit their targets.

With a clear outline of the tactics that bring the most significant ROI for your team, each rep can get the best results for the time they spend selling.

Clear Action Plan to Reach Your Goals

With an action plan in place, each team member knows what they’re supposed to be doing, and why they’re doing it. This keeps them motivated and helps them see how their individual efforts make a difference.

4 Types of Sales Plans (How to Choose Which Planning Style is Right for Your Sales Team)

It’s difficult to templatize a good sales plan since every plan is unique to the business and team it applies to. So, what are some examples of the types of sales plans you might create, and how can you choose between them?

  • Revenue-based sales plan: If you’re aiming for a specific revenue goal, this type of sales plan will be focused on in-depth sales forecasting and specific actions to improve conversion rates and close more deals.
  • Sales plan based on the target market: If you’re selling to vastly different markets, you may want to create a different sales plan based on the market you’re targeting. For example, your sales plan for enterprise companies would differ from your sales plan for selling to SMBs.
  • Sales goals plan: A plan that’s focused on goals (other than revenue) may include hiring and onboarding, sales training plans, or plans to implement a new type of sales activity into your process.
  • New product sales plan: When launching a new product, it’s a good idea to develop a specific business plan around its launch and continued promotion. This plan may include finding and contacting strategic partners, building a unique value prop in the market, and creating new sales enablement content for the team to use when selling this product. This type of sales plan can also apply to launching new features in your SaaS product.

The Different Types of Sales Plans (and Examples of Each in Practice with a Template)

How to Choose the Right Sales Planning Style

Ultimately, this will depend on factors such as:

  • Your revenue goals
  • The resources at your disposal
  • Your sales team’s abilities and bandwidth
  • Your personal commitment to seeing this plan through

When you’ve determined who is involved in sales planning, how committed they are, and the resources you can use to make this plan happen, you can start building your own sales plan.

9 Steps to Create a Sales Plan to 10x Your Sales Team’s Results

It may seem like a lot of work to develop a sales plan at this point. But once you do, you’ll be in a place to take your sales (and brand) to the next level.

Let’s break down this process, step-by-step, so you can start achieving greater results.

1. Define Your Sales Goals and Milestones

With a sales plan, we begin at the end: an end goal.

Start by choosing the sales metrics that matter most to your overall business. This could be:

  • Annual or monthly recurring revenue (ARR or MRR)
  • Retention or churn rates
  • Average conversion time
  • Average conversion rate
  • Customer lifetime value (CLV)

It doesn’t matter so much which metric you choose —the important point is that it can tell you whether your work has succeeded.

Next, look at last year’s forecast and results . Were you being realistic? How did sales revenue increase annually? How does that compare your company to the industry standards? Use this information to determine what realistically you can bring in based on the size of the market, your company goals, and the experience and resources available to your sales team .

After setting clear sales goals, it’s time to set milestones . This involves breaking that big number down into smaller expectations with strict deadlines. These should challenge and motivate your sales team , without being so difficult they kill morale.

set milestones in sales plan

Lean on your sales team during this process. After all, they’re in the trenches with you and probably have the best knowledge about your customers. Learn about what they do during the workweek to close deals. Ask how much they’re currently doing, and how much bandwidth they have to do more. This will give you a real, frontline take on what goals and milestones to set in your sales plan template.

Finally, create specific targets with clear deadlines . For example, to achieve a sales goal of increasing revenue by 15% YOY, you might set the milestone of increasing your customer base by 20%, or increasing sales by 50% for a specific product.

Brought together, these milestones inform and support your overall sales plan, giving you a clear, actionable workflow to hit your overall goals for the year.

2. Clearly Define Your Target Market or Niche

You need to know the market you’re in and the niche you’re going to occupy so you can properly position your business for growth.

What’s a business niche? It’s more than just what your business specializes in—a niche is the space your business occupies, with your products, content, company culture, branding, and message. It’s how people identify with you and search you out over the competition.

As serial entrepreneur Jason Zook explains: “ When you try to create something for everyone, you end up creating something for no one. ”

Don’t do that.

Instead, start by looking at a niche and asking yourself these questions:

  • How big is the market?
  • Is there a built-in demand for what you're selling?
  • What’s your current market position?
  • Who are your competitors? What are their strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats?

If you’re stuck, start by going back to your own strengths . List out your strongest interests and passions. Pick a field where the odds are already in your favor—where you have a proven track record, more expertise to offer, an extensive contact base, and people who can provide you with intros.

These kinds of strategic advantages will help you clarify your buyer persona and amplify the results of your planning.

Start with one product in one niche—you can always branch out to a complementary niche later. Sell beautiful, handcrafted tea cups? How about a booming doily business? Or customizable teaspoons?

A niche doesn’t limit you. It focuses you.

3. Understand Your Target Customers

Chasing the wrong customers will only waste your time and money, so don't allow them to sneak into your sales plan.

Your best customers are the ones that are successful with your product and see the ROI of it. Talk to them, and find out what they have in common.

While defining ideal customers depends on your company and market, here are some basic characteristics you’ll want to identify:

  • Company size (number of employees, number of customers, yearly revenue)
  • Size of the relevant department
  • Geographical information
  • Job title of your POC
  • Buying process
  • The goal they’re trying to achieve with your product or service

Also, don’t forget to think about whether they will be a good ‘fit’. If this is a long-term relationship you’re developing rather than a one-night stand, you want to ensure you speak the same language and share a similar culture and vision.

Use this information to build out an ideal customer profile . This fictitious organization gets significant value from using your product/service and provides significant value to your company. A customer profile helps you qualify leads and disqualify bad-fit customers before you waste time trying to sell to them.

Sales Team Building an Ideal Customer Profile for a Sales Plan

Once you know the type of company you want to target with your sales team, it’s time to get inside their head. Start by hanging out where they hang out:

  • Are they on social media? What’s their network of choice?
  • Are they members of any Facebook or LinkedIn groups?
  • Can you answer industry questions for them on Quora or Reddit?
  • What podcasts do they listen to or what resources do they read?

Get in your customers’ heads and you’ll be in a much better position to sell to them.

GET THE IDEAL CUSTOMER PROFILE KIT →

4. Map Out Your Customer’s Journey

The next part of an effective sales plan must address how that ideal customer becomes your customer. Do this by mapping out their journey, including actions and events during the different stages of the sales funnel :

  • Consideration

Conduct a customer survey , or chat directly with your current, happy customers to gather valuable sales planning insights. Ask them:

  • When you became a customer, what did you want our product to do for you?
  • What features were important to you? Why?
  • What was your budget?
  • How were you solving this problem before using our product?

To fully understand their journey as a customer, you can also ask about past buying experiences:

  • When was the last time you bought something similar?
  • Was that a good or bad experience? Why?
  • What was the decision-making process like?
  • How did you evaluate different offers?
  • Which factors made you choose that particular solution?

Once you’ve identified the awareness, interest, and consideration stages, let your prospects and new customers build the rest of their roadmap by asking them: ‘what’s next?’

"What needs to happen to make you a customer?"

If, for example, they say they’ll have to get approval from the VP of Finance. Ask:

"Ok, and let's say he agrees that we're the right fit, what's next?"

We call this the virtual close , a way to put your prospect in a future-thinking state of mind that makes them imagine buying from you. Asking this question to several high-quality prospects will tell you those final few steps in the customer journey until they’ve signed on the dotted line.

Finally, piece together the post-sale journey. Once a prospect becomes a customer, what’s next? How do you enable them to use your product and be successful with it? What happened to create your most loyal customers? Understanding this piece of the sales process is essential to managing and increasing customer retention .

5. Define Your Value Propositions

You know your customers. You know their journey. Now, define where you fit in by looking at your competitive advantage . Fully articulating what sets you apart from the competition is a crucial element of your sales plan template.

Start by asking a few simple questions:

  • Why do customers buy from us?
  • Why do customers buy from our competitors and not us?
  • Why do some potential customers not buy at all?
  • What do we need to do to be successful in the future?

Remember that customers buy benefits, not features. When describing your value proposition , it’s easy to get caught up in talking about you. What you’ve made. What you do. Instead, flip the script and talk about what your product will do for your customers . A strong competitive advantage:

  • Reflects the competitive strength of your business
  • Is preferably, but not necessarily, unique
  • Is clear and simple
  • May change over time as competitors try to steal your idea
  • Must be supported by ongoing market research

For example, the competitive advantage of help desk software has nothing to do with its social media integrations and real-time ticket tracking. It’s the fact that it allows its customers to focus on creating a great customer experience.

Here’s the point: Focus on value, not features in your sales plan template.

Create Value Propositions to Create a Successful Sales Plan (Image of Planning)

Your competitive advantage will inform everything your company does moving forward, from marketing to product development. It’s a great example of where sales can influence the development of a product and the direction of a business.

6. Organize Your Sales Team

The way your sales team is organized can enable them to better serve their customers and bring new revenue into your business faster.

Here are three basic structures for your sales team :

  • The island: Individual reps work alone.
  • Assembly line: Each sales rep is assigned a specialized role such as lead generation, SDR (qualifier), Account Executive (closer), or Customer Success (farmer).
  • Pods: Each sales rep is assigned a specialized role in a pod, or group, that’s responsible for the entire journey of specific customers.

Think about the strengths and weaknesses of your sales team members, and how they will truly thrive as part of the team.

7. Outline the Use of Sales Tools

Now it’s time to think about the tools you’re using. Building out your sales stack takes time and effort, but listing out that stack in your sales plan will help you avoid getting caught up with new tech that may or may not help your sales team.

Basically, you’ll need tools for these areas to cover all aspects of the sales process:

  • CRM software (like Close )
  • Lead generation and prospecting tools
  • Internal communication software
  • Engagement and outreach tools
  • Documentation software
  • Sales enablement stack

Think about how all of your sales tools work together through integrations and where automation comes into play to save your team time, and how you'll drive CRM adoption across your team members.

8. Build a Prospecting List

A prospect list is where we take all the theory and research of the last few sections of our sales plan template and put them into action.

At its core, a prospect list is a directory of real people you can contact who would benefit from your product or service. This can be time-consuming, but it's essential for driving your sales plan and company growth.

First, use your ideal customer profile to start finding target companies:

  • Search LinkedIn
  • Check out relevant local business networks
  • Attend networking events and meetups
  • Do simple Google searches
  • Check out the member list of relevant online groups

Target up to 5 people at each organization. Targeting more than one individual will give you better odds of connecting by cold email outreach as well as a better chance that someone in your network can connect you personally.

Remember, this isn’t just a massive list of people you could sell to. This is a targeted list based on the research you’ve done previously in your sales plan.

Once you have your list, keep track of your leads and how you found them using a sales CRM. This will keep historical context intact and make sure you don’t overlap on outreach if you’re working with teammates.

9. Track, Measure, and Adjust As Needed

Just because you’ve made a solid sales plan template to follow, doesn’t mean you get to sit back and watch the cash roll in.

Remember what Basecamp founder Jason Fried said about plans:

“A plan is simply a guess you wrote down.”

You’re using everything you know about the market, your unique value, target customers, and partners to define the ideal situation for your company. But yes, try as we might, very few of us actually see anything when we gaze deep into the crystal ball.

Instead, remember that your sales plan is a living, breathing document that needs to account for and adapt to new features, marketing campaigns, or even new team members who join.

Set regular meetings (at least monthly) to review progress on your sales plan, identify and solve issues, and align your activities across teams to optimize your plan around real-world events and feedback. Learn from your mistakes and victories, and evolve your sales plan as needed.

Track and Analyze the Data in Your Sales Plan Template (to Improve Results)

Create a Strategic Sales Plan to Grow Your Business

You’ve just discovered the basics—but I’ll bet you’re ready to go beyond that. Here are some final ideas to take your sales plan from a simple foundation to a strategic, actionable one.

Avoid Moving the Goalpost

Avoid making adjustments to the goals outlined in your sales plan—even if you discover you’ve been overly optimistic or pessimistic in your sales planning. When you're developing your very first sales plan template, it's natural to be wrong in some of your assumptions—especially around goals and forecasting .

Instead of letting it get you down, remember your plan serves as a benchmark to judge your success or failure. As you see places where your assumptions were wrong, carefully document what needs updating when it's time to revise your sales plan.

Invite Your Others to Challenge Your Sales Plan

Never finalize a plan without another set of eyes (or a few sets.) Get an experienced colleague—an accountant, senior salesperson, or qualified friend—to review the document before solidifying your sales plan.

Your sales team is another strong resource for reviewing your sales plan. Ask their opinions, give them time to think about how it relates to their daily work, and agree on the key points that go into your sales plan.

Set Individual Goals and Milestones for Your Sales Team

We talked about creating milestones for your business, but you can take your sales plan to the next level by setting individual milestones for your sales team as well.

Set Individual Milestones for Your Sales Team to Succeed (Planning Image)

These individual goals need to consider the differences in strengths, weaknesses, and skills among your salespeople.

