annual sales business plan template

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Sales Plan Templates

32 sales plan & sales strategy templates.

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.

They can identify sale market prospects; plan the requirements of their staff and adapt a timeline in reaching their goals. But the sales plan is just one aspect of business management and planning.

Table of Contents

• 1 Sales Plan Templates
• 2 Main parts and purpose of a sales plan template
• 3 Sale Strategies
• 4 The benefits of using a sales plan template
• 5 Free Sales Plan Templates
• 6 Tips for creating your sales plan template

The design of a good sales tracking spreadsheet could be costly in terms of time, money, and effort. To facilitate this requirement, you can just download a template here. This can provide efficiency and easy organization.

Then you can use the resources meant for the design in achieving your business goals . Sales and marketing personnel can use the template as a tool to communicate their ideas. A sales plan template can be part of your business.

But it would depend upon the nature of scope of your business.

Main parts and purpose of a sales plan template

A sales strategy will be helpful for any organization. This is especially true when planning their activities in a structured manner. This will ensure that they achieve all their objectives and goals.

It’s paramount that you design the plan with meticulous care. Make sure to include all the necessary parts. To have an inkling of what and how a sales template looks like, you can go online. To help you out, here are some main parts of such a plan:

• Executive summary
• Elevator pitch
• Mission of the organization
• Analysis details
• Objectives and goals
• Relevant performance indicators
• End users and target audience
• Analysis of advantages and the competition
• Marketing strategy

There are good reasons why businesses invest a lot of money and effort in formulating a sales plan. Fortunately, you can simply download a template to make things easier for you. Such plan will serve varied purposes which we shall briefly enumerate:

• Setting up goals for each individual and for the business too.
• Creating an effective operational plan.
• Setting up the business expenses/finances.
• Analyzing the business’s financial statements.
• Determining and analyzing the potential risks.
• Devising an efficient marketing strategy.
• Creating an actual profile of customers who patronize the business’s products or services.
• Identifying target audiences and would-be customers.
• Getting more familiar with the sales cycle.
• The plan will play an important role in determining the financial goals of the business.

It’s important to have an efficient and effective sales plan. Then you’re expected to meet all your company’s predefined objectives and goals.

More importantly, it will enhance the organization’s profits. If you prefer to create your own templates, consider the following tips. These will prove beneficial to your endeavor:

• The customers take first consideration when creating the plan.
• Do intensive researches work on market trends before starting to plan.
• Consider the weaknesses and strengths of the competition.
• Give particular attention to details when creating the plan.
• Include all the relevant angles that are essential to the sales plan.

Sales plan templates are periodically made by businesses. They can have them monthly or even seasonal. In the case of small businesses , a two-week period is best to provide a better insight into market trends.

Sale Strategies

The benefits of using a sales plan template

Have you ever tried to plan an event without a plan? It certainly is a winning formula for chaos and disorganization. Some people take for granted the use of a plan. They may find it difficult or expensive and would rather not part with their money.

This situation can be bad because they are missing the advantages of good planning. Consider these benefits:

• You’ll be able to stay on your strategy. A sales strategy will provide you a synopsis of the most important aspects of your plan. It will also remind you of issues that you need to include. Interruptions may happen when people don’t know what issues should to prioritize.
• Your objectives will be clearer. A good plan should incorporate specific objectives. You need to establish then manage these objectives. These can include sales, website visitors, margins or the launching of new products . Make the achievement of objectives the measure of success.
• You’ll make better-educated guesses. With the progression of the plan, you’ll be able to predict the outcomes of certain issues. These include potential markets, lead processing, sales costs, and other business processes.
• Your priorities will become more sensible. A business definitely has some other priorities aside from its sales strategy. You can plan the company’s management, its growth, and financial health. These should all be part of the plan. Set the groundwork for your priorities and make changes as the business develops.
• You’ll be able to understand independencies more. You can define the plan as a schedule of events that should happen chronologically. Use the plan to determine what activities should occur and in what order. The plan will prove its value in making you organized and on time.
• Setting milestones will keep you right on track. The plan will provide you with target deadlines and dates for the goals you need to accomplish. This will apply to either a solo enterprise or for a team in a company.
• You’ll be able to delegate better. The plan will define the responsibility of each team and individual. There will always be a member who will be in charge of some important task.
• Team management and results tracking will be a lot easier. Businesses usually set review time for their employees . This is to determine their performances, particularly as team members. Many hate these reviews but they’re a gauge of performance. You can use them to commend, improve or correct the employee’s work . These reviews should be part of the plan. Also, you should put them in writing as part of the member’s record.
• You can manage and plan the cash flow better. A business that mismanages their cash flow will definitely fail. There’s a need for a cash-flow plan. Educated guesses based on market trends will be important. Use it to bring together what assets you need to purchase and what debts you need to pay .
• Course corrections will help keep your business going. The presence of a sales plan makes the business more proactive than reactive. Planning ahead makes for lesser mistakes. Constantly tracking activities could help predict better results and make corrections when needed. A prediction based on nothing is a myth. But predictions can eventuate if based on trends and facts. The plan should define and set expectations and establish assumptions. You can better manage what comes next and make course corrections if they happen.

Sales tracking spreadsheets and plans aren’t only for giant corporations. They can apply to small enterprises as well. No need to delve into complicated matters regarding your business. It’s a fairly straightforward document but it’s powerful enough to do a big job.

Free Sales Plan Templates

Tips for creating your sales plan template

In a business, a sales strategy is also important as this serves as a guide to the sales team of the company. A sales plan is specifically for sales personnel. It will guide them in attaining their objectives and goals.

The plan can be long-term which could last for years or short-term, such as an annual plan. In either case, the common ground is that the plan steers the members to their goals through sales.

• Set definite sales goals. Businesses usually have financial goals. After all, they are in it for the money. It’s important to set specific goals. Those which sales personnel must attain within a certain period of time. Specific goals can help the employees break them down into quantifiable objectives.
• Define your sales objectives based on sales goals. Write them down. Specific achievements can help you meet your sales goals. You can have a sales objective which will include an increase in sales by a specific number of units. You can hasten to reach the objective by cross-selling products during a period of time. This will undoubtedly incur an increase in expenditures. This is inevitable when doing promotions or advertisements.
• You need to identify three important aspects of your customer’s sales focus. First, there’s the customer profile. Salespersons will need some information about their customers so they can make predictions. From this information, they can target the products they can sell to their customers. Then, there’s the organization profile. You will have to explain the kind of organization you’re targeting. Finally, there’s the sales territory. This will refer to the region that you will be operating in. A list of accounts of each salesperson would be helpful as each would focus on a distinct market niche.
• Identify your target sales market. The sales plan should have a target sales market. This will include the research you’ve done on market trends. Consider the industry sales data associated with the products and services you offer. You should be aware of current developments in the industry. This will be important for your sales projections which you based on sales figures of the industry. Also, make mention of competitors in the market. These competitors offer the same goods or services. Make comparisons on each other’s market shares, customer base, and competitive advantages. You’ll spend the most hours of research and work on this section of the plan. What you intend to do will define your strategies and the tactics to execute them.
• The next thing to do is to identify the tools and systems. Here, enumerate the things that you’ll need to successfully implement your plan. The main systems to outline consist of regular weekly meetings on sales progress. Also, you need a CRM system. Use it to execute your plan and come up with sales plan metrics. Finally, list the communication equipment too.
• After you have formulated the sales objectives, you’ll now work on measures. These would keep track of your sales objective’s progress as against achieving them.
• Create a pipeline that can identify each stage of development. You need to identify the stages of your newly acquired business leads. You can also source out more sales opportunities within your customer accounts on-hand. The important metrics that you need to measure are conversion rates for every stage of your sales process. Name the reasons why sales opportunities are being lost for each stage. The percentage or win rate of all new leads that which you’ve converted into sales.
• The next thing to plan is your team. This section of the plan will list the members of your sales team. Also, identify their roles and responsibilities. In case you have a separate marketing agency team, include them in this section. Describe also the proper roles of this team. They are an essential part of your sales performances.
• Design a target date to accomplish all your goals. Also, include the calendaring of all milestones, task, and activities. All those required for you to achieve such goals. Be specific about time management methods. These will provide assistance in prioritization, delegation, and scheduling.
• Based on your financial resources, create a budget plan. One that’s required to accomplish your sales objectives. The budget for your team will be part of the bigger budget for the company. You will need to develop a system. Use it to track down and monitor the expenditures that are specific to your sales objectives. Always be aware that your team doesn’t exceed the budget. Some items may have allocations in your budget. These can include increased production, labor, advertising, equipment, travel, and supplies.
• Make an outline of the strategies and tactics that you’ll need. Everything required to successfully executing your sales plan. A top-down strategy would be great. One which allows you to communicate the goals to every salesperson in your team. Mention the HR personnel who provided assistance to execute the plan. To strengthen the capabilities of your people, they may need more training. Include this as a component of the sales plan.

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10 Free Sales Plan Templates in Word, Excel, & ClickUp

Praburam Srinivasan

Growth Marketing Manager

August 12, 2024

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Every sales team wants to win more leads and close more deals. But how do you make that happen? With a solid sales plan, of course!

A sales plan gives your team a way to focus on your goals while taking only the necessary steps to get there. It has everything you need to win, which means it’s often a comprehensive guide—and that takes time.

And we’re guessing you’re already pressed for time. ⏲️

Fortunately, creating a plan doesn’t have to be complicated—with the right template, you can simplify the process.

That’s why we’re sharing this list of the best sales plan templates. Not only are these sales strategy templates absolutely free but they’ll also save you time so you can start closing those deals faster. ⚡

What Is a Sales Plan and Why Create One?

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A sales plan is your roadmap for how to make sales effectively. Think of it in the same way that a business plan guides the strategy for your company or a marketing plan sets out how you’ll find, reach, and serve your ideal customers.

A good sales plan sets out your sales goals , objectives, and sales activities. It considers your target audience, brand, products, services, and needs—and covers which sales tactics and strategies you’ll use to close deals, as well as which metrics you’ll use to measure success.

Your sales plan is a practical plan that outlines who’s responsible for what, the resources you’ll need, and the overall goals you’re working toward. Without one, your sales team will feel lost and struggle to connect with your customer base.

With a strategic sales plan, though, the sales manager and the entire team will know exactly what you’re trying to achieve and the steps needed to get there. 📚

How to choose the best sales plan template

There are so many different sales plan templates out there. Some are designed for specific niche audiences, while others are more generic and easier to customize. How do you know which is the right template for you?

When you’re thinking about using a sales plan template, consider the following:

• Ease of use: Is the template easy to use? Will everyone in the team structure and sales planning process be able to understand it fully?
• Customization: Can I personalize the template to match my sales goals?

• Sales Collaboration : Can my sales team work on this template together?
• Integrations: When I create a sales plan, can I integrate this template with other aspects of my sales pipeline or workflow, like task management?
• Artificial intelligence: Can I use a built-in AI writing tool or copywriting tool to help me complete the template? Are there sales automation features that speed up the process?
• Platform: Which sales app is this template for? Do I have it already, or should I invest in it? What’s the pricing like?

Asking yourself these questions will help you figure out what your needs are, so you can then choose a template to match.

Now that you have a better idea of what you’re looking for, let’s explore what’s out there. Take a look at our hand-picked selection of the best sales plan templates available today for Microsoft Word and sales enablement tools like ClickUp.

Smart sales teams use a sales plan to map out their route to success. The best sales teams use the Sales Plan Template by ClickUp to simplify the process and ensure they don’t leave anything out.

This template is designed with all the structure you need to create a comprehensive sales plan that can drive results. Use this template to set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) business goals; plan strategies and tactics; and organize all your sales ideas in one place.

The list-style template is split into sections that cover the executive summary all the way through to specific tactics and strategies. Beneath this, you can arrange tasks and subtasks, and see the progress at a glance. View task titles, deadlines, who’s responsible, approval status, and a visual progress bar.

Use this template if you want to consolidate all your sales tasks and initiatives in one area. Add your sales tasks and tactics, then tag team members so you can see what’s happening and hold everyone accountable. ✅

While sales and marketing teams often work independently, sometimes it’s useful to collaborate on shared goals. With the Sales and Marketing Plan Template by ClickUp , you can organize and run your sales and operations from one location.

Our collaborative template makes it easy to set sales and marketing goals and objectives, visualize your tasks, work together on sales and marketing campaigns, and track your results in real-time. View the status of your sales and marketing projects, adjust your plans, and monitor your key performance indicators (KPIs)—all from one view.

This sales and marketing plan template allows you to split your tasks into sections. The examples in the template include revenue goals, competitive analysis, and action items, but you can customize these to match your needs exactly.

View tasks beneath these categories to see at a glance whether there are any roadblocks when a task is due, and who is responsible for it.

Add this template to your collection if you want to work more collaboratively with your marketing team—especially on preparing assets for sales calls or outreach programs. 📞

Before you can plan your sales tactics, you first need to decide what your overall goals are. The Sales Strategy Guide Template by ClickUp is your go-to resource for determining your approach.

This sales process template explains the benefits of having a well-defined approach and gives you a central place to create, review, and store your own. Everyone on your team can then access your sales strategy guide to help them understand what to do when prospecting and closing deals.

Our sales goals and strategy guide template is presented in a document format. Some sections and headings allow you to split your guide into different areas, making it easier to read and understand.

Use the prompts to fill out your own strategy guide details like your target market, sales strategies, and how you’ll monitor progress.

Use this sales strategy guide template to create a resource for your team. Make it the only destination for everything your sales reps need to know to execute an effective sales plan. 📝

Sales strategies are a must-have for any great sales team, but beyond that, you need a way to record and monitor specific tasks or initiatives. That’s where the Sales Pipeline Template by ClickUp comes in handy whether you need a visual into sales forecasting or your specific sales goals.

This sales pipeline template gives you one place to store all your daily sales-related tasks. With this template, it’s easy to work toward your sales goals, track leads, map out each step of the sales process, and organize all your tasks in one place.

You can view a task’s title, assignee, status, due date, complexity level, start date, and department—or customize the experience with your own custom fields.

With ClickUp’s Sales KPI Template , you and your team can create and manage goals surrounding your sales initiatives. See instantly what’s in progress and when it’s due, alongside the task’s impact level.

This allows you to identify high-priority tasks to focus on and to react quickly if it looks like there’s a roadblock.

This sales KPI template includes:

• Custom Statuses: Create tasks with custom statuses such as Open and Complete to keep track of the progress of each KPI
• Custom Fields: Utilize 15 different custom attributes such as Upsell Attempts, Value of Quotes, Product Cost, No of Quotes by Unit, Repeat Sales Revenue, to save vital KPI information and easily visualize performance data
• Custom Views: Open 4 different views in different ClickUp configurations, such as the Weekly Report, Monthly Report, Revenue Board per Month, and Getting Started Guide so that all the information is easy to access and organized
• Project Management: Improve KPI tracking with tagging, dependency warnings, emails, and more

This template gives you a simple way to see which tasks are complete or in progress, so you can monitor the progress of your project and crush your sales KPIs. 📈

While there’s not a huge difference in the way we market to business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) customers these days, it’s still useful to have specific templates for niche needs. If you’re driving sales in the B2B space, you need the B2B Sales Strategy Template by ClickUp .

Like our first sales plan template, this one gives you space to communicate your sales objectives and revenue targets, but it also introduces other areas—like market research, stakeholder analysis, customer relationships, buyer persona, and customer pain points.

This document-style template is highly customizable so you can make it match your brand style and sales approach. Fill in each section and use the supplied prompts to complete your B2B sales strategy document even faster.

Add this template to your collection if you’re working in B2B sales and want to approach your process in a more organized way. Use the template to build a strong sales strategy, then share it with the rest of your sales team so they know how to execute against your sales and company goals. 🎯

ClickUp’s Sales Calls Template is designed to streamline the sales process, from tracking contacts and calls to managing sales opportunities.

The template includes custom statuses for creating unique workflows, ensuring that every call and client interaction is accounted for. It also provides an easy-to-use Sales CRM to manage and track leads, visualize sales opportunities in the sales funnel, and keep all contacts organized.

With additional features like the Sales Phone Calls SOP Template, sales professionals can empower their teams to make every call count and close more deals. ClickUp’s Sales Calls Template is a versatile solution for sales teams, aiding in everything from daily calls to long-term sales forecasting.

We’re big advocates of using ClickUp as the go-to place to store everything about your sales workflow, but if you’re limited to using Microsoft Word or Google Docs, then this template is a great option.

This sales business plan template has sections for your executive summary, mission statement, target customers, sales targets, benchmarks, and more. Each section has useful prompts to guide you on completing your new sales plan.

Use this template if you’re tied to using Microsoft Word and want a comprehensive guide on how to create your own sales plan or sales strategy. 📄

If you want a free sales plan template or want to choose from a variety of options, this collection of Word templates by TemplateLab is a good place to do that.

There’s a wide range of options available including sales process plans, lead generation plans, sales action plans, and sales report templates . Each template works with Microsoft Word, and you can customize the look and feel to match your brand or your sales goals.

Use this resource if you prefer to see a range of templates on one page, or if you’re not sure exactly what you’re looking for until you see it. You can easily set your sales goals and the action steps needed to achieve them. 📃

Successful sales strategies need to be integrated with other teams—like your marketing department—to ensure your sales objectives are clear and possibly align with the overall marketing strategy too. Choose your specific sales goals, set revenue targets, and describe everything in detail with these Word sales planning and sales process templates.

The Excel Sales Plan Template by Spreadsheet.com is a comprehensive and user-friendly tool designed to assist businesses in developing effective sales strategies and managing their sales activities.

T his template is crafted with the aim of providing a structured framework for sales planning, enabling organizations to set clear objectives, track performance, and optimize their sales processes.

Types of Sales Strategies

It’s essential to know that there isn’t a single ‘best’ strategy that will work for every business or every sales team. It all depends on your business goals, the nature of your product or service, your audience demographics, and various other factors. Here’s an overview of some of the most common types of sales strategies that you may consider incorporating into your sales plan:

Solution Selling: This strategy involves identifying a problem that your prospective customer is experiencing and positioning your product or service as the best solution. This requires a deep understanding of your customers’ pain points and how your offerings can address those issues.

Value Selling: Value selling is a strategy often used in B2B sales where the focus is on communicating the overall value that a product or service brings to a customer’s business. It involves demonstrating how features and benefits translate to significant returns on investment, savings, or productivity gains for your customer.

Social Selling: With the prevalence of social media platforms in today’s business landscape, social selling has become highly effective. It involves using social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook to find and engage with potential customers. By providing useful content, answering questions, and engaging in conversations, salespeople can build relationships and generate leads.

Inbound Selling: Inbound selling puts the customer first. It’s a sales methodology that focuses on personalizing the sales experience based on where the buyer is in their journey. This strategy aligns sales efforts with buyer needs to provide solutions that are the best fit for their individual challenges.

Consultative Selling: This strategy involves acting as a trusted adviser to potential customers. The focus is on building relationships, understanding the needs and problems of the customer, and then recommending solutions. It’s more about dialogue and less about pitching.

Account-Based Selling : Account-based selling is a strategic approach that treats individual accounts as markets of their own. It involves crafting personalized buying experiences that cater to the unique needs and challenges of high-value accounts.

