sales process business plan

Step 8: Involve stakeholders.

Stakeholders are individuals, groups, or organizations with a vested interest in your company. They are typically investors, employees, or customers and often have deciding power in your business.

Towards the end of your sales planning process, involve stakeholders from departments that affect your outcomes, such as marketing and product. It leads to an efficient and actionable sales planning process.

How to Involve Stakeholders

Once I’ve pinpointed the key issues blocking my edtech startup’s sales team, it’s time to get the right people on board.

First, I'll reach out to stakeholders handling our sales content and marketing collateral. They’re the ones who can create new, relevant case studies and whitepapers for the institutions we work with.

Next, I’ll go to middle management. Depending on the situation, I might offer more direction for coaching on demos. Or bring in a third-party training service for professional insights.

Finally, I’ll connect with marketing leadership to make our message clearer. Aligning on the benefits and outcomes we highlight during pitches ensures the schools we target have realistic expectations of our product.

Step 9: Outline action items.

Once you've implemented this strategy to create your sales planning process, the final step is outlining your action items.

Using your company's capacity and quota numbers, build a list of action steps that take you through the sales process. Think: writing a sales call script, identifying industry competitors, and strategizing new incentives or perks.

How to Create a Sales Action Plan

In our edtech example, some key action items might be:

• Revamp our prospecting strategy via more involved coaching and re-tooled sales messaging.
• Revamp administrator and college dean buyer personas.
• Conduct new training on demoing our software.
• See our new prospecting strategy from ideation to execution.
• Align with our sales enablement stakeholders for new, more relevant case studies and whitepapers.

Obviously, this list isn’t exhaustive — but those are still the kinds of steps we would need to clarify and take to structure a more effective high-level strategy to produce different (ideally much better) results than we’ve been seeing.

One thing to keep in mind is that sales planning shouldn't end with creating the document.

I recommend you reiterate this process every year to maintain your organization’s sales excellence.

Sales strategies based more on intuition than data might work sometimes, but they will always lack consistency and scalability. Having a clear sales planning process, on the other hand, aligns the entire team toward common goals, ensuring effective and more cohesive collaboration.

I remember when my client’s sales numbers were consistently below target. Unsurprisingly, team morale was low.

After analyzing their processes, the sales manager realized the company lacked a coherent sales plan. So, they introduced a detailed sales planning process that included:

• Setting realistic targets.
• Identifying key prospects.
• Implementing regular performance reviews.

Within six months, the client saw a 27% increase in sales. Moreover, their team was more motivated and engaged than ever before.

Below are the key benefits of having a sales planning process.

Clarity and Direction

In my experience, implementing a detailed sales plan changes everything. You‘ll have a clear path to follow, with defined goals and milestones that align everyone on your team. Without a clear plan, it’s difficult to prioritize leads. You'll often find yourself scrambling at every month end to meet targets.

Improved Resource Allocation

You can identify where to allocate your resources most effectively, whether it’s personnel, budget, or time. The same client I mentioned before used to spread their resources thinly across numerous prospects. Once they started planning, they knew better — they focused efforts on high-potential leads, which led to better conversion rates and increased revenue.

Predictable Revenue

One of the most significant benefits of sales planning is predictability. When I have a predictable revenue stream, I can budget better and invest strategically in growth areas. In fact, according to a Logility report, companies that do effective sales planning see a 31% improvement in forecast accuracy .

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Sales | How To

How to Create a Sales Process in 4 Steps (+ Free Template)

Published May 28, 2024

REVIEWED BY: Bianca Caballero

WRITTEN BY: J.R. Johnivan

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

Free Sales Process Template

1. review your sales pipeline, 2. create a list of necessary tasks, 3. visualize the sales cycle, 4. measure success and make adjustments, best practices for building a sales process, common mistakes in executing sales process steps, bottom line.

The typical sales process provides a step-by-step approach to locating clients, communicating with clients, and closing sales. Most sales process steps include prospecting, preparation for a sales presentation, lead nurturing, making an offer, overcoming objections, closing the sale, and making a follow-up. Here, we teach you how to create a sales process, provide a free template, outline best practices, and discuss common mistakes in building a sales workflow.

We’ve created a free template you can customize to fit your internal business practices and sales creation process. Download this template and use it as you learn how to create a sales process.

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💡 Quick Tip:

Customer relationship management (CRM) systems like Freshsales usually have pre-made pipeline stages that you can use to monitor sales deals. You can customize these pipeline stages to fit your unique sales process and activities.

Consider CRM software like Freshsales. It has a Kanban-style sales pipeline board that allows you to monitor your deals easily.

Start by reviewing the stages of your sales pipeline and considering exactly how each stage ties back to your overall business model. You can also leverage your sales funnel to categorize the tasks needed to nurture a lead from start to finish.

For example, researching prospects and generating online leads correlates with the first stage of your sales funnel —creating awareness. You’ll use the next stage of your sales funnel—fostering interest—to introduce new products, qualify leads, and begin nurturing leads through the sales process.

Categorizing activities in this manner makes it easy for new and experienced team members to understand the sales workflow. Plus, they can quickly follow the steps of the sales process in order to move leads from one stage to the next.

Now that you’ve created a list of general activities required for each stage in the sales funnel, it’s time to create a detailed list of all the necessary tasks for each stage.

For example, the first stage in the sales funnel requires your team to research prospects and generate online leads . But how exactly is this accomplished? Is your team working from a list of potential candidates, or are they sourcing prospects on their own? Should their efforts be limited to a specific social media platform, database, or online community, or are your team members able to source clients from anywhere on the internet?

Answering questions like these helps avoid confusion, mitigate potential mistakes, and optimize the entire sales workflow. These questions can also help you gain a better understanding of how to create a sales process in the first place.

Visit Freshsales

Freshsales deal pipeline management system (Source: Freshworks )

Use a flowchart to make it easier for everyone to visualize the sales cycle and the individual steps of the sales process. Feel free to get creative here—different shapes, colors, and images are often used to guide viewers from start to finish. As such, your flowchart should include every step in the sales process. Each step should be sequentially numbered and laid out in a manner that makes sense.

Finally, it’s time to measure the success of each stage in the sales process. In order to do this, we must first establish some quantifiable sales metrics for each stage. In the research stage, for example, success can easily be measured by counting the total number of connections made. When generating online leads, success is measured by counting the total number of leads generated.

As part of sales management responsibilities, make small tweaks and adjustments to the process over time. If a particular stage isn’t performing as expected, or if your sales team consistently has issues with a specific task or activity, for example, some changes will be necessary to optimize the overall sales process.

It’s a good idea to follow some basic best practices when creating a sales process. These helpful tips and tricks make it easier to secure new leads , nurture leads, and finalize sales while optimizing the sales workflow for everyone involved.

Understand the Buyer’s Journey

Whenever possible, try to view the sales process steps from the buyer’s perspective. Not only does it let you experience their experience from beginning to end, but it can help you better understand the wants and needs of prospects during the various phases of the sales lifecycle. As such, you’ll be able to introduce changes and modifications to the process that directly address their concerns.

For example, if the prospect is in the Need Recognition phase of the buyer’s journey, you can use content marketing to articulate their problem and how your product can help them. If the customer has already decided to purchase from you, the best thing to do is to make the transaction as smooth as possible for them. For instance, you could check your website to ensure your payment processing software does not lag.

Train Your Team Members

Make sure to educate and train your team members regarding the sales process. Provide a step-by-step tour of the sales pipeline and take the time to answer any questions that may arise. Clarify these issues ahead of time and ensure that your team members are equipped to overcome any hurdles that present themselves along the way. These steps are critical when trying to develop an optimized and efficient sales process.

Research the Competition

You’ll also want to take some time to research the competition and analyze their sales process steps. Evaluate how their prices compare to yours if their products have an advantage over yours, how effective their social media strategies are, and how appealing their website is. Doing this can help you better understand what you’re up against while also giving you new ideas to implement in your own process.

Utilize Technology

Next-gen software solutions make it easy for tech-savvy sales teams to follow a standardized process. Customer relationship management (CRM) platforms are available to help prospect new clients and track them through the sales pipeline. Sales and marketing apps can help you target specific demographics , finalize sales, and track profitability across the board.

Collect and Respond to Customer Feedback

Finally, collect and respond to as much customer feedback as possible. It’s important to take the good with the bad and consider all of the comments—positive or negative—to create an effective sales process. Although you can’t please every single customer, you can certainly utilize their feedback to strengthen the experience in the future.

Even the most meticulously planned sales processes are still prone to mistakes. While some missteps are expected when learning how to build a sales process, there are a few common mistakes that can easily be avoided.

Creating Vague Steps in the Sales Process

Whatever you do, try not to leave your sales process steps open to interpretation. Not only does this create general confusion amongst your sales team, but you can’t always guarantee that your team members will make the correct interpretations. Instead, ensure that every step in the sales process is as clear and concise as possible. To achieve this, consider these helpful tips:

• Clarify the steps needed to move prospects from one stage to the next
• Create a sales playbook that lists every step in the selling process and make it accessible to every team member
• Ensure team knowledge through hands-on training and role-playing sessions

Documenting the entire sales process gives your team a clear guide when it comes to qualifying leads , delivering pitches, and closing sales.

Failing to Coordinate Activities Between Sales and Marketing

Take some time to coordinate the activities between your sales and marketing teams . Ensure that they all have access to the same information and that they’re all working with a single source of truth. Failing to coordinate these activities ahead of time will only confuse team members and prospective clientele, which makes the entire sales workflow even more complicated.

Utilizing a Single Sales Methodology

Novice sales leaders often make the mistake of utilizing one sales methodology for all their teams and prospects. However, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all sales process. To see the most success, you’ll need to diversify your overall sales strategy. Thankfully, there are numerous methodologies you can introduce to your sales workflow, including:

• Inbound selling : Creating personalized buying experiences for prospects by addressing prospects’ pain points and engaging them via their preferred channels
• Solution selling: Providing a customized solution based on the prospect’s specific needs, concerns, and problems
• Gap selling: Positioning a product or service as the most effective way to fill the gap between the prospect’s current situation and where they would like it to be
• SPIN (Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-Payoff): Asking specific questions to build rapport and to reveal buyer pain points
• NEAT (Needs, Economic Impact, Authority, Timeline): Developing a sales pitch based on a deeper understanding of the prospect’s needs
• SNAP (Simple, Invaluable, Align, Priorities): A straightforward selling approach that aims to help salespeople make quick and effective pitches to busy prospects

Using a combination of these selling methodologies—especially the ones that work for you, your company, and your prospective clients—is the key to catapulting your sales numbers to all-new heights.