For example, if someone on your team is making a ton of calls but not closing, give them a milestone of upping their close rate . If someone’s great at closing but doesn’t do much outreach, give them a milestone of contacting 10 new prospects a month.

Doing this will help your individual reps build their skills and contribute to their company and career growth.

Ready to Hit Your Sales Goals?

In most sales situations, the biggest challenge is inertia. But with a solid, detailed sales plan and a dedicated team with clear milestones, you’ll have everything you need to push through any friction and keep on track to hit your goals!

All jazzed up and ready to put together your own sales plan? Download our free Sales Success Kit and access 11 templates, checklists, worksheets, and guides.

They're action-focused and easy to use, so you can have your best sales year yet.

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Sales | How To

How to Create a Sales Plan in 10 Steps (+ Free Template)

Published March 9, 2023

Published Mar 9, 2023

Jess Pingrey

REVIEWED BY: Jess Pingrey

Jillian Ilao

WRITTEN BY: Jillian Ilao

Find out how. Download our Free Ebook

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This article is part of a larger series on Sales Management .

Manage Sales With CRM

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  • 1 Establish Your Mission Statement
  • 2 Set Sales Goals & Objectives
  • 3 Determine Your Ideal Customer
  • 4 Set Your Sales Budget
  • 5 Develop Sales Strategies & Tactics
  • 6 Implement Sales Tools
  • 7 Develop Your Sales Funnel
  • 8 Create Your Sales Pipeline
  • 9 Assign Roles & Responsibilities
  • 10 Monitor Progress & Adjust Accordingly
  • 11 Examples of Other Free Small Business Sales Plan Templates
  • 12 Sales Planning Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
  • 13 Bottom Line

Sales plans enable businesses to set measurable goals, identify resources, budget for sales activities, forecast sales, and monitor business progress. These all contribute to guiding the sales team toward the company’s overall strategy and goals. In this article, we explore how to create a sales plan, including details on creating an action plan for sales, understanding the purpose of your business, and identifying your ideal customers.

What Is a Sales Plan? A sales plan outlines the strategies, objectives, tools, processes, and metrics to hit your business’ sales goals. It entails establishing your mission statement, setting goals and objectives, determining your ideal customer, and developing your sales strategy and sales funnel. To effectively execute your sales plan, assign roles and responsibilities within your sales team and have metrics to measure your outcomes versus your goals and objectives.

Ten steps to creating an effective sales plan

Download and customize our free sales planning template and follow our steps to learn how to create a sales plan to reach your company’s revenue goals.

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Free Sales Plan Template

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💡 Quick Tip:

Once you’ve created a sales plan, give your sales team the tools to execute it effectively with robust customer relationship management (CRM) software.

Use a CRM like HubSpot CRM to help your sales team collaborate on deals, develop sales reports, track deals, and create custom sales dashboards

1. Establish Your Mission Statement

A mission statement summarizing why you’re in business should be part of your action plan for sales. It should include a broad overview of your business’ products or services and your brand’s unique selling proposition. For example, you wouldn’t say, “We provide customers with insurance policies.” Instead, you might frame it as “We provide customers with cost-effective financial risk management solutions.”

It’s essential to fully understand your unique selling proposition before creating a mission statement. This allows you to learn why you’re different from competitors in your industry. It also helps you determine how your unique proposition suits a niche market better.

Steps on how to create a unique selling proposition

For instance, using the same insurance example above, you may realize specific markets are easier to sell based on that selling proposition. Therefore, it’s a good idea to narrow in on your mission statement by saying, “We provide startup businesses with cost-effective risk management solutions.”

2. Set Sales Goals & Objectives

Once you have summarized why you’re in business in a mission statement, begin setting sales goals . Typically, business goals will include one year, but may also include three- or five-year projections.

Steps on how to set sales goals

Here are a few options for how to set sales revenue goals for your business:

  • Set sales amount: You may have a specific amount in mind for a sales goal. For instance, you may determine that $200,000 is a reasonable sales goal based on prior sales and your company’s ability to generate new business.
  • Desired profitability: First, calculate the total anticipated expenses for the set time period to find the break-even point. From there, you can calculate how much revenue your team needs to bring in to make a certain profit margin. For example, if annual operating costs are expected to be $100,000, and you want to make a 30% profit, your sales goal is $130,000.
  • Projected sales forecast: Based on an industry-standard or estimates you attained by running a sales forecast, you may find it’s better to use a projected sales forecast as your sales goal.

Pro tip: Projecting sales can be challenging without a suitable sales forecasting model. Our free sales forecast templates help you create simple, long-term, budget-based, multi-product, subscription-based, and month-to-month business sales forecasts. Some customer relationship managers (CRMs) like Freshsales have sales goal-tracking functionalities that allow you to set and assign sales goals for your team.

Five-year sales forecast template example.

Five-year sales forecast template example (Source: Fit Small Business )

Freshsales sales goal tracking filter options.

Sales goal tracking in Freshsales (Source: Freshsales )

Sales goals must reflect new business revenue and sales from existing or recurring customers. Then, you must add specific sales objectives that identify and prioritize the sales activities your team needs to complete to meet sales goals. This creates an objective way to measure success in hitting goals at all levels: organizational, sales department, team, and individual sales rep, which is an essential part of sales management .

For example, imagine your total revenue goal is $200,000 in year two and $300,000 in year three. You then add an objective, such as stating you want your business’ revenue from existing customers to grow 15% in year three. This can be measured by evaluating your percentage of revenue from existing customers in year three compared to year two.

3. Determine Your Ideal Customer

Determining the ideal customer or target market is the next step of your business plan for sales reps. It may have been accomplished when you developed your mission statement, but also when you set your sales goals and discovered how broad your market needs to be to reach them. Describing your ideal customer helps dictate who you’re selling to and your selling approach.

One way to establish your ideal customer is by creating a series of unique customer profiles . Each profile specifies key demographics, behaviors, interests, job positions, and geographic information about one of your ideal buyer types. Based on your customer profiles, you can then develop more targeted marketing strategies for lead generation and nurturing to move leads through the sales process more efficiently and close more deals.

Pro tip: Making a customer persona can be challenging, especially if it is based on the wrong data or if you just focus on the demographics. Check out our article on creating a customer persona to help you define your company’s ideal buyer types and guide your lead generation and marketing activities.

4. Set Your Sales Budget

After establishing your objectives and identifying your ideal customer personas—and before developing your actual strategies and tactics—you must identify a sales budget to work with. It should include estimated expenses for salaries, travel expenses, and the cost of any software tools or service providers used to help with sales and marketing. While these are meant to be estimates, research and due diligence should be done to avoid financial errors.

One way to set your sales budget, particularly for software tools and services you may be interested in, is to create and issue a request for proposal (RFP). Issuing an RFP allows you to post a summary of your needs to solicit proposals on potential solutions. In addition to providing accurate budget estimates from various qualified vendors and contractors, it may also help you discover cost-effective or high-performing options you were previously unaware of.

5. Develop Sales Strategies & Tactics

A sales strategy explains how you plan to outsell your competitors and accomplish your sales goals. It defines specific, detailed tactics your team will use to pursue your sales goals. These may involve using Google Ads, cold calling, and drip email marketing campaigns as part of a lead generation strategy. Available strategies differ depending on your company’s resources, skill sets, sales operation, and product or service offerings.

Strategies and tactics should be personalized for your ideal customers based on their unique interests, behaviors, and the best ways to connect with them. For example, some customer profiles show your ideal buyer generally only makes purchases based on trusted referrals. In this case, you could implement a referral strategy that provides incentives to generate more customer referrals .

Plus, different sales strategies will be needed to acquire new business vs keeping existing customers. When selling to existing customers, for example, your strategy could include cross-selling tactics where additional products are recommended based on prior purchases. The short-term cross-selling tactics could require customer service reps to send 30 emails per week recommending a complementary product to existing customers.

For a new business strategy, sales reps might rely on emotional selling methods when using cold calling as a tactic. Instead of product features, cold calling scripts would be geared to evoke feelings that lead to buying decisions. Tactics could reflect the objective of having reps make 15 cold calls each week. They could use a script that opens with a story about how a purchase made a customer feel or how someone felt because they didn’t purchase the product.

Pro tip: Ensuring your strategies are properly executed requires excellent sales leadership and a healthy environment for sales reps to operate in. Our how-to guide for building a positive sales culture shows you how to create an environment that promotes high job satisfaction, low employee turnover, and profitability.

6. Implement Sales Tools

Your sales strategy template should reference the software, hardware, and materials you use to manage the sales operation and make each team member more efficient. One of the most notable tools to include is the customer relationship management (CRM) system . It allows your team to organize contact information, streamline sales tasks, and facilitate communication with customers and leads.

HubSpot CRM , for instance, makes it easy to organize information about leads, contacts, and deal opportunities. Additionally, from a HubSpot CRM lead profile, you can initiate a conversation with that contact by calling, emailing, or scheduling an appointment.

HubSpot CRM sample lead profile.

HubSpot CRM contact profile (Source: HubSpot )

CRMs are also used to monitor and report sales progress. For example, many have dashboards and functionality, such as alerts, which make it easy to identify where your team may be underperforming. These could also tell you which leads are most likely to convert and should be focused on. Sales information such as deals closed, revenue generated, and leads created can be presented in a detailed report .

These types of insights can also be shown on the CRM’s system dashboard . Pipedrive is an example of a CRM that has a customizable dashboard that displays both activity information and performance-based data. Activity data include emails sent, received, and outstanding tasks to be completed. Performance-based data, on the other hand, have deals lost or the average value of won deals.

Pipedrive’s customizable dashboard (Source: Pipedrive )

Other sales enablement tools can make your sales team more effective. These include voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) phone systems , lead generation platforms, email campaign tools, content creation platforms, and task automation software. These tools can be found within CRM software or through CRM integrations and standalone applications.

In addition to technology tools, sales and marketing templates should be used to streamline outreach initiatives. Scenario-based, premade sales email templates , for instance, allow salespeople to have an email already crafted for their specific situation.

Creating and storing business proposal templates in your CRM also streamlines the contact procurement and business proposal generation process . This way, whenever a prospect says they’d like to receive a quote or you’re responding to a request for a proposal, you already have a customizable template ready to go.

Pro tip: Effective cold calling scripts sales reps can use as a guide when placing calls to new leads is a tremendous sales tool to include in your action plan for sales. Get started using our guide for writing a cold calling script , which includes examples and free templates.

7. Develop Your Sales Funnel

Setting up a sales funnel within your sales strategy template lets you visualize the stages of the customer journey, from becoming aware of your business to buying from it. By creating and understanding the different statuses of your leads, you can track progress and determine how effective you are at converting leads to the next stages in the funnel.

Using a sales funnel with conversion rates also makes it easier for you to adjust your sales strategies and tactics based on how effectively you’re getting leads through the funnel. For instance, let’s say you have 100 leads in the awareness stage of the funnel. You decide to cold call 50 of them and write a sales email to the other 50 to qualify leads by setting up a product demonstration.

After each campaign, you find you were able to qualify seven of the leads that were cold-called and only two of the leads you had emailed. Based on these funnel conversion rates of 14% (7/50) from cold calling and 4% (2/50) from emailing, you would likely adjust your tactics to focus more on calling instead of emailing.

Do you need help creating a sales funnel for your business? Our guide to creating a sales funnel explains the step-by-step sales funnel creation process and provides free templates and specific examples.

8. Create Your Sales Pipeline

Once your sales process’ sales funnel stages are identified, develop the sales pipeline stages . These stages include your team’s sales activities to move leads through the funnel. For example, you need to get a lead from the sales funnel stage of brand awareness to show interest in learning more about one of your services. To do this, you could add a sales pipeline activity like setting up a demo or presentation appointment through a cold call.

Adding your sales pipeline to your sales strategy is essential because it describes all the activities your sales reps need to do to close a sales deal. CRM systems like Freshsales allow you to create and track the pipeline stages for each lead or deal within the lead record.

Funnel view of Freshsales’ deal pipeline (Source: Freshsales )

Listing each pipeline stage also helps you identify tools and resources needed to perform the activities for each stage. For example, if you use phone calls to initiate contact with or introduce a product to a lead, you could develop outbound sales call scripts for your team.

After the initial contact by phone, you may use email to follow up after a call and then nurture leads throughout the sales process. As part of your follow-up, create and automate a sales follow-up email template to get them to the next pipeline stage.

The sales funnel shows where a lead is in the sales process. The sales pipeline, on the other hand, lists activities needed to drive leads to the next stage in the sales funnel. Both should be used in your sales strategy when defining the repeatable steps required to generate leads and close deals. Check out our article to learn how to create a winning sales process with insights on both creating a sales process and measuring its success.

9. Assign Roles & Responsibilities

Regardless of the size of your business or sales operation, your business plan for sales reps should include the role and responsibility of each person in the sales team. Each role should have a name, such as someone being a sales development representative (SDR). There should also be a summary of their responsibilities, such as “the SDR is responsible for setting up sales appointments using the activities listed in the sales pipeline.”

