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10 Free Sales Plan Templates for an Effective Sales Strategy

Praburam Srinivasan

Growth Marketing Manager

February 15, 2024

Every sales team wants to win more leads and close more deals. But how do you make that happen? With a solid sales plan, of course! 

A sales plan gives your team a way to focus on your goals while taking only the necessary steps to get there. It has everything you need to win, which means it’s often a comprehensive guide—and that takes time.

And we’re guessing you’re already pressed for time. ⏲️

Fortunately, creating a plan doesn’t have to be complicated—with the right template, you can simplify the process.

That’s why we’re sharing this list of the best sales plan templates. Not only are these sales strategy templates absolutely free but they’ll also save you time so you can start closing those deals faster. ⚡

What Is a Sales Plan and Why Create One?

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A sales plan is your roadmap for how to make sales effectively. Think of it in the same way that a business plan guides the strategy for your company or a marketing plan sets out how you’ll find, reach, and serve your ideal customers. 

A good sales plan sets out your sales goals , objectives, and sales activities. It considers your target audience, brand, products, services, and needs—and covers which sales tactics and strategies you’ll use to close deals, as well as which metrics you’ll use to measure success. 

Your sales plan is a practical plan that outlines who’s responsible for what, the resources you’ll need, and the overall goals you’re working toward. Without one, your sales team will feel lost and struggle to connect with your customer base.

With a strategic sales plan, though, the sales manager and the entire team will know exactly what you’re trying to achieve and the steps needed to get there. 📚

How to choose the best sales plan template

There are so many different sales plan templates out there. Some are designed for specific niche audiences, while others are more generic and easier to customize. How do you know which is the right template for you?

When you’re thinking about using a sales plan template, consider the following: 

• Ease of use: Is the template easy to use? Will everyone in the team structure and sales planning process be able to understand it fully?
• Customization: Can I personalize the template to match my sales goals?

• Collaboration: Can my sales team work on this template together?
• Integrations: When I create a sales plan, can I integrate this template with other aspects of my sales pipeline or workflow, like task management?
• Artificial intelligence: Can I use a built-in AI writing tool or copywriting tool to help me complete the template? Are there automation features that speed up the process?
• Platform: Which sales app is this template for? Do I have it already, or should I invest in it? What’s the pricing like?

Asking yourself these questions will help you figure out what your needs are, so you can then choose a template to match. 

10 Sales Plan Templates to Help You Close Your Next Deal

Now that you have a better idea of what you’re looking for, let’s explore what’s out there. Take a look at our hand-picked selection of the best sales plan templates available today for Microsoft Word and sales enablement tools like ClickUp.

Smart sales teams use a sales plan to map out their route to success. The best sales teams use the Sales Plan Template by ClickUp to simplify the process and ensure they don’t leave anything out.

This template is designed with all the structure you need to create a comprehensive sales plan that can drive results. Use this template to set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) business goals; plan strategies and tactics; and organize all your sales ideas in one place.

The list-style template is split into sections that cover the executive summary all the way through to specific tactics and strategies. Beneath this, you can arrange tasks and subtasks, and see the progress at a glance. View task titles, deadlines, who’s responsible, approval status, and a visual progress bar.

Use this template if you want to consolidate all your sales tasks and initiatives in one area. Add your sales tasks and tactics, then tag team members so you can see what’s happening and hold everyone accountable. ✅

While sales and marketing teams often work independently, sometimes it’s useful to collaborate on shared goals. With the Sales and Marketing Plan Template by ClickUp , you can organize and run your sales and marketing operations from one location.

Our collaborative template makes it easy to set sales and marketing goals and objectives, visualize your tasks, work together on sales and marketing campaigns, and track your results in real-time. View the status of your sales and marketing projects, adjust your plans, and monitor your key performance indicators (KPIs)—all from one view.

This sales and marketing plan template allows you to split your tasks into sections. The examples in the template include revenue goals, competitive analysis, and action items, but you can customize these to match your needs exactly.

View tasks beneath these categories to see at a glance whether there are any roadblocks when a task is due, and who is responsible for it.

Add this template to your collection if you want to work more collaboratively with your marketing team—especially on preparing assets for sales calls or outreach programs. 📞

Before you can plan your sales tactics, you first need to decide what your overall goals are. The Sales Strategy Guide Template by ClickUp is your go-to resource for determining your approach.

This sales process template explains the benefits of having a well-defined approach and gives you a central place to create, review, and store your own. Everyone on your team can then access your sales strategy guide to help them understand what to do when prospecting and closing deals.

Our sales goals and strategy guide template is presented in a document format. Some sections and headings allow you to split your guide into different areas, making it easier to read and understand.

Use the prompts to fill out your own strategy guide details like your target market, sales strategies, and how you’ll monitor progress.

Use this sales strategy guide template to create a resource for your team. Make it the only destination for everything your sales reps need to know to execute an effective sales plan. 📝

Sales strategies are a must-have for any great sales team, but beyond that, you need a way to record and monitor specific tasks or initiatives. That’s where the Sales Pipeline Template by ClickUp comes in handy whether you need a visual into sales forecasting or your specific sales goals.

This sales pipeline template gives you one place to store all your daily sales-related tasks. With this template, it’s easy to work toward your sales goals, track leads, map out each step of the sales process, and organize all your tasks in one place.

You can view a task’s title, assignee, status, due date, complexity level, start date, and department—or customize the experience with your own custom fields. 

With ClickUp’s Sales KPI Template , you and your team can create and manage goals surrounding your sales initiatives. See instantly what’s in progress and when it’s due, alongside the task’s impact level.

This allows you to identify high-priority tasks to focus on and to react quickly if it looks like there’s a roadblock.

This sales KPI template includes:

• Custom Statuses: Create tasks with custom statuses such as Open and Complete to keep track of the progress of each KPI
• Custom Fields: Utilize 15 different custom attributes such as Upsell Attempts, Value of Quotes, Product Cost, No of Quotes by Unit, Repeat Sales Revenue, to save vital KPI information and easily visualize performance data
• Custom Views: Open 4 different views in different ClickUp configurations, such as the Weekly Report, Monthly Report, Revenue Board per Month, and Getting Started Guide so that all the information is easy to access and organized
• Project Management: Improve KPI tracking with tagging, dependency warnings, emails, and more

This template gives you a simple way to see which tasks are complete or in progress, so you can monitor the progress of your project and crush your sales KPIs. 📈

While there’s not a huge difference in the way we market to business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) customers these days, it’s still useful to have specific templates for niche needs. If you’re driving sales in the B2B space, you need the B2B Sales Strategy Template by ClickUp .

Like our first sales plan template, this one gives you space to communicate your sales objectives and revenue targets, but it also introduces other areas—like market research, stakeholder analysis, customer relationships, buyer persona, and customer pain points. 

This document-style template is highly customizable so you can make it match your brand style and sales approach. Fill in each section and use the supplied prompts to complete your B2B sales strategy document even faster. 

Add this template to your collection if you’re working in B2B sales and want to approach your process in a more organized way. Use the template to build a strong sales strategy, then share it with the rest of your sales team so they know how to execute against your sales and company goals. 🎯

ClickUp’s Sales Calls Template is designed to streamline the sales process, from tracking contacts and calls to managing sales opportunities.

The template includes custom statuses for creating unique workflows, ensuring that every call and client interaction is accounted for. It also provides an easy-to-use Sales CRM to manage and track leads, visualize sales opportunities in the sales funnel, and keep all contacts organized.

With additional features like the Sales Phone Calls SOP Template, sales professionals can empower their teams to make every call count and close more deals. ClickUp’s Sales Calls Template is a versatile solution for sales teams, aiding in everything from daily calls to long-term sales forecasting.

We’re big advocates of using ClickUp as the go-to place to store everything about your sales workflow, but if you’re limited to using Microsoft Word or Google Docs, then this template is a great option.

This sales business plan template has sections for your executive summary, mission statement, target customers, sales targets, benchmarks, and more. Each section has useful prompts to guide you on completing your new sales plan.

Use this template if you’re tied to using Microsoft Word and want a comprehensive guide on how to create your own sales plan or sales strategy. 📄

If you want a free sales plan template or want to choose from a variety of options, this collection of Word templates by TemplateLab is a good place to do that.

There’s a wide range of options available including sales process plans, lead generation plans, sales action plans, and sales report templates . Each template works with Microsoft Word, and you can customize the look and feel to match your brand or your sales goals.

Use this resource if you prefer to see a range of templates on one page, or if you’re not sure exactly what you’re looking for until you see it. You can easily set your sales goals and the action steps needed to achieve them. 📃

Successful sales strategies need to be integrated with other teams—like your marketing department—to ensure your sales objectives are clear and possibly align with the overall marketing strategy too. Choose your specific sales goals, set revenue targets, and describe everything in detail with these Word sales planning and sales process templates.

The Excel Sales Plan Template by Spreadsheet.com is a comprehensive and user-friendly tool designed to assist businesses in developing effective sales strategies and managing their sales activities.

T his template is crafted with the aim of providing a structured framework for sales planning, enabling organizations to set clear objectives, track performance, and optimize their sales processes.

Reach Sales Goals With Free Sales Plan Templates

A strategic sales plan makes it easier to achieve your goals. Give your team the guidance and support they need with the help of a well-crafted free sales plan template.

If you’re considering making even more improvements in how you work, try ClickUp for free . We don’t just have incredible sales process templates: Our range of features and AI tools for sales make it easy for you to optimize and run your entire sales funnel and CRM system from one place. ✨

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How to create a sales plan in 7 Steps

A sales plan is the first step toward defining your sales strategy , sales goals and how you’ll reach them.

A refined sales plan is a go-to resource for your reps. It helps them better understand their role, responsibilities, targets, tactics and methods. When done right, it gives your reps all the information they need to perform at their highest level.

In this article, we outline what a sales plan is and why it’s important to create one. We also offer a step-by-step guide on how to make a sales plan with examples of each step.

What is a sales plan and why create one?

Your sales plan is a roadmap that outlines how you’ll hit your revenue targets, who your target market is, the activities needed to achieve your goals and any roadblocks you may need to overcome.

Many business leaders see their sales plan as an extension of the traditional business plan. The business plan contains strategic and revenue goals across the organization, while the sales plan lays out how to achieve them.

The benefits of a sales plan

A successful sales plan will keep all your reps focused on the right activities and ensure they’re working toward the same outcome. It will also address your company's specific needs. For example, you might choose to write a 30- , 60- or 90-day sales plan depending on your current goals and the nature of your business.

Say your ultimate goal for the next quarter is $250,000 in new business. A sales plan will outline the objective, the strategies that will help you get there and how you’ll execute and measure those strategies. It will allow your whole team to collaborate and ensure you achieve it together.

Many salespeople are driven by action and sometimes long-term sales planning gets neglected in favor of short-term results.

While this may help them hit their quota, the downside is the lack of systems in place. Instead, treat sales processes as a system with steps you can improve. If reps are doing wildly different things, it’s hard to uncover what’s working and what’s not. A strategic sales plan can optimize your team’s performance and keep them on track using repeatable systems.

With this in mind, let’s explore the seven components of an effective sales plan

1. Company mission and positioning

To work toward the same company goals, everyone in your organization must understand what your organization is trying to achieve and where in the market you position yourself.

To help define your mission and positioning, involve your sales leaders in all areas of the business strategy. Collaborating and working toward the same goals is impossible if those goals are determined by only a select group of stakeholders.

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To get a handle on the company’s mission and positioning, take the following steps:

Collaborate with marketing: Your marketing teams live and breathe the positioning of your company. Take the time to talk to each function within the department, from demand generation to performance marketing to learn what they know.

Interview customer success teams: Customer support reps speak with your existing customers every day. Interview them to find common questions and pain points.

Talk to your customers: Customer insights are a foundational part of any positioning strategy. Speak directly with existing and new customers to find out what they love about your product or service.

Read your company blog: Those in charge of content production have a strong understanding of customer needs. Check out blog articles and ebooks to familiarize yourself with customer language and common themes.

Look for mentions around the web: How are other people talking about your organization? Look for press mentions, social media posts, articles and features that mention your products and services.

These insights can provide context around how your company is currently positioned in the market.

Finally, speak with the team in charge of defining the company’s positioning. Have a list of questions and use the time to find out why they made certain decisions. Here are some examples:

What important insights from the original target audience research made you create our positioning statement?

What competitor research led us to position ourselves in this way? Does this significantly differentiate us from the crowd? How?

What core ideals and values drove us to make these promises in our positioning statement? Have they shifted in any way since we launched? If so, what motivates these promises now?

How to communicate mission and positioning

In this section of the sales plan, include the following information:

Company mission : Why your company exists and the value you’re determined to bring to the market.

Competition: Who your direct competitors (those who offer similar products and services) and indirect competitors (brands who solve the same problem in different ways) are.

Value propositions: The features, benefits and solutions your product delivers.

What is brand positioning: The ultimate guide with 4 examples

2. Goals and targets

Define your revenue goals and the other targets sales are responsible for.

As mentioned earlier, sales goals are usually aligned with business goals. Your boardroom members typically establish the company’s revenue goals and it’s your job to achieve them.

Revenue goals will shape your sales strategy. Use them to reverse engineer quotas, sales activity and the staff you need to execute them.

Break your big-picture revenue goal down further into sales targets and activity targets for your team. Activities are the specific actions you and your reps can control, while sales targets are the results provided by those activities.

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Use data on sales activity and performance from previous years to calculate sales targets. You should break this down by pipeline stage and activity conducted by reps across all functions.

For example, how many cold emails does it take to generate a deal? What is the average lifetime value (LTV) of your customer?

Breaking down these numbers allows you to accurately forecast what it will take to achieve your new revenue goal.

This part of your sales plan might include setting goals like the following:

200 total cold emails sent per day

200 total cold calls made per day

25 demos conducted per day

5 new sales appointments made a day

100 follow-up emails sent per day

Breaking down your goals into specific activities will also reveal the expertise needed for each activity and any required changes to your organizational structure, which will come into play in the next step.

How to communicate goals and targets

Within this section of the sales plan, include the following information:

Revenue goals : Reverse engineer the boardroom revenue goals to identify achievable sales goals and the number of staff needed to reach them. Sales targets : Use data on sales activity and past performance to define quotas and metrics for each stage of the sales pipeline.

Expertise needed for each activity: What qualities and attributes do your staff need to achieve these predefined activities? How much experience do they need vs. what can be learned on the job?

3. Sales organization and team structure

Identify the talent and expertise you need to achieve your goals.

For example, a marketing agency that depends on strong relationships will benefit more from a business development executive than a sales development representative (SDR) .

Use the targets established in the previous section to identify who you need to hire for your team. For example, if the average sales development rep can send 20 cold emails a day and you need to send 200 to achieve your goals, you’ll need around ten reps to hit your targets.

Include the information for each team member in a table in your sales plan. Here is an example.

Visualizing each role helps all stakeholders understand who they’re hiring and the people they’re responsible for. It allows them to collaborate on the plan and identify the critical responsibilities and qualities of their ideal candidates.

You want to avoid micromanaging , but now is a good time to ask your existing teams to report on the time spent on certain activities. Keeping a timesheet will give you an accurate forecast of how long certain activities take and the capacity of each rep.

How to communicate your sales organization and team structure

Team structure: These are the functions that make up your overall sales organization. The roles of SDR, business development and account teams must be well-defined.

Roles and responsibilities: These are the roles you need to hire, along with the tasks they’re responsible for. This will help you produce job descriptions that attract great talent.

Salary and compensation: How will the company remunerate your teams? Having competitive salaries, compensation schemes and sales incentives will attract top performers and keep them motivated.

Timeline: Attempting to hire dozens of people at once is tough. Prioritize hiring based on how critical each role is for executing your plan. Take a phased hiring approach to onboard new reps with the attention they deserve.

Building a sales team: How to set your group up for success

4. Target audience and customer segments

A sales plan is useless without knowing who to sell to. Having clearly defined customer personas and ideal customer profiles will help you tailor your selling techniques to companies and buyers.

Whether you’re looking to break into a new market or expand your reach in your current one, start by clearly defining which companies you’re looking to attract. Include the following criteria:

Industries: Which markets and niches do you serve? Are there certain sub-segments of those industries that you specialize in?

Headcount: How many employees do your best accounts have within their organization?

Funding: Have they secured one or several rounds of funding?

Find out as much as you can about their organizational challenges. This may include growth hurdles, hiring bottlenecks and even barriers created by legislation.

Learn about your buyers within those target accounts, learn about your buyers. Understanding your buyers and personalizing your sales tactics for them will help you strengthen your customer relationships.

These insights will change as your business grows. Enterprise companies may wish to revisit their personas as they move upmarket. For small businesses and startups, your target audience will evolve as you find product-market fit.

It’s important to constantly revisit this part of your sales plan. Even if your goals and methodologies are the same, always have your finger on the pulse of your customer’s priorities.

How to communicate target audience and customer segments

Profile: Include basic information about their role, what their career journey looks like and the common priorities within their personal lives.

Demographics : Add more information about their age, income and living situation. Demographic information can help tailor your message to align with the language used across different generations.

Attributes: Assess their personality. Are they calm or assertive? Do they handle direct communication themselves or have an assistant? Use these identifying attributes to communicate effectively.

Challenges: Think about the hurdles this persona is trying to overcome. How does it affect their work and what’s the impact on them personally?

Goals: Analyze how these challenges are preventing them from achieving their goals. Why are these goals important to them?

Support: Use this insight to define how your product or service will help these people overcome challenges and achieve their goals.

Behavioral segmentation: What is it and how can it drive engagement and loyalty

5. Sales strategies and methodologies

Define your sales approach. This includes the strategies, techniques and methodologies you’ll use to get your offering out to market.

This part of your sales plan may end up being the largest. It will outline every practical area of your sales strategy: your sales stages, methodologies and playbooks.

Start by mapping out each stage of your sales process. What are the steps needed to guide a prospect through your deal flow?

9 essential sales stages

Traditionally, a sales process has nine sales stages :

Prospecting and lead generation : Your marketing strategy should deliver leads, but sales reps should boost this volume with their own prospecting efforts.

Qualification: Measure those leads against your target account criteria and customer personas. Ensure they’re a good fit, prioritizing your time on high-value relationships.

Reaching out to new leads : Initiate emails to your target customers to guide new leads into the sales funnel. This outreach activity includes cold calling and direct mail.

Appointment setting: Schedule a demo, discovery call or consultation.

Defining needs: After the initial meeting, you’ll understand your prospect’s problems and how your product or service can solve them.

Presentation: Reveal the solution. This can be in the form of a proposal, custom service packages or a face-to-face sales pitch .

Negotiation: Dedicate this stage to overcoming any objections your prospect may have.

Winning the deal: Turn your prospects into customers by closing deals and signing contracts.

Referrals : Fostering loyalty is an organization-wide activity. Delight your customers and encourage them to refer their friends.

Not all of these stages will be relevant to your organization. For example, a SaaS company that relies on inbound leads may do much of the heavy lifting during the initial meeting and sales demo . On the other hand, an exclusive club whose members must meet certain criteria (say, a minimum net worth) would focus much of their sales activity on referrals.

Map out your sales process to identify the stages you use. Your sales process should look something like this:

To determine your sales methodologies, break each sales stage down into separate activities, along with the stakeholder responsible for them.

With your sales activities laid out, you can do in-depth research into the techniques and methodologies you need to execute them. For example, if you sell a complex product with lengthy sales cycles , you could adopt a SPIN selling methodology to identify pain points and craft the best solution for leads.

Finally, use these stages and methodologies to form your sales playbooks . This will help you structure your sales training plan and create playbooks your reps can go back to for guidance.

How to communicate sales strategies and methodologies

Within this section of the sales plan, include the following:

Sales stages: The different steps required to convert prospects into paying customers.

Sales methodologies: The different practices and approaches you’ll adopt to shape your sales strategy.

Sales playbooks: The tactics, techniques and sales strategy templates needed to guide contacts throughout each stage of the sales process.

6. Sales action plan

You have the “who” and the “what”. Now you must figure out “when” to execute your sales plan.

A well-structured sales action plan communicates when the team will achieve key milestones. It outlines timeframes for when they’ll complete certain projects and activities, as well as the recruitment timelines for each quarter.

The order in which you implement your sales action plan depends on your priorities. Many sales organizations prefer to front-load the activity that will make a bigger impact on the bottom line.

For example, when analyzing your current sales process and strategy, you may find your existing customers are a rich source of qualified leads . Therefore, it would make sense to nurture more of these relationships using a structured referral program.

You must also consider how recruitment will affect the workload in your team. Hire too quickly and you may end up spending more time training new reps and neglecting your existing team. However, taking too long to recruit could overload your existing team. Either can make a big impact on culture and deal flow.

To complete your sales action plan, get all stakeholders involved in deciding timelines. When applying this to your sales plan, use GANTT charts and tables to visualize projects and key milestones.

A GANTT chart shows you the main activities, their completion dates and if there are any overlaps. Here is an example:

By prioritizing each activity and goal, you can create a plan that balances short-term results with long-term investment.

How to communicate your sales action plan

Key milestones : When do you aim to complete your projects, activities and recruitment efforts? You can map them out by week, month, quarter or all of the above. Let your revenue goals and priorities lead your schedule.

Short- and long-term goal schedules: With a high-level schedule mapped out, you can see when you will achieve your goals. From here, you can shape your schedule so that it balances both short- and long-term goals.

7. Performance and results measurement

Finally, your plan must detail how you measure performance. Outline your most important sales metrics and activities, how you’ll track them and what technology you’ll need to track them.

Structure this part of your plan by breaking down each sales stage. Within these sections, list out the metrics you’ll need to ensure you’re running a healthy sales pipeline.

Performance metrics can indicate the effectiveness of your entire sales process. Your chosen metrics typically fall into two categories:

Primary metrics act as your “true north” guide. This is commonly new business revenue generated.

Secondary metrics are those that indicate how well specific areas of your sales process are performing. These include lead response time and average purchase value.

The metrics you select must closely align with your goals and sales activities. For example, at the appointment setting stage, you might measure the number of demos conducted.

Each team also needs its own sales dashboard to ensure reps are hitting their targets. Sales development reps will have different priorities from account executives, so it’s critical they have the sales tools to focus on what’s important to them.

Finally, research and evaluate the technology you’ll need to accurately measure these metrics. Good CRM software is the best system to use for bringing your data together.

How to communicate sales performance metrics

Sales stage metrics : Identify the metrics for each specific sales stage and make sure they align with your KPIs.

Chosen sales dashboard: Explain why you chose your sales dashboard technology and exactly how it works.

Performance measurement: Outline exactly how and what tech you will use to measure your team’s activities and metrics.

How to track, measure and improve your team’s sales performance

Developing a sales plan involves conducting market research, assessing current sales performance , identifying sales opportunities and challenges, setting measurable goals, creating a sales strategy, allocating resources and establishing a monitoring and evaluation framework.

To write a sales business plan, include:

An executive summary

A company overview

A market analysis

A target market description

Sales strategies and tactics

Financial projections

A budget and timeline

Make sure that you clearly articulate your value proposition, competitive advantage and growth strategies.

Final thoughts

An effective sales plan is an invaluable asset for your sales team . Although you now know how to create a sales plan, you should remember to make one that works for your team. Writing one helps with your sales strategy planning and aids you in defining targets, metrics and processes. Distributing the sales plan helps your reps understand what you expect of them and how they can reach their goals.

Providing supportive, comprehensive resources is the best way to motivate your team and inspire hard work. When you do the work to build a solid foundation, you equip your reps with everything they need to succeed.

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How to create a sales plan (and 3 templates that do it for you)

There's a 25-year-old "South Park" episode I think about way too often. Working on a presentation with a coffee-addicted classmate named Tweek, the boys see a gnome stealing underpants from Tweek's dresser. They follow him to a cave, where they discover a network of gnomes executing a massive underpants-smuggling operation.

Explaining their business model, the underpants gnomes present this outline:

Phase 1: Collect underpants

Phase 3: Profit

In this post:

What is a sales plan?

A sales plan is a strategic document outlining goals and strategies for reaching predetermined sales targets. For the "South Park" underpants gnomes, it's the glaring question mark standing between their product and their profits.

What goes into a sales plan (including examples)

A sales plan has the information stakeholders need to establish sales goals, set strategies, allocate resources, collaborate across teams, track goal progress, and measure success. Basically, whatever the stakeholders need to make sound decisions about sales processes.

The specific elements of a business plan differ by factors like sales plan type, industry, product type, goal horizon, and organizational structure. Some may have just a few sections across a page or two, others a dozen or more over several pages.

While your sections may differ in number or phrasing, you can expect some version of these elements to go into most sales plans.

This section is where you set measurable sales goals. (In fact, this section is also called "Goals" in many sales plans.) Depending on your industry, common sales objectives include:

Total revenue growth

Market share expansion

Customer acquisition volume

Adoption rate increase

Obviously, you could just write "$100 billion" here and insert a Dr. Evil meme, then hope for the best. But the real objective of the objectives section is to come to attainable sales goals that align with broader organizational growth goals.

Increase market share by 5-10% this fiscal year

Target market

If your product is a massive eCommerce space with rock-bottom prices and free next-day shipping, write "Everyone" and move on. But since you're probably not Jeff Bezos, you'll need a detailed description of your ideal customer profile. 

Project managers of midsized technology companies with distributed teams seeking streamlined collaboration and task management

This is where you'll give the broad strokes of the approach you'll take to achieve your sales goals with your target market. Whether it's for entering new markets, expanding within existing markets, or launching new products, this generalized section communicates the stepping stones that will lead to your objectives.

