Have you created a sales plan for 2024 yet? Here is why you need to

With a new year come new targets, new goals, and incoming new trends and tech that will potentially change the way you work. Planning ahead is a business-critical activity so you can determine what direction you are taking, and how you intend to win more sales throughout 2024. In this article we are going to look at the importance of having a sales plan for 2024, what it should include, how it should be structured, and the tools you need to get it done.

What exactly is a sales plan, and why does it matter?

A sales plan is an essential roadmap laying out your generalised and specific plan for sales, targets, goals – and what you need to do to reach them.

Having a sales plan is definitely important, let us look at some numbers a moment:

• Datadwell found that 1 in 5 businesses do not have enough resources to help with their sales processes, and that 45% lose leads due to lack of traction with the right resources.
  
  
• LinkedIn found that 85% of sellers admit they lost or pushed back a deal due to clients changing roles and their company did not having the automated processes to solve the problem. They also found that 77% of sales professionals say their sales org plans to invest more in sales intelligence tools.

There is clearly an issue with resources not being available, structure not being developed, and a push for businesses to utilise sales tools to fix the problem. Having a sales plan is part of the solution process, and a proactive approach to managing sales, whilst still remaining flexible and able to adjust the business trajectory as required.

What data does a sales plan need to include?

Creating a sales plan requires a strategic approach and the right tools and infrastructure to support it throughout the year.

In order to develop an effective sales plan in 2024, you need to clearly define:

• Target customer/s
• Niche and target market
• Unique Selling Point/s (USP/s)
• Value proposition
• Goals and milestones
• Customer journey and expected touchpoints
• Organisation and responsibilities of sales team, including sales territory mapping
• Outline of the sales tools to be used
• Processes and practices as standard

This information will help you determine what your focus is and where you intend on taking the business throughout the year. Once you have this data compiled, you then need to create the business facing part of the plan, which should include:

• Revenue targets
• Pricing and planned promotions
• Deadlines and Directly Responsible Individuals (DRIs)
• Team structure
• Budget
• Resources
• Overview of market conditions (and previous year data for comparison)
• Approved strategies and tactics
• Targeted metrics and analytics to monitor throughout the year (and how this data will be gathered).

How should you structure a yearly sales plan?

Your sales plan is an ‘active’ document – that means it is subject to change throughout the year (depending on the activities of your business, the state of the market, etc), so it needs to be carefully structured in order to remain relevant and easily adaptable.

The depth you go into will depend on your company size, industry niche, and other individual factors, but generally the structure should follow:

• Executive summary and overview – This should include your mission statement and positioning.
  
  
• Business goals and revenue targets - This should be split out into relevant sections such as quarterly targets and have built in check points for review.
  
  
• Short analysis of previous year / period performance – Metrics and sales data should be included to determine levels of performance and whether any peaks or lulls were the result of external or internal actions.
  
  
• Overview of the current state of the market / industry and expected trends – Competitor analysis is also useful at this stage, learning what they are doing well and what they have failed at allows you to integrate this information to further focus the data.
  
  
• Strategies and tactics to be utilised – This should cover what you intend to do as the initial plan, what you are open to doing if that does not work as expected, and how often you will review the strategy to ensure it is on target.
  
  
• Customer data and targeting – Include your buyer personas, customer data reviews, and reporting from CRMs and other digital applications. This lets you build a clear picture of your existing audience, as well as identify potential expansion points into other demographics.
  
  
• Technological and physical resources – What tools and applications are you planning on using? Is the licensing up-to-date and suitable? By determining what tools you have, you can ensure your plan works within the structure you plan to use.
  
  
• Team capabilities and structuring – This is where you look at who is best suited to handle particular phases or areas of the plan, and work on individual task provision. Having tools that allow you to assign and monitor tasks can make this much easier, and allow structuring to be tailored to best suit the skill sets of your team/s.

What tools and technology can help create and manage a sales plan for 2024?

There are a lot of parts you need to consider when creating your sales plan, and to be most effective – you need to have access to data and the resources to make the information usable.
Some of the tools and technologies that are best suited to creating and managing sales plans include:

• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software
• Performance tracking applications
• Team management and task assignment tools
• Data monitoring and alerting tools
• Interactive dashboard software that supports team engagement
• Task and project management software

Kickstart your 2024 with TEB Apps

Kickstart your sales plan for 2024 with the adoption of the fastest-growing CRM and automation software on the market, TEB Apps. With TEB Apps, you will be able to streamline your business processes, make data management easy and grow reach your full potential. TEB Apps is proven to boost revenue, maximise conversions and accelerate growth with a wide range of businesses already leveraging the software. You can benefit from TEB Apps with:

Centralised data – Easily manage all of your data in a centralised location for your team to access and gain insights into customers.

Assign and complete tasks on the move – With TEB Apps mobile application you are able to assign and complete tasks when on the move to reach maximum productivity.

Specification pricing – Simplify your proposals and billing processes with your own pricing criteria to increase your efficiency.

Workforce tracking and managing – Track your own and your team's performance with real-time workforce tracking and managing.

Request a call today and discover what TEB can do when it comes to growing your business and taking your data to the next level.