Measuring the performance of any sales position is simple through key performance indicators (KPIs). Specific KPIs should be used to measure performance for each role and should be included in your plan. Below are some examples of KPIs that can be used by the members of the sales team and their respective responsibility:

  • Sales development representative: Responsible for introducing products and services, qualifying leads, and setting up appointments for the account executive. Performance is measured by calls placed, emails sent, and appointments generated.
  • Account executive: Responsible for nurturing qualified leads, delivering the sales pitch , sending quotes, and closing deals. Performance is measured by business proposals sent, the average time in the proposal consideration stage, deals closed, and deal closing rate.
  • Customer service representative: Responsible for managing customer needs, handling billing, and managing service tickets by assisting customers. Performance is measured by customer satisfaction, retention rates, and total tickets resolved.
  • Sales manager: Responsible for the entire sales operation or team for a specific region or product/service line. Performance is measured by job satisfaction rates of sales reps, pipeline and funnel conversion rates, team sales deals closed, and team revenue growth.

While assigning roles in your plan, a sales rep’s territory could be based on geography, industry, potential deal size, or product/service line, creating more specialization for better results. Our six-step process on proper sales territory management is an excellent resource for segmenting, creating, and assigning sales territories.

This section of the business plan is also a prime spot for individually setting sales quotas for each rep or team needed to hit your organizational sales goals. Sales quotas should be a specific KPI for that sales role and be set based on the experience, skill level, and resources of that individual or team. These quotas should also be based on your organizational, department, and team goals and objectives.

10. Monitor Progress & Adjust Accordingly

Once the strategic business plan is in motion, monitor its progress to make any required adjustments. For instance, while your sales operation is running, you may find certain sales tactics are working better than expected, and vice versa. Your sales goal template should account for using that tactic more, as well as any new sales tools, budgetary changes, new roles, and possibly even a new sales goal.

As in the earlier example, if you found that cold calling was significantly more effective than emailing, reduce or abandon the email method in favor of cold calling. You could also invest in sales tools especially useful for cold calling, such as power dialing using a voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) phone system, or hire additional staff to place calls. All of these will be part of your updated business plan.

Pro tip: Focusing on the big picture by creating, executing, and adjusting a strategic business plan is one of the most critical traits of an effective sales leader. For more insights on what it means to be a sales leader and how to become one, check out our ultimate guide to sales leadership .

Examples of Other Free Small Business Sales Plan Templates

Apart from our free downloadable sales strategy template, other providers have shared their version of a free strategic sales plan examples. Click on our picks below to see if these templates fit your business process better:

HubSpot’s free sales planning template helps users outline their company’s sales strategy. It contains sections found in most sales plans, as well as prompts for you to fill out your company’s tactics and information. These include company history and mission, team structure, target market, tools and software used, positioning, market strategy, action plan, goals, and budget.

HubSpot sales plan template

HubSpot sales strategy template (Source: HubSpot )

HubSpot’s sales plan template with the mission, vision, and story of the company

HubSpot’s sales goals template with the mission, vision, and story of the company (Source: HubSpot )

Visit HubSpot

Asana’s free sales plan template helps organizations analyze their current sales process, establish their sales objectives, identify success metrics, and plan actionable steps. The sales business plan template is embedded within Asana’s platform, automatically integrating aspects such as goals and measuring them against results or sales performance.

Asana sales plan template

Asana sales plan example (Source: Asana )

Visit Asana

Sales Planning Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is sales planning.

Sales planning is creating a document that outlines your sales strategy, objectives, target audience, potential obstacles, and tools to achieve goals within a specified period. This may include your daily, monthly, quarterly, yearly, and long-term revenue objectives.

What is included in a sales plan?

A sales strategy plan template typically includes the following key elements:

  • Target customers, accounts, or verticals
  • Stock-keeping units (SKUs)
  • Revenue targets or forecasts
  • Strategies and tactics
  • Pricing and promotions
  • Deadlines and directly responsible individuals (DRIs)
  • Team structure and coordination
  • Market conditions

What are the different types of strategic sales planning?

The type of strategic planning for sales that you choose for your team ultimately depends on different factors. These include your revenue goals, available resources, the ability and bandwidth of your sales team, and your personal commitment to your plans. Once you have determined the details of these factors, you can choose from these types of strategic sales planning:

  • Revenue-based sales action plan template: This is ideal for teams aiming for a specific revenue goal. It focuses on in-depth sales forecasting, improvement of conversion rates, and closing more deals.
  • Sales business plan based on the target market: This plan is best for businesses that cater to several markets that are different from each other. In this situation, you must create separate sales goal templates for enterprise companies and small businesses.
  • Sales goals plan: This focuses on other goals such as hiring, onboarding, sales training plans, or sales activity implementation.
  • New product sales business plan: This plan is developed for the launch and continued promotion of a new product.

Bottom Line

While any business can set bold sales goals, creating a sales plan outlines how your team will achieve them. By following the best practices and 10-step process laid out above, your sales goal template defines what your sales process will look like. It will help establish baselines for accountability and identify optimal strategies, tactics, and the tools needed to make your team as efficient as possible.

About the Author

Jillian Ilao

Jillian Ilao

Jill is a sales and customer service expert at Fit Small Business. Prior to joining the company, she has worked and produced marketing content for various small businesses and entrepreneurs from different markets, including Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Singapore. She has extensive writing experience and has covered topics on business, lifestyle, finance, education, and technology.

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Home \ Blog \ Why Salespeople Should Write and Present Individual Business Plans

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Why Salespeople Should Write and Present Individual Business Plans

  • By Mike Weinberg
  • November 15, 2017

It is surprising how few sales organizations ask their people to draft annual sales (business) plans. For fifteen years I I’ve witnessed the power of having every member of the sales team write, and when possible, present, business plans to sales management, senior execs, or even better, to the members of sales team.

Why Individual Business Plans?

  • People who write down their goals are significantly more successful than those who don’t. We all know there is a ton of data to support this claim. I won’t even begin to cite sources.
  • Writing a plan causes the rep to take ownership of his/her business (territory, book, etc.).
  • The process drives big-picture creative thinking.
  • Forces the salesperson to examine what has worked and what hasn’t. (Remember the definition of “insanity”?)
  • Presenting the plan to the team is a powerful way of sharing best practices and allows everyone to learn from each other.
  • We learn a ton about reps when they present their plans: who can sell, who can think, who brings passion and fresh ideas to the job, who can present well, who “gets it” and who doesn’t .
  • The business plan serves as a powerful and automatic accountability tool.   The very act of presenting the plan publicly and articulating what you are going to do to achieve your goals creates energy, competition and accountability!
  • The plan serves as a valuable  roadmap to help keep the salesperson on track throughout the year.
  • The plans is a gift to the sales manager! How easy it is to grab the rep’s plan before a phone call, coaching meeting, monthly 1:1 accountability meeting , or day in the field with them? “Sarah, let’s take a look at your plan together to see if YOU are DOING what YOU SAID YOU NEEDED TO DO in order to be successful.”

There is too much benefit derived from this process not to do it. Customize the template offered below. Or even better, salespeople can use the expanded template along with the coaching provided in Chapter 14 of New Sales. Simplified ., while sales leaders can get that info better tailored to their needs in Chapter 26 of Sales Management. Simplified.  Provide the template to each member of the sales team and ask them to write and prepare to present their own plan to the team (or just to senior management). I’ve found it works well to give the team a few weeks to go through the exercise and to be very specific about how long they will have to present their plans. Typically, I’ve observed 20-30 minutes to present and ten minutes for Q & A usually works nicely.

Essential Components of the Plan

I think there is a lot of room for flexibility as far as what goes into the template. Every business and sales role is different and that is why each company needs a customized plan. Having said that, there are five categories or sections that I believe are essential:

  • Goals – What are you going to achieve?  We always start with the end in mind!  Possible bullets in this section include total revenue or gross margin goals for the year, # of new accounts or new pieces of business acquired, $ from existing accounts and $ from new accounts, specific product-mix goals, and even asking the rep to “name and claim” the monster account or dream client they will nail this year.
  • Strategies – How are you going to do it? Where is it going to come from? In this section I like to ask questions about market focus, target account lists, major cross-sell opportunities, most growable or most at-risk accounts, what new approaches will the rep take to get in front of new prospects, how will they better penetrate current customers, where will they concentrate their efforts and so on.
  • Actions – What are you going to do? In this section I want to hear about activity and metrics. What’s “The Math?” How many calls, initial face-to-face meetings? What type of commitment to time-blocking? To what activity goals and metrics will you/the rep be accountable?
  • Obstacles – What’s in the way? I don’t believe in excuses. And I do believe that almost every salesperson could tell you on day one what is likely to get in the way of achieving their goals for the year. So I like to ask for a list of known obstacles right up front so we can address and help remove them. Failure is not an option; let’s figure out how to overcome those obstacles or how we need to help that salesperson now! Obstacles take many forms: personal health, distractions, lack of training or knowledge, family issues, travel  budgets, old technology, the anti-sales department. Just ask. Believe, they’ll have a list.
  • Personal Development, Growth & Motivation – How do you want to grow this year? If we are not growing then we are dying. Salespeople need to invest in themselves. Ask how they will do that. Courses, training, peer-mentoring, outside coaching, sales books, blogs?  Are there certain areas where they/you need to develop professionally in order to get to the next level? I also like to ask the salesperson to share some of their personal philosophies about sales and what they do to keep themselves motivated throughout the year. You get some really fun answers and can learn a lot about what drives your people.

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  • 17 SMART Sales Goals Examples for 2024 [With an Action Plan]

How to create SMART sales goals

Sales goals are important.

Hit your goals, and you’re more likely to grow.

Fail to meet your sales goals though, and growth plateaus.

When we asked 138 sales professionals from different business verticals about their yearly revenue targets they achieved by September 2021, the response was alarming.

More than 60% of sales reps weren’t even close to achieving their yearly sales quota .

Sales goals target vs achievement poll statistics

A HubSpot survey reported similar results as nearly 40% of companies stated that they failed to achieve their sales goals in 2020.

Shocked? We were.

And it left us wondering if there’s a way to help people achieve their sales goals.

After all, we’re a sales execution platform. 

Our goal is to help our customers achieve their sales goals.

So, we decided to put together a easy to follow action plan for companies to achieve their sales goals.

Here we go!

What are sales goals?

Sales goals are the objectives a company or a team wants to achieve in a given time. It gives sales teams a roadmap of what they need to do to help their company achieve specific targets.

There can be different types of sales goals. For example, revenue goals, customer acquisition goals, customer retention goals, and more. For example,

  • Increase sales revenue by 15% in the next quarter.
  • $15,000 in sales revenue per representative per month.
  • Increase customer acquisition rate by 10%.

Reduce customer defection rate by 3% in the next year.

  • Reduce the churn rate to 5%.
  • ACV of $180k per sales rep in 2024.
  • Make 40 cold calls per day.
  • Reduce response time to a maximum of 4 minutes.

In the subsequent sections, we will discuss sales goals examples in detail. But first, let’s look at why it is necessary to set up goals.

Why create sales goals?

Simply put, those who have goals are 10 times more successful than those without them.

And those who have written goals are 3 times more successful than those with unwritten goals.

Interesting, right?

But does this happen in reality?

I’m worried; it doesn’t.

people and goals statistics

Whether it’s a personal or professional goal, we fail because we don’t know what we’re doing and why.

Let’s look at it from an organization’s perspective.

Many individuals contribute to the organization’s goals.

For example, to achieve $$ revenue goals of a company, every team member is assigned a target, and they work towards achieving them.

Seems pretty straightforward, isn’t it?

But it’s not.

In reality, you’ll find a lot of moving parts between planning and execution.

Let’s say you’ve set sales goals for the coming year.

sales goals example - revenue

You have also set up your team and assigned them tasks. But, in the middle of the quarter, one of your team members decides to switch. In that case, if you don’t take appropriate action in time, the goal you’ve set will be in jeopardy.

That’s why setting up sales goals, having an action plan and tracking progress is important.

But not just any goals. The goals you set for your team must be SMART.

Let’s discuss the components of a SMART sales goal in detail.

How to create SMART sales goals

In the context of sales goals, SMART refers to:

  • Specific: The goals should clearly define the expectations
  • Measurable: The metrics and criteria you define for the goals should be measurable
  • Attainable: The goals should be challenging yet attainable
  • Relevant: Makes sense for your business and team
  • Time-bound: Should have a timeline to accomplish them

Here’s an example of a SMART sales goal.

Specific: Your goal is to acquire 600 customers by the end of March 2024. It’s specific and sets a target.

Measurable: You know that you’ll have to make 40 calls per day (assuming 1 in 4 prospects you call converts).

So, 10 customers per day for 60 working days = 600 customers in 3 months.

Note, you can easily measure the number of calls made per day.

