Collaborative sales planning is a proven way to get teams aligned on goals and exceeding quota. Front-line managers who get their teams to write down how they are doing against their attainment numbers are more likely to exceed their goals. Front-line managers who get their teams to visualize how they are doing and write down stretch goals are more likely to crush their numbers.
The collaborative sales plan is a great way to quickly bring to life real-time coaching and feedback that is structured and revenue generating. By investing time to go through the sales plan together as a team managers and sellers have an opportunity to share how they are doing, what is working and what is not working. Transparency is key here. The sales plan is a way for teams to align and get help. Make the sales plan a positive coaching and best practice sharing. Keep all the feedback constructive and positive.
It is proven that managers and teams that conduct regular coaching and peer feedback will realize better performance and results. The teams that help each are more likely to succeed. Win as a team is an important mantra and it applies to sales planning too.
Here are some questions and a proven template that should be included in a sales plan. The power here is getting teams to pause their day-to-day grind and do a quick personal assessment. It is always better to course correct sooner than later.
Sales Planning Questions
The following questions are intended to serve as a guide and should be customized to each business and industry. We are recommending a balanced territory with some install base business, strategic account business, and small-medium business deals. We should also be targeting three to five times pipeline to quota.
The answers to these questions should be easily accessible through your standard sales force automation system.
- What’s my annual quota?
- What’s my closed business year to date (YTD)?
- What’s my gap to close to hit my number?
- What is my total open pipeline?
- What is my pipeline that is in contract?
- What is my pipeline gap I have to fill?
- What are my top strategic deals and how much is each deal?
- What are my install base deals and how much is each deal?
- What are my SMB deals I’m trying to close and how much are they?
Best Practice Sharing
The proven way to accelerate results is to get teams to share their sales plans with each other. There are a number of ways to do this. The template can be updated and shared centrally in a SalesHood Huddle. Some front-line managers go a step further and have teams record their sales plans and score each other on strategy and completeness. Why not add a bit of competitiveness into the sales planning process? At a minimum, we recommend that front-line managers have each seller review their plan on a regular weekly team meeting.
Steps To Success
Step 1: Customize the template to your business
Step 2: Share the plan with your team
Step 3: Communicate the value, expectations, and the timeline
Step 4: Have everyone upload their sales plan to a central place like SalesHood
Step 5: Have teams review and score each other
Step 6: Use the Sales Plan to deliver ongoing coaching
Step 7: Highlight the best plans and use for future training and onboarding
Step 8: Check back on the plan in coaching 1:1s
Please reach out to the SalesHood team if you want help to bring this sales coaching best practice to life in your business with your front-line managers and sellers. Sign up for a demonstration.
