How to Develop a Weekly Plan for Sales People

by Jared Lewis, Demand Media
Salesmen who develop their own sales plans can maintain motivation.

Salesmen who develop their own sales plans can maintain motivation.

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Whether you're a sales manager developing a plan for your salespeople or a salesperson developing your own sales plan, you will benefit from putting together a weekly plan of action. Salespeople need to set goals so that they can be self-motivated and actively pursue success, rather than waiting for it to come their way.

Step 1

Determine your sales goals. These provide a staring point to determine how to develop your sales plan. Start with ether a certain sales volume or dollar amount in mind. If you start with a dollar amount, you can determine approximately how many sales you need to attain your goal. Sales managers should set a team goal and determine how much each individual must sell to make it.

Step 2

Select the selling system most effective in meeting your goal. Each product may be sold differently. What might work best for a car may not work at all for an insurance policy, so narrow down the field to the best methods for the product your team sells.

Step 3

Define your target market and develop a sales plan for those customers. Determine how your product best meets their needs and how you can demonstrate that convincingly. This might be done through networking by your salespeople, and through advertising in newspapers or on the radio.

Step 4

Set a daily target for the number of potential customers you must engage to meet your sales goals. If you have an idea of the typical closing ratio for your business, use that to determine exactly how many prospects you need to see. For example, if the average closing rate for your industry is one out of five, then you'll need to work with 10 customers each day to close two sales a day, or 10 sales in a five-day work week. Sales is a numbers game. You can meet your sales goals by consistently finding the required number of prospects.

Step 5

Create a rewards system for meeting goals along the way to meeting your weekly sales goal. Salespeople should reward themselves when they meet their own goals. Sales managers can motivate employees by providing incentives that will propel them forward toward meeting their weekly goal.

Step 6

Chart your progress and keep careful records to maintain motivation. Having the goal in writing and reviewing it daily will keep you focused as you move toward it.

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