Forgetting to Evaluate the Process

A dynamic sales workflow requires continuous evaluation. This task is made easier through the use of dedicated CRM software, as many of these solutions automatically track sales figures over time. Some CRMs even use next-gen AI to recommend improvements as necessary.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is a sales cycle and why is it important.

The sales cycle, also known as the sales lifecycle, refers to the amount of time it takes to transform a lead into a prospect and, finally, into a customer. It’s important to take this process one step at a time, with all of the steps performed in the correct order, in order to maximize your chances of closing the sale. Once it’s been standardized, the sales process can effectively be used as a guide to make it easier to convert leads in the future.

How does a sales funnel differ from a sales pipeline?

Although the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, the sales funnel differs from the sales pipeline in several ways. While all your leads ultimately go into your sales funnel, only interested prospects are entered into the sales pipeline. The sales funnel depicts the entire customer journey, from the buyer’s point of view, whereas the sales pipeline depicts the different steps and activities taken by the sales team to convert a prospect and finalize a sale.

Can AI be used to improve the overall sales process?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is already being used to improve the typical sales process. Top sales teams currently use AI to forecast sales based on historical data, prospect for customers based on certain trends or behaviors, and automate customer interactions throughout the entire sales process. Considering that next-gen AI technology is still in its infancy, we’ll likely see even more applications for AI within the sales process in the months and years ahead.

While our handy sales process template is a great way to establish a basic sales process as quickly as possible, the best processes are customized to meet the needs of everyone involved. It’s also important to establish a standardized set of sales process steps as early as possible. Not only will this make it easier to begin securing and nurturing clients right away, but it also provides a clear benchmark for your organization’s leaders, your sales team members, and your clients.

About the Author

Find J.R. On LinkedIn

J.R. Johnivan

J.R. Johnivan is a Freelance Sales Contributor with Fit Small Business and a Project Management Writer with Project-Management.com. He began his career building websites for local clientele around the beginning of the 21st century, and he’s been fully committed to creating online content ever since.

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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. 

• Template Lab 
• 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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Complete Guide to Building a Sales Process

Creating a sales process helps you convert leads into customers and earn consistent sales in your business. Learn more about how to build a sales process.

Table of Contents

Every business goes through a similar series of steps to make a sale. Understanding how the sales process works will help you maintain a consistent approach to turning leads into customers .

Documenting this process and creating a structured sales process makes it easier for your sales team to know where to focus their energy. It also becomes easier to track your results and identify what’s working and what isn’t. 

This guide will explain how the different stages of the sales cycle work, and how to build a sales process for your business. 

What is a sales process?

The sales process — also known as a sales cycle — is the method your company follows to sell your product or service to customers. It involves a series of steps, from initial contact with a lead to the final sale.

The sales process is similar to developing a relationship with someone new. When you first meet, you get to know each other, learn what they like and determine their goals. Along the way, you decide if you can work together and whether you are a match. If this is the case, the relationship can proceed and grow.

Why is building a sales process important?

Here are some benefits of building a sales process for your business:

• It helps you optimize the structure of your sales team to support the sales process and identify the main challenges in the sales cycle.
• It makes onboarding new sales personnel easier.
• It helps you identify short-term and long-term goals and how each step in the sales process supports the next one.
• It highlights where time and resources are being wasted, so you can remove activities with low return on investment and focus your efforts on activities with more positive returns .
• It identifies the steps that need to be improved. This allows you to invest in training, education and practice to get better in areas of weakness, which will help match your success in other parts of the sales process.

What are the 7 stages of the sales process?

There are seven stages in the sales process:

• Prospect for potential customers.
• Make contact with prospects.
• Qualify prospects.
• Nurture prospects.
• Present your offer.
• Overcome objections.
• Close the deal

1. Prospect for potential customers.

The first step is to prospect for customers, which requires some research. This stage has three components.

• They can provide your company with value (e.g., revenue, influence)
• Your company can provide value to them (e.g., return on investment, better service)
• Identify potential leads. Use the ICP to create a list of potential leads that fit this profile. Use a variety of sources (e.g., online databases, social media) to develop a list of ideal client companies. Then create a list of prospects from these companies that your sales team can contact and qualify.
• A need for your product or service
• The budget to purchase your product or service
• The authority to make the purchasing decision
• The timing to make the purchase

2. Make contact with prospects.

After identifying the ideal prospect, reach out to contact them. This step has two parts:

• Determine the best way to contact the prospect (e.g., telephone , email or social media).
• Reach out to the prospect. Make sure you are prepared (e.g., with a script, introduction and questions) before you contact them. Introduce yourself and work on building trust, not making a sale.

3. Qualify prospects.

Although you have already done your research to qualify the prospect before making contact, you still need to determine if they would make an ideal customer. This can only happen in a direct conversation with the prospect (either over the phone or in person).

To qualify the prospect, learn more about them. Ask about their goals, budget, challenges and other issues that will help you to make your decision. Make sure that the person you are speaking with has the power to make decisions on doing business with you. When speaking with the prospect, identify opportunities to provide value.

Qualifying the prospect involves confirming whether they meet the criteria of a good customer. If they are not a good fit, tell the prospect why. If they are still interested, determine why.

4. Nurture prospects.

Once you have qualified the prospect, demonstrate the relevance of your solution to them. This typically involves answering questions about your unique offer, the benefits you provide and the problems you solve.

When answering the prospect’s questions and learning about their needs, you have to nurture them along the process of making a decision. This involves:

• Unaware: The person does not know they have a problem.
• Problem aware or pain aware: The person knows they have a problem but is not aware of a solution.
• Solution aware: The person knows there is a solution but does not know about your product.
• Product aware: The person knows about your product but does not know if it can solve their problem.
• Most aware: The person knows a lot about your product but needs to know about its benefits.
• Educating the prospect about the product, service or industry
• Personalizing your communications
• Responding to common challenges
• Building your reputation with the prospect as someone who is helpful, responsible and reliable in your area of expertise

Some prospects may be both interested in your offering and qualified, but might not be ready or able to become a customer at this time. To nurture this type of prospect, stay in touch going forward and demonstrate your ability to help. This will help to keep you top of mind when they are ready to buy.

5. Present your offer.

Use the information you have collected to this point to present the prospect with your best possible offer. Make the offer personalized, targeted and relevant to your prospect’s needs. Craft the offer to address their challenges, budget and goals.

While the content of your offer is very important, how you present the offer can be the difference between success and failure. Consider your audience and the situation when deciding how to present your offer. Creativity can be very effective, but you should also focus on what works best for you given the experience of previous presentations.

6. Overcome objections.

You’ve made the best possible offer — now it’s up to the prospect to make the next move. The most common response is some type of objection to your offer, like those listed below

• Price (e.g., too expensive for the value provided)
• Risk (e.g., too “dangerous” to switch to a new solution)
• Content of offer (e.g., offer does not provide enough detail)
• Contract terms (e.g., term is too long)

Ideally, you addressed the common objections during the nurturing phase or when creating the offer. However, you cannot always address every objection before the prospect makes it.

To overcome or address objections:

• Be patient and measured in your response. Listen to the prospect’s concerns objectively. Do not rush or pressure the prospect to move forward.
• Address objections that are related to each other. For example, if the prospect questions the value and price, go over everything you’ve included in the offer to show how the value you provide exceeds the price.
• When you have explained your reasoning, ask the prospect if you have properly addressed their objection.
• Read between the lines of generic objections (e.g., “We are not interested”).
• Ask more questions to determine the real reasons behind each objection. Listen carefully to the answers before responding.

7. Close the deal.

Once you have overcome all objections, you can close the deal to make the sale.

First, work on sealing the deal. The goal is to confirm the prospect’s engagement and work toward the next steps. 

The key is to make it easier for the prospect to say yes to the deal. Prime the prospect by reminding them how they will achieve a specific goal in purchasing your product or service. To close the deal:

• Ask a direct question or make a direct statement (e.g., “Would you like to sign the deal now?”).
• Ask an indirect question (e.g., “Are you satisfied with what is included in the offer?”).
• Provide an incentive to close the deal (e.g., add a sign-up bonus).
• Offer a free trial period (e.g., “Try it for one week”).
• Emphasize the urgency or scarcity of the offer (e.g., “This is a limited-time offer”).
• Ask what else the prospect requires to make a decision.

When the prospect has committed to the purchase, answer any additional questions they have and give them details on the next steps. Provide a written agreement and summary of the conversation so that their supervisor or other stakeholders can review it for accuracy.

If the prospect still responds with “not yet” or “not now” for reasons beyond your control (or theirs), then return the prospect to the nurturing stage. Stay in touch and follow up with prospects who are not ready to purchase.

How do you implement a sales process?

Consider the following approach to implement the sales process in your organization.

Understand the customer.

The sales process begins with the buyer. To implement an effective sales process , you must understand the buyer and then design your sales process to address their goals, motivations and needs. This requires identifying and then answering their “why” question. For instance, why is the buyer looking for a solution? Why are they looking to you for the solution?

Build a sales process to help your salespeople find the answer to the key question. Conduct interviews with buyers and salespeople and perform industry research to find the answers to include in the process.

Set milestones.

Once you’ve defined the stages of your sales process, establish the key steps and milestones within those stages. A milestone could be identifying where the buyer is in the sales process or engaging with stakeholders within a certain time period. Score each milestone to determine how many resources to invest into that part of the sales process.

When you set a milestone for each stage, train salespeople to meet that milestone at the assigned stage. This will prevent them from skipping steps or taking the wrong approach at the wrong time (such as talking about the price too soon). Instructing salespeople on when and how to do handoffs will also help correct problems in the sales process. This simplifies the process of helping buyers move from one stage to the next.