Each of these sales strategies can bring efficiency and effectiveness to your sales process. However, the key to success is understanding and selecting which strategy aligns best with your business model and customer base. Then, incorporate it into your sales plan and support it with the right sales plan template.

Sales Planning Tips and Strategies

Planning is a crucial aspect for a successful sales strategy. Here are some valuable tips and strategies to boost your sales planning process:

1. Set Clear Objectives: Clearly outline what you want to achieve. Your objectives are your guiding light, providing a direction for your sales planning. These objectives should align with broader business goals.

2. Understand Your Audience: Research extensively about your target audience. Understand their needs, desires, and pain points. The more you know about your potential customers, the better you’ll be able to position your product or service effectively.

3. Implement SMART Goals : Your sales plan should be based on SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound) goals. This way, your goals will be clear, realistic, and trackable.

4. Stay Informed about Market Trends: Business environments are constantly changing. Stay updated with the latest industry trends and competitor strategies to keep your sales plan agile and effective.

5. Incorporate Sales Tools: The effective use of technology can completely transform your sales process. Build your sales tech stack with CRM software , data analytics, and sales project management platforms like ClickUp to automate processes and give your sales team a high-impact lift.

6. Regularly Review and Adjust Your Plan: Your sales plan should be a dynamic document. Regularly revisiting and adjusting your plan based on performance metrics, market changes, or shifts in company goals ensures that your sales strategy remains relevant and effective.

7. Train and Empower Your Sales Team: The success of any plan lies in its execution. Provide your sales team with proper training and resources they need to effectively implement the sales plan. Encourage them to also bring innovative ideas to the table.

8. Customer Retention: Don’t just focus on acquiring new customers. Implement strategies in your sales plan to retain existing customers as it’s often more cost-effective to maintain a loyal customer base than to constantly seek out new ones.

9. Refine Your Sales Pitch: Ensure your value proposition is strong and compelling. Your sales pitch should highlight the unique values and benefits of your product or service.

10. Measure Performance: Use key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the effectiveness of your sales plan. This can provide valuable insights about what’s working and what needs to be improved.

By incorporating these sales planning tips and strategies into your processes, you can improve your sales plan’s effectiveness and increase your chances of success. As always, keep an open mind to adjustments and improvements along the way!

Reach Sales Goals With Free Sales Strategy Templates

A strategic sales plan makes it easier to achieve your goals. Give your team the guidance and support they need with the help of a well-crafted free sales plan template.

If you’re considering making even more improvements in how you work, try ClickUp for free . We don’t just have incredible sales process templates: Our range of features and AI tools for sales make it easy for you to optimize and run your entire sales funnel and CRM system from one place. ✨

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How to create a sales plan in 7 Steps

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. When done right, it gives your reps all the information they need to perform at their highest level.

In this article, we outline what a sales plan is and why it’s important to create one. We also offer a step-by-step guide on how to make a sales plan with examples of each step.

What is a sales plan and why create one?

Your sales plan is a roadmap that outlines how you’ll hit your revenue targets, who your target market is, the activities needed to achieve your goals and any roadblocks you may need to overcome.

Many business leaders see their sales plan as an extension of the traditional business plan. The business plan contains strategic and revenue goals across the organization, while the sales plan lays out how to achieve them.

The benefits of a sales plan

A successful sales plan will keep all your reps focused on the right activities and ensure they’re working toward the same outcome. It will also address your company's specific needs. For example, you might choose to write a 30- , 60- or 90-day sales plan depending on your current goals and the nature of your business.

Say your ultimate goal for the next quarter is $250,000 in new business. A sales plan will outline the objective, the strategies that will help you get there and how you’ll execute and measure those strategies. It will allow your whole team to collaborate and ensure you achieve it together.

Many salespeople are driven by action and sometimes long-term sales planning gets neglected in favor of short-term results.

While this may help them hit their quota, the downside is the lack of systems in place. Instead, treat sales processes as a system with steps you can improve. If reps are doing wildly different things, it’s hard to uncover what’s working and what’s not. A strategic sales plan can optimize your team’s performance and keep them on track using repeatable systems.

With this in mind, let’s explore the seven components of an effective sales plan

1. Company mission and positioning

To work toward the same company goals, everyone in your organization must understand what your organization is trying to achieve and where in the market you position yourself.

To help define your mission and positioning, involve your sales leaders in all areas of the business strategy. Collaborating and working toward the same goals is impossible if those goals are determined by only a select group of stakeholders.

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How to set sales goals that improve team performance (with examples)

To get a handle on the company’s mission and positioning, take the following steps:

Collaborate with marketing: Your marketing teams live and breathe the positioning of your company. Take the time to talk to each function within the department, from demand generation to performance marketing to learn what they know.

Interview customer success teams: Customer support reps speak with your existing customers every day. Interview them to find common questions and pain points.

Talk to your customers: Customer insights are a foundational part of any positioning strategy. Speak directly with existing and new customers to find out what they love about your product or service.

Read your company blog: Those in charge of content production have a strong understanding of customer needs. Check out blog articles and ebooks to familiarize yourself with customer language and common themes.

Look for mentions around the web: How are other people talking about your organization? Look for press mentions, social media posts, articles and features that mention your products and services.

These insights can provide context around how your company is currently positioned in the market.

Finally, speak with the team in charge of defining the company’s positioning. Have a list of questions and use the time to find out why they made certain decisions. Here are some examples:

What important insights from the original target audience research made you create our positioning statement?

What competitor research led us to position ourselves in this way? Does this significantly differentiate us from the crowd? How?

What core ideals and values drove us to make these promises in our positioning statement? Have they shifted in any way since we launched? If so, what motivates these promises now?

How to communicate mission and positioning

In this section of the sales plan, include the following information:

Company mission : Why your company exists and the value you’re determined to bring to the market.

Competition: Who your direct competitors (those who offer similar products and services) and indirect competitors (brands who solve the same problem in different ways) are.

Value propositions: The features, benefits and solutions your product delivers.

What is brand positioning: The ultimate guide with 4 examples

2. Goals and targets

Define your revenue goals and the other targets sales are responsible for.

As mentioned earlier, sales goals are usually aligned with business goals. Your boardroom members typically establish the company’s revenue goals and it’s your job to achieve them.

Revenue goals will shape your sales strategy. Use them to reverse engineer quotas, sales activity and the staff you need to execute them.

Break your big-picture revenue goal down further into sales targets and activity targets for your team. Activities are the specific actions you and your reps can control, while sales targets are the results provided by those activities.

9 steps to creating the perfect sales strategy (with free template)

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10 predictable revenue hacks to grow your sales

Use data on sales activity and performance from previous years to calculate sales targets. You should break this down by pipeline stage and activity conducted by reps across all functions.

For example, how many cold emails does it take to generate a deal? What is the average lifetime value (LTV) of your customer?

Breaking down these numbers allows you to accurately forecast what it will take to achieve your new revenue goal.

This part of your sales plan might include setting goals like the following:

200 total cold emails sent per day

200 total cold calls made per day

25 demos conducted per day

5 new sales appointments made a day

100 follow-up emails sent per day

Breaking down your goals into specific activities will also reveal the expertise needed for each activity and any required changes to your organizational structure, which will come into play in the next step.

How to communicate goals and targets

Within this section of the sales plan, include the following information:

Revenue goals : Reverse engineer the boardroom revenue goals to identify achievable sales goals and the number of staff needed to reach them. Sales targets : Use data on sales activity and past performance to define quotas and metrics for each stage of the sales pipeline.

Expertise needed for each activity: What qualities and attributes do your staff need to achieve these predefined activities? How much experience do they need vs. what can be learned on the job?

3. Sales organization and team structure

Identify the talent and expertise you need to achieve your goals.

For example, a marketing agency that depends on strong relationships will benefit more from a business development executive than a sales development representative (SDR) .

Use the targets established in the previous section to identify who you need to hire for your team. For example, if the average sales development rep can send 20 cold emails a day and you need to send 200 to achieve your goals, you’ll need around ten reps to hit your targets.

Include the information for each team member in a table in your sales plan. Here is an example.

Visualizing each role helps all stakeholders understand who they’re hiring and the people they’re responsible for. It allows them to collaborate on the plan and identify the critical responsibilities and qualities of their ideal candidates.

You want to avoid micromanaging , but now is a good time to ask your existing teams to report on the time spent on certain activities. Keeping a timesheet will give you an accurate forecast of how long certain activities take and the capacity of each rep.

How to communicate your sales organization and team structure

Team structure: These are the functions that make up your overall sales organization. The roles of SDR, business development and account teams must be well-defined.

Roles and responsibilities: These are the roles you need to hire, along with the tasks they’re responsible for. This will help you produce job descriptions that attract great talent.

Salary and compensation: How will the company remunerate your teams? Having competitive salaries, compensation schemes and sales incentives will attract top performers and keep them motivated.

Timeline: Attempting to hire dozens of people at once is tough. Prioritize hiring based on how critical each role is for executing your plan. Take a phased hiring approach to onboard new reps with the attention they deserve.

Building a sales team: How to set your group up for success

4. Target audience and customer segments

A sales plan is useless without knowing who to sell to. Having clearly defined customer personas and ideal customer profiles will help you tailor your selling techniques to companies and buyers.

Whether you’re looking to break into a new market or expand your reach in your current one, start by clearly defining which companies you’re looking to attract. Include the following criteria:

Industries: Which markets and niches do you serve? Are there certain sub-segments of those industries that you specialize in?

Headcount: How many employees do your best accounts have within their organization?

Funding: Have they secured one or several rounds of funding?

Find out as much as you can about their organizational challenges. This may include growth hurdles, hiring bottlenecks and even barriers created by legislation.

Learn about your buyers within those target accounts, learn about your buyers. Understanding your buyers and personalizing your sales tactics for them will help you strengthen your customer relationships.

These insights will change as your business grows. Enterprise companies may wish to revisit their personas as they move upmarket. For small businesses and startups, your target audience will evolve as you find product-market fit.

It’s important to constantly revisit this part of your sales plan. Even if your goals and methodologies are the same, always have your finger on the pulse of your customer’s priorities.

How to communicate target audience and customer segments

Profile: Include basic information about their role, what their career journey looks like and the common priorities within their personal lives.

Demographics : Add more information about their age, income and living situation. Demographic information can help tailor your message to align with the language used across different generations.

Attributes: Assess their personality. Are they calm or assertive? Do they handle direct communication themselves or have an assistant? Use these identifying attributes to communicate effectively.

Challenges: Think about the hurdles this persona is trying to overcome. How does it affect their work and what’s the impact on them personally?

Goals: Analyze how these challenges are preventing them from achieving their goals. Why are these goals important to them?

Support: Use this insight to define how your product or service will help these people overcome challenges and achieve their goals.

Behavioral segmentation: What is it and how can it drive engagement and loyalty

5. Sales strategies and methodologies

Define your sales approach. This includes the strategies, techniques and methodologies you’ll use to get your offering out to market.

This part of your sales plan may end up being the largest. It will outline every practical area of your sales strategy: your sales stages, methodologies and playbooks.

Start by mapping out each stage of your sales process. What are the steps needed to guide a prospect through your deal flow?

9 essential sales stages

Traditionally, a sales process has nine sales stages :

Prospecting and lead generation : Your marketing strategy should deliver leads, but sales reps should boost this volume with their own prospecting efforts.

Qualification: Measure those leads against your target account criteria and customer personas. Ensure they’re a good fit, prioritizing your time on high-value relationships.

Reaching out to new leads : Initiate emails to your target customers to guide new leads into the sales funnel. This outreach activity includes cold calling and direct mail.

Appointment setting: Schedule a demo, discovery call or consultation.

Defining needs: After the initial meeting, you’ll understand your prospect’s problems and how your product or service can solve them.

Presentation: Reveal the solution. This can be in the form of a proposal, custom service packages or a face-to-face sales pitch .

Negotiation: Dedicate this stage to overcoming any objections your prospect may have.

Winning the deal: Turn your prospects into customers by closing deals and signing contracts.

Referrals : Fostering loyalty is an organization-wide activity. Delight your customers and encourage them to refer their friends.

Not all of these stages will be relevant to your organization. For example, a SaaS company that relies on inbound leads may do much of the heavy lifting during the initial meeting and sales demo . On the other hand, an exclusive club whose members must meet certain criteria (say, a minimum net worth) would focus much of their sales activity on referrals.

Map out your sales process to identify the stages you use. Your sales process should look something like this:

To determine your sales methodologies, break each sales stage down into separate activities, along with the stakeholder responsible for them.

With your sales activities laid out, you can do in-depth research into the techniques and methodologies you need to execute them. For example, if you sell a complex product with lengthy sales cycles , you could adopt a SPIN selling methodology to identify pain points and craft the best solution for leads.

Finally, use these stages and methodologies to form your sales playbooks . This will help you structure your sales training plan and create playbooks your reps can go back to for guidance.

How to communicate sales strategies and methodologies

Within this section of the sales plan, include the following:

Sales stages: The different steps required to convert prospects into paying customers.

Sales methodologies: The different practices and approaches you’ll adopt to shape your sales strategy.

Sales playbooks: The tactics, techniques and sales strategy templates needed to guide contacts throughout each stage of the sales process.

6. Sales action plan

You have the “who” and the “what”. Now you must figure out “when” to execute your sales plan.

A well-structured sales action plan communicates when the team will achieve key milestones. It outlines timeframes for when they’ll complete certain projects and activities, as well as the recruitment timelines for each quarter.

The order in which you implement your sales action plan depends on your priorities. Many sales organizations prefer to front-load the activity that will make a bigger impact on the bottom line.

For example, when analyzing your current sales process and strategy, you may find your existing customers are a rich source of qualified leads . Therefore, it would make sense to nurture more of these relationships using a structured referral program.

You must also consider how recruitment will affect the workload in your team. Hire too quickly and you may end up spending more time training new reps and neglecting your existing team. However, taking too long to recruit could overload your existing team. Either can make a big impact on culture and deal flow.

To complete your sales action plan, get all stakeholders involved in deciding timelines. When applying this to your sales plan, use GANTT charts and tables to visualize projects and key milestones.

A GANTT chart shows you the main activities, their completion dates and if there are any overlaps. Here is an example:

By prioritizing each activity and goal, you can create a plan that balances short-term results with long-term investment.

How to communicate your sales action plan

Key milestones : When do you aim to complete your projects, activities and recruitment efforts? You can map them out by week, month, quarter or all of the above. Let your revenue goals and priorities lead your schedule.

Short- and long-term goal schedules: With a high-level schedule mapped out, you can see when you will achieve your goals. From here, you can shape your schedule so that it balances both short- and long-term goals.

7. Performance and results measurement

Finally, your plan must detail how you measure performance. Outline your most important sales metrics and activities, how you’ll track them and what technology you’ll need to track them.

Structure this part of your plan by breaking down each sales stage. Within these sections, list out the metrics you’ll need to ensure you’re running a healthy sales pipeline.

Performance metrics can indicate the effectiveness of your entire sales process. Your chosen metrics typically fall into two categories:

Primary metrics act as your “true north” guide. This is commonly new business revenue generated.

Secondary metrics are those that indicate how well specific areas of your sales process are performing. These include lead response time and average purchase value.

The metrics you select must closely align with your goals and sales activities. For example, at the appointment setting stage, you might measure the number of demos conducted.

Each team also needs its own sales dashboard to ensure reps are hitting their targets. Sales development reps will have different priorities from account executives, so it’s critical they have the sales tools to focus on what’s important to them.

Finally, research and evaluate the technology you’ll need to accurately measure these metrics. Good CRM software is the best system to use for bringing your data together.

How to communicate sales performance metrics

Sales stage metrics : Identify the metrics for each specific sales stage and make sure they align with your KPIs.

Chosen sales dashboard: Explain why you chose your sales dashboard technology and exactly how it works.

Performance measurement: Outline exactly how and what tech you will use to measure your team’s activities and metrics.

How to track, measure and improve your team’s sales performance

Developing a sales plan involves conducting market research, assessing current sales performance , identifying sales opportunities and challenges, setting measurable goals, creating a sales strategy, allocating resources and establishing a monitoring and evaluation framework.

To write a sales business plan, include:

An executive summary

A company overview

A market analysis

A target market description

Sales strategies and tactics

Financial projections

A budget and timeline

Make sure that you clearly articulate your value proposition, competitive advantage and growth strategies.

Final thoughts

An effective sales plan is an invaluable asset for your sales team . Although you now know how to create a sales plan, you should remember to make one that works for your team. Writing one helps with your sales strategy planning and aids you in defining targets, metrics and processes. Distributing the sales plan helps your reps understand what you expect of them and how they can reach their goals.

Providing supportive, comprehensive resources is the best way to motivate your team and inspire hard work. When you do the work to build a solid foundation, you equip your reps with everything they need to succeed.

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How to create a sales plan (and 3 templates that do it for you)

There's a 25-year-old "South Park" episode I think about way too often. Working on a presentation with a coffee-addicted classmate named Tweek, the boys see a gnome stealing underpants from Tweek's dresser. They follow him to a cave, where they discover a network of gnomes executing a massive underpants-smuggling operation.

Explaining their business model, the underpants gnomes present this outline:

Phase 1: Collect underpants

Phase 3: Profit

In this post:

What is a sales plan?

A sales plan is a strategic document outlining goals and strategies for reaching predetermined sales targets. For the "South Park" underpants gnomes, it's the glaring question mark standing between their product and their profits.

What goes into a sales plan (including examples)

A sales plan has the information stakeholders need to establish sales goals, set strategies, allocate resources, collaborate across teams, track goal progress, and measure success. Basically, whatever the stakeholders need to make sound decisions about sales processes.

The specific elements of a business plan differ by factors like sales plan type, industry, product type, goal horizon, and organizational structure. Some may have just a few sections across a page or two, others a dozen or more over several pages.

While your sections may differ in number or phrasing, you can expect some version of these elements to go into most sales plans.

This section is where you set measurable sales goals. (In fact, this section is also called "Goals" in many sales plans.) Depending on your industry, common sales objectives include:

Total revenue growth

Market share expansion

Customer acquisition volume

Adoption rate increase

Obviously, you could just write "$100 billion" here and insert a Dr. Evil meme, then hope for the best. But the real objective of the objectives section is to come to attainable sales goals that align with broader organizational growth goals.

Increase market share by 5-10% this fiscal year

Target market

If your product is a massive eCommerce space with rock-bottom prices and free next-day shipping, write "Everyone" and move on. But since you're probably not Jeff Bezos, you'll need a detailed description of your ideal customer profile. 

Project managers of midsized technology companies with distributed teams seeking streamlined collaboration and task management

This is where you'll give the broad strokes of the approach you'll take to achieve your sales goals with your target market. Whether it's for entering new markets, expanding within existing markets, or launching new products, this generalized section communicates the stepping stones that will lead to your objectives.

Improved prospecting, generating more qualified leads, and tailoring sales processes to market research to make existing sales processes more efficient

These tactics are still theoretical and don't have to be set in stone at this phase. But this is a space to describe specifics like customer survey or beta testing methods, social media marketing campaign concepts, new sales techniques, or new ways of utilizing existing sales software and resources.

Leverage social media influencer outreach with influencer-specific promo codes

As anyone who's ever watched a heist movie knows, every great plan needs a crack team. In this section, you'll list either each member of your sales team or the team leads, depending on your team size. Beyond a simple list of names, here are some helpful elements to include about each:

Aptitudes or experience

Certifications or completed trainings

Hourly pay rate (for budgeting and forecasting)

Daily or weekly utilization limits

Associated accounts

This should help you outline a structure for assigning individual roles and responsibilities related to your strategies and tactics, ensuring you've got the people power to get the job done.