Attainable: Making 40 calls in a day is doable. Setting a target of 100 calls is unrealistic.

Relevant: It should fit with the mission of your company. In this case, it makes sense if your sales process depends on cold calling.

Time-bound: 40 calls per day until March 2024 gives a clear timeline to achieve the goal.

Now follow these steps to define and execute your sales goals.

3 Steps to create successful sales goals

Let’s break it down into three main steps:

  • Define goals

Create an action plan

Track performance, define your goals.

You’ll need to define (set) goals:

1. To track metrics: You must set goals on metrics that are important for your business growth. For example, lead generated, the number of calls or meetings scheduled, the number of deals closed, etc.

2. Across the organization’s hierarchy : In an organization, team members will have different roles and KRAs. So, you must set goals and KPIs for individuals as well. For example, revenue targets may not be relevant to the graphic designer.

3. For various cycles : Different KPIs have different timelines. For example, revenue goals are measured on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis. Whereas lead generation goals are measured on a daily/weekly basis.

revenue goals example

The goals you define should be fact-based . It shouldn’t be based on whims.

You should evaluate your previous year’s performance, average order value, conversion rate, sales cycle , resources, etc., and accordingly set a realistic goal.

Note that a goal without an action plan is just another new year resolution – unattended and unaccomplished.

So, the next step is to put your plan into action.

An action plan is a well-defined description of goals. It describes the steps that need to be carried out to achieve the goal within a specified time.

For example, if your goal is to bring $100k in revenues next year, your action plan should look like this:

1. Form a team for different aspects of your sales process , such as:

  • Lead generation (marketing)
  • Lead qualification (SDRs)
  • Inside sales for follow ups.

2. Define KPIs for teams and individuals

  • Marketing should generate at least X leads/week
  • Every SDR (Sales development representative) must do Y discovery calls per day and qualify leads
  • The inside sales team must nurture and add Z qualified leads to the pipeline per week.
  • The sales representatives or account executives must follow up and close XY deals per month.
  • Assign goals to the individuals.
  • Equip your teams with the required tools and technology to help them in their day-to-day tasks.

Assign goals to sales reps

Once the team members are on the same page, know their goals, and are ready to perform, the next thing you must do is track the progress.

As we said, there are several moving parts between planning and execution. Sometimes you might fall short of resources, while other times, external factors like competition, socio-political or environmental conditions might disrupt your business.

That’s why you need to keep a tab on the sales metrics and whether or not you’re on track to achieve your goals.

Now, if you plan to do this manually, you’ll end up deploying more resources in data crunching.

Instead, you can use CRM software to manage your leads, sales reps, and more in one place. With this, you can also generate automated reports and dashboards to keep an eye on the achievements.

Create sales goals in CRM software

So, now you know what’s happening in your team. How far you are from achieving your sales goals. If the destination seems hazy, the obvious step you must take is – improve.

Improve performance

Keeping a tab on sales KPIs will help you spot underachievers and overachievers. While the strategies of star performers can inspire others, training and support can help underachievers.

The following are the ways to improve your team members’ performances.

  • Nudges : Motivate users at the right time using relevant nudges via web notifications, mobile, and emails.
  • Gamification : Inspire your teams to perform more, break the records using leaderboards , incentives (e.g., SPIFF ), and more.

So, now you know how to create and execute goals. Let’s look at the sales goals examples you can use for your business.

17 SMART sales goals examples

Revenue goals are the targets to increase the gross or net profits of the company. They reflect the cash flow a business needs to generate each year to cover all expenses while making profits. Revenue goals can be set for a team, region, or product line for a specific timeline.

Here are some examples.

  • $15,000 in sales revenue for each representative per month.
  • Generate $1.2M in 2024 from Alaska.

Sales goals examples - revenue target vs achievement

2. Unit sales

This sales goal applies to all businesses that sell physical products or services. You can set a quota for your sales team to achieve within a timeline.

For example, you can set a sales goal of 100 units per week for your sales reps .

3. Customer acquisition

Companies drive revenues from both – new and existing customers. Customer acquisition as a sales goal focuses solely on acquiring (gaining) new customers.

  • Increase customer acquisition rate by 10% per quarter.
  • Acquire 100k new customers from Florida.

4. Lower the customer acquisition cost

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the total cost you incur to acquire a customer. When your CAC is lower, you can make more profit from a sale.

CAC involves all costs like-

  • Wages and commissions of sales reps
  • Calling costs
  • Marketing and sales expenses
  • Tools and software costs

To calculate CAC, divide the total cost of acquiring customers by the number of customers acquired.

That is, if you spend $100 to acquire 100 customers in a year, your CAC is $1.

You can create sales goals to lower the CAC.

Reduce the customer acquisition cost to 80% by next quarter.

You can also refer to the following industry benchmarks for the CAC .

Average customer acquisition cost by industry statistics

5. Market share

Usually, large enterprises and aggressive start-ups target market share as a sales goal. For instance, you must have heard of Amazon’s relentless strategies to capture market share across several segments.

6. Customer retention

Customer retention refers to the activities to reduce customer defections.

In contrast, customer defection rate is the number of customers who cancel their subscription or stop making regular purchases. The lower the defection rate, the higher is your customer retention and spend.

An example of this goal could be:

7. Improve NPS

NPS or Net Promoter Score is an important sales KPI to boost customer loyalty and retention.

It indicates customer satisfaction and the likelihood of customers to recommend your products or services to others.

  • Reduce detractors by 5%
  • Increase promoters by 5%

Note that assigning absolute number targets for NPS may lead to score-begging. So, instead, assign relative targets to your reps to understand if you’re actually improving the service quality or not.

NPS - Net promoter score template

8. Reduce customer churn

Customer churn is the number of customers who stopped using your company’s product or service during a certain period.

Churn is unavoidable.

However, if your churn rate is above the industry average, you should be alarmed.

churn rate by industry statistics

You must find out why your customers churn and ways to make them stay.

Anything like competitor pricing, new market entrants, outdated product features, poor customer service, etc., could lead to churn. But sustainable brands ensure a balance between customer acquisition and retention.

For example, you can set goals to reduce the churn rate to 5%.

9. Customer lifetime value

A customer lifetime value (CLV) is a long-term prediction of the future values of your customers’ interactions.

It is an important business metric that measures how much a business can earn from the average customer over the course of the relationship.

Increasing CLV as a sales goal looks something like this:

  • Increase the average customer lifetime value from $80k to $100k.
  • Increase the average customer relationship period from 3 years to 5 years.

10. Annual contract value

Annual contract value or ACV is the average annual revenue generated from each customer contract.

Businesses that depend on subscriptions or rentals can use the annual contract value to set targets and commissions.

You can multiply the monthly target of a rep in his annual contract value to get the final value.

So, if a rep’s monthly target is $15,000, then annual contract value is $15,000 x 12 = $1,80,000. You can also include one-time sales in the yearly contract value.

  • ACV of $6 million from North America in 2024.

11. Lead generation goals/prospecting

Qualified leads are more likely to convert. The more qualified leads you get, the more deals you can close . You can set a target for your sales team to generate, say, 50 qualified leads per month with at least 75% on the qualification score .

12. Sales cycle goals

A sales cycle refers to the time it takes to convert a lead into a customer. Companies that have shorter sales cycles sell more and earn more revenues.

Let’s say your sales cycle is 6 weeks. You can set a goal to cut it down to 4.5 weeks.

Note that some industries incur longer sales cycles . So be aware of the optimum sales cycle for your business to create a sales cycle goal.

13. Sales activities: email marketing

You can turn the activities of your reps or sales team into targets. These are applicable when you set goals for people down the organizational hierarchy.

Here are some examples of email marketing goals.

  • Increase demo sign-ups from email campaigns by 20%.
  • Hit 5% email open rate target.

For this, you’ll need to track email KPIs closely.

You can either use email marketing software or CRM software like LeadSquared that supports marketing campaigns.

The following screenshot illustrates how LeadSquared CRM helps you keep an eye on your email metrics and devise strategies to improve them.

email open rate statistics by hours of day

14. Sales activities: cold calling

Similar to the above sales goals example, you can give cold calling targets to your inside sales teams. For example,

  • Increase cold calling by 20 leads per day.

You can also use LeadSquared CRM software to manage contacts and cold calling activities on a single platform.

business plan for sales person

15. Sales activities: speed-to-lead

Speed-to-lead, or the average lead response time, is the average time it takes for a sales rep to respond to an inbound lead.

It is advised to contact a lead within 5 minutes of the inquiry. Not doing so decreases the odds of qualifying the lead by 80% .

So, improving lead response time or increasing the speed-to-lead can be a sales goal for an individual. Here are some examples.

  • Increase speed-to-lead by 50%

If you’re wondering if this is a call-center metric , you’re wrong.

Speed-to-lead as a sales goal applies to all sales and customer service departments.

16. Sales activities: meetings/demos

Again, this is an individual sales goal, generally given to the SDR (Sales Development Representatives) teams.

The aim is to build a sales pipeline for the account executives. For example, you can give your reps a target to schedule 20 meetings per week .

17. Business expansion goals

Business expansion goals are similar to the revenue and market share goals but with a strong focus on the region. For example,

  • Drive $6 million ARR from the United States in 2024.
  • Capture 40% consumer durable market share in Texas by 2025.

So, these were some of the sales goals examples that you can set for your teams.

However, it’s essential to use software to track sales goals and measure every individual’s contribution towards achieving those goals.

I’d like to share a story of how LeadSquared helped a leading travel booking company track its sales performances.

How LeadSquared helped a leading travel company plan and act on sales goals

One of our customers in the travel segment was facing challenges in creating sales goals and monitoring them. The problem became serious when they started expanding across geographics.

Some of the pressing challenges were:

  • Managing employees and tracking their progress /work log on excel sheets was ineffective
  • Data loss due to multiple sheets and inconsistent data flow across systems.
  • Monitoring achievements on the whiteboard was just not right.
  • The management wasn’t able to track individual and team performances .

“Keeping track of our agents’ conversations, monitoring our teams, and evaluation of productivity became tedious as the operations scaled,” says the company’s Inside Sales Head.

After implementing LeadSquared, the management was able to set clear objectives for the team. Monitoring them regularly helped them improve critical business metrics. The main functional areas that contributed to increased sales efficiency are:

  • Setting up talk time targets
  • Setting up meeting activity targets
  • Tracking lead activities

With LeadSquared, they were able to:

The process to set up sales goals for your teams

“We were able to configure all the required targets for our team like how many leads we are getting, what actioning has been done, what is conversion rate, how many leads have been closed by the team w.r.t their target. Being able to configure all different kinds of targets makes goals a very critical feature for us now,” says the company’s spokesperson.

In conclusion

While setting up sales goals gives clarity and direction to organizational success, tracking progress ensures that you have everything you need to achieve your goals.

If you have a plan but are not able to track progress, it’s high time to invest in a tool that helps you just do that. And while you do, do check out LeadSquared sales performance suite. LeadSquared has helped leading organizations like BYJU’S, Dunzo, and many more achieve and exceed their sales goals. To see it in action,

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Nidhi is a content writer/editor at LeadSquared. She works closely with sales professionals and senior management to bring their outlook into her write-ups. Connect with her on LinkedIn or write to her at [email protected].

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Top 10 Sales Business Plan Templates with Examples and Samples

Top 10 Sales Business Plan Templates with Examples and Samples

Taranjeet Singh

author-user

A well-crafted sales business plan is essential for any company that wants to succeed. But creating a great sales plan can be time-consuming and challenging. That's where sales business plan templates come in.

Sales business plan templates provide a pre-made framework that you can design according to your plan and thus saving you time and effort. Furthermore, it helps you ensure that your plan is comprehensive and well-organized.

The best business plan ppt are 100% editable and customizable. Change the images, colors, and text to match your company's branding. You can also add or remove slides as needed.

If your requirement is to create a great sales business plan, then a sales business plan template is the perfect solution. 

With the below-mentioned templates, you can quickly and easily build a plan to help you achieve your sales goals.

Let’s begin!

Template 1: Sales Plan Presentation Template

This content-ready PPT template focuses on helping businesses decide their mission, drive business growth, and cultivate repeat customers. This concise and informative PowerPoint presentation is designed to equip your sales team with necessary skills and knowledge to elevate your company’s growth. It provides you with valuable insights and strategies for achieving sales objectives, capturing new markets, and fostering customer loyalty. Elevate your sales approach with this dynamic presentation, available for download to maximize your business potential.

Sales Plan Presentation

Download Now!

Template 2: Sale Action Plan PPT

Experience the transformative potential of our ready to use PowerPoint slide.  This meticulously crafted presentation is your key to unlocking sales success. With in-depth market analysis and strategic insights, it equips you with the required tools to optimize your advertising campaigns to make sales. Seamlessly navigate market trends and consumer behavior to enhance your brand's impact. To access this invaluable resource and drive your business forward, download our PPT. Embrace the power of data-driven decision-making and elevate your sales performance.

