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How do you plan to sell your products?
To sell your products, you need to
think of specific steps how you can move your products. This
is the process of creating your sales plan, which can go hand in hand with
your marketing plan.
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A sales plan is basically your strategic and tactical plan for achieving
your marketing objectives. It is a step-by-step and detailed process that
will show how you will acquire new business; and how you will gain more
business from your existing customer base. It involves making and/or
exceeding our sales quota within our sales territory. The key feature of
sales plans is its use of unit projections and associated dollar values.
Sales plans are about targets and numbers!
Here are the steps to help you develop a sales plan for your business:
1. Segment your target audience.
The first step is to clearly identify
your target markets. Who are more likely to buy your product? The more
defined your target market, the better. Your target market can be defined as
high-income men ages 30-60 who loves to buy the latest electronic gadgets;
or mothers with babies 0-12 months old living in urban areas. If you are
targeting several markets, the next step is to prioritize your target market
to ensure that your resources are directed towards your key target market.
Prospects are more likely to purchase if you can talk to them about solving
their problems.
2. Look at your industry.
Check the current trends in
your industry, and how your business fares with these trends. Look at the
range of similar products now available, and compare how your products or
services stack up to competitor products. Take a bigger picture of your
industry and find out your prospects.
Also check who your competitors are and what are their consumer buying
patterns. See how your competitors are doing from
various angels -- if you have data on market share, search engine rankings,
mention in the press, mention in the blogs, and other areas.
3. Develop your sales strategies.
Your sales strategies will include
determining how you can reach your sales quota, how you can get more sales
from existing customers, and how you can raise awareness in the marketplace
and in your community about your business.
Your sales strategies also involve making a decision on who is actually
going to do the selling. Will you do it yourself? If so, do you think you
have the skills to do it? If not (but you have no choice but to do it
yourself), you may want to take courses on how to improve your confidence
and presentation skills. Or you can get a mentor or business coach to advice
you on what to do and how you can improve your sales techniques.
Another strategy would be to have a sales force. A sales force can be
internal, meaning you will hire sales representatives for your business.
Another way is to use independent sales representatives. The first question
of course is whether you can afford to hire a sales force (another way
around is to ask yourself if you can really afford NOT to hire a sales
force). If you will hire, how many do you need and can afford to hire? How
will you recruit them, and train them?
4. Think through your sales plan.
This is the meat of your sales plan.
You need to write down your sales strategies based on the analysis you’ve
done of your business and what you can do. Will you attend trade shows or do
cold calling? Will you use search engine advertising or other forms of
online advertising? How are you going to reach exactly your target audience?
It is important that you break down your sales strategies into
quantifiable activities. For example:
Objective: To increase sales of my website by 10% at the end of the
month. This will be achieved by increasing targeted traffic to my website
- Sending out 2-6 press releases about new products and new deals
- Getting at least 10% click through rate to pay per click advertising
- Sending out 4 newsletters announcing special customer deals and repeat buyer
deals to existing customers.
In crafting your sales forecast, make it as conservative as possible or
as realistic as possible. Many small business owners make the mistake of
setting unrealistic sales expectations.
5. Measure and improve.
A sales plan is not something that you create –
and then hide inside your drawer. Put it up somewhere that you can be
reminded every day of what you need to do, maybe your bulletin board or
beside your daily planner.
Check if you are actually following the activities and tasks outlined in
your sales plan. All the planning in the world is worthless if you cannot or
do not implement any of it. Keep track of how you are performing vis-à-vis
your sales target. If you are falling short of your targets, assess the
situation and think of how you can improve your performance.
About The Author:
George Rodriguez is a writer for PowerHomeBiz.com. For more information
on starting a small business, purchase the ebook
Checklist for Starting a
Small Business
June 2006
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