John Doe, UX specialist | $100/hour incurred expense | 20 hours/week floating utilization | Manager: Jane Doe | Responsible for analyzing survey data and making recommendations for UI updates

It's possible you may even need new hires, freelancers, additional trainings, certifications, or third-party agencies to do the things you need to do. List those here, so you can incorporate them into your time and expenses.

Stakeholders won't just want to know what you're going to do—they'll want to know how long it'll take. Outline your strategies by breaking them into key milestones and deadlines according to the personnel you have. This should also map to revenue projections as your strategies mature.

2/15: Complete market research | 3/1: Synthesize findings | 3/15: Schedule strategies for Q2 execution

The last thing you want is to create a beautiful, perfectly crafted sales plan and discover that you don't actually have the funds to execute it. Based on entries in the last few fields, you should have a good idea of expenses based on strategy resources, personnel utilization, timelines, and any purchases your team may need. 

Chart those here with estimates for any other potential expenses related to marketing, advertising, and sales promotion activities.

Sure, you've been making sales since you started executing your plan. But how do you know you're making enough sales to justify your efforts?

This is where key performance indicators (KPIs) come into play. By setting these during the sales planning stage, you allow stakeholders to measure the success of individual sales efforts, so you can report on how performance compares to sales targets over time. 

Potential challenges

If sales were easy, every company would be successful. Even at the planning stage, you should be able to see some possible roadblocks on the horizon.

The best plans are realistic enough to be actualized, so be realistic about what might stand in your team's way. Try to get ahead of challenges relating to things like target market sensitivities, general market conditions, internal resources, competition, seasonality, or campaign effectiveness. Then, come up with contingencies, so you're ready for these obstacles if they do arise.

Free sales plan templates

Here are three templates for the same general sales plan structure to choose from, depending on the level of granularity and presentation you're looking for.

Sales plan template 1: Comprehensive document

If you're looking to get buy-in for your sales plan from senior stakeholders, you'll need a document that can organize and communicate your research.

This comprehensive sales plan template includes fields for each of the sections outlined above. Just copy it, rename it to your liking, and then click into each field to start filling in the information outlined in this post. (For sections you don't need, just delete or fill with "N/A" and move along.)

Best for: Communicating every element of your sales plan in full detail with (virtually) unlimited space

Sales plan template 2: Summary document

Maybe you need a sales plan template that gets the point across quickly. This one distills the gist of a sales plan into six concise, actionable sections, so you can share the most important elements of every sales objective in one document.

If you need room for more objectives, just copy/paste an empty row.

Best for: Quickly sharing the fine points of a sales plan with only actionable takeaways

Sales plan template 3: Project workflow document

What does your sales plan look like on a day-to-day basis? If you're having a hard time translating that, use this template.

Just include your sequence of objectives and related tasks, include the person they're assigned to, and tweak the date ranges. You can even update the progress graph for each task as you progress through them.

Best for: Organizing tasks, roles, and timelines within a greater sales plan

How to start sales planning

Step 1: Start sales planning. Step 2: ? Step 3: Start selling.

Sales planning may not be that easy, but it doesn't have to be especially complicated, either. It should take enough time and resources to come up with a document that's persuasive and detailed but not so much that it cuts into the real money-making efforts themselves. 

Here are a few ways you can set your plan up for efficiency, success, and—maybe most importantly—stakeholder buy-in.

Start with competitor research

You may be tempted to start the sales planning process by outlining your objectives and tactics, but competitor research can go a long way in setting the stage for both. This can show you what works, how well it works, and what doesn't work. It can also show you opportunities to fill market gaps your competitors are missing.

You don't have to reinvent the wheel, but it can be very helpful to just reinvent what your competition is doing.

Don't shy away from established frameworks and methodologies

Here are a few benefits many of these can potentially bring:

Iterative internal processes

Improved collaboration

Predictable lines of communication between teams

More useful insights from stakeholders

More accurate internal data

More reliable goal-setting

Obviously, the benefits will depend on the types of frameworks and methodologies you use. But the real key to any of them is the ability to standardize some element of the planning process and make collaboration more efficient.

Collaborate with stakeholders to define success

You may have one definition of success, while your stakeholders have a completely different one. Remember that your objectives and KPIs need to have bases in two realities: the market's and your company's.

It's the job of senior stakeholders to align sales efforts with high-level goals that help keep the entire operation afloat. That means they may have goals in mind that conflict with your market research findings about sales potential. The sales team, on the other hand, may need to help align expectations with market realities.

Successful sales plans keep both parties on the same page. As such, it helps to collaborate before setting sales benchmarks to see what success can look like for all involved parties.

Don't forget about operations

S&OP helps align sales teams with operations teams to ensure they have the inventory needed to both keep up with demand and promote maximum stocking efficiency. Since inventory can take time and careful scheduling, it's best to get S&OP underway as early as possible. Demand forecasting, for example, is closely related to both sales and inventory projections, so combining these projections early is worthwhile.

Establish clear lines of communication

If all good plans require a team, then all good teams require sound communication.

Since sales campaigns require collaboration between multiple parties and teams, it helps to have open communication channels during the sales planning process. This could mean adopting an Agile workflow and establishing daily Scrum meetings, hosting regular "office hours," or even just checking in with team leads.

While you're setting up these channels, tap them to get more accurate insights into sales planning elements like budgets, assets, and resource needs.

Types of sales plans

While the sales plan templates in this post are somewhat generically designed for new product or feature launches, there are tons of other types of sales plans you can choose from. Many expand on specific elements already included at a high level in our templates, foregoing some of the other sections that aren't as relevant. 

If you know you want your plan to have a more granular focus on specific use cases, you could consider one of these options.

New product sales plan

This details the introduction and promotion of a recently launched or forthcoming product. Similar to the template and example in this post, it can be for a physical product, digital product, or service. It includes general information without getting too bogged down in details.

Best for: General sales planning for new products, services, or features

Milestone sales plan

Prioritizing timelines, this plan delineates sales objectives and targets to be achieved within specific timeframes. Typically, these timelines fall into weekly, monthly, and quarterly milestones. You can list these in a timeline section for any plan, but this plan is structured around those elements.

Best for: A bird's-eye view of the time a sales campaign will take

30/60/90 sales plan

This sales strategy outlines goals and priorities for the first three months of a new hire's tenure, typically focusing on short-term objectives. This can lean toward onboarding milestones to get the new rep up-to-date on sales processes.

Best for: Bringing on new sales reps

Sales budget plan

As a financial framework, this plan details allocated resources for sales activities and expenses to achieve revenue targets. This gets much more granular about the costs associated with sales, making that element of planning its primary focus.

Best for: Communicating nuanced expense figures

Sales tactics plan

Similar to a sales budget plan, a sales tactics plan is mainly concerned with one area of the sales planning process: the tactics. It takes a comprehensive approach to specifying the methods and techniques required to achieve sales goals and overcome challenges.

Best for: Communicating specific details about sales strategies

Sales territory plan

This one makes me think of classic mob movies—two families hashing out their territories in the Bronx over plates of spaghetti. It's a strategic outline of how you'll distribute sales resources within specific geographic areas or customer segments.

Best for: Segmenting sales efforts geographically

Sales focus area plan

This one highlights specific product lines, customer segments, or markets on which the sales team will concentrate their efforts. It helps align sales team members on their individual responsibilities.

Best for: Setting expectations for sales team roles

Market expansion plan

When you use this sales plan, you're taking a strategic approach to broadening the reach of a product or service by entering new geographical areas or targeting additional customer demographics. You can tailor it to go deep on a range of KPIs that suit your specific goals for saturation. 

Best for: Planning specifically for market growth KPIs

Marketing alignment plan

Marketing and sales—one hand (or team) washes the other. To help bump that cleaning sesh along, consider one of these plans. They help coordinate strategies, ensuring a solid connection between sales and marketing efforts.

Best for: Aligning sales and marketing teams

Growth action plan

This strategic roadmap details initiatives and steps to foster business expansion, increase market share, and achieve sustainable growth. It includes actionable strategies for making growth-oriented goals a reality.

Best for: Establishing actionable strategies for growth KPIs

Sales planning tips

As you build out your sales plan, you might find that you need a little help. Here are some of our top tips for sales planning:

Know your audience: The sales plan will either be for stakeholders, team members, or both. Write to their level and with the level of detail they need.

Start with SWOT: A SWOT analysis is a great way to get a quick, relevant picture of fundamental sales plan elements like aptitudes, challenges, and opportunities.

Budget carefully: Not every sales plan style includes budgets by default—but don't let this deter you. It's vital to know what you can afford before you start executing your plan.

Vary strategies: To reduce volatility, try to keep your sales tactics varied. This also helps you find the strategies that work best and back them with data.

Continue monitoring: You can't know if you hit your KPIs unless you monitor according to the benchmarks you're tracking.

Make a (sales) plan to automate

Hopefully this post has you pumped for sales planning—or at least finding a mysterious new three-step business model (or even just watching "South Park"). 

Related reading:

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Bryce Emley

Currently based in Albuquerque, NM, Bryce Emley holds an MFA in Creative Writing from NC State and nearly a decade of writing and editing experience. His work has been published in magazines including The Atlantic, Boston Review, Salon, and Modern Farmer and has received a regional Emmy and awards from venues including Narrative, Wesleyan University, the Edward F. Albee Foundation, and the Pablo Neruda Prize. When he isn’t writing content, poetry, or creative nonfiction, he enjoys traveling, baking, playing music, reliving his barista days in his own kitchen, camping, and being bad at carpentry.

• Sales & business development

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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:

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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 .

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.

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.

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 percent YOY, you might set the milestone of increasing your customer base by 20 percent, 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, weaknesses, 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.

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 did you solve 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.

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.

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.

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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All about Sales Plans: Definitions, Tips, and Free Templates

By Kate Eby | July 27, 2018

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In this article, you’ll learn everything you need to know about sales plans: how they relate to sales forecasting and sales pipelines, as well as benefits, challenges, and tips for getting the most out of your sales plans.

Included on this page, you’ll find over 8 free sales plan templates , learn the difference between sales forecasting and sales planning , and find best practices for writing a sales plan .

Free Sales Plan Templates

In this section, you’ll find over 15 free sales planning templates in Microsoft Excel and Word formats.

Sales Plan Template

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This template allows you to plan your sales goals with the flexibility and functionality of an Excel spreadsheet. This sales plan template is divided into 12 months and separate product lines. The template includes columns for the previous year’s performance, current sales goals, and outcome. Create a yearly sales plan, and compare data over time and across products.

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Sales Leads Template

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If you want to keep track of sales leads, but don’t need the full functionality of customer relationship management (CRM) software, this spreadsheet may be adequate for your business. The template has columns for detailed information about each sales lead, including contact dates and status — this allows you to keep track of communications with each customer, plan future contacts and follow-ups, and evaluate potential sales. You can also indicate lead sources on the spreadsheet to monitor your marketing efforts and track how customers are referred to your business.

Sales Tracker Template

This sales tracker template makes it easy to keep track of items sold, along with profit per item and total earned income. You can also track costs, including shipping charges and returns. This template is especially useful for a new business, online retail sales, or any small business that wants to track sales and profits.

Sales Pipeline Template

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This sales pipeline template is an alternative to CRM software and is designed with small businesses in mind, use it to keep track of contacts and estimated sales. It also provides a quarterly sales forecast, along with space to record deal status, projected closing date, and further actions. This simple template is easy to edit and serves as a management tool for your sales pipeline.

Sales and Marketing Plan Template

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Creating an effective sales and marketing plan may involve market research and analysis, evaluating your competition, looking at your sales history, examining future sales projections, and more. Once you have adequate information to develop a sales plan, a template can help you organize the plan into steps that will drive sales. This sales and marketing plan template provides space for identifying your sales goal, target customers, strategies for attracting those customers, marketing tactics and messages, scheduled action steps, and results.

Sales Funnel Template

‌ ‌ Download Sales Funnel Template - Excel

This sales funnel template provides a visual representation of the sales process, along with whatever sales data you choose to include. The template can be used as a scorecard to evaluate sales progress, and the funnel makes it easy to visualize the steps in your sales process. This free template is a simple but effective tool for reaching sales and business goals.

Sales Report Template

‌ ‌ Download Sales Report Template

Track monthly, quarterly, and yearly sales activity with this free sales report template. Customize the template or use the existing columns to keep track of sales and pertinent data. This sales report template also includes a monthly forecast showing sales history and projections. Use this template to track progress, plan future goals, and create a sales report with pleasing visual design.

Sales Action Plan Template

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Create a sales plan with actionable steps and a scheduled timeline. This template features sections for listing clearly defined goals, methods for measuring success, action steps, ownership for each step, and deadlines. These are all important components of a sales action plan for reducing risk and increasing the probability that you will reach your sales goals.

Using a Sales Plan Template

Finding the right sales template provides easy organization and efficiency, which frees up resources and time that can go toward reaching business goals. A template can also be a powerful communication tool for sales and marketing teams to develop and track their progress against sales targets. Depending on the nature and scope of your company, some templates can be a component of an effective business plan.

The Basics of a Sales Plan

A sales plan outlines sale goals for a cycle, as well as the steps you will take to hit those targets. The sales plan document also defines tools, high-level tactics, target customers, competitors, obstacles, among other details. A strong plan will communicate company goals to the sales team, keep everyone focused on strategy, and delineate priorities.

What Is the Difference Between Sales Forecasting and Sales Planning?

While many people confuse the two terms, sales forecasting and sales planning are distinct concepts. A sales forecast is a future projection of sales based on business and environmental conditions, while a sales plan defines the concrete steps needed to achieve the sales forecast. You can create a sales forecast for your entire business or for a particular initiative over any period of time (examples include an economic forecast; an industry forecast; a company forecast; and a short-, medium-, or long-term forecast).

Sales plans are helpful tools when budgeting for advertising or travel costs, identifying new sales markets, planning for staffing needs, and creating a timeline to reach milestones. But a sales plan is just one piece of the business planning and management — and it relies on accurate sales forecasting. You can get free sales forecasting templates here .

Large organizations, small businesses, and startups can all equally benefit from sales planning. Sales forecasts and plans are most often used by the sales team, although marketers, executives, and even customers may interact with the documents as well.

What Is a Sales Pipeline?

A sales pipeline is a visual representation of where prospective buyers are in the sales process. A sales pipeline can quickly identify a prospect’s position in the buying journey; use that information to support them and respond to their needs appropriately.

While a specific buyer’s journey will vary based on the industry and type of products or services sold, there are three general phases of any sales pipeline:

A prospect initiates contact with a company and explains its needs.

A salesperson provides the prospect with a quote (including the product or service and price).

The prospect purchases a product or service (and thereby becomes a customer).

Use the targeted sales pipeline templates above to track potential customers’ journeys through the process.

What Is the Sales Funnel? 

The sales funnel is a visual representation of the average conversion rate of potential customers and qualified leads move through the sales process. Sales teams can use the sales funnel to help understand the volume of sales, as well as the percentage of each sale that has passed through each sales process stage.

The sales pipeline represents what the seller is doing during the sales process; the sales funnel shows the sales process conversion rates. The sales funnel feeds the sales pipeline; once a lead is converted into a prospect, they move into the sales pipeline.

Benefits of Using a Sales Plan

A high-quality sales plan is one of the key parts of the sales forecasting process as well as the operational plan and the marketing strategy. When done right, a sales plan can provide the following benefits:

• Guide and contribute to business growth.
• Communicate company sales goals, objectives, and strategic direction for the sales team and leadership.
• Expose new angles based on the research performed to fill out the items on the template. 
• Define needed actions during the sales cycle.
• Provide easy monitoring of sales team progress as linked to goals.
• Provide a high-level view of expenses, finances, and risks, as well as the competition and target customers. 
• Improve and track performance by keeping the team focused on the strategy, priorities and achieving shared milestones.
• Inspire and motivate stakeholders.
• Help keep customers and potential customers as the focus.
• Clarify team capabilities.
• Aid in comparison of targets and results.

Best Practices for Writing a Sales Plan

While creating the sales plan, take the following steps in order to create a quality and realistic plan:

• Perform a SWOT analysis.
• Review prior periods’ performance to gather data.
• Base the targets and goals on market research and historical data.
• Verify facts and data being used.
• Break down data by different sales groups (inside sales, outside sales, etc.).
• Make sure the sales team buys in to the plan.
• Identify patterns that can help reach target customers.
• Pick a time period that makes sense for your industry.
• Ensure that the budget is supported by the research.
• Ensure that sales objectives are linked to sales goals, and that sales goals are linked to business goals.
• Break down estimated expenses to meet sales goals into groups (commissions, sales training, sales tools and resources, contest prizes, team building, travel costs, food, etc.). 
• Use the SMART goals model (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound). 
• Measure what you want to manage.
• Keep the plan updated throughout the sales cycle — it’s a living document.
• Keep the plan as simple as possible.
• Look for untapped market segments to target.
• Define the value proposition for potential customers.
• Map out the ideal customer journey.

Sales Plans Challenges

While a sales plan is a valuable tool, creating one does pose some challenges: 

• Creating a sales plan can be very time consuming.
• Inaccurate data will skew forecasts — verify your numbers before you finalize the plan. 
• It’s difficult to predict changing tastes, so forecasts may not be met.
• Rapid growth may increase the workload of the sales team, and throw off forecasts.
• Be careful not to move goalposts mid-cycle.
• Wishful thinking is easy to do, so be realistic and don’t ignore your own assumptions.
• Neglecting to consult with the sales team may prevent them from buying into the plan.
• Neglecting to get feedback from other groups can have a negative impact on the plan.

What Is Included in a Sales Plan?

The sales plan contains numerous sections that provide information to readers, and help guide decisions that will contribute to meeting sales goals.

• Mission and Executive Summary: Include a short history of the business for background.
• Team Structure: Provide a breakdown of the team by sales team, including each person’s role and capabilities. Also include plans for any future hiring.
• Target Customers: Break down the customer list into segments by products or product lines. Build a prospect list that includes referrals, renewals, upsells, and any new segments, and make sure to leverage existing customer relationships.
• Tools, Software, and Other Resources: Include a list of CRM packages or other sales tools (including training tools), and provide any relevant documentation.
• Positioning: Include competitor data, including a comparison of your products with theirs. Anticipate how market trends may impact your business.
• Marketing Strategy: Include pricing information, promotions, and any actions you have planned to increase brand awareness.
• Prospecting Strategy: List criteria for qualifying leads generated by marketing strategy. 
• Action Plan: Include a list of steps needed to hit revenue and sales goals.
• Revenue and Sales Goals: Include measurable, realistic goals that support the overall business. Additionally, supply information on how performance will be measured and monitored, and be sure to base projections off historical data.
• Budget: Include estimated costs (including training, sales tools and resources, team building activities, travel, food, contest prizes, etc.). Make a case for the budget you present.
• Schedule: Provide a timeline that addresses the length of the sales cycle covered by the plan (annual, quarterly, month, etc.).
• Other Items: Consider including a performance review of the prior sales cycle, as well as market and industry conditions that may impact sales.