Apply skills and resources.

Build skills, resources and activities into the sales process to help your salespeople move to the next milestone. Resources could include brochures, case studies and whitepapers for a salesperson to share with customers. Provide your salespeople with specific training for particular milestones or have them engage in activities for other milestones.

Iterate and improve.

A sales process is not static; it should be refined and improved over time. Get feedback from salespeople, measure buyer behavior, and track and analyze sales data to evaluate the effectiveness of your sales process. 

Use the results to solidify the successful activities and resources within the sales process, implement activities and processes to prevent negative outcomes, and remove activities and resources that do not advance the sales process. This will keep the sales process relevant, actionable and efficient.

By constantly iterating and improving your sales process, you will:

• Reduce the time it takes to onboard new salespeople.
• Increase the percentage of successful sales.
• Minimize costly mistakes.
• Improve sales forecasting.
• Reach sales targets on a more consistent basis.

Align your technology and systems with the sales process.

Equip your salespeople with technology (such as CRM software) that enables them to perform each step of the sales process efficiently. However, software tools alone won’t make salespeople more effective or encourage them to follow best practices. Combine the technology with supportive systems, guidance and resources.

Provide technology that streamlines the sales process, collects and organizes information on customers, and lists the required activities for salespeople to follow. Create systems and resources to support the sales team’s use of the technology during the sales process, such as these:

• Checklists to make sure all steps are performed in order
• Content and video to demonstrate the importance of the stages and milestones
• Buyer-focused content tied to where they are in the sales process
• Reminders to prevent salespeople from skipping steps
• Training content for each step in the sales process

Jamie Johnson contributed to this article. 

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How to Build a Sales Process: The Complete Guide

Creating a structured sales process is one of the most effective ways to boost your sales teams’ efficiency and results.

With a formal sales process in place, your sales team has a framework to follow, and it’s much easier to stay on the same page, track results, and onboard new team members.

Even if your sales team is already driving good results, establishing a sales process or improving your existing one can take your business to the next level of growth.

In this guide to sales processes, we’ll discuss the most common sales process stages, how to develop and improve your process, how to overcome common challenges, and more.

Just keep reading to get started with creating a winning sales process.

Table of Contents

• What is a sales process?  

Understanding the difference between sales process and sales methodology

Why is it important to have a structured sales process, the stages of the sales process, 5 less common (but still important) sales process stages.

• 4 formats for organizing your sales process

10 sales process management strategies for creating and improving your sales process

Challenges of a sales process, what is a sales process.

A sales process   is a set of repeatable steps that your sales team takes to convert prospects into customers. Building a sales process is absolutely necessary for your company’s success, and is perhaps the most important thing you can do as a sales manager to impact your team’s ability to sell.

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As mentioned above, the sales process refers to a defined series of repeatable steps that your sales team follows to turn leads into customers. You can think of it as the structured path that outlines the specific actions needed to close deals and cultivate client relationships throughout the sales cycle.

On the other hand, a sales methodology acts as the foundational framework that guides how these steps are carried out. It encompasses the philosophies and strategies that shape your sales team’s approach at each stage of the sales process.

By aligning effective sales process steps with a suitable methodology, you can greatly improve your chances of closing deals and achieving sustainable growth.

A structured sales process is the backbone of any successful sales operation, providing a clear roadmap for sales teams to follow. This structured approach isn’t just a guideline. It’s a strategic framework designed to optimize efficiency, consistency, and results. Here’s why having a structured sales process is so important:

Consistency leads to confidence

A well-defined sales process keeps your entire sales team on the same page. Consistency in approach and messaging instills confidence in your team, as they know what to expect with each potential deal.

Increased efficiency

By breaking down the sales journey into well-defined stages, a structured process empowers sales professionals to navigate the process more efficiently. Each stage has its purpose and a set of actions, reducing ambiguity and the likelihood of missed opportunities.

Enhanced data-driven insights

A structured sales process allows for accurate tracking and analysis of each stage’s performance. This data-driven approach helps you identify bottlenecks, refine strategies, and make informed decisions that create continuous improvement.

Having a formalized sales process ensures that your team focuses its efforts on the activities that generate the most revenue. Without a process in place, deals are simply won or lost, and it’s hard to know which specific actions are working or failing.

Predictability of sales and revenue

A repeatable sales process gives sales teams much more consistency in winning deals. Having a more accurate sense of your win rate allows you to dependably forecast how many sales you’ll close from a given number of leads, and helps sales managers set realistic quotas .

More qualified leads, increased lifetime value

With a well-honed sales process in place, your sales team will be more effective at filtering out low-potential leads and identifying prospects who are most likely to purchase your product and become longtime customers.

Generating higher-quality leads shortens your sales cycle , reduces the effort wasted on opportunities that are unlikely to close, and increases lifetime customer value by focusing your sales efforts on the best prospects.

Improved communication between company teams

If your sales team speaks a language only they can understand, collaboration between departments can be difficult. Using the common steps and language of a standardized sales process simplifies company communication, reduces interdepartmental confusion, and enables your customer service, account management, fulfillment, and marketing teams to offer the right assistance at the right time.

A better overall customer experience

When a sales rep rushes a prospect into a sales stage they’re not anticipating, it can create distrust, which can kill the sale and damage the relationship with the buyer. A standardized sales process ensures that sellers don’t advance the sale until the buyer is ready to move forward.

By tailoring the sales process to reflect how a company’s target customers move through the buying process, and making sure each step is designed to generate trust and offer value, sales teams can lay the foundation for a positive customer experience before the deal is even closed.

Effective training and onboarding

A clearly defined process simplifies the training and onboarding of new sales team members . It provides a framework that enables new hires to quickly understand your sales approach and start contributing to your organization’s success.

Want to learn more about what a sales process is and why it’s important? Read this first . If you already have a sales process built, you can skip ahead to the next guide in our series, How to Implement a Sales Process .

A sales process consists of a series of stages—usually three to seven, depending on the sale’s complexity—which cover the major milestones of a sale. Each stage consists of tasks, which are the key activities your team must perform in order to advance the sale from stage to stage.

Your steps may vary based on your industry and how thorough your process needs to be to secure leads, but in general, you’ll want to have strategies for each of these moments in the sales funnel:

• Prospecting
• Developing rapport
• Presenting solutions
• Handling objections
• Closing the sale
• Following up

1. Prospecting

Also known as lead generation, prospecting involves identifying potential buyers to add to the top of your sales funnel . These potential buyers can be people who have expressed interest in the product or service that you’re selling, or who might reasonably have interest based on their demographics, industry, or other factors.

This step of the sales cycle is often done through online research , buying lead lists , referral networking, or inbound marketing methods. It is best practice to target your ideal buyer persona  throughout prospecting efforts. This increases the odds that the leads you generate will eventually become closed deals.

Your ideal customer consists of as many target demographics as possible, from job title and income level to age and hobbies. From here, you can begin expanding on the demographics you’re appealing to and begin developing your target market.

A sales prospecting tool such as Nutshell ProspectorIQ lets you find your ideal customer from a database of 200 million people and companies. And, since you can add them from within your CRM platform, you save time on manual lead data entry and add your new leads to your established sales pipelines to start selling ASAP.

Examples of tasks for this stage:

• Collect recent customer referrals
• Attend a trade show or networking event
• Gather recent leads from content offers on your website
• Search social media for companies/executives in your target industry

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2. Qualifying

The qualifying stage marks the first time your reps make direct contact with a lead. Through an initial phone call or email, the rep’s goal is to gather information on the lead and determine if they are a good fit for your product or service.

The most well-known qualifying framework is  BANT —budget, authority, need, and timeline. In other words, if your sales team can determine that a lead actually wants what you’re selling, and has the money and decision-making power to buy from you in the near future, then they’re qualified to move on to the next stage.

Examples of tasks for this stage: 

The most important step to take when building a sales process is correctly identifying your target market. First, define the external criteria that will help you identify companies that are likely experiencing the pain points your product or service solves. Then, identify the people within those organizations who are personally suffering from those pain points, and who have the authority to make buying decisions. ‍ Whitney Sales  Founder of  The Sales Method

3. Developing rapport

Selling in today’s saturated market depends more than ever on developing personal relationships, or at the very least a decent rapport, with your leads. Even if your brand offers unique products or services, the best way to stand out among your competitors is by making an emotional appeal to potential buyers.

People naturally react more strongly when they’re emotionally invested in something, and when you pursue a personal connection with them, you’ll make them feel like more than a number. They’re not your customers or business partners — they’re your friends, and when they feel like your friends, they’ll be there to support you through anything.

• Contacting leads personally to tell them about your brand
• Sending personalized emails with exclusive offers
• Inviting leads to informal meetings to discuss how your business can help them

4. Presenting

Whether you’re doing an on-site demonstration for a potential client or using video conferencing to present a software solution, presenting is your sales team’s opportunity to lay out a compelling, personalized case for how your product or service will fulfill the prospect’s immediate needs.

Success in the presenting stage depends heavily on research and preparation. Before you make your presentation, you should have gathered as much information as possible about your prospect and their specific needs and concerns so that you can anticipate every follow-up question and have a good answer ready to go. If you can position yourself as a trusted advisor instead of someone who’s just trying to make a sale, you’re doing it right.

• Schedule a presentation
• Conduct further research on the company/stakeholders to prepare
• Develop specific recommendations to present

Related:  19 ways to nail your next sales presentation

5. Handling objections

There are plenty of reasons why a prospect would be hesitant to commit, even if they’re interested in your product—price, timing, and fear of change are some of  the common ones . In the objections stage, a sales rep attempts to address all the outstanding concerns that a prospect still has after hearing your pitch.

No matter what a prospect’s objection may be, knocking it down generally involves two things: demonstrating the value of your solution and demonstrating the cost or risk of not buying.

• Follow-up call with the prospect after the presentation
• Identify remaining concerns
• Demonstrate value above other solution(s) they’re considering

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Closing is everything you need to do in the late stages of a sale to get your prospect to sign a contract and become a customer. This could include delivering a proposal based on verbally agreed-upon terms, getting buy-in from all the decision-makers, and making final negotiations on the price. With every roadblock out of the way, you’re ready to ask for their signature and begin the hard work of retaining them as customers.

