Spm sample chapters

How to Write a
Sales Plan for the
Small Business
BY TOM WILSON

How to Write a
Sales Plan
for the
Small Business
Tom Wilson

How to Write a Sales Plan for the
Small Business
Free Sample Chapters
This e-manual contains the following sample chapters:
 Introduction: About a Sales Plan
 Chapter 1: Background to the Plan
 Chapter 2: Sales Objectives & Forecasts… (part chapter only)
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Plan for the Small Business
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Small Business
Free Sample Chapters
manual contains the following sample chapters:
Introduction: About a Sales Plan
1: Background to the Plan
Chapter 2: Sales Objectives & Forecasts… (part chapter only)
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iii
HOW TO WRITE A SALES PLAN FOR THE SMALL BUSINESS
This Learning E-manual was first published online in 2007 by Cluedup
®
Marketing, a trademark of
Sanderson Neill Ltd., which is registered in Scotland #SC106533
Copyright Tom Wilson 2007
The right of Tom Wilson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.
This publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means with the
prior permission in writing of the publishers. Enquiries concerning reproduction should be sent by
email to: enquiries@cluedupmarketing.com or by mail to:
Sanderson Neill Ltd., 38 Queen Street, Glasgow, G1 3DX United Kingdom

iv
Tom Wilson
About the Author
om Wilson has over 30 years experience of starting up, running, and growing
his own successful businesses, in both manufacturing and services. He
started his first business in 1973. At current values, his sales then were in the
region of US$90,000/GB£50,000 and he had just one employee: himself.
Within ten years, he had multiplied sales to the equivalent of
$160million/£90million. And he employed nearly 300 people.
Today, he runs Sanderson Neill, his own international
consultancy, providing practical marketing support and
marketing training to small and medium firms.
Tom is a highly respected and award-winning
marketing specialist. He is a qualified teacher and has
lectured in marketing at college level. He holds a
Masters degree in Marketing (M.Sc) and has been
elected a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
Through his work and reputation Tom has also
earned the title Chartered Marketer. Granted to only a
limited and select band of professionals worldwide, this accolade signifies that Tom
has reached the highest level of training, ability and experience possible in the
marketing profession.
Tom is the founder of CluedupMarketing.com. He is also the author of other
highly acclaimed works on marketing for the small and new business. In addition to
this manual, he has published a number of others. He has also published Articles,
White Papers, and Podcasts. Copies of his work are available to download from
CluedupMarketing.com
T

v
Small Business
CONTENTS PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
About a Sales Plan
Sales and marketing 1, Sales Plan in its Marketing Context 3, The Sales Plan 4,
What is a Sales Plan 4, Sales Plan Template 5, Manual Structure 5,
Summary of the Key Points 6
1
SALES PLAN SECTION 1 7
1 Background
Background to the Plan 7, Purpose of the Plan 8, Critical Assumptions 8,
7
2 Sales Objectives & Forecasts
Personal Selling Objectives 11, Direction Matrix 12, Personal Selling Forecasts
Table 14, Assumptions 15, Summary of the Key Points 16
9
3 Products/Services & Markets
Products/Services to be Offered 18, Products/Services-Markets 19,
Products-Markets Matrix 20, Market Selection 20, Building the Products-Markets
Matrix 23, Summary of the Key Points 24
17
4 Sales Pipeline
The Selling Process 25, Sales Pipeline 28, What is a Sales Pipeline 28,
Forecast Sales Pipeline 30, Managing the Sales Pipeline in Practice 32,
25
5 Selling Strategies & Tactics
Key Selling Messages 36, Selling Collateral 38, Supporting Strategies & Tactics
39, Integrate 43, Personal Selling Strategies & Tactics 43, Activities Sales Team
Should Not Be Involved With 45, Summary of the Key Points 46
35