Improve Sales Planning with Smartsheet for Sales

Sales planning is an activitiy to gain and retain customers, meet changing market demands, and ultimately, ensure business success. While premade templates can help you get started developing your plan, you need a tool to manage all of your sales processes and operations that is accessible to your team in real time and allows you to collaborate and track sales activity across multiple reps.

Smartsheet is a work execution platform that enables enterprises and teams to get from idea to impact - fast. Top performing sales organizations rely on Smartsheet to stay on top of leads, accelerate productivity, and exceed every quota.

Use Smartsheet to build a strong opportunity pipeline, reduce risks and identify blockers, and refine your sales forecast. Improve transparency to process and procedure, optimize operations with cross-department collaboration, and accelerate team output.

Discover how Smartsheet can help maximize your sales efforts, today. 

Try Smartsheet for Sales

Additional Resources

Operations management

Sales Operations 101: Roles, Duties, Headaches, and Pro Tips

Learn the basics of sales operations and how roles are evolving. Hear from the pros and find tips to remedy sales ops headaches.

Nov 18, 2021

Get the most out of your sales planning efforts with Smartsheet for Sales.

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16 Sales Plan Templates to Plan Your Sales Strategy

Written by: Olujinmi Oluwatoni

Crafting an effective sales plan creates the stage for your sales team to exceed targets and secure those coveted wins.

But let’s face it, it demands hours of meticulous planning. On top of that, time is a luxury that can be hard to find amidst a whirlwind of meetings, pitches and follow-ups in sales.

That’s why sales plan templates come in handy. They streamline your sales planning efforts, enhance productivity and ultimately improve your team’s chances of achieving sales targets.

In this article, we’ve curated a collection of the finest templates out there, designed to rescue you from the time-consuming ordeal of creating your sales plan from scratch.

Let's get to it!

Table of Contents

Benefits of using a sales plan template, 16 sales plan templates you can use.

• How to Create a Sales Plan Template With Visme
• Utilizing a template when creating a sales plan is time-efficient, creates structure and organization, ensures consistency and facilitates communication and alignment.
• To create a sales plan template with Visme, sign up or login to Visme, choose a template, gather all the necessary information you need, customize the template and download or share the document.
• Visme offers a user-friendly interface with a wide range of customizable templates, advanced features and AI-powered tools to help you create stunning sales collaterals, sales enablement content and sales plans that will help you captivate your audience and accelerate your sales growth.

Using a template to jump-start your sales plan creation offers a number of benefits.

Let's take a look at some of the benefits:

• Structure and Organization: A sales plan template provides a structured format, guiding you through essential steps to create a comprehensive sales plan. With a template, you can capture all necessary elements, like setting goals, outlining the target market, sales strategies , timelines and lots more.
• Time Efficiency: Using a template saves time by eliminating the need to create your plan from scratch. You can focus on customizing the template to your specific business needs rather than starting from a blank page.
• Consistency: A standardized sales template ensures consistency across different sales teams or periods. This means you can easily track progress and compare results.
• Communication and Alignment: A well-structured sales plan template aids in communicating goals, strategies and expectations to stakeholders, ensuring everyone is aligned toward common objectives.

Build relationships with customers and drive sales growth

• Reach out to prospects with impressive pitch decks and proposals that convert
• Monitor clients' level of engagement to see what they are most interested in
• Build a winning sales playbook to maximize your sales team's efficiency

Sign up. It’s free.

There are so many ways Visme can help you close more sales . For a start, we've carefully selected these pre-made sales plan templates to jumpstart your process. Each template can be fully tailored to suit your business needs.

Here’s what one of Visme's clients had to say about our templates and service:

Now, let’s get to the templates!

1. Sales Business Plan One Pager

Looking for a way to efficiently communicate the critical information of your sales plan to stakeholders in a concise format without overwhelming details? This sales business plan template is your silver bullet.

It uses a mix of subtle and bold colors to emphasize content, making it visually impactful. You can utilize the template sections to capture your sales tactics, goals, target audience, key performance metrics and more.

Short on time? Try Visme's AI document generator to quickly create your business sales plan or any document. Just input your prompt, offer some context, choose a design and watch it generate your draft in seconds.

2. Sales Employee 30-60-90 Day Plan

Take advantage of this sales employee 30-60-90 day plan for efficient onboarding of your new sales team members. This minimalistic template features a clean white background with black and grey accents. Each page also boasts engaging visuals that complement the content.

Utilize the template’s sections to outline specific objectives, goals and actionable steps for the first 90 days, including growth strategies, sales targets and more.

Make your sales plan engaging by incorporating animations and interactive elements like animated text, graphics, hotspots, pop-ups and hover effects to reveal additional information. With these additions, your team members can go through the plan in a more engaging way.

3. Company Territory Sales Plan

Create a strategy to refine your sales efforts within specific territories with this sales plan. It features sections for defining territories, identifying target customers, setting sales objectives, implementing tactics and evaluating performance.

With a vibrant purple color scheme, impressive fonts, icons and a sleek minimalist layout, this template ensures your sales plan stands out.

Easily leverage Visme's AI Touch-Up Tools to fine-tune your visuals, whether it's sharpening, removing backgrounds, or replacing elements, ensuring your images are perfect for the template.

4. Sales Budget Plan

This sales budget plan template is an indispensable asset for businesses aiming to effectively manage finances while optimizing sales strategies .

The template comprehensively covers vital budgeting aspects, encompassing revenue objectives, cost of goods sold, sales expenses and allocation for marketing and promotional endeavors.

Its structured use of color schemes, typefaces, fonts and design elements ensures a coherent and engaging document.

Avoid the hassle of manually incorporating brand elements repeatedly. With Visme's brand design tool , simply input your website URL and watch as it automatically integrates your brand assets into your brand kit.

5. Business Development Sales Plan

Need to create a business plan that’ll drive business expansion? This template is your sure bet.

It not only employs a stylish fusion of colors but also integrates captivating visuals, icons and data widgets in each slide.

With sections spanning company overview, launch plan, target market, goals, plans, budget and more, this template simplifies sales planning processes.

Engage your team seamlessly through Visme's collaboration tool , fostering commentary, annotations and idea exchange for refining the plan collaboratively. With Visme's workflow feature, you can effortlessly manage roles, tasks, progress and deadlines in a unified platform.

6. Product Market Expansion Sales Plan

Seeking to introduce your products to new markets or expand within existing ones? This product market expansion sales plan template is your best bet.

It features a bold, modern design adorned with vibrant colors, compelling imagery and dynamic graphics, offering a visually engaging way to present your ideas.

This sales planning template features detailed sections covering market analysis, competitive landscape, marketing strategies, distribution channels, sales tactics and performance metrics.

Customize colors and fonts and leverage customizable charts and widgets. You can use Visme’s library of data visualization tools , including charts, graphs, maps, and widgets, to create concise sales pitch presentations .

7. Company Sales SOP Plan

This company sales SOP plan template is an essential asset for businesses seeking to efficiently standardize and streamline their sales procedures.

What sets the template apart is its incorporation of captivating visual elements. The images and graphics elevate the document's visual appeal, while the vibrant color palette sparks emotions and enthusiasm. The layout also ensures a clutter-free presentation and directs focus towards critical aspects of the content.

You can utilize the template’s sections to provide a detailed description of your goals, workflow and protocols for your sales activities.

Leverage Visme’s dynamic fields to effortlessly update information, data and dates across multiple projects with a single click. Dynamic fields enable swift adjustments to company details, results, or sales plan recipients, ideal for distributing multiple proposals to various stakeholders.

8. Consulting Revenue-based Sales Plan

This sales plan example is a specialized framework crafted specifically for consultants and consulting firms seeking to propel revenue growth through strategic sales initiatives.

Designed with a white background, balanced black tones and accents of orange and gray, this template offers a harmonious visual aesthetic that exudes vibrancy.

Dedicated sections within the template focus on client acquisition strategies, service offerings, pricing models, sales pipelines and performance metrics directed towards revenue targets.

Struggling with content creation? Visme's built-in AI writer simplifies the process. This sophisticated tool aids in text creation, modification and proofreading, saving valuable time and energy while ensuring the production of high-quality content. Just input your prompt and watch the tool perform its magic.

9. Sales Cloud Software Sales Plan

Tailored for software sales managers or sales teams in tech companies, this template is your compass for crafting an impactful sales strategy for your company.

The template features a color palette blending a white backdrop with accents of lemon and black tones. It also employs subtle shadows, clean lines and ample open spaces, which improves readability.

Use the template’s sections to highlight your market analysis, target audience identification, competitive positioning, sales strategies, customer acquisition tactics and lots more.

Your sales plan doesn’t have to be boring. Spice it up with visually appealing images and interactive icons. Simply browse through Visme's vast collection of stock photos, icons and more to choose the visual that suits your needs.

If you cannot find the exact you need, then utilize Visme's AI image generator. This feature allows you to craft unique photos, paintings, pencil drawings, 3D graphics, icons, abstract art and beyond. Just input a precise prompt and begin generating your personalized visuals effortlessly.

10. Sales Business Plan Infographic Template

Creating a comprehensive sales plan often entails complex steps, which might pose challenges when presenting to potential stakeholders. This template offers a concise yet thorough way to showcase your plan, emphasizing crucial elements while minimizing excessive text.

Its dynamic presentation, enriched with a captivating fusion of colors and visuals, offers an impactful way to convey information.

The template’s sections allow you to visualize your goals, timelines, market analysis, strategies, performance metrics and more.

You can utilize this template for your sales meetings, strategy sessions, or as a comprehensive reference tool for your sales team.

11. SaaS Product Sales Plan

Craft a high-impact sales approach for SaaS products effortlessly with this template. Whether you're a SaaS startup founder, a product manager, or part of a tech company's sales team, this template will help you create a concise plan.

This template has a sleek white background complemented by shades of green and nude tones. Its design elements, coupled with compelling charts and graphics, also make it a breeze to convey your sales insights.

The template’s section covers essential sections such as market analysis, target audience profiling, competitive assessment, pricing strategies and customer acquisition tactics.

What's more, you can download your design in JPG, PNG, or PDF formats for printing or easy sharing with team members for collaborative efforts.

12. Digital Marketing Agency Sales Plan

Designed for digital agency owners, sales managers, or marketing teams, this template offers a structured approach to craft a robust sales strategy.

With a sleek, contemporary design, user-friendly layout and engaging visuals, this template effectively conveys your vision and offers a detailed roadmap to accomplish your agency's objectives.

It covers sections on market analysis, target audience identification, service offerings, pricing strategies, lead generation tactics and performance metrics. Tailor the template to match your brand's style, ensuring a unified and visually appealing plan.

13. Real Estate Sales Plan

Tailored explicitly for real estate agents, brokers, or agencies, this template is a great tool to outline strategies to proficiently market properties and close deals. It employs captivating fonts, vibrant colors and graphics that’ll engage your sales team members.

You can utilize the template’s sections to outline your executive summary, sales goals and KPIs , revenue targets, target markets, marketing strategy, prospecting strategy, budget and lots more.

14. Marketing Agency Sales Plan

For your marketing agency's success, a well-organized sales plan is pivotal. This marketing agency sales plan is a great tool to craft a robust sales strategy that attracts clients effectively.

The modern design boasting a harmonious color palette, enriched with images and icons gives the plan a great visual appeal. It includes sections to detail your market analysis, target audiences, service offerings, pricing strategies, lead generation tactics, budget allocation and performance metrics.

For added flair, you can animate this annual sales plan template with illustrations, incorporate characters and integrate clickable interactive icons.

15. Health Insurance Sales Plan

This specialized health insurance template is crafted exclusively for insurance professionals aiming to optimize their sales strategies, specifically for health insurance products.

The template provides a refined layout while integrating vibrant and compelling imagery. It covers comprehensive sections on market analysis, identifying target audiences, competitive analysis, pricing strategies, lead generation tactics, regulatory compliance and performance metrics.

Effortlessly incorporate data from platforms such as Google Sheets, Excel and various tools directly into your charts and graphs. Once connected to your data sources, your charts and graphs will dynamically adjust to any changes in the external data, keeping your information organized and up-to-date.

This feature boosts the professional quality of your sales plan while simplifying data handling.

16. Customer Product Sales Plan

This Customer Product Sales Plan template offers a strategic framework designed for businesses seeking to enhance sales by prioritizing the customer's perspective. The striking combination of grey, black, and white gives it a great visual appeal.

From sections like customer segmentation, market analysis, product positioning, sales tactics and more, this template has everything you need to create a comprehensive sales plan.

For detailed tracking of data, leverage Visme analytics . Monitor views, engagement and interactions to gain insights into audience interaction with your visual content. You can easily track your audience’s activities by customizing and saving each document separately with the prospect's name.

How to Create a Sales Plan Template with Visme

With the wide variety of features and templates available in Visme, you can quickly whip up visually appealing and professional sales business plans.

Here’s how to write a sales plan using Visme.

Step 1: Register or Log in to your Visme Account

Create a new Visme account or sign in if you're already a user. Once logged in, you can dive into Visme's impressive array of features and tools.

Step 2: Choose a Suitable Template

Choose a sales plan template that matches your unique needs and objectives. Visme offers an extensive collection of professionally designed templates tailored to your project or initiative.

Step 3: Input Relevant Content

Once you’ve selected your template, the next step is to input relevant information into it. The information you’ll require here depends on the type of sales plan template you’ve chosen.

Simply replace the template’s placeholder content with yours. With Visme's user-friendly editor, you can quickly and easily add, edit, or remove pages and content to suit your needs.

Step 4: Input Your Sales Data By Integrating Visme With Your CRM

A sales plan typically includes various sales data such as target market analysis, sales strategies, product or service details, and lots more.

One of the perks of using Visme to create your sales plans is that it offers seamless integration with CRM tools like Salesforce and HubSpot. This connection enables direct input of your sales data and client information from your CRM into your visual content. This way, you can showcase up-to-date sales data within your sales plan.

The integration also allows easy export of projects created in Visme to your HubSpot or Salesforce storage. When you have all your sales data in one central place, you create a single source of truth for your sales team.

This will aid the effective execution of your sales activities.

Here’s how to set up Visme’s integration with Hubspot or Salesforce:

• Go to the Visme Apps section and click HubSpot or Salesforce
• Log in to your HubSpot or Salesforce account using your credentials to connect your account to Visme.
• Access your HubSpot or Salesforce files within Visme, then select the specific file you want to incorporate into your Visme project.
• When you are done with the project, select the dropdown next to the Download button to export the file directly to your HubSpot or Salesforce storage.

Step 5: Customize the Template

Once you've selected a template and gathered the necessary information for your sales plan, the next step involves crafting the content and personalizing the template to suit your needs.

Simply replace the placeholder content in the template with your own. Visme's user-friendly editor allows you to seamlessly add, edit, or delete content and rearrange design elements across the canvas.

You have the flexibility to modify text by adjusting font size, style, color, alignment and even add animations. Easily tailor section headings, include or exclude sections and ensure the content aligns perfectly with your project or organization.

Earlier, we highlighted several features and design elements within Visme that will assist you in customizing your sales plan templates. Take advantage of these tools and features to craft visually appealing and professional sales plans tailored to your needs.

Step 6: Download and Share

Publish and share the completed sales plan with relevant team members and stakeholders. You can download designs in PDF, JPG, PNG, or HTML5 formats or easily share them via email or a shareable link. Plus, effortlessly publish your content anywhere online by generating a code within the Visme app.

Sales Plan FAQs

Q. what are the 7 steps to creating a sales plan.

Here are 7 steps to create a sales plan:

• Review Sales and Customer Data
• Set Clear Objectives
• Identify Gaps and Opportunities to Improve
• Define Sales Strategies
• Establish KPIs
• Create an Action Plan
• Allocate Budget and Resources:

Q. What Should a Good Sales Plan Include?

A typical sales plan includes the following sections:

• Executive Summary
• Sales Goals
• Target Market
• Competitors Analysis
• Action Plan
• KPIs to Measure
• Team Structure

Q. What Does a Sales Strategy Plan Look Like?

A sales strategy plan typically consists of several key components, including:

• Market Analysis
• Value PropositionTarget Audience
• Sales Objectives
• Sales Channels
• Sales Tactics and Techniques
• Resource Allocation

Q. How Do You Write a Sales Strategy Plan Template?

Follow these steps to write a sales strategy plan template:

• Analyze the Market and Persona
• Define Your Sales Goals
• Analyze Current Position and Opportunities
• Align Sales and Marketing
• Create Sales Strategies
• Define Sales KPIs
• Map Out Your Action Plan
• Evaluate Budget and Resource
• Create a Timeline

Easily Design Captivating & Data-Driven Sales Plans with Visme

A well crafted sales plan will help you focus efforts, allocate resources effectively and adapt to market changes, ultimately contributing to sustainable profitability.

Thanks to Visme, creating your sales plans doesn't have to be overwhelming.

Visme is a comprehensive tool for effortlessly creating engaging and data-driven sales plans. Its broad range of features, customizable options, AI-powered tools, and templates allow for the creation of professional-quality plans.

You can also utilize Visme's real-time collaboration tools and versatile sharing options to seamlessly engage all stakeholders in crafting and conveying your sales plan, irrespective of physical proximity.

Beyond sales plans, Visme can be used to create various business assets, such as sales presentations, infographics, e-books, whitepapers and more.

Ready to level up your company's sales game? Sign up or book a demo to discover how Visme can help your sales team drive tangible results.

Put together stunning sales plans using Visme

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

• 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:

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:

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.

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.

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

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

Want your sales to skyrocket?

You’ll need a strategy. And for the sales success, nothing works better than a strategic sales plan. The key concern, of course, is how to design a plan that impacts sales. 

We’ve collected the necessary steps and sales plan examples so that you can promptly create a document that’s right for your organization.

What is a sales plan?

Advantages of a sales plan.

• Strategic steps to create an efficient sales plan
• Strategic sales plan templates

What sales plan to choose?

Let’s deal with the definition and sales plan elements first.

A sales plan is a strategy document that lays out a company’s plan for improving sales results over a particular period. 

Its components may differ. But they all focus on the business’ growth: profit plans, sales strategies, analytics, target market, existing sales force potentials, and much more. +

To make things easier, we narrowed them down to 9 main elements that lead to smooth selling. But feel free to use as many of them as you like.

1. Revenue targets and business goals

Without goals, you won’t know if your sales strategy was successful, right? This is the part where you can set a specific number to shoot for or create multiple goals for your sales team.

If you are in doubt about what to include, here are some examples to spark a thought:

• Specific sales numbers;
• Number of new clients you want to convert;
• Number of existing customers you plan to nurture and retain;
• Sales goals around a new product or service you are offering.

If you write an annual sales plan, you can briefly recap the previous year, its goals, scope of work, and results. Identify the mistakes and actions that led to positive results and draw a lesson from them.

3. Your ideal customer profile and their user journey

Ask yourself a question: who do you want to attract and convert? Demographics, purchasing habits, and other factors will help you create your buyer persona . 

But you shouldn’t stop here. It’s useful to outline the customer journey of your clients and suggest ways to improve their experience at every step of the sales funnel.

4. Customer segmentation and tactics to work with each segment

In this section, you can describe all segments of the leads you get from your channels and ways to communicate with them to boost profit generation. If new segments might appear in the future, describe them as well. 

Research market trends that can strongly affect your sales and suggest ways to use them to boost your performance.