• Deliver proposal
• Final negotiations
• Acquire signed contracts

7. Following up and nurturing the relationship

This is the sales process stage that you want to last the longest. Nurturing a customer means providing them with the proper post-sale support so that they’re excited to continue buying from you, and finding opportunities to increase the value of the business relationship through upselling . Well-nurtured customers can also provide a significant source of referrals, making them a priceless lead source in themselves.

• Follow up with customer immediately after delivery of product/service
• Subscribe buyer to customer newsletter or sales emails
• Ask for positive reviews and referrals

Pro tip:  Each sales process stage should have a clear definition or goal : What observable activity or action tells you that a customer is in a particular stage of the buyer journey?

Unsure which sales process stages are right for your company?

Our 16 Sales Process Templates for B2B Pipelines provide top examples of how companies just like yours structure their sales processes.

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Sales teams incorporate these intermediate stages into their sales processes to put additional focus on important activities, rather than milestones.

1. Setting an appointment

It’s the first major commitment you make with a prospective buyer. After a lead is qualified, a rep’s #1 priority should be locking down a time for their presentation.

2. Researching

Gathering information on a prospect should be part of every stage of your sales process, but it’s critically important before the presentation. Through conversations and online research, your goal should be to identify your buyer’s pain points and needs, as well as any other unique characteristics that you can use to create a tailor-made solution.

3. Demonstrating value

Focusing on your product is fine—but ultimately, you have to convince your prospect why they should do business with you . Are you trustworthy? Do you have specialized insight into your industry?

The “demonstrating value” stage means providing targeted content (including customer testimonials and competitive battle-sheets) as well as answering questions to position yourself as a trusted advisor.

4. Issuing a proposal

Here’s where you take all the talking and put it into writing. Based on the solutions you discussed with your prospect, lay out exactly what your company will provide, at what price, and over what timeline.

5. Delivering the product or service

The transaction isn’t a success until the customer gets what they’re paying for. Whether it’s the physical delivery of a product or the onboarding of a cloud software service, make sure you get off on the right foot with your newly closed buyer by executing this step flawlessly.

4 formats for organizing your sales processes

Once you’ve picked out your stages and tasks, it’s time to give your sales process a coherent structure. Here are four sales process formats you can use for inspiration.

1. Sales process map

Arranging your stages into vertical columns might be the most natural way to organize and visualize your sales process—which is why we decided to structure it this way in Nutshell . In a sales process map, the top of each column is labeled with a stage, and the individual steps are listed below it.

While the steps listed in each column reflect the sales activities that your team needs to complete, sales process maps can also include arrows linking each column to denote the stages of the buyer’s journey that the customer is moving through.

2. Sales process checklist

A checklist sales process is arranged chronologically from top to bottom, with steps listed underneath each sales stage . Once you check off each completed step in a given stage, you can move on to the next one. This format is best for simple sales processes that don’t have a lot of moving parts.

Pro tip: Leads in a sales process are either in an “open” stage, meaning they’re still being worked, or in a “closed” stage, meaning they’ve reached a conclusion—either won or lost.

3. Sales process flowchart

While a checklist or column arrangement can work well for simple sales transactions, more complex sales tracking can’t always be managed with a step-by-step chronological process. If each customer decision can spur different “paths” for your sales rep to take, a flowchart might be a more appropriate method to visualize your sales process.

For example, what do your reps do when a lead doesn’t advance past a certain step? Is the lead abandoned forever, or is it directed to a “winback” path where you try to reconnect with the prospect at a later date to see if they still need help finding a solution? With a sales process flowchart, you can add “Plan B” steps that can eliminate the dead ends that arise in a more straightforward sales process.

4. Buyer-aligned sales process

Ultimately, each sale represents an alignment of the buyer’s and seller’s interests. Incorporating the steps of the buyer’s journey into your sales process reminds your sales reps to consider what the buyer needs at each step.

After you’ve decided on your own sales process stages, put yourself in your customer’s shoes and add the key commitments and decisions that the buyer has to make along the way. If both sides of your buyer-aligned sales process closely mirror each other, you’re doing it right.

So, how do you know which stages to include in your sales process, and how can you ensure your process is driving optimal results over time?

There’s a lot to consider when it comes to sales processes, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Remember—your sales process doesn’t have to be perfect right away. In fact, it should evolve and improve over time. Start with the basics and make updates as you learn more about what drives the best results with your audience.

Check out our top tips for creating and improving your sales process below.

1. Base your sales process on the buyers’ journey

Your sales stages should reflect and support your customers’ buying process, and help your reps understand what kind of attention each prospect needs at any given moment.

“For complex B2B sales environments that involve a lengthy buying process and multiple customer stakeholders, the best way of defining your pipeline stages is to align them with the key phases in your customer’s typical decision-making process,” says Inflexion-Point Strategy Partners founder Bob Apollo.

In a typical complex sale, these key decision phases can include the following.

• Unconcerned: “This equates to your prospecting phase,” Apollo says. “The buyer is apparently unconcerned about any of the issues we have chosen to target.”
• Investigating: “Something has happened to alert the prospect to a potential issue, and they are researching their options and deciding whether there is a clear reason to act.”
• Defining: “The prospect has concluded that action is required, and they are defining their decision criteria and process, and identifying who needs to be on the decision team.”
• Selecting: “The decision team is evaluating their shortlisted options—which could still include ‘do nothing’—and deciding upon their preferred solution.”
• Negotiating: “The prospect is negotiating the best possible deal and eliminating any remaining risks or reservations.”
• Approving: “If the decision is of a strategic nature or above a certain value, it will still have to be formally approved before any order can be placed.”

2. Understand what your sales team is currently doing

Even if you’ve never formalized your sales process before, the raw materials are in place. Your reps likely have a general outline of sales activities that they follow for each sale, including commitments that they have to secure along the way from their prospects.

The first step in building a sales process is gaining a full understanding of what your sales team is currently doing to turn leads into customers.

“Too often, sales managers build a sales process that has no relevance or familiarity with what the team is already doing,” says former Nutshell CEO Joe Malcoun. “Not only do you want your reps to recognize what you are asking of them, but you need them bought in from the beginning.”

Malcoun suggests sitting down with each member of your sales team to learn the actual steps that they’re taking to move a lead through your funnel. “Find out how they visualize the process—even in the absence of one—and build yours so that it’s familiar to your team, using their language as much as possible.”

To help with this process, take a handful of your recent leads and go through the following questions with your reps. Their answers will help you understand the specific activities that your team is currently performing during the course of a sale.

• How was the lead acquired?
• How was the lead distributed or assigned?
• How did the sales rep make first contact with the lead (i.e., email or phone)?
• How many attempts did the sales rep make to establish contact with each lead?
• Did the rep’s contact attempts follow a specific schedule or cadence?
• After making contact with a lead, what questions did the sales rep or sales development rep (SDR) ask in the initial conversation?
• How were the answers to those questions recorded?
• How did the sales rep coordinate follow-up contact?
• Which files, documents, or other content were sent to the lead?
• At what point were those resources delivered?
• How did the sales rep present your company’s solution? (i.e., on-site visit, webinar, phone call)
• What did the rep do to prepare for that presentation?
• When and how was your company’s proposal delivered?
• What were the major sticking points during negotiations?
• If the lead was lost, why was it lost?
• If the lead was won and the sale was completed, what did your first post-sale contact with the customer look like?

If you don’t have answers to all of the above questions at first, don’t worry. By building a sales process, you’ll define exactly what should happen at each point of the sale so that all of your reps follow the same game plan.

3. Set clear goals for each stage

Each sales process stage should have clearly defined goals and objectives, including specific criteria required to move a lead from one stage to the next.

“If you accept the principle that your stages should be based on key phases in the customer’s buying decision process, then the obvious way of establishing the criteria required to advance the opportunity from one stage to the next is through verifiable evidence of the customer’s willingness to take the next step ,” advises Bob Apollo.

“For example, between the ‘investigating’ and ‘defining’ stages of the customer decision process, the milestone might be that the customer acknowledges there is a compelling business reason to act. Moving from the ‘defining’ stage to the ‘selecting’ stage could mean that the decision criteria and process are agreed and the shortlisted options are identified.”

4. Tailor your sales processes to your industry

“The process should always focus on the customer, and customers can be very different across industries, whether you’re a B2C healthcare organization or a B2B infrastructure company,” says Jacco vanderKooij, founder of Winning by Design and author of Blueprints For A SaaS Sales Organization. “All sales processes contain similar building blocks, but the stages might be in a different order, the key activities could be executed differently, or you might need a few unique stages—a compliance stage in the financial industry, for example.”

“Your industry also affects how your leads are sourced,” adds Joe Malcoun. “At Nutshell we receive thousands of leads online via our website. On the other hand, some of our customers meet three people a year at conferences and that will be all the business they need to be successful.”

5. Leverage technology

In sales, there are constantly new innovations designed to make your job easier. New technologies allow you to automate tasks like sending form emails and scheduling appointments, allowing you to focus your manpower where it needs to be.

Perhaps the best tech for keeping up with your sales process is customer relationship management (CRM) software,  like Nutshell . A CRM enables you to outline your sales process and track leads as they move through it. With Nutshell, you can collaborate with your team, automate elements of your process, assign leads to reps, and much more.

With Nutshell IQ , you can fill your sales pipeline with qualified leads by discovering and adding more high-value opportunities to your CRM, all from one platform. The comprehensive lead generation suite includes:

• ProspectorIQ : Find your ideal customer from a database of 200 million people and companies
• VisitorIQ : Discover who’s visiting your website to increase your qualified lead base
• PeopleIQ : Find the contact information of decision makers in your existing company opportunity list

Learn more about Nutshell IQ and contact our team to learn more about how you can enrich your CRM data with qualified leads and opportunities.

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6. Provide training on your sales process

In any job, an expert completes better work faster than an amateur. But you can turn any amateur into an expert with the proper training. Investing in training your team in the latest sales techniques is an investment in your business as a whole.

When you equip your people with knowledge of various parts of your sales process, you enable them to become experts in those areas. For example, an employee who’s been well-trained in qualifying leads can do so more effectively by streamlining the process, learning what methods work best, and implementing them.

