Sales Leaders are rapidly approaching the time to begin 2012 sales planning and budgeting. Their goal of course is to put on paper how their team will make next year’s revenue target.
Are you ready to start your sales plan but need a refresher on some of the critical sections? Here are the areas we recommend you include to make sure the important categories are covered.
- Markets – Which geographies, verticals, sectors, MSA’s, etc. will you be targeting?
- Sales Model – How will your sales team be structured? Common models include direct, indirect, alliance, hunter/farmer, inside, outside, etc. What is the compensation structure for all bonus-eligible sales resources?
- Sales Metrics – What is your team quota? How will it be allocated? Do you have enough sales people to reach your revenue goal? How much pipeline must each rep manage to achieve their individual quotas? What are your sales effectiveness targets? (Hint… you have to at least know your win rate and average deal size to answer these questions).
- Targets – Specifically what companies (by name) are you selling to and how are they segmented or prioritized? You can’t just say Fortune 500. List them, rank them and assign them to the sales team(s)s.
- Lead Creation – Do you know how many leads you need to fill your sales pipeline? What is your lead creation process to identify lead names and titles within your targeted prospects? Do you have a process in place to message, track, score, nurture and qualify leads? (Hint… Marketing Automation)!
- Sales Process – Who does what to win new business and how are they held accountable? This includes things such as target account planning, lead qualification, opportunity reviews, pipeline analysis, solution / proposal development, win-loss reviews, etc.