Without a budget set in place, you risk spending more resources than you intended to. Think of the team size and operational tools you need to process and close the deals.

7. Strategies and tactics

Suggest the best approaches for your company and describe their implementation.

8. Action plan for individuals and teams

Here, you can determine the roles and responsibilities of specific staff members, assign tasks, and set deadlines for them.

9. Performance criteria and analytics benchmarks

Describe the tracked metrics and systems that help monitor them. 

You might now think, “That’s too many components to describe, do I need a sales plan at all?” Yes, you do. Let us explain why.

Of course, a sales plan promotes self-discipline and diligence, but it also ensures that your sales don’t dry up over time. Which means it’s not optional. 

We all tend to talk a lot, but without a plan, your goals might never turn into reality. So, the first advantage of a sales plan is that it helps you realize all of your greatest ideas. 

Besides, with it, you can determine the demand for your solution and identify new product areas to predict the growth of your business. It’s also a great tool in analyzing your rivals and competitive advantage to distinctly position your company in the market and specify your product niche.

Without the sales plan, it would be hard to choose strategies and metrics for your sales team. And, as a result, it would be more difficult to measure your progress, optimize your performance over time, and motivate stakeholders.

Here are all the benefits summarized: 

8 strategic steps to create an efficient sales plan

If you only start in sales and have neither sales planning experience, nor previous statistics, the following extensive guide will help you organize your work at every step, be it a small startup or a big corporation.

Each aspect of the sales plan moves gradually into the next, beginning with the team’s high-level objectives, then considering market conditions, checking your existing audience, and discovering more leads to help you meet your sales demands.

1. Set sales goals and metrics

Your sales plan structure needs an end goal . Identify what you can yield based on the size of the market, skills, and tools available to your sales team.

The biggest mistake you can make here is to set unrealistic goals. Yes, we know, you might be over-optimistic. But if you assume, for example, that the market’s going to go down and you’re going to lose a certain share, it won’t make any sense to forecast an increase in sales, right? 

Another piece of advice is to ask your sales team what they think your goals should be. These people closely work with your clients and have the best understanding of them. Ask their opinion, give them enough time to think it over, and then discuss it together. Or, you can get a more experienced person to analyze the plan and help set metrics before approving it.

Remember, your goals must be SMART !

What metrics should you track while analyzing the success of your sales department? There are plenty of them to monitor: 

• Sales growth
• Sales target
• Current opportunities
• Product performance
• Sales to date
• Quote-to-close
• Lead conversion rate
• Sell-through rate

It would be great for a team to have all the metrics displayed on one clear, intuitive dashboard . You can include screenshots of such dashboards in your sales plan for a more effective demonstration. For this task, such free tools as PowerPoint, Google Sheets, or Excel can be of great help. Or you can use any other software, as in the example: 

“But what if it turns out I was wrong in some of my assumptions around the sales plan objectives?”

Don’t worry. If you’re developing a template for the first time, this is perfectly normal. But what’s essential is that you’ll be able to learn what needs to be improved when it’s time for the next version of your sales plan.

2. Set deadlines and milestones

It will take a while to achieve your goals, so why not split them into smaller sized milestones with deadlines to track the progress? These targets are extremely convenient in checking if your sales plan is on the right track.

Use last year’s statistics . Observe how sales earnings improved and compare your company to the market criteria. Again, talk to your sales team about their work, how they generate leads, and how they convert them into clients. What is the current conversion rate? How many deals do they expect to close in the future? This will show you what objectives to set.

Your milestones need to be precise with definite deadlines . For instance, you might want to increase your client base by 25% or boost your revenue by 40% for a specified product by the end of Q3. No matter what the milestone is, set clear objectives and a tough deadline.

This is not it. It’s better to also set personalized milestones for your sales professionals, considering differences among your employees. 

For example, if somebody on your team is sending a lot of emails but not getting deals, give them the task of increasing the number of their closed deals. If someone’s awesome at closing deals but doesn’t do much outreach, give them the task of generating at least 20 new leads a month.

Oh, and set the budget as well! It usually includes:

• Sales training
• Salary and commission
• Tools, software, and resources
• Travel costs

3. Study market

You now know what you want. It’s high time to define the market niche you’re in so that you can accurately position your business to achieve the best results.

What’s a market niche? It’s what your company specializes in and also the place your business occupies, not only with your solution but also with generated content, corporate culture, and branding. It’s the way your audience identifies with you and recognizes you among competitors.

To analyze your niche, answer the following questions:

• How big is your potential market?
• Is there an inherent demand for your product?
• What’s your market situation today? ( SWOT analysis will be awesome here)
• Who are your competitors? (Again, SWOT analysis)

The key here is to find what your competitive benefit is:

• Why do clients decide to purchase from you?
• Why do customers buy from your rivals and never from you?
• How come some prospective leads do not purchase at all?
• What must you do to achieve success with time?

Keep in mind that clients purchase advantages, not characteristics. Whenever explaining your value proposition , it’s an easy task to get trapped in talking about your business too much. Put the script aside and mention exactly what your solution does for clients. 

A good competitive advantage :

• Shows the competitive power of the organization
• Is ideally, although not always, unique
• Is obvious and simple
• May change over time

Your competitive advantage isn’t just a fundamental component of your sales strategy, it will determine everything your organization does, from advertising to product enhancement. 

4. Build an ideal customer profile

Before you get inside your potential clients’ heads, you need to define who your target market is. Ask yourself questions: 

• What do your best customers look like? 
• What’s their personality like?
• What are their age, level of income, and living situation?
• What does their career journey look like?
• What industry do they belong to?
• Do they have the same pain points ?
• What are these challenges preventing them from achieving?
• What influences their decision-making?
• What content and information is most useful when communicating convincingly with them?
• What sorts of social networking platforms do they normally use? 

5. Determine what systems, tools, CRMs to use

It will be hard to do everything without the right resources for the job. And that’s where CRM software and sales automation tools come in handy.

CRM is a technology for managing all business relationships and interactions with existing and potential customers within a company. It helps gather information on how many emails your team is sending, how much time they’re spending on qualifying leads, and how much revenue they are bringing in. 

Meanwhile, with sales automation software, you will be able to standardize and automate the entire sales process. There are lots of professional tools for sales teams, these are just some of the examples: 

• Salesforce, 
• Freshsales, 
• Insightly, 
• Pipedrive, 
• Microsoft Dynamics 365, 

For example, a tool like Snov.io helps you fill your marketing funnel with quality targeted leads and close them easier. You can focus on every stage of the sales funnel and business growth: market research, lead generation, nurturing, conversion, statistics, analysis, and business forecasting for scaling and future growth.

6. Support existing customers

Don’t underestimate your current dedicated customers. References, word-of-mouth, client feedback, and existing connections are your best sources that ensure additional growth.

Check if anybody you know on social media can recommend you to one of your desired prospects. Contact loyal clients and offer them a discount or a referral bonus if they know someone who would profit from your products or services.

7. Find partners for strategic cooperation

Many entrepreneurs, startups, and big organizations might target the same types of customers. But oftentimes, they are not your competitors but rather offer services that can complement your solution (this is why they can be called CSPs or Complementary Service Providers).

You can engage with them in different ways:

• Writing for their website or blog;
• Delivering speeches at webinars or offline seminars;
• Offering valuable resources for their platforms;
• Creating a mastermind group where you can exchange contacts.

The more value you provide to your business partners and target audiences, the more connections you will have. All these services are provided for free and included as an additional investment in your sales strategy plan.

8. Keep studying your statistics, analyze, and modify your approaches

Don’t forget that your sales plan is a flexible document and needs to be regularly updated according to new market trends, outreach campaigns, features, or even staff members. Return to the document from time to time to see if your prognosis is close to reality.

Organize regular meetings to discuss progress, discover and solve problems, align the work across teams, get experience from your failures and success, and enhance your plan accordingly.

Strategic sales plan templates 

If you want to find more inspiration, check out these simple yet helpful sales plan template examples.

• HubSpot Sales Plan Template
• Sales Plan by Asana 
• BestTemplates Sample Sales Plan
• Venngage Online Sales Plan Maker Map
• BestTemplates Simple Plan
• Creately Sales Strategy Plan
• FitSmallBusiness Sales Plan
• BestTemplates Sales Action Plan
• TemplateLab Sales Plan Template in Microsoft Word 

There might be one more question unanswered – what template to choose? It all depends on your particular business goals: 

• The most common one is the 30-60-90 day sales plan with milestones that need to be achieved by each period.
• A weekly or yearly sales plan is also an option.
• You can create a sales plan for specific sales tactics , such as email drip campaigns, prescribed calls, and appointments. It sort of resembles a yearly/weekly sales plan, but it focuses on assessing and increasing gains for a single objective or task.
• In the meantime, sales professionals who manage a specific market region typically use region sales plans to present CMOs and VPs with more clarity of their sales initiatives.

Wrapping up

In many product sales circumstances, the greatest challenge is passiveness. However, with a great, step-by-step product sales plan and a passionate team with distinct milestones in mind, you’ll have everything you need to endure any resistance and carry on hitting your targets!

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How to Create a Sales Plan in 8 Steps: Guide + Free Template for 2023

It can happen to the best of us. We start off the year with big ambitions, certain our sales team is gonna crush it. We’re making lots of calls, selling to new customers, and getting our product out there. 

But soon, we wonder: how are we actually doing? Are we on track to meet our revenue goals for the year? Should we focus on building outreach or closing more deals? 

This is where a sales plan can make all the difference. Goals and objectives are clearly stated, day-to-day tasks are aligned with company priorities, and sales reps are working towards individual goals. It’s a beautiful thing. 

And it doesn’t have to be hard. In fact, we’ve put together this guide to make the sales planning process as easy as following a template. Let’s get started. 

What’s a Sales Plan?

A sales plan is a forecast of the sales you expect to achieve and how you’re going to get there. It typically covers important elements like:

• Past performance numbers
• Sales operations strategies
• Sales forecasting
• Current goals and objectives
• An action plan for finding and selling to new customers

Having an action plan in place for your sales process aligns your team’s day-to-day actions with your company’s priorities and business goals.

So, for example, if you’re trying to sell to a very specific target market, your team should focus on account-based selling as opposed to lead generation. If you’re looking to generate new business or break into a new market, you should focus sales activities more on outreach and prospecting. 

An action plan also empowers you to spend more time intentionally working towards your revenue targets, rather than getting stuck in reactionary mode dealing with daily hiccups and distractions.

What’s Inside a Typical Sales Plan? (Plus a Free Sales Plan Template)

While there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for developing a strategic sales plan, a good plan usually includes the following: 

• Company mission and vision statements
• Realistic, time-based goals with action steps to achieve them
• Purposeful tasks and daily activities for your sales reps to achieve
• Proven sales strategies to improve outcomes and get results
• Lead generation tactics for finding new customers
• Metrics you’ll use to see how your team is progressing

Download Your Free Sales Plan Templates Today

Want to build your own sales plan that kick-starts growth? Grab our Sales Success Kit. You won’t only get a sales strategy , you’ll get:

• Templates for sales planning
• Checklists for things like sales calls and hiring
• Worksheets for overcoming objections
• Guides for writing sales scripts

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

8 Steps to Build a Sales Plan that Drives Revenue

In this section, we’ll go over the steps you need to take to build a strategic sales plan that gets the kind of results you’re looking for. 

1. Determine Your Primary & Secondary Sales Goals & KPIs

A successful sales plan begins with setting goals. These goals will be the targets your sales reps are working to reach—so it’s important to define them carefully.

When determining your goals, keep the S.M.A.R.T. system in mind. Company goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. Here’s an example: 

• Bad goal: “Grow sales.”
• SMART goal: “Hit $100k in revenue by the end of the 1st quarter.”

Also, keep in mind that the right sales goals are those at the edge of achievable and challenging. If a goal is too easy or too hard, your team’s motivation will probably plummet. 

For example, if you’re a small business or startup that just reached $50k in revenue last year, shooting for $500k is a bit of a stretch, while $60k is probably too easy. 

That said, you’ll also want to determine specific metrics and KPIs in this step, including how they’re currently performing, and how you plan to improve them. 

Author’s note: If you’re using a tool like Close to manage your sales team and processes, you get a KPI dashboard that looks something like this—so your team can better align and track progress:

But remember this golden rule when choosing key performance indicators:

You don’t need to track every sales KPI. You just need to track the right ones.

Here are ten benchmarks and KPIs worth tracking that are commonly used by sales teams: 

• Monthly sales growth
• Calls and cold emails per rep (daily, weekly, monthly)
• Sales opportunities created
• Monthly onboarding and demo calls booked
• Lead conversion rate
• Sales by contact method
• Average conversion time
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
• Customer lifetime value (LTV)
• New and expansion monthly recurring revenue (MRR)

2. Find Your Target Customers’ Needs

One of the best ways to find the needs of your target audience is to develop an ideal customer profile (ICP). An ICP is an example of the perfect customer for your business. 

Normally used by B2B companies, this profile defines the characteristics of a company that would buy your product or service. 

Here are some of the traits to look out for in them:

To get started, think of your top ten to twenty customers. These should be customers who say your solution is so valuable, it outweighs the cost. 

Then, gather information about each customer and identify traits they have in common. Write a description of your ideal customer that includes data like what we’ve shared earlier: 

• General information about the company or customer, such as size, demographics, and industry
• Typical budget and revenue
• Location, if it’s applicable to what you’re selling
• Main challenges and pain points the customer is looking to solve
• Common objections that are raised during the sales process
• Typical purchase process, including decision-makers
• Timelines and deadlines to purchase

By identifying these common traits, you can better target the market that is best suited for your product and really hone in on their needs. 

3. Define Your Value Proposition

Now that you know what your customers need, it’s time to explain how your company meets that need. Enter: the value proposition . 

A value proposition describes the specific value your company provides to your customers. It should focus on benefits, not features. And it should explain how you stand out from the crowd. For example:

• What problem does your product solve? Is it a new product? 
• What does your product do for your customers? 
• How does your product stand out? 
• What makes you different from the competition? 

One of the best ways to nail down your value proposition is to talk to actual customers or prospects. Ask them how they would describe your product to a colleague. How would they sell it to them if asked for a recommendation? 

You can also look up reviews on websites like G2 and read what your customers are raving about online. Is there a common thread? What benefits do your customers keep bringing up, especially as it relates to the competition? Is there something your company is doing that others aren’t? 

4. Choose a Structure for Your Sales Team

Just as there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to creating a sales plan, there isn’t one right way to structure your sales force. What works best depends on your product, team, and sales processes. Here are three common sales team structures to choose from: 

• Island: Individual reps work through the sales process alone. This means they handle everything from cold calling and outreach to closing major deals.

• 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 group that’s responsible for the entire journey of specific customers.

No matter what structure you choose, determine which reps are available during what times of the year, their specialties and skills, and what they’re responsible for in the sales process. It’s also important to include information about the sales managers, other team members, and the incentives you offer your reps.

5. Create a Plan For Execution

At this point, you know what you want to get done. You know your goals, you know your customers, and you know how your sales team will be organized. Now it’s time to come up with a specific plan of attack. 

To do this, take a look at your overall goals and figure out how to create milestones. This involves breaking down that big number into smaller expectations with strict deadlines. Milestones should challenge and motivate your sales team , without being so difficult they kill morale.

Involve your sales team during this process. Learn what they do during the week 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 your team can execute.

Then, create specific milestones 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% at the end of Q1, or increasing sales by 50% for a specific product during Q3.

Finally, break these milestones down into action items. If you’re trying to increase your customer base, for instance, your sales team will need to increase prospecting and lead generation activities. How will your team approach this? Assign specific tasks to team members with daily, weekly, or monthly targets.  

Here’s an example to show how your goals, milestones, and action items are related to each other: 

Goal: Increase revenue by 15% YOY

Milestone: Increase customer base by 20% by the end of Q1

Action items: Each sales rep makes 10 new prospecting calls per week and spends 30 minutes qualifying leads

6. Evaluate Your Existing Sales Tools

In this step, take a look at your existing sales tools. Ask your team the following questions about each one: 

• How are we using this tool? What sales tactics does it help with? 
• Do we have another tool that does the same thing? 
• How much does this tool cost? 
• What’s the learning curve with this tool in the short term? 
• How easy is it to onboard new team members? 
• Is there anything we wish this tool did better? 
• What’s customer support like when we have issues? 
• Does this tool integrate easily with our other tools? 
• How does this tool make our lives easier? 
• How does this tool help us close more deals? 
• Where does it fit in the sales funnel? 

Once you’ve answered these questions for all of your sales tools, decide if there are any you don’t need in your stack anymore. Also, make note of any gaps in your capabilities or areas you feel could be improved with a better tool. 

Then, list the resources you have available and how you plan to use them. For example, how much will you spend on your sales tools? Which CRM software or prospecting tools are your sales professionals lost without? Briefly explain each tool’s value and why you’ve allocated resources towards it.

7. Build a List of Dream Clients 

If you could close the deal with anyone you wanted, who would it be? Write it down. Then, go back to your ideal customer profile and find more companies that fit the bill. 

Using this strategy is called target account sales or account-based selling. It’s a sales strategy where every prospect is handpicked and matched to your ICP. This means you know their pain points , their competitors, and how you’ll sell to them—long before you pick up the phone. 

Using the target account method will help you fill your pipeline with high-value leads that are a perfect fit for your product. It’s also a great way to build confidence with your reps since they can do a lot of legwork before making a call. 

8. Schedule Progress Checks 

A sales plan is a living, breathing document that needs to adapt to the dynamic world around it. New features, new marketing campaigns, new team members—all of these things can change the game. 

With that in mind, the last step in creating your sales plan is to set regular meetings (at least monthly) to review progress towards hitting your sales targets. At each meeting, plan to identify and solve any new issues and re-align activities across teams to adapt to real-world events and feedback. 

That said, try to avoid moving the actual goalposts—even if you discover you’ve been overly optimistic or pessimistic in your forecasting . Instead, carefully document what needs updating so you’re prepared when it comes time to make your next sales plan. 

5 Best Practices for Creating a Profitable Sales Plan

Now that you know how to build your plan, here’s a list of best practices to make sure you’re successful. 

1. Touch Base with Existing Customers  

Existing customers can be a huge source of knowledge when building your sales plan. After all, they’re using your product and can provide valuable feedback on what’s working and what’s not. 

But knowledge isn’t the only thing existing customers have to offer. They’re also a goldmine for generating new leads. In fact, according to SaaStr founder Jason Lemkin , “At least 20% of your new customers should come from referrals and word of mouth.”

If you’re still in the early stages of business development, use your sales plan to show your team how to leverage their own network to get introductions to new prospects. If you’re at a later stage, build a referral program for customers that refer new leads. 

2. Get Input From Colleagues Outside of Sales

It’s easy to get caught up in our little sales bubble and forget the outside world. But you’d be doing yourself and your company a disservice if you don’t get input from people on the outside. 

Getting a different point of view can open doors you didn’t even realize were there. Or keep you from wasting time going down a road to nowhere. 

So reach out to colleagues in other departments (i.e. marketing, tech support, human resources, etc.) Ask them to look over your sales plan and give you feedback. What have they heard from customers? Is there a marketing strategy that could work in tandem with your efforts? You may be surprised at what they have to offer. 

