What is a Sales Target Achievement Plan?
A sales target achievement plan explains how an agreed revenue and/or profit target for one or more sales territories or salespeople will be achieved.
All salespeople have a compensation plan describing what they must achieve and how they will be rewarded for doing so yet very few have a plan describing anticipated obstacles, challenges, and actions for overcoming them.
What are the risks of not planning?
"The good thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise that is not preceded by periods of worry and doubt." John Preston
Those without a salestarget achievement plan risk failure. We may know things are off track yet we hope they will improve. The big sales are always just around the corner. For our sanity, we convince ourselves that everything will turn out well. In this state of mind, it is easy to put off doing what must be done.
Those with a detailed plan have an early warning when things are not on track. They are more likely to feel uncomfortable and under pressure to do something about the growing shortfall when they still have time to do something about it.
When is it too late to rectify a sales shortfall?
Reacting when a target is missed or a sales manager points out the shortfall is usually too late.
Without a plan, things rumble along. Then people more easily rely on the hope strategy. Salespeople are generally optimistic and so expect opportunities to arise that enable them to catch up. Sometimes they do.
Those with a plan for achieving their sales target are much less likely to ignore divergence. The plan prompts action to make up for shortfalls in sales performance, sooner.
The pages listed below offer more on sales target achievement planning.
If you need to increase business predictability or improve sales performance, have your salespeople prepare sales target achievement plans at the beginning of the year. Have us teach them how to do so and what to do when there is divergence. To learn more, telephone +44 (0)1392 851500, use the contact form here, or email jimm@salessense.co.uk.
