Sales planning. How to make a sales plan

Any company, whether it is engaged in construction, manufacturing of finished products, transportation, trade, etc., is interested in increasing sales volumes. Based on existing practice, this can be achieved when planning sales.

The most realistic document drawn up in terms of sales will be in the event that when it is created, factors that affect the dynamics of sales of products of a particular enterprise will be taken into account.

The importance of planning

Does the enterprise need to draw up a document that indicates specific ways and volumes of product sales? The answer to this question is unequivocal - yes. Moreover, sales planning is important not only for those who sell specific products. It is also necessary for those who work in the service sector. It is important:

1. For the proper organization of labor. The company needs to function in a similar way to an established mechanism. Moreover, each employee should be familiarized with the purpose of his work and know what he needs to do in order to achieve it. When planning sales, it is also necessary that all members of the team have an idea of ​​what awaits them after completing a task or in case of non-fulfillment.
2. For profit growth. When planning sales, sellers can be transferred from a fixed salary to a minimum rate, adding a bonus to them in case of fulfilling tasks in terms of sales. This will certainly increase the motivation of employees and positively affect the income of the enterprise.
3. For development. Sales planning is simply necessary so that the business does not stand still. Setting goals and their implementation is a priority for any entrepreneur. Otherwise, he will be bypassed by other, more ambitious businessmen.

Planning Types

What is the purpose of setting goals for marketing products? The basis of any sales planning is the awareness of the minimum and maximum quantity of goods that the company needs to realize for its existence.

For novice entrepreneurs, it is most important to determine the smallest of these values. Planning a sales plan taking into account the minimum quantity of goods sold will allow the company to determine the lowest level of its existence, beyond which its functioning becomes simply impossible. Those firms that have embarked on a path of growth should conduct product sales planning at the maximum level.

Setting objectives for implementation may be:

• promising, taking into account the long-term strategy for 5-10 years;
• current, developed for the year with the refinement and adjustment of long-term planning indicators;
• operational-production, when planning and organization of sales are carried out for short periods of time (month, quarter, etc.).

What affects sales?

The volume of sales is affected by a number of factors. Among them:

• seasonality depending on the time of the year, month, etc .;
• the dynamics of the market as a whole (it is declining or developing);
• actions of competitors that can affect sales volumes both from a negative point of view and from a positive one;
• changes in legislative acts (customs, tax, labor) affecting the competitiveness of business partners and buyers;
• assortment of goods (its increase or decrease, the inclusion of new product names in it, or vice versa, their exclusion from the list of sales);
• a pricing system that provides for lowering or increasing the cost of certain types of products, introducing a system of discounts, providing goods on credit, etc .;
• sales channels;
• Buyers
• employees included in the staff of the enterprise;
• activity of the company on the market to promote its products.

Work stages

There are various sales planning methods. The simplest of them, but at the same time erroneous, is the accounting of results and profits made by the enterprise in past periods. Setting goals in this case will contribute to the existence of a typical situation in which sales planning at the enterprise seems to exist, but no additional efforts will be required from managers to complete the tasks. Of course, for retail or wholesale organizations, sales analysis is very important. And planning in this case will be more effective. However, an analysis of the implementation is only one of the steps to achieve the goal. Otherwise, the company will be in a situation where the management and the sellers will have a different view of the “right plans”, which are likely to be impossible.

The correct solution to the problem involves bringing to each seller their sales volume. In this case, the sales plan should be drawn up with an expansion for all quotas (sections). Hit in its interval should be in the range from 85 to 105%. Overfulfillment of the plan in the amount of 105-120% is also possible.

Let's consider what are the main stages of work on the preparation of such a document.

Market Trends Analysis

What is the first thing to consider when planning and forecasting sales? An analysis of macroeconomic and political trends is important.

It is advisable to start planning the sales process for the next year as early as the end of October or in the first days of November of the current year. To begin with, an assessment of the political situation is made with a forecast of its possible changes. At the same time, it is recommended to conduct an analysis of a number of economic indicators, including GDP and oil price, the level of negative activity of industrial production, growth in investment in fixed assets, export indicators, etc. When passing this stage, the forecasts of Fitch Ratings and Ernst Young are studied.

Market analysis

What is the next step in sales planning? This step will require an analysis of the situation in the market. At the same time, it is necessary to find out whether the number of competitors of the company has increased, whether demand for sold products is expected to decrease, and how possible is it to comply with the previous sales plan? All of the above changes must be taken into account when passing this stage. This will allow you to assess the potential of the market and sales. The first concept means the maximum volume of goods that can be sold by all companies. Under the sales potential understand the amount of products sold by a particular company, and the level of income expected to be received.

Obtaining specific data is possible when marketers or company employees conduct demand analysis, as well as competitive offers. In the process, a comparison of forecasts and actual indicators. Based on the results obtained, it will be possible to judge whether or not the goal set for the enterprise has been achieved.

Analysis of previous sales

This step is very important for understanding the main factors affecting the volume of sales, including seasonal demand, etc. To conduct such an analysis, you should study all sales statistics for recent years. The most fully collected information greatly simplifies planning.In this case, it is recommended to build graphs with the reflection of the results for certain periods (months, years, etc.). It is also necessary to derive an average sales figure. He will indicate the volume of goods sold in January, February, March and other months.

Seasonality determination

What is the next step in sales planning? This step will require a determination of whether the seasonality of the business exists. To do this, it is necessary to clarify the reasons that influenced the decrease in sales growth in previous periods. It can be a crisis or a human factor, the dismissal of workers, seasonality, etc.

All these factors must be reflected in the preparation of the sales development plan for the next month. These indicators are certainly being worked out.

