4 Pillars To Creating a Successful Sales Plan

A sales plan or sales strategy can be the difference between an organization merely surviving, or a company exceeding all sales objectives. While a business plan outlines the overall strategy and goals of a company, a solid sales plan is crucial for a strong business model, as it directly impacts revenue and customer engagement.

With so many ups and downs these past years, as well as company pivots and new long-term strategies, sales planning is more important than ever before for success.

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to be a born leader to devise a master marketing plan or hit your sales objectives. The best sales manager isn’t measured by how many degrees they have or accolades received. They are molded through their years of experience, the ability to set a sales strategy, develop a plan, and a process that brings them closer to the customer and revenue target, as well as the ability to manage and coach a successful sales team.

As the host of The Modern Selling Podcast, I relish the opportunity to speak to successful sales leaders who have built successful sales plans and processes. As an inspiration for this topic around sales planning and sales strategies, as I spoke to Remy Piazza, Chief Sales Officer of Bureau Veritas of North America, on episode #160 of The Modern Selling Podcast. Bureau Veritas is a global testing inspection and certification company. They test everything from the food we eat and the water we drink to airplanes that we’ll eventually go back to when we travel.

I invite you to listen in to this episode as Remy defines the Four pillars to building a successful sales plan to drive transformation. Click below to listen:

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What is a Sales Plan?

A sales plan is a well laid out strategy usually in the form of a document or a PowerPoint that lays out a company’s plan for growing and improving revenue results over a period of time. Generally, this is focused on a 1-2 year horizon. It usually includes:

• Definition around your target market and ideal customer profile.
• Establishing objectives and the steps necessary to achieve them.
• Revenue metrics and performance goals for the individual seller(s) and the sales team(s).
• Plans to address market segmentation.
• The resources, tools, and activities required to carry out the sales strategies.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are essential for measuring the success of the sales plan and individual sales performance against targets over time.

When bringing all of these elements together your sales plan makes it possible for everyone in the organization from the CEO down to the individual sales team to understand the global view, share the vision and objectives, and work towards achieving the same goals. It brings unity, mission, and purpose to the organization.

How to Create a Successful Sales Plan

As mentioned before, in this episode of The Modern Selling Podcast, Remy and I discuss the four major pillars for creating a comprehensive and effective sales plan that includes:

1. Sales strategy,
2. Competitive analyses,
3. Brand positioning,
4. And continuous improvement.

These pillars have been Remy’s mantra through his years at the helm of various sales departments of world-renowned organizations. They cover everything from go-to-market strategies, sales prospecting strategies, and even having the right team for the job. It is the perfect sales plan template for every leader who needs to plan their plan to close the sales cycle, increase sales forecasting accuracy, and focus on their target market customer.

There’s a notion that, as sales leaders transfer from one company to another, they tend to stay within the same industry. While most leaders vertically align themselves with the industries they know, Remy has found joy in being in a leadership position and hitting sales goals in a variety of industries. For this reason, business leaders can apply Remy’s four effective sales plan pillars to any industry and any customer profile.

Note: Before we go through the pillars, Remy suggests that for the sales plan template to be effective, leaders carry it out in chronological order. Those who begin in the middle – and/or go out of order – are unlikely to achieve their revenue targets.

How to Start a Sales Plan

The sales plan: a cornerstone of any successful sales team. It maps out your sales strategy, keeps your reps on track, and ultimately fuels your company’s growth. But where do you even begin?

Crafting a winning sales plan isn’t about throwing together a bunch of numbers and hoping for the best. It’s a strategic process that requires careful consideration of your target market, sales goals, and resources. In this post, we’ll break down the key steps it takes to build a sales plan that sets your team up for success.

Define Your Ideal Customer Profile and Market Segmentation

Let’s face it. A sales leader doesn’t get hired when things are prosperous, sales activity is high, and/or sales training is helping to reel in customer after customer. Leaders are replaced to help create a good sales plan that attracts the right buyers and ultimately drives the revenue strategy

I recommends, before starting in on your sales plan, to look at all addressable market opportunities. For instance, which industries do you sell to or want to sell to? Once this is done, you zero-in on the accounts you want to serve.

Then, it’s about customer/buyer segmentation and analysis. This is where leveraging sales tools in partnership with marketing and sales operations will help you map data into your sales plan template to achieve your goals.

Learn about who your ideal customer is, what they look like, and why they are looking for what you offer. Once you understand your target customers, you can understand the buyer journey and what they’re looking to receive from your sellers at every stage. To help assist in this endeavor, you should start by talking to your existing clients. You could also pull in a top sales professional and director to develop depth to your sales plan.

Identify Your Target Market and Customer Buying Patterns

Next, you need someone to extrapolate and analyze the data. If you don’t have this, in the words of Tony Robbins:

“You’re running east looking for a sunset and no matter how fast you run, you’re never going to catch it.”

Data without analysis is just simple Xs and O’s. A marketing strategy is crucial to speak directly to your potential customers.

Developing clear sales strategies is essential to effectively target and engage potential customers.