7. Research competition and develop competitive strategies

How can you understand your niche in the industry if you don’t know your competition? Understanding your industry’s competitive landscape can help you develop new ways to set yourself apart from your competitors, increasing your chances of drawing in new customers. 

Start your research by discovering brands offering similar products and services as you. Try to find ones that share your targeted audiences and locations for the best results. Then, analyze what makes them effective. Ask yourself:

• How do their prices compare to yours? 
• Do their products or services boast specific advantages over yours?
• What does their social media presence look like? Is it effective?
• How appealing is their website? Is it easy to navigate? Does it speak directly to visitors and offer new customer discounts?

Answering these questions will show you where your competition thrives and how you can use similar strategies (or avoid unsavory ones) in your own sales tactics . Identifying areas of differentiation and advantage allows you to better display and utilize what makes you unique.

8. Create clear and consistent documentation

What’s the key to maintaining an effective sales process? Documentation! 

A roadmap lets you display your entire process so you and other people in your department can consistently recreate the perfect strategy every time. It helps you manage everything from starting goals to presentation and publication, letting you identify places where you may need more research or add contact information for support people who can help along the way.

9. Track and measure performance

How will you know when all your hard work starts paying off? Tracking your data, traffic, and other areas of performance is the best way to measure how well your efforts are paying off.

This is another area where automated technology software can change the game. Much of the available software has data collection capabilities to monitor your metrics and provide you with real-time access any time you need it.

10. Collect customer feedback and make necessary changes

Finally, with every improvement you make comes the need for evaluation and improvement. The best way to see how well your sales strategies are working is to ask the people you’re serving — your customers.

Customer surveys and feedback invitations give your buyers space to express the parts of the buying experience that worked well for them and which parts have room for improvement. When you combine this information with your sales data, you should clearly see where you’re thriving and where you need to focus your attention. 

Common areas many brands find themselves adjusting are within their sales pitch, product or service specifications, and the buying process. These changes can improve customer satisfaction and offer a more enjoyable experience to new leads.

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SAVE YOUR SEAT

With every sale comes the possibility of an unexpected complication or challenge. Not every lead will convert, and not every potential buyer ultimately wants to invest in your products or services. Let’s talk about some of the challenges you’ll face when working through your sales process steps and some simple remedies you can employ.

1. Lack of customer awareness or interest

From a lack of effective marketing to a lack of perceived relevance from customers, there are many reasons why your services may not be making the major splash you’d hoped for. Adjusting your advertising strategy is the first way to remedy this.

Our solutions:

• Increase marketing budgets:  A lack of awareness may mean your sales strategy needs a financial boost. A bigger marketing budget means you can afford more advertising space on sites like Google, Facebook, and TikTok, and you can pay more people to research strategies and create ads that work.
• Explore new advertisement options:  If your budget is tight, but you know brand awareness is where you need to focus your efforts, consider trying new platforms to get the word out. You may be using the wrong outlets for your target audience, and a switch is all you need to start raising your ratings again. 
• Rebrand your features:  Uninterested customers only become interested when they discover how a product can improve their personal life. Make sure the features you’re advertising align with your audience’s values, and you’ll see your profits jump.

2. Competition and price wars

Competition is a natural part of running a business, but price wars can leave even the biggest contenders feeling run down by their lack of profit. Even when your competitors put up a fair fight, you have options for other sales tactics.

• Create comparison charts:  When buyers analyze multiple brands, a comparison chart is exactly what they’re looking for. Be the brand that offers it to them, and you’ll secure their attention. Use it to show why yours is the best option, and you’ll convert them before they can navigate away from you.
• Highlight standout features:  What do you have that your competition doesn’t? Customization options? A better warranty? On-site support? When you’ve done all you can to fight the price war, your best tool is emphasizing what you have that puts you a step ahead.

3. Limited resources for prospecting and lead generation

Many businesses are forced to work with limited lead generation and prospecting resources, despite how important these activities are for growing your pipeline. Your team may need to develop creative strategies to continue expanding your reach.

Our solutions: 

• Outsource lead generation:  If you’ve ever used a referral code while shopping, you’ve participated in a brand’s outsourcing. Referrals are a powerful tool for the small or overworked sales team, as it requires virtually no effort on their part. Still, new leads find encouragement in the form of discounts or exclusive offers, making them more likely to return again.
• Explore new prospect sources:  Similarly, it may be time to adjust your prospecting sources. This can be as easy as attending new networking events or reaching out to different businesses. By discovering new places to generate leads, you’re reaching more new people than ever, naturally expanding your reach. You could even use new prospecting tools within your CRM to make the prospect-to-lead process faster.
• Work with an experienced marketing agency: Generating leads takes time and expertise. If your team is struggling to find the time and resources to generate the leads your business needs, consider working with a marketing agency . Hiring an experienced agency is often the maximum results out of your marketing budget.

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4. Difficulties in sustaining rapport with customers

People’s attention spans grow shorter every day, making the challenge of keeping their attention long enough to convert them larger than ever.

• Utilize communication technologies:  There are many software options available allowing you to communicate with your customers en masse — Nutshell being one of them. Through these technologies, you can create a number of responses for various situations, then let the software send communications regularly.
• Prioritize high-value clients:  At some point, all brands have to prioritize higher-value clients over others when managing their relationships. Choose as many of your best clients as you can sustainably communicate with, and let your technology assistants take care of the rest.

5. Overcoming objections to close the sale

Even as potential buyers get close to making a purchase, they can have doubts about their decision or questions that need to be answered. One of your sales team’s many jobs is ensuring they have all the information they require to make the best decision for them.

• Be prepared for questions:  Your sales team needs to be the most knowledgeable people in your entire company about your products, services, and how they work. They should be ready to answer any question or concern a lead raises with them right away to close lead times and secure more sales.
• Provide discount codes or money-back guarantees:  When potential buyers are really on the fence about a purchase, push them over the edge with an exclusive offer. It tells them you’re willing to go the extra mile for them and gives them an additional incentive to choose you over your competitors.

6. Inconsistency in the process across different team members

The longer a lead stays in the buyer’s funnel, the more likely they’ll talk to many of your sales team members and receive varying levels of service. This can lead to confusion and ultimately make a customer think investing in your brand is not worth the hassle.

• Standardize sales methods:  Create a guide or roadmap detailing your sales process, how to navigate common situations, and frequently asked questions. Ensure your sales team can study and reference it at any time.
• Train staff regularly:  Once you have your guide, review it regularly with your team so that everyone stays on the same page. Furthermore, encourage your team to participate in regular training where they can hone their skills and continue offering the same level of consistency across the entire team.

Create a more profitable sales process for your team with Nutshell

To fully reap the benefits of your sales process, it’s crucial for your entire team to consistently follow the established sales process steps. Nutshell simplifies this by guiding you through implementing and automating your sales process within our CRM, making managing leads and optimizing your sales pipeline easier than ever.

With features like sales automation, detailed reporting, and effective pipeline management, Nutshell streamlines your sales cycle and enhances customer relationship management. If you’re ready to elevate your sales process and drive better results, sign up for a free trial today !

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How to Write a Comprehensive Sales Plan (With Examples)

Quick tips and examples to help you create your own sales plan in a jiffy

For most sales leaders, like you, sitting down to write out a sales plan probably isn’t your favorite part of the job, but that doesn’t make it any less important. What you invest in building out a realistic and actionable plan pays huge dividends later, enabling a much more effective team that can meet the ambitious goals you set.

We explain everything you need to know to write a comprehensive sales plan, including a free sales plan template to make it easier:

What is a Sales Plan?

• Sales Plan Components
• 30 60 90 Day Sales Plan
• Sales Planning Process
• How to Create a Sales Plan?

2023 Playbook: How to Create a Revenue-Generating Sales Plan [Template + Examples]

Casey O'Connor

What Is a Sales Plan?

Why do i need a sales plan, how to create a sales plan: 7 steps + what to include, types of sales plans, how to measure sales progress, what to include in a sales plan template, sales plan template, sales plan examples, tips for creating a winning sales plan.

A sales plan is a detailed, A – Z roadmap for salespeople that outlines the various stages, executable actions, methodologies, outcomes, and goals of the sales process.

The document provides the sales team with an action plan for executing their roles and responsibilities in supporting your company goals.

In this article, we’ll go over all the steps you need to take (and exactly what to include) in order to create an effective sales plan as well as examples, templates, and proven tips.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• How to Create a Sales Plan

A sales plan is very similar to a business plan , except that it focuses entirely on sales activities. It’s an all-encompassing playbook that spells out everything a salesperson might need to know about what they’re working toward within their company, including: 

• Strategies or methods to adopt
• Action steps to follow
• Team players, their specific responsibilities, and the skills required to do their jobs
• Potential pitfalls and challenges
• Individual and team-wide, short-term, and long-term goals

An effective sales plan should be very thorough, and should outline for your salespeople all the various steps — and their potential outcomes — they will need to take in order to play their part in meeting the company’s targets.

A sales plan is meant to help sales reps understand their specific roles and responsibilities, and how their actions and outcomes contribute to the bigger picture. 

Like a business plan, a sales plan is a customizable document and should reflect the specifics of your company or small business. What you include in the document — and how you go about creating it — will be unique to your scenario. 

With that being said, there are some guidelines and best practices to follow to ensure your sales plan is as effective as possible. We’ll go over all of those later in this article.

First, let’s look at some of the reasons why it’s so important to make a sales plan.

For many sales reps, the name of the game is closing deals . It can be easy to lose sight of the process in favor of converting as many leads as quickly as possible.

But solidifying and systemizing the sales process is critically important. Creating a sales plan will help you:

• Maximize the efficiency of your sales process by determining which strategies and methods are most effective with your target market
• Identify a variety of targets and goals, and encourage your sales reps to continually strive to meet them
• Track individual and collective performance data from every stage of the sales process, which will help fine-tune your sales process and determine your budgeting needs

Though it may require some time and effort on the front end, creating a sales plan will pay off in spades in the long run.

It doesn’t matter how skilled or talented your sales team is — if they’re not efficient in their sales activities, they will never reach peak performance. 