vi
CONTENTS PAGE
MARKETING PLAN SECTION 6 47
6 Sales Team Management
Sales Team Management Structure and People 48, Individual Sales Plans 51,
Motivation 52, Monitor & Control of Team 52, Training and CPD 53,
47
MARKETING PLAN SECTION 7 56
7 Implementation & Control
Implementation 56, Organizational Chart 57, Sales Plan Control 58,
Contingency Planning 59, Key Performance Indicators (KPI) 59, Planning
Reviews 60, Summary of he Key Points 60
56
Index 61
APPENDICES 63
I Sample Marketing Plan
Introduction 64
Sample Marketing Plan for Imagine Curtains Inc 65
63
II Sample Sales Plan
Introduction 101
Sample Sales Plan for Imagine Curtains Inc 102
100
III Sample Call Reports
Introduction 120
Blank Call Reports 123
Partially Competed Call Reports 125
119

CLUEDUPLEARNING E-MANUAL 1
Introduction
About a Sales Plan
Sales and Marketing
had just met the MD of a small firm. We were discussing his business when
suddenly he barked: "Look, I've enough problems with sales; don't bother me with
marketing!" That didn't faze me. It was a typical response to his situation, and I'd
heard it elsewhere many times before. His highly paid sales team were well short of
targets, and the firm’s sales were actually in decline. His instinct was to blame the
sales department and fire the entire team, but as we talked things through, his
frustration abated. It took some time, but eventually I proved to him that the cause of
his selling problems wasn't incompetent sales people. It was poor marketing.
So, what is the relationship between “Sales” and “Marketing”? Actually, I’ve just
been looking at the jobs section in a newspaper. The page title is: Sales and
Marketing. In other words, it is advertising jobs in sales and, separately, jobs in
marketing. Similarly, when people talk about the selling function of a business, they
often use the term: "sales and marketing".
There are several things wrong with that term. First, it suggests that “sales” and
“marketing” are distinct activities. Second, where firms don’t use a field sales team to
sell, it confuses them about how they ought to be selling. Third, where they do use a
sales team, it puts the selling onus far too much on that team and downplays or even
ignores the value and power of other marketing activities.
The best way to describe the selling function of any business is to use only one
word: marketing. Marketing is the business activity directly responsible for bringing in
the sales. “Sales” or the “Sales Department” is and always ought to be under the
I

INTRODUCTION: ABOUT A SALES PLAN
aegis and the direction of Marketing. You’ll see what I mean as we develop your
sales plan.
The Ubiquitous Sales Rep
How does this “sales and marketing” muddle come about? A prime source is that, to
sell their wares, many firms rely heavily on "personal selling". This is the activity
practised by likes of field sales reps, counter staff, and so on. It means that the sale
results from one person (the sales person) having a direct conversation with another
(the customer). In some firms, its contribution is so conspicuous that it's easy to be
seduced by the apparent magic. There's nothing more seductive than a sales rep
walking into the office and slapping a fat order on the table. So much so, that many
people assume that this is selling. That it's what selling is about.
I'm not downplaying personal selling – far from it. This form of promotion is
critical, for instance, in retail stores, car showrooms, telesales, etc. In business-to-
business (b2b), it's often, quite properly, the foremost activity. However, in many
small b2b firms, such is the weight put on it that if the reps don't deliver, this can
threaten the whole business.
That had been the dilemma confronting my frustrated MD. His philosophy had
been simple: only one strategy secures sales - you get off your butt and talk face to
face with your customers. So, he hired reps and told them to get on with it. And woe
betides them if they didn't come back with the orders.
What I showed him was that the solution to successful selling, and the way to
boost the productivity of the sales team, was to think marketing, to view "sales" as a
function of marketing. This would enable him to mobilize marketing's other activities
in support. For instance, he provided no direction to his reps on the sorts of markets
to target, nor on the types of customers that they should look for. That was their job,
and it meant that they wasted lot of valuable time on barren calls. The reps handled
customer services and complaints. That also detracted from their selling time. He had
no systems for finding out what customers actually wanted, or what they thought of
his offerings, so he couldn't be certain that he was arming his reps with the most
saleable goods. Or if there were products that were more popular, that he could be
offering. As we talked, I also discovered that two of his competitors had recently
slashed their prices. Again, he had no marketing strategy to deal with this; his solitary
reaction was to dig his spurs deeper into the reps' sides to make them run faster.
Unlike that MD, many small firms do try to integrate marketing and sales;
however, some diminish the value of marketing. Because they don't fully appreciate
its role, they confine it to only minor tasks, like sending out brochures, or placing
adverts. I can’t count the number of times a small business owner has defined
marketing as “advertising”.