According to Remy, you need to have a wartime plan to have a successful sales strategy. Prior to COVID, businesses could just continue to target those who had purchased from them in the past. Today, the buyer persona and/or your target customer might have changed as a result of a business pivot.

For this reason, sales management must be more aligned than ever with their sales team and marketing. You come up with the strategy and specific tactics, but it is the individual sellers who will execute in their own sales territory.

How to Write a Sales Plan: From Strategy to Action

You’ve got the blueprint (your sales plan outline), now it’s time to translate it into action. Writing a sales plan isn’t just about filling out templates – it’s about weaving together a narrative of success. Here’s how to transform your strategic framework into a clear, actionable guide for your sales reps:

Focus on Clarity and Concision: Sales reps juggle a million priorities. Make sure your plan is easy to navigate and understand. Use bullet points, clear headings, and concise language to communicate goals and expectations effectively.

Metrics Make the Magic Happen: Don’t just set goals, define how you’ll measure them. Integrate key performance indicators (KPIs) throughout your plan. This allows your team to track progress, identify areas for improvement, and celebrate wins along the way.

Sales Plan vs. Sales Strategy: What’s the Difference?

Ever felt like “sales plan” and “sales strategy” get thrown around interchangeably? Well, they’re definitely connected, but they serve distinct purposes in your sales journey. Here’s how to tell them apart:

Sales Strategy: Think of this as your big-picture roadmap. It defines your who, what, and why. Who is your ideal customer? What value proposition will resonate with them? Why should they choose you over the competition? Your sales strategy considers your target market, competitor analysis, and unique selling points.

Sales Plan: This is the tactical playbook that translates your strategy into actionable steps. It details the how and when. How will you reach your target market? When will specific milestones be achieved? Your sales plan outlines specific goals, sales activities (like calls or demos), budget allocations, and timelines.

Identifying Your Target Market: Where the Money Grows

So, you’ve got a fantastic product or service, but who’s the right audience? Here’s how to pinpoint your ideal customer base:

• Know Your Product: What problems does it solve? Who benefits most? Understanding your offering is the foundation for identifying who needs it most.
• Market Research: Dive deep! Analyze demographics, buying behaviors, and industry trends to define your ideal customer profile.
• Competitive Landscape: Who are you up against? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Understanding the competition helps you tailor your message to a specific market segment.

Sales Plans for Different Markets: One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Now, you have multiple, well-defined market segments. Does that mean you need a completely different sales plan for each? Not necessarily!

Tailoring your sales plan can be more effective. You might adjust specific aspects like:

• Messaging: Highlight different product features that resonate most with each segment’s needs.
• Sales Channels: Certain segments might be more receptive to email outreach, while others respond better to social media marketing.
• Pricing Strategies: You might offer volume discounts or tiered pricing structures depending on the segment’s purchase behavior.

However, the core elements of your sales plan – goals, KPIs, and overall sales methodology – can often form a strong foundation across segments.

Plan Your Go-to-Market Revenue Acquisition Strategy  

Once you have your ideal customer profile, market segmentation plan, and target customer buying patterns completed, you can hit the ground running and plan your go-to-market sales strategy. This includes making decisions on customer acquisition channels. I believe your sales plan must include an analysis of the direct vs. vs. channel vs. indirect vs. e-commerce revenue channels and which would be the best channel(s) to achieve the sales target. The sales plan may include all, one, or some in helping you map out the quickest path to revenue.

A structured sales planning process is crucial in achieving revenue targets and aligning sales efforts. This process involves creating goals and objectives, gathering sales data, outlining action items, involving stakeholders, and emphasizing the importance of sound communication and competitor research.

We’re living in a time where buyer behavior is completely aligned with the selling motion. Both are digitally connected, socially engaged, mobile attached, and video hungry. As such, sales leaders have no choice but to embrace digital sales and social media into their sales plan and marketing strategy.

During our conversation on the before mentioned episode, Remy suggests to sales leaders that we break down each element of the customer and revenue acquisition strategy. He discusses peeling back how you will achieve your revenue plan by looking deeply at each channel.

For example, in the direct model, he suggests reviewing which segments you pursue in your sales plan. Is it the SMB, Mid-Market, Majors, Nationals, or Global accounts?

In all cases, what is the fastest path to revenue and the most profitable plan? When considering your go-to-market channel strategy, ensure your sales plan is aligned with the quickest path to revenue.

How to Develop a Strategic Sales Plan for Your Team

Many NFL fans would agree that without Tom Brady, Bill Belichick likely would not have had the support of his cast. It takes a great leader to run a team of successful sellers. However, the salesperson not only has to execute the strategies, but they also have to buy into the leader’s vision. Sales teams play a crucial role in executing the sales plan, improving sales efficiency, and adapting sales processes to align with operations for better inventory management.

Underperforming sales managers will skip pillars one and two, and head straight to hiring the perfect sales rep. Yet, unless you know the first two pillars, you will not know who you need to hire nor can you assess if you have the right existing team members “on the bus”. We suggest that sales leaders do two things to create a successful sales plan in this 3rd step:

1. Assess the Target Selling Profile.
2. Assess current talent and manage up or manage them out.

Set Achievable Goals and Action Plans

But how does a great sales leader know when they have the right people on their teams?