In fact, most top-performing companies report that their sales activities are carefully structured , far more so than average or underperforming companies.

Having a structured system allows your sales team to meet their sales goals more quickly and easily. The detailed roadmap of the sales plan enables your reps to waste no time deciding what to do next, wondering whether what they’re doing is working, or how close they are to meeting their goals. 

One of the most effective ways to motivate a sales rep is through expertly crafted sales goals . It’s important that your goals are lofty, and will drive your business forward, but they should also be achievable. 

Once you’ve set effective goals, you also need to be able to see what steps and actions are helping you meet them, and which need some fine-tuning. 

Although your sales plan will be unique to your company’s current operating status and future goals, there is a relatively standard process that will help most sales managers create one to suit their needs. 

These seven steps will help you know where to start — and what all to include — in your sales plan.

1. Mission Statement & Positioning

Before you start nailing down the specifics of your goals and sales actions, it’s important to have a clear understanding of the big picture. What is your company’s purpose? What do you do and why do you do it? What are your company values? All of these things come together to form a company’s mission.

Creating a mission statement is an all-hands-on-deck exercise. Your company’s mission is developed by and given contributions from many departments. Be sure to consult with your marketing, account management, and content management teams, along with any other stakeholders that are impacted by the company’s larger purpose (in other words, everyone!). 

It’s also important during this step to acknowledge your company’s current position in the market. Who are your main competitors? What is the value you offer that sets you apart ? This isn’t necessarily part of your mission statement, but it does help your sales team understand where they currently fit in the bigger market picture.

Once you’ve zoomed out and gotten a handle on the higher-level ideals and values of your company, it’s time to dive into the nitty-gritty.

Do not cut corners in this step. The more specific, the better, and you should consider setting smaller, highly targeted goals for every stage of the sales pipeline .

For example, a high-level goal may be to close 100 deals in a month. That’s a good start at a SMART goal, but challenge yourself to go several steps further . Reverse engineer those 100 deals, and look at all of the steps that happened before close that helped you arrive there.

How many cold emails did it take to close a single deal? How many phone calls are reps making before qualifying a prospect ? How is your social media engagement ? Your sales process map can help you identify and target each individual step in the process, so you can create smaller, stepping-stone goals.

Here’s a general structure:

One last tip: make sure to set goals for activities that are directly within a sales rep’s control — things like how many phone calls they make in a day, or how long their demo takes to present — and the outcomes that are driven by those activities (like revenue or number of deals closed).

3. Sales Team Organization & Structure

Here is where you’ll outline your team roster , so to speak. This section of your sales plan should start with an overview of your current sales team, as well as the specific roles and responsibilities of each team member. 

Beyond that, it should also outline the specific skills and/or training that your sales reps currently possess, and what they (ideally) still need in order to be successful. You should also consider including projections for future growth or openings on the sales team. Similarly, you may consider including your compensation plan within the sales plan. 

Some of this section will be forward-looking and dependent on your sales budget — don’t exclude something just because it’s not happening now or seems too expensive. These projections will help further shape your revenue goals and allow you to budget appropriately. 

This section should rely heavily on self-reports from your sales reps. Take the time to interview them individually about how they view their role and what they currently take responsibility for within the sales process .

There are no right or wrong answers here, so be sure to let your reps know that this isn’t a performance evaluation. The point of gathering this kind of input is to see, from a high-level perspective, which responsibilities are currently well-served, and which need more attention.

4. Target Market & Buyer Persona

As important as it is to clearly understand the internal workings of your sales process, it’s just as important to outline things from the customer’s perspective.

5. Sales Strategies & Methodologies

In this section, you’ll want to give an overview of the various sales methodologies that are most successful for your target market, as well as the actionable steps required for each one. 

This doesn’t mean that you need to adopt one approach and stick with it. Many top-tier sales teams use a hybrid approach to sales strategies, combining a variety of methods depending on the rep and the customer. 

For example, you may find that inbound leads respond best to a value-selling approach.

This section works best when it’s laid out according to each stage of the sales cycle .

The sales landscape is changing faster than ever, particularly with the rise of social selling . With that in mind, here’s another reminder to update this section with best practices as you continue to adopt and practice new strategies.

6. Sales Execution & Action Plan

If the sales organization structure section is your roster, then the execution & action plan is your playbook.

Here is the real “meat” of your sales plan. This section is where you will outline the very specific sales activities, timelines, deadlines, and milestones that you expect to take place throughout the sales process. 

Be as specific as possible here. “Make 200 cold calls” is far more executable than “Call prospects.” The SMART goals and sales strategies you outlined will drive your execution plan. Include all relevant deadlines, as well as the individuals directly responsible for meeting them. It can be beneficial to break this section down into monthly, quarterly, and yearly timelines.

Tip: Grab this free interactive worksheet that helps you identify the number of calls, conversations, new opportunities, and deals needed to hit your quota each month.

The specificity here will serve two primary purposes.

First, it will be an enormous help to your sales team. There’s no better way to learn on the job than with a step-by-step manual. It also makes the onboarding process very smooth.

It will also allow you to pinpoint which stages of your sales process are converting well, and which need help. It can show you where your sales team’s energy is currently going and where it’s most needed. If, for example, you see that most reps are spending 70% of their time prospecting and still not meeting their quotas, you may want to reconsider your marketing plan.

7. Measure KPIs

The last part of your sales plan involves measuring and analyzing your sales KPIs . What you measure and how you measure it will depend on your specific company, but it’s important to standardize them across the company so that everyone is working toward — and knows exactly how to achieve — the same sales targets.

Most companies choose to track both primary metrics — the ones that measure your overall, big-picture progress — and secondary ones that indicate levels of success throughout the various stages of selling. We’ll go over some of these in the next section.

A robust CRM  can help you manage and track the many moving pieces of the sales process.

One of the most useful things about sales plans is that you can create one for just about any scenario your sales team might encounter. 

Whether you’re entering a new market, launching a new product, or simply wanting to grow your revenue, a sales plan specific to your goals can make all the difference in your success.

Here are a few examples of the different types of sales plans your team might create.

Annual/Quarterly/Weekly Sales Plan

One straightforward way to write a sales plan is by determining goals for a specific time period. 

Most sales teams create weekly/monthly/quarterly/annual goals; a sales plan can help everyone involved achieve those goals. 

A sales plan created around a specific time period should include revenue goals, specific sales strategies and tactics, and a means for measuring progress. 

Here’s an example of a quarterly sales plan :

New Product Sales Plan

A new product sales plan details the goals, strategies, tactics, and people involved in launching a new product. It’s essentially a blueprint for how to generate sustainable revenue from the launch.

A new product sales plan should also include competitive analysis, details or ideas about any potential strategic partnerships, information about your unique selling points, and a sales enablement strategy for the launch.

Customer Segment Sales Plan

A customer segment sales plan helps sales reps understand the many different sub-groups in their target market, and how to sell most effectively to each.

Your customer segments may be determined by geographic area. They may also be segmented by other demographic information, like company size or revenue bracket. A customer segment plan outlines the specifics of each of those segments and helps you optimize your sales strategies and tactics for each one.

30-60-90 Day Sales Plan

A 30-60-90 day sales plan is a popular option for new sales hires. This kind of sales plan outlines the approach and specific strategies that a new sales rep will take in their first 90 days on the job. 

Days 30 through 60 are for putting the plan into action. Sales reps should jump into the sales process and track their progress, challenges, and successes. These will be analyzed later in order to optimize the process. 

Days 61 through 90 are all about fine-tuning the plan. Sales reps should take the data they gathered through the first two phases and use any insights gained to create a new and improved iteration of the sales plan.

Market Expansion Sales Plan

If you’re hoping to start selling to a bigger market, a market expansion sales plan might help structure the process and improve productivity and results. 

A market expansion sales plan outlines what a sales team must do in order to successfully expand into a new market or territory. Most often, this kind of plan addresses expanding into a new geographic market. 

A market expansion plan should address distribution efforts to the new territory, as well as time zone issues and other logistical considerations. 

Revenue-Based Sales Plan

A revenue-based sales plan is based on — no surprise here — revenue.

This type of sales plan focuses on sales forecasting and strategies to improve conversion rates in order to close more deals and improve the bottom line.

There are a number of ways to use your sales plan to measure your sales progress. Remember, your sales plan is a living, breathing document and should be scrutinized and updated as often as needed to reflect your current sales team, product pricing, market conditions, and sales tactics.

As your sales plan changes over time, your measurable metrics may need updating, as well. Consider tracking some of the following KPIs to keep your finger on the pulse of your team’s progress.

Revenue is one of the most straightforward metrics to track, but keep in mind that there are many ways to approach this. You can measure revenue in one or several of the following ways:

• Overall revenue
• Revenue by product
• Revenue from new customers vs. existing ones
• Revenue by territory or market

If you only track overall revenue, you lose out on valuable insights for growth. Your total revenue, for example, might look healthy, but a closer look could reveal that it’s streaming almost entirely from existing customers. Tracking revenue from new customers would highlight the fact that your company needs to focus on customer acquisition in order to continue generating new business. 

Sales Activities

You can also track the day-to-day behavior and sales activities of your sales team. Consider monitoring things like:

• Social media engagement
• Scheduled meetings
• Demos and presentations

Remember, none of this is meant to spy on your sales team or micromanage their progress. Instead, the goal is to promote growth and efficiency. 

Funnel Metrics

The sales cadence is another lens through which to analyze your team’s progress. Take a bird’s eye view of your sales pipeline and start tracking some of the following:

• Length of sales cycle
• Number of closed deals
• Number of deals that didn’t close after reaching a certain stage
• Value of the pipeline by individual and team, by month and by quarter
• Average contract value
• Conversion rate

Tracking these metrics will help you see any kinks in the overall process.

Lead Generation Metrics

When you track your lead generation progress, you can get valuable data about how effectively you’re reaching your target customers. The following data will help you set benchmarks and reach your business goals. 

• Volume of new opportunities
• Lead response time
• Percentage of follow up 
• Dropped leads
• Qualified leads
• Customer acquisition cost

If any of these metrics are lagging, you may want to work with your marketing or content teams and reconsider your marketing strategy. 