Others actually squander that value. They do assign marketing a key role, but
instead of seeing marketing and sales as a single function, they treat them almost as
discrete. They create two strong departments with separate heads and staff, one
they call, "marketing", and the other, "sales". These then work independently,
whether that's the intention or not. I've seen that approach lead to turf wars, low
morale, and internal bickering. The departments pull in different directions, and
blame each other when sales objectives fall short and when things go wrong. One
sales manager was deadly serious when he told me that he and his team believed
that the true function of the Marketing department was to undermine Sales.
The Omnipotent Sales Rep
Some business people would disagree with my analysis. They would argue that a
sales person doesn't need any kind of marketing infrastructure because, if he's good
enough, he should be able to sell anything. I accept some top sales people can do
that – but such people are rare.
The truth is that even the best sales person in the world would struggle to sell a
product or service that nobody wanted or needed. Or one whose price was
uncompetitive or pitched at a level few could afford. Or one that you'd targeted at the
wrong prospects, or at the wrong place. Or offered at the wrong time. This is where
marketing works its magic. If you could make all these things right, just imagine how
much more effective your top sales person would be.
The Sales Plan in Its Marketing Context
The key point I’m making is that since marketing drives “sales”, it also provides the
context for your sales plan. Also, your sales plan will be much more effective if it
flows directly from a marketing plan. First, because the marketing plan will have
already researched and decided your path to growth; so, you won’t need to do any
further research. Second, the marketing plan will have set realistic and achievable
sales objectives and forecasts. Third, it will have set out the package of strategies
needed to support the sales activity to create the right structure for success.
Of course, while I don’t recommend this, you could get by without a marketing
plan. For instance, you could draw some of the data from a Business Plan. If you
don’t have a marketing plan, however, either your business plan will need to contain
a lot of marketing detail or you’ll still have to do much of the work that you’d normally
do anyway for a marketing plan. That’s if you want your sales plan to be effective.
And don’t confuse a sales plan with a marketing plan. That’s another common
misconception in the “sales and marketing” muddle. Although the sales plan flows
from a marketing plan, the two are quite different in their coverage and in their
contribution to the selling efforts of the business.

The Sales Plan
What Is a Sales Plan?
A Sales Plan is a plan for personal selling. You would only produce such a plan when
you intend to use personal selling as one of your strategies. That means you intend
to deploy a field sales team. That applies plan even if the team consists of only one
person; that person could simply be you, the owner of the business.
In addition, you would develop a sales plan even if personal selling is just one of
your sources of sales. For instance, you might also use mail order, or sell online.
However, your sales plan would only cover your personal selling activities.
If you don’t use personal selling, you don’t need a sales plan. A good marketing
plan should cover all the issues involved in selling your products and services. The
only aspect of the sales plan that you might find of value for your marketing plan is
the Forecast Sales Pipeline. If you wish to create this, add it to your One-Year
Operational Plan. You could also use it as part of your control regime.
As Table 1 shows, a sales plan includes:
1. Background
2. Your Personal Selling Sales Objectives and Forecasts
3. Products/Services & Markets
4. Forecast Sales Pipeline
5. Selling Strategies & Tactics
6. Sales Team Management
7. Implementation & Control
A Sales Plan runs for one year. I’ve already pointed out its link with a marketing plan.
If you have such a plan, the sales plan flows directly from the One-Year Operational
Plan.
If you have a Sales Manager, then he or she is the person who should draw up
the sales plan. That same person will handle its implementation and monitor and
control its progress. If you don’t have a Sales Manager, then the business owner
must take responsibility for all aspects of the plan.
Stand-Alone Document
For practical purposes, try to make the sales plan a stand-alone document. In other
words, even if you have a marketing plan, you don’t want to be referring back
constantly to understand the sales plan. Even if means repeating data in the sales
plan, it’s better to do that.