Sale Action Plan

Template 3: Sales Strategy Plan PPT

Introducing our professional and appealing curated PowerPoint template. This is a top-notch PowerPoint template to you effectively outline and convey your sales strategy. With a visually captivating layout and content that effortlessly highlights your market analysis, target audience, competitive advantages, and action plans, leave a lasting impression on your audience. Unlock the power of persuasive presentations and grow your business to unparalleled heights. Download now!

Sales Strategy Plan

Template 4: Sales and Marketing Plan for Business Growth PPT

This PPT delves into crucial topics of sales such as, goals, targets, strategies, measurement, and tactics. This dynamic presentation provides you with a roadmap to propel your business toward success. By defining clear objectives, identifying the target audience, devising practical strategies, measuring performance, and implementing tactical approaches, this plan ensures a comprehensive approach to sales and marketing. Download this insightful resource now to gain valuable insights and actionable steps to accelerate your business growth.

Sales and Marketing Plan for Business Growth

Template 5: Business Sales Growth Strategy Plan Model PPT

Leverage the power of our PPT, covering key topics such as products, strategy, customers, geographical segments, and distribution channels. It consists of different segments and tools to help you identify growth opportunities, develop strategies to capture them, and track your progress. It is a valuable resource if you want to increase your sales. Download this template today and embrace the path to sustainable growth.

Sales and Marketing Plan for Business Growth

Template 6: Sales Strategy of Business Plan PPT

This is a content-ready PowerPoint template exhibiting six-stage process to optimize your sales approach. With visually captivating graphics and intuitive design, showcase different stages of sales, including its process and strategy, market knowledge, science metrics, sales excellence and performance, sales skills, and customer knowledge. This actionable PPT slide empowers you to present your sales strategy with precision and impact. Enhance your presentations today and achieve sales success by deploying this PPT.

Sales Strategy Business Plan Diagram PowerPoint Slides Graphics

Template 7: Sales Strategy Business Plan Template 

Designed by our experts, this professional and visually appealing template offers a streamlined six-stage process to guide you through your sales strategy. Whether you're focusing on marketing, channels, advertising, collateral, or training, this template has got you covered. Its clean & modern design makes it perfect for showcasing your business plan to your clients or team members. Grab this powerful PPT today.

Sales Strategy Business Plan Template PowerPoint Templates Microsoft

Template 8: Strategic Sales Growth Action Plan PPT

This comprehensive presentation showcases a roadmap for success, emphasizing the key components necessary to reach new customers and expand into untapped markets. With estimated cost analysis, projected sales figures, actionable steps, and achievable targets, this PPT provides you the blueprint for sales growth. Deploy this PowerPoint slide now to to unleash your organization's potential for unparalleled success. It's time to seize opportunities and fuel exponential growth in the competitive business landscape.

Strategic Sales Growth Action Plan

Template 9: Framework of Business Plan for Sales Growth PPT

Achieving substantial sales growth requires a well-structured business plan. This content-ready PowerPoint presentation outlines critical components essential for success. It covers vital topics, such as, business strategy, sales strategy, resource development, technology, and sales operations. Discover strategic approaches to optimize your business's growth potential and enhance sales effectiveness. Unlock valuable insights and actionable steps to drive revenue and maximize profitability. To access this informative presentation, download it now.

Framework of Business Plan for Sales Growth

Template 10: Key Sales Action Plans for Business Growth Template

This ready to use template is designed to help you drive success and achieve exponential growth. Focusing on strengthening and developing your sales strategies covers essential stages such as planning, budgeting, expenses, and revenues. Harness the well-crafted sales plan and unlock your business's full potential. Download this invaluable resource to transform your sales approach and propel your organization toward unprecedented success.

Key Sales Action Plans for Business Growth

A well-crafted sales business plan is a critical component for any organization looking to thrive in the market. By outlining clear objectives, strategies, and tactics, it provides a roadmap for success and empowers businesses to effectively navigate challenges, capitalize on opportunities, and achieve sustainable growth. Therefore, SlideTeam brings you a collection of content-ready and custom-made PPT templates as a valuable tool for organizations seeking to achieve their revenue targets and drive growth. Deploy these premium slides for setting goals, defining strategies, and implementing effective sales tactics. With careful execution and adaptation, the sales business plan template becomes a roadmap to sustainable sales success.

FAQs on Sales Plan

What is a sales business plan.

A sales business plan is a strategic document that outlines the objectives, strategies, and tactics a company will employ to achieve its sales targets and generate revenue. It serves as a roadmap for the sales team, providing a clear direction and structure to follow. A well-crafted sales business plan includes thorough market analysis, target customer identification, sales goals, budgeting, and sales forecasting. It also outlines the sales strategies, such as pricing, promotional activities, distribution channels, and customer relationship management. A sales business plan is a blueprint for success, helping businesses align their efforts and maximize their sales potential.

How Do I Write a Sales Business Plan?

Writing a sales business plan requires careful consideration and attention to detail. Here are essential steps to guide you:

  • Define objectives: Clearly state your sales goals and desired outcomes.
  • Conduct market analysis: Understand your target market, competitors, and industry trends.
  • Identify target customers: Define your ideal customers and their needs.
  • Develop sales strategies: Outline lead generation, customer acquisition, and retention tactics.
  • Set sales targets: Establish measurable and achievable sales objectives.
  • Create a budget: Allocate resources for sales activities, marketing, and sales team development.
  • Develop a sales forecast: Estimate sales projections based on market analysis and historical data.
  • Define sales processes: Detail the steps involved in the sales cycle and align them with the customer journey.
  • Monitor and evaluate: Establish key performance indicators and review progress regularly.
  • Adapt and refine: Continuously refine your plan based on feedback and market dynamics.

What are the 4 Common Sales Strategies?

Four common sales strategies used by businesses are:

  • Consultative Selling : This approach builds solid customer relationships and understands their needs. Salespeople act as consultants, providing personalized solutions and guidance.
  • Solution Selling : This strategy involves identifying customer pain points and offering tailored solutions. It requires understanding the customer's business and aligning product/service features with their needs.
  • Relationship Selling : This strategy centres around developing long-term relationships with customers. Salespeople focus on building trust, providing exceptional customer service, and nurturing ongoing partnerships.
  • Social Selling : With the coming of social media, this strategy leverages platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter to connect with customers, share relevant content, and engage in conversations that can lead to sales opportunities.

Businesses can effectively engage customers, differentiate themselves, and drive revenue growth by employing these sales strategies.

Why is a Sales Plan Important?

A sales plan is crucial for the success of a business for several reasons. Firstly, it provides the sales team with a clear roadmap and direction, ensuring everyone is aligned and working towards common goals. It helps set realistic sales targets and objectives, allowing businesses to measure progress and make necessary adjustments. A sale plan also aids in identifying and understanding the target market and customers, enabling businesses to tailor their sales strategies and approaches accordingly. Moreover, it assists in allocating resources effectively, optimizing budgeting and forecasting, and maximizing sales opportunities. A well-defined sale plan ultimately increases the chances of achieving sales targets, driving revenue growth, and outperforming competitors.

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Create a Sales Plan That Actually Works (Tips + Template)

Max Altschuler

  • January 21, 2021

True success always starts with a plan. And for sales success, nothing beats a strategic sales plan.

Designed specifically to help your sales team drive more sales, a sales plan can show you where you’re at, where you want to be, and even more important, how to get there.

The question, of course, is how to create a sales plan that actually impacts sales. Keep reading for tips and a template to quickly and confidently create a strategic sales plan for your business.

Table of Contents

What is a sales plan, what is included in a sales plan, sales plan examples: there’s no one right way, the benefits of a sales plan, how to write a sales plan, 7 tips to help you create a sales plan, sales strategy template, selling your sales plan, final remarks.

A sales plan is a strategy document that lays out a company’s plan for improving sales results in a specified time period. A sales plan makes it possible for everyone on the sales team to see the big picture, share the same overall objectives, and work the same plan to achieve them.

It usually includes:

  • Specific revenue and performance goals for a given period
  • The strategies for achieving them
  • The resources and activities required to carry out those strategies

A sales plan covers a lot of important aspects of business growth: revenue goals, selling methods and metrics, target customers, current sales force capabilities, and more.

Specifically, it covers 9 pieces of strategic information.

1. Executive Summary and Scope of The Sales Plan

This section gives a short summary of the document, focusing on goals and the strategies to achieve them. It also states the specific period and other parameters covered by the plan.

2. Business Goals and Revenue Targets

This section clearly establishes revenue targets and may include associated business goals (e.g., optimize lifecycle value through customer success programs, etc). Classifying revenue figures based on different categories (such as line and territory) helps clarify the document.

3. Review of Prior Period Performance

This section presents a recap of the prior period’s performance, identifying mistakes as well as decisive actions that led to a positive outcome. The overarching goal is to optimize the sales plan by adopting inputs and techniques that work.

4. Market and Industry Conditions

This section provides a summary of the market trends that have a high likelihood of influencing sales performance.

5. Strategies, Methodologies, and Tactics

This section recommends the best selling techniques, communication sequences, and playbooks for the specific company.

6. Customer Segments

This section cites all the potential revenue-generating, omnichannel opportunities available for the brand, such as the following:

  • Cross-sells
  • New Prospects
  • New Segments

The document should describe new segments of the addressable market when they arise.

7. Team Capabilities, Resources, and Upgrades

This section provides a summary and describes the current state of all production inputs (human resources, tech software, specialized sales team, etc.,) required to process and close sales details.

8. Action Plan For Teams and Individuals

This section assigns tasks, activities, and responsibilities to different teams and individuals. Tasks include prospecting activities, meeting appointments, and product demos/presentations.

9. Performance Benchmarks & Monitoring

This section lays out performance metrics to track the systems and processes that help monitor these metrics.

What usually comes to mind when you think about sales plans?

If you’re like most people, it’s the annual sales plan or weekly sales plan — broad strategic and tactical documents mapping out the plan for everything sales-related.

But there are as many different types of sales plans as there are needs for a sales plan.

We’ll go over a few sales plan examples to get you started in the right direction.

30-60-90-day Sales Plan

There’s the 30-60-90-day sales plan. This is designed to help a new salesperson or sales manager get up to speed quickly in their first quarter on the job. The plan includes milestones they’d need to achieve at the 30th, 60th, and 90th day of their ramp-up.

Generally, the  30-60-90-day sales plan  can be broken down into 3 sections:

Day 1 to 30: 

Learn and understand everything you can about a company from their processes, customers, products, the competition to procedures.

Day 31 to 60:

Evaluate and put your plan into action. Analyze their current processes and assess changes.

Day 61 to 90:

Optimize and make the plan better. It is time to take action. Initiate an action plan. Implement any new strategies and procedures you’ve come up with.

Sales Plan For Specific Sales

A sales process involves using different tactics to approach and convert a prospect into a paying customer.

Another type of sales plan you’ll see a lot is an individual sales plan for specific sales tactics, such as prescribed call sequences,  email follow-up  frequency, and meeting appointments. This type of plan is similar to an annual/weekly sales plan, but it focuses on measuring and improving results for just one goal or task.

Territory Sales Plan

Meanwhile, sales managers who oversee a geo-location or region often use territory sales plans to give sales directors and VPs more visibility into their sales efforts.

This is a workable plan used to target the right customers and implement goals to increase the income generated and sales over time.

A good territory sales plan will:

  • Make your team more productive
  • Reduce operational costs
  • Increase the number of generated sales
  • Improve your customer coverage
  • Improve working relationships between clients and managers

Note: It is essential to work on your territory sales plan and avoid making constant changes. Unnecessary changes can tamper with your productivity and your ‘territory’ in general.

Sales Training Plan

And there are sales plans for every area of sales. Sales Enablement might have a sales training plan, for example, and  Revenue Ops  might have a sales compensation plan.

A sales training plan can be used as a roadmap for different sales training programs. It can be grouped according to positions held in an organization, assets, sales record etc.

A sales compensation plan is an umbrella for base salary, incentives and commission that make up a sales representative earnings.

Therefore, you can schedule a sales training plan to talk to your sales team about the importance of a sales compensation plan and how they can use it to increase revenue and drive performance.

Sales Budget Plan

Lastly, a sales budget plan gives you a  sales forecast  for a given period based on factors that could impact revenue — like industry trends and entry to a new market segment. Similar to a traditional sales plan, they cover the staff, tools, marketing campaigns, and other resources needed to generate the target revenue.

A good sales budget plan  should include the following:

Sales forecasting: 

The process of estimating future sales by predicting the number of units a salesperson or team can sell over a certain period, i.e. week, month, year, etc.

Anticipated expenses: 

Include the number of costs your team is likely going to incur. Remember to have even the smallest expenses to estimate the average sales.

Expect the unexpected: 

Always leave room for unforeseen circumstances in your sales budget. For example, new packaging expenses, new competitive market strategies etc.