Sales Productivity Metrics

Sales productivity metrics are great for seeing where your reps’ sales efforts are going. These metrics can be a bit more tedious to measure and track, but are well worth studying in the long run.

• Entering data
• Creating content
• Number of sales tools used
• Percentage of lead follow-up

Time is money, and knowing where your time is going has a direct impact on your bottom line.

Ultimately, it’s up to sales teams (ideally in collaboration with marketing) to decide what information will be most useful to them within a sales plan. 

Here are some of the more common components that teams include in their sales plans. 

Mission Statement

A company’s mission statement gives a high-level, goal-oriented synopsis of its purpose and how it serves the market.

Although this isn’t necessarily an actionable component of the sales process, it’s good to include it in the plan so that it’s front of mind as your team works to meet the goals laid out in the sales plan.

Target Customers

Your sales plan should always outline who your offer is best-fit to serve. 

At a minimum, your sales and marketing teams should collaborate to define the ICP and buyer personas. But certain sales plans need to go beyond the basics and define their target market into subgroups. Some examples of customer segments might include:

• Upsells and cross-sells

Your target customer segments can also be defined by geography, demographics, and company size — just to name a few. 

Team Structure

Many teams also include a section that succinctly outlines the people involved in the sales process, and their specific roles and responsibilities. 

Effective sales plans outline roles and DRIs, so it’s a good idea to ensure that everyone has access to the roster, so to speak, as they execute the sales plan. This is especially important for larger sales teams.

Sales Goals and Revenue Targets

Every sales plan needs to include the goals it aims to achieve. 

Remember to follow the SMART goal framework; our goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. 

It’s especially important to make clear in your sales plan how your team plans to track your progress toward those goals. How and when will you monitor/measure performance? What are the performance benchmarks you’re hoping to achieve in a given time period? These specifics should be outlined in full in your sales plan.

Performance During the Prior Period

You can give your sales plan context by including data about your team’s past performance in your goal areas. This helps salespeople understand how much of a gap they need to fill in order to succeed.

Strategies and Tactics

Your sales plan must include details about the specific strategies, tactics, and/or methodologies your team will use to reach their goals. This section should be action-oriented and aligned with the unique buyer’s journey of the target market.

You’ll also want to include details and actionable insights about any specific sales strategies you want your team to use.

Pricing and Promotions

Most sales plans will also need to include at least basic information about your offer’s pricing structure , and whether or not you plan to offer any promotions. 

Be thoughtful about these numbers, especially promotions. Sales teams need to strike a fine balance between attracting customers with hard-to-refuse deals and making enough profit to affect the bottom line in a meaningful way.

Deadlines and DRIs

Every sales plan needs to include clear information about who is responsible for which deliverables, and when those deliverables are due.

Everyone on the team needs to be clear on the DRIs (directly responsible individuals) for each step of the plan.

A timeline can also be a very helpful visual component of a sales plan.

It’s also a good idea to include an overview of the resources and/or tools your team will need to use in order to execute the plan successfully.

Resources might include a CRM system, project management software, sales enablement tools, forecasting software, or a sales dashboard . You should also include a breakdown of the budget.

Market Conditions

You can also add some context to your sales plan by including insights about the current state of the market.

Information about general trends and potential disruptions in the industry can help motivate your sales reps to buy into your sales plan, as well as help them know how to approach their responsibilities. You’ll also want to include an in-depth competitive analysis.

Below you’ll find a basic sales plan template that you can copy and paste as a starting point. Remember, the sales plan is meant to be highly specific to your company, so it’s likely that the template here will not meet all of your needs. Instead, treat it as a jumping-off point and customize it until it captures all of the pertinent information.

[COMPANY NAME]

SALES PLAN [YEAR]

1. Mission Statement

3. Sales Team Organization

4. Target Market

• Demographics (Age, Marital Status, Location, Profession, Etc.):
• Challenges:
• Pain Points:
• Objections:

5. Sales Methodologies

6. Action Plan

[This section is highly specific to your preference. Consider formatting as a list, table, or flowchart.]

Here are a few examples of sales plans to fit a variety of scenarios. Remember, these are intended to be templates or starting points; they should be tweaked or changed to fit the unique needs and goals of your team.

Basic Sales Plan Template

Best Templates offers a comprehensive and straightforward sales template that can be adapted to fit just about any sales goal.

Simply download the template and fill in each section with relevant data and information. This template includes sections for goals, lead demand generation, implementation, and progress tracking.

Single Page Sales Plan

If you’re going for brevity, a one-sheet sales plan might be a good fit for your team.

This template gets right down to brass tacks; it includes space for budget details, deliverables, and KPIs.

Customizable and Design-Forward

For a sales plan that’s custom to your needs and looks great to boot, try Venngage . Venngage is an online sales plan creation software that helps sales teams create actionable, visually engaging sales plans.

Venngage offers users the ability to choose from dozens of layout templates that they can further customize with charts, photos, and illustrations. 

Tip: If you’re interested in the checklist above — grab the Google Docs version of it here.

Microsoft Word Sales Plan

This template allows sales teams to tackle multiple goals at the same time, making it easy to get a bird’s-eye view of how close your team is to achieving both individual targets and big-picture goals.

Tip: Grab more sales plans here –> 13 Strategic Sales Plan Templates

Here are some of our best tips for creating a sales plan that gets results.

Get Input From Marketing

Your sales plan will only be effective if your marketing team can attract the right leads. 

It’s essential that sales and marketing teams remain in close collaboration as they create, track, and manage sales plans.

Understand Your Sales Rep’s Challenges

You can enable your sales reps to be most successful by creating your sales plans around their strengths, and taking their challenges into account.

Of course, sales reps will likely always encounter challenges during a deal — that’s to be expected. But the best sales plans are the ones that leverage their team’s strengths to get the job done and have built-in workarounds to address the team’s needs and potential challenges. 

Don’t Move the Goal Posts Once It’s Complete

Although it can be tempting, it’s important to finalize your sales plan and refrain from editing it until the given time period is complete. 

Your team will be best-served if you stick to the plan, collect data on the process, and use those insights to further optimize your next sales plan.

Get Feedback

Share your sales plan in draft form with members of other teams. Customer success , marketing, and finance teams can all offer valuable insights into how the proposed sales plan fits into the bigger picture of the company’s goals. 

Set Individual Goals and Milestones for Your Team

All sales plans should include SMART goals for the sales team. But some of the most effective plans also include SMART goals for each individual sales rep that’s involved. This helps keep everyone on the team accountable.

This guide was updated on November 30, 2022.

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How to Create a Sales Plan: A Step-by-Step Guide

Are you looking to develop a solid sales plan that drives business growth and sets your team up for success? You’ve come to the right place. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk you through the essentials of how to create a sales plan, from understanding its importance to leveraging technology and tools for continuous improvement. Let’s dive in and unlock the full potential of your sales team!

Short Summary

• A sales plan is essential for business growth , setting goals, and optimizing operations.
• Creating a successful sales plan requires strategic thinking, careful planning, and ongoing refinement involving stakeholders.
• Leveraging technology & tools to track progress & make data-driven decisions encourages continuous learning & improvement among the sales team members.

Understanding the Importance of a Sales Plan

A sales plan is a document that outlines target customers, business objectives, tactics, obstacles, and processes, as well as resources and strategies to help achieve the desired goals. It plays a vital role in business growth by providing direction, establishing objectives, and delineating strategies to accomplish revenue targets.

Furthermore, a well-defined sales plan helps identify the right sales tools to be used by the sales team, ensuring that they operate at their highest potential.

However, creating a successful sales plan is no easy feat. It requires a clear understanding of your target market , a well-defined sales strategy, and the ability to adapt to changing market conditions. The good news is that with the right approach and tools, sales managers can develop a winning sales plan that drives business growth and keeps their team focused on achieving their goals.

So let’s explore the key components of an effective sales plan.

The role of a sales plan in business growth

Sales plans play an essential role in business growth by setting targets, allocating resources, and optimizing operations. Regularly reviewing a sales plan helps identify growth opportunities, prioritize customers, maintain competitiveness, and adapt to changes in market conditions. By having a clear sales plan in place, your team can focus on the most critical tasks and maximize their efforts to generate revenue.

A strategic sales plan for business development zeroes in on securing new business opportunities by engaging in activities such as networking, sponsoring events, and outreach. Organizing a sales team and focusing on business development is vital for long-term success, as it helps your organization stay competitive and plan for future growth. The right sales tools play a significant role in organizing a sales team and supporting business development.

Benefits of having a sales plan

A sales plan has numerous advantages, including enhanced efficiency, sound decision-making, and augmented revenue. A well-defined sales plan helps motivate your sales team and allows them to recognize the impact of their individual contributions on overall business success. Moreover, delineating roles and responsibilities in a sales plan facilitates efficient task delegation, enhances collaboration, reduces overlap, and increases accountability among team members.

Pricing and promotions also play a crucial role in your sales plan, as they have the power to attract customers and drive them to purchase. By considering the needs of your target customers and adjusting your pricing and promotional strategies accordingly, you can maximize the potential of your sales plan and, ultimately, boost your bottom line.

Key Components of an Effective Sales Plan

Now that we understand the importance of a sales plan let’s explore its key components. An effective sales plan typically includes setting SMART objectives, defining target markets, developing strategic sales approaches, and allocating budgets and resources. By focusing on these essential elements, you can create a comprehensive sales plan that keeps your team on track and drives business growth.

It’s important to remember that the investment required to devise a sales plan is primarily time-based, not monetary. By dedicating the necessary time and effort to develop your sales plan, you can ensure that your team has a clear roadmap for success, complete with the tools and support they need to achieve their goals.

Setting SMART sales objectives

Establishing SMART sales objectives ensures that your goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. When setting realistic and attainable sales targets, it is prudent to review past and current data to gain an understanding of your current position as well as what can be achieved in the short term and longer-term.

By setting SMART objectives, you provide your team with clear, actionable goals that drive them toward success.

Defining your target market

Defining your target market is crucial in focusing your sales efforts on the most profitable customer segments. This involves identifying factors such as industry, company size, and common challenges that your ideal customers face.

