Let’s say you’re running a software company that aims to set an ambitious yet achievable target, such as increasing sales revenue by 25% over the next year.

You begin by identifying the key market segments and customer profiles to target and focus on those that are most likely to yield the best results.

But there’s much more to it.

In this article, you’ll learn how to create a B2B sales plan for success and how to approach the undertaking in an unconventional but effective way.

What is Sales Planning?

Sales planning is a strategic process that involves setting sales objectives and developing a comprehensive plan to achieve them.

This entails forecasting potential sales, allocating resources, and creating an action plan to engage with customers and prospects. Sales planning is crucial for businesses, as it helps them anticipate and respond to market trends, ensuring they remain competitive and profitable.

Sales plan and sales planning are two essential components of a successful sales strategy. They may sound similar in terminology, but they have distinct key differences that contribute to their effectiveness in driving sales growth for any organization. They’re individually significant, but they also complement each other when fostering a prospering sales ecosystem.

A sales plan is:

• A strategic roadmap outlining the goals, objectives, and targets that a company aims to achieve within a specified time period, usually annually or quarterly.
• A document that presents the overall sales and marketing approach by identifying key performance indicators (KPIs), defining target customers, establishing market positioning, and setting clear revenue and growth objectives.
• A guideline for sales operations, setting the stage for the methods and tactics to be utilized in achieving the predetermined targets.
• A communication tool that aligns the efforts of the entire organization, ensuring that all departments work towards a common objective.

Sales planning, on the other hand, is an ongoing process aimed at continuously creating, refining, and executing the sales plan.

It involves conducting regular analysis, identifying growth opportunities, and reacting to market trends and conditions in real-time. Sales planning goes beyond just devising a document; it involves a series of cyclical and dynamic activities that are crucial for the successful implementation of the sales plan.

The main purpose of sales planning is to ensure that the sales cycle remains relevant, effective, and adaptable as the market evolves.

That means objectives and strategies as well as managing the sales pipeline, forecasting future sales, allocating resources, and consistently monitoring sales performance. Sales planning also involves regular reporting, analysis, and learning from sales data and customer feedback.

The Sales Planning Process

Let’s take a look at the sales planning process in action.

Step 1: Set Sales Objectives

Begin by setting objectives about revenue, market share, or other performance metrics. These sales objectives need to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).

This means that they should be clearly defined and specific, quantifiable and measurable, realistic and achievable, aligned with the overall business goals and strategies, and have a specific timeline for achieving them.

Step 2: Analyze Your Market

Next up, you’ll need to conduct thorough research to understand your target customers, analyze market trends, assess competition, and consider the economic and regulatory factors.

By researching your target customers, you can gain valuable insights into their needs, preferences, and behaviors, which can inform your sales and marketing strategies.

Analyzing market trends allows you to identify emerging opportunities and threats in the market, helping you stay ahead of the curve.

Assessing competition helps you understand their strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to position yourself effectively in the market. And considering economic and regulatory factors helps you understand the broader market environment in which you operate.

A pro-tip for analyzing your market is to use automation tools, such as market research software, to streamline the process and gather insights quickly and efficiently.

Step 3: Identify Sales Strategies

Sales strategies define how to reach target customers and convince them to buy your products or services, such as through direct sales, channel sales, or online sales.

In our earlier example of a software company, a channel sales strategy could be partnering with resellers or value-added resellers (VARs) to sell their products to end customers.

Alternatively, the software company may choose to use an online sales strategy by selling their products directly to customers through their website. This allows them to reach customers globally and offer a convenient, self-service buying experience.

Step 4: Determine Sales Tactics

While sales strategies define the “what,” sales tactics delineate the “how.” You’ll need to identify specific actions to take to achieve sales objectives, such as launching targeted advertising campaigns, attending trade shows, or offering promotions.

For example, a business may decide to implement a targeted advertising campaign on social media to reach a specific segment of their target market. This allows them to deliver targeted messaging to potential customers and increase brand awareness.

Offering promotions, such as discounts or free trials, can also be an effective sales tactic to encourage customers to make a purchase.

The key is to determine the most effective sales tactics that “fit” your business and target customers expectations.

Step 5: Allocate Resources

Without resources like staffing, training, technology, and marketing materials, you won't be able to implement the sales plan.

For example, a business may need to hire additional sales staff to achieve their sales objectives, or invest in training to improve the skills of their existing sales team. They may also need to invest in technology, such as customer relationship management (CRM) software or sales automation tools, to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their sales process.

It is important to consider the required budget when allocating resources to ensure that the business can afford to implement the sales plan effectively.

Step 6: Develop a Sales Forecast

Once you have these key areas of planning defined, it’s time to create a realistic forecast that considers market conditions and customer behavior to create an accurate projection of sales performance.