A sales plan does deliver side benefits (such as promoting discipline and diligence), but it’s really about making sure your sales don’t dry up over time. Which means it’s not optional.

The reality is this: Most of us aren’t planners. We talk a good game, but nothing happens until we’re accountable.

Without a written plan, it’s just talk.

So the first benefit of a sales plan is that it helps you execute on all your best ideas. But that’s not all. A good sales plan will also help you:

  • Keep your sales team on the same page, aiming for the same target and focusing on the same priorities.
  • Clarify your goals and revenue objectives for a given period.
  • Give your team direction, focus, and purpose.
  • Adopt a unified set of strategies and playbooks to reach your business and revenue goals.
  • Know what your team capabilities are and be able to isolate your needs, from tools to talent and other resources.
  • Inspire and  motivate  stakeholders.
  • Track your progress and optimize performance over time.

A sales plan is a pretty straightforward document. It doesn’t need to be written in a formal language or pass your compliance review. It just needs to outline your plans for the coming period, whether that’s a year, a quarter, or a month.

While there are 9 sections in the sales plan template, much of the document simply validates your ideas. The most important pieces of information are:

1. Your goals

Setting smart goals for you and your team  is an essential part of creating a sales plan. I believe the biggest mistake you can make when setting goals is solely focusing on numbers.

Smart sales goals should be actively focused on. If it helps, use goal-setting and planning frameworks such as SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound). Create goals that stretch your capabilities, but that seems doable based on your new strategy.

2. Your SWOT analysis

SWOT — short for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats — is one of the best frameworks for analyzing your sales team’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and strengths. It helps you to build a bulletproof wall around your plan.

You’ll be able to address what you’re lacking, the areas that need improvement, identify your USP (Unique Selling Point),  come up with Value-Based Selling , and your most vital points and how you can exploit them to your advantage.

3. Your strategy

Your sales strategy should be documented to help position your products and services to differentiate your solution from competitors.

A good strategy will help you address your customers’ needs in every stage of your sales plan. For better sales, you can balance  inbound and outbound sales strategies  for even higher sales.

4. Your tactics

Be aware, though, it’s not just a wish list or a collection of ideas. Your sales plan should be based on actual field data and only use benchmarks and quantities that are measurable. Be clear. Be specific. Be actionable.

Which brings me to another point: A good sales plan is realistic.

It’s fine to have a 5-year goal of hitting $10B. But what about now? Figure out exactly what your current numbers are, and set your targets based on those numbers.

I already mentioned that your sales plan doesn’t have to be a formal document. But it does need to be clearly written, so all team members and stakeholders understand the plan.

Tip #1: Base it on in-depth and up-to-date research

You need relevant  statistics  and trends in your niche, industry, and ideal customers. Remember, markets and customers are in a constant state of flux. There’s nothing worse than stubbornly chasing prospects who aren’t a good fit anymore while ignoring entire market segments that show a rising demand for your solutions.

Tip #2: Use data and statistics

Use the data from your in-depth research to identify problem areas, find points of opportunity in your sales process, and validate your assumptions and ideas.

You can also use the data to come up with accurate metrics and figures to help predict your sales plan’s outcome.

Tip #3: Verify your facts

Accuracy matters!

Don’t rush! Facts and figures are essential, especially to stakeholders. One simple mistake and your entire plan come tumbling down.

Ensure you take time to review your facts, figures, and forecasts before finalizing the document.

Tip #4: Get tactical

Break the overall sales action plan into tactical plans for individual areas of sales:

  • SDRs and account executives
  • Sales operations
  • Sales enablement
  • Customer success

This may require collaboration with  cross-functional teams  such as marketing, customer support, and product teams.

Tip #5: Use Historical Performance Data

In sales, you can use the past to dictate the future. Historical data will help you set targets for the current period. For example, what were your previous revenue targets? Did you hit them? Why or why not? This information can help you set achievable goals for your current sales plan and know the mistakes to avoid.

Tip #6: List The Tracking Methods You’ll Use

Highlight the tracking methods you’ll use to keep your plan moving forward. That includes performance metrics, monitoring techniques, software, tools, and  selling strategies  for your business model.

Tip #7: Build a Strong Case For Your Proposed Budget

Stakeholders and superiors are impressed with cold-hard facts. Therefore, having a strong detailed case for your budget will help your sales plan smoothly sail through.

Not only will you outline your plans for the coming period for your budget, but you’ll also need to detail the costs. Be sure to include an ROI analysis for any new tools or talent you think you’ll need.

Are you ready to write your own sales strategy? Here is a sales plan template to help you get started. Here’s how to use the sales plan template to make it useful to you:

Start by using the Sales Plan Template we’ll give you in the next section. Just follow the prompts in the template, so you know what information is needed in each section. Don’t try to be fancy. Use simple language. Focus on being specific and clear.

Then share information in whatever format works best. That may be text paragraphs, tables, lists, charts, graphics, or screenshots. You can also adapt it as needed to suit your business, your sales team, and your needs.

A sales plan should contain the following sections:

1. Executive Summary

This is your opening ‘statement’. It is a formal summary that sum ups the contents of your strategy.

When writing your executive summary , keep it short, and precise. It should be one page or two. Ensure it gives an overview of what is included in your plan. It should talk about:

  • The strategies you’ll implement to achieve your goals
  • The time-frame you expect to achieve your plan
  • The scope of your plans

2. Business Goals With Revenue Targets

This section talks about the revenue target and associated business goals. You can  classify revenue figures  according to different categories to clarify the sales strategy.

For example, for each goal, you can enter the current outcome and targeted outcome as illustrated in the table below:

sales strategy template

3. Review of Past Performance

Take a trip down prior period performance . Note the mistakes that negatively affected the outcome and their strengths which positively impacted the general outcome.

Your goal is to identify the strategies and tactics that work.

4. Specific Strategies, Methods, and Playbooks

List the  specific sales strategies,  methods, and playbooks you’ll use to achieve the goals listed above.

5. Customer Segments/ Buyers Persona

This section talks about potential  revenue-generating streams  and different opportunities available for the company and new markets. Remember to include upsells, referrals, and renewals.

6. Team Capabilities and Resources

Here, provide a summary and describe the current  production inputs required in the sales process , i.e., human resources, specialized software, sales team, etc.

7. Action Plan

The action plan requires you to set  specific strategies and supporting tactics  that will be used to achieve a particular goal, i.e. new acquisition. Assign different activities and responsibilities to teams who will run that particular action.

Below is an example of an action plan table:

sales plan template

8. Sales Tools

Go ahead and list the  tools you’ll use to ensure the sales plan runs smoothly  and all sales processes will be managed using these tools.

business plan for sales person

9. Performance Benchmarks

This is the last section of your sales plan. It  lays out the performance metrics  to track the process systems to help and monitor these metrics.

Also, list and provide links to used sources. Explain how the report will be generated and stored. Finally, talk about how the report will be used to review the progress made.

sales plan example

Okay, your sales plan is written. Great! But you’re not done yet.

Your next step is to present it to the sales team, management, and stakeholders. That’s because you need buy-in to make it happen.

When your sales team is on board, they’ll be pumped about doing their assigned tasks. When management is on board, they’ll be excited about giving you the budget you need to turn your plan into a reality. With buy-in as your top priority, it’s important to be prepared to give a solid presentation. In other words, sell it.

One final note: There are lots of reasons you may not get everything you ask for. There may be plans in the works you don’t know anything about yet. Or the budget may need to favor another initiative.

If you don’t get the budget you asked for, be sure to update your sales plan accordingly. The goal is to stretch your team’s capabilities, not do the impossible.

Sales don’t happen without a good sales plan. Fortunately, they’re not as hard as they might seem.

Take your time identifying your biggest challenges and problem-solving to overcoming them. Once that’s done, your sales plan is simply the document that organizes your ideas.

What’s your biggest hang-up when it comes to creating a sales plan? Have you found any tricks that help? Let me know in the comments below.

Max Altschuler

Max Altschuler

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What Are Sales Goals? S.M.A.R.T. Strategies + Examples

Illustration of a person hitting their sales goals target with a bow and arrow

Help your team succeed with sales goals that build confidence while increasing revenue.

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Donald Kelly

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If you’re only thinking about how your reps can hit quota, you’re missing out. As a leader, you have to set broader sales goals, track your team’s progress, and keep your team accountable if you want to see real payoff. But setting goals that are both challenging and achievable is easier said than done. Start small with weekly or monthly goals, and build up your confidence to work towards bigger and more lucrative goals down the road. We’ll show you how to get started.

What you’ll learn:

What are sales goals, why sales goals are important, s.m.a.r.t. goals explained.

  • 14 common sales goals with examples

How to track your goals

The biggest challenge when setting and tracking sales goals, attain quota faster and speed up sales ops .

Learn how Sales Performance Management helps you connect customer data to sales planning and execution. 

business plan for sales person

At their core, sales goals are objectives that a company wants to achieve over a set period of time. But sales goals aren’t just dry, impersonal measurements. If you don’t have any benchmarks for success, you’re going to encourage mediocrity and accept the status quo, losing team engagement. When your team sets concrete goals, it helps them hit their sales targets and gives them ownership over their success: They know what it takes to win.

As the CEO of sales training firm The Sales Evangelist , my role does not always allow me to do outbound sales. Most of my leads come directly from the podcast, website, referrals, and my deep network. However, I understand the power of outbound selling so I set a goal for myself to bring in $250,000 each quarter — driven in part by outbound efforts. During Q3 of last year, I beat this goal, clocking in at $300,000. Not only that, I was able to validate to my team that setting goals really works. If I can do it while running my business, they certainly can do it.

( Back to top )

Setting sales goals gives your team a north star — something to aim for. But that’s not the only reason why they’re important. Here are a few other things sales goal-setting does:

  • Helps create forecasts: From a business perspective, sales goals give you a picture of potential sales revenue .
  • Creates learning opportunities: If it turns out a particular sales strategy fails to accomplish a goal, this is valuable data. Failing to meet a sales goal offers a chance for reps to innovate and try different approaches. And if a goal is particularly challenging, it can improve focus and prompt creative problem-solving.
  • Encourages teamwork: Group goals increase the stakes because they affect everyone. They can also spark competition, which can be motivating to reps.
  • Sparks process development: A roadmap helps you get where you need to go, but only works. if you know where you’re going. Once you have your sales goals lined up, you can create a path to get there.

One proven way to set yourself up for success is to set S.M.A.R.T. goals. Let’s dive into that methodology.

S.M.A.R.T. is an easy-to-remember acronym for the five steps of effective goal-setting. If you want your goals to fuel success, makes sure they are:

  • Specific: It’s easy to say to your team, “Let’s increase sales!” But after the cheers and high-fives die down, this vague statement doesn’t help anyone. Why? It lacks detail. Get specific. Deliver concrete numbers and explain how you plan to raise revenue with actionable guidance. For example, you might want to increase your monthly revenue by 5% over the next quarter using a consultative sales approach .
  • Measurable: Numeric benchmarks can be helpful because they record progress while removing subjectivity. Remember those fundraising events that used a poster of a giant, old-fashioned thermometer? For each donation received, the thermometer would be filled with red ink to show that the organization was inching closer to its goal. You can do the same with your team by tracking progress to help them reach goals and motivate at the same time.
  • Achievable: Ambitious goals are great, but you want to set your team up for success. You need to make sure that your goals are sensible and not totally out of reach. Review your team’s past performance data and be honest about what you can accomplish during a set period of time. Instead of setting a goal to double sales by the end of the month for example, a more achievable goal would be to make 10 more cold calls per week, which you could break down further into two per day.
  • Relevant: When setting goals for your team, whether individual or team goals, you should keep three things in mind: Do they align with your reps’ existing goals, personal and professional? Do they align with your organization’s goals? How will the results matter? If goals resonate personally with reps, that could drive motivation. As an illustration, if a rep meets their goal of 100% subscription renewals for their existing accounts, they might receive a bonus or promotion, helping them meet a personal goal of earning a higher salary.
  • Time-bound: When goals have a clear starting time and end date, it makes it easier for your team to plan how they’ll get to the finish line. Setting small weekly or monthly sales goals can help your team get focused, build confidence, and enjoy smaller wins. For example, you might set a goal for yourself to provide at least one week of one-to-one coaching per quarter to your sales reps.

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14 common goals with examples.

Setting clear goals for your sales team can go a long way in improving the bottom line of your business. To illustrate these examples, we’ll look at the goals of a fictional roller skate company in Florida, SpinzFlip:

1. Grow revenue

Every company needs to grow their revenue to remain profitable. To do this, you’ll need to set a specific target for how much gross or net profit you want to see increase over a set period of time. Revenue targets are typically set monthly, quarterly, or annually.

Example: The sales team at SpinzFlip has ambitious goals for the new year. They want to increase year-over-year revenue by 100%.

2. Increase quota attainment

To understand how close your sales reps are to meeting their targets, you need to track their quota attainment , measured as a percentage of total quota achieved out of quota targets.