Sales Plan Layout and Content
Section Contents Chapters
Prefaces  Title Page
 Contents
Section 1:
Background
1.1 Background the Plan
1.2 Purpose of the Plan
1.3 Critical Assumptions
1. Page
Section 2:
Sales Objectives & Forecasts
2.1 Personal Selling Sales Objectives
2.2 Personal Selling Sales Forecasts
2. Page 4
Section 3:
Products/Services & Markets
3.1 Products & Services
3.2 Products/Services-Markets
3. Page 111
Section 4:
Sales Pipeline
4.1 Forecast Sales Pipeline 4. Page 115
Section 5:
Selling Strategies & Tactics
5.1 Key Selling Messages
5.2 Selling Collateral
5.3 Supporting Strategies & Tactics
5.4 Personal Selling Strategies & Tactics
5. Page 131
Section 6:
Sales Team Management
6.1 Sales Team
6.2 Individual Sales Plans
6.3 Team Motivation Strategies
6.4 Monitor & Control
6.5 Training & CPD
6. Page 193
Section 7:
Implementation & Control
7.1 Implementation
7.2 Controls
7.3 Contingency Planning
7.4 Planning Reviews
7. Page 201
Table 1 Sales Plan Template
Manual Structure
The remaining chapters in this manual, 1-7, correspond with section headings above;
these will step you through each section separately. I don’t intend to comment further
on the Prefaces section, as this is self-explanatory. For examples on how to
complete the Prefaces and each of the sections, see the Sample Sales Plan.
In Appendix I, you’ll find a summary of the key points of the manual. In Appendix
II, I’ve included the full Marketing Plan for Imagine Curtains, on which I’ve based the
sample sales plan. This is to give you a better understanding of the origins of the
sample sales plan. In Appendix III, you’ll find the actual sales plan. In Appendix IV,
I’ve have included a sample Call Report you can copy, together with an example of
how to complete it; this is relevant to Section 6.

Summary of the Key Points
1. Avoid the misnomer: “sales and marketing”. The best way to describe the selling
function of any business is to use only one word: marketing. Marketing is the
business activity directly responsible for bringing in the sales. “Sales” or the
“Sales Department” is and always ought to be under the aegis and the direction of
Marketing.
2. Since marketing drives “sales”, it also provides the context for your sales plan.
Also, your sales plan will be much more effective if it flows directly from a
marketing plan.
3. A Sales Plan is a plan for personal selling. You would only produce such a plan
when you intend to use personal selling as one of your strategies. That means
you intend to deploy a field sales team. You would develop a sales plan even if
personal selling is just one of your sources of sales. But that plan would concern
itself only with the personal selling activity.
4. If you don’t use personal selling, a good marketing plan will cover all the issues
involved in selling your products and services.
5. A Sales Plan runs for one year. If you have a marketing plan, the sales plan flows
directly from the One-Year Operational Plan.
6. For practical purposes, try to make the sales plan a stand-alone document.