Improved prospecting, generating more qualified leads, and tailoring sales processes to market research to make existing sales processes more efficient

These tactics are still theoretical and don't have to be set in stone at this phase. But this is a space to describe specifics like customer survey or beta testing methods, social media marketing campaign concepts, new sales techniques, or new ways of utilizing existing sales software and resources.

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As anyone who's ever watched a heist movie knows, every great plan needs a crack team. In this section, you'll list either each member of your sales team or the team leads, depending on your team size. Beyond a simple list of names, here are some helpful elements to include about each:

Aptitudes or experience

Certifications or completed trainings

Hourly pay rate (for budgeting and forecasting)

Daily or weekly utilization limits

Associated accounts

This should help you outline a structure for assigning individual roles and responsibilities related to your strategies and tactics, ensuring you've got the people power to get the job done.

John Doe, UX specialist | $100/hour incurred expense | 20 hours/week floating utilization | Manager: Jane Doe | Responsible for analyzing survey data and making recommendations for UI updates

It's possible you may even need new hires, freelancers, additional trainings, certifications, or third-party agencies to do the things you need to do. List those here, so you can incorporate them into your time and expenses.

Stakeholders won't just want to know what you're going to do—they'll want to know how long it'll take. Outline your strategies by breaking them into key milestones and deadlines according to the personnel you have. This should also map to revenue projections as your strategies mature.

2/15: Complete market research | 3/1: Synthesize findings | 3/15: Schedule strategies for Q2 execution

The last thing you want is to create a beautiful, perfectly crafted sales plan and discover that you don't actually have the funds to execute it. Based on entries in the last few fields, you should have a good idea of expenses based on strategy resources, personnel utilization, timelines, and any purchases your team may need. 

Chart those here with estimates for any other potential expenses related to marketing, advertising, and sales promotion activities.

Sure, you've been making sales since you started executing your plan. But how do you know you're making enough sales to justify your efforts?

This is where key performance indicators (KPIs) come into play. By setting these during the sales planning stage, you allow stakeholders to measure the success of individual sales efforts, so you can report on how performance compares to sales targets over time. 

Potential challenges

If sales were easy, every company would be successful. Even at the planning stage, you should be able to see some possible roadblocks on the horizon.

The best plans are realistic enough to be actualized, so be realistic about what might stand in your team's way. Try to get ahead of challenges relating to things like target market sensitivities, general market conditions, internal resources, competition, seasonality, or campaign effectiveness. Then, come up with contingencies, so you're ready for these obstacles if they do arise.

Free sales plan templates

Here are three templates for the same general sales plan structure to choose from, depending on the level of granularity and presentation you're looking for.

Sales plan template 1: Comprehensive document

If you're looking to get buy-in for your sales plan from senior stakeholders, you'll need a document that can organize and communicate your research.

This comprehensive sales plan template includes fields for each of the sections outlined above. Just copy it, rename it to your liking, and then click into each field to start filling in the information outlined in this post. (For sections you don't need, just delete or fill with "N/A" and move along.)

Best for: Communicating every element of your sales plan in full detail with (virtually) unlimited space

Sales plan template 2: Summary document

Maybe you need a sales plan template that gets the point across quickly. This one distills the gist of a sales plan into six concise, actionable sections, so you can share the most important elements of every sales objective in one document.

If you need room for more objectives, just copy/paste an empty row.

Best for: Quickly sharing the fine points of a sales plan with only actionable takeaways

Sales plan template 3: Project workflow document

What does your sales plan look like on a day-to-day basis? If you're having a hard time translating that, use this template.

Just include your sequence of objectives and related tasks, include the person they're assigned to, and tweak the date ranges. You can even update the progress graph for each task as you progress through them.

Best for: Organizing tasks, roles, and timelines within a greater sales plan

How to start sales planning

Step 1: Start sales planning. Step 2: ? Step 3: Start selling.

Sales planning may not be that easy, but it doesn't have to be especially complicated, either. It should take enough time and resources to come up with a document that's persuasive and detailed but not so much that it cuts into the real money-making efforts themselves. 

Here are a few ways you can set your plan up for efficiency, success, and—maybe most importantly—stakeholder buy-in.

Start with competitor research

You may be tempted to start the sales planning process by outlining your objectives and tactics, but competitor research can go a long way in setting the stage for both. This can show you what works, how well it works, and what doesn't work. It can also show you opportunities to fill market gaps your competitors are missing.

You don't have to reinvent the wheel, but it can be very helpful to just reinvent what your competition is doing.

Don't shy away from established frameworks and methodologies

Here are a few benefits many of these can potentially bring:

Iterative internal processes

Improved collaboration

Predictable lines of communication between teams

More useful insights from stakeholders

More accurate internal data

More reliable goal-setting

Obviously, the benefits will depend on the types of frameworks and methodologies you use. But the real key to any of them is the ability to standardize some element of the planning process and make collaboration more efficient.

Collaborate with stakeholders to define success

You may have one definition of success, while your stakeholders have a completely different one. Remember that your objectives and KPIs need to have bases in two realities: the market's and your company's.

It's the job of senior stakeholders to align sales efforts with high-level goals that help keep the entire operation afloat. That means they may have goals in mind that conflict with your market research findings about sales potential. The sales team, on the other hand, may need to help align expectations with market realities.

Successful sales plans keep both parties on the same page. As such, it helps to collaborate before setting sales benchmarks to see what success can look like for all involved parties.

Don't forget about operations

S&OP helps align sales teams with operations teams to ensure they have the inventory needed to both keep up with demand and promote maximum stocking efficiency. Since inventory can take time and careful scheduling, it's best to get S&OP underway as early as possible. Demand forecasting, for example, is closely related to both sales and inventory projections, so combining these projections early is worthwhile.

Establish clear lines of communication

If all good plans require a team, then all good teams require sound communication.

Since sales campaigns require collaboration between multiple parties and teams, it helps to have open communication channels during the sales planning process. This could mean adopting an Agile workflow and establishing daily Scrum meetings, hosting regular "office hours," or even just checking in with team leads.

While you're setting up these channels, tap them to get more accurate insights into sales planning elements like budgets, assets, and resource needs.

Types of sales plans

While the sales plan templates in this post are somewhat generically designed for new product or feature launches, there are tons of other types of sales plans you can choose from. Many expand on specific elements already included at a high level in our templates, foregoing some of the other sections that aren't as relevant. 

If you know you want your plan to have a more granular focus on specific use cases, you could consider one of these options.

New product sales plan

This details the introduction and promotion of a recently launched or forthcoming product. Similar to the template and example in this post, it can be for a physical product, digital product, or service. It includes general information without getting too bogged down in details.

Best for: General sales planning for new products, services, or features

Milestone sales plan

Prioritizing timelines, this plan delineates sales objectives and targets to be achieved within specific timeframes. Typically, these timelines fall into weekly, monthly, and quarterly milestones. You can list these in a timeline section for any plan, but this plan is structured around those elements.

Best for: A bird's-eye view of the time a sales campaign will take

30/60/90 sales plan

This sales strategy outlines goals and priorities for the first three months of a new hire's tenure, typically focusing on short-term objectives. This can lean toward onboarding milestones to get the new rep up-to-date on sales processes.

Best for: Bringing on new sales reps

Sales budget plan

As a financial framework, this plan details allocated resources for sales activities and expenses to achieve revenue targets. This gets much more granular about the costs associated with sales, making that element of planning its primary focus.

Best for: Communicating nuanced expense figures

Sales tactics plan

Similar to a sales budget plan, a sales tactics plan is mainly concerned with one area of the sales planning process: the tactics. It takes a comprehensive approach to specifying the methods and techniques required to achieve sales goals and overcome challenges.

Best for: Communicating specific details about sales strategies

Sales territory plan

This one makes me think of classic mob movies—two families hashing out their territories in the Bronx over plates of spaghetti. It's a strategic outline of how you'll distribute sales resources within specific geographic areas or customer segments.

Best for: Segmenting sales efforts geographically

Sales focus area plan

This one highlights specific product lines, customer segments, or markets on which the sales team will concentrate their efforts. It helps align sales team members on their individual responsibilities.

Best for: Setting expectations for sales team roles

Market expansion plan

When you use this sales plan, you're taking a strategic approach to broadening the reach of a product or service by entering new geographical areas or targeting additional customer demographics. You can tailor it to go deep on a range of KPIs that suit your specific goals for saturation. 

Best for: Planning specifically for market growth KPIs

Marketing alignment plan

Marketing and sales—one hand (or team) washes the other. To help bump that cleaning sesh along, consider one of these plans. They help coordinate strategies, ensuring a solid connection between sales and marketing efforts.

Best for: Aligning sales and marketing teams

Growth action plan

This strategic roadmap details initiatives and steps to foster business expansion, increase market share, and achieve sustainable growth. It includes actionable strategies for making growth-oriented goals a reality.

Best for: Establishing actionable strategies for growth KPIs

Sales planning tips

As you build out your sales plan, you might find that you need a little help. Here are some of our top tips for sales planning:

Know your audience: The sales plan will either be for stakeholders, team members, or both. Write to their level and with the level of detail they need.

Start with SWOT: A SWOT analysis is a great way to get a quick, relevant picture of fundamental sales plan elements like aptitudes, challenges, and opportunities.

Budget carefully: Not every sales plan style includes budgets by default—but don't let this deter you. It's vital to know what you can afford before you start executing your plan.

Vary strategies: To reduce volatility, try to keep your sales tactics varied. This also helps you find the strategies that work best and back them with data.

Continue monitoring: You can't know if you hit your KPIs unless you monitor according to the benchmarks you're tracking.

Make a (sales) plan to automate

Hopefully this post has you pumped for sales planning—or at least finding a mysterious new three-step business model (or even just watching "South Park"). 

Related reading:

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Bryce Emley

Currently based in Albuquerque, NM, Bryce Emley holds an MFA in Creative Writing from NC State and nearly a decade of writing and editing experience. His work has been published in magazines including The Atlantic, Boston Review, Salon, and Modern Farmer and has received a regional Emmy and awards from venues including Narrative, Wesleyan University, the Edward F. Albee Foundation, and the Pablo Neruda Prize. When he isn’t writing content, poetry, or creative nonfiction, he enjoys traveling, baking, playing music, reliving his barista days in his own kitchen, camping, and being bad at carpentry.

• Sales & business development

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All about Sales Plans: Definitions, Tips, and Free Templates

By Kate Eby | July 27, 2018

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In this article, you’ll learn everything you need to know about sales plans: how they relate to sales forecasting and sales pipelines, as well as benefits, challenges, and tips for getting the most out of your sales plans.

Included on this page, you’ll find over 8 free sales plan templates , learn the difference between sales forecasting and sales planning , and find best practices for writing a sales plan .

Free Sales Plan Templates

In this section, you’ll find over 15 free sales planning templates in Microsoft Excel and Word formats.

Sales Plan Template

‌  Download Excel Template

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This template allows you to plan your sales goals with the flexibility and functionality of an Excel spreadsheet. This sales plan template is divided into 12 months and separate product lines. The template includes columns for the previous year’s performance, current sales goals, and outcome. Create a yearly sales plan, and compare data over time and across products.

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Sales Leads Template

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If you want to keep track of sales leads, but don’t need the full functionality of customer relationship management (CRM) software, this spreadsheet may be adequate for your business. The template has columns for detailed information about each sales lead, including contact dates and status — this allows you to keep track of communications with each customer, plan future contacts and follow-ups, and evaluate potential sales. You can also indicate lead sources on the spreadsheet to monitor your marketing efforts and track how customers are referred to your business.

Sales Tracker Template

This sales tracker template makes it easy to keep track of items sold, along with profit per item and total earned income. You can also track costs, including shipping charges and returns. This template is especially useful for a new business, online retail sales, or any small business that wants to track sales and profits.

Sales Pipeline Template

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This sales pipeline template is an alternative to CRM software and is designed with small businesses in mind, use it to keep track of contacts and estimated sales. It also provides a quarterly sales forecast, along with space to record deal status, projected closing date, and further actions. This simple template is easy to edit and serves as a management tool for your sales pipeline.

Sales and Marketing Plan Template

‌  Download Template in Word

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Creating an effective sales and marketing plan may involve market research and analysis, evaluating your competition, looking at your sales history, examining future sales projections, and more. Once you have adequate information to develop a sales plan, a template can help you organize the plan into steps that will drive sales. This sales and marketing plan template provides space for identifying your sales goal, target customers, strategies for attracting those customers, marketing tactics and messages, scheduled action steps, and results.

Sales Funnel Template

‌ ‌ Download Sales Funnel Template - Excel

This sales funnel template provides a visual representation of the sales process, along with whatever sales data you choose to include. The template can be used as a scorecard to evaluate sales progress, and the funnel makes it easy to visualize the steps in your sales process. This free template is a simple but effective tool for reaching sales and business goals.

Sales Report Template

‌ ‌ Download Sales Report Template

Track monthly, quarterly, and yearly sales activity with this free sales report template. Customize the template or use the existing columns to keep track of sales and pertinent data. This sales report template also includes a monthly forecast showing sales history and projections. Use this template to track progress, plan future goals, and create a sales report with pleasing visual design.

Sales Action Plan Template

Download Sales Action Plan Template

Create a sales plan with actionable steps and a scheduled timeline. This template features sections for listing clearly defined goals, methods for measuring success, action steps, ownership for each step, and deadlines. These are all important components of a sales action plan for reducing risk and increasing the probability that you will reach your sales goals.

Using a Sales Plan Template

Finding the right sales template provides easy organization and efficiency, which frees up resources and time that can go toward reaching business goals. A template can also be a powerful communication tool for sales and marketing teams to develop and track their progress against sales targets. Depending on the nature and scope of your company, some templates can be a component of an effective business plan.

The Basics of a Sales Plan

A sales plan outlines sale goals for a cycle, as well as the steps you will take to hit those targets. The sales plan document also defines tools, high-level tactics, target customers, competitors, obstacles, among other details. A strong plan will communicate company goals to the sales team, keep everyone focused on strategy, and delineate priorities.

What Is the Difference Between Sales Forecasting and Sales Planning?

While many people confuse the two terms, sales forecasting and sales planning are distinct concepts. A sales forecast is a future projection of sales based on business and environmental conditions, while a sales plan defines the concrete steps needed to achieve the sales forecast. You can create a sales forecast for your entire business or for a particular initiative over any period of time (examples include an economic forecast; an industry forecast; a company forecast; and a short-, medium-, or long-term forecast).

Sales plans are helpful tools when budgeting for advertising or travel costs, identifying new sales markets, planning for staffing needs, and creating a timeline to reach milestones. But a sales plan is just one piece of the business planning and management — and it relies on accurate sales forecasting. You can get free sales forecasting templates here .

Large organizations, small businesses, and startups can all equally benefit from sales planning. Sales forecasts and plans are most often used by the sales team, although marketers, executives, and even customers may interact with the documents as well.

What Is a Sales Pipeline?

A sales pipeline is a visual representation of where prospective buyers are in the sales process. A sales pipeline can quickly identify a prospect’s position in the buying journey; use that information to support them and respond to their needs appropriately.

While a specific buyer’s journey will vary based on the industry and type of products or services sold, there are three general phases of any sales pipeline:

A prospect initiates contact with a company and explains its needs.

A salesperson provides the prospect with a quote (including the product or service and price).

The prospect purchases a product or service (and thereby becomes a customer).

Use the targeted sales pipeline templates above to track potential customers’ journeys through the process.

What Is the Sales Funnel? 

The sales funnel is a visual representation of the average conversion rate of potential customers and qualified leads move through the sales process. Sales teams can use the sales funnel to help understand the volume of sales, as well as the percentage of each sale that has passed through each sales process stage.

The sales pipeline represents what the seller is doing during the sales process; the sales funnel shows the sales process conversion rates. The sales funnel feeds the sales pipeline; once a lead is converted into a prospect, they move into the sales pipeline.

Benefits of Using a Sales Plan

A high-quality sales plan is one of the key parts of the sales forecasting process as well as the operational plan and the marketing strategy. When done right, a sales plan can provide the following benefits:

• Guide and contribute to business growth.
• Communicate company sales goals, objectives, and strategic direction for the sales team and leadership.
• Expose new angles based on the research performed to fill out the items on the template. 
• Define needed actions during the sales cycle.
• Provide easy monitoring of sales team progress as linked to goals.
• Provide a high-level view of expenses, finances, and risks, as well as the competition and target customers. 
• Improve and track performance by keeping the team focused on the strategy, priorities and achieving shared milestones.
• Inspire and motivate stakeholders.
• Help keep customers and potential customers as the focus.
• Clarify team capabilities.
• Aid in comparison of targets and results.

Best Practices for Writing a Sales Plan

While creating the sales plan, take the following steps in order to create a quality and realistic plan:

• Perform a SWOT analysis.
• Review prior periods’ performance to gather data.
• Base the targets and goals on market research and historical data.
• Verify facts and data being used.
• Break down data by different sales groups (inside sales, outside sales, etc.).
• Make sure the sales team buys in to the plan.
• Identify patterns that can help reach target customers.
• Pick a time period that makes sense for your industry.
• Ensure that the budget is supported by the research.
• Ensure that sales objectives are linked to sales goals, and that sales goals are linked to business goals.
• Break down estimated expenses to meet sales goals into groups (commissions, sales training, sales tools and resources, contest prizes, team building, travel costs, food, etc.). 
• Use the SMART goals model (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound). 
• Measure what you want to manage.
• Keep the plan updated throughout the sales cycle — it’s a living document.
• Keep the plan as simple as possible.
• Look for untapped market segments to target.
• Define the value proposition for potential customers.
• Map out the ideal customer journey.

Sales Plans Challenges

While a sales plan is a valuable tool, creating one does pose some challenges: 

• Creating a sales plan can be very time consuming.
• Inaccurate data will skew forecasts — verify your numbers before you finalize the plan. 
• It’s difficult to predict changing tastes, so forecasts may not be met.
• Rapid growth may increase the workload of the sales team, and throw off forecasts.
• Be careful not to move goalposts mid-cycle.
• Wishful thinking is easy to do, so be realistic and don’t ignore your own assumptions.
• Neglecting to consult with the sales team may prevent them from buying into the plan.
• Neglecting to get feedback from other groups can have a negative impact on the plan.

What Is Included in a Sales Plan?

The sales plan contains numerous sections that provide information to readers, and help guide decisions that will contribute to meeting sales goals.

• Mission and Executive Summary: Include a short history of the business for background.
• Team Structure: Provide a breakdown of the team by sales team, including each person’s role and capabilities. Also include plans for any future hiring.
• Target Customers: Break down the customer list into segments by products or product lines. Build a prospect list that includes referrals, renewals, upsells, and any new segments, and make sure to leverage existing customer relationships.
• Tools, Software, and Other Resources: Include a list of CRM packages or other sales tools (including training tools), and provide any relevant documentation.
• Positioning: Include competitor data, including a comparison of your products with theirs. Anticipate how market trends may impact your business.
• Marketing Strategy: Include pricing information, promotions, and any actions you have planned to increase brand awareness.
• Prospecting Strategy: List criteria for qualifying leads generated by marketing strategy. 
• Action Plan: Include a list of steps needed to hit revenue and sales goals.
• Revenue and Sales Goals: Include measurable, realistic goals that support the overall business. Additionally, supply information on how performance will be measured and monitored, and be sure to base projections off historical data.
• Budget: Include estimated costs (including training, sales tools and resources, team building activities, travel, food, contest prizes, etc.). Make a case for the budget you present.
• Schedule: Provide a timeline that addresses the length of the sales cycle covered by the plan (annual, quarterly, month, etc.).
• Other Items: Consider including a performance review of the prior sales cycle, as well as market and industry conditions that may impact sales.

Improve Sales Planning with Smartsheet for Sales

Sales planning is an activitiy to gain and retain customers, meet changing market demands, and ultimately, ensure business success. While premade templates can help you get started developing your plan, you need a tool to manage all of your sales processes and operations that is accessible to your team in real time and allows you to collaborate and track sales activity across multiple reps.

Smartsheet is a work execution platform that enables enterprises and teams to get from idea to impact - fast. Top performing sales organizations rely on Smartsheet to stay on top of leads, accelerate productivity, and exceed every quota.

Use Smartsheet to build a strong opportunity pipeline, reduce risks and identify blockers, and refine your sales forecast. Improve transparency to process and procedure, optimize operations with cross-department collaboration, and accelerate team output.

Discover how Smartsheet can help maximize your sales efforts, today. 

Try Smartsheet for Sales

Additional Resources

Operations management

Sales Operations 101: Roles, Duties, Headaches, and Pro Tips

Learn the basics of sales operations and how roles are evolving. Hear from the pros and find tips to remedy sales ops headaches.

Nov 18, 2021

Get the most out of your sales planning efforts with Smartsheet for Sales.

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Blog Graphic Design How To Write a Sales Plan That Converts (+ Templates)

How To Write a Sales Plan That Converts (+ Templates)

Written by: Letícia Fonseca Nov 17, 2021

Sales plans are often considered the foundation of any successful business plan.

A sales plan outlines an organization’s goals for its future operations and steers the sales team in the right direction.

Every successful business relies on a sales plan to reach its sales goals and pivot its strategy when necessary. 

Learn what you need to succeed in writing an impactful sales plan that boosts your conversions and increases customer loyalty.

Don’t know where to start? Create a sales business plan with Venngage’s templates and improve your growth strategy.

Click to jump ahead:

What is a sales strategy plan, what is included in a sales plan, what are the objectives of sales and operations planning.

• How do you write an excellent sales plan?

A sales strategy plan is a document that lists what a company is going to sell, how much the company intends to earn, and how the company plans to go about it.

The sales strategy helps the company determine how to maximize profit margins and stay competitive in the industry.

Here’s an example of a sales strategy plan that includes every action that the sales team is expected to perform.

This ensures that sales managers know what they are responsible for and how the desired output or deliverables for the sales process tie into the business plan.

Return to Table of Contents

A good sales strategy includes a sales plan for your product or service, as well as a plan to market it. Goals to reach your target customers make a sales campaign easy to create and follow.

Here are the most important points to include in a sales strategy plan:

• Product research
• Target audience
• Customer service and customer retention
• Product and service pricing
• Marketing and advertising plan
• Estimated budget for the entire campaign

This sales plan highlights measurable milestones for sales reps to aim for.

We’ve already touched on reasons why companies should use a sales plan, like this example, for their upcoming campaigns.

Below are the four main objectives of creating a sales plan and how they help with sales forecasting.

Align company departments and sales department goals

Different departments can have different perspectives on priorities and progress.

By aligning the company’s other departments with your sales team’s goals, you can ensure that all teams have a shared understanding of the sales plan’s objectives and their holistic contribution towards the business goal.

Create strategic direction for sales teams

A strategic direction plan establishes the company’s goals and objectives for the sales team.

You can formulate strategic direction plans by identifying the following:

• Target audience demographics
• Brand and product niche
• Actions that you want your customers to take
• The best channels to reach customers, such as social media and search engines

Once you’ve identified these, you can create an in-depth plan that can generate conversions in no time. Effective plans, like the one below, keep every customer detail in check.

Better customer-relationship management

A sales plan identifies the individuals and teams responsible for producing results that qualify as milestones for an upcoming business campaign.

With clear assignments, sales managers will easily know which individual or sales team member to approach for additional data.

Mark sales team milestones

Measuring plan milestones are important because they help assess a plan’s performance in a given period or by the end of its execution.

In doing so, team leaders can determine whether the project efficiently used every team member’s efforts and company resources to achieve the plan’s objectives.

The following are excellent examples of milestones for a sales plan:

• Completion of the research phase
• Development of the plan
• Approval of the plan
• Implementation of the plan

How do you write a sales plan?

Take a look at this sales plan. It’s fully detailed, sets deadlines, and keeps everyone updated with the most relevant and newest information so the team is aware of their responsibilities.

Here’s an overview of making an excellent and greatly convincing sales plan:

Compile data from the previous sales year

Create sales targets that meet your sales plan objectives, create a swot analysis, identify demand trends using sales data, look for existing market gaps.

• Appoint key roles for each of your objectives

So, let’s get to it!

Evaluating data from previous marketing campaigns could reveal helpful trends that can improve your upcoming sales plans.

Previous sales data can indicate accurate demographic data, such as lifestyle, age, income, and high sales activities in a given area.

With this data, your team can develop a detailed sales plan that includes your products while keeping in mind your demographic’s language, lifestyle, sensibilities, and more.

Here’s a great way to present this to your superiors and team members.

Related: 10 Demographic Infographic Templates to Share Population Data and More

Simple food sales action plan template

Take your reports from dull to comprehensively lively with this Venngage template. This is a great sales plan template when you have a significant amount of data to show.

You want to get to the point with your sales plan presentations. This fully customizable template makes it easy to share your sales plan data quickly and easily.

With Venngage, you can share your sales plan online with anyone. And when you upgrade to a business account, you can download your plan in a variety of formats, including PNG, PNG HD, PDF, Interactive PDF, and PowerPoint.

All sales targets must be clear, measurable goals that are specific and realistic with a defined deadline.

For example, ‘increase customer retention by 20 percent by the fourth quarter of this year’ is a specific, measurable, attainable, and timely goal.

Aligning your sales targets with the company’s general objectives is the best way to create sales plan objectives that incentivize customers to take action and make a purchase.

These sales KPIs or key performance indicators will keep the sales team aligned and on track with sales goals.

Light strategic sales action plan template

Organize your KPIs for measuring with this simple template. It’s easy to add to a project management interface. Alternately, it can be shared via email.

This helps to have everyone synchronized with the sales plan objectives.

All the colors in this template are neutral, and you can switch them out with your branding assets using Venngage’s convenient drag-and-drop editor.

A SWOT analysis is a tool utilized in the business world to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that a company’s business model may face.

Conducting a SWOT analysis is important for business owners to ensure that their company is as prepared as possible for the future. It can help businesses identify what strategies should be utilized for sales plans.

