Improve Your Sales Plan - 3 Steps to Success

Many businesses continue to concentrate their efforts on emerging from the fallout of the pandemic amidst major distractions like social distancing, converting to a remote workforce, data security and privacy concerns, and unknown demand. But for some progressive companies, the ability to shift and adapt has helped them improve operational efficiency and develop a solid sales strategy.

As you mark items off your Q4 “list of to-do’s,” remember to (re)consider your strategy and improve your sales plan for the year. To help provide a foundation for the strategy creation and implementation process, this post will highlight three steps for an effective sales plan for your business.

The goal of this process is to provide the opportunity to learn more about:

Your market and how it’s changed over the last several months
Your brand, culture, and presence in the marketplace
The opportunities available as you grow in the industry

1. Learn More About Your Customers

The first step to a successful sales strategy in 2022 is to learn more about your customers:

Who are they, and what are their objectives in the coming months?
What has changed, and how are they affected by the pandemic?
Have their buying patterns and channels the same, or have they changed?
Do they hang out online or on social media more?

It’s ideal to prioritize and segment your existing customers to extract full value from your sales campaigns. Try first to segment your existing customers by market sector and determine whether they align with your brand direction. Then determine what value customers give to the service you’re providing.

Finally, before you implement a sales plan, try to determine the growth in real and potential terms for each market sector. This will help in choosing which customers to prioritize moving forward.

2. Analyze the Competition

Analyzing your competitors is a critical step in building a versatile sales plan. Without a clear direction in your sales strategy, the only way customers can differentiate between brands is the price. Try to learn more about your competition, understand their strengths and weaknesses, and how these elements can be capitalized upon in your sales campaigns.

What are they doing well, and where do their shortcomings fall?
How has their brand messaging shifted during the pandemic?
What attempts have they made to change the way they distribute or deliver their products or service over the last six months?

Before you draft a sales plan, you should also have a clear understanding of your company’s value proposition. You can always ask your current customers to get a clear sense of what distinguishes your brand from others.

3. Build a System to Inventory and Analyze Results

Once you have a strategy in place for your successful sales campaigns, building a system for sales analysis is the next key step. If you’re new to tracking and reporting, set up Google Analytics to start measuring your goals and conversion completions.

If you’re ready to take your analysis a step further, consider an application that can be integrated with your current tech stack or, if budget allows, can streamline the entire sales process:

Integrate your marketing programs and the results from these programs in this process. Ensure you have a full system for measuring your website’s performance ready.

There are numerous advantages to implementing this level of analysis now, as it ensures you’re ready to react to any actionable data your team receives as your campaigns moving forward. It’s a process that keeps your team agile and ready to improve upon results.

If you’re ready to take your sales process and delivery to the next level, we’re here to help.

To learn more, contact our team today!