For example, a business may analyze market trends and customer data to estimate how much of their product or service they can sell over the next quarter or year. They may also consider factors such as changes in the economy, competitors' activities, and market demand.

Step 7: Monitor and Evaluate

Once the plan is defined and executed, you’ll need to monitor and evaluate sales performance to track how successful your overall plan has been.

This involves:

• Tracking progress against sales objectives
• Analyzing sales data
• Making adjustments to the sales plan as necessary

For example, a business may track sales data on a regular basis to identify patterns and trends, such as changes in customer behavior or shifts in market demand. Based on this analysis, they may adjust their sales strategies, tactics, or resource allocation to better align with market conditions and achieve their sales objectives.

A Different Approach to Sales Planning in B2B

The seven-step sales planning roadmap we just discussed outlines what most companies go through. So why do 67% of sales plans fail? According to this same source, it’s because the “traditional” way of thinking about sales planning is “totally backward.”

So, instead of strategic planning, what you want to focus on is strategic thinking. If you align your team to one endpoint it’s more likely to work — and that’s because you can think from the outcome and work your way backwards.

In this “alternative” or non-traditional approach to sales planning for B2B success, we recommend one endpoint — sales targets. In this approach to sales planning, you’ll focus primarily on the aspects of the B2B sales strategy that deal with organizing prospects and coordinating the sales team.

Account segmentation and scoring

To reach sales targets, you’ll need to identify who you’re targeting — and this tells you how to prioritize your sales efforts. There are two methods to conducting this:

• Account segmentation: grouping customers based on shared characteristics, such as their size, industry, or buying habits. This allows you to tailor your sales approach to the specific needs of each customer group, resulting in a more effective and efficient sales process.
• Account scoring: Assigning a score to each account based on factors such as their potential revenue, buying history, and level of engagement with the business. This means you can focus your resources on the accounts that are most likely to generate revenue.

Sales quota planning

Next, you’ll set individual and team sales targets that are both challenging and achievable, with the goal of motivating sales representatives to perform at their best and measuring their success. By establishing clear sales targets, sales teams have a concrete goal to work towards, which helps to focus their efforts and prioritize their activities.

Additionally, quotas provide a framework for performance evaluation, allowing sales managers to measure the success of individual sales representatives and the team as a whole. This gives you the opportunity to review progress against sales targets and proactively identify areas where additional training or support is needed to ensure that the team is on track to achieve their goals.

Territory planning

Territory planning involves dividing a geographic region into smaller, more manageable areas, and then assigning each area to a specific sales representative or team. This ensures adequate coverage of your target market without overlooking potential sales opportunities.

Like account scoring and segmentation, territory planning can help sales teams remain efficient in outreach efforts, so you’re focusing on areas with the highest potential return on investment.

You’ll need to analyze data on customer demographics, buying habits, and other factors to allocate territories in a way that maximizes revenue potential.

Sales capacity planning

Alongside territory planning, sales quota planning, and account segmentation activities, you’ll also focus on assessing the necessary resources needed to achieve those targets and planning accordingly.

This can include analyzing factors such as the size of the sales team, the available budget, and the capacity of existing infrastructure and technology. By doing so, you can identify potential capacity constraints and make strategic decisions about how to allocate resources.

For example, you may choose to invest in additional sales training for their team, hire additional sales representatives, or upgrade their technology infrastructure to improve efficiency.

Effective sales capacity planning helps to ensure that sales teams have the resources they need to meet their sales targets and that the organization can scale its sales efforts as needed. And regularly monitoring sales capacity means you can adjust plans as necessary and ensure that your team is equipped to meet the demands of the market and achieve their sales goals.

Benefits of strategic sales planning

Strategic sales planning calls for a more proactive approach to sales and revenue growth, starting with a clear overview and defined goals that align with your overall business strategy. This helps to establish a strong foundation for future growth and success.

Additionally, strategic sales planning enables better predictability of sales and revenue, which can help businesses plan for the future and make data-driven decisions. By setting revenue targets and tracking progress towards them, organizations can ensure that they are on track to achieve their goals.

Effective sales planning also fosters improved collaboration between marketing and sales, enabling teams to work together to create a cohesive strategy that delivers results.

Finally, strategic sales planning can improve accountability along the pipeline, helping teams to identify areas for improvement and optimize their sales processes.

Overall, strategic sales planning is essential for any organization looking to drive steady revenue growth and establish a robust foundation for long-term growth.

Conclusion

B2B sales planning activities could include tactics such as advertising campaigns, product promotions, targeted email sequences, and incentives for existing clients to refer new customers.

But it all begins with a plan.

A comprehensive plan will help you allocate resources, set budgets, and compile performance metrics to monitor progress and measure success. Your aim is to align sales activities with overall business objectives to maximize your chances of achieving the desired growth. 

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