Planning

Consistently meeting or exceeding revenue goals while overcoming market and competitive pressures requires clear direction and an effective sales force. Sales success is achieved through a well-defined sales plan, specific sales objectives, ongoing measurement, appropriate motivation, and active management. Deliberate forethought and good leadership will assure that salespeople will focus on the right opportunities. Suitable metrics and frequent feedback will identify trends and trouble spots sooner, increase sales per salesperson, and avoid wasted resources.

Sales Management Services has assisted our clients in establishing new sales forces and in re-thinking and improving existing sales operations. Each engagement is customized, but based on a core set of principals:

Understanding our client and their individual needs.
Never avoiding the tough questions, but instead discussing and strategizing with our client on challenging or sensitive issues.
Using metrics and objectives to assess sales performance.
Keeping things simple for salespeople and managers, because streamlined approaches are more likely to be adopted.
Running an effective sales force requires participative, active management.

Some examples of the types of planning services we provide are:

Determine priorities	Identify the top objectives for your sales organization, and a path to achieving the objectives.
Conduct sales audit	Evaluate the productivity, roles, and skills of your sales force. Assess overall challenges facing the sales force and make / implement recommendations for action.
Establish sales standards	Define / clarify sales roles. Set productivity standards for salespeople. Set criteria for prospecting, qualifying, closing, etc.
Develop or improve a sales reporting system	Create specific milestones in the sales process, and formulate a system to summarize sales pipeline and salesperson activity. Examples: daily call report, productivity report, sales forecast, key opportunities report.
Create or adjust sales compensation plans	Devise plans aligned with company goals and quota requirements, with sufficient motivation for the salesperson and competitive with industry norms.
Write a comprehensive sales plan	Pull all objectives, quotas, productivity standards, etc. together into one comprehensive plan.