How to prepare the sales plan according to the marketing plan.

We will discuss how to develop your sales plan according to the marketing plan.

The most important thing will be to determine where the company is going in its market, detect its target customers, and its competitors, and with all the information develop a strategy to which managers and employees are committed.

The key questions to ask ourselves are: Where are we? Where do we want to get to? and How do we get there?

1. Vision: this is how companies name their medium/long-term objectives.
2. Mission: how we are going to achieve the vision.
3. Values: the company's internal philosophy.

The vision and mission must be completely aligned with the company's values.

The sales plan must be aligned with the strategy to be proposed, specifically focused on its vision and, of course, it must be in step with the company's philosophy (values). This last point is very important to take into account because if the company has an ambitious vision, but is contradictory to its philosophy and business values, these will be a constant brake at the time of facing and implementing the objectives set to achieve the vision and your sales plan.

Start generating your sales plan from our template: "Marketing Plan".

In the preparation of the sales plan, we must take into account the setting and imposition of objectives.

These, whether qualitative or quantitative, always present small difficulties in the process of their elaboration, and can be very diverse: gaining turnover, the introduction of new lines, growth in specific ranges, new zone openings, etc.

An example: Let's imagine a multinational company, with the general management of parental status, which has customer-oriented values and not results-oriented, which is not invasive or aggressive when placing its product on the market. Furthermore, it does not allow or want "salesmen hunters" and its motto towards the sales network is: "sell what the customer needs and do not create unnecessary demands".

Let's suppose that your annual turnover is 1 million euros and your vision is to invoice 5 million euros in 3 years, here is the key to the example; this vision is not aligned with the values of the company and will hinder the process of the mission to reach the 5 million euros turnover.

As I said at the beginning, the objectives of the vision and the sales plan must be aligned with the general strategy, and the latter must be in line with the values of the company so that in the development of the "mission" phase, there are no ethical or moral contradictions or contradictions with internal procedures, which hinder the path towards the "vision" and consequently do not achieve the desired or expected success.

Not all companies are the same; their values, their ambitions, their goals, their culture... The person responsible for the elaboration, distribution, and imposition of the objectives must take this into account before preparing and elaborating on the first draft.

A good sales and marketing plan details the actions necessary to achieve a specific objective in the market.  

Whether it is a service, a brand, or a product range. The elaboration and compilation of the sales plan allows to calculate of the necessary resources, time and money to be invested.

Some formulas to carry out a good marketing and sales plan and achieve success in the company, have to do with execution: do things instead of just thinking about how to do them and put emphasis on selecting the employees that will make the difference concerning the competition, collaborating with the development of the path to the success of the company.

Boreal People & Partners bases success on ten essential recommendations for any company to prove the benefits of having a professional sales and marketing plan:

1. The heart of any strategy is the brand and its relationship with the target customer, therefore a company with a weak brand risks failure.
2. The strategy must be detailed, optimistic, realistic, and always focused on the direction of the final goal.
3. Marketing planning is 1% and execution is 99%.
4. The implementation of the marketing plan involves aligning all members of the company to meet objectives and achieve positive results.
5. The definition of the mission includes: market niche, strategy, geographic area, employee skills, and qualitative and quantitative objectives.
6. Development of the marketing mix.
7. The company must perform a self-analysis to highlight its strengths and weaknesses, corporate culture, work environment, ability to adapt to change, and leadership (SWOT analysis).
8. Define differentiation strategies that make products or services unique.
9. Analysis of the competition to detect intrinsic advantages.
10. A market-oriented approach is always required.

A good sales and marketing plan is a winning card, but you must know how to manage it, aligning to the millimeter both departments with their procedures and internal methods of action.