1
Background
Plan Section 1
Background
Step
1.1 Background to the Plan
Step Components
 Company background
 Source of the plan
 Reasons for the plan
 Key assumption within plan
s you will see in the sample plan, this is a short section. While you give some
brief business information, the purpose of this section is to set the plan within
the context of the business. Show its origins; define its parameters. Say: how
and where it fits into the planning process; who is writing it; why you are writing it;
what you expect it to achieve.
1.1 Background to the Plan
Company
When writing this plan, try to imagine that someone who knows nothing about your
business is reading it. In that case, it needs some company information. State briefly:
when the company was founded; what is does, and what its main products and
markets are.
A

CHAPTER 1: BACKGROUND
Source of the Plan
State the source and the inspiration of the plan. I said in the previous chapter that the
best starting point for a sales plan is to write a marketing plan; if that’s where your
sales plan is coming from, then say so. Show how it fits into that plan. For instance:
“The content of this plan is drawn from the Operational Marketing Plan for 2007-8.
The sales objectives set here are consistent with that plan”.
There are considerable advantages in developing your sales plan from a larger
plan. First, the planning process will be more comprehensive and reliable. Second,
your sales plan will be shorter. Third, you don’t need to explain how you arrived at
certain conclusions, e.g., how you’ve created your sales forecasts; you can simply
reference the other plan.
On the other hand, you may not have a marketing plan or even a business plan.
However, personal selling is your key strategy, and you want to build a stand-alone
sales plan. Again, state that. Of course, such a plan will need more content than one
that you’ve derived from another source. And here you’ll have to explain the
company background. You’ll also have to justify in more detail the figures and
assumptions you have based your sales plan on. This will not just apply to the
Background section but also to other parts of the plan.
 Show why you need a sales plan. For instance: “The marketing plan makes
personal selling its central strategy”; or “personal selling accounts for 40% of our
sales”.
 State the people responsible for writing the plan.
 Show the purpose and the outcome of the plan. For instance: “to document how
we will implement our personal selling strategy and ensure that we achieve its
objectives”.
Every time you plan or forecast anything, you have to make assumptions. If it's May
and you're organising a picnic for July, you're doing so probably on the assumption
that the weather will be okay. If that assumption turns out to be wrong, you might
have to change your plans.
It's the same with any kind of business planning: you have to make assumptions –
and be prepared to change tack later if necessary. In this section, I refer to the critical
assumptions that underpin the sales plan; the sorts of assumptions you make that, if
they turn out to be wrong, or if circumstances alter their shape, at the very least you'll

need to revise the plan; at worst, you may even have to tear it up. These
assumptions should amount to only two or three.
Note: I don’t mean to the critical assumptions that you state in your business or
marketing plans. I mean those that will have a direct and fundamental bearing on
how you conduct your personal selling.
For instance, let's say that core to your sales plan is that you’ll be able to hire
additional sales people within a specific time. Your plan might go ahead on the
assumption that you'll resolve this. Similarly, let's say that central to your selling
efforts is the company’s participation in a particular trade show. You've no reason to
doubt that this will not happen. So, your plan contains that assumption.
As you can see, all these issues are critical to the nature and success of the plan.
If you don't find the extra sales people, you may have to back to the drawing board. If
the trade show is cancelled, you might have to change strategies or even downsize
your objectives.
That's the whole point of stating your critical assumptions. It may seem a routine
action now, but it could become important later when you're monitoring the progress
of the plan. For instance, if things are working out differently from what you
expected, it could be that your critical assumptions were wrong. Since you know
what these are, it's a simple matter of revisiting them. Then, if necessary, you can
revise them and change the plan accordingly.
Summary of the Key Points
1. The purpose of this section is to set the plan within the context of the business.
State briefly: when the company was founded; what is does, and what its main
products and markets are.
2. State the source and the inspiration of the plan. For instance: a business or a
marketing plan. Or it may be a stand-alone sales plan.
3. Show why you need a sales plan. For instance: because personal selling is a
major strategy. State the people responsible for writing the plan. Show the
purpose and the outcome of the plan.
4. State the critical assumptions that underpin the sales plan. I mean those that
have a direct and fundamental bearing on how you conduct your personal selling.
And, which, if they don’t materialize, could undermine the whole plan. These
assumptions could become important later when you're monitoring the progress
of the plan.