You need to get in the field and ride with them in addition to digital sales coaching. Interact with your salespeople and experience what it’s like to be with them in front of prospects or customers.

Planning and prioritizing sales tactics is crucial to achieving your sales goals. By creating a comprehensive sales tactics plan, you can ensure that your team is focusing on the right activities at the right times.

Here are two questions you can ask yourself:

1. Do your team members understand your company’s value proposition and how to build a solid sales pipeline?
2. Have you reviewed their sales plan for prospecting?

When sales leaders understand what their team members do well – and where they struggle – it’s easier to determine who can meet expectations and who can not.

Back when I was an SDR, a long time ago, my company used the Predictive Index to evaluate my performance. This tool provides great insight and information on how – and where – your team needs coaching. It will not determine whether or not someone would be a good hire, but it can reinforce a hunch.

Of course, once the assessment of the talent is completed in your sales plan template, you must then understand how to hire a remote selling sales team. This is one of the hardest parts of a sales leader’s job today and can leave any sales plan void of success if a sales manager, sales director, or even your sales VP don’t know how to hire.

Sales Plan Template

The following sales plan template will help you outline your individual or your team’s sales strategy. We have included sections typical in most sales plans and instructions you can follow to fill out your company’s tactics and information.

These are the main sections of the sales plan:

• Mission & Background
• Team
• Target Market
• Sales Tools and Technology
• Prospecting Strategy
• Action Plan
• Goals
• Budget
• Sales Process

Feel free to add, delete or modify sections of the template as you see fit:

Your Sales Plan Must Include Sales Enablement

This relatively burgeoning group supporting sales leaders is all about leveraging data to develop and support the sales team. Having the right sales enablement strategy embedded in your sales plan is the beautiful orchestration point between sales and marketing.

As we discussed, with a revenue enablement team helping you develop your sales plan, together you can focus on two extremely important areas:

1. Sales training and skills development of your sales professionals.
2. Choosing the best tools for managing a remote sales team to help them achieve their revenue target.

Elements of Your Sales Plan

In addition, your enablement team can help you define and create an effective sales plan by providing the grassroots elements for the field. They include:

• Create the right value proposition.
• Provide research on buyers, customer, and markets.
• Identify where your target buyers “digitally hang out”.
• Prepare the kind of content that will resonate with them.

Successful sales leadership is 50% talent and 50% sales-team support. The enablement team is an instrumental component in helping your sellers and in establishing sales enablement best practices

Back in the day, the role of a salesperson was different than it is now. To engage with potential and existing customers, all you had to do was give them a brochure with all of your information. Now, prospects can get all that info and more just by visiting a website.

Modern sales reps are consultants, offering value to “help” today’s savvy business buyer. And sales enablement teams feed your sellers the right data to fulfill that role further solidifying the tactical elements needed to complete your plan.

Watch the video below to learn the 7 must have’s of a sales strategy plan. Charlie Celaya shares:

1. How to produce a lead.

2. How to implement a sales training program to do it successfully.

3. What does a sales leader have to do in a remote selling environment, and more.

How to Choose the Best Sales Tools

Similar to how a carpenter needs his toolbox, a modern seller needs social selling tools to find, engage, and connect with prospects. Other than social media platforms (it is social selling after all), there are several tools that can increase your sellers’ efficiency in building their network and sharing valuable content.

To effectively leverage these social selling tools, sales leaders must collaborate closely with enablement leaders to understand which tools sellers use most frequently, how the tools are being used, and the impact they have on their team’s selling activities.

Every organization uses multiple tools to effectively manage sales activities in connection with the buyer’s journey. This is no different when it comes to social selling. There are many categories of tools that enable sellers to easily find, engage, and connect with prospects through social platforms.

For example, if your aim in building an effective sales plan is to increase sales productivity, provide messaging that you know works to engage your buyers then you’d want to consider incorporating FlyMSG into your list of sales tools.

FlyMSG is the text expander tool that helps sales and marketing professionals type less and sell more. Today, sales engagement has become more difficult in a virtual selling environment. Teams struggle to leverage sales messaging that gets results in their prospecting efforts while also facing the challenge of sales productivity. FlyMSG is designed to meet those challenges. It also serves as a critical sales tool leaders can leverage within the sales plan.

The Benefits of a Successful Sales Plan

Successful sales leadership requires defining your ideal customer profile and market segmentation, customer buying patterns, having the right people, and eventually embracing sales enablement.

Remember revenue and sales just don’t fall off from the tree. You must have a solid sales plan to invoke transformation within an organization. Don’t just rely on a strong marketing plan. Take the time that is required to tackle your biggest challenges so you can produce a strategy example for your team that is bulletproof. Once you’ve done all of this, your sales plan is just the document that will help you organize everything.

Once you’ve gone through every one of these pillars – in order – you will have a starting point for your current sales leadership role, as well as future leadership positions.

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