There are numerous reasons why businesses should use a SWOT analysis:

• A SWOT analysis makes forecasting easier when it is difficult to accurately predict the direction of an industry
• The SWOT analysis is a simplified view of the company’s situation and helps in reaching revenue targets
• It helps companies compare themselves to competitors and create a sales plan that is impactful 

It’s undeniable that the data a SWOT analysis produces is essential for any brand.

Blue competitor SWOT analysis template

Easily organize your thoughts with this simple but effective SWOT analysis template.

The grid format helps your team organize their thoughts and build an efficient sales pipeline.

Change the color scheme to suit your brand, or add a background or header image to make the text stand out.

Related: 15+ Business Plan Examples to Win Your Next Round of Funding

Demand trends are changes in the type and quantity of goods that consumers want to buy.

This is crucial data for sales plans because demand helps sales managers gauge if people identify the brand’s products as essentials or luxuries.

One way to identify demand trends is to use a scatter plot. This is what a scatter plot graph looks like:

This graph is an excellent way to find trends and correlations in your data. Here’s how:

• Plot two sets of data on the same graph
• Pick a line that divides the graph into two equal halves
• Compare the height of each data point on the left side of the line to the height of data points on the right side of the line
• Consider how many data points are on one side of the line than the other

If there are more data points on one side, there is likely a correlation between the two sides and possible causation.

Once you’ve identified these trends, you can include graphs and charts on a sales plan template during your presentation.

Visuals and well-made infographic designs are excellent ways to present your data without cluttering your documents or slides.

Revenue scatter plot chart

A great way to present prospective trends is by customizing this simple scatter plot graph.

This template fits perfectly into a presentation slide deck. There aren’t heavy visuals in this template. The layout is clean and simple, leaving nothing to the reader’s imagination.

You can make the chart more relevant by adding brand-related or relevant images. Or use an image from the 3 million+ stock photos available in the Venngage library.

Upload your own images, change the colors and fonts, and more with this template.

Related: How to Choose the Best Types of Charts For Your Data

A market gap is a space between supply and demand. It’s important because if there is a large market gap, it can indicate an economic opportunity for a company to capitalize on.

Market gaps can be as simple as solving a problem identified by an emerging group of customers.

For example, not every business has food delivery services because it’s expensive to make a fleet, and this gap helped create food delivery services.

A market team can find gaps based on three inputs:

• Forecasting models that help analyze data from the company’s previous-year data
• Qualitative research on lacking areas and industry expert reports identifying the target audience’s pain points
• Finding micro to small emerging trends that are already existing in the market

Market research mind map template

Display your research data with an easy-to-understand template, like the example below. You can present every single detail of your research without making it look like a cluttered report.

Using visuals and an easy-to-understand table, your readers can easily follow the strategic sales plan process from start to finish.

Appoint key roles for each of your sales objectives

With a strategic sales plan, you’ll need to appoint team members or departments to specific tasks. This is crucial for achieving the sales plan’s goals.

A good sales manager will assign roles according to each member’s specialty. For example, front-facing sales reps are better positioned to handle the CRM components of sales plans.

Appointing key roles can be as simple as using a table to align a team member’s position with their responsibilities.

However, you will need much more complex diagrams if you’re assigning tasks to projects with dozens of members.

Food Customer Sales Action Plan Template

Highlight every important detail with this free sales plan template that you can send to team members and other departments.

This sales plan template includes a dedicated section for your target market, customer profile, action plan, and task assignments. It’s a great briefing document for both internal and external use.

Fully customize this sales plan template for your brand with Venngage’s My Brand Kit feature.

Related: 9 Sales Infographics to Guide Strategy and Increase Sales

Now you can execute your sales plan with confidence and grow your customer base

Sales plans should be visually attractive as well as impactful. It isn’t always easy to create a sales plan without design experience.

Use the free sales plan template examples in this post to write a sales plan that is powerful and effective.

With these examples as inspiration, you can help team members and your business convince your target market about the dependability and quality of your products.

The Venngage sales plan templates will help you reach your sales goals faster and grow your business in the process.

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How To Build a Strategic Sales Plan + 10 Examples

• March 28, 2024

Every sales team has some sort of plan, even if it’s just “sell more of the product/service that you’re employed to sell.”

A sales plan is a portfolio that includes a layout of your processes, target audience, objectives and tactics. It’s used to guide your sales strategy and predict cost and returns. 

Yet without a codified sales plan, it can be difficult to give a sales team the motivation and purpose they need to successfully engage customers and continue to generate revenue.

Not having a sales plan that’s written down and signed off on by stakeholders can lead to confusion around what sales reps should and shouldn’t be doing , which can be demotivating.

It might seem daunting or time-consuming to put together an entire sales plan, but it doesn’t need to be. Here’s how to create a thorough sales plan in 10 simple steps. 

What Is a Sales Plan? 

A successful sales plan defines your target customers, business objectives, tactics, obstacles and processes. An effective plan will also include resources and strategies that are used to achieve target goals. It works similarly to a business plan in the way it’s presented, but only focuses on your sales strategy. 

A sales plan should include the following three components: 

• Ideas: If you use specific business methodologies, you may choose to outline key principles and examples of them in action within your sales plan. An example could be conversation tactics when pitching your product to your target customer. 
• Processes: In order to streamline productivity and business strategy, you’ll want to make sure your processes are defined within your sales plan. Your sales team should be able to refer to the sales plan when they’re in need of direction. 
• Tools and tactics: The most effective sales plans include not only high-level business strategies, but also step-by-step approaches for your sales team to utilize. These tools can include key conversation pieces for your sales reps to use when pitching a product or content to close out a deal. 

Solidifying a sales plan is crucial for a strong business model. Taking the time to narrow in on the components above will set you and your business up for success down the road. 

Sales Planning Process

It’s important to keep in mind that sales planning isn’t just about creating a sales plan document. A sales plan should be a go-to item that’s used every day by your team, rather than sitting on your desk collecting dust. Creating an effective sales plan requires high-level strategy.

You should: 

• Decide on a timeline for your goals and tactics
• Outline the context
• Write out the company mission and values
• Describe the target audience and product service positioning
• Include sales resources
• Draw out an overview of concurrent activities
• Write an overview of your business road map
• Outline your goals and KPIs
• Outline an action plan
• Create a budget 

 Below we dive into each of these steps to create your ideal sales plan. 

1. Decide on Your Timeline

Setting goals and outlining tactics is not going to be productive if you’re not working toward a date by which you’ll measure your efforts.

Determining the timeline of your sales plan should therefore be your number one consideration. When will you be ready to kick-start your plan, and when is a reasonable time to measure the outcomes of your plan against your SMART goals?

Remember that you need to give the plan a chance to make an impact, so this timeline shouldn’t be too restrictive. However, you also want to make sure that you’re flexible enough to adjust your plan if it’s not producing the desired results.

Most sales plan timelines cover about a year, which may be segmented into four quarters and/or two halves to make it a little more manageable.

2. Outline the Context

Use the first page of your sales plan to outline the context in which the plan was created.

What is the current state of the organization? What are your challenges and pain points? What recent wins have you experienced?

Do you have tighter restrictions on cash flow, or does revenue appear to be growing exponentially? How is your sales team currently performing?

While you’ll discuss your business plan and road map later in the document, you can also outline the long-term vision for your business in this section. For example, where do you want to see the business in five years?

Tip: Comparing the current situation with your vision will emphasize the gap between where you are now and where you need to be. 

3. Company Mission and Values

It’s essential that you put your mission and values at the heart of your business. You need to incorporate them into every function – and this includes your sales plan.

Outlining your mission and values in your sales plan ensures that you remember what the company is striving for, and in turn helps ensure that your approach and tactics will support these objectives.

Remember: A strong brand mission and authentic values will help boost customer loyalty, brand reputation and, ultimately, sales.

4. Target Market and Product/Service Positioning

Next, you’ll need to describe the market or markets that you’re operating in.

What is your target market or industry? What research led you to conclude that this was the optimal market for you?

Who within this industry is your ideal customer? What are their characteristics? This could be a job title, geographical location or company size, for example. This information makes up your ideal customer profile .

If you’ve delved further into audience research and developed personas around your target market, then include them in here, too.

5. Sales Team and Resources

This step is simple: Make a list of your sales resources, beginning with a short description of each member of your sales team.

Include their name, job title, length of time at the company and, where appropriate, their salary. What are their strengths? How can they be utilized to help you hit your goals?

You should also include notes around the gaps in your sales team and whether you intend to recruit any new team members into these (or other) roles.

Tip: Communicate the time zones your team members work in to be mindful of designated work hours for scheduling meetings and deadlines. 

Then, list your other resources. These could be tools, software or access to other departments such as the marketing team – anything that you intend to use in the execution of your sales plan. This is a quick way to eliminate any tools or resources that you don’t need.

6. Concurrent Activities

The next step in creating your sales plan involves providing an overview of non-sales activities that will be taking place during the implementation of your sales plan.

Any public marketing plans, upcoming product launches, or deals or discounts should be included, as should any relevant events. This will help you plan sales tactics around these activities and ensure that you’re getting the most out of them.

7. Business Road Map

For this step, write up an overview of your business’s overall road map, as well as the areas where sales activities can assist with or accelerate this plan. You’ll need to collaborate with the CEO, managing director or board of directors in order to do this.

In most cases, the business will already have a road map that has been signed off on by stakeholders. It’s the sales manager’s job to develop a sales plan that not only complements this road map, but facilitates its goals. 

Tip: Highlight areas of the road map that should be touchpoints for the sales team. 

Ask yourself what your department will need to do at each point in the road map to hit these overarching company goals.

8. Sales Goals and KPIs

Another important part of the sales plan involves your sales goals and KPIs.

Outline each goal alongside the KPIs you’ll use to measure it. Include a list of metrics you’ll use to track these KPIs, as well as a deadline for when you project the goal will be achieved.

It’s vital to make these goals tangible and measurable.

A bad example of a goal is as follows:

Goal 1: Increase sales across company’s range of products and services.

A better goal would look something like:

Goal 1: Generate $500,000+ in revenue from new clients through purchases of X product by X date.

9. Action Plan

Now that you’ve laid out your goals, you need to explain how you will hit them.

Your action plan can be set out week by week, month by month, or quarter by quarter. Within each segment, you must list out all of the sales activities and tactics that you will deploy – and the deadlines and touchpoints along the way.

Tip: Organize your action plan by department – sales, business development and finance. 

While this is arguably the most complex part of the sales plan, this is where sales leaders are strongest. They know which approach will work best for their team, their company and their market.

Budgets vary from team to team and company to company, but whatever your situation, it’s important to include your budget in your sales plan.

How are you going to account for the money spent on new hires, salaries, tech, tools and travel? Where the budget is tight, what are your priorities going to be, and what needs to be axed?

The budget section should make references back to your action plan and the sales team and resources page in order to explain the expenditures.

6 Strategic Sales Plan Examples 

You can create different types of strategic sales plans for your company, depending on how you want to structure your sales plan. Here are a few examples.   

Customer Profile 

A customer profile outlines your ideal customer for your service or product. It will usually include industry, background, attributes and decision-making factors.  

Creating a customer profile helps narrow in on the target customer your sales team should focus on while eliminating unproductive leads.  

Buyer’s Guide

A buyer’s guide is an informational sheet that describes your company’s services or products, including benefits and features. This document is useful both for your sales team but also for a potential customer who requires more information on the product before purchasing. 

30-60-90-Day Plan

This plan is organized based on time periods. It includes outlines of goals, strategy and actionable steps in 30-day periods. This is a useful sales plan model for a new sales representative tracking progress during their first 90 days in the position or meeting quotas in a 90-day period. 

This type of sales plan is also ideal for businesses in periods of expansion or growth. It’s helpful to minimize extra effort in onboarding processes. 

Market Expansion Plan

A market expansion plan clarifies target metrics and list of actions when moving into a new territory or market. This sales plan model is typically used with a target market that resides in a new geographical region. 

You’ll want to include a profile of target customers, account distribution costs and even time zone differences between your sales representatives. 

Marketing-alignment Plan

Creating a marketing-alignment sales plan is useful if your organization has yet to align both your sales and marketing departments. The goal of the sales plan is finalizing your target customer personas and aligning them with your sales pitches and marketing messages. 

New Product/Service Plan 

If your organization is launching a new service or product, it’s best to create a sales plan to track revenue and other growth metrics from the launch. You’ll want to include sales strategy, competitive analyses and service or product sales positioning. 

Sales Plan Template

4 additional sales plan templates.

Here are some additional templates you can use to create your own unique sales plan. 

• Template Lab 
• ProjectManager

5 Tips for Creating a Sales Plan 

Now that you’ve seen and read through a few examples and a sales plan template, we’ll cover some easy but useful tips to create a foolproof sales plan. 

• Create a competitive analysis: Research what sales strategies and tactics your close competitors are using. What are they doing well? What are they not doing well? Knowing what they are doing well will help you create a plan that will lead to eventual success. 
• Vary your sales plans: First create a base sales plan that includes high-level goals, strategies and tactics. Then go more in depth on KPIs and metrics for each department, whether it’s outbound sales or business development . 
• Analyze industry trends: Industry trends and data can easily help strengthen your sales approach. For example, if you’re pitching your sales plan to a stakeholder, use current market trends and statistics to support why you believe your sales strategies will be effective in use. 
• Utilize your marketing team: When creating your sales plan, you’ll want to get the marketing department’s input to align your efforts and goals. You should weave marketing messages throughout both your sales plan and pitches. 
• Discuss with your sales team: Remember to check in with your sales representatives to understand challenges they may be dealing with and what’s working and not working. You should update the sales plan quarterly based on feedback received from your sales team. 

When Should You Implement a Strategic Sales Plan? 

Does your organization currently not have a sales plan in place that is used regularly? Are you noticing your organization is in need of structure and lacking productivity across departments? These are definite signs you should create and implement a sales plan. 

According to a LinkedIn sales statistic , the top sales tech sellers are using customer relationship management (CRM) tools (50%), sales intelligence (45%) and sales planning (42%) .

Below are a few more indicators that you need an effective sales plan. 

To Launch a New Product or Campaign 

If you’re planning to launch a new service or product in six months, you should have a concrete marketing and sales strategy plan to guarantee you’ll see both short- and long-term success. 

The sales plan process shouldn’t be hasty and rushed. Take the time to go over data and competitor analysis. Work with your team to create objectives and goals that everyone believes in. Your sales plan should be updated formally on a quarterly basis to be in line with industry trends and business efforts. 

To Increase Sales

If your team is looking to increase revenue and the number of closed sales, you may need to widen and define your target audience. A sales plan will help outline this target audience, along with planning out both sales and marketing strategies to reach more qualified prospects and increase your sales conversion rate. 

Now that you’ve seen sales plan examples and tips and tricks, the next step after creating your sales plan is to reach those ideal sales targets with Mailshake . Connect with leads and generate more sales with our simple but effective sales engagement platform.

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How to Create a Sales Plan in 8 Steps: Guide + Free Template for 2023

It can happen to the best of us. We start off the year with big ambitions, certain our sales team is gonna crush it. We’re making lots of calls, selling to new customers, and getting our product out there. 

But soon, we wonder: how are we actually doing? Are we on track to meet our revenue goals for the year? Should we focus on building outreach or closing more deals? 

This is where a sales plan can make all the difference. Goals and objectives are clearly stated, day-to-day tasks are aligned with company priorities, and sales reps are working towards individual goals. It’s a beautiful thing. 

And it doesn’t have to be hard. In fact, we’ve put together this guide to make the sales planning process as easy as following a template. Let’s get started. 

What’s a Sales Plan?

A sales plan is a forecast of the sales you expect to achieve and how you’re going to get there. It typically covers important elements like:

• Past performance numbers
• Sales operations strategies
• Sales forecasting
• Current goals and objectives
• An action plan for finding and selling to new customers

Having an action plan in place for your sales process aligns your team’s day-to-day actions with your company’s priorities and business goals.

So, for example, if you’re trying to sell to a very specific target market, your team should focus on account-based selling as opposed to lead generation. If you’re looking to generate new business or break into a new market, you should focus sales activities more on outreach and prospecting. 

An action plan also empowers you to spend more time intentionally working towards your revenue targets, rather than getting stuck in reactionary mode dealing with daily hiccups and distractions.

What’s Inside a Typical Sales Plan? (Plus a Free Sales Plan Template)

While there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for developing a strategic sales plan, a good plan usually includes the following: 

• Company mission and vision statements
• Realistic, time-based goals with action steps to achieve them
• Purposeful tasks and daily activities for your sales reps to achieve
• Proven sales strategies to improve outcomes and get results
• Lead generation tactics for finding new customers
• Metrics you’ll use to see how your team is progressing

Download Your Free Sales Plan Templates Today

Want to build your own sales plan that kick-starts growth? Grab our Sales Success Kit. You won’t only get a sales strategy , you’ll get:

• Templates for sales planning
• Checklists for things like sales calls and hiring
• Worksheets for overcoming objections
• Guides for writing sales scripts

…and more to help you set up strategic sales planning and goals for your team.

8 Steps to Build a Sales Plan that Drives Revenue

In this section, we’ll go over the steps you need to take to build a strategic sales plan that gets the kind of results you’re looking for. 

1. Determine Your Primary & Secondary Sales Goals & KPIs

A successful sales plan begins with setting goals. These goals will be the targets your sales reps are working to reach—so it’s important to define them carefully.

When determining your goals, keep the S.M.A.R.T. system in mind. Company goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. Here’s an example: 

• Bad goal: “Grow sales.”
• SMART goal: “Hit $100k in revenue by the end of the 1st quarter.”

Also, keep in mind that the right sales goals are those at the edge of achievable and challenging. If a goal is too easy or too hard, your team’s motivation will probably plummet. 

For example, if you’re a small business or startup that just reached $50k in revenue last year, shooting for $500k is a bit of a stretch, while $60k is probably too easy. 

That said, you’ll also want to determine specific metrics and KPIs in this step, including how they’re currently performing, and how you plan to improve them. 

Author’s note: If you’re using a tool like Close to manage your sales team and processes, you get a KPI dashboard that looks something like this—so your team can better align and track progress:

But remember this golden rule when choosing key performance indicators:

You don’t need to track every sales KPI. You just need to track the right ones.

Here are ten benchmarks and KPIs worth tracking that are commonly used by sales teams: 

• Monthly sales growth
• Calls and cold emails per rep (daily, weekly, monthly)
• Sales opportunities created
• Monthly onboarding and demo calls booked
• Lead conversion rate
• Sales by contact method
• Average conversion time
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
• Customer lifetime value (LTV)
• New and expansion monthly recurring revenue (MRR)

2. Find Your Target Customers’ Needs

One of the best ways to find the needs of your target audience is to develop an ideal customer profile (ICP). An ICP is an example of the perfect customer for your business. 

Normally used by B2B companies, this profile defines the characteristics of a company that would buy your product or service. 

Here are some of the traits to look out for in them:

To get started, think of your top ten to twenty customers. These should be customers who say your solution is so valuable, it outweighs the cost. 

Then, gather information about each customer and identify traits they have in common. Write a description of your ideal customer that includes data like what we’ve shared earlier: 

• General information about the company or customer, such as size, demographics, and industry
• Typical budget and revenue
• Location, if it’s applicable to what you’re selling
• Main challenges and pain points the customer is looking to solve
• Common objections that are raised during the sales process
• Typical purchase process, including decision-makers
• Timelines and deadlines to purchase

By identifying these common traits, you can better target the market that is best suited for your product and really hone in on their needs. 

3. Define Your Value Proposition

Now that you know what your customers need, it’s time to explain how your company meets that need. Enter: the value proposition . 

A value proposition describes the specific value your company provides to your customers. It should focus on benefits, not features. And it should explain how you stand out from the crowd. For example:

• What problem does your product solve? Is it a new product? 
• What does your product do for your customers? 
• How does your product stand out? 
• What makes you different from the competition? 

One of the best ways to nail down your value proposition is to talk to actual customers or prospects. Ask them how they would describe your product to a colleague. How would they sell it to them if asked for a recommendation? 

You can also look up reviews on websites like G2 and read what your customers are raving about online. Is there a common thread? What benefits do your customers keep bringing up, especially as it relates to the competition? Is there something your company is doing that others aren’t? 

4. Choose a Structure for Your Sales Team

Just as there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to creating a sales plan, there isn’t one right way to structure your sales force. What works best depends on your product, team, and sales processes. Here are three common sales team structures to choose from: 

• Island: Individual reps work through the sales process alone. This means they handle everything from cold calling and outreach to closing major deals.

• Assembly line: Each sales rep is assigned a specialized role such as lead generation, SDR (qualifier), Account Executive (closer), or Customer Success (farmer).
• Pods: Each sales rep is assigned a specialized role in a group that’s responsible for the entire journey of specific customers.

No matter what structure you choose, determine which reps are available during what times of the year, their specialties and skills, and what they’re responsible for in the sales process. It’s also important to include information about the sales managers, other team members, and the incentives you offer your reps.

5. Create a Plan For Execution

At this point, you know what you want to get done. You know your goals, you know your customers, and you know how your sales team will be organized. Now it’s time to come up with a specific plan of attack. 

To do this, take a look at your overall goals and figure out how to create milestones. This involves breaking down that big number into smaller expectations with strict deadlines. Milestones should challenge and motivate your sales team , without being so difficult they kill morale.

Involve your sales team during this process. Learn what they do during the week to close deals. Ask how much they’re currently doing, and how much bandwidth they have to do more. This will give you a real, frontline take on what your team can execute.

Then, create specific milestones with clear deadlines. For example, to achieve a sales goal of increasing revenue by 15% YOY, you might set the milestone of increasing your customer base by 20% at the end of Q1, or increasing sales by 50% for a specific product during Q3.

Finally, break these milestones down into action items. If you’re trying to increase your customer base, for instance, your sales team will need to increase prospecting and lead generation activities. How will your team approach this? Assign specific tasks to team members with daily, weekly, or monthly targets.  

Here’s an example to show how your goals, milestones, and action items are related to each other: 

Goal: Increase revenue by 15% YOY

Milestone: Increase customer base by 20% by the end of Q1

Action items: Each sales rep makes 10 new prospecting calls per week and spends 30 minutes qualifying leads

6. Evaluate Your Existing Sales Tools

In this step, take a look at your existing sales tools. Ask your team the following questions about each one: 

• How are we using this tool? What sales tactics does it help with? 
• Do we have another tool that does the same thing? 
• How much does this tool cost? 
• What’s the learning curve with this tool in the short term? 
• How easy is it to onboard new team members? 
• Is there anything we wish this tool did better? 
• What’s customer support like when we have issues? 
• Does this tool integrate easily with our other tools? 
• How does this tool make our lives easier? 
• How does this tool help us close more deals? 
• Where does it fit in the sales funnel? 

Once you’ve answered these questions for all of your sales tools, decide if there are any you don’t need in your stack anymore. Also, make note of any gaps in your capabilities or areas you feel could be improved with a better tool. 

Then, list the resources you have available and how you plan to use them. For example, how much will you spend on your sales tools? Which CRM software or prospecting tools are your sales professionals lost without? Briefly explain each tool’s value and why you’ve allocated resources towards it.

7. Build a List of Dream Clients 

If you could close the deal with anyone you wanted, who would it be? Write it down. Then, go back to your ideal customer profile and find more companies that fit the bill. 

Using this strategy is called target account sales or account-based selling. It’s a sales strategy where every prospect is handpicked and matched to your ICP. This means you know their pain points , their competitors, and how you’ll sell to them—long before you pick up the phone. 

Using the target account method will help you fill your pipeline with high-value leads that are a perfect fit for your product. It’s also a great way to build confidence with your reps since they can do a lot of legwork before making a call. 

8. Schedule Progress Checks 

A sales plan is a living, breathing document that needs to adapt to the dynamic world around it. New features, new marketing campaigns, new team members—all of these things can change the game. 

With that in mind, the last step in creating your sales plan is to set regular meetings (at least monthly) to review progress towards hitting your sales targets. At each meeting, plan to identify and solve any new issues and re-align activities across teams to adapt to real-world events and feedback. 

That said, try to avoid moving the actual goalposts—even if you discover you’ve been overly optimistic or pessimistic in your forecasting . Instead, carefully document what needs updating so you’re prepared when it comes time to make your next sales plan. 

5 Best Practices for Creating a Profitable Sales Plan

Now that you know how to build your plan, here’s a list of best practices to make sure you’re successful. 

1. Touch Base with Existing Customers  

Existing customers can be a huge source of knowledge when building your sales plan. After all, they’re using your product and can provide valuable feedback on what’s working and what’s not. 

But knowledge isn’t the only thing existing customers have to offer. They’re also a goldmine for generating new leads. In fact, according to SaaStr founder Jason Lemkin , “At least 20% of your new customers should come from referrals and word of mouth.”

If you’re still in the early stages of business development, use your sales plan to show your team how to leverage their own network to get introductions to new prospects. If you’re at a later stage, build a referral program for customers that refer new leads. 

2. Get Input From Colleagues Outside of Sales

It’s easy to get caught up in our little sales bubble and forget the outside world. But you’d be doing yourself and your company a disservice if you don’t get input from people on the outside. 

Getting a different point of view can open doors you didn’t even realize were there. Or keep you from wasting time going down a road to nowhere. 

So reach out to colleagues in other departments (i.e. marketing, tech support, human resources, etc.) Ask them to look over your sales plan and give you feedback. What have they heard from customers? Is there a marketing strategy that could work in tandem with your efforts? You may be surprised at what they have to offer. 

