YourSalesManagementGuru by Ken Thoreson, Acumen Management Group
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Your Second-Quarter Plan
It's the middle of March -- are you ready for the second quarter?
For many of my clients, we have each member of the sales team prepare a six-month business plan and a shorter quarterly action plan. As I was preparing a client audit today, I realized it was time for this client's sales team to evaluate their performance.
The six-month sales business plan is much more than a simple sales forecast. It's a tool designed to help the salesperson set goals and objectives in a variety of areas. The quarterly action plan is a more tactical plan to execute on key actions to achieve the goals from the business plan.
There are several aspects to this systematic approach to coaching a team:
- First, the team must prepare and believe in the plan/document they are using. This normally does not always happen until the first formal review period when they see results (or lack of results) versus their plan.
- Second, the sales manager must have a monthly discussion with each salesperson about their actual performance versus the plan.
- Third, the plan must include the necessary actions to improve overall performance.
- Fourth, the two plans must be designed to work together and not conflict.
In building either plan, consider these key elements:
- What training and development programs are important to reinforce?
- What prospecting and activity goals are important to manage?
- What revenue/margin goals need a focus?
- What account or territory-intelligence and relationship-building is important?
What are you using to build a more systematic approach to hitting your objectives? What did I miss?
Posted by Ken Thoreson on March 10, 2014 at 1:19 PM