By understanding the needs and preferences of your target customers, you can tailor your sales strategies to effectively address their pain points and maximize the potential of your sales plan.

Developing strategic sales approaches

Developing strategic sales approaches involves creating tactics to reach and engage potential customers. Examples of sales strategies include outlining potential buyer pain points and how to address them, detailing the various ways to connect with the target customer and disseminate information about a new product, and implementing a lead scoring model to identify high-quality leads. By incorporating these strategies, your sales plan will be more effective and targeted.

The action plan is another indispensable component of a sales plan. It delineates the precise steps and tactics that will be employed to accomplish the established goals. Include concrete actions in your sales plan provides guidance and ensures that your team takes definite steps to attain the objectives outlined in the document. This, in turn, helps keep your sales team focused and accountable for their actions.

Allocating budgets and resources

Allocating budgets and resources is essential to guarantee financial feasibility and adequate support for your sales plan. This involves allocating resources according to the goals and objectives outlined in the plan and ensuring that your team has access to the necessary tools, software, and resources to achieve success in their roles.

By effectively allocating budgets and resources, you can create a sales plan that is both well-supported and financially viable within your overall business plan.

Steps to Create a Sales Plan

Creating a sales plan involves a series of steps, including analyzing past performance, identifying gaps, setting up team structure, coordinating sales and marketing efforts, and monitoring progress. By following these steps, you can develop a comprehensive sales plan that keeps your team focused on achieving their goals and drives business growth through an effective sales process.

It’s important to note that the sales planning process should be repeated annually to ensure that your organization’s sales excellence is maintained. By regularly reviewing and updating your sales plan, you can stay on top of industry trends, adapt to changing market conditions, and continually improve your sales strategies.

Analyzing past performance and industry trends

Analyzing past performance and industry trends is crucial in identifying areas for improvement and capitalizing on potential opportunities. This involves examining your sales data, conducting competitive analysis, and understanding buyer personas to gain insights into your current market position and areas where you can improve.

Regularly reviewing your sales plan allows you to adapt to changes in the market and maintain a competitive edge.

Identifying gaps and opportunities

Identifying gaps and opportunities in your sales plan allows you to make strategic adjustments to maximize your potential for success. By analyzing your past performance, industry trends, and customer feedback, you can pinpoint areas where your sales plan may be lacking and opportunities that can be exploited to drive growth.

Once you’ve identified these gaps and opportunities, you can adjust your sales plan accordingly to make the most of your resources and capitalize on new market trends.

Establishing sales team structure and roles

Establishing a clear sales team structure and defining individual roles is essential for ensuring efficient operations and maximizing the impact of your sales plan. By delineating roles and responsibilities, you can facilitate efficient task delegation, enhance collaboration, and ensure that each team member is accountable for their performance.

This also helps in the proper allocation of sales tools to each team member. This ensures that each team member has the resources they need to be successful in their role and that each team member has the resources they need to be successful in their role.

Aligning sales and marketing efforts

Aligning sales and marketing efforts is crucial for maximizing the overall impact of both departments on revenue generation. By coordinating your sales and marketing initiatives, you can ensure that your sales team has the necessary support and resources to effectively reach and engage your target customers.

This, in turn, helps to drive growth and increase your bottom line.

Monitoring progress and adjusting the plan

Monitoring progress and adjusting your sales plan is essential for ensuring continuous improvement and adaptability to changing market conditions. By regularly evaluating your sales performance and making necessary adjustments to your plan, you can stay on top of industry trends and continually refine your sales strategies to maximize your potential for success.

This approach also enables you to adapt to changing market conditions and maintain a competitive edge in your industry.

Sales Plan Templates and Examples

Templates and examples can serve as a foundation for generating individualized plans that are tailored to the specific needs of your business. By utilizing these templates, you can create a customized sales plan that addresses your unique business goals and objectives, ensuring that your sales team is well-equipped to drive growth and achieve success.

In this section, we’ll explore four types of sales plan templates that can provide a starting point for creating your own customized plan: the 30-60-90 day sales plan template, the territory sales plan template, the market expansion sales plan template, and the new product launch sales plan template. Each of these templates addresses specific business needs and can help you develop a comprehensive sales plan that drives growth and success.

30-60-90 day sales plan template

A 30-60-90 day sales plan template is ideal for new salespeople or businesses that are just starting to establish their sales objectives. This template breaks down your sales plan into short-term goals and action steps, allowing you to focus on immediate priorities and track your progress as you work towards achieving your long-term objectives.

By using a 30-60-90-day sales plan template, you can set realistic goals and create a clear roadmap for success in the early stages of your sales journey.

Territory sales plan template

A territory sales plan template focuses on targeting specific regions and maximizing sales within those areas. This template is particularly useful for businesses that operate in multiple locations or have a geographically diverse customer base.

By using a territory sales plan template, you can ensure that your sales team’s efforts are focused on the most profitable regions and effectively allocate resources to drive growth in those areas.

Market expansion sales plan template

A market expansion sales plan template is designed to outline strategies for entering new markets and growing your market share. This template is ideal for businesses looking to expand their reach and tap into new customer segments.

By using a market expansion sales plan template, you can develop a comprehensive plan that addresses the unique challenges and opportunities associated with entering new markets, ensuring that your business is well-positioned for success.

New product launch sales plan template

A new product launch sales plan template provides a framework for successfully introducing new products to the market. This template includes sections for market research, target audience analysis, pricing strategy, promotional activities, sales goals, and timelines, ensuring that all necessary aspects of the product launch are taken into account and executed effectively.

By using a new product launch sales plan template, you can streamline the product launch process and maximize the potential for success.

Tips for Creating a Successful Sales Plan

Creating a successful sales plan requires a combination of strategic thinking, careful planning, and ongoing refinement. In this section, we’ll share some tips that can help you develop a sales plan that drives growth and keeps your team focused on achieving its goals. By following these tips, you can foster a culture of continuous improvement and adaptability, ensuring that your sales plan remains relevant and effective in an ever-changing market.

Some strategies for creating a successful sales plan include involving stakeholders, regularly reviewing and updating the plan, fostering collaboration between departments, leveraging technology and tools, and encouraging continuous learning and improvement. By incorporating these strategies into your sales planning process, you can create a sales plan that drives growth, maximizes the potential of your team, and positions your business for long-term success.

Involving stakeholders

Involving stakeholders in the sales planning process is crucial for ensuring buy-in and support from all relevant parties. This can be achieved by soliciting feedback from experienced associates, such as accountants, senior salespeople, or knowledgeable acquaintances, and requesting input from your sales team, including sales reps.

By incorporating the insights and perspectives of various stakeholders, you can create a sales plan that is well-rounded and addresses the diverse needs of your organization.

Regularly reviewing and updating the plan.

Regularly reviewing and updating your sales plan is essential for keeping it relevant and aligned with changing market conditions and business goals. This involves assessing your current performance, identifying any gaps or opportunities, and making adjustments to the plan as needed.

By regularly reviewing your sales plan, you can stay on top of industry trends, adapt to changing market conditions, and continually refine your sales strategies.

Fostering collaboration between departments

Fostering collaboration between departments, such as sales and marketing, is crucial for maximizing the overall impact on revenue generation. By promoting open communication, establishing clear goals and objectives, and providing resources and support to assist teams in working together, you can create a collaborative working environment that drives growth and success.

This, in turn, helps break down silos and encourages the sharing of knowledge, resources, and ideas across your organization.

Leveraging technology and tools

Leveraging technology and tools, such as customer relationship management (CRM) systems, can streamline sales processes and improve efficiency. By implementing these tools and technologies, you can automate repetitive tasks, allowing your sales team to focus on more critical activities and drive growth.

Additionally, technology and tools can help you track progress and make data-driven decisions to refine your sales plan and maximize its effectiveness.

Encouraging continuous learning and improvement

Encouraging continuous learning and improvement among your sales team promotes skill development and adaptability, allowing them to stay competitive and provide superior customer service. This can be achieved by providing access to training materials, offering incentives for completing training, and fostering a culture of learning and development within your organization.

By promoting continuous learning and improvement, you can ensure that your sales team remains at the top of their game and is well-equipped to drive business growth.

In conclusion, creating a successful sales plan is crucial for driving business growth and maximizing the potential of your sales team. By understanding the importance of a sales plan, incorporating key components, following a step-by-step process, and utilizing various templates and examples, you can develop a comprehensive sales plan that keeps your team focused on achieving their goals. Remember to involve stakeholders, regularly review and update your plan, foster collaboration, leverage technology, and encourage continuous learning and improvement to ensure long-term success. Now it’s time to take action and create a winning sales plan for your business!

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you write a brief sales plan.

To create an effective sales plan, outline realistic goals, set deadlines and milestones, build traction in the industry, define a value proposition, establish a list of prospects, and track and measure progress.

This plan should include realistic goals that are achievable within a certain timeframe. Deadlines and milestones should be set to ensure that progress is made in a timely manner. Building traction in the industry is also important, as it will help to create a larger customer base. A value proposition should be made.

What is the creation of a sales plan?

A sales plan is a blueprint for achieving revenue targets, where sales leaders define long-term company goals and create an annual plan with strategies and resources necessary for achieving them. It includes information on the business’s target customers, revenue goals, team structure, and more.

What is the importance of a sales plan in business growth?

A sales plan is essential for business growth, providing direction, setting objectives, and outlining strategies to reach revenue goals. It also assists in recognizing the appropriate sales tools to be used by the sales team.

Having a well-defined sales plan is critical for any business that wants to succeed. It helps to ensure that the sales team is focused on the right goals and objectives and that they have the right tools.

What are the key components of an effective sales plan?

An effective sales plan should include setting SMART objectives, defining target markets, developing strategic sales approaches, and allocating budgets and resources.

SMART objectives are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals. Defining target markets involves researching customer needs and preferences and understanding the competitive landscape. Strategic sales approaches involve creating a plan to reach a target audience.

How can I ensure continuous improvement and adaptability in my sales plan?

Regularly review and update your sales plan, foster inter-departmental collaboration, leverage technology and tools, and prioritize continuous learning to ensure continuous improvement and adaptability in your sales plan.

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