3. Include Your Sales Team in the Planning Process

As we mentioned earlier, your sales reps can be super helpful during the planning process. They know your customers and they know the daily grind. So they usually have valuable insight in terms of realistic goal-setting, how customers may respond to certain strategies, and more. 

Plus, including your sales team in the process is a great way to get buy-in. People are way more likely to get on board with a plan if they were involved in its creation. On the flip side, if you just drop a plan on your team without getting their input, you’ll likely face some pushback. 

So get your team involved early in the process. Schedule planning meetings and quick brainstorming sessions. Explain why the plan matters and why you want their participation. 

4. Compare Plans with Strategic Partners

Strategic partners or stakeholders are usually other businesses that benefit in some way from your success. These can be suppliers, retailers, or companies with complimentary products or services (also known as Complementary Service Providers, or CSPs). 

If you have a good working relationship, ask them to compare notes. You take a look at their sales plan and have them look at yours. After all, you’re typically targeting the same type of customers. 

Maybe they’ve tried something you’re planning to implement and can give you feedback on how it went. Or maybe you’re planning similar strategies and can piggyback off each other or refer leads. 

5. Set Individual Goals for Your Sales Team

Finally, take your overall goals and break them down into individual goals for your sales team. Not only will this make your plan more actionable but it’s a great opportunity for professional development if you take into account the differences in strengths, weaknesses, and skills among your salespeople.

For example, if someone on your team is making a lot of calls but not closing many deals, set an individual goal of upping their close rate . On the other hand, if someone’s great at closing but doesn’t do much outreach, give them the goal of contacting ten new prospects a month.

Create a Sales Plan That Drives Growth 

Taking the time to create a solid, effective sales plan (or business plan) is always worth it. It gives you the roadmap you need to push through the inertia and stay on track to meet your goals. 

We’re here to help. Download our free Sales Success Kit and get access to 11 different templates, checklists, worksheets, and guides. All are action-oriented and easy to use, so you can have your best sales year yet.

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Create a Sales Plan That Actually Works (Tips + Template)

• January 21, 2021

True success always starts with a plan. And for sales success, nothing beats a strategic sales plan.

Designed specifically to help your sales team drive more sales, a sales plan can show you where you’re at, where you want to be, and even more important, how to get there.

The question, of course, is how to create a sales plan that actually impacts sales. Keep reading for tips and a template to quickly and confidently create a strategic sales plan for your business.

Table of Contents

What is a sales plan, what is included in a sales plan, sales plan examples: there’s no one right way, the benefits of a sales plan, how to write a sales plan, 7 tips to help you create a sales plan, sales strategy template, selling your sales plan, final remarks.

A sales plan is a strategy document that lays out a company’s plan for improving sales results in a specified time period. A sales plan makes it possible for everyone on the sales team to see the big picture, share the same overall objectives, and work the same plan to achieve them.

It usually includes:

• Specific revenue and performance goals for a given period
• The strategies for achieving them
• The resources and activities required to carry out those strategies

A sales plan covers a lot of important aspects of business growth: revenue goals, selling methods and metrics, target customers, current sales force capabilities, and more.

Specifically, it covers 9 pieces of strategic information.

1. Executive Summary and Scope of The Sales Plan

This section gives a short summary of the document, focusing on goals and the strategies to achieve them. It also states the specific period and other parameters covered by the plan.

2. Business Goals and Revenue Targets

This section clearly establishes revenue targets and may include associated business goals (e.g., optimize lifecycle value through customer success programs, etc). Classifying revenue figures based on different categories (such as line and territory) helps clarify the document.

3. Review of Prior Period Performance

This section presents a recap of the prior period’s performance, identifying mistakes as well as decisive actions that led to a positive outcome. The overarching goal is to optimize the sales plan by adopting inputs and techniques that work.

4. Market and Industry Conditions

This section provides a summary of the market trends that have a high likelihood of influencing sales performance.

5. Strategies, Methodologies, and Tactics

This section recommends the best selling techniques, communication sequences, and playbooks for the specific company.

6. Customer Segments

This section cites all the potential revenue-generating, omnichannel opportunities available for the brand, such as the following:

• Cross-sells
• New Prospects
• New Segments

The document should describe new segments of the addressable market when they arise.

7. Team Capabilities, Resources, and Upgrades

This section provides a summary and describes the current state of all production inputs (human resources, tech software, specialized sales team, etc.,) required to process and close sales details.

8. Action Plan For Teams and Individuals

This section assigns tasks, activities, and responsibilities to different teams and individuals. Tasks include prospecting activities, meeting appointments, and product demos/presentations.

9. Performance Benchmarks & Monitoring

This section lays out performance metrics to track the systems and processes that help monitor these metrics.

What usually comes to mind when you think about sales plans?

If you’re like most people, it’s the annual sales plan or weekly sales plan — broad strategic and tactical documents mapping out the plan for everything sales-related.

But there are as many different types of sales plans as there are needs for a sales plan.

We’ll go over a few sales plan examples to get you started in the right direction.

30-60-90-day Sales Plan

There’s the 30-60-90-day sales plan. This is designed to help a new salesperson or sales manager get up to speed quickly in their first quarter on the job. The plan includes milestones they’d need to achieve at the 30th, 60th, and 90th day of their ramp-up.

Generally, the  30-60-90-day sales plan  can be broken down into 3 sections:

Day 1 to 30: 

Learn and understand everything you can about a company from their processes, customers, products, the competition to procedures.

Day 31 to 60:

Evaluate and put your plan into action. Analyze their current processes and assess changes.

Day 61 to 90:

Optimize and make the plan better. It is time to take action. Initiate an action plan. Implement any new strategies and procedures you’ve come up with.

Sales Plan For Specific Sales

A sales process involves using different tactics to approach and convert a prospect into a paying customer.

Another type of sales plan you’ll see a lot is an individual sales plan for specific sales tactics, such as prescribed call sequences,  email follow-up  frequency, and meeting appointments. This type of plan is similar to an annual/weekly sales plan, but it focuses on measuring and improving results for just one goal or task.

Territory Sales Plan

Meanwhile, sales managers who oversee a geo-location or region often use territory sales plans to give sales directors and VPs more visibility into their sales efforts.

This is a workable plan used to target the right customers and implement goals to increase the income generated and sales over time.

A good territory sales plan will:

• Make your team more productive
• Reduce operational costs
• Increase the number of generated sales
• Improve your customer coverage
• Improve working relationships between clients and managers

Note: It is essential to work on your territory sales plan and avoid making constant changes. Unnecessary changes can tamper with your productivity and your ‘territory’ in general.

Sales Training Plan

And there are sales plans for every area of sales. Sales Enablement might have a sales training plan, for example, and  Revenue Ops  might have a sales compensation plan.

A sales training plan can be used as a roadmap for different sales training programs. It can be grouped according to positions held in an organization, assets, sales record etc.

A sales compensation plan is an umbrella for base salary, incentives and commission that make up a sales representative earnings.

Therefore, you can schedule a sales training plan to talk to your sales team about the importance of a sales compensation plan and how they can use it to increase revenue and drive performance.

Sales Budget Plan

Lastly, a sales budget plan gives you a  sales forecast  for a given period based on factors that could impact revenue — like industry trends and entry to a new market segment. Similar to a traditional sales plan, they cover the staff, tools, marketing campaigns, and other resources needed to generate the target revenue.

A good sales budget plan  should include the following:

Sales forecasting: 

The process of estimating future sales by predicting the number of units a salesperson or team can sell over a certain period, i.e. week, month, year, etc.

Anticipated expenses: 

Include the number of costs your team is likely going to incur. Remember to have even the smallest expenses to estimate the average sales.

Expect the unexpected: 

Always leave room for unforeseen circumstances in your sales budget. For example, new packaging expenses, new competitive market strategies etc.

A sales plan does deliver side benefits (such as promoting discipline and diligence), but it’s really about making sure your sales don’t dry up over time. Which means it’s not optional.

The reality is this: Most of us aren’t planners. We talk a good game, but nothing happens until we’re accountable.

Without a written plan, it’s just talk.

So the first benefit of a sales plan is that it helps you execute on all your best ideas. But that’s not all. A good sales plan will also help you:

• Keep your sales team on the same page, aiming for the same target and focusing on the same priorities.
• Clarify your goals and revenue objectives for a given period.
• Give your team direction, focus, and purpose.
• Adopt a unified set of strategies and playbooks to reach your business and revenue goals.
• Know what your team capabilities are and be able to isolate your needs, from tools to talent and other resources.
• Inspire and  motivate  stakeholders.
• Track your progress and optimize performance over time.

A sales plan is a pretty straightforward document. It doesn’t need to be written in a formal language or pass your compliance review. It just needs to outline your plans for the coming period, whether that’s a year, a quarter, or a month.

While there are 9 sections in the sales plan template, much of the document simply validates your ideas. The most important pieces of information are:

1. Your goals

Setting smart goals for you and your team  is an essential part of creating a sales plan. I believe the biggest mistake you can make when setting goals is solely focusing on numbers.

Smart sales goals should be actively focused on. If it helps, use goal-setting and planning frameworks such as SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound). Create goals that stretch your capabilities, but that seems doable based on your new strategy.

2. Your SWOT analysis

SWOT — short for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats — is one of the best frameworks for analyzing your sales team’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and strengths. It helps you to build a bulletproof wall around your plan.

You’ll be able to address what you’re lacking, the areas that need improvement, identify your USP (Unique Selling Point),  come up with Value-Based Selling , and your most vital points and how you can exploit them to your advantage.

3. Your strategy

Your sales strategy should be documented to help position your products and services to differentiate your solution from competitors.

A good strategy will help you address your customers’ needs in every stage of your sales plan. For better sales, you can balance  inbound and outbound sales strategies  for even higher sales.

4. Your tactics

Be aware, though, it’s not just a wish list or a collection of ideas. Your sales plan should be based on actual field data and only use benchmarks and quantities that are measurable. Be clear. Be specific. Be actionable.

Which brings me to another point: A good sales plan is realistic.

It’s fine to have a 5-year goal of hitting $10B. But what about now? Figure out exactly what your current numbers are, and set your targets based on those numbers.

I already mentioned that your sales plan doesn’t have to be a formal document. But it does need to be clearly written, so all team members and stakeholders understand the plan.

Tip #1: Base it on in-depth and up-to-date research

You need relevant  statistics  and trends in your niche, industry, and ideal customers. Remember, markets and customers are in a constant state of flux. There’s nothing worse than stubbornly chasing prospects who aren’t a good fit anymore while ignoring entire market segments that show a rising demand for your solutions.

Tip #2: Use data and statistics

Use the data from your in-depth research to identify problem areas, find points of opportunity in your sales process, and validate your assumptions and ideas.

You can also use the data to come up with accurate metrics and figures to help predict your sales plan’s outcome.

Tip #3: Verify your facts

Accuracy matters!

Don’t rush! Facts and figures are essential, especially to stakeholders. One simple mistake and your entire plan come tumbling down.

Ensure you take time to review your facts, figures, and forecasts before finalizing the document.

Tip #4: Get tactical

Break the overall sales action plan into tactical plans for individual areas of sales:

• SDRs and account executives
• Sales operations
• Sales enablement
• Customer success

This may require collaboration with  cross-functional teams  such as marketing, customer support, and product teams.

Tip #5: Use Historical Performance Data

In sales, you can use the past to dictate the future. Historical data will help you set targets for the current period. For example, what were your previous revenue targets? Did you hit them? Why or why not? This information can help you set achievable goals for your current sales plan and know the mistakes to avoid.

Tip #6: List The Tracking Methods You’ll Use

Highlight the tracking methods you’ll use to keep your plan moving forward. That includes performance metrics, monitoring techniques, software, tools, and  selling strategies  for your business model.

Tip #7: Build a Strong Case For Your Proposed Budget

Stakeholders and superiors are impressed with cold-hard facts. Therefore, having a strong detailed case for your budget will help your sales plan smoothly sail through.

Not only will you outline your plans for the coming period for your budget, but you’ll also need to detail the costs. Be sure to include an ROI analysis for any new tools or talent you think you’ll need.

Are you ready to write your own sales strategy? Here is a sales plan template to help you get started. Here’s how to use the sales plan template to make it useful to you:

Start by using the Sales Plan Template we’ll give you in the next section. Just follow the prompts in the template, so you know what information is needed in each section. Don’t try to be fancy. Use simple language. Focus on being specific and clear.

Then share information in whatever format works best. That may be text paragraphs, tables, lists, charts, graphics, or screenshots. You can also adapt it as needed to suit your business, your sales team, and your needs.

A sales plan should contain the following sections:

1. Executive Summary

This is your opening ‘statement’. It is a formal summary that sum ups the contents of your strategy.

When writing your executive summary , keep it short, and precise. It should be one page or two. Ensure it gives an overview of what is included in your plan. It should talk about:

• The strategies you’ll implement to achieve your goals
• The time-frame you expect to achieve your plan
• The scope of your plans

2. Business Goals With Revenue Targets

This section talks about the revenue target and associated business goals. You can  classify revenue figures  according to different categories to clarify the sales strategy.

For example, for each goal, you can enter the current outcome and targeted outcome as illustrated in the table below:

3. Review of Past Performance

Take a trip down prior period performance . Note the mistakes that negatively affected the outcome and their strengths which positively impacted the general outcome.

Your goal is to identify the strategies and tactics that work.

4. Specific Strategies, Methods, and Playbooks

List the  specific sales strategies,  methods, and playbooks you’ll use to achieve the goals listed above.

5. Customer Segments/ Buyers Persona

This section talks about potential  revenue-generating streams  and different opportunities available for the company and new markets. Remember to include upsells, referrals, and renewals.

6. Team Capabilities and Resources

Here, provide a summary and describe the current  production inputs required in the sales process , i.e., human resources, specialized software, sales team, etc.

7. Action Plan

The action plan requires you to set  specific strategies and supporting tactics  that will be used to achieve a particular goal, i.e. new acquisition. Assign different activities and responsibilities to teams who will run that particular action.

Below is an example of an action plan table:

8. Sales Tools

Go ahead and list the  tools you’ll use to ensure the sales plan runs smoothly  and all sales processes will be managed using these tools.

9. Performance Benchmarks

This is the last section of your sales plan. It  lays out the performance metrics  to track the process systems to help and monitor these metrics.

Also, list and provide links to used sources. Explain how the report will be generated and stored. Finally, talk about how the report will be used to review the progress made.

Okay, your sales plan is written. Great! But you’re not done yet.

Your next step is to present it to the sales team, management, and stakeholders. That’s because you need buy-in to make it happen.

When your sales team is on board, they’ll be pumped about doing their assigned tasks. When management is on board, they’ll be excited about giving you the budget you need to turn your plan into a reality. With buy-in as your top priority, it’s important to be prepared to give a solid presentation. In other words, sell it.

One final note: There are lots of reasons you may not get everything you ask for. There may be plans in the works you don’t know anything about yet. Or the budget may need to favor another initiative.

If you don’t get the budget you asked for, be sure to update your sales plan accordingly. The goal is to stretch your team’s capabilities, not do the impossible.

Sales don’t happen without a good sales plan. Fortunately, they’re not as hard as they might seem.

Take your time identifying your biggest challenges and problem-solving to overcoming them. Once that’s done, your sales plan is simply the document that organizes your ideas.

What’s your biggest hang-up when it comes to creating a sales plan? Have you found any tricks that help? Let me know in the comments below.

Max Altschuler

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9 Stunning Sales Business Plan Templates to Close Deals

Written by: Orana Velarde

When sales and marketing teams work together, amazing things can happen for a business. Take, for example, the creation of an integral sales business plan that covers not only the goals the team aspires to but also all the data to support the actions, timelines, roadmaps and org charts.

Your business plan for sales and marketing activities is the guideline by which both teams undertake their tasks, aiming for a common goal. Creating a sales business plan collaboratively can help the teams see the big picture faster and be ready for any eventuality along the way.

In this guide, we will share nine business plan templates to help you build the perfect plan for your teams to work with. Share it digitally with your sales and marketing teams; they will be more productive and close more deals.

Let’s dive in.

Table of Contents

What is a sales business plan, what is the sales business planning process, what goes in a sales business plan template, 9 business sales plan templates, sales plan faqs.

• A sales business plan is a document that outlines the goals, strategies and tactics of a company’s sales department, including current state and future plans.
• The sales business planning process includes figuring out the scope, organizing the team and assigning roles, collecting critical information in a centralized location, setting up branded templates, customizing the templates and collaborating with the team to finalize the document.
• The five different types of strategic sales planning are goal-oriented planning, account-based planning, product planning, relationship planning and sales process planning.
• Explore the nine templates provided according to sales business plan examples and choose the one that matches your sales goals.
• Sign up for Visme to create your sales business plans and all your sales and marketing collateral without needing any design skills.

A sales business plan—sales plan for short—is a document or presentation that defines the strategies your team will undertake to close deals, retain clients and bring in new leads. With a business plan , sales are contrastingly better overall.

Each section defines the steps toward hitting milestones and achieving goals. It lays a forecast for all activities that have to do with selling and hitting sales targets. The team members who benefit the most from a sales business plan are the sales reps and marketing strategists. It gives them all a vision of the big picture, a mission to aim for and a roadmap to achieving the goal.

Overall, a well-crafted sales business plan is crucial for optimizing the sales cycle and achieving success in the competitive world of sales.

To create a business plan for sales activities, follow an industry-standard format and add your team's unique content plus the company’s branded elements. Build a sales action plan based on your strategies and goals, backed up by your chosen sales plan template .

Here’s the path to take:

1. Figure out the scope

First, you need to know the scope of possibilities for the sales business plan you’re working on.

To figure this out, you need to answer these questions:

• What do you intend to cover in your sales plan?
• What aspects of the business will the sales plan cover?
• How far can this plan take you?
• Will it span weeks, months, a quarter, or an entire year?
• How many people will need to work together from how many teams?

This is the perfect opportunity to use mind maps . Visualizing your scope with mind maps makes it easy for you to organize the information and communicate it with everyone. And if you want to gather ideas from your sales team, brainstorming is the way to go.

Read this article to learn how to maximize your brainstorming meetings using online whiteboards.

Brainstorm the sales plan with your team using Visme’s infinite whiteboard . Our infinite whiteboard supports real-time collaboration and has more than enough space for you to lay out all the information.

Once you’ve mapped out your scope, create an outline for the overall plan. The outline will be the foundation for the pages and sections in your sales business plan. The next section, “What goes in a business plan” includes a list of essential sections that will help create a business plan for sales.

2. Organize the team and roles within the team

Part of the planning includes organizing a group of people who will work together to meet the goals laid out in the plan. Create a branded org chart visualizing team roles and responsibilities. Include this chart on a page in your sales plan; make it part of the process.

Using hotspots and hyperlinks, connect each team member's photo to their task list on monday.com or your favorite productivity platform.

Do you need more people to achieve the goals you’re pitching? Use this template to assign roles and tasks to team members.

3. Collect all information, analysis and data in one digital location.

No plan gets anywhere without data. Research, analysis, and investigation are your best friends at this point. Collect all the data you need and organize it in an accessible way. This will help immensely when building the sales plan .

Gather raw data about your current sales activities and performance, competitors, user persona, target market, industry analysis and more. Keep all visual documentation and relevant research samples inside a folder in your Visme workspace and name it accordingly.

Give access to those folders only to people involved in the project. The permission settings are in the brand controls for your workspace.

When you take advantage of the workspace organization features in your Visme account, you can plan your team's activity productively.

4. Set up a branded template

Are you regularly creating the same document more than once to share with different people? Branded templates are your secret weapon for any visual asset creation task. It saves time and serves as the guideline for all future versions of that document.

Applying your brand to industry templates is simple. First, pick one of our professionally designed templates, and then use our intuitive editor to change the color scheme, fonts and other design elements. You can also create a master layout to control fonts and logo placements.

Better yet, try Visme's Brand Wizard feature . Input your website URL and follow the steps. In the end, you’ll have a full set of templates with your brand colors and fonts.

5. Create each page in the document/slide in the deck

Transfer content from the outline to the document, section by section. Analyze and customize the visualization of each slide or page so it's optimized for the story you will tell. Yes, even sales plans can use storytelling techniques to be functional and effective. It’s the single most important communication tool in your arsenal.

Customize the sections, pages and slides with all the design elements available inside your Visme editor. Tap into all the interactive features to create an interactive sales business plan experience or make your digital PDF more engaging.

Take note of all the pages and slides as you create them to help you build the "table of contents" page. Use hyperlinking to let readers navigate the sales business plan however they wish.

6. Collaborate with the team

Involve the teams from the start. Task them with providing information or creating sections of the plan that pertain to their sector. Create the pages together, tag team members and leave comments to share information.

Ask managers for feedback through the Visme workspace; send them a live link to the project where they can leave notes and comments for edits.

Use a template to create an org chart that explains and details everyone’s role in the plan moving forward. When you make the process, plan and action collaborative, the team culture is strengthened. It’s a win-win in all directions.

7. Finalize and Share Your Plan

Take care of the last edits and proofread all the content. Double-check all image permissions and finalize all the layouts. Now that all the slides or pages are ready, it’s time to share and present the finished project. Use Presenter Studio to add a personalized message to the sales plan presentation, which is ideal for remote teams.

How do you wish to share the sales business plan with your team?

If there's any degree of interactivity in your plan, digital is the way to go. In the settings tab, publish your Visme project to the web and generate a live link to share with anyone you wish.

Download or share your sales business presentation as a video, a flip book, an interactive PDF or an interactive digital experience. All of these and more are possible with Visme.

There are templates, and then there are branded templates. A regular template has a color palette chosen by our designers for anyone to use. A branded template has all your company colors and fonts ready to fill up with content and finalize.

Here's a comprehensive list of the actual slides or pages in a sales business plan template. These apply to the document or presentation format of a top-down sales business plan.

Made with Visme Infographic Maker

 Start with the stunning cover page, then follow up with an interactive table of contents and other pages such as:

• Executive summary. Summarize your company goals, sales objectives, revenue targets, and top-level strategies. This lays the foundation for the rest of your document.
• Business goals (SMART goals & KPIs). Provide clear goals that you'll use to guide your sales plan activities and resources. 
• Current sales performance.  Use data visualization to present an overview of your current sales performance. 
• Industry and market overview.  Provide actionable insights on data or trends to support your sales plan.
• Description of sales strategies and tactics.  Break down the sales techniques that will be used to execute your plan.
• Customer segments.  Define your customer persona , target audience or segmentation, answering the question, "Who do you plan to sell to."
• SWOT Analysis.  Take a look at your sales team or brand's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and potential threats. 
• Resources and team capabilities. Using the organizational chart , visualize the team roles and list resources to accomplish your goal.
• Timeframe for execution.  Provide an estimated timeframe you'll need to execute your sales plan. 
• Budget.  State how much you plan to spend or need to accommodate your sales plan's resources.  

Here’s the collection of sales business plan examples you’ve been looking for. They are available in different selling styles, covering an array of industries. Simply add your brand content with elements of storytelling to make it unforgettable.

These business sales plans are a great starting point for sales managers looking for more templates to use with their team.

1. New Product Sales Plan

Plan the sales strategy for a new product with a new product sales plan template. Put together a strategy to promote the new product to existing clients and new prospects. Look at the data from previous campaigns and use it as the foundation for future product launches and sales plans.

The document-style sales business plan template below has all the pages you need to share information about the products, the goals, the KPIs to follow and the team in charge of getting it done. Finally, there are data pages for the budget and market analysis.

2. SaaS Sales Plan

SaaS companies need effective sales plans to grow their client base and increase quarterly revenue. A comprehensive sales plan for a SaaS company needs specific sections for each item and clear strategies for reaching team goals. Link to the materials the sales team will use, like sales playbooks and surveys .

This sales plan sample template, designed especially for SaaS companies, concentrates on the strengths, opportunities and unique selling points. The color blocks and data widgets offer a quick overview of the foundation, goals and team in charge of taking care of it.

Beyond creating a sales plan, you want to visualize your sales pipeline to see where your sales prospects are in the purchasing process.

3. 30-60-90-day Sales Plan

Maximize the efficiency of your sales team by utilizing this comprehensive sales action plan template. This 30 60 90 day sales plan example template is based on the idea of time. The strategies in the plan are laid out in three sections of one month each. Roadmaps have a timeframe, and there are three sets of goals. The purpose is to integrate new technology better or train a new sales rep into the team.

Get the most from your 30-60-90 sales business plan with the template below. Each page concentrates on the dedicated time period, explaining everything expected from the employee or the team.

4. Territory Sales Plan

Territory sales business plans are based on a specific geolocation or localization where the sales will occur. You need this type of sales plan if your company has client bases in different areas of the country or world. Culturally, each location can have different approaches and sales tactics. Use the dynamic fields feature to reuse territory sales presentations and easily change the location information.

Across nine pages in a purple color scheme, this territory sales plan is ready for your team’s detailed strategic planning. Create a document per location, or use interactivity to create hotspots that change the data or information according to the reader’s choice.

5. Business Development Sales Plan

Strategic business development can mean increasing client reach, improving business partnerships and many other business activities that increase revenue. Using this business development sales plan, your team can strategize different approaches to achieve positive goals.

In the business development sales plan template below, you’ll find all the graphic organizers to help your team see the big picture across different factors. Create timelines , Gantt charts and roadmaps to organize tasks and measure goals.

6. Market Expansion Sales Plan

Expanding the market is a large part of many sales strategies. And it also needs a solid sales business plan for the team and higher-ups to know what they can expect. To expand your target market efficiently, you’ll need to do a lot of research. All the data you collect goes on the pages of the market expansion sales plan in attractive data visualizations and infographic layouts.

Get inspired to set bold market expansion goals with this colorful and clean-cut template design. Each page has a specific function and purpose, and charts and data visualizations grace the pages without visual obstacles. This template is great for fast and easy information sharing.