3. Include Your Sales Team in the Planning Process

As we mentioned earlier, your sales reps can be super helpful during the planning process. They know your customers and they know the daily grind. So they usually have valuable insight in terms of realistic goal-setting, how customers may respond to certain strategies, and more. 

Plus, including your sales team in the process is a great way to get buy-in. People are way more likely to get on board with a plan if they were involved in its creation. On the flip side, if you just drop a plan on your team without getting their input, you’ll likely face some pushback. 

So get your team involved early in the process. Schedule planning meetings and quick brainstorming sessions. Explain why the plan matters and why you want their participation. 

4. Compare Plans with Strategic Partners

Strategic partners or stakeholders are usually other businesses that benefit in some way from your success. These can be suppliers, retailers, or companies with complimentary products or services (also known as Complementary Service Providers, or CSPs). 

If you have a good working relationship, ask them to compare notes. You take a look at their sales plan and have them look at yours. After all, you’re typically targeting the same type of customers. 

Maybe they’ve tried something you’re planning to implement and can give you feedback on how it went. Or maybe you’re planning similar strategies and can piggyback off each other or refer leads. 

5. Set Individual Goals for Your Sales Team

Finally, take your overall goals and break them down into individual goals for your sales team. Not only will this make your plan more actionable but it’s a great opportunity for professional development if you take into account the differences in strengths, weaknesses, and skills among your salespeople.

For example, if someone on your team is making a lot of calls but not closing many deals, set an individual goal of upping their close rate . On the other hand, if someone’s great at closing but doesn’t do much outreach, give them the goal of contacting ten new prospects a month.

Create a Sales Plan That Drives Growth 

Taking the time to create a solid, effective sales plan (or business plan) is always worth it. It gives you the roadmap you need to push through the inertia and stay on track to meet your goals. 

We’re here to help. Download our free Sales Success Kit and get access to 11 different templates, checklists, worksheets, and guides. All are action-oriented and easy to use, so you can have your best sales year yet.

GET THE SALES SUCCESS KIT →

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Win Revenue With Our Updated Sales Plan (+ Free Template)

13 september 2021 by jaakko paalanen.

“I love writing sales plan templates!”…said no one ever. 

If writing a sales plan makes you want to pull your hair out, then I've got great news. It doesn't have to be complicated. 

Writing a B2B sales plan is simple when you use a sales plan template. 

If you’re struggling to write a productive B2B sales plan (or one doesn't put your salespeople to sleep 💤), you’re in the right place. 

I’m going to walk through what a B2B sales plan template is, why using one makes your life better, and how to create your own. 

I'll also share a few sales plan template examples to ensure you're on the right track. 

Even better, you can access the B2B sales plan template that the Leadfeeder sales team uses below. 

Note: Spend less time prospecting and more time selling with Leadfeeder. Leadfeeder identifies the companies visiting your site, how they got there, and what they did. Sign up for a free 14-day trial with Leadfeeder to start winning more revenue.

Free sales plan template

A B2B sales plan is more than a list of corporate goals your team barely glances at while entering the office.

It’s a detailed, custom playbook for sales success.

It unites your team, resources, and efforts under realistic objectives.

It creates the magic behind successful businesses: sales and revenue.

If you’re serious about generating leads and sales, invest the time into creating one. To help get you started, I made this sales plan template for you.

What is a sales plan?

A sales plan is a strategic document that outlines specific steps for increasing sales . But, it's more than a collection of sales goals and shallow steps.

Get your B2B Sales Plan Template

A detailed action plan to help you achieve your business goals by crafting a perfect sales strategy

It lists your sales strategy’s “who, what, where, and why” and explains who handles certain operations at different milestones. 

When done right, it’s the path to a well-oiled B2B sales machine that generates revenue.

So, where does a B2B sales plan template come into play? 

A sales plan template provides an outline for a sales plan. It makes it easier to describe your sales objectives, target audience, and specific steps, strategies, and tactics your business will use to hit sales and revenue goals .

Why do I need a B2B sales plan template?

A sales template makes it easier to create an effective sales template — which makes driving revenue attainable.

Here are a few additional reasons why creating a killer sales plan template is crucial to business growth.

A B2B sales plan helps highlight potential problems

Writing your B2B sales plan ensures your goals are realistic and achievable, and it helps you objectively compare your resources to the targets you’re trying to hit.

Identifying a problem allows you to adjust your strategy and goals accordingly.

Let’s say your top priority is landing 50 percent more enterprise leads by next year’s 2nd quarter. 

How do you do this? 

You might decide to ramp up your account-based marketing (ABM) game.

However, after reviewing your B2B sales plan , you realize that you don’t have the employee bandwidth or budget to focus on ABM.

Instead, you opt to focus on scoring and qualifying leads to improve lead quality. 

You’ve now saved your company precious time and money — and found an alternate way to reach the same goal.

A B2B sales plan increases motivation

Who knew that creating a sales plan could increase motivation?

According to a 2018 Forbes study, people who describe their goals are up to 1.4 times more likely to reach them . 

Writing and visualizing goals boosts motivation to take action by helping store them in our long-term memory. 

This means something as simple as keeping your sales plan in plain sight can breathe a sense of purpose into your team’s daily activities .

Your new office decor:

A B2B sales plan unites your team

A study of sales and marketing employees found that the biggest threat to productivity is a misalignment between sales and marketing goals.

Not only is it demotivating, but it also forces sales reps to work harder and offer extra incentives (they otherwise wouldn’t need to provide) to close deals. 

Then, in turn, extra incentives are a marketing nightmare — the circle of misalignment continues.

Sales and marketing are notorious for their adversarial relationship. And no, a sales plan won’t qualm the beef between the two teams — not by itself anyway.

Working on project management together, let's say for a sales and digital marketing campaign, is a start for both teams to get good visibility of what is being planned. Getting everyone on the same page and being transparent can help unite them towards a common goal.

Examples of sales plan templates

In the next section, we'll cover how to create a functional sales template. But first, let's look at a few sales template examples. You might notice common themes you'll want to use on your own.

The one-page sales plan

Your sales plan doesn’t need to delve into exhaustive detail. If you’re an agile small business, a one-page sales plan template will help you hit the ground running and lead your small team.

A one-page template can cover any range of time, but consider a weekly sales plan template if you have a shorter, transactional sales cycle. Plus, a shorter length could help motivate your team if you’re just starting out with sales plans — meeting goals quickly leads to positive sentiment.

The 30-60-90 day sales plan template

The 30-60-90 day template is a standard choice for most teams. It helps you write a sales plan that covers short, medium, and long-term goals.

The 90-day sales plan template

If you have a product that requires demos, meetings, and runs through multiple decision-makers, using a 90-day sales plan for your long sales cycles is a good idea.  

How to write a B2B sales plan template that drives revenue

Your main goal should be to distill your overall business goals into actionable sales objectives, milestones, strategies, and tactics.

This means your B2B sales plan template should — at the very least — include:

Target customers and ideal customer profiles

Role and responsibilities in your team

Revenue goals and sales objectives

Budget and resources

Challenges and obstacles

Key strategies and tactics

Deadlines, milestones, and review periods

To turn that information into a powerful B2B sales plan, follow these steps. 

Step 1. Outline specific revenue and sales goals

In this step, having a birds-eye view of the sales plan is key. Within the revenue and sales goals, you should think about the conversion points along the sales funnel.

Making note of the points within the funnel that transition the potential customer from phase to phase down the funnel is useful as those will be focus points in the overall sales plan. If you’re aware of the conversion points, finding bottlenecks and optimizing the process is easier.

A Leadfeeder example of noting conversion points within the funnel would be:

Demo booked

Demo completed

If the Leadfeeder sales team was having issues closing meeting their targets, they would not only take a look at their revenue and sales goals, but they would also check on each conversion point to see where the disconnect was happening.

On a granular level, B2B sales goals should be anchored to revenue or volume targets. 

For example, your goal might be a revenue target of $30k in annual recurring revenue (ARR) by the final quarter.

Using a volume target might mean 18 new customers per month or 200 sales by the final quarter.

When creating a strong B2B sales plan, you'll want to use both. That gives you more data to play with. 

If you have to pick one metric in your sales plan over another, consider your:

Available resources (staff, budget, data)

Product type (SaaS, agency, physical retailer, etc.)

It’s easy to succumb to wishful thinking at this step. So review your goals against your resources to ensure they’re realistic. 

Setting goals you’re sure to miss isn’t fun for anyone on the team and creates a crying wolf situation over time.

Step 2. Outline your mission and B2B sales plan objectives

Hopefully, you already have your mission and vision statements on paper. If so, grab them. (If not, now is the time!) 

Then write down what you aim to achieve with the sales plan.

It doesn’t have to be lengthy Shakespearean prose that draws applause. This is just a summary of what’s ahead and why it’s included in your sales plan; that’s it.

Include a brief history of the business, too, if possible. This provides context as the plan matures in detail and complexity.

For example: 

Leadfeeder's mission is to help marketing and sales professionals identify site visitors, transform their traffic into qualified leads, and connect to key decision-makers. 

Our goals are to obtain 18 new customers per month, 200 sales by the final quarter, with a final revenue increase of 30 percent. 

This sales strategy plan will cover how we plan to increase salesperson efficiency and test new marketing strategies. 

Step 3. Map out key sales plan milestones, deadlines, and review periods

This is where we get into the details. Deadlines, milestones, and review periods are a key part of your sales plan template.

Your third step is to tie sales and revenue targets to 30-60-90 day goals and set a schedule to review performance with your team.

This gives your plan teeth and signals when you’re falling behind quota so you can stay on track. 

Step 4. Add an ideal client profile to your B2B sales plan

An ICP is a strict definition of an ideal customer .

Including your ICP in your sales plan helps align sales and marketing strategy. It gives insight into what lead generation approach to use.

Let’s say you’re a SaaS company that offers analytical tools to digital marketers. And some of your customers are freelancers and in-house teams.

But, large 50+ employee agencies who buy premium subscriptions are your ideal clients.

And, according to your historical sales data, the best way to reach them is through account-based marketing.

You can now invest in ABM tools like Leadfeeder and training for reps without wondering if it will generate a return. 

Here’s proof — AlertOps uses Leadfeeder to automatically qualify website visitors with over 100 employees. Then, Leadfeeder sends those leads to Pipedrive and the AlertOps reps call on every potential customer.

Within just 30 days of using Leadfeeder with the Pipedrive integration, AlertOps was able to increase their sales demo rate by 700 percent. BAM. 💥

Try it for yourself — sign-up for Leadfeeder  in less than 5 minutes with these simple steps:

Step 1: Begin a free 14-day trial by  signing up here .

STEP 2: Fill in your company name, website address, name, and contact information. We don't sell it, we just want to know who you are. :)

STEP 3: Tell us about your role on your team. This gives us a way to help customize Leadfeeder to your needs.

STEP 4: Select the CRM you use, if we have an integration for it we can let you know how to connect it. You don't need a CRM or any of the ones listed to use Leadfeeder.

STEP 5: Select your marketing tool! If we have an integration we will let you know! If not, we will see what you use and update you on any future integrations!

STEP 6: T ell us about your sales team. This will help us customize your training and support!

STEP 7: Let us know what your main goals are with Leadfeeder. We share this with the team to make sure we can help you attain them.

STEP 8: Get your Leadfeeder Tracker script and install it on your site. You can do this yourself, or select Send to a colleague if someone else on your team will be installing it. This article: How to install Leadfeeder Tracker can help with installation.

STEP 9: Give Leadfeeder Tracker an hour or so to begin reporting - and be sure to take the in-app tour! Once Tracker starts collecting you'll see leads listed like below.

NOTE: If Tracker isn't installed, won't be able to see any leads until the script is on your site! Until you have Leadfeeder Tracker installed you won't have new leads, so make sure you add it to your site as soon as possible when you sign up!

After the Leadfeeder Tracker script is installed properly, it takes about an hour to see the Leads funnel to your Leadfeeder dashboard. If you aren’t sure if it is ‘working’ check out this article for tips on how to verify or reach out to support!

Step 5. Take stock of your sales CRM, tools, and budget

Ever try shoveling snow with a garden spade? (I hope not.) 

The point is, using the wrong tool just makes your life harder. 

If you're attempting to close deals without the right tools and resources for the job, you will get frustrated and, possibly, fail. 

That’s why a summary of your main CRM software, sales tools, budget, and any other predictable expense should be included in your sales plan. 

This will include things like:

Budget allocation

Specific tools and resources

What CRM will be used

Salary, commission, and incentives

Make sure your team has access to the tools it needs to reach your goals. 

Step 6. Delegate roles and responsibilities

So now you know what you want to do, you've mapped out a specific sales strategy plan, and you've made sure you have the tools to get the job done. 

But who is going to do what? 

Next, list the members of your team and the roles they will play in reaching your goals.

Think about:

Who is responsible for prospecting or warming leads up?

Who will handle meetings and appointments?

Who will be presenting product demos/training?

Then, add those answers to deadlines, milestones, and KPIs.

If your sales strategy requires indirect sales activities — like creating content or developing sales material — write that into your sales plan template, too.7. Bring your sales plan template to life with an action plan

The final step is a goal-based action plan.

Carrying the weight of previous steps in your sales plan template, the action plan is where the rubber hits the road.

It brings your sales plan to life by explaining exactly how you’ll meet your objectives.

For example, if your objective is:

Objective: Increase premium subscriptions by 20 percent this quarter, and raise monthly recurring revenue by 2 percent.

Your sales plan will look like this:

Create 3 case studies that convey the benefits of a premium subscription.

Use paid ads and content marketing to promote premium subscriptions.

Create a lead scoring system to focus on leads with high purchase-intent.

Bump referral discounts to premium subscriptions up by 10 percent.

7. Bring your B2B sales plan template to life with an action plan

This is where the rubber meets the road. 

Creating an action plan brings your sales plan to life by explaining exactly how you’ll meet your objectives.

Increase premium subscriptions by 20 percent this quarter, and raise monthly recurring revenue by 2 percent.

Your plan might look like this:

Create a lead scoring system to focus on leads with high purchase intent.

Make sure to link these action points to resources, deadlines, and milestones. 

Who is going to do what? Who will be responsible for managing each project? 

Make this part as detailed as possible so you know exactly how to move forward. 

Your sales plan template

Be sure to use our free sales plan template to create a sales plan. Make the template your own and even test our different versions.

You'll be closing deals in no time.

Note: If your sales plan counts on quality leads, look no further than Leadfeeder. Sign up for a 14-day free Leadfeeder trial today.  

Now that you're here

Leadfeeder is a tool that shows you companies that visit your website. Leadfeeder generates new leads, offers insight on your customers and can help you increase your marketing ROI.

If you liked this blog post, you'll probably love Leadfeeder, too.

Related articles

43 Best Sales Prospecting Tools for 2024

The 3 Best Practices in Sales Prospecting

4 B2B Sales Prospecting Techniques That Work

Leadfeeder knows the companies visiting your website.

Install today to start identifying new business opportunities.

Free trial. No credit card required.

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Blog Graphic Design How To Write a Sales Plan That Converts (+ Templates)

How To Write a Sales Plan That Converts (+ Templates)

Written by: Letícia Fonseca Nov 17, 2021

Sales plans are often considered the foundation of any successful business plan.

A sales plan outlines an organization’s goals for its future operations and steers the sales team in the right direction.

Every successful business relies on a sales plan to reach its sales goals and pivot its strategy when necessary. 

Learn what you need to succeed in writing an impactful sales plan that boosts your conversions and increases customer loyalty.

Don’t know where to start? Create a sales business plan with Venngage’s templates and improve your growth strategy.

Click to jump ahead:

What is a sales strategy plan, what is included in a sales plan, what are the objectives of sales and operations planning.

• How do you write an excellent sales plan?

A sales strategy plan is a document that lists what a company is going to sell, how much the company intends to earn, and how the company plans to go about it.

The sales strategy helps the company determine how to maximize profit margins and stay competitive in the industry.

Here’s an example of a sales strategy plan that includes every action that the sales team is expected to perform.

This ensures that sales managers know what they are responsible for and how the desired output or deliverables for the sales process tie into the business plan.

Return to Table of Contents

A good sales strategy includes a sales plan for your product or service, as well as a plan to market it. Goals to reach your target customers make a sales campaign easy to create and follow.

Here are the most important points to include in a sales strategy plan:

• Product research
• Target audience
• Customer service and customer retention
• Product and service pricing
• Marketing and advertising plan
• Estimated budget for the entire campaign

This sales plan highlights measurable milestones for sales reps to aim for.

We’ve already touched on reasons why companies should use a sales plan, like this example, for their upcoming campaigns.

Below are the four main objectives of creating a sales plan and how they help with sales forecasting.

Align company departments and sales department goals

Different departments can have different perspectives on priorities and progress.

By aligning the company’s other departments with your sales team’s goals, you can ensure that all teams have a shared understanding of the sales plan’s objectives and their holistic contribution towards the business goal.

Create strategic direction for sales teams

A strategic direction plan establishes the company’s goals and objectives for the sales team.

You can formulate strategic direction plans by identifying the following:

• Target audience demographics
• Brand and product niche
• Actions that you want your customers to take
• The best channels to reach customers, such as social media and search engines

Once you’ve identified these, you can create an in-depth plan that can generate conversions in no time. Effective plans, like the one below, keep every customer detail in check.

Better customer-relationship management

A sales plan identifies the individuals and teams responsible for producing results that qualify as milestones for an upcoming business campaign.

With clear assignments, sales managers will easily know which individual or sales team member to approach for additional data.

Mark sales team milestones

Measuring plan milestones are important because they help assess a plan’s performance in a given period or by the end of its execution.

In doing so, team leaders can determine whether the project efficiently used every team member’s efforts and company resources to achieve the plan’s objectives.

The following are excellent examples of milestones for a sales plan:

• Completion of the research phase
• Development of the plan
• Approval of the plan
• Implementation of the plan

How do you write a sales plan?

Take a look at this sales plan. It’s fully detailed, sets deadlines, and keeps everyone updated with the most relevant and newest information so the team is aware of their responsibilities.

Here’s an overview of making an excellent and greatly convincing sales plan:

Compile data from the previous sales year

Create sales targets that meet your sales plan objectives, create a swot analysis, identify demand trends using sales data, look for existing market gaps.

• Appoint key roles for each of your objectives

So, let’s get to it!

Evaluating data from previous marketing campaigns could reveal helpful trends that can improve your upcoming sales plans.

Previous sales data can indicate accurate demographic data, such as lifestyle, age, income, and high sales activities in a given area.

With this data, your team can develop a detailed sales plan that includes your products while keeping in mind your demographic’s language, lifestyle, sensibilities, and more.

Here’s a great way to present this to your superiors and team members.

Related: 10 Demographic Infographic Templates to Share Population Data and More

Simple food sales action plan template

Take your reports from dull to comprehensively lively with this Venngage template. This is a great sales plan template when you have a significant amount of data to show.

You want to get to the point with your sales plan presentations. This fully customizable template makes it easy to share your sales plan data quickly and easily.

With Venngage, you can share your sales plan online with anyone. And when you upgrade to a business account, you can download your plan in a variety of formats, including PNG, PNG HD, PDF, Interactive PDF, and PowerPoint.

All sales targets must be clear, measurable goals that are specific and realistic with a defined deadline.

For example, ‘increase customer retention by 20 percent by the fourth quarter of this year’ is a specific, measurable, attainable, and timely goal.