Example: The SpinzFlip sales team set an annual team quota goal of $3 million for last year. By the end of the year, they hit $2.5 million in sales for a quota attainment of about 83%, which shows them there’s room for improvement.

3. Acquire new customers

Another important sales goal is to increase the number of new customers purchasing your products or services. Gaining new customers over time will lead to a healthy and profitable business, ensuring that profits don’t slide backwards when you lose longstanding customers.

Example: SpinzFlip set a goal of increasing its customer acquisition rate by 8.5% monthly. This is to offset the customer attrition rate of 7% while still ensuring growth.

4. Increase market share

A company’s market share is the total percentage of the sales they control in the market for their products or services. Increasing market share is a clear indicator of a company’s competitiveness. As a matter of fact, when a business improves its market share, it often improves profitability.

Example: The global roller skate industry is worth about $600 million . SpinzFlip has $3 million in annual sales or about 0.5% of the market. If they want to double their market share, they need to set a goal to increase their annual sales to $6 million.

5. Increase unit sales

If you want to get a specific product into market faster, you might set a goal for the number of units sold. Increasing the number of units each rep needs to sell pushes them to pursue more leads.

Example: SpinzFlip currently sells 60,000 pairs of skates annually. They want to double their unit sales, so their goal this year is to sell 120,000 pairs.

6. Minimize customer churn

Reducing customer churn (aka customer attrition), or the number of customers who leave your business during a specific period of time, is a worthwhile sales goal as it ensures you don’t have to constantly replace your customer base with new leads. If your business has a low churn rate, you are more likely to experience growth. For example, a subscription-based company likely needs more new subscriptions than lost subscriptions in a given period to be profitable.

Example: In addition to selling roller skates, SpinzFlip also sells a podcast subscription. Its podcast currently has a churn rate of 20%. This year, SpinzFlip’s goal is to use listener insights to produce a more engaging podcast and lower its churn rate to 10%.

7. Increase customer upsells

Upselling is when a company offers a premium or upgrade for products or services. At the end of the day, setting a sales goal for upselling is a great way to increase the profitability of each sale.

Example: SpinzFlip offers a premium podcast with exclusive celebrity interviews for an additional monthly fee. Last year, SpinzFlip managed to convert 1% of its regular podcast audience to the premium service. The sales team wants to double that number this year by upselling 2% of SpinzFlip’s regular podcast audience.

8. Boost customer cross-sells

Cross-selling is when a company offers complimentary products or services in addition to its primary product or service. If you improve your cross-selling rate, you could see increased revenue and higher customer satisfaction rates.

Example: Roller skates are SpinzFlip primary product, but it also sells rollerblades. Last year, cross-sales of rollerblades were non-existent. According to an internal survey, 99% of SpinzFlip customers weren’t even aware that the company sold rollerblades. This year, SpinzFlip set a modest cross-sales goal of 0.25% to increase brand and product awareness.

9. Improve lead generation

Above all, lead generation attracts customers to your business. You can generate leads by collecting customer information like phone numbers and email addresses. If you want your business to grow, a meaningful goal would be to improve your lead gen process so you can identify more qualified leads who are ready to buy.

Example: Before this year, SpinzFlip was not capturing email addresses when customers purchased its skates at retail stores. Now, SpinzFlip offers a free, three-month subscription to its premium podcast to retail store customers. Consequently, they can capture the email addresses of customers interested in the podcast subscription. With this new offer in place, SpinzFlip hopes to improve its lead generation by 10% this year.

10. Improve sales forecast accuracy goals

Accurate sales forecasts are kind of like a crystal ball. They help you identify where you’re going — and where sales pitfalls might scuttle your target attainment. Businesses that can forecast their sales witt a +/- 5% accuracy enjoy the confidence that comes with being able to plan for the future.

Example: SpinzFlip needs to work on the accuracy of its sales forecast. Last year, it hovered around -15% (that is, they were 15% shy of their targets), but this year, they want to reach -10% accuracy. If SpinzFlip meets or exceeds that goal, they’ll join an elite group of sales organizations — just 21% manage to forecast sales within 10% accuracy, according to SiriusDecisions research .

11. Increase customer lifetime value (CLV)

This metric reveals the total revenue a company can expect to gain from a single customer over the course of their relationship with the brand. This is a keen interest for ROI-focus leaders: It is much easier to increase the value of a current customer than hoping to get the same value from a new customer.

Example: This year, SpinzFlip aims to increase customer CLV by 15% year-over-year by extending customer tenure and introducing add-ons and cross-sells.

12. Improve Net Promoter Score® (NPS)

NPS is an important metric used to gauge customer loyalty. NPS scores are measured with a single question:

“On a scale from 1-10, how likely is it that you would recommend [company, product, service] to a friend or colleague?”

After surveying some customers with that question, an NPS score is calculated from -100 to +100, with the higher number being a better score.

Example: SpinzFlip sells an awesome pair of roller skates. When customers were surveyed about the buying experience, they averaged a score in the high 70s. But when customers were asked about SpinzFlip’s podcast, it scored closer to 40. SpinzFlip clearly needs to set a goal to improve the NPS score for its podcast.

13. Reduce the length of the sales cycle

A sales cycle is the average length of time that it takes for a rep to convert a lead into a closed sale. Shortening the sales cycle can help sales reps close more and grow revenue.

Example: It takes a SpinzFlip rep three months, on average, to go through an entire sales cycle. This includes a discovery call with a prospect, a roller skate demo, proposal drafting, negotiation, and finally closing the deal. This year, SpinzFlip set a goal of shortening its average sales cycle from three months to two. This will give SpinzFlip’s reps an extra month to get more prospects in the pipeline.

14. Reduce the average number of touches

Touches are contacts with prospects — over the phone, online, or face-to-face. In my experience, it takes the average sales rep nine or 10 touches to close a deal. Ideally, you want to reduce this to five, six, or seven touches, and that takes finessing. You get there by doing more research and coming prepared with solutions and value prospects understand.

Example: SpinzFlips has never kept track of the number of touches required for a rep to close a deal. Once they started tracking, they were surprised the average was 12. They set a goal to get the average under 10 by the end of the year. To help facilitate this, managers told reps to tailor sales pitches to each prospect.

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If you want your sales team to see success, tracking their progress toward a goal is essential. Technology is an effective way of doing just that: Sales Cloud offers sales management dashboards that provide team performance insights. These tools interpret raw data and transform them into insights that can help sales leaders identify top prospects and leads, evaluate marketing campaigns, and track the success of their team.

Here are the sales dashboards that every team needs :

  • State of sales Designed for sales managers and executives, a state-of-sales dashboard provides a snapshot of all key metrics that affect team-wide sales targets.
  • Forecasting Also designed for sales managers and executives, a forecasting dashboard provides a “weather report” for your sales team, forecasting whether or not you’re likely to hit your goals.
  • Sales rep performance Useful for sales managers, a sales rep performance dashboard typically measures three key metrics: conversion rate, total revenue generated, and quota attainment percentage.
  • Sales leaderboard This dashboard lets sales reps and managers see the entire team’s performance, encouraging healthy competition.
  • Win/loss Helpful to sales managers and executives, this dashboard tracks win/loss trends over time.
  • Sales lead Provides a closer look at sales reps and lead generation teams, whether or not leads are converting, and the effectiveness of prospecting and marketing efforts.
  • Pipeline generation Offers managers, reps, and marketing teams insights into a pipeline value-to-sales ratio, which is critical for hitting sales targets.

A huge roadblock salespeople have when setting sales goals for themselves is a lack of accountability. You might set goals at the beginning of the year and not look back on them until the end of the year when your team is not performing well. Clearly, you need more checks. However, that doesn’t mean you need to be on top of salespeople, reminding them of their goals every single day.

Think back to the S.M.A.R.T. method. This is where the T, time-bound, becomes extremely important. If you set a goal that wraps at the end of Q2, you have to follow up with your team, individually or as a group, to see if it was completed. In other words, match the check-in to the time period set for the goal. Of course, you need to check in with them a few times before the goal’s deadline to gauge their progress and support them if they need help, but the big review should happen at the end. Did they hit the goal? If not, why? How can you help them next time?

Use S.M.A.R.T. goals to fuel success

By setting goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound, you give your sales team an outline for success. Make sure that the goals you set not only align with the goals of your business but also with your individual reps’ goals. When the benefits of a goal aren’t clear or the path to achieve it is too complicated or unrealistic, motivation suffers. Set your team up for success with a clear roadmap that puts them in the driver’s seat.

Use AI to hit your forecast every time

Spot and address pipeline gaps that threaten your forecast. Discover how with Sales Analytics from Sales Cloud.

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Donald’s mission is to evangelize the effective selling method and motivate sellers of all levels to do big things. As a former top-performing technology sales professional who has successfully sold in public and private sectors, Donald cracked the code of helping teams thrive in B2B sales. He is the author of several books and is a LinkedIn Top Voice in sales.

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I turned my failed Etsy shop into a business that made $1 million in its first year. Here's how I did it by 21.

  • Keida Dervishi, 21, chose to start an embroidery business with her mom instead of going to college.
  • She started selling embroidered products on her Etsy shop at 17 but orders dried up. 
  • Consistently posting on TikTok and customization led to her business finally taking off. 

Insider Today

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Keida Dervishi, the 21-year-old founder of Soulmate Customs. The revenue has been verified by Business Insider. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

As a young girl, I never thought I'd follow in my parents' footsteps. They moved from Albania to the US before I was born and owned a fashion line. I grew up traveling to trade shows all over Europe.

I was always curious about my parents' businesses, but my passion was singing and acting. As a nine-year-old, I competed in Gjeniu I Vogel, a televised Albanian children's singing competition. As a teenager, I appeared in TV shows and movies like "Fresh Off the Boat," "The Wrong Husband," and "The Council."

When the pandemic hit, I thought it was time to try something new. At age 17, I saw other teenagers on TikTok starting businesses. I purchased a $300 embroidery machine with my parents' help. I thought it would be a side hobby to earn some income. I didn't expect it to blow up. Soulmate Customs made over $1 million in sales in less than a year.

It hasn't always been easy. There have been some failures in growth that were our fault. But even with failures, we've learned from our mistakes.

I had some early success thanks to TikTok, but sales dried up fast

I got the machine in December 2020, six months after graduating from high school. I unpacked it, opened up YouTube, and searched "how to embroider," I learned how to use it in a day. After a few weeks, I felt confident enough to start selling designs.

I started with an Etsy embroidery shop before founding Soulmate Customs. Using an app called Procreate, I drew designs on my old iPad. Once I had a design I liked, I'd put it on a USB and plug it into the machine, which automatically digitized the design to embroider.

I got a few orders initially, but things boomed when I posted a design inspired by Olivia Rodrigo's song Driver's License on TikTok. The video got around 4 million views, and my shop had over 300 orders in three months. I thought, "I've made it!"

Once the song's hype died down in 2021, the orders dried up on my Etsy shop, and I freaked out.

A birthday gift for my mom was the spark for Soulmate Customs

Around the time orders dwindled, my mom's birthday was coming up. I thought, "Why don't I take a picture of me and her, outline it, and embroider it with the embroidery machine I already have?"

When my mom opened the shirt with the embroidered outline of us, she started crying. She told me it would be a great idea for a business.

Later that year, in July 2021, we launched Soulmate Customs, which makes soulmate-themed custom embroidery clothing. My mom is a cofounder because she is very involved in the business and helped set up all the legal paperwork.

We got our first order after 4 days and made our first $100,000 in 4 weeks, thanks to TikTok

After experiencing the drastic fall in orders with my first Esty shop, I knew for Soulmate Customs, I had to be promoting it on TikTok constantly.

I made vlog-style content of me embroidering. After about four days of posting, we got our first order. I did a mini-vlog of making and shipping that first order. About 30 minutes after posting the TikTok, we saw floods of new followers and supportive comments. The video was blowing up. It ended up getting 3.7 million views.

I started hearing the sale "cha-ching" on my phone repeatedly. I was sitting with my mom on the couch, and we looked at each other in shock. We got over 1,400 orders in the first month and made over $100,000 in sales. It was a huge jump-start.

The business became a family affair immediately

When those orders came in, the business was still one $300 embroidery machine in my parents' house. There was no way that I could fulfill every single order on time. I told my mom we'd have to shut down the store.

My mom said we weren't shutting down. She sent my dad to look for office space. We rented out the second office we saw and have moved twice since then. We invested in four commercial embroidery machines and hired anyone we could find just to help us fulfill all of the orders. Thankfully, we did it successfully.

The business became a family affair. My mom runs the entire production and back-end parts of the business. We call her the "Kris Jenner" of the family.

My dad deals with the operations. He fixes machines, buys new machines we need, and trains staff. My older brother Kenny handles everything marketing — running ads, email, and SMS campaigns. A big part of his work is also accounting. We are fully family-owned.