7. Revenue-based Sales Plan

The name of this sales plan says it all. The entirety of this plan stems from revenue-how much there is, how much the company wants, and how to get it. These are ideal for sales teams that separate the big picture into actionable parts.

With the template below, your team can create an actionable sales plan that moves the needle forward. The angled leading lines on each page take the reader on a visual journey across goals and timelines to success. Part of the plan is to inspire the team members and stakeholders to believe in the process and work together.

8. Real Estate Sales Plan

In real estate, you’ll have to plan strategies for your agents and teams to follow together. Real estate agents must work with the marketing team to be on the same page about messaging, strategies and goals. With a sales plan, you can put it all together into one.

In this template, all the marketing, prospecting, and target market calculations work together to improve your sales strategies. Strategic planning can improve revenue for the agency, the agents, and the homeowners.

9. Sales Training Plan

New sales reps perform better when their onboarding and training are inspiring and motivating. Use this template to plan your training and onboarding strategies and create a better company culture. Instruct new hires in the systems and explain timelines of expected performance during the probation and orientation phase.

The choice of color palette and design elements is important for telling the story of your sales training plan. Cover both high and low levels of the sales process by training efficiently. Plan how to train and get results.

After personalizing your preferred sales business plan template, the next step is to download and share it with your team and stakeholders.

With Visme, you have complete freedom over how you use your documents. You can download the design in various formats, such as PDF, JPG, PNG, and HTML5, or share it online via email or a shareable link.

You can even publish your content anywhere on the internet by generating a snippet of code from the Visme app.

One of our satisfied customers, Sean, a Web Designer & Digital Marketing Specialist, has shared their positive experience with Visme's templates and sharing options.

Web Designer & Digital Marketing Specialist

Q. What Are the Different Types of Strategic Sales Planning?

As a sales leader, it is crucial to avoid poor planning, as it can result in missing up to 10% of annual sales opportunities . Your responsibility is to ensure that your company does not experience this setback.

To help you avoid this pitfall, here are five distinct approaches, each with its own unique flair.

1. Goal-Oriented Planning: This approach begins with setting ambitious yet achievable revenue targets, followed by reverse-engineering your sales process to identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) necessary to reach those targets. Sales activities are then meticulously aligned with the overarching goals to create a cohesive roadmap to success.

2. Account Planning: It focuses on developing a comprehensive strategy for managing individual accounts. This type of planning involves researching the account, identifying key stakeholders, and creating a plan to engage with them. Account planning benefits businesses that rely on a small number of large accounts for their revenue.

3. Product Planning: Product planning involves the development of a strategy for selling a particular product or product line. This type of planning focuses on understanding the market for the product, identifying key features and benefits, and developing a plan for promoting and selling the product.

4. Relationship Planning: Relationship selling is a long-term approach focusing on building strong customer relationships. It involves understanding the customer's needs, building trust and providing ongoing support and value. This approach requires excellent communication skills, a customer-centric mindset and a commitment to delivering exceptional service.

5. Sales Process Planning: This involves developing a comprehensive plan for managing the sales process, from lead generation to closing the sale. This type of planning involves identifying the critical steps in the sales process, developing a plan for each step, and establishing metrics to measure the effectiveness of the process.

Q. How Do I Write a Sales Business Plan?

After learning about the various types of sales planning and their advantages, as well as the components of a sales business plan, it's time to delve into the process of drafting one. Let's explore some tips for writing a successful sales business plan.

• Define Your Sales Objectives: Start by defining your sales objectives. What are your revenue goals? What products or services do you want to sell? Who is your sales ICP ? Defining these objectives will help you create a clear roadmap for achieving your sales goals.
• Conduct a Market Analysis: Conduct a market analysis to identify opportunities and threats in the marketplace. Analyze your industry, competitors, and target audience. This will help you understand how to position your product or service in the market.
• I dentify Your Unique Selling Proposition: Identify your unique selling proposition (USP)—what makes your product or service different from your competitors? What are the benefits of your product or service? Understanding your USP will help you market and sell your product or service better.
• Develop a Sales Strategy: Develop a sales strategy that aligns with your sales objectives. This should include a plan for lead generation, lead qualification and the sales process. You can revisit the types of strategic sales planning sections to choose the one that fits your sales goals. Consider the sales channels you'll use, the sales team structure and the sales tools you'll need.
• Define Sales Metrics: Define sales metrics that will help you measure your progress toward achieving your sales objectives. This could include revenue, sales growth rate, conversion rate and customer acquisition cost.
• Develop a Sales Budget: Develop a sales budget that aligns with your sales strategy and objectives. This should include expenses related to lead generation, sales team compensation, sales tools, and marketing.
• Review and Refine: Review and refine your sales business plan regularly. This will help you stay on track toward achieving your sales goals and make adjustments as needed.

Additionally, you can read this article on creating a strategic sales plan to get more help writing your own sales business plan.

Create Your Sales Business Plan With Visme

Jumping right into a project isn’t always the best idea; you won’t be prepared for the obstacles and hurdles. Every layer of your sales stack should be potentially planned and brainstormed for optimal results.

This is where sales business plans come into play. With well-designed and personalized plans, you create meaningful connections with prospects, turning them into loyal clients.

Create an interactive sales business plan to engage your team in a shared journey toward a common goal. Designate roles and link them together in the sales plan and your productivity platform so everyone is always on track.

Visme has plenty of features to help you and your team close deal after deal. Not only can you create a sales business plan collaboratively, but you can also brainstorm, create other content, share it online, track performance and keep all assets organized within your workspace. Make your team more efficient at creating visual content at every level of your organization using our third-party integrations .

Ready to up your company's sales game and close more deals? Book a demo or sign up today to see how we can help your sales team succeed.

Easily put together winning sales business plans in Visme

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About the Author

Orana is a multi-faceted creative. She is a content writer, artist, and designer. She travels the world with her family and is currently in Istanbul. Find out more about her work at oranavelarde.com

• TemplateLab

Sales Plan Templates

32 sales plan & sales strategy templates.

People involved in sales usually depend on a specific plan. One which would set their sales goals and establish the strategies they need. With the help of a sales strategy, they can also establish the budgets they need.

They can identify sale market prospects; plan the requirements of their staff and adapt a timeline in reaching their goals. But the sales plan is just one aspect of business management and planning.

Table of Contents

• 1 Sales Plan Templates
• 2 Main parts and purpose of a sales plan template
• 3 Sale Strategies
• 4 The benefits of using a sales plan template
• 5 Free Sales Plan Templates
• 6 Tips for creating your sales plan template

The design of a good sales tracking spreadsheet could be costly in terms of time, money, and effort. To facilitate this requirement, you can just download a template here. This can provide efficiency and easy organization.

Then you can use the resources meant for the design in achieving your business goals . Sales and marketing personnel can use the template as a tool to communicate their ideas. A sales plan template can be part of your business.

But it would depend upon the nature of scope of your business.

Main parts and purpose of a sales plan template

A sales strategy will be helpful for any organization. This is especially true when planning their activities in a structured manner. This will ensure that they achieve all their objectives and goals.

It’s paramount that you design the plan with meticulous care. Make sure to include all the necessary parts. To have an inkling of what and how a sales template looks like, you can go online. To help you out, here are some main parts of such a plan:

• Executive summary
• Elevator pitch
• Mission of the organization
• Analysis details
• Objectives and goals
• Relevant performance indicators
• End users and target audience
• Analysis of advantages and the competition
• Marketing strategy

There are good reasons why businesses invest a lot of money and effort in formulating a sales plan. Fortunately, you can simply download a template to make things easier for you. Such plan will serve varied purposes which we shall briefly enumerate:

• Setting up goals for each individual and for the business too.
• Creating an effective operational plan.
• Setting up the business expenses/finances.
• Analyzing the business’s financial statements.
• Determining and analyzing the potential risks.
• Devising an efficient marketing strategy.
• Creating an actual profile of customers who patronize the business’s products or services.
• Identifying target audiences and would-be customers.
• Getting more familiar with the sales cycle.
• The plan will play an important role in determining the financial goals of the business.

It’s important to have an efficient and effective sales plan. Then you’re expected to meet all your company’s predefined objectives and goals.

More importantly, it will enhance the organization’s profits. If you prefer to create your own templates, consider the following tips. These will prove beneficial to your endeavor:

• The customers take first consideration when creating the plan.
• Do intensive researches work on market trends before starting to plan.
• Consider the weaknesses and strengths of the competition.
• Give particular attention to details when creating the plan.
• Include all the relevant angles that are essential to the sales plan.

Sales plan templates are periodically made by businesses. They can have them monthly or even seasonal. In the case of small businesses , a two-week period is best to provide a better insight into market trends.

Sale Strategies

The benefits of using a sales plan template

Have you ever tried to plan an event without a plan? It certainly is a winning formula for chaos and disorganization. Some people take for granted the use of a plan. They may find it difficult or expensive and would rather not part with their money.

This situation can be bad because they are missing the advantages of good planning. Consider these benefits:

• You’ll be able to stay on your strategy. A sales strategy will provide you a synopsis of the most important aspects of your plan. It will also remind you of issues that you need to include. Interruptions may happen when people don’t know what issues should to prioritize.
• Your objectives will be clearer. A good plan should incorporate specific objectives. You need to establish then manage these objectives. These can include sales, website visitors, margins or the launching of new products . Make the achievement of objectives the measure of success.
• You’ll make better-educated guesses. With the progression of the plan, you’ll be able to predict the outcomes of certain issues. These include potential markets, lead processing, sales costs, and other business processes.
• Your priorities will become more sensible. A business definitely has some other priorities aside from its sales strategy. You can plan the company’s management, its growth, and financial health. These should all be part of the plan. Set the groundwork for your priorities and make changes as the business develops.
• You’ll be able to understand independencies more. You can define the plan as a schedule of events that should happen chronologically. Use the plan to determine what activities should occur and in what order. The plan will prove its value in making you organized and on time.
• Setting milestones will keep you right on track. The plan will provide you with target deadlines and dates for the goals you need to accomplish. This will apply to either a solo enterprise or for a team in a company.
• You’ll be able to delegate better. The plan will define the responsibility of each team and individual. There will always be a member who will be in charge of some important task.
• Team management and results tracking will be a lot easier. Businesses usually set review time for their employees . This is to determine their performances, particularly as team members. Many hate these reviews but they’re a gauge of performance. You can use them to commend, improve or correct the employee’s work . These reviews should be part of the plan. Also, you should put them in writing as part of the member’s record.
• You can manage and plan the cash flow better. A business that mismanages their cash flow will definitely fail. There’s a need for a cash-flow plan. Educated guesses based on market trends will be important. Use it to bring together what assets you need to purchase and what debts you need to pay .
• Course corrections will help keep your business going. The presence of a sales plan makes the business more proactive than reactive. Planning ahead makes for lesser mistakes. Constantly tracking activities could help predict better results and make corrections when needed. A prediction based on nothing is a myth. But predictions can eventuate if based on trends and facts. The plan should define and set expectations and establish assumptions. You can better manage what comes next and make course corrections if they happen.

Sales tracking spreadsheets and plans aren’t only for giant corporations. They can apply to small enterprises as well. No need to delve into complicated matters regarding your business. It’s a fairly straightforward document but it’s powerful enough to do a big job.

Free Sales Plan Templates

Tips for creating your sales plan template

In a business, a sales strategy is also important as this serves as a guide to the sales team of the company. A sales plan is specifically for sales personnel. It will guide them in attaining their objectives and goals.

The plan can be long-term which could last for years or short-term, such as an annual plan. In either case, the common ground is that the plan steers the members to their goals through sales.

• Set definite sales goals. Businesses usually have financial goals. After all, they are in it for the money. It’s important to set specific goals. Those which sales personnel must attain within a certain period of time. Specific goals can help the employees break them down into quantifiable objectives.
• Define your sales objectives based on sales goals. Write them down. Specific achievements can help you meet your sales goals. You can have a sales objective which will include an increase in sales by a specific number of units. You can hasten to reach the objective by cross-selling products during a period of time. This will undoubtedly incur an increase in expenditures. This is inevitable when doing promotions or advertisements.
• You need to identify three important aspects of your customer’s sales focus. First, there’s the customer profile. Salespersons will need some information about their customers so they can make predictions. From this information, they can target the products they can sell to their customers. Then, there’s the organization profile. You will have to explain the kind of organization you’re targeting. Finally, there’s the sales territory. This will refer to the region that you will be operating in. A list of accounts of each salesperson would be helpful as each would focus on a distinct market niche.
• Identify your target sales market. The sales plan should have a target sales market. This will include the research you’ve done on market trends. Consider the industry sales data associated with the products and services you offer. You should be aware of current developments in the industry. This will be important for your sales projections which you based on sales figures of the industry. Also, make mention of competitors in the market. These competitors offer the same goods or services. Make comparisons on each other’s market shares, customer base, and competitive advantages. You’ll spend the most hours of research and work on this section of the plan. What you intend to do will define your strategies and the tactics to execute them.
• The next thing to do is to identify the tools and systems. Here, enumerate the things that you’ll need to successfully implement your plan. The main systems to outline consist of regular weekly meetings on sales progress. Also, you need a CRM system. Use it to execute your plan and come up with sales plan metrics. Finally, list the communication equipment too.
• After you have formulated the sales objectives, you’ll now work on measures. These would keep track of your sales objective’s progress as against achieving them.
• Create a pipeline that can identify each stage of development. You need to identify the stages of your newly acquired business leads. You can also source out more sales opportunities within your customer accounts on-hand. The important metrics that you need to measure are conversion rates for every stage of your sales process. Name the reasons why sales opportunities are being lost for each stage. The percentage or win rate of all new leads that which you’ve converted into sales.
• The next thing to plan is your team. This section of the plan will list the members of your sales team. Also, identify their roles and responsibilities. In case you have a separate marketing agency team, include them in this section. Describe also the proper roles of this team. They are an essential part of your sales performances.
• Design a target date to accomplish all your goals. Also, include the calendaring of all milestones, task, and activities. All those required for you to achieve such goals. Be specific about time management methods. These will provide assistance in prioritization, delegation, and scheduling.
• Based on your financial resources, create a budget plan. One that’s required to accomplish your sales objectives. The budget for your team will be part of the bigger budget for the company. You will need to develop a system. Use it to track down and monitor the expenditures that are specific to your sales objectives. Always be aware that your team doesn’t exceed the budget. Some items may have allocations in your budget. These can include increased production, labor, advertising, equipment, travel, and supplies.
• Make an outline of the strategies and tactics that you’ll need. Everything required to successfully executing your sales plan. A top-down strategy would be great. One which allows you to communicate the goals to every salesperson in your team. Mention the HR personnel who provided assistance to execute the plan. To strengthen the capabilities of your people, they may need more training. Include this as a component of the sales plan.

More Templates

Training Plan Templates

Work Plan Templates

Zero Based Budget Templates

Business Continuity Plan Templates

Behavior Plan Templates

Professional Development Plans

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The Ultimate Guide to Create a Sales Plan That Works for You + Templates

Published by Kimberley DERUDDER

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Have you been thinking about writing a sales plan for your company but aren’t quite sure where to start? Because of how important this document is, we know it can sometimes be a bit overwhelming to get started with it – especially if you are creating one for the first time.

A sales plan outlines your goals, key strategies, target market, and potential challenges. It resembles a conventional business plan but is entirely devoted to your sales approach.

Writing a sales plan is beneficial for business owners, sales reps, and sales managers, whether it be for their company or their team – and with a tool like Xara up their sleeve, sales planning becomes easy and efficient.

If you are looking to increase revenue and upscale your sales strategies, then read on to find out what a good sales plan is all about! In this article, we’ll discuss all the essential aspects of structuring and writing a sales plan, as well as how to successfully use Xara to customize the best sales plan template for your company. Ready to find out more?

How Is A Sales Plan Structured?

A strategic sales plan must be comprehensive and provide a good overview of what needs to be considered when successfully making sales.

If you want to learn more about what a sales plan is and how it can benefit your company, then check out this article !

From market to revenue targets, here is everything you need to include in your sales plan :

1. Sales Plan Goal

What is the end goal that drives this sales plan? The mission?

Before putting in motion any sort of plan, it’s essential to gain a clear view of what you expect to see at the end of the tunnel. Without clear sales goals being set beforehand, it’s hard to predict what strategy is optimal.

Whether you are looking to increase revenue, boost sales on a specific product, or successfully launch a new product, begin your sales planning by outlining your desired outcome.

2. Target Customers

Who is the company aiming to sell to, and what are their particularities?

Your company’s target customers are the people who are most likely to purchase your goods. By segmenting your target market into smaller, more targeted groups using categories of geographic location, behavior, demographics, and other factors, you may gain a clearer understanding of your target market.

Your entire sales staff needs to be constantly informed on who they are selling to. The target market, target industries, and ideal client profiles that your business aims to reach with its goods and services should all be included in your sales plan.

3. Revenue Goals

What target needs to be hit, either financially or in terms of portfolio expansion?

The amount of money your business hopes to earn during a specific period is its target revenue. You can measure your revenue targets by calculating a growth rate to add to the prior year, projecting revenue based on personnel capacity, or adding up your team’s sales quota. The same thing goes for goals that focus on volume rather than income.

Keep your targets ambitious but realistic – it’s essential to reach for the best possible outcome, but don’t lose sight of what is genuinely achievable.

4. Sales Strategy

What is the game plan for hitting set targets?

Your team’s particular steps to meet revenue goals are known as strategies and tactics. These can vary depending on the sales goals that were set and the target audience. A few examples are:

• Using social media for lead generation
• Asking for referrals
• Retarget previous customers
• Discount prices
• Upsell and cross-sell

The list can go on, as the recipe for success depends on each business and its customers. When creating a sales plan, you should consider all of your options.

5. Overview of Industry/Market

The state of the market provides essential information regarding your industry’s competitive environment. What’s gaining popularity? Where is consumer interest diminishing? Has there been any industry competition that has gained traction, and if so, why? Your sales strategy should be based on how your market is performing.

Understanding your market position can be easier by conducting competitive analysis, SWOT analysis , industry trend reports, and sales forecasting. In order to effectively build your sales plan, you should have a good eye for these things.

6. Sales Team Structure and Deadlines

No sales plan is complete without a detailed description of each team member’s responsibilities, with a timeline of completion.

A company has many moving components. To keep your sales team operating properly, you must establish a schedule and assign responsibilities for each task.

Make sure that roles and duties are clearly assigned and that there are smooth handoffs and communications at each level. All team members can benefit from having insight into the sales funnel and process, which can be assured with the help of a CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

Get started with Xara and make collaborating easier for your team by streamlining online communication – everything in one place!

7. Resources

The most effective tool for carrying out your sales strategy is the team you have on hand, but for that to happen, they require resources. Your team will employ these resources to meet revenue goals.

With the help of Xara , your sales team can perform the necessary analysis, create content, track progress, and employ efficient templates for their sales plans, all with just one powerful tool.

5 Different Types of Sales Plans

Depending on the goals of your company, the type of sales plan that you have to create also varies. Here are a few examples:

1. 30-60-90 Sales Plan

Source: Xara

As the name implies, the 30-60-90 Sales Plan relies on a timeframe – its goal is to outline goals over the course of 3 months:

• One for the thirty-day checkpoint
• One more for the 60-day checkpoint
• The last one is for the 90-day checkpoint.

This is generally used for new members of the sales teams or selling in new territories.

2. Market Expansion Plan

Typically, a market expansion plan defines your approach to entering new target markets. It lays out a to-do list and goal criteria that salespeople must adhere to successfully grow the company into a new market.

When creating this strategy, you must include:

• The price of distribution (if applicable)
• Time zones that separate your sales representatives’ target customers
• Compliance, rules, and other logistical considerations in that sector

3. Go-To-Market Plan

A go-to-market strategy is a detailed plan used by firms to launch a new good or service. Intended audience profiles, a marketing plan, and a specific sales and distribution strategy are all components of a typical GTM approach, which is intended to reduce the risk associated with the launch of a new product.

4. New Product Sales Plan

This strategic sales plan can be developed prior to the introduction of a new product. This strategy aids in developing a road map for commercializing the new product and successfully earning a profit from it.

5. Territory Sales Plan

To give sales directors more insight into their sales efforts, sales managers in charge of a specific region sometimes employ territory sales plans.

This is a practical strategy used to achieve objectives to gradually develop sales and revenue in the territory and target the proper customers there. A successful territorial sales strategy will describe the region’s market trends, pertinent customer personas, compliance, and policies.

Create A Sales Plan In 7 Steps

Now that you know what the structure of a sales plan is and some of the options you can choose from when creating one. It’s time to talk about the step-by-step process of creating your own sales plan:

Step 1: Analyze Current Data and Trends

In each sales plan, a market overview and analysis are essential. Understanding the position of a company, its product, or its service is crucial. You must be able to describe the unique qualities that set your company apart from competitors. This can quickly be done with the help of charts and data visualization .

Analyzing competition always provides valuable insight. When their items are stronger than yours and vice versa, discuss how your products compare. Talk about their pricing in comparison to yours as well.

Also, bring up current market trends. For example, you should pay attention to what industry-specific software is gaining popularity if you run a SaaS business. Mention the rise of automated mobile ads if you sell advertisements. Make an effort to foresee how these changes may affect your company.

Step 2: Define Your Mission

Once you have your data, identifying the company’s mission, whether it be innovation, improved user experience, or anything else, is the next stage.

The processes should align with brand values no matter what you sell: food, clothing, accessories, or online courses. Data shows that brands with a consistent mission and representation have seen a 33% increase in income .

Step 3: Pinpoint Your Target Market

Knowing your target demographic is essential whether you’re drafting your first sales plan or your tenth. Who are the most desirable among your clients? Do they all work in the same field? Have the same interests? Fight the same battles?

As your offer and approach develop, and you adjust to product-market fit, this component of your sales plan may also undergo significant changes over time. You could have success selling to startups in the beginning when your product is just taking off, and your prices are low.

Mid-market businesses are probably a better fit when the product is significantly more robust, and the pricing has increased. Therefore, it’s crucial to regularly evaluate and update your buyer personas.

Step 3: Break Down The End Goal Into Objectives With Deadlines

This is precisely what a 30-60-90 Sales Plan does – breaks down the end goal into objectives with monthly deadlines over the course of 3 months. However, this type of sales plan isn’t the only one that requires this step.

Setting smaller objectives that help reach the end goal of the plan is an imperative step, no matter if you’re tapping into a new market, launching a new product, or just looking to improve your general sales.

In order for the timeframe you set in place to be accurate and realistic, companies employ the help of what is known as sales forecasting – the process of anticipating a company’s sales revenue for a given time period, usually a month, quarter, or year.

The success of a company depends on creating a precise sales projection. It affects everything from hiring to wages, compensation, inventory control, and promotion. If a projection is wrong, your company may swiftly lose trust, so take forecasting seriously!

Step 4: Determine KPIs

Sales KPIs (key performance indicators) transform unprocessed data into vital business metrics that can be used to assess how well an organization’s operations are aligned with its objectives. KPIs can be connected to financial data or progress made by an individual or a team.

Sales KPIs are used by businesses to assess and enhance the performance of their sales teams, streamline the revenue process, and increase sales.

Given the importance of KPIs in ensuring successful selling, it’s quite clear why they shouldn’t miss from your sales process. And, to make them easier to analyze, don’t shy away from r epresenting these metrics visually !

7 Important KPIs to Consider For Your Sales Plan

There is a very large number of KPIs that can be tracked, but here are a few that we deem the most important:

1. Monthly Sales Growth

Without increasing sales, a company can only exist for a limited time. The ability to measure this metric allows executives to identify issues and take action on patterns promptly.

Realistic monthly sales growth targets can inspire a sales team and guarantee that their efforts are consistently in line with those of the organization.

2. Sales Opportunities

Teams can estimate sales and choose which leads are worth pursuing by tracking sales possibilities. Increased sales prospects suggest the potential for larger sales while declining opportunities can suggest that more sales effort is needed.

3. Sales Target Attainment

Will the sales team meet their quotas, which are also known as sales targets? Are actual sales higher or lower than expected? Which salesperson is struggling and could use some advice? These questions can be resolved using the KPI for sales target attainment.

4. Product Performance

Which products are the most popular, and which are less popular? These queries are addressed by this KPI, which ranks products according to sales.

Product sales volume and revenue performance are not always correlated. Although they might not be among the top revenue-generating products, low-priced but high-volume goods might make up a sizeable amount of overall sales. With this KPI, it’s necessary to consider the product’s external environment.

Sales managers can utilize product performance to modify their sales plan in response to these trends, and sales executives can use the rankings to assess the trends in the product market.

5. Customer Acquisition Cost

The expense of acquiring one new customer is referred to as the customer acquisition cost. The acquisition costs vary depending on the business model, but a thorough calculation can be ensured by accounting for all sales and marketing costs, including salaries and overhead.

Growing average revenue per client and customer lifetime value while lowering customer acquisition expenses can support maintaining or improving profitability.

6. Conversion Rate

This is the proportion of leads generated by each salesperson that result in closed sales. Per rep, quarterly tracking is the norm.

If the conversion rate of a single sales representative exceeds the desired conversion rate, that rep may be employing sales tactics or procedures that are exceptionally efficient and can be implemented across the board. If lower, you may need to adjust or streamline your sales strategies to boost conversions.

7. Customer Retention

Even if they increase sales, new customers require many resources to acquire. You can increase ROI by keeping an eye on customer retention and concentrating on upsell and cross-sell opportunities while generating predictable revenue from a base of devoted clients.

In order to make sure that your team is prioritising current customer relationships, you may need to review rep engagement techniques if you notice a decline in customer retention.