Aligning your sales targets with the company’s general objectives is the best way to create sales plan objectives that incentivize customers to take action and make a purchase.

These sales KPIs or key performance indicators will keep the sales team aligned and on track with sales goals.

Light strategic sales action plan template

Organize your KPIs for measuring with this simple template. It’s easy to add to a project management interface. Alternately, it can be shared via email.

This helps to have everyone synchronized with the sales plan objectives.

All the colors in this template are neutral, and you can switch them out with your branding assets using Venngage’s convenient drag-and-drop editor.

A SWOT analysis is a tool utilized in the business world to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that a company’s business model may face.

Conducting a SWOT analysis is important for business owners to ensure that their company is as prepared as possible for the future. It can help businesses identify what strategies should be utilized for sales plans.

There are numerous reasons why businesses should use a SWOT analysis:

• A SWOT analysis makes forecasting easier when it is difficult to accurately predict the direction of an industry
• The SWOT analysis is a simplified view of the company’s situation and helps in reaching revenue targets
• It helps companies compare themselves to competitors and create a sales plan that is impactful 

It’s undeniable that the data a SWOT analysis produces is essential for any brand.

Blue competitor SWOT analysis template

Easily organize your thoughts with this simple but effective SWOT analysis template.

The grid format helps your team organize their thoughts and build an efficient sales pipeline.

Change the color scheme to suit your brand, or add a background or header image to make the text stand out.

Related: 15+ Business Plan Examples to Win Your Next Round of Funding

Demand trends are changes in the type and quantity of goods that consumers want to buy.

This is crucial data for sales plans because demand helps sales managers gauge if people identify the brand’s products as essentials or luxuries.

One way to identify demand trends is to use a scatter plot. This is what a scatter plot graph looks like:

This graph is an excellent way to find trends and correlations in your data. Here’s how:

• Plot two sets of data on the same graph
• Pick a line that divides the graph into two equal halves
• Compare the height of each data point on the left side of the line to the height of data points on the right side of the line
• Consider how many data points are on one side of the line than the other

If there are more data points on one side, there is likely a correlation between the two sides and possible causation.

Once you’ve identified these trends, you can include graphs and charts on a sales plan template during your presentation.

Visuals and well-made infographic designs are excellent ways to present your data without cluttering your documents or slides.

Revenue scatter plot chart

A great way to present prospective trends is by customizing this simple scatter plot graph.

This template fits perfectly into a presentation slide deck. There aren’t heavy visuals in this template. The layout is clean and simple, leaving nothing to the reader’s imagination.

You can make the chart more relevant by adding brand-related or relevant images. Or use an image from the 3 million+ stock photos available in the Venngage library.

Upload your own images, change the colors and fonts, and more with this template.

Related: How to Choose the Best Types of Charts For Your Data

A market gap is a space between supply and demand. It’s important because if there is a large market gap, it can indicate an economic opportunity for a company to capitalize on.

Market gaps can be as simple as solving a problem identified by an emerging group of customers.

For example, not every business has food delivery services because it’s expensive to make a fleet, and this gap helped create food delivery services.

A market team can find gaps based on three inputs:

• Forecasting models that help analyze data from the company’s previous-year data
• Qualitative research on lacking areas and industry expert reports identifying the target audience’s pain points
• Finding micro to small emerging trends that are already existing in the market

Market research mind map template

Display your research data with an easy-to-understand template, like the example below. You can present every single detail of your research without making it look like a cluttered report.

Using visuals and an easy-to-understand table, your readers can easily follow the strategic sales plan process from start to finish.

Appoint key roles for each of your sales objectives

With a strategic sales plan, you’ll need to appoint team members or departments to specific tasks. This is crucial for achieving the sales plan’s goals.

A good sales manager will assign roles according to each member’s specialty. For example, front-facing sales reps are better positioned to handle the CRM components of sales plans.

Appointing key roles can be as simple as using a table to align a team member’s position with their responsibilities.

However, you will need much more complex diagrams if you’re assigning tasks to projects with dozens of members.

Food Customer Sales Action Plan Template

Highlight every important detail with this free sales plan template that you can send to team members and other departments.

This sales plan template includes a dedicated section for your target market, customer profile, action plan, and task assignments. It’s a great briefing document for both internal and external use.

Fully customize this sales plan template for your brand with Venngage’s My Brand Kit feature.

Related: 9 Sales Infographics to Guide Strategy and Increase Sales

Now you can execute your sales plan with confidence and grow your customer base

Sales plans should be visually attractive as well as impactful. It isn’t always easy to create a sales plan without design experience.

Use the free sales plan template examples in this post to write a sales plan that is powerful and effective.

With these examples as inspiration, you can help team members and your business convince your target market about the dependability and quality of your products.

The Venngage sales plan templates will help you reach your sales goals faster and grow your business in the process.

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How to Create a Profitable Annual Business Plan [+Free Template]

Published: February 09, 2023

The beginning of a new quarter is the perfect time to start planning the next year for your business. Start the next year or quarter off on the right foot by creating an annual business plan for your company.

Q4 often brings a flurry of business-related activity. And while all this activity helps fill the pipeline, it can distract you from reflecting on past performance and preparing for the year or quarter ahead.

Fortunately, you can write an annual business plan at any time of the year. Start your plan now to set your team up for success.

What is an annual business plan?

An annual business plan is just that — a plan for you and your employees to help achieve the company’s goals for the year. Think of an annual business plan as the guide to complete all of your company’s overall goals outlined in your initial business plan.

The first business plan you wrote for your business is the blueprint and the annual business plan is the detailed instructions to keep your business running long-term.

Usually, an annual business plan contains a short description of your company, a marketing analysis, and a sales/marketing plan.

Because an annual business plan is for the year, you’ll want to review your business at the end of four consecutive quarters and revise your plan for the next four quarters.

Why is annual business planning important?

Even though the fourth quarter might be a busy time of year, don’t put off creating an annual business plan.

Not only will your annual business plan keep you on track, it will also help you map out a strategy to keep your employees accountable. You can then more easily achieve the overall goals of your business.

Here are some reasons why it’s well worth creating an annual business plan for your company.

You can measure your success.

An annual business plan is the best way to measure your success. And I’m referring to the collective “you” here because it takes the entire company or all of your employees to make new business efforts effective.

An annual plan not only sets expectations for you but also for others within your company who need to contribute to the business’s success.

You can reflect on the past and plan ahead.

Creating an annual business plan allows you to reflect on the past 12 months.

As you reflect on the previous year, you’ll be able to get a good idea of what your business is capable of doing and set accurate, attainable projections based on previous numbers.

You’ll define your business goals.

Your annual business plan will shed some light on what the heck you do at your company. For those who are not routinely involved in new business, it can seem like a black hole of mystery.

Sharing your plan — whether to an executive committee, department heads, or even the entire staff — adds clarity and gives everyone something to aim for.

You can impress your boss.

If you head a department that could benefit from an annual business plan, don’t wait to be asked before you start writing. Get on your CEO’s schedule to review your outline and discuss your intentions for putting this plan together.

Sometimes the hardest part is getting started. You can get the ball rolling with the basic template that follows.

Annual Business Plan Template

Each section of your annual business plan will help tell the story of your company and clearly define your company’s goals for the year.

Let’s take a look at each section of the annual business plan template .

Executive Summary

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How To Build a Strategic Sales Plan + 10 Examples

• March 28, 2024

Every sales team has some sort of plan, even if it’s just “sell more of the product/service that you’re employed to sell.”

A sales plan is a portfolio that includes a layout of your processes, target audience, objectives and tactics. It’s used to guide your sales strategy and predict cost and returns. 

Yet without a codified sales plan, it can be difficult to give a sales team the motivation and purpose they need to successfully engage customers and continue to generate revenue.

Not having a sales plan that’s written down and signed off on by stakeholders can lead to confusion around what sales reps should and shouldn’t be doing , which can be demotivating.

It might seem daunting or time-consuming to put together an entire sales plan, but it doesn’t need to be. Here’s how to create a thorough sales plan in 10 simple steps. 

What Is a Sales Plan? 

A successful sales plan defines your target customers, business objectives, tactics, obstacles and processes. An effective plan will also include resources and strategies that are used to achieve target goals. It works similarly to a business plan in the way it’s presented, but only focuses on your sales strategy. 

A sales plan should include the following three components: 

• Ideas: If you use specific business methodologies, you may choose to outline key principles and examples of them in action within your sales plan. An example could be conversation tactics when pitching your product to your target customer. 
• Processes: In order to streamline productivity and business strategy, you’ll want to make sure your processes are defined within your sales plan. Your sales team should be able to refer to the sales plan when they’re in need of direction. 
• Tools and tactics: The most effective sales plans include not only high-level business strategies, but also step-by-step approaches for your sales team to utilize. These tools can include key conversation pieces for your sales reps to use when pitching a product or content to close out a deal. 

Solidifying a sales plan is crucial for a strong business model. Taking the time to narrow in on the components above will set you and your business up for success down the road. 

Sales Planning Process

It’s important to keep in mind that sales planning isn’t just about creating a sales plan document. A sales plan should be a go-to item that’s used every day by your team, rather than sitting on your desk collecting dust. Creating an effective sales plan requires high-level strategy.

You should: 

• Decide on a timeline for your goals and tactics
• Outline the context
• Write out the company mission and values
• Describe the target audience and product service positioning
• Include sales resources
• Draw out an overview of concurrent activities
• Write an overview of your business road map
• Outline your goals and KPIs
• Outline an action plan
• Create a budget 

 Below we dive into each of these steps to create your ideal sales plan. 

1. Decide on Your Timeline

Setting goals and outlining tactics is not going to be productive if you’re not working toward a date by which you’ll measure your efforts.

Determining the timeline of your sales plan should therefore be your number one consideration. When will you be ready to kick-start your plan, and when is a reasonable time to measure the outcomes of your plan against your SMART goals?

Remember that you need to give the plan a chance to make an impact, so this timeline shouldn’t be too restrictive. However, you also want to make sure that you’re flexible enough to adjust your plan if it’s not producing the desired results.

Most sales plan timelines cover about a year, which may be segmented into four quarters and/or two halves to make it a little more manageable.

2. Outline the Context

Use the first page of your sales plan to outline the context in which the plan was created.

What is the current state of the organization? What are your challenges and pain points? What recent wins have you experienced?

Do you have tighter restrictions on cash flow, or does revenue appear to be growing exponentially? How is your sales team currently performing?

While you’ll discuss your business plan and road map later in the document, you can also outline the long-term vision for your business in this section. For example, where do you want to see the business in five years?

Tip: Comparing the current situation with your vision will emphasize the gap between where you are now and where you need to be. 

3. Company Mission and Values

It’s essential that you put your mission and values at the heart of your business. You need to incorporate them into every function – and this includes your sales plan.

Outlining your mission and values in your sales plan ensures that you remember what the company is striving for, and in turn helps ensure that your approach and tactics will support these objectives.

Remember: A strong brand mission and authentic values will help boost customer loyalty, brand reputation and, ultimately, sales.

4. Target Market and Product/Service Positioning

Next, you’ll need to describe the market or markets that you’re operating in.

What is your target market or industry? What research led you to conclude that this was the optimal market for you?

Who within this industry is your ideal customer? What are their characteristics? This could be a job title, geographical location or company size, for example. This information makes up your ideal customer profile .

If you’ve delved further into audience research and developed personas around your target market, then include them in here, too.

5. Sales Team and Resources

This step is simple: Make a list of your sales resources, beginning with a short description of each member of your sales team.

Include their name, job title, length of time at the company and, where appropriate, their salary. What are their strengths? How can they be utilized to help you hit your goals?

You should also include notes around the gaps in your sales team and whether you intend to recruit any new team members into these (or other) roles.

Tip: Communicate the time zones your team members work in to be mindful of designated work hours for scheduling meetings and deadlines. 

Then, list your other resources. These could be tools, software or access to other departments such as the marketing team – anything that you intend to use in the execution of your sales plan. This is a quick way to eliminate any tools or resources that you don’t need.

6. Concurrent Activities

The next step in creating your sales plan involves providing an overview of non-sales activities that will be taking place during the implementation of your sales plan.

Any public marketing plans, upcoming product launches, or deals or discounts should be included, as should any relevant events. This will help you plan sales tactics around these activities and ensure that you’re getting the most out of them.

7. Business Road Map

For this step, write up an overview of your business’s overall road map, as well as the areas where sales activities can assist with or accelerate this plan. You’ll need to collaborate with the CEO, managing director or board of directors in order to do this.

In most cases, the business will already have a road map that has been signed off on by stakeholders. It’s the sales manager’s job to develop a sales plan that not only complements this road map, but facilitates its goals. 

Tip: Highlight areas of the road map that should be touchpoints for the sales team. 

Ask yourself what your department will need to do at each point in the road map to hit these overarching company goals.

8. Sales Goals and KPIs

Another important part of the sales plan involves your sales goals and KPIs.

Outline each goal alongside the KPIs you’ll use to measure it. Include a list of metrics you’ll use to track these KPIs, as well as a deadline for when you project the goal will be achieved.

It’s vital to make these goals tangible and measurable.

A bad example of a goal is as follows:

Goal 1: Increase sales across company’s range of products and services.

A better goal would look something like:

Goal 1: Generate $500,000+ in revenue from new clients through purchases of X product by X date.

9. Action Plan

Now that you’ve laid out your goals, you need to explain how you will hit them.

Your action plan can be set out week by week, month by month, or quarter by quarter. Within each segment, you must list out all of the sales activities and tactics that you will deploy – and the deadlines and touchpoints along the way.

Tip: Organize your action plan by department – sales, business development and finance. 

While this is arguably the most complex part of the sales plan, this is where sales leaders are strongest. They know which approach will work best for their team, their company and their market.

Budgets vary from team to team and company to company, but whatever your situation, it’s important to include your budget in your sales plan.

How are you going to account for the money spent on new hires, salaries, tech, tools and travel? Where the budget is tight, what are your priorities going to be, and what needs to be axed?

The budget section should make references back to your action plan and the sales team and resources page in order to explain the expenditures.

6 Strategic Sales Plan Examples 

You can create different types of strategic sales plans for your company, depending on how you want to structure your sales plan. Here are a few examples.   

Customer Profile 

A customer profile outlines your ideal customer for your service or product. It will usually include industry, background, attributes and decision-making factors.  

Creating a customer profile helps narrow in on the target customer your sales team should focus on while eliminating unproductive leads.  

Buyer’s Guide

A buyer’s guide is an informational sheet that describes your company’s services or products, including benefits and features. This document is useful both for your sales team but also for a potential customer who requires more information on the product before purchasing. 

30-60-90-Day Plan

This plan is organized based on time periods. It includes outlines of goals, strategy and actionable steps in 30-day periods. This is a useful sales plan model for a new sales representative tracking progress during their first 90 days in the position or meeting quotas in a 90-day period. 

This type of sales plan is also ideal for businesses in periods of expansion or growth. It’s helpful to minimize extra effort in onboarding processes. 

Market Expansion Plan

A market expansion plan clarifies target metrics and list of actions when moving into a new territory or market. This sales plan model is typically used with a target market that resides in a new geographical region. 

You’ll want to include a profile of target customers, account distribution costs and even time zone differences between your sales representatives. 

Marketing-alignment Plan

Creating a marketing-alignment sales plan is useful if your organization has yet to align both your sales and marketing departments. The goal of the sales plan is finalizing your target customer personas and aligning them with your sales pitches and marketing messages. 

New Product/Service Plan 

If your organization is launching a new service or product, it’s best to create a sales plan to track revenue and other growth metrics from the launch. You’ll want to include sales strategy, competitive analyses and service or product sales positioning. 

Sales Plan Template

4 additional sales plan templates.

Here are some additional templates you can use to create your own unique sales plan. 

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• ProjectManager

5 Tips for Creating a Sales Plan 

Now that you’ve seen and read through a few examples and a sales plan template, we’ll cover some easy but useful tips to create a foolproof sales plan. 

• Create a competitive analysis: Research what sales strategies and tactics your close competitors are using. What are they doing well? What are they not doing well? Knowing what they are doing well will help you create a plan that will lead to eventual success. 
• Vary your sales plans: First create a base sales plan that includes high-level goals, strategies and tactics. Then go more in depth on KPIs and metrics for each department, whether it’s outbound sales or business development . 
• Analyze industry trends: Industry trends and data can easily help strengthen your sales approach. For example, if you’re pitching your sales plan to a stakeholder, use current market trends and statistics to support why you believe your sales strategies will be effective in use. 
• Utilize your marketing team: When creating your sales plan, you’ll want to get the marketing department’s input to align your efforts and goals. You should weave marketing messages throughout both your sales plan and pitches. 
• Discuss with your sales team: Remember to check in with your sales representatives to understand challenges they may be dealing with and what’s working and not working. You should update the sales plan quarterly based on feedback received from your sales team. 

When Should You Implement a Strategic Sales Plan? 

Does your organization currently not have a sales plan in place that is used regularly? Are you noticing your organization is in need of structure and lacking productivity across departments? These are definite signs you should create and implement a sales plan. 

According to a LinkedIn sales statistic , the top sales tech sellers are using customer relationship management (CRM) tools (50%), sales intelligence (45%) and sales planning (42%) .

Below are a few more indicators that you need an effective sales plan. 

To Launch a New Product or Campaign 

If you’re planning to launch a new service or product in six months, you should have a concrete marketing and sales strategy plan to guarantee you’ll see both short- and long-term success. 

The sales plan process shouldn’t be hasty and rushed. Take the time to go over data and competitor analysis. Work with your team to create objectives and goals that everyone believes in. Your sales plan should be updated formally on a quarterly basis to be in line with industry trends and business efforts. 

To Increase Sales

If your team is looking to increase revenue and the number of closed sales, you may need to widen and define your target audience. A sales plan will help outline this target audience, along with planning out both sales and marketing strategies to reach more qualified prospects and increase your sales conversion rate. 

Now that you’ve seen sales plan examples and tips and tricks, the next step after creating your sales plan is to reach those ideal sales targets with Mailshake . Connect with leads and generate more sales with our simple but effective sales engagement platform.

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Annual Sales Plan

They say that the end of the year marks the start of a brand new beginning. But with another year about to close out, the excitement about what’s to come begins to fill our systems, not to mention the tremendous amount of frustration from spending countless hours putting together next year’s sales plan. You may also see  territory sales plan examples .

• 9+ Printable Strategic Sales Plan Examples – PDF
• 10+ Restaurant Sales Plan Examples – PDF, Word, Pages

While we can all agree how difficult refining our sales strategy can be, if done correctly, a good sales plan is sure to put us on the right path. But in order to ace the annual planning process, what follows is an in-depth review of how your sales team can develop its sales and growth plans. So buckle up and prepare yourself for a wondrous journey around the annual planning universe!

Annual Sales Plan Template

Annual Sales Action Plan Example

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Annual Sales Action Plan Template

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Reasons Why Some Plans Fail

Plans fail for different reasons. Some might have been inevitable from the start, others might have encountered a bump down the road and have never recovered since. To understand why so many plans fail, let’s take a look at the following scenarios:

1. An annual plan is, well, an annual plan.

Looking back at all the ups and downs that have occurred in the past months, it’s safe to say that a lot can happen in a year, most of which go beyond our wildest imaginations. We aren’t psychics; it’s impossible for us to see into the future. We don’t know what’s going to happen in eight hours, or tomorrow, let alone in October 2020. You may also see  legal strategic plan .

