Restore business momentum with a sales performance improvement plan.
When sales fall behind target, a sales performance improvement plan becomes imperative. Don't wait until you need one.
No matter how good your offering, sales pipeline, and capabilities, sooner or later circumstances will conspire against you and sales will fall behind.
If you ensure that every salesperson, territory, and key account has a current, credible sales target achievement plan that includes contingencies, you will be ready to respond when things go awry.
With a performance improvement plan for sales in place, sales performance management becomes routine. Regular review of key performance indicators together with each salesperson's target achievement plan, creates opportunities to correct divergence early. It is so much easier to get things back on track when managers and salespeople take early remedial action.
Forethought, planning, and preparation precede success.
What is a sales performance improvement plan?
A sales improvement plan details how to recover from a sales shortfall. Having contingency sales recovery plans increases confidence in sales performance expectations and saves time in a crisis.
How do you prepare contingency plans?
First, list all of the scenarios that would adversely affect sales performance.
For example, salespeople becoming sick or leaving; a shortage of products or the ability to deliver services; aggressive competitive pricing; new competitors entering the market with a superior solution; the economy entering a recession, and so on.
How can the impact of each risk scenario be assessed?
“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Winston Churchill.
Estimating the likely impact of any scenario depends on knowledge of what has happened before. How have the various potential situations impacted others in a similar situation to your own? How have similar situations affected your organisation's sales performance in the past? If you don't know, most of the past scenarios you are considering will be a matter of record. Some research should provide the supporting evidence you need.
When times become difficult, we look to our leaders for solutions. Managers who know the past, are better able to see the future and be prepared for it.
Contingency Planning Guide
"No plan survives first contact with the enemy." Helmuth von Moltke
In a modern business context, no plan survives application in the field. Yet this is not an argument for abandoning the planning process, Indeed it is an argument for redoubling efforts.
"In preparing for battle I have found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable." Gen. Dwight Eisenhower. Commander of the Allied forces for Operation Overlord (D-Day).
Planning must involve anticipating things that could go wrong and incorporating contingency plans for at least the most likely scenarios.
So for the potential obstacles and crises already listed, what could be done about them?
For each situation, brainstorm solutions. As you may know, brainstorming is an ideation process. If you are unfamiliar with the process, look it up. Once you have some ideas for dealing with each potential problem, decide which would be both effective and practical, then add them to your planning document.
Strategies and tactics.
Now you have generated strategies for dealing with a sales crisis, test each strategy or plan. For each intention ask, "Does this strategy make it obvious what I and others should do to make it happen?" If so, prepare a list of tactics for executing the strategy. If not, revise the approach until the necessary actions are obvious.
Keep Sales Performance Improvement Plans Current
Conduct plan reviews by convening a meeting with a small group of experts. This usually includes the sales manager and sales director. It might also include other sales experts from inside or outside the organisation. Review contingency plans as often as necessary but at least once a year.
Example Performace Improvement Plan for Sales
1. Analyse Past Performance
Gather sales data for the territory, account, or team looking back as far as is practical.
Calculate rolling averages (e.g., 3-month or 6-month) to smooth out anomalies and provide a clearer trend line.
Comparative Analysis: Create graphs to compare performance with other equivalent territories, accounts, or teams within the company and externally if the data is available.
Analyse the smoothed data to identify upward or downward trends.
Use the identified trends to forecast future performance, assuming current patterns continue.
2. Performance Gap Analysis
Using the extrapolated data, calculate the expected performance for the upcoming period.
Subtract this expected performance from the required sales target to determine the performance gap.
3. Strategy Development
Hold a meeting with the salespeople involved to discuss the performance gap. Facilitate a brainstorming session to develop strategies aimed at closing the gap.
4. Augmentation of Strategies
Evaluate the proposed strategies for feasibility and potential impact. Enhance the proposed strategies with additional insights, resources, or best practices as necessary.
5. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Work with those involved to identify leading key performance indicators that will provide an early indication of progress.
Establish specific, measurable targets for each KPI.
6. Progress Review Meetings
Schedule regular times or meetings (e.g., bi-weekly or monthly) to review progress against the KPIs. If you are doing this for yourself, recruit one or two colleagues or your manager to help with the reviews.
Act early to correct any divergence from the plan.
If the plan requires new skills or knowledge, include a section that details how the missing skills or knowledge will be acquired.
Do you need to learn about sales improvement plans?
If you have a sales goal or target you should invest some time in planning how to achieve it. If you manage a sales team and team members don't maintain credible sales target achievement plans that include improvement contingencies, have them create plans. Review each plan monthly or at least once a quarter. These actions are certain to increase individual and team sales performance.
Sales Enablement: Do you have a sales enablement team who could pick up the work to make this happen? If not, consider outsourcing sales enablement projects to us. Alternatively, hire us as your part-time sales enablement team. Learn More
Arrange training: Have us lead a training session in a virtual classroom for a sales team. Participants receive a plan template in advance to explore creating and maintaining their sales performance improvement plan. Learn More
Have us facilitate plan reviews: Facing a plan review can be daunting. It is uncomfortable to hear criticism. Professional facilitation makes the process much more productive. Learn More
Schedule a call for an informal conversation.
DIY Resources
The Truth about Plans and the Remarkable Value of Planning
Test any Plan with this Free Assessment
Eight Practical Actions to Quickly Fix a Sales Crisis
If you need a sales performance improvement plan, we can help. Schedule a sales consultation or call +44 (0)1392 851500. Alternatively, use the contact form here or send an email to jimm@salessense.co.uk.