Step 5: Evaluate Resources For Your Sales Plan

First and foremost, your resources are your sales representatives. They will be responsible for the sales process and turn the plan into reality. However, they can’t do that without the necessary tools.

With a platform like Xara, their job is made 10 times easier. In one place, they can:

• Create a sales plan
• Analyze data about how their audience engages with their content

• Handle content branding through easy logo importing, font styling, and color scheme generation
• Design content through professional graphic design solutions for web and print

Step 6: Determine The Budget

In order for the previously mentioned resources to be ensured for the team, it’s important to properly budget your strategic sales plan. When figuring out this budget, a few of the most important things to take into consideration are:

• Tool pricing
• Travel (if it applies)
• Resources for your team (from electronics to food)

If you want your budgeting to be more accurate, also keep an eye on your sales forecasting!

Step 7: Establish a Sales Strategy

Up until this point, you’ve established your goal and backed it up with vital data. Now, it’s time to figure out how you are going to act to reach your targets and increase sales and revenue.

Describe your pricing structure and any upcoming discounts or promotions. What crucial steps will you take to raise brand recognition and produce leads? Essentially, this is the step in your sales planning where you figure out an actionable way in which everything you’ve forecasted becomes a reality.

Sales Plan Templates

Creating a sales plan with Xara is easy and intuitive. All you have to do is:

1. Sign In or Get Started

Depending on whether you’ve used Xara before, either sign in to your account or create a new one and sign up for your 14-day free trial .

2. Find Xara Templates

You are now looking at your Xara dashboard! On the left side of the screen, among other great features, you will find Xara Templates.

3. Locate “Strategy & Planning.”

This is the Xara template section you will use to create a sales plan.

4. Choose Your Sales Plan Template

There are plenty of templates to choose from for your sales plan, depending on your preferences!

5. Automatically Apply Your Brand To The Template

Brand consistency is vital for your business and even more so for your sales strategy. Always making sure that your content represents your brand is key, and this applies to your sales plan as well.

Xara makes branding your documents more effortless than ever through its Smart Branding Toolkit .

Once you’ve opened your preferred template, just click on the “Brand” button, enter your website URL, and watch the magic happen as Xara automatically imports your logo, fonts, and color scheme.

Once Xara has created your brand, you will notice that the platform automatically adds it to all your content.

6. Edit Your Sales Plan

All of our templates are 100% customizable – be sure to make them your own!

Use our templates, follow our step-by-step guide, and create the perfect sales plan for your company’s goals.

Start Making Your Sales Plan With Xara

Now that you’ve finished reading our guide, don’t you feel like creating a sales plan is much less of a mystery?

No matter what type of sales plan you opt for, some things should never miss. Without an overview of the market, previous sales data, and a deep understanding of the target customers, it’s hard to be able to build a successful strategy for boosting sales.

If you carefully follow the steps, from defining goals to setting deadlines and allocating resources, you will ensure that your sales plan is perfectly built to aid in helping your company ring in more sales.

Creating a well-structured sales plan lays the groundwork for an efficient selling strategy. And what better way to ensure you reach your sales targets than by using one of the best sales tools out there?

There are plenty of sales plan templates waiting for you on Xara Cloud – all you need to do is sign up and start using them to build the best sales strategy for your company!

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• What is Strategy?
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SALES STRATEGY

The big picture on sales strategy.

Conceptualize, measure and understand the opportunities to improve your customer pipeline and journey.

SALES STRATEGY: "HOW DO WE GET MORE CUSTOMERS TO BUY OUR STUFF?"

WHAT DOES A SALES STRATEGY LOOK LIKE?

SALES IS SIMPLY A SERIES OF INTERACTIONS & CONVERSATIONS

When you strip out all of the noise, from a customer's point of view, their journey to purchase is a series of interactions and conversations. A customer is trying to solve a problem, and in their journey to solve it, they may become aware of your potential solution, show interest by seeking more information, consider the solution versus other competitors, and hopefully convert into a customer and a loyal repeat customer.

These interactions could be through a company's website, app, online content, stores, salespeople, partners and distributors, and other customers. You can conceptualize this series of customer & company interactions in two ways. From the perspective of the customer, you can codify the interactions in a customer journey map. From the perspective of a sales team, you can conceptualize the interactions in a  sales pipeline.

The first step in developing a strong sales strategy is to abstract the performance of the sales pipeline by applying a series of longitudinal metrics to each stage of the pipeline. How many potential targets are there, suspects, prospects, customers, or repeat customers? How long do they stay in each stage? How many drop off in each stage? How valuable are they in each stage? How have the metrics evolved over time?

Like any process , if you can't measure it, it becomes challenging to improve it. High-performing sales teams automate much of this data through a well-utilized and updated sales CRM system. If your company can't systematically report on the sales pipeline, then developing the capability, infrastructure, and discipline to measure and improve the pipeline should be an initiative in your sales strategy.

TAKING SALES INSIGHT TO THE NEXT LEVEL

THE 4 WAYS TO GROW SALES

There are four ways to grow sales through a customer pipeline:

• Increase Addressable Market - put more people through the mouth of the funnel
• Accelerate Deal Velocity - make each step/stage shorter for the customer
• Improve Stage Gate Success - have the customer say yes to the next step more often
• Increase Deal Size - upsell and focus efforts on the larger deals

Understanding how these four growth metrics evolved over time is a good starting point for diagnosing customer pipeline issues and opportunities.  These four growth metrics are outputs of the sales growth drivers, which we go into next.

THE 3 SALES GROWTH DRIVERS

Sales growth comes down to better customer interactions and conversations, more of them, along with a better value proposition and marketing . To make these things a reality, there are three main components to a strong sales strategy:

1. Improving the alignment between the target customer , the differentiated value proposition , marketing, and distribution

2. Incorporating corporate growth strategy initiatives in the sales strategy

3. Developing a strong sales team strategy to improve the sales process and interactions executed by the salespeople, infrastructure, and partners

1. DON'T PASS GO UNLESS YOU HAVE A KILLER VALUE PROPOSITION

Many CEOS misdiagnosis their weak sales by concluding, "it must be the sales team."  

A strong sales team is important, but the most important driver of sales is a killer value proposition that creates more value than the competition for target customers. Once you have a killer value proposition, then you need the right messaging, marketing, and distribution that clearly amplifies the value proposition to the target customers.

So, the first thing any sales strategy should address is to make sure there is a clearly defined and articulated target customer, a killer value proposition for the target customer, and impactful messaging, marketing, and distribution focused on the target customer. Alignment on a target customer will make everyone's efforts more focused, efficient, and effective, while differentiation will make customers say yes more often.

Seriously, don't overlook this point. Pretty much every company that grows for decades and becomes a leader in their industry has and continually improves a killer value proposition that creates more value than competitors for the target customers. It is the heart that makes the sales flow for any strong sales team.

Now, we often hear, "well, that isn't under my control."  Well, you better figure out how to influence it, because, without alignment and differentiation, the customer will more often than not choose not to do business with your company.

2. WHAT'S GOING ON WITH THE BIG PICTURE STRATEGY STUFF?

Hopefully, you have a killer value proposition and aligned marketing and distribution, now what? Well, you need to think through how the high-level corporate growth strategy is going to affect sales and the sales team. Is the company expanding into new markets , customer segments, and geographies? Are there new and improved products , services, and pricing ? Are there new distribution channels or marketing campaigns? While it may be a lot to think through, growth expansion initiatives can have a significant impact on sales and the sales team.

Now, a few words of caution. First, be careful not to go after too many options , which can quickly overextend the sales team and the entire company. Companies that fail often go after too many new markets , customer segments, and geographies at the same time. Inevitably, the ambitious agenda creates fragmented efforts, massive complexity , opportunity cost , and ultimately failure. Second, while sales leadership should have a sizeable role in shaping the corporate growth strategy, it should not lead the effort. We see too many companies that try to say yes to everything sales wants to do, which often leads to a lot of running in place and going nowhere. Successful companies have a strong and balanced leadership team stewarding the big decisions and execution around corporate growth strategy.

Growth strategy initiatives are significant inputs into the last part of sales strategy, which is the sales team strategy. The big question is how growth strategy initiatives will affect sales and the sales team. Is there a need for new processes, people, partners, and technology? What is the expected impact on sales, quotas, customer metrics, and pipeline dynamics? This is one of the reasons why sales strategy is so complicated since there are so many dimensions that ultimately need to be addressed by the sales team, with the ultimate goal of having better customer interactions and conversations and more of them.

3. WHAT THE HECK ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH THE SALES TEAM?

Now to the heart of sales strategy, which is the sales team strategy. Any team, including a sales team, is simply a collection of processes executed by people, infrastructure, and partners. And, strategy is simply the goals we choose and the actions we take to achieve those goals. So, sales team strategy comes down to the sales team goals and the portfolio of initiatives to improve the processes, people, infrastructure, and partners to a level necessary to achieve the goals.

Below are some options to focus those sales team strategy initiatives on. We'll go over the high-level framing of some of the strategic options .

GET THE PROCESS RIGHT AND THE SALES WILL FOLLOW

Everything every member of a sales team does is a process, whether acknowledged as one or not. Has your sales team documented their processes, measure them? If not, that is a great place to start.

There are four main levels of a sales process outlined below.

At the highest level is the sales team governance , which includes the processes that strategically manage the sales strategy, forecasting, opportunities, overall pipeline, and sales operations. It typically involves weekly or monthly pipeline reviews, quarterly business reviews, and annual strategic planning , budgeting, and forecasting. The better the governance , the better the accuracy of forecasts, sales strategy, performance, and understanding of cause and effect.

The next level of the sales process is the customer journey, which includes every aspect of the journey customers take through an organization's processes to discover, evaluate, purchase, and consume the company's services and products. Strategic initiatives typically target reducing customer effort (e.g., self-help, automation , digital enablement), leaning out the customer processes, and increasing the rate of success on prioritized pipeline stages.

The sales methodology is one of the most critical processes for a sales team. The sales methodology is the overall sales approach between sales team members and customers to drive deal velocity and success. Most sales books focus on sales methodologies, such as spin selling , solution selling , MEDDIC , key account selling , GAP selling , and many others. We'll go a little deeper and synthesize all those books into a handful of important questions to quickly qualify and accelerate a deal.

The last level of the sales process to solve for is the daily, weekly, and monthly activity at the team and individual levels, which typically includes the day-to-day activity management and reporting to drive productivity and deal velocity through the pipeline.

ANSWER THE BASIC QUESTIONS TO ACCELERATE & CLOSE DEALS

There are hundreds of good books on sales methodology, but most of the methodologies come down to answering the basic 5 Ws (who, what, where, why, when) and 1 H (how) questions of a deal to qualify, accelerate and close the deal.

Once again, sales growth is driven by better customer interactions and conversations, and more of them. Weaving these questions into customer interactions, and recording and addressing the answers will help deals get through the pipeline. If you don't have a strong sales methodology, then start developing one that asks and answers the basic customer questions necessary to get a deal done.

TAKE A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO THE PEOPLE PART OF A SALES TEAM STRATEGY

For many B2B companies, sales expense, in the form of salary and commission, is often their largest financial expense, making it especially important to elevate and realize the potential of salespeople and the collective sales team.

There are many questions to answer about the people part of a sales strategy, which all fall into the various categories of our people strategy framework:

• Org Design ( Mission , Corporate Strategy, Structure, Roles & Competencies)
• Employee Journey (Recruiting, Hiring, Onboarding , Development, Evaluation, Advancement)
• Culture (Comp & Benefits, Environment, Norms, Values )

For a complete overview, visit our entire section on organizational strategy , hr strategy - org design , and hr strategy - employee journey & culture . Below, we'll cover some of the more unique elements of sales team strategy.

WHAT SHOULD THE SALES ORG LOOK LIKE?

A challenging question that typically comes up is, "what should the sales org look like?" 

There is a lot of art and science in answering this question. Regarding the size of the sales org, utilize benchmarks on revenue productivity per sales team member and percent of sales spend to revenue. You should also analyze the span of control, where each manager should have 8-12 direct reports. You also need to solve for the right amount of levels to the org, the fewer, the better. Finally, there are the actual roles and accountabilities , which we'll get into a bit more next.

HOW SHOULD WE ORGANIZE THIS SALES TEAM?

For many sales teams, better customer conversations and interactions necessitate a high level of specialization to address the needs of specific customer segments , markets, geographies, or stages within the sales funnel. This specialization leads to sales teams organizing around one or more of these dimensions (customer segments, markets, geography , sales funnel stages). What dimensions to organize around is a function of the customer experience, specialization, economics, and complexity.

Many companies are constantly reorganizing their sales team from one dimension to another, such as reshuffling the team from a segment focus to a geographic focus. These reorganizations often fail, due to the ensuing chaos. Most existing sales teams have optimized and refined their multitude of internal and external processes based on their existing organizational dimensions. When a sales team reorg happens, a sales team has to reconfigure its processes, infrastructure, and partners. If the change management of the sales reorg isn't stellar, often the customer journey and sales team devolves into a bit of chaos.

THE LOW HANGING FRUIT OF A SALES TEAM STRATEGY

The adage goes "it's all about the people."   We like to expand that to it's all about the recruiting, hiring, onboarding, development, evaluation, and advancement of the people. Improving the employee journey is essential in any sales strategy. The first place to start is to establish best practices in recruiting and hiring. The lowest hanging fruit is typically increasing the number of candidates you recruit and interview while professionalizing the interview and hiring process with standard interview guides and scorecards, group and immersive interviews, and team decision-making .

When it comes to the rest of the employee journey , one of the most impactful exercises is to survey team members about their employee journey, which not only creates a baseline but also solicits good ideas while providing built-in buy-in to improvements. Furthermore, there are a ton of established best practices in each stage of the employee journey.

YOU GET WHAT YOU REWARD

CREATING A SALES STRATEGY

In developing a sales strategy, always keep in mind you are solving for two things: 1.  the goals the sales team will strive to achieve, and 2. the strategic sales initiatives necessary to achieve the goals.

Whether it takes a few days, a few weeks, or a few months, there are typically four steps in developing a sales strategy, which is:

• Generate insights into the sales pipeline, customer journey, corporate growth strategy, sales team, and overall alignment & differentiation.
• Develop opportunities on how the sales team can improve the processes, people, partners, and infrastructure.
• Prioritize the potential initiatives based on value & benefit versus cost & effort.
• Set the goals and roadmap of the portfolio of sales initiatives

Given the breadth of possible analyses, gaps, opportunities, goals, and initiatives, it is imperative to assemble the best possible internal strategy team to develop and execute a very focused and impact-oriented project plan .

STEP 1: GENERATE SALES STRATEGY INSIGHTS

In developing a strong sales strategy, there are five main areas to generate insights on 1. the sales pipeline, 2. the customer journey, 3. corporate growth strategy initiatives, 4. alignment & differentiation, 5. the sales team (processes, people, infrastructure and partners).

A focused set of hypotheses and analyses will generate a ton of insights, otherwise, a team can "boil the ocean," wasting precious time and resources on things that don't matter. Focus on answering the key questions below, utilizing some of the typical strategic analyses and tools. By doing so, the team will generate the big "aha" insights that will guide the entire strategy project.

STEP 2: DEVELOP SALES STRATEGY OPPORTUNITIES

Once you have foundational insights for the sales strategy, then you enter the "create options" phase, where you need to come up with and develop the improvement opportunities that will drive sales to the next level. This phase drives the overall value of the strategy, since the number and quality of options limits strategies. Make sure you solicit ideas from as many places as possible and get the most creative and knowledgeable people involved to push the thinking.

There is always the opportunity to improve the customer journey, internal sales processes, and cross-functional processes. The lean toolkit , automation , and digital strategies will help sprout and nurture the best ideas. Solicit ideas and feedback from the entire sales team. A simple survey with both structured and open-ended questions will do the trick. There are also hundreds of best practices to improve the maturity of the sales processes , methodologies, people, and infrastructure.

STEP 3: PRIORITIZE THE GREAT IDEAS

Hopefully, at this stage of the project, you have more improvement ideas than resources and budget to execute.  Now, we are in the prioritization phase of the project. Before diving into prioritizing the ideas, you first want to see how much you can simplify , rearrange and combine the ideas into some larger potential initiatives.

Now, we get to the fun and collaborative stage of decision-making. Utilize some sort of prioritization or decision matrix to problem solve and debate the potential value/benefit , and cost/effort of each initiative. Get the right leadership and stakeholders in the room to have this robust debate, and potentially have a few rounds to refine and improve the thinking. In the end, focus the strategy on those "no brainer" ideas that are high value/benefit and low cost/effort with a shorter time horizon (3 months to 1-2 years).  For the "big bet" initiatives, figure out the timing, budget, dependencies, etc., before making a decision.

One of the most difficult challenges for sales team leadership is deciding on the right portfolio of initiatives. The first part of this challenge is getting enough skilled talent mobilized to successfully execute the initiatives and change management . The second part of the challenge is understanding the amount of change the sales team can realistically handle.

Whatever your decision-making governance , by the end you should have a strong portfolio of initiatives, budgets, owners, timing, and a pretty clear idea of the potential impact on the core metrics of the sales team.

STEP 4: SET THE SALES GOALS, FINALIZE THE ROADMAP, AND EXECUTE

Strategy comes down to setting goals and executing the portfolio of improvement initiatives necessary to achieve the goals.  You should distill all of the strategic analyses, problem solving , collaborating, and decision-making into one page of sales goals and initiatives. Of course, there should be a lot more detail (e.g., project plans, resource plans, change management plans, budgets, spreadsheets) behind the one page. However, as you think about communicating the big sales strategy to upper management, the internal sales team, external stakeholders, and partners, one page is always best.

One last thought, invest the time, resources, and commitment to change management . The hardest part of executing any strategy is the necessary behavioral change at the individual level. Thinking through the change management framework for each initiative will pay dividends in driving the change you are seeking.

If you want to talk about your sales strategy with an experienced strategy coach, set up some time with Joe Newsum , a Mckinsey Alum, and the author of this content and website.

DOWNLOAD THE SALES STRATEGY PLAN PRESENTATION TEMPLATE

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Company Growth Strategy: 7 Key Steps for Business Growth & Expansion

Published: May 01, 2024

A concrete business growth strategy is more than a marketing effort. It’s a crucial cog in your business machine. Without one, you’re at the mercy of a fickle consumer base and market fluctuations.

So, how do you plan to grow?

If you’re unsure about the steps needed to craft an effective growth strategy, we’ve got you covered.

Table of Contents

Why You Need a Business Growth Plan

Business growth, types of business growth, business growth strategy, types of business growth strategies, product growth strategy, how to grow a company successfully, growth strategy examples.

We know the why is important — so why do we think building a business growth plan is so crucial, even for established businesses? There are so many reasons, but here are three that apply to almost all businesses at some point:

• Funding. Functionally, most businesses are always on the lookout for investors, and you’ll have an advantage if you can present a solid growth plan to convince them. Most expect it.
• Insurance. Growth creates financial padding, like a forcefield to protect your business when unexpected issues crop up. The economic upheaval for brick-and-mortar businesses in 2020 is a perfect example.
• Credibility and creditability. For brand new businesses, getting a loan and making sure you can pay back your bank is at the top of the priority list. There’s no real profit until that debt is managed. Having a growth plan will not only help you secure a business loan, it will be there to refer to so you’ll know what to do to continue making your payments.

Business growth is a stage where an organization experiences unprecedented and sustained increases in market reach and profit avenues. This can happen when a company increases revenue, produces more products or services, or expands its customer base.

For the majority of businesses, growth is the main objective. With that in mind, business decisions are often made based on what would contribute to the company’s continued growth and overall success. There are several methods that can facilitate growth which we’ll explain more about below.

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As a business owner, you’ll have several avenues for growth. Business growth can be broken down into the following categories:

With organic growth, a company expands through its own operations using its own internal resources. This is in contrast to having to seek out external resources to facilitate growth.

An example of organic growth is making production more efficient so you can produce more within a shorter time frame, which leads to increased sales. A perk of using organic growth is that it relies on self-sufficiency and avoids taking on debt. Additionally, the increased revenue created from organic growth can help fund more strategic growth methods later on. We’ll explain that below.

Example : Organic growth could be putting some of your revenue aside to purchase a second machine — doubling your production without debt. This increases your ability to take more and/or larger orders. In this way, you create more revenue to invest in a third machine or fund another growth strategy.

2. Strategic

Strategic growth involves developing initiatives that will help your business grow long-term. An example of strategic growth could be coming up with a new product or developing a market strategy to target a new audience.

Unlike organic growth, these initiatives often require a significant amount of resources and funding. Businesses often take an organic approach first in hopes that their efforts will generate enough capital to invest in future strategic growth initiatives.

Pro tip: Strategic growth can be a major endeavor depending on the size of your business. Be prepared to learn a lot, work hard at it, and see slow development. For quicker results, hire someone who knows a lot to work hard at it. Another option is to spend the money on a user-friendly platform that you or an employee can manage. Strategic growth is easily a full-time job for anyone, if not for a team of professionals.

3. Internal

An internal growth strategy seeks to optimize internal business processes to increase revenue. Similar to organic growth, this strategy relies on companies using their own internal resources. Internal growth strategy is all about using existing resources in the most purposeful way possible.

Example: Internal growth could be cutting wasteful spending and running a leaner operation by automating sales with AI , or some of its functions instead of hiring more employees. Internal growth can be more challenging because it forces companies to look at how their processes can be improved and made more efficient rather than focusing on external factors like entering new markets to facilitate growth.

4. Mergers, Partnerships, Acquisitions

Although riskier than the other growth types, mergers, partnerships, and acquisitions can come with high rewards. There’s strength in numbers. A well-executed merger, partnership, or acquisition can help your business break into a new market. You can also expand your customer base or increase the products and services you offer.

A growth strategy is a plan that companies make to expand their business in a specific aspect, such as yearly revenue, number of customers, or number of products. Specific growth strategies can include adding new locations, investing in customer acquisition, or expanding a product line.

A company’s industry and target market influence which growth strategies it will choose. Strategize, consider the available options, and build some into your business plan. Depending on the kind of company you’re building, your growth strategy might include aspects like:

• Adding new locations.
• Investing in customer acquisition.
• Franchising opportunities.
• Product line expansions.
• Selling products online across multiple platforms.

Pro tip: Your particular industry and target market will influence your decisions, but it’s almost universally true that new customer acquisition will play a sizable role.

That said, there are different types of overarching growth strategies you can adopt before making a specific choice, such as adding new locations. Let’s take a look.

There are several general growth strategies that your organization can pursue. Some strategies may work in tandem. For instance, a customer growth and market growth strategy will usually go hand-in-hand.

Revenue Growth Strategy

A revenue growth strategy is an organization’s plan to increase revenue over a time period, such as year-over-year. Businesses pursuing a revenue growth strategy may monitor cash flow , leverage sales forecasting reports , analyze current market trends, diminish customer acquisition costs , and pursue strategic partnerships with other businesses to improve the bottom line.

Specific revenue growth tactics may include:

• Investing in sales training programs to boost close rates.
• Leveraging technology to improve sales forecasting reports.
• Using lower-cost marketing strategies to lower customer acquisition costs.
• Continuing to train customer service reps to increase customer retention.
• Partnering with another company to promote your products and services.

Pro tip: Revenue for the sake of personal income is often important at the start of a business (to pay the bills) and end of a business (as an enticement while selling the company). But while you look to the future with your company running, it’s wise to use revenue growth toward continued overall business growth.

Customer Growth Strategy

A customer growth strategy is an organization’s plan to boost new customer acquisitions over a time period, such as month-over-month. Businesses pursuing a customer growth strategy may be more open to making large strategic investments, as long as the investments lead to greater customer acquisitions.

For this strategy, you may track customer churn rates , calculate customer lifetime value (CLV), and leverage pricing strategies to attract more customers. You might also spend more on marketing, sales, and CX , with new customer sign-ups as the north star metric.

Specific customer growth tactics may include:

• Investing in your marketing and sales organization’s headcount.
• Increasing advertising and marketing spend.
• Opening new locations in a promising market you’ve not yet reached.
• Adding new product lines and services.
• Adopting a discount or freemium pricing strategy .
• Tracking metrics such as churn rates, CLV, and monthly recurring revenue (MRR).

Pro tip: Remember that it’s about people. Market research tools such as trend monitoring can help keep you aware of what your target audiences are genuinely interested in. This way, you can meet them where they are and get those customer sign-ups.

Marketing Growth Strategy

A marketing growth strategy — which is related, but not the same as, a market development strategy — is an organization’s plan to increase its total addressable market (TAM) and increase existing market share.

Businesses pursuing a marketing growth strategy will research different verticals, customer types, audiences, regions, and more to measure the viability of a market expansion.

Specific marketing growth tactics may include:

• Rebranding the business to appeal to a new audience.
• Launching new products to appeal to buyers in a different market.
• Opening new locations in other regions.
• Adopting a different marketing strategy, e.g., local marketing or event marketing , to appeal to different markets.
• Becoming a franchisor so that individual business owners can buy franchises from you.

Pro tip: The idea here is to get a bigger slice of the pie by growing into already established markets. It differs from market development in that market development discovers or creates new markets instead of finding some space in existing ones. Most businesses are not trying to reinvent the wheel. They’re just getting a spot at the car show.

A product growth strategy is an organization’s plan to increase product usage and sign-ups or expand product lines.

This type of growth strategy requires a significant investment into the organization’s product and engineering team (at SaaS organizations). In the retail industry, a product growth strategy may look like partnering with new manufacturers to expand your product catalog.

Specific tactics may include:

• Adding new features and benefits to existing products.
• Adopting a freemium pricing strategy.
• Adding new products to the existing product line.
• Partnering with new manufacturers and providers.
• Expanding into new markets and verticals to increase product adoption.