Posting constantly means momentum doesn't fizzle out

I knew from my Olivia Rodrigo success that after a business blows up on social media, it's hard to keep the fire going. So, I knew creating a lot of content would be key.

Once I get into the office, the first thing I do is post a video. I post five to eight times per day on TikTok and Instagram. It's the most important part of my day.

I work with trending sounds and video formats. I see what's going viral and copy the trend. Drama also sells. For example, I've made so many drama videos where I include customers who reach out to us with their stories. In one video, a customer reached out to us saying that one of the custom orders she saw on our page was her boyfriend ordering for another girl .

Posting a lot content on TikTok has been key to keeping our business thriving. We hit $1 million in revenue in 2022 in just 11 months.

Relying on virality is tough

We've had huge ups and downs because we rely on virality, which can be tough. Views aren't consistent, so I'm looking for more stable ways to grow the business this year.

We're still trying to figure out how we can keep on scaling at all periods of the year, not just whenever we go viral or during seasonal peaks. Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, and Father's day are when we see a bump in orders.

As a young founder, I haven't always made the right calls

When we hit $1 million, we had a super small team.

One of the mistakes that I made in growing the business last year was over-hiring. Because we grew so quickly initially, I thought more team members would help us keep growing. We hired graphic designers, extra content creators, and videographers. I overhired, and it got very costly very quickly. It was a big lesson. Now, we've found a better balance.

My focus is on growing the business rather than college

School has never been a huge priority to me. My parents didn't push me to go to college. When I would have applied for college, the business took off and sent my life in a different direction.

I didn't start the business with this endgame in mind. Now that we're at seven figures, I'm fighting with everything I can to keep it going. It's been very stressful. There have been times when I've been so overwhelmed that I don't know if I can keep going.

Reaching out to other people on social media has helped a lot. Instagram has been a big platform for me to make connections with business people and others who are doing cool things with their lives.

business plan for sales person

Watch: An Etsy designer creates fairy-themed fashion

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business plan for sales person

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Supantha leads the European Technology and Telecoms coverage, with a special focus on emerging technologies such as AI and 5G. He has been a journalist for about 18 years. He joined Reuters in 2006 and has covered a variety of beats ranging from financial sector to technology. He is based in Stockholm, Sweden. 

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Roku tumbles as stiff competition from heavyweights dents outlook

Roku dropped nearly 20% on Friday after the streaming-service provider forecast a steeper-than-expected first-quarter loss, as it struggles to compete with heavyweights such as Netflix and Amazon for advertising dollars.

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business plan for sales person

Example prompts to try with Microsoft Copilot with Graph-grounded chat

Experience the power of Get started with Microsoft Copilot with Graph-grounded chat  (formerly named Microsoft 365 Chat). See how much time you can save and how much more you can get done. Use Microsoft Copilot to catch up, create content, and ask questions. This article provides several example prompts you can try.

Tip:  When you’re giving Copilot instructions, you can direct it to specific work content by using the forward slash key (“/”), then typing the name of a file, person, or meeting.  If you write a prompt and don’t reference a specific file, person, or meeting, Copilot will determine the best source of data for its response, including all your work content.

Synthesize large amounts of data into simple, consumable responses and catch up on things quickly. Here are some examples:

You've been on vacation now you're back. You need to find out what's going on with Project X. Find the latest about Project X. What's the current timeline? When are deliverables due?

You've just joined a new team and you're trying to ramp up on recent activities. Summarize team communications over the last 30 days. What are the team's priorities? 

There's been a recent change in how your team is tracking work. Find information about the new way our team is tracking work. Include email communications and points of contact for questions.

Create content

Brainstorm ideas and draft new content based on information at work. Here are some examples:

You want to draft a one-page description of a new project (let's call it Project Foo) that's just about to kick off at work. Using information in file1, file2, and file3, write a one-page description of Project Foo. Write it so non-technical people can understand what the project is about and when it's scheduled to be completed.

You're preparing an email to invite customers to attend an upcoming conference and visit your company's booth. Using information in Document Z, write a fun, catchy email inviting our customers to come see us at our booth during next month's conference.

You want to plan a morale event for your team. List 3-5 ideas for group activities in the Seattle area that would be suitable for my team. Include approximate cost and time estimates. 

Ask questions

Find information and get answers quickly, even if you can't remember where the information you need is or how it was shared. Here are some examples:

You need to know what's left in the budget for supplies. How much did we spend on supplies for Project Foo?  How much budget do we have left for Project Foo?

Your team received customer feedback. You want to identify the top things your team should address. Review the feedback we received from customers via email last week. What are the top three issues we should address?

Overview of Microsoft Copilot with Graph-grounded chat

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IMAGES

  1. A Free Business Plan Template For Sales Reps

    business plan for sales person

  2. 32 Sales Plan & Sales Strategy Templates [Word & Excel]

    business plan for sales person

  3. 32 Sales Plan & Sales Strategy Templates [Word & Excel]

    business plan for sales person

  4. How To Create A Sales Plan: Steps, Templates, And Examples

    business plan for sales person

  5. Sales Business Plan Template

    business plan for sales person

  6. 32 Sales Plan & Sales Strategy Templates [Word & Excel]

    business plan for sales person

VIDEO

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  3. Business Plan || Sales Budget || Production Budget CSEC POA Prep

  4. BUSINESS PLAN PRESENTATION //Business plan presentation discussion //How to make business plan

  5. A New Strategy to Make More B2B Sales Than Ever!

  6. Opportunity for international investors in Abu Dhabi

COMMENTS

  1. The Best Free Business Plan Template For Individual Sales Reps

    Mike Weinberg Published: August 14, 2023 Working in sales is challenging at times, and after a while, you may begin to feel fatigued or experience low motivation. Drafting a strategy using a sales business plan template can be just the thing to help refocus your goals.

  2. How to Write a 30-60-90 Day Sales Plan (With Template)

    Onboarding/learning (first 30 days) Executing your plan (days 31-60) Improving upon your plan (days 61-90) 2. Define your goals. Be ambitious — but realistic — about what you want to achieve personally, and on behalf of your employer, in your first 90 days on the job. 3. Define your metrics.

  3. How To Create a Sales Business Plan

    A sales business plan is a document that plots how an organization will improve its sales goals and profits over a certain period. Great sales plans usually outline performance goals, steps for achieving these goals and required resources needed to effectively implement these strategies.

  4. 6 Steps to Create a Successful Sales Business Plan

    Step 1: Take Measure of the Sales Target Before your rep can begin creating an effective business plan, they need to be comfortable with the sales target you've set for them.

  5. 9 Stunning Sales Business Plan Templates to Close Your Next Deal

    The sales business planning process includes figuring out the scope, organizing the team and assigning roles, collecting critical information in a centralized location, setting up branded templates, customizing the templates and collaborating with the team to finalize the document.

  6. Sales Plan

    Knowledge Base Academy Community How to create a sales plan in 7 Steps Pipeline A sales plan is the first step toward defining your sales strategy, sales goals and how you'll reach them. A refined sales plan is a go-to resource for your reps. It helps them better understand their role, responsibilities, targets, tactics and methods.

  7. How to Write a Sales Plan

    A sales plan details the overall sales strategy of a business, including the revenue objectives of the company and how the sales department will meet those goals. This may also include...

  8. How to Create a Sales Plan: Tips, Examples & Free Templates

    Generally, sales plans include a month-to-month forecast, an analysis of your target market and buyer personas, your sales operations, and how you plan to find, engage with, and sell to new customers.

  9. How to Write a Winning Sales Business Plan

    Start your 14-day trial now. According to Ferrara, a comprehensive sales business plan spells out your long-term and short-term goals, the methodology you'll use to evaluate and optimize your approach, the pitfalls you anticipate could come up along the way, and how you plan to address them.

  10. How to Create a Sales Plan in 10 Steps (+ Free Template)

    Sales plans enable businesses to set measurable goals, identify resources, budget for sales activities, forecast sales, and monitor business progress. These all contribute to guiding the sales team toward the company's overall strategy and goals.

  11. How To Write A Business Plan (2024 Guide)

    Describe Your Services or Products. The business plan should have a section that explains the services or products that you're offering. This is the part where you can also describe how they fit ...

  12. How To Create a Business Plan for a Sales Interview

    Business plans for sales interviews typically include: 30-day goals In this section of your business plan, the goals typically reflect your objectives within the first 30 days of your employment.

  13. Why Salespeople Should Write and Present Individual Business Plans

    November 15, 2017 It is surprising how few sales organizations ask their people to draft annual sales (business) plans. For fifteen years I I've witnessed the power of having every member of the sales team write, and when possible, present, business plans to sales management, senior execs, or even better, to the members of sales team.

  14. 17 SMART Sales Goals Examples for 2024 [With an Action Plan]

    Learn Sales 17 SMART Sales Goals Examples for 2024 [With an Action Plan] Sales goals are important. Hit your goals, and you're more likely to grow. Fail to meet your sales goals though, and growth plateaus.

  15. 32 Sales Plan & Sales Strategy Templates [Word & Excel]

    People involved in sales usually depend on a specific plan. One which would set their sales goals and establish the strategies they need. With the help of a sales strategy, they can also establish the budgets they need. ... But it would depend upon the nature of scope of your business. Sales Plan Templates. Download 17 KB #01. Download 14 KB ...

  16. How to Create a Sales Plan: Template + Examples

    Free Template Free Sales Planned Template Tell us a little about yourself see into gain anfahrt: Something are the goals of any effective sales plan? The purpose of your company's sales design is at: Communicate choose company's goals and objectives. Provide strategic direction. Outline roles the responsibilities. Set your sales team's progress.

  17. Top 10 Sales Business Plan Templates with Examples and Samples

    Template 4: Sales and Marketing Plan for Business Growth PPT. This PPT delves into crucial topics of sales such as, goals, targets, strategies, measurement, and tactics. This dynamic presentation provides you with a roadmap to propel your business toward success.

  18. How To Write a Sales Plan That Works (With Template)

    1. Outline realistic goals One of the first steps in your plan should be creating realistic and definable sales goals. In some cases, an employer or sales manager might determine the goals. However, in some cases, your manager might ask you to present your own sales goals, so you would work together to form an agreement.

  19. 30-60-90 day sales plan for managers, reps, and sales territories

    When acclimating a new manager to a sales team, a solid three-month plan is an effective tool for setting expectations and learning how people respond to incremental changes. Below is a 30-60-90 day plan for district sales managers: Phase 1: Days 1-30. 1. Learn key pieces of information (birthdays, likes/dislikes, etc.) about every team member.

  20. Create a Sales Plan That Actually Works (Tips + Template)

    A sales plan covers a lot of important aspects of business growth: revenue goals, selling methods and metrics, target customers, current sales force capabilities, and more. Specifically, it covers 9 pieces of strategic information. 1. Executive Summary and Scope of The Sales Plan

  21. Simple Business Plan Template (2024)

    Whether you want to launch a side gig, a solo operation or a small business, you need a simple business plan template to guide you. Forbes Advisor offers you a comprehensive and easy-to-follow ...

  22. What Are Sales Goals? Using S.M.A.R.T. for Success

    Helps create forecasts: From a business perspective, sales goals give you a picture of potential sales revenue. ... Deliver concrete numbers and explain how you plan to raise revenue with actionable guidance. For example, you might want to increase your monthly revenue by 5% over the next quarter using a consultative sales approach. Measurable: ...

  23. I Turned My Failed Esty Side Hustle Into a Million-Dollar Business

    When 21-year-old Keida Dervishi started an Etsy shop for her embroidery designs, she didn't plan on launching a multiple 7-figure business.

  24. Valentine's Day Spending To Hit $26 Billion Despite Its Need ...

    U.S. consumers alone are expected to spend $25.8 billion on Valentine's Day this year, according to a survey released by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics. Overall ...

  25. Exclusive: Cisco to cut thousands of jobs as it seeks to focus on high

    Feb 9 (Reuters) - Network giant Cisco , opens new tab is planning to restructure its business which will include laying off thousands of employees, as it seeks to focus on high-growth areas ...

  26. Grammarly Restructures Business

    Millions of people and thousands of businesses use Grammarly to achieve more through better writing. People at 96% of the Fortune 500 already rely on Grammarly, with organizations saving an average of 19 working days per employee annually in lost productivity. We remain focused on helping people and companies communicate more effectively.

  27. Example prompts to try with Microsoft Copilot with Graph-grounded chat

    Tip: When you're giving Copilot instructions, you can direct it to specific work content by using the forward slash key ("/"), then typing the name of a file, person, or meeting. If you write a prompt and don't reference a specific file, person, or meeting, Copilot will determine the best source of data for its response, including all your work content.

  28. Paramount Global to lay off 800 employees after record Super Bowl ad

    Paramount Global, the owner of broadcast and cable TV networks, announced Tuesday it will lay off hundreds of staffers as the media giant looks to reduce costs and grow revenue. The news comes ...