Truth is, covering an annual time frame is what makes annual planning a challenging task to accomplish. Going over a 12-month time period is extremely difficult, especially when a number of hurdles are bound to come your way. This is why it’s important for your sales team to create an annual plan that can be modified at least every quarter. Having to go through this process four times a year might not seem very enticing, but a flexible plan is sure to offer less disruption and drive far better results than a measly 12-month plan. You may also see  weekly plan examples .

2. People often confuse goal-setting with planning.

This isn’t to put goal-setting in a bad light, as we all know how important it is for an organization to define what they want to achieve by the end of a particular time period. But if we had to really think about it, the market and the rest of the world could care less about what you want to do and what you need to do. This makes goals an essential part of the planning process, but not the actual drivers of a good plan. Instead, you need to recognize the fine line that separates reality from your team’s vision, as this will help you figure out what you can do for the future of the company. You may also like  simple business plan examples .

3. Trusting your gut instead of actual data.

Assumptions are a bad ingredient to any business plan . Though you might argue that your “gut feeling” did get it right during a few instances, you also need to realize that it could have been coincidental.

At its core, a good plan should be supported by reality-based data. This is typically generated from long hours of research and analysis on previous sales records, annual plans, and market performance. Without a highly disciplined math exercise, backed by significant data, it’s impossible to create a valid plan. You may also check out  work plan examples .

4. Failing to invest properly.

Many companies go bankrupt due to poor investments. This usually happens in an attempt to increase efficiency by investing on the latest business models or industrial machines. Though the success rate of these investments would usually vary depending on various factors, leaders must always assess how a certain investment may help the company achieve its goals in any way. It might be tempting to purchase a bigger warehouse for your company’s stocks, but is it really practical at this point in your journey?

In the process of planning, you need to determine either of the two things: what you need to allocate and invest in order to obtain your objective, or the results you can garner from the amount you’re willing to spend. You may also see  daily plan examples .

5. Putting execution a step ahead of the model.

We’re always eager to get something done as soon as possible. This is why many of us have developed this bad habit of springing right into action without paying much attention to the prior steps of a plan.

As the leader of your team, you need to be patient and take things one step at a time. This will help you create a plan that’s built on clarity and certainty for better results. You may also see  transition plan examples .

Annual Sales Compensation Plan Example

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Annual Sales Plan Example

Annual Sales Plan for Business Example

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Annual Strategic Sales Plan Template

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Blank Annual Sales Plan Example

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What You Need to Know about Annual Sales Planning

A strategic sales plan is generally composed of three distinct parts: sales forecasting and goal-setting, market and customer research, along with prospecting and partnerships. It starts with your high-level goals, which then considers various market factors, followed by who you know and how you could find more prospects to help hit your sales goals.

Sales Forecasting and Goal-Setting

It’s hard to make a plan without knowing what you want to achieve by the end of it all. In most cases, this would depend on a chosen metric that will help you determine whether your tactics have been successful or not. A realistic sales goal is typically based on the size of the market, your company goals, as well as the experience and resources available to your sales team. You may also like  job plan examples .

Once your goals have been defined, you must then break it down into smaller, more manageable expectations for you to attain. These milestones mark the minor (yet equally fulfilling) accomplishments that will help you in tracking whether or not you’re on the right path. However, keep in mind that clear deadlines and manageable milestones take a good amount of time and research to develop. This should challenge and motivate your sales team to do better after every obstacle encountered. You may also check out  advertising plan examples .

Market and Customer Research

Every company has a niche that they want to pursue, until such time they decide to expand their services to cater to a wider audience. A niche basically refers to what your business specializes in, not just in products and services, but with your content as well. This includes your company’s culture, your means of branding, and your overall message. Your niche is what differentiates you from leading competitors in the market for consumers to recognize. This is usually identified by looking into your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, or by conducting a SWOT analysis .

Your niche would also help you determine your target market. Say for example, a company in the beauty industry, which specializes in different types of cosmetics, usually targets teenagers and young adults who might be interested in makeup and skin care products. Knowing who your customers are will make it easier to define your sales strategies for the company’s growth. You might be interested in  event plan examples .

While targeting the consumer public as a whole may seem like a better plan, you have to remember that the only way to increase sales is to focus on a specific group that will relate most to what you have to offer.

Prospecting and Partnerships

Now comes the “selling” part of the process. In certain cases, building a prospect list of people who would benefit from your product or service is the first step of the test. This will help you determine whether or not your product or service offers are of the best interest of your target audience. This is typically how a business can gain clients who might be interested in what they have to offer. You may also see  annual plan examples .

In a sense, a solid sales plan should qualify prospects before you can reach out to them.

Additionally, it’s always a good idea to leverage current client relationships as opposed to focusing too much of your time and effort finding new business leads. After all, word-of-mouth, introductions, and current customers can already contribute to a solid lead growth. You may also like  company plan examples .

And it’s not over yet! Even after you have completed the necessary steps to build a bulletproof sales plan, you still have to track, measure, and adjust as needed. Things are likely to change along the way, often generating results that are from what you have expected. This is why it’s important to monitor the flow of your plan on a regular basis to evaluate how it’s working out for you so far. Any problems detected during this journey must then be handled accordingly before it can escalate any further. You may also see  financial plan examples .

Company Annual Sales Plan Example

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Sample Annual Sales Plan

Simple Annual Sales Plan Example

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How to Create an Annual Sales Plan

“Success is a well-planned event,” or so they say.

Having a well-thought-out (and executed) annual sales plan certainly plays a significant part to this success. But to create an effective sales plan for the company to live by, there are a few components that one must consider:

1. Evaluate your key performance indicators.

A little flashback on your sales performance for the past 2 to 3 years will give you an idea as to how you can create your annual plan. Though your sales process and KPIs may greatly vary depending on the type of business you run, here are some of the most common indicators that will help in your planning process:

• Increase in sales from year to year, quarter to quarter, and month to month
• Sales trends every three years
• Sales per sales rep with trends
• Sales by product or service line (along with the growth trends for each)
• Sales by industry or consumer market and sales territory
• New customer sales growth vs. existing business
• Statistics in customer retention
• Cost of marketing and sales efforts, as well as trends and productivity

2. Study your target market.

The best way to boost company sales is to learn more about your target market. This includes the market trends showing growth or contraction, your response to this behavior, your means of growing market share, potential trends to capitalize on, and other related factors. Evaluating the current state of your market is vital in sales planning, as it helps you determine how you can react to the significant changes among your customers’ buying behavior. You may also like  assessment plan examples .

3. Examine product and service offerings.

Perhaps you can optimize on some of your best-sellers, release a new line of product or service offers that have been in the works, or maybe even implement the discontinuation of those performing poorly. Based on your sales data, you need to identify which product or service offerings can make it to the new year. Having a healthy mix of offerings should provide consumers with a variety of quality goods that they can benefit from. You may also check out  quality plan examples .

So whatever you decide on doing, you have to make sure your sales team is fully equipped for the upcoming year.

4. Assess your consumer base.

We all know that current (or loyal) customers can be a stable source of revenue to rely on. With that being said, you need to consider what products or services to up-sell to this consumer base. It wouldn’t hurt to extend your consumer base to other potential buyers through various cross-selling efforts as well. The percentage of revenue ranked by clients must also be analyzed for better understanding. This way, perhaps you can finally take the risk and explore new audiences instead of being overly focused on one market for the rest of time. You may also see  sales strategic plan .

5. Conduct a competitive analysis.

This is probably the perfect time to make a realistic evaluation of your performance against leading competitors in the marketplace. They might have outdone you during the last quarter of the fiscal year, so with the new year coming, it’s time for you to kick things up a notch. You may also see  quality plan examples 

One way to learn more about the needs of your customers is to perform a market survey of what prospects think about your company and the competition. A competitor SWOT analysis will offer you insight on these factors as well. When doing so, be sure to gather enough data to validate your assumptions and to create a more reliable sales plan.

Now that you’ve been jazzed up with a quick run-through about sales planning, are you ready to put together your own annual sales plan? With the help of these sales planning guidelines and examples, you’re sure to create the perfect annual sales plan in no time!

Text prompt

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• Professional

Create a study plan for final exams in high school

Develop a project timeline for a middle school science fair.

Annual Sales Plan Template

Define sales objectives and targets for the year, analyze previous year's sales performance.

• 1 Excellent
• 4 Below Average

Identify key growth opportunities

• 1 Market research
• 2 Competitor analysis
• 3 Customer surveys
• 4 Trend analysis
• 5 Financial analysis

Create a customer segmentation strategy

• 1 Demographic
• 2 Geographic
• 3 Behavioral
• 4 Psychographic
• 5 Firmographic

Develop sales strategies for each segment

Design an effective sales process and workflow, set individual sales targets for sales team members, plan sales training and development programmes, identify key partners and alliances for growth, design sales incentive and reward programs, budget estimation for sales activities, prepare a sales forecast for the year, develop marketing and promotional plan to support sales, approval: sales forecast.

• Budget estimation for sales activities Will be submitted

Prepare sales reporting and monitoring system

Approval: sales strategies.

• Develop sales strategies for each segment Will be submitted

Sales plan finalization and documentation

• 1 Word document
• 3 Excel spreadsheet
• 4 Google Docs

Communicate the sales plan to sales team and stakeholders

Initiate sales programs and activities, monitor, review and adjust the sales plan throughout the year.

• 1 Regular reporting
• 2 Performance metrics
• 3 Sales meetings
• 4 Customer feedback

Take control of your workflows today.

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What is a Sales Plan? Steps, Tips, and Examples

A sales plan outlines steps to achieve sales goals.

By the way, we're Bardeen, we build a free AI Agent for doing repetitive tasks .

Since you're learning about sales planning, you might be interested in our AI for sales . It helps automate prospecting, lead generation, and outreach, so you can focus on closing more deals.

Do you want to close more deals and skyrocket your sales revenue? A well-crafted sales plan is the key to success. In fact, companies that have a defined sales process see 18% more revenue growth than those that don't.

But what exactly is a sales plan and how do you create one? In this ultimate guide, we'll break down the essential components, walk you through the planning process step-by-step, and share examples and templates. Plus, discover how AI can automate repetitive tasks to save you time.

By the end, you'll have a clear roadmap to smash your sales targets. Let's dive in!

Components of an Effective Sales Plan

A well-crafted sales plan is essential for achieving your revenue targets and keeping your sales team focused on the right activities. Here are the key elements to include:

• Company mission and positioning. Outline why your company exists, the value you provide, and how you're positioned against competitors.
• Number of calls and emails per day
• Number of demos per week
• Number of new deals per month
• Team structure. Identify the roles, responsibilities and expertise needed on your sales team to execute the plan.
• Target customers. Clearly define your ideal customer profiles and buyer personas, including their attributes, challenges and goals. Building a robust prospect list helps in targeting the right customers.
• Sales process and methodology. Map out your sales stages from prospecting to closing deals, and the specific activities and tactics for each stage.
• Action plan. Prioritize and schedule key projects and milestones by week, month or quarter. Balance short-term wins with long-term investments.
• Metrics and measurement. Determine the primary and secondary metrics to track for each sales stage, and the tools you'll use to measure performance, such as automating sales prospecting .

By thoughtfully defining each of these components, you'll create a roadmap to keep your entire sales organization focused, aligned and equipped to achieve your revenue goals.

In the next section, we'll dive deeper into the sales planning process and how to develop your own strategic sales plan step-by-step.

The Sales Planning Process: Key Steps

Creating an effective sales plan involves several critical steps. By following a structured sales planning process, organizations can align their efforts, anticipate challenges, and position their teams for success. Here's an overview of the key stages:

1. Establish Clear Objectives and Metrics

The first step is defining your sales goals and the key performance indicators (KPIs) you'll use to measure progress. This provides a clear target to work towards and helps keep everyone accountable and on track.

For example, your high-level objective may be to grow revenue by 20% this year. Supporting KPIs could include metrics like number of new customers acquired, average deal size, and conversion rates at each pipeline stage.

2. Analyze Data to Inform Strategies

Gather and analyze relevant data to gain insights into your target market, customer needs, and sales team performance. This includes reviewing historical sales data, market research, competitor analysis, and feedback from customers and reps.

Use this information to identify trends, challenges, and opportunities that should shape your sales plan. For instance, analyzing win/loss data may reveal a need to adjust your sales process or enhance rep training in certain areas.

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3. Define Your Target Customers

Clarify exactly who your ideal customers are and how your offering uniquely serves their needs. Develop detailed buyer personas that outline key characteristics, goals, and challenges of each customer segment you're targeting.

A well-defined target customer profile guides everything from prospecting tactics to sales messaging to the KPIs you track. It helps reps focus on the right opportunities and enables more personalized, value-based outreach.

4. Outline Your Action Plan

Break your high-level objectives down into specific, time-bound initiatives and tactics. Map out the exact activities, tools, and resources needed to achieve each goal.

This tactical plan should cover things like target prospect lists, outreach cadences, key sales enablement assets to create, training programs to implement, and any new tech or headcount investments required.

The most effective sales planning processes are collaborative, iterative, and agile. Seek input from frontline reps as well as leadership, and build in milestones to assess and adapt your plan based on results.

By investing the time upfront to work through these sales planning steps, you'll be well-equipped to drive predictable revenue growth. Next up, we'll explore the key components to include as you build out your sales plan.

Essential Components of a Thorough Sales Plan

A well-crafted sales plan serves as a roadmap for your sales organization, aligning efforts and driving progress toward key objectives. To be effective, your plan should cover several critical elements, from defining your target customers to outlining the strategies and tactics that will help you reach your goals. Let's explore the key components to include:

1. Clearly Define Your Target Market and Customers

The foundation of any sales plan is a clear understanding of who you are selling to. This means going beyond basic demographics to develop detailed buyer personas. Outline the key characteristics, goals, pain points, and decision-making criteria for each customer segment you're targeting.

For example, if you sell marketing automation software, one of your personas might be marketing managers at mid-sized B2B companies. You would note their typical challenges, like proving ROI and aligning with sales, as well as their motivations, like advancing their careers by driving leads and revenue.

2. Set Specific, Measurable Sales Goals

Your sales plan must include concrete revenue targets and sales goals. These should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). Consider your growth stage, industry benchmarks, and historical performance when setting targets.

Break annual goals down into quarterly and monthly targets. For instance, if your revenue goal for the year is $10M, your Q1 target might be $2M. Drill that down further into monthly or even weekly goals. The more specific, the better - it keeps the team focused and accountable.

3. Detail Your Sales Strategies and Tactics

This is the heart of your sales plan, where you outline exactly how you will achieve your targets. Describe the sales methodologies, channels, and tactics you will employ at each stage of the sales process.

Will you focus on inbound leads, outbound prospecting, or a mix? What will your sales cadence look like in terms of touchpoints and messaging? How will you handle objections and negotiate deals? Dive into the specifics of sales demos best practices here.

4. Define Your Action Plan and Responsibilities

Translate your high-level strategies into a concrete action plan. Break initiatives down into specific tasks, set deadlines, and assign clear owners (e.g. have SDRs make 50 calls per day, AEs conduct 10 demos per week, sales enablement create new pitch deck by X date).

Everyone should understand their role and what they are responsible for delivering. Build in checkpoints to assess progress and course-correct as needed. Regular one-on-ones and team meetings are crucial to keep everyone on track and surface any obstacles to address.

A thorough sales plan connects all the dots from your company vision down to the daily activities of each rep. By clearly defining your target customers, setting concrete goals, detailing your sales process, and turning that into an actionable plan, you equip your team for success.

Eager to see these elements in action? Up next, we'll explore some real-world sales plan examples and templates you can adapt for your own organization. You won't want to miss these battle-tested resources!

Battle-Tested Sales Plan Templates and Examples

Seeing real-world examples of sales plans can provide inspiration and guidance as you create your own. Templates are also incredibly helpful, allowing you to plug in your specific information while ensuring you cover all the essential components. Let's explore some of the most effective sales plan templates and examples.

1. One-Page Strategic Sales Plan Template

For those who prefer a concise, single-page format, this strategic sales plan template is ideal. It prompts you to fill in your target market, revenue goals, key strategies, timeline, and metrics - all on one easy-to-digest page.

This format works well for quickly communicating the core elements of your plan to busy executives or other stakeholders who need a high-level overview. You can always expand on each section with additional detail in supporting documents as needed.

2. 30-60-90 Day Sales Plan Template for New Hires

Onboarding new sales reps is a critical task, and a 30-60-90 day plan provides a framework for ramping them up effectively. This type of template outlines key milestones and expectations for a rep's first three months on the job.

For example, the first 30 days may focus on product training, shadowing calls, and learning the CRM. The next 30 days can emphasize building pipeline and delivering demos, while the final 30 days target closing their first deals. Customize the specifics based on your team's onboarding process.

3. Account-Based Sales Plan Example

Account-based selling has gained popularity in recent years, especially for B2B companies targeting high-value customers. An account-based sales plan zeroes in on specific accounts, outlining tailored strategies to engage key decision-makers.

This type of plan often includes in-depth research on the target accounts, identifying their unique pain points, goals, and buying process. It may also map out a multi-touch, multi-channel outreach strategy leveraging tactics like cold outreach , personalized emails, social selling, direct mail, and executive events.

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4. Tips for Customizing Sales Plan Templates

While templates provide a helpful starting point, it's important to adapt them to your unique business context. As you customize a template, consider the following:

• Align your sales goals with overarching company objectives
• Tailor your target market definition based on your ideal customer profile
• Adjust your strategies and tactics to reflect your specific sales process and buyer's journey
• Modify the timeline to match your business cycles and seasonality
• Select KPIs that are most relevant to your sales motion and industry

Remember, the most effective sales plans are living documents. As you implement your plan, continually review and refine it based on results and changing market conditions. Regularly revisit it with your team to track progress and make data-driven adjustments.

Armed with these examples and customization tips, you're well on your way to crafting a winning sales plan. The time you invest upfront will pay dividends in the form of a more focused, aligned, and high-performing sales organization. We've covered a lot of ground - thanks for sticking with it! But don't lose steam now; put these insights into action and watch your sales soar.

Conclusions

Understanding the fundamentals of a sales plan is crucial for aligning your sales efforts and achieving growth objectives. In this guide, you discovered:

• The vital components that make up an impactful sales plan
• How to develop a structured process for creating your plan
• What specific sections and information to include in your plan document
• Helpful templates and examples to guide your own plan creation

Don't let your sales potential go untapped - put these insights into practice and craft a winning plan. Without a solid sales plan, you're essentially flying blind, leaving revenue on the table. Additionally, consider incorporating lead enrichment to improve lead qualification and enhance your sales strategies.

Bardeen is the most popular Chrome Extension to automate your apps. Trusted by over 200k users.

Integrate your apps and websites

Use data and events in one app to automate another. Bardeen supports an increasing library of powerful integrations.

Perform tasks & actions

Bardeen completes tasks in apps and websites you use for work, so you don't have to - filling forms, sending messages, or even crafting detailed reports.

Combine it all to create workflows

Workflows are a series of actions triggered by you or a change in a connected app. They automate repetitive tasks you normally perform manually - saving you time.

Don't just connect your apps, automate them.

200,000+ users and counting use Bardeen to eliminate repetitive tasks

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