Not sure what all of this can look like for your business? Here are some actionable tactics for achieving growth.

• Use a growth strategy template.
• Choose your targeted area of growth.
• Conduct market and industry research.
• Set growth goals.
• Plan your course of action.
• Determine your growth tools and requirements.
• Execute your plan.

1. Use a growth strategy template [Free Tool] .

5. Plan your course of action.

Next, outline how you’ll achieve your growth goals with a detailed growth strategy. Again, we suggest writing out a detailed growth strategy plan to gain the understanding and buy-in of your team.

Don't forget to share this post!

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Frequently asked questions, what is included in a sales plan template.

A sales plan template typically includes sections such as sales goals, target markets, strategies, tactics, and timelines. It may also cover budget considerations, team roles, and key performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure that all aspects of the sales process are clearly defined and monitored.

How can a sales plan template benefit my business?

Utilizing a sales plan template helps streamline the planning process, ensuring consistency and completeness. It provides a clear roadmap for your sales team, aligning their efforts with the broader business objectives and facilitating easier monitoring and adjustment of strategies as necessary.

Are there different types of sales plan templates available?

Yes, there are several types of sales plan templates tailored to various selling strategies and business models. These range from templates for direct sales, channel sales, product launch plans, and strategic account management. Each template is designed to cater to specific goals and market approaches.

Can I customize a sales plan template to fit my specific needs?

Absolutely! Sales plan templates are designed to be flexible and customizable. They can be adjusted to match your specific business needs, including the modification of sections, timelines, and KPIs. This allows you to maintain relevance and effectiveness in your strategic sales planning.

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9 Free Sales Forecast Templates to Super-Charge Sales Growth in 2024

Sales forecasting templates might not sound all that exciting. Fair enough. After all, who wants to create more reports—on top of all your other responsibilities?

If you're feeling a little skeptical, take a walk with me and imagine this scenario involving two different sales managers :

Which of these sales managers is more likely to get the budget they want?

No brainer. It's Sales Manager 2 every day of the week.

What's the difference between their pitches? A solid sales forecast to back up the substantial investment they're asking the VP to make.

Sales forecasts can be exciting—they give you the superpower to see what's coming down the pipeline. More importantly, they're easy to create using the right sales forecasting templates.

In this guide, we'll give you a step-by-step method to create a sales forecast and access to several free sales forecast templates (in both Microsoft Excel & Google Sheets format).

But first, let’s quickly touch on why sales forecasts are key to growing your sales team—and your business.

Why are Sales Forecasts Crucial for Sales Teams?

Sales forecasting provides a window into your business's future. Depending on the template, it can help you:

• Predict sales figures for the next quarter: Much like projecting total contract value growth, sales forecasting provides a roadmap for anticipated revenue, enabling you to plan and allocate resources accordingly.
• Make more accurate cash flow projections
• Predict expenses
• See where to invest marketing dollars
• Better allocate hiring budgets
• Spot emerging trends early on
• Diagnosis of potential issues in your sales flow early

Lastly, it is a powerful motivation tool for your sales team—especially if you have a longer sales cycle. It allows you to paint a clear picture showing how the work your team is doing today will pay off.

9 Best Sales Forecast Templates (Free Google Sheets + Excel Templates)

Not every sales team needs a super complex sales forecasting model. For instance, small businesses only want (and need) to track a few important metrics. On the other hand, eCommerce companies must track multiple products, which is challenging without a template.

So, we've sorted through all the free sales forecast templates we could find (in Excel + Google Sheets format) and even created one of our own. Choose the best template for your company, sales team, and industry.

1. Best General Forecast Template (without a CRM)

This sales forecasting template from Close provides a simple way to track and forecast two years of sales. The first tab allows for adjusting funnel metrics depending on your sales cycle, average deal size, lead growth, and number of leads.

The second tab forecasts sales by month based on meetings booked, new opportunities created, and leads closed/won. A chart at the bottom displays expected growth.

The only thing better than this is having sales forecasting built right into your CRM ( like with Close ), which enables you to have powerful integrations that enrich your forecasting accuracy and pipeline health over time.

GET THE FREE TEMPLATE HERE

2. Best Forecast Template for a Lead-Driven Sales Process

This template is ideal for companies that track their lead generation efforts and monitor their monthly sales forecast. You’ll see it breaks the year into quarters and tracks leads in all stages of the sales funnel .

The best part? This is a Google Sheets template (which can be accessed via Google apps and can also be downloaded for use in Microsoft Excel).

This template tracks the deal value and uses a weighted forecast model. It can also predict the probability of closing, which is a helpful metric for B2B companies. You can download it right here .

3. Best Free Forecasting Template for Multiple Product Businesses

Does your company sell multiple products or services? This sales projection template could be a great choice for a business with more complex offerings. It tracks the number of units sold for each product line over 12 months on a single spreadsheet to streamline your forecasting accuracy.

It also carries over sales history from three previous years, making it easy to compare sales by unit, month, or year. You can download it right here in Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel format. Just make a copy and start editing the sheet.

4. Best Forecasting Template for Retail Businesses

This template is ideal for retail stores that want to forecast sales, track gross sales, and mark up percentage and profit margin for each item to generate more new business. The yellow cells allow you to input your own data, and the spreadsheet uses smart Excel automation formulas to calculate forecasts.

While it doesn't display the previous year's data in this view, you could easily create a pivot table in Excel or Google Sheets to pull data from several years. That way, you can compare average sales, total sales, and other sales KPIs that matter to your leadership. You can pick this one up right here .

5. Best for Long-Term Future Sales Analysis (36 Months of Historical Data)

This is one of the most colorful templates on the list, but that's not why we included it. This template is ideal for companies that want to monitor long-term data closely.

In addition to 12 months of full historical sales data, you'll also see detailed insights and data for the past five years, including overall revenue for each type of item. This is a good option if you want to focus your sales analysis on the long and short term. You can grab this one right here .

6. Best Sales Forecasting Model for Scenario Planning (New Product Launches)

Forecasting sales for a new product launch can be a challenge—which is why many companies do a soft launch without high expectations.

After a soft launch, use this forecasting template to track initial sales data and project your next five years of sales. Head over here to download this one .

7. Best Free Template for Multiple Products at Different Growth Rates

Looking to track product sales that grow at different rates? This spreadsheet tracks growth and forecasts revenue for 12 months—even if the products or services grow at different rates. This is a great fit for businesses with legacy products that regularly launch new products.

This forecasting chart also includes five years of historical data so you can see overall sales growth at a glance. Pick this template up right here .

8. Best for Short-Term Forecasts

Want to plan your inventory or marketing campaigns for just the next few weeks? This 3-month forecast template can help.

Customize the start date, then enter your number of units and price per unit to get projections. It’s simple and effective. Download this template right here .

9. Best for Daily Forecasts

Now, let’s shorten the projections even more—to a daily window. This one is primarily useful for businesses in the retail, restaurant, and hospitality industries.

With this template, predict your sales on a daily or weekly time frame. This granular vision can help you optimize day-to-day sales. Plus, you can rely on historical sales data and add weekly notes.

Grab this forecast template here .

How to Choose the Right Sales Forecast Template (& Forecasting Methods for Your Business)

The right forecasting template provides access to the sales KPIs that matter most to your sales team. But not all businesses are the same.

Retail businesses may need to track hundreds of products and dozens of different suppliers, while a SaaS company might only offer three pricing plans—but have a really long sales cycle.

You need to find the right template for your business needs. Otherwise, you'll be left floundering in a sea of useless data.

Here's how to select the right sales forecast template for your organization.

Get Clear on Your Sales Goals & Set Realistic Sales Revenue Targets

Different sales goals and revenue targets rely on different data. For example, if you want to predict sales over the next two years, you'll want a forecast template that covers a longer time period.

Goals can also impact which template will work best for your team.

For example, suppose an eCommerce company wants to increase monthly sales by 10 percent and boost customer lifetime value . In this case, they'll need a different template than a small business looking to increase sales from a specific customer segment.

Next, set realistic revenue targets using overall market growth as a benchmark. If your industry expands by 25 percent, a 10 percent growth rate might be too low, while 50 percent is likely too high.

Look for a template that fits your business goals and revenue targets.

Consider Your Business Type & Plan Ahead for Sales Fluctuations

Your business type is one of the most important factors to consider when selecting a template. The size, industry, age, and growth rate can all impact which template will work for you.

Also, consider how often your sales fluctuate. For example, an eCommerce store may have 10 to 15 fluctuations a year, so they need a template that can handle their data. On the other hand, a small fly fishing business may have just two fluctuations—on and off-season.

Look for a template that suits your business model and accommodates your sales fluctuations.

Decide Which Method of Sales Forecasting to Use for Your Sales Team

When it comes to sales forecasting methods, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

You'll need to adjust your forecasting based on your historical data, the metrics you need to track, and your confidence in the data. Your goals and KPIs also impact the forecasting methods you use.

Here are seven sales forecasting methods, including who should use them:

• Lead-driven forecasting : Looks at previous lead conversion rates and projects future sales based on current lead volume. Best for organizations with clear historical data and a steady stream of inbound leads, such as SaaS or technology companies.
• Length of sales cycle forecasting : Tracks how long a typical lead takes to close based on lead type. Best for organizations with insights into the entire sales pipeline and well-aligned sales and marketing teams, especially B2B.
• Opportunity stage forecasting: Calculates how likely a lead is to close based on specific actions and lead type. Ideal for businesses with good historical data on closing rates.
• Test-market analysis forecasting: Leverages data from a soft release to get a sense of projected revenue. Best for startups or businesses launching a new product line or service.
• Historical forecasting : Forecasting data based on historical data and market trends. Works well for any business with at least a year of historical data.
• Multivariable analysis: A complex analysis that considers multiple factors and closing ratios. Best for companies with varying deal sizes and close rates or selling multiple products or services.

Make sure whatever template you choose fits your analysis method.

Look at Historical Data & Past Sales Metrics

We've already discussed how historical data can impact your sales forecasting, but it's also an important factor in choosing the right template.

Before choosing a template, look at your past metrics and historical data. How much data do you have? Consider a template with a longer forecasting model if you have several years' worth of data.

What data do you want to include based on your business type and forecasting methods? Make sure the template you choose includes the fields important to your business.

Research External Market Conditions to Create an Accurate Sales Forecast

Finally, spend a few hours researching current market conditions and consider how they may impact your sales forecast. For example, if your industry is growing fast, you might select a forecasting template that updates in near real-time.

On the other hand, if a large competitor is acquiring another company, growth might be more challenging, and you might need to lower your growth expectations.

Look for a template that works well with current market conditions.

How Do You Calculate Sales Forecasts Quickly?

Here’s a simple formula that SaaS businesses can use for a specific forecast period:

Number of expected new customers x Average deal size

The accuracy of such a forecast depends on various factors, including your churn rate, upsells, changes to your existing subscriptions, market conditions, etc. The more informed your assumptions, the better your accuracy.

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How to Create a Custom Sales Forecast Template: Five Easy Steps

Sometimes, you need to do it yourself. Sales forecasting can be simple—especially if you create a forecasting template based on your own sales process and KPIs. Assuming you’re already tracking your sales, here are the steps to create your own template.

Step 1: Choose Sales Performance Metrics

What do you want to track? Whether it’s the sales quotas of individual sales reps, your gross profit, or simply one-year sales projections, choose KPIs based on your goals.

You can check out this exhaustive list of KPIs , but most SaaS businesses can start by calculating their run rates. Keep in mind that it requires a few months of revenue data to project your annualized revenue.

Here's the sales run rate formula :

Projected sales = Run rate (Current sales/number of sales periods elapsed) X the remaining number of sales periods

This is one of the easiest ways to predict future growth, and it’s a great starting point. We’ll refine it in the fourth step, but now, let’s start creating a template.

Step 2: Create a Layout for Your Template and Add Formulas

Now, add relevant formulas for your chosen metrics so that your sheet can make automatic forecasts based on your data input.

The specific columns you include in your layout depend on the KPIs you want to track and the information you want to include.

If we were calculating the annual run rate, you could use one column for the month, another for the sales in that month, and another for calculating the total sales up to the current month.

Next, you want to create formulas for the average monthly rate and the annual run rate formula (ARR), which will be your average monthly sales X 12. These two can be additional columns.

Step 3: Calculate Your Sales Forecast

Now, it’s time to test your template. Input data and let the spreadsheet automatically calculate your sales forecast. In our example, after inputting data for January through March, here’s what the forecasted annual run rate looked like:

Step 4: Adjust for External Factors and Strategic Business Plans

Our simple run rate formula doesn't consider seasonality, competition, market changes, or business growth.

If seasonality or trends impact your sales, calculate the percent change from your average month during periods of spike or dip. For example, if your sales typically spike by 30 percent in November, you can adjust your sales run rate to account for these trends.

Internal changes can also impact sales forecasting. Are you launching new products ? How have product launches performed in the past? Are you marketing to new customer segments? How many new customers do you expect these new markets to add to your customer file?

Refining your formula will improve your forecast's accuracy, leading to informed sales plans and decisions.

If you want to create a comprehensive SaaS revenue forecast model from scratch in Excel, check out this tutorial .

Step 5: Integrate the Template Into Your Process (& Keep Improving It)

Most sales reps spend only one-third of their day selling to prospects. So, you want to integrate the sales forecasting template into your workflow naturally so it doesn’t diminish productivity. Work to blend it with your team's existing spreadsheets or software.

Set up a regular cadence for importing data into the template—either manually or automatically from another software. Then, generate forecasts based on inputted data.

To keep your forecasts relevant, regularly review the accuracy of the results. Adjust your template as needed, and remember that a change in business strategy or market conditions should also invite revisions.

Want to sophisticate your forecasts and consider advanced trends? Then, you must use evolved sales forecasting methods. Get more detailed insights into sales forecasting here .

Using Forecasting Templates to Predict + Optimize Future Revenue

When it comes to sales forecasting, the right template can make all the difference. If you're still doing the process manually, you might miss out on actionable insights that could help your team meet and exceed your sales goals. Plus, manual forecasting takes a lot of valuable time—and is prone to error.

So, choose one of the above templates to create a standardized forecasting approach for your company, but don’t be afraid to make it your own. Add columns, include metrics that matter, and even plug in your brand color and name.

Or, you can just design a template from scratch.

Remember that your template isn’t static. Keep refining your forecast assumptions, and iterate to improve accuracy. Over time, you'll end up with a custom sales forecasting spreadsheet that makes you look like a superstar—and boosts your revenue potential.

Want even more actionable insights? See how Close gives you access to the reporting metrics that matter .

But even if you’re working without a CRM or using another product to manage your sales process, grab our free sales forecast template to achieve your goals that much faster.

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Simple Business Plan Template (2024)

Updated: May 4, 2024, 4:37pm

Table of Contents

Why business plans are vital, get your free simple business plan template, how to write an effective business plan in 6 steps, frequently asked questions.

While taking many forms and serving many purposes, they all have one thing in common: business plans help you establish your goals and define the means for achieving them. Our simple business plan template covers everything you need to consider when launching a side gig, solo operation or small business. By following this step-by-step process, you might even uncover a few alternate routes to success.

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Whether you’re a first-time solopreneur or a seasoned business owner, the planning process challenges you to examine the costs and tasks involved in bringing a product or service to market. The process can also help you spot new income opportunities and hone in on the most profitable business models.

Though vital, business planning doesn’t have to be a chore. Business plans for lean startups and solopreneurs can simply outline the business concept, sales proposition, target customers and sketch out a plan of action to bring the product or service to market. However, if you’re seeking startup funding or partnership opportunities, you’ll need a write a business plan that details market research, operating costs and revenue forecasting. Whichever startup category you fall into, if you’re at square one, our simple business plan template will point you down the right path.

Copy our free simple business plan template so you can fill in the blanks as we explore each element of your business plan. Need help getting your ideas flowing? You’ll also find several startup scenario examples below.

Download free template as .docx

Whether you need a quick-launch overview or an in-depth plan for investors, any business plan should cover the six key elements outlined in our free template and explained below. The main difference in starting a small business versus an investor-funded business is the market research and operational and financial details needed to support the concept.

1. Your Mission or Vision

Start by declaring a “dream statement” for your business. You can call this your executive summary, vision statement or mission. Whatever the name, the first part of your business plan summarizes your idea by answering five questions. Keep it brief, such as an elevator pitch. You’ll expand these answers in the following sections of the simple business plan template.

• What does your business do? Are you selling products, services, information or a combination?
• Where does this happen? Will you conduct business online, in-store, via mobile means or in a specific location or environment?
• Who does your business benefit? Who is your target market and ideal customer for your concept?
• Why would potential customers care? What would make your ideal customers take notice of your business?
• How do your products and/or services outshine the competition? What would make your ideal customers choose you over a competitor?

These answers come easily if you have a solid concept for your business, but don’t worry if you get stuck. Use the rest of your plan template to brainstorm ideas and tactics. You’ll quickly find these answers and possibly new directions as you explore your ideas and options.

2. Offer and Value Proposition

This is where you detail your offer, such as selling products, providing services or both, and why anyone would care. That’s the value proposition. Specifically, you’ll expand on your answers to the first and fourth bullets from your mission/vision.

As you complete this section, you might find that exploring value propositions uncovers marketable business opportunities that you hadn’t yet considered. So spend some time brainstorming the possibilities in this section.

For example, a cottage baker startup specializing in gluten-free or keto-friendly products might be a value proposition that certain audiences care deeply about. Plus, you could expand on that value proposition by offering wedding and other special-occasion cakes that incorporate gluten-free, keto-friendly and traditional cake elements that all guests can enjoy.

3. Audience and Ideal Customer

Here is where you explore bullet point number three, who your business will benefit. Identifying your ideal customer and exploring a broader audience for your goods or services is essential in defining your sales and marketing strategies, plus it helps fine-tune what you offer.

There are many ways to research potential audiences, but a shortcut is to simply identify a problem that people have that your product or service can solve. If you start from the position of being a problem solver, it’s easy to define your audience and describe the wants and needs of your ideal customer for marketing efforts.

Using the cottage baker startup example, a problem people might have is finding fresh-baked gluten-free or keto-friendly sweets. Examining the wants and needs of these people might reveal a target audience that is health-conscious or possibly dealing with health issues and willing to spend more for hard-to-find items.

However, it’s essential to have a customer base that can support your business. You can be too specialized. For example, our baker startup can attract a broader audience and boost revenue by offering a wider selection of traditional baked goods alongside its gluten-free and keto-focused specialties.

4. Revenue Streams, Sales Channels and Marketing

Thanks to our internet-driven economy, startups have many revenue opportunities and can connect with target audiences through various channels. Revenue streams and sales channels also serve as marketing vehicles, so you can cover all three in this section.

Revenue Streams

Revenue streams are the many ways you can make money in your business. In your plan template, list how you’ll make money upon launch, plus include ideas for future expansion. The income possibilities just might surprise you.

For example, our cottage baker startup might consider these revenue streams:

• Product sales : Online, pop-up shops , wholesale and (future) in-store sales
• Affiliate income : Monetize blog and social media posts with affiliate links
• Advertising income : Reserve website space for advertising
• E-book sales : (future) Publish recipe e-books targeting gluten-free and keto-friendly dessert niches
• Video income : (future) Monetize a YouTube channel featuring how-to videos for the gluten-free and keto-friendly dessert niches
• Webinars and online classes : (future) Monetize coaching-style webinars and online classes covering specialty baking tips and techniques
• Members-only content : (future) Monetize a members-only section of the website for specialty content to complement webinars and online classes
• Franchise : (future) Monetize a specialty cottage bakery concept and sell to franchise entrepreneurs

Sales Channels

Sales channels put your revenue streams into action. This section also answers the “where will this happen” question in the second bullet of your vision.

The product sales channels for our cottage bakery example can include:

• Mobile point-of-sale (POS) : A mobile platform such as Shopify or Square POS for managing in-person sales at local farmers’ markets, fairs and festivals
• E-commerce platform : An online store such as Shopify, Square or WooCommerce for online retail sales and wholesale sales orders
• Social media channels : Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest shoppable posts and pins for online sales via social media channels
• Brick-and-mortar location : For in-store sales , once the business has grown to a point that it can support a physical location

Channels that support other income streams might include:

• Affiliate income : Blog section on the e-commerce website and affiliate partner accounts
• Advertising income : Reserved advertising spaces on the e-commerce website
• E-book sales : Amazon e-book sales via Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing
• Video income : YouTube channel with ad monetization
• Webinars and online classes : Online class and webinar platforms that support member accounts, recordings and playback
• Members-only content : Password-protected website content using membership apps such as MemberPress

Nowadays, the line between marketing and sales channels is blurred. Social media outlets, e-books, websites, blogs and videos serve as both marketing tools and income opportunities. Since most are free and those with advertising options are extremely economical, these are ideal marketing outlets for lean startups.

However, many businesses still find value in traditional advertising such as local radio, television, direct mail, newspapers and magazines. You can include these advertising costs in your simple business plan template to help build a marketing plan and budget.

5. Structure, Suppliers and Operations

This section of your simple business plan template explores how to structure and operate your business. Details include the type of business organization your startup will take, roles and responsibilities, supplier logistics and day-to-day operations. Also, include any certifications or permits needed to launch your enterprise in this section.

Our cottage baker example might use a structure and startup plan such as this:

• Business structure : Sole proprietorship with a “doing business as” (DBA) .
• Permits and certifications : County-issued food handling permit and state cottage food certification for home-based food production. Option, check into certified commercial kitchen rentals.
• Roles and responsibilities : Solopreneur, all roles and responsibilities with the owner.
• Supply chain : Bulk ingredients and food packaging via Sam’s Club, Costco, Amazon Prime with annual membership costs. Uline for shipping supplies; no membership needed.
• Day-to-day operations : Source ingredients and bake three days per week to fulfill local and online orders. Reserve time for specialty sales, wholesale partner orders and market events as needed. Ship online orders on alternating days. Update website and create marketing and affiliate blog posts on non-shipping days.

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6. Financial Forecasts

Your final task is to list forecasted business startup and ongoing costs and profit projections in your simple business plan template. Thanks to free business tools such as Square and free marketing on social media, lean startups can launch with few upfront costs. In many cases, cost of goods, shipping and packaging, business permits and printing for business cards are your only out-of-pocket expenses.

Cost Forecast

Our cottage baker’s forecasted lean startup costs might include:

Business Need	Startup Cost	Ongoing Cost	Source

Gross Profit Projections

This helps you determine the retail prices and sales volume required to keep your business running and, hopefully, earn income for yourself. Use product research to spot target retail prices for your goods, then subtract your cost of goods, such as hourly rate, raw goods and supplier costs. The total amount is your gross profit per item or service.

Here are some examples of projected gross profits for our cottage baker:

Product	Retail Price	(Cost)	Gross Profit

Bottom Line

Putting careful thought and detail in a business plan is always beneficial, but don’t get so bogged down in planning that you never hit the start button to launch your business . Also, remember that business plans aren’t set in stone. Markets, audiences and technologies change, and so will your goals and means of achieving them. Think of your business plan as a living document and regularly revisit, expand and restructure it as market opportunities and business growth demand.

Is there a template for a business plan?

You can copy our free business plan template and fill in the blanks or customize it in Google Docs, Microsoft Word or another word processing app. This free business plan template includes the six key elements that any entrepreneur needs to consider when launching a new business.

What does a simple business plan include?

A simple business plan is a one- to two-page overview covering six key elements that any budding entrepreneur needs to consider when launching a startup. These include your vision or mission, product or service offering, target audience, revenue streams and sales channels, structure and operations, and financial forecasts.

How can I create a free business plan template?

Start with our free business plan template that covers the six essential elements of a startup. Once downloaded, you can edit this document in Google Docs or another word processing app and add new sections or subsections to your plan template to meet your specific business plan needs.

What basic items should be included in a business plan?

When writing out a business plan, you want to make sure that you cover everything related to your concept for the business,  an analysis of the industry―including potential customers and an overview of the market for your goods or services―how you plan to execute your vision for the business, how you plan to grow the business if it becomes successful and all financial data around the business, including current cash on hand, potential investors and budget plans for the next few years.

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Krista Fabregas is a seasoned eCommerce and online content pro sharing more than 20 years of hands-on know-how with those looking to launch and grow tech-forward businesses. Her expertise includes eCommerce startups and growth, SMB operations and logistics, website platforms, payment systems, side-gig and affiliate income, and multichannel marketing. Krista holds a bachelor's degree in English from The University of Texas at Austin and held senior positions at NASA, a Fortune 100 company, and several online startups.

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10 Main Elements of a Business Plan

Table of content, business plan: a blueprint for your business success, convey benchmarks & goals, determine business gaps, helps you get funding, make better decisions, prevent major mistakes, prove business viability, reduce risk, main elements of a business plan, 1 – cracking the problem, 2 – discovering the solution, 3 – highlighting your products and/or services, 4 – grasping the market analysis for a business plan, 5 – identifying your unique selling proposition (usp), 6 – lifting up your team, 7 – promoting the products/services via a sales & marketing plan, 8 – optimize operations to streamline success, 9 – profit maximization with a financial plan, 10 – unveil your winning investment story, the power of financial model templates to boost your business plan.

Imagine your business plan as the architect of your company, the chef of your success, and the navigator of your journey. Just as an architect designs a building’s structure, your business plan should outline your company’s mission, vision, and objectives. Like a chef, it should blend ingredients such as market analysis, financial projections, and marketing strategies to create a winning formula. Much like a navigator, it should steer you through each stage of your business journey, providing direction and helping you navigate the twists and turns of challenges along the way. So, the main elements of a business plan should be a meticulous blend of a blueprint, a recipe, and a roadmap. Each component plays a critical role in ensuring the success of your venture.