If there is a seasonality of sales, then in this case it will be necessary to deduct or add to the estimated volume of products sold the corresponding amount of interest. Their value must be determined based on the analysis of data for previous years. After that, it is possible to calculate the profit that will ensure the implementation of the concluded contracts. About 20% is deducted from the amount received, which will become insurance against unforeseen events.

Accounting for sales managers

The next stage of planning is the analysis of the sales department. This takes into account the contribution to the sales volume of the products of each of the managers.

All employees should be given an individual characteristic. It reflects the work they have done over the course of a month. This is the number of “cold” calls, meetings held and executed contracts. It is also necessary to make an approximate forecast for the number of agreements that each of the managers will be able to draw up during the next reporting period. Further, the average indicator should be determined for the entire department. Of course, you do not need to focus on leading specialists. A similar sales plan would be simply unattainable. Averaged indicators for the department will make more realistic forecasts.

Profit from regular customers

When planning sales, it is necessary to analyze the percentage of products sold that are acquired by regular customers. In particular, it is important to understand the frequency with which they make purchases, and which of the proposed assortment is of most interest to them. In the future, more selling goods and will need to focus. These products will be the main one when planning sales for other customers.

It happens that the number of goods sold is large for their various names. In this case, planning is carried out in the context of each product name.

According to market experts, only a business based on regular customers can become successful. However, this principle does not work for those companies that carry out one-time sales.

Customer forecasting

When planning sales, the cost of the first purchase, which will be made by new customers for the company, as well as the number of concluded sales contracts, is calculated. In this case, special attention should be paid to the goals that are set for sales managers. For example, according to the employee, in 60% of cases, to conclude a new contract, he needs to meet with the client three times. Other potential buyers will have to talk more times. In this case, when planning, it is necessary to calculate the number of meetings, dividing them by the number of working days. Based on these data, an approximate schedule for the sale of goods and services to new customers should be drawn up. Moreover, such planning must be personal.This will increase the employee’s interest in the results, in improving professionalism, etc.

Goal setting

When passing through all the steps described above in the sales planning process, as a rule, company employees already form the necessary analysis of the situation. Moreover, they have the necessary statistical plans, which will form the basis of realistic goals for marketing products. For example, based on the analysis of the situation that developed last year, it becomes clear that there is a chance of increasing sales by 25%. In this case, the sales plan will need to be drawn up taking into account the emerging prospects. In addition, it is desirable to set a macro goal for the company, the achievement of which is impossible. However, such a step is necessary for additional motivation and will make it possible to use all available resources and make every effort to solve the main problem.

Discussion with employees

The sales plan should be communicated to the staff of the company. We need to discuss it with employees at the initial stage, as well as after reaching a certain result. It is possible that subordinates will help to make some adjustments to the document.

A sales plan must have a deadline for its implementation. The desired result can be broken down by weeks, which will allow employees to slightly change their actions if something goes wrong. Further, the drawn up implementation plan must be approved by the head.

Expense budget

The next step in sales planning is the most responsible. It involves the preparation of a budget for implementation costs. This is the planning of procurement of production and sales, allocation of funds for advertising campaigns, payment of bonuses to employees, etc. This task is not easy. After all, it is much easier to calculate the upcoming costs than to determine how much you need to sell products so that these costs are justified.

A similar budget is adopted while planning purchases and sales. That is, in this case, the volume of production and commercial expenses, as well as the estimated marginal profit, are taken into account. In addition, sales management involves tracking the indicator of revenue (shipment), as well as data on receivables and receipt of financial assets in bank accounts.

Based on the data on the planning of sales and purchases, a cash flow schedule is drawn up. It also allows you to predict the level of receivables and determine the timing of its repayment.

When planning sales and production, factors such as:

• analytics of products in the form of its nomenclature, as well as the volume of purchased goods and self-made products, which will allow tracking marginal profit and profitability of sales, determining what is in demand and what is not;
• analytics, taking into account sales channels, which include retail and wholesale, commission trading, etc., allowing you to understand how you can sell goods as profitably and quickly as possible;
• data on customers, taking into account their types, classification according to the volume of purchases, etc., which will allow you to track the deadlines for the repayment of receivables, the identification of hopeless and past due contract execution;
• geographic data analytics, which allows you to track the intensity of sales in different regions and track their purchasing power;
• analytics by managers (departments), allowing to evaluate the performance of each of the employees, which is taken into account during their further motivation.

Sales and production planning is not possible without taking into account expected cash receipts. It is they that are intended to form the revenue side of the budget.

Cash planning is carried out on the basis of already concluded agreements, from which you can find out about the price and terms of settlements.In this case, the terms of formation and repayment of debt of debtors are taken into account. An important task of managers is to monitor compliance by customers with the payment terms that were agreed in the agreement.

Using software

Sales planning is the starting point of the enterprise planning system. Based on projected sales volumes, the company sets itself certain goals.

Today it becomes possible to carry out sales and procurement planning in 1C. Various configurations of this program provide significant assistance to the work of the organization’s personnel. They allow you to engage in planning in the context of customer categories, focusing on various criteria, among which the following: membership in a particular region, type of activity, etc.

Using 1C allows you to quickly and accurately develop various plans, from detailed workers to large strategic plans that are designed for overlapping time periods. So, with the help of the eighth configuration, enlarged plans for the year can be initially drawn up, based on which detailed monthly periods are developed. The 1C program has convenient tools that automate the entire process of completing a task.

In the future, the configuration allows you to compare the initial data with the actual revenue received, analyzing the existing deviations.

Based on sales plans, the 1C program also builds production plans. To ensure a given cycle, the delivery of materials is forecasted, and the level of stocks is determined.