Sales Plan and Sales Territory Plan

A sales or sales territory plan is more than having your sales force know their product pricing, features, and capabilities. In order to be successful in today's highly competitive sales world, a sales manager and individual sales person must have a plan. Our templates will help you define your own individual, territory, or regional plan, and help you define your sales team’s approach.

Your basic plan should start with a dollar amount and work backwards. If, for example, you want to gross $500,000 in sales this year, on average, how many sales would that be? What is your average sale? On average, how many prospects do you have to see or speak with to close one sale? So, how many prospects would you need to see or speak with to close the number of sales you would need to reach your goal of $500,000? What steps do you need to take to see or speak with that many prospects?

A sales forecast is an essential tool for managing a business of any size. It is a month-by-month forecast of the level of sales you expect to achieve. Most businesses draw up a sales forecast once a year. Armed with this information you can rapidly identify problems and opportunities - and do something about them.

While it's always wise to expect the unexpected, a well-constructed sales or sales territory plan, combined with accurate sales forecasting, can allow you to spend more time developing your business rather than responding to day-to-day developments in sales and marketing.

The following templates take you well on your way to developing your sales and sales territory plans and sales forecasts.

Now that you have developed the sales plan, you want to be sure you also develop the right product presentation that will make the plan successful. The following template provides a step-by-step description of the details one must include when developing a product presentation to be used in the selling process. The idea is to have a presentation that presents the right information in sufficient detail to eventually close the sale.

Tools/Templates To Develop a Product Presentation	Sample Product Presentation
Product Presentation Builder	Product Presentation - Example1
Customer Case Study Builder	Product Presentation - Example2

Key Accounts Management

Key accounts are an organization's most critical asset and require strong organizational leadership and management to ensure value is obtained from these invaluable relationships. The practice of key account management is now of practical and tactical interest to companies seeking to survive in current economic conditions, achieve competitive advantage and create future growth. Preserving those customer relationships is of strategic importance to a firm's future financial wellbeing.

Key Account Management provides the processes and tools to equip you to engage with your larger customers and your own support organization on a more strategic level in order to build towards a more mutually-profitable and sustainable relationship. The templates below will help you to deliver "win-win" business solutions against these high-potential accounts and produce actionable tools to implement a Key Account Management (KAM) plan in your organization.

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Tools/Templates To Build A Key Account Plan

Key Account Management Planning Basics

Key Account Management Plan Builder

Marketing Plan & Competitive Analysis

Why prepare marketing plan?

A marketing plan helps you establish, direct and coordinate your marketing efforts. Preparing a marketing plan forces you to assess what's going on in your marketplace and how it affects your business. It also provides a benchmark for later measurement. Often, simply embarking on the process of preparing a marketing plan guides you in developing a successful marketing strategy.

Who reads it?

Just as a road map guides you on a journey, a marketing plan guides you and your staff to reach your goals; it keeps you from getting off- course.

Representatives from organizations that plan to lend you money or invest in your business require a business or sales plan–and your marketing plan is a critical component of that business or sales plan.

What is it?

A marketing plan contains information about your company and its products, marketing objectives and strategies, as well as how you will measure the success of your marketing activities. It describes all the marketing activities you'll perform during a specified time period (usually one year). You'll also include any background information and research results you used to select those marketing activities. Finally, you'll document the costs associated with your planned marketing activities as well as the measurements you'll use to determine success.

Most often, a marketing plan is a component of a business or sales plan. A business plan basically states how you plan to run your company–what your goals are, how much money it will take to achieve your goals and what activities you'll perform to achieve your goals. Marketing, obviously, is one of those activities. Marketing plans sometimes stand alone but should always support and be closely linked to a company's business and sales objectives.

You need to have a thorough understanding of the following points to develop a marketing plan:

your products or services and their features and benefits
the problem, need or desire your product or service solves or meets for your customer
your target market and its characteristics and buying habits
current and potential competing products or services

When should I prepare one?