CHAPTER 2: SALES OBJECTIVES & FORECASTS
2
Sales Objectives &
Forecasts
Plan Section 2
Sales Objectives
& Forecasts
Step
2.1. Personal Selling Objectives
2.2. Personal Selling Forecasts Table
Step Components
 Statement of Objectives
 Forecasts Table
 Assumptions
have already made it clear that a Sales Plan is a Personal Selling Plan. And that
you only write such a plan where personal selling is a major strategy. So, when I
talk here about sales objectives and forecasts, I mean those that apply to your
personal selling efforts.
Let’s say that personal selling is your central strategy. That means you expect
your sales to come via the work of your sales team, directly or indirectly. If you’ve
written a Business Plan, and especially a Marketing Plan, you may already have all
the information you need to complete this section, and in the right format. So, it’s only
a matter of copying the data across now to your Sales Plan. In the case of the
Marketing Plan, you’ll find it in your One-Year Operational Plan.
I

Of course, personal selling may be only one route to sales, e.g., you might also
sell online. If you have a business or marketing plan, you still have the relevant data.
But it may not be in the right format. Before you bring the data across, adapt your
marketing objectives and sales forecasts to show the proportion that you expect your
sales team to achieve.
On the other hand, you may not have any of this information and that’s the
assumption I’m going to make in stepping you through this section. I’m going to give
you some pointers on how to build objectives and forecasts from scratch.
2.1 Personal Selling Objectives
Statement of Objectives
This step is succinct. It’s merely a bullet point statement of what your personal selling
objectives are. Look at the sample sales plan for Imagine Curtains Inc in Appendix III
and you’ll see how to set them out. I was able to lift these objectives, unchanged,
from that company’s One-Year Operational Plan. (To view this, consult Appendix II.)
That was because personal selling is the company’s central strategy.
If, instead, you intend to set new objectives for your sales plan, note that these
are not exclusively about how many products you intend to sell at what price. They
might cover: opening up new markets; new customer acquisition targets; increasing
the average value of the sale per customer; increasing the number of repeat buys;
specific product sales targets, and so on.
When deciding your objectives, you have to take into account at least two factors:
1. The levels you can realistically set for any objective in terms of actual numbers.
To find this out, you’ll need to conduct research. This will cover the wider
environment, your markets, competitors, customers and your own business. And
from there, you’ll develop a SWOT table. This summarizes the strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats that your research has uncovered. It will
help you evaluate the levels of sales growth you can achieve.
2. The growth direction(s) you'll take. There are only four:
1) Greater Market Penetration: that means selling more of your existing
products or services to your existing markets. For instance, let’s say that
you sell to the engineering market; with market penetration, your task will
be to find new customers within that industry. This is the simplest and most
common direction for the small business.
2) Market Development: this means finding new markets for your existing
products or services; that’s new markets for you, not necessarily for your
wares.

CHAPTER 2: SALES OBJECTIVES & FORECASTS
3) Product Development: creating new products or services, which you’ll sell
to your existing markets.
4) Diversification: selling completely new products for you to completely new
markets. This direction is the riskiest of the four for the small business; you
should follow it only with great care.
In a Marketing Plan, a Direction Matrix shows the chosen direction(s). I’ve taken
Figure 1 from the Marketing Plan for Imagine Curtains. Here, the company has
chosen two directions: market penetration for its existing products; and product
development - it will offer a new product, blinds, to its existing markets.
Existing New
PRODUCTS/SERVICES
New
Existing
Market Penetration
 Bespoke curtains and drapes
Market Development
Product Development
 Bespoke fabric blinds
Diversification
Figure 1
Each of these directions tells you what you're going to sell and to whom you're going
to sell it. You can choose one, or all four, or any combination, and the directions you
select will influence the extent of growth you can achieve. Of course, not all
directions are open to you. Your SWOT will help you make the selections.
What’s more, the objectives you set must meet the SMART criteria, or they will be
invalid. The term SMART is just an acronym. It stands for….
More follows…

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