Ideally, you will develop your first marketing plan as a component of your overall business or sales plan before you launch your business. If you're already in business without a written plan, however, develop one now with your goals for the next 12 months in mind.

Update your plan on a regular basis. Last year's strategy may not work given this year's market conditions. Prepare reminders to review and update your marketing plan about every quarter, but at least annually.

Cost Advantage and Differentiation Advantage

Competitive advantage is created by using resources and capabilities to achieve either a lower cost structure or a differentiated product. A firm positions itself in its industry through its choice of low cost or differentiation. This decision is a central component of the firm's competitive strategy.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis looks at your strengths and weaknesses, and the opportunities and threats your business faces. By focusing on the key factors affecting your business, now and in the future, a SWOT analysis provides a clear basis for examining your business performance and prospects.

The templates below provide all you need to build creative and comprehensive marketing plans and competitive and SWOT analyses.

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Marketing Tools and Templates

Marketing Plan Builder

Marketing Budget Builder

Marketing Plan Presentation

Competitive Analysis Report Builder

SWOT Analysis Report Builder

Other marketing tools and templates are available for viewing in the subscription members area:

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Marketing Templates File Description

Marketing Campaign Workbook Step-by-step action plan on the specific tactics of executing a marketing, branding, public relations campaign

Product Marketing Campaign Presentation Presentation template with the step-by-step details on executing the marketing launch campaign for a product

Category Management Process Details the steps and activities involved in developing and executing a category management process for a product or service

Developing Collateral Materials A guide to how to develop effective marketing collateral materials. In addition, visit our collateral development tools page for additional helpful aids.

Developing A Marketing Communications Plan Need to get the word out about your product or company? This guide will help you develop an effective marketing communications plan

Marketing Planning Kick-Off Ready to determine and set your marketing plan, strategies, and priorities? This presentation will get the team focused on to get the job done

Branding And Customer Segmentation A tool to help you effectively handle branding and customer segmentation methods and issues

Strategic Marketing Plan Blue print with step-by-step sections and line items description. Just fill in the blanks to develop a creative and effective strategic marketing plan

Marketing Crash Course Can't seem to get off the ground with your marketing efforts? This crash course will give you the ideas to revup your engine!

Marketing Plan (Ver 2) Another marketing plan template ,in addition to the one referenced above, to give you more choice and flexibility

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Competitive Analysis Templates	Description
Competitive and Value Chain Analysis Workbook	A powerful Excel spreadsheet workbook with tabs providing models to undertake both competitive and value chain analysis
How To Gather Competitive Analysis Information	Provides the steps and potential sources to use to gather the information necessary for a good competitive analysis exercise
Starbucks Competitive Analysis Example	A sample competitive analysis study using Starbucks as the company being studied

Advertising & Promotion Planning

The templates below can be used to assist you in advertising promotion and planning analysis and execution:

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Advertising Analysis Templates	Description
Advertising Costs Planning Spreadsheet	This spreadsheet allows you to calculate CPM Estimates, CPRP Estimates, and Milline Rate Comparisons
Advertising, Promotion, and Sales Staff Budget	Budget for advertising/promotion and sales staffing over a three year time period.
Ad Spending by Month	A monthly advertising spending plan broken down into categories such as newspaper, magazine, TV, radio, and other. Budget includes number of ads and cost.
Agency Selection	This matrix can be used to measure your compatibility with a prospective agency.
Direct Mail Analysis	Use this spreadsheet to run the numbers on a direct-mail campaign. The form includes a breakdown of gross margin of the product being sold, the cost of the direct mail piece, and an analysis of the profit and break-even point.
Marketing Budget	The Marketing Budget spreadsheet consists of separate budgets for Advertising, Catalogs, Direct Mail, Literature, Product Launches, Public Relations, Resellers and Trade Shows. Each of these budgets can be used separately or in conjunction with the Advertising & Promotions Summary which tracks total annual marketing expenditures.