A business plan is not just a document ; it’s a guiding light for entrepreneurs and business owners. It’s a comprehensive roadmap that outlines a company’s goals and the methods it will use to accomplish them. This narrative description of a new business is a crucial tool that helps entrepreneurs and business owners determine where they want to go and how they will get there. It covers all the essential aspects, from market analysis to financial projections and operational strategies, providing a detailed plan to reach specific business objectives.

Entrepreneurs can present their business plans in various formats when founding a startup. They could include a comprehensive multi-page text document that delves into intricate details and analysis. They could also be a visually appealing and straightforward PowerPoint presentation highlighting key points and data through slides. Or they could be a concise and compelling elevator pitch designed to capture interest quickly. Each format serves a unique purpose, allowing entrepreneurs to adapt their pitch to the needs and preferences of potential investors, partners, or stakeholders, ultimately enhancing their chances of success.

However, whatever the form, the entrepreneurs must cover the main elements of a business plan.

Why Is a Business Plant Important?

Now comes the question: “Why is a business plan important?” A business plan is a crucial tool for any entrepreneur or business owner, providing a clear roadmap for the company’s future. It helps articulate the vision, mission, and strategic goals, ensuring that all stakeholders are aligned and working towards common objectives. Below are the top answers to the question: “Why is a business plan important?”

A business plan is essential because it provides a structured framework to set benchmarks and goals for the business. This document outlines the company’s vision, mission, and strategic steps to achieve its objectives. By defining clear, measurable targets, a business plan ensures all team members are in sync with the company’s long-term aspirations. Regularly referring to these benchmarks helps the business track progress, adjust strategies, and stay on course to meet its goals. With a business plan, it would be easier to maintain focus and motivation, leading to a lack of direction and consistent performance.

Another critical reason why is a business plan important is to identify potential gaps in the business. A business plan highlights areas where the company may need more resources, skills, or competitive advantage by conducting an in-depth examination of the market, competitors, and internal operations. This process enables business owners to proactively address weaknesses before they become significant issues, ensuring a stronger foundation for growth and sustainability. Recognizing these gaps early on allows strategic planning to acquire the necessary resources or adjust the business model.

A business plan is essential for securing funding from investors or lenders . It offers a comprehensive summary of the company’s financial projections, market analysis, and growth strategy, which are critical for convincing potential backers of its viability and profitability. Investors need assurance that their money will be managed wisely and that the business has a clear path to success. A well-prepared business plan demonstrates that the entrepreneur has thoroughly researched and planned for various aspects of the company, thereby increasing the likelihood of obtaining the necessary funding to start or expand operations.

Why is a business plan important? A business plan helps entrepreneurs make better decisions by providing a clear roadmap for the future. It encourages critical thinking and thorough analysis of various scenarios, enabling business owners to anticipate challenges and opportunities. With a detailed plan, decisions can be made based on data and strategic insights rather than on impulse or guesswork. This structured approach to decision-making ensures that each choice aligns with the company’s long-term goals and overall strategy, leading to more consistent and informed business practices.

A business plan helps prevent major mistakes by forcing entrepreneurs to think through every aspect of their business. It requires a detailed examination of the market, financial projections , operational strategies, and potential risks. This comprehensive planning process uncovers potential pitfalls and challenges that have yet to be considered. By tackling these challenges proactively, companies can create backup plans and approaches to reduce risks, thus avoiding costly errors that could derail the business.

Why is a business plan important? Proving the viability of the business is a fundamental reason. It provides evidence that the business idea is feasible and has a strong potential for success. Through detailed market research, financial projections, and strategic planning, the business plan demonstrates that the business can achieve profitability and sustain long-term growth. This proof of viability is crucial for gaining the faith and assurance of investors, collaborators, and stakeholders, ensuring the business has the support it needs to thrive.

Another significant advantage of having a business plan is reducing risk. By thoroughly analyzing the market, competition, and internal capabilities, a business plan helps identify potential threats and challenges. This proactive approach allows businesses to develop strategies to mitigate risks and navigate uncertainties. A clear plan provides security and preparedness, enabling the company to respond effectively to unforeseen events and minimize potential losses. This risk reduction is essential for maintaining stability and achieving long-term success.

A business plan is a blueprint for success, encompassing ten essential elements: It starts with identifying The Problem , a critical pain point in the market. Then, it articulates The Solution , showcasing innovative offerings designed to address this need. Detailed descriptions of The Products and/or Services highlight how the company will profit from these offerings. The Market analysis delves into target demographics and potential reach. The Unique Selling Proposition (USP) sets the business apart from competitors, emphasizing its distinct advantages. The Team introduces the skilled individuals driving the venture. The Sales & Marketing Plan outlines strategies to attract and retain customers. The Operations section covers the day-to-day processes, ensuring smooth functionality. The Financial Plan projects profitability, cash flow, and funding needs. Finally, The Investment Story appeals to investors, illustrating the business’s potential for growth and return on investment.

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“If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution.” – Steve Jobs

Picture a multitude of entrepreneurs, their determination to bring their visions to life often hindered by the intricacies of modern marketing, operational inefficiencies, and technological advancements. The founders, in their quest to establish a business, must first grasp the fundamental reason for its existence and the problem it aims to resolve. This problem statement, a cornerstone of the business plan, not only defines the purpose of the business but also guides its future direction.

Identifying a problem typically means there is demand. A problem can be obvious or sometimes even a problem we did not even know existed. It is crucial as it sets the stage for your business’s value proposition. It identifies and articulates the specific issue or set of topics that your target market is experiencing.

A well-defined problem statement does the following:

• Clearly Defines the Issue : It describes the problem in detail, explaining its nature, scope, and impact on the target audience. It helps potential investors, partners, and stakeholders understand the urgency and significance of the issue you aim to solve.
• Connects to the Target Audience : The problem identifies who is affected by the issue, detailing the demographics and psychographics of your target customers. This connection shows that you understand your audience’s pain points and are positioned to address them effectively.
• Demonstrates Market Need : By highlighting the problem, you illustrate a gap in the market that your business intends to fill. This part of the business plan should include relevant data, statistics, and examples to substantiate the existence and magnitude of the problem.
• Sets Up the Solution : The problem statement naturally leads to the presentation of your business solution. By clearly defining the problem, you create a compelling narrative for why your product or service is needed and how it will resolve the identified issues.

Remember when we had to stand by the sidewalk to get a cab? That was the only way to get from point A to point B fast in those times without your vehicle. Uber identified the core problem for their business plan by recognizing the inefficiencies and inconveniences in the traditional taxi and transportation industry. They saw that consumers faced challenges such as long wait times, unreliable service, and difficulty hailing cabs, especially during peak hours or in less accessible locations. Additionally, Uber identified drivers’ frustration with inconsistent earnings and underutilization of their time and vehicles. By leveraging smartphone technology, GPS, and a user-friendly app, Uber created a solution that provided a seamless and efficient way to connect passengers with drivers, ensuring reliable, on-demand transportation. This innovative approach addressed the pain points of riders and drivers, paving the way for a scalable and disruptive business model.

In essence, the problem section lays the foundation for the rest of the business plan by emphasizing the necessity and relevance of your business idea. It brings you closer to finding the solution.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” – Albert Einstein

Imagine a bustling city where countless people face minor yet nagging problems daily—a coffee lover waits too long for their morning brew, a commuter struggles with unreliable public transport, and an entrepreneur wrestles with outdated business software. In this dynamic setting, our business emerges as a beacon of innovation and relief, ready to offer solutions that not only ease these daily frustrations but also enhance the overall quality of life.

The solution section of our business plan acts as a blueprint, showcasing our commitment to identifying these challenges through keen observation, market research, and customer feedback. Here, we unveil our thoughtful and impactful responses to these issues, demonstrating our dedication to making life simpler, more efficient, and more enjoyable for everyone. The solution outlines the strategies and methods the business will employ to address the identified problem or need in the market. It should be customer-focused, detailing how the product or service meets their needs effectively and efficiently.

Discovering the solution to a problem in a business plan requires a systematic approach. Here are essential steps to guide you:

• Conduct Research & Analysis : Conduct thorough research to understand the root causes of the problem. Analyze market conditions, industry trends, customer feedback, and competitor strategies. Use tools like SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) for a comprehensive view.
• Form a Brainstorming Team : Gather a diverse team to brainstorm potential solutions. Encourage creative thinking and consider various approaches. List all possible solutions, no matter how unconventional they may seem.
• Perform a Feasibility Assessment : Evaluate each solution’s feasibility. Consider factors like cost, time, resources, and potential impact. Use techniques like cost-benefit analysis, ROI calculations , and risk assessments to prioritize solutions.
• Prototype and Test : Develop prototypes or pilot programs for the most promising solutions. Test them in real-world scenarios to gather data on their effectiveness. Make adjustments based on feedback and performance metrics.
• Setup an Implementation Plan : Once a solution is validated, outline the steps, timelines, resources, and responsibilities required to execute the solution. Ensure there’s a mechanism for monitoring progress and making adjustments as needed. Communicate the solution and its benefits to all stakeholders to ensure buy-in and support. Establishing a continuous feedback loop to monitor the solution’s performance is also crucial.

One of the best examples of a solution to a problem in a business plan is Tesla’s approach to sustainable transportation. Faced with the challenge of reducing dependency on fossil fuels and combating climate change, Tesla’s founder, Elon Musk, envisioned a future dominated by electric vehicles (EVs). Tesla developed advanced battery technology and built a network of Supercharger stations to address the issues of limited range and slow charging times associated with EVs. By integrating innovative design, high performance, and sustainable energy solutions, Tesla not only disrupted the automotive industry but also accelerated the global transition to clean energy, setting a new standard for sustainable transportation.

Following these steps, you can systematically discover and implement effective solutions to problems in your business plan.

“The most successful businesses see customer needs as opportunities to innovate and provide exceptional products and services.” – Richard Branson

This business plan section is crucial because it outlines what the company will sell to generate revenue and how it will profit from these offerings. Every business, regardless of its size or industry, needs a reliable source of income to survive and thrive in the long term. At the core of this necessity is the fundamental task of defining the products and services the business will offer.

• Define What You Are Going to Sell : The first step in discovering the solution in your business plan is clearly defining what you will sell. It could be a product, service, merchandise, right, or asset. Show a thorough comprehension of the customer’s requirements and how your offering effectively addresses those needs. Highlight the key benefits and value customers will gain from your product or service. It could include cost savings, enhanced experience, improved performance, or time savings. Use market research to back up your claims.
• Determine the Business Model : Once you have defined what you will sell, the next step is to determine the business model. It involves outlining how your business will create, deliver, and capture value. Evaluate different revenue streams and cost structures to ensure the model is sustainable and profitable for your unique business context. The most common business models are B2Bs or B2Cs .
• Establish a Revenue Model : Your revenue model defines how your business will generate income. It is crucial to select a model that is in harmony with your business goals and customer preferences. The most common revenue models are direct sales, freemium offerings, licensing, retailing, subscriptions , and third-party advertising. Ensure your revenue model supports your overall business strategy and growth plans.
• Strategizing on Pricing for Long-term Growth : Pricing strategy is critical for attracting customers and achieving long-term growth. It entails establishing prices that represent the value of your offerings while ensuring profitability. Popular pricing strategies include cost-plus, penetration, skimming, or value-based pricing. Adjust prices based on market demand and economic conditions. Make sure your pricing represents the value and quality of your product or service. Maintain healthy profit margins to support reinvestment and growth. Be prepared to adjust prices as needed to respond to market changes and competitive pressures.

Apple Inc. serves as an exemplary case of discovering products and services to offer. Originally a computer company, Apple identified a significant market need for user-friendly, integrated personal electronics. It led to the development of the iPod, revolutionizing the music industry, followed by the iPhone, which redefined the smartphone market by merging communication, computing, and entertainment into a single device. Apple’s continuous innovation and customer-centric approach have expanded its product line to include the iPad, Apple Watch, and various services like Apple Music and iCloud, consistently addressing consumer demands and enhancing its ecosystem.

Discovering the solution in your business plan underscores the importance of viewing customer needs as opportunities for innovation. It is crucial when defining the products and services in a business plan. By meeting these needs with exceptional offerings, businesses can develop a compelling value proposition that motivates long-term success and growth.

“Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.” – Thomas Edison

Once the problem has been identified, which the business plan will address, the next question is whether a market exists that the business can service. A market analysis for a business plan delves deeply into understanding the industry dynamics in which the business will operate. This section identifies the target market segments, evaluates their size and growth potential, and analyzes customer demographics, preferences, and behaviors. It also involves a thorough competitive analysis to assess the strengths and weaknesses of both existing and prospective competitors and identify any market gaps that the business can exploit. Additionally, market analysis examines market trends, regulatory environment, and economic conditions that could impact the business.

The essential steps to perform a market analysis for a business plan are:

• Analyze the Industry : To analyze the industry, research its overall size, growth rate, and trends. Look at key metrics like total revenue, number of businesses, and market segments. Understand the factors driving growth or decline, such as technological advancements, regulatory changes, or economic shifts. Use sources like industry reports, market research firms, and trade associations.
• Determine the Competition : Identify your main competitors and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. Analyze their market share, product offerings, pricing strategies , and marketing tactics. Knowing the big players and their positioning will assist you in distinguishing your brand and uncovering opportunities to stand out. Study customer reviews and feedback to understand their reputation.
• Identify Market Gaps : To uncover unmet needs or pain points, conduct surveys, focus groups, and interviews with potential customers. Look for areas where existing products or services fall short or where there’s a demand for new solutions. This step is crucial for innovation and can lead to discovering a niche market your business can uniquely serve.
• Label Your Target Market : Define your potential customers by dividing the market according to demographics, psychographics, and purchasing behavior. Create detailed customer personas to understand their needs, preferences, and pain points. Analyze their buying habits, including where they shop, what influences their decisions, and how often they purchase. Customizing your products and marketing strategies to suit these insights will improve your likelihood of success.
• Perform a Sales Forecast : Estimate future sales by analyzing historical data, market conditions, and customer behavior. Use methods like trend analysis, market testing, and expert judgment to predict how much customers will pay for your product. Consider different scenarios, including best-case, worst-case, and most likely outcomes. A well-founded sales forecast will guide your pricing strategy, budgeting, and overall business decisions, helping you make confident, data-driven choices.

A prime example of a market analysis for a business plan can be found in Amazon’s early years. When Jeff Bezos pitched Amazon to investors, his market analysis highlighted the exponential increase in internet usage, the convenience of online shopping, and the limited number of online retailers. He projected a future where Amazon could expand beyond books to become the “everything store,” leveraging the scalability of the internet to capture a significant market share. This comprehensive and forward-thinking market analysis helped attract considerable investment and set the stage for Amazon’s growth into a global e-commerce giant.

A comprehensive market analysis, when executed with precision, can lay a robust foundation for your business plan. It results from the intersection of meticulous planning and seizing market opportunities. This not only enhances your understanding of the market dynamics but also significantly increases your chances of success in a competitive market.

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“The heart of your business plan is your unique selling proposition. It’s what sets you apart and drives your success.” – Jim Connolly

Every business needs a USP to create a solid basis for enduring growth and maintaining a competitive edge. A unique selling proposition ( USP ) differentiates your company from competitors and defines the unique value you offer customers. It highlights the distinct benefits and qualities that make your product or service superior or more appealing, providing a compelling reason for customers to choose your brand over others. This distinctiveness is crucial for building a solid market position, drawing in and keeping customers, and establishing brand loyalty. With a clear USP, businesses can distinguish themselves in a saturated market, diminishing their chances of long-term survival and success.

To identify your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) in a business plan, conduct thorough market research to analyze competitors and identify unmet market needs. Assess your business’s strengths and gather customer feedback to understand what makes your offerings unique. Identify key differentiators by listing unique features, benefits, and brand values. Develop a clear and concise USP statement focusing on specific customer benefits and supported by proof points. After this, you can test and refine your USP, a process that provides reassurance and confidence in the effectiveness of your USP. Once refined, integrate it into your business plan’s executive summary.

The key characteristics of a compelling USP:

• Clarity : The USP should be concise and easily understood by customers and stakeholders. It should articulate precisely what makes the product or service unique and why it is better than competing offerings.
• Credibility : The claims made in the USP should be believable and backed by evidence. Overstated or exaggerated claims can harm credibility and trust.
• Relevance : The USP should address a genuine need or problem that the target market experiences. It must resonate with the audience’s desires and priorities.
• Resonance : A good USP often connects with customers emotionally, creating a solid bond between the brand and its customers. It can be done by directly addressing their deepest needs and desires, creating a sense of trust, loyalty, and personal relevance.
• Specificity : A USP must focus on specific features, benefits, or values that distinguish the product or service. General claims are less effective than specific, tangible benefits. It must highlight aspects of the product or service that competitors do not offer, ensuring the proposition is genuinely unique in the marketplace.

In its business plan, Nike provides a compelling example of a unique selling proposition (USP). Nike’s USP revolves around its dedication to innovation, quality, and performance in athletic footwear, apparel, and equipment. The brand distinguishes itself through its commitment to technological advancements, such as developing high-performance materials and smart apparel, and its “Just Do It” slogan strongly emphasizes empowering athletes at every level. By clearly articulating what makes their offerings unique and desirable, businesses like Nike can effectively capture market share and build a strong, enduring brand. Thus, the USP serves as the core element that drives the strategic direction and success of the business.

The unique selling proposition (USP) underscores its pivotal role in a business plan. It distinctly differentiates a business, fueling its competitive edge and overall success.

“Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.” – Steve Jobs

A core team is not just essential but also the driving force behind effectively executing the business plan. A well-qualified team adds credibility to the business plan. Investors need to know that the people behind the idea have the expertise and experience to make it a successful venture. Even the best business plan can only succeed with the right team. Highlighting the team’s strengths and track record demonstrates their ability to implement the strategy effectively.

The team section in a business plan underscores the collaborative nature of business success by highlighting the collective expertise, experience, and efforts of the individuals behind the venture. It demonstrates that the strength of the business lies not in a single visionary but in a diverse and skilled team working together towards a common goal. Each team member brings unique skills and perspectives, and their combined efforts drive the company’s innovation, efficiency, and growth. By showcasing a solid team, the business plan reassures stakeholders that the company has the human capital necessary to achieve its ambitious objectives and navigate the challenges ahead.

A strong team reduces the risk of failure and increases confidence in the company’s ability to navigate challenges and capitalize on opportunities. Here’s a breakdown of what this section should include:

• Founders : List the founders and their specific roles within the company. Highlight their professional backgrounds, including relevant industry experience, past entrepreneurial endeavors, and significant accomplishments.
• Team Members : Identify key team members, such as the Chief Operating Officer (COO), Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), and other essential positions. Detail their qualifications, skills, and relevant experience. It includes educational background, previous roles, and specific expertise that makes them an asset to the company. Describe their contributions to the business plan and their roles in achieving the company’s objectives.
• Advisory Board : Introduce the advisory board members, focusing on their expertise and the value they bring to the company. Highlight their experience, industry connections, and how they will support the business in strategic decision-making and networking.

Warner Bros. Entertainment’s business plan highlighted the exceptional team of four Warner brothers—Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner—whose collaborative efforts and visionary leadership established the company as a powerhouse in the entertainment industry. Harry Warner, the president, was the strategic force behind the company’s financial and operational framework, while Albert, the treasurer, managed the crucial aspects of studio financing and operations. The technology enthusiast Sam Warner spearheaded the introduction of synchronized sound in films, a groundbreaking advancement that revolutionized the industry. Jack Warner, the studio’s dynamic and charismatic head of production, played a pivotal role in film production and talent acquisition. The brothers’ combined expertise, innovative approach, and cohesive teamwork were instrumental in creating a legacy of cinematic excellence, making Warner Bros. a legendary name in the film and television industry.

Promoting products or services through a well-structured sales and marketing plan is not just a part of any business plan, it’s the key to attracting customers. The marketing plan , a comprehensive strategy, is designed to not only promote a company’s products or services but also to attract customers. It’s the roadmap that outlines the strategy and tactics the business will use to attract and retain customers, drive sales, and achieve market penetration.

Understanding its target market deeply is crucial for a company to sell its products effectively. This involves identifying potential customers’ needs and preferences and developing a unique value proposition that sets its offerings apart from competitors. It also entails selecting the proper sales channels, be it direct sales, online platforms, or retail distribution, and using a mix of promotional activities, such as advertising, public relations, social media campaigns, and events.

A comprehensive sales and marketing plan is a must for any business. It’s like a safety net that ensures you’re prepared for every step of the marketing journey. It should include the following key components:

• Approaches : Detailed actions to implement the marketing strategies, including specific campaigns, promotions, events, and advertising efforts. It also outlines the sales process, including lead generation, lead nurturing, and conversion strategies.
• Budget : Detailed budget allocation for marketing and sales activities, including costs for advertising, software, events, and personnel. It comes together with a forecasted return on investment (ROI) for each marketing activity.
• Marketing Goals : Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals that the marketing efforts aim to achieve. Examples include boosting sales, expanding market share, generating leads, or increasing brand awareness.
• Metrics : Metrics to measure the effectiveness of marketing and sales efforts, such as conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, and sales revenue.
• Sales Channels : Identification of sales channels (direct sales, online sales, retail distribution, etc.) and sales team structure.
• SWOT Analysis : This analysis helps businesses understand their internal capabilities and external challenges, enabling them to develop effective strategies for growth and competitiveness.
• Target Customer : Identify the target audience, including customer segments, needs, preferences, and buying behavior.
• Timeline : A timeline outlining when each marketing and sales activity will be executed and an action plan detailing responsibilities, deadlines, and milestones.

Coca-Cola’s sales and marketing plan is a textbook example of effectiveness. A robust global branding initiative is central to their strategy, emphasizing consistency and cultural adaptation. Coca-Cola invests heavily in advertising, utilizing both traditional media and digital platforms to maintain a ubiquitous presence. They leverage iconic branding, memorable slogans, and strategic partnerships with events and influencers to enhance brand loyalty and recognition. Their marketing efforts are complemented by an extensive distribution network, ensuring product availability in diverse markets. By continuously innovating their product lines and engaging in localized marketing campaigns, Coca-Cola sustains its market dominance and drives consistent revenue growth.

Businesses can effectively capitalize on favorable conditions and drive growth by thoroughly researching the market, identifying opportunities, and strategically planning their approach. This proactive and well-prepared strategy positions them to seize opportunities, turning potential advantages into tangible successes.

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“A clear vision, backed by definite plans, gives you a tremendous feeling of confidence and personal power.” – Brian Tracy

The operational plan is a detailed blueprint that outlines the day-to-day activities required to run a business efficiently. It translates the organization’s strategic objectives into specific tasks and projects, assigning responsibilities and timelines to ensure that these tasks are completed effectively. This plan covers production processes, quality assurance, supply chain coordination, and logistics. It also includes resource management, such as staffing , equipment, and technology needs. An operational plan ensures that the company’s daily operations align with its strategic goals, offering a clear guide for accomplishing immediate and long-term goals. It fosters a productive and focused environment, where every action is geared towards the business’s success.

The operating plan is the roadmap for how your business will function daily to achieve the goals you laid out in your business plan. It translates your grand vision into actionable steps. Here’s what a solid operating plan in a business plan should include:

• Core Objectives : What specific goals do you want to achieve through your operations? Align these with the overall business goals you outlined earlier in your plan. For instance, if your main goal is fast and efficient delivery, your operations plan would focus on streamlining order fulfillment processes.
• Facilities and Equipment : Imagine this as your business’s physical footprint. Describe the type of space you’ll need to operate, whether a manufacturing plant, a retail storefront, or office space. Additionally, outline the equipment required for your operations. If any permits or licenses are needed to operate out of your chosen facility, mention those here as well.
• People and Teams : Your business is only as strong as its workforce. This section identifies the staffing needs to run your operations effectively. Specify the roles required, the responsibilities associated with each position, and any specific skillsets you’ll need to look for when hiring.
• Production and Delivery Processes : Here, you’ll detail how to make your product or deliver your service. It could include outlining step-by-step production workflows, how you’ll ensure quality control throughout the process, and, if applicable, how you’ll manage inventory levels to avoid stockouts or overstocking.
• Suppliers and Vendors : No business operates in isolation. You’ll likely depend on suppliers and vendors for raw materials, equipment maintenance, or even outsourced services. In this section, it’s vital to identify your key suppliers and establish robust relationships with them. This will ensure a smooth and reliable supply chain, a critical component of successful operations.
• Technology Infrastructure : In today’s business landscape, technology often serves as the backbone of operations. It’s essential to outline the software programs, hardware, and any other technological needs that will enable you to run your business efficiently. This could range from project management tools to customer relationship management (CRM) software. Investing in the right technology is a key factor in ensuring the smooth operation of your business.
• Timeline and Milestones : A clear roadmap is essential for success. Set realistic deadlines for achieving vital operational goals. This will help you track your progress, identify areas that might need to catch up and make adjustments as needed. By laying out milestones, you can ensure you’re on track to achieve your overall business objective.

Amazon’s operating plan is a quintessential example of efficiency and strategic foresight. At the core of its operations is the seamless integration of its vast supply chain network with cutting-edge technology. The company leverages its sophisticated logistics infrastructure, including a global network of fulfillment centers, advanced inventory management systems, and robust delivery mechanisms, to ensure swift and reliable customer service. Additionally, Amazon’s commitment to innovation is evident in its continuous investment in automation and artificial intelligence, which optimizes processes and reduces operational costs. This holistic approach enhances customer satisfaction and drives scalability and profitability, positioning Amazon as a leader in the e-commerce industry . Amazon’s meticulously crafted operational strategies are designed to support the company’s ambitious vision of becoming the world’s most customer-centric company. These strategies, which encompass advanced logistics, innovative technology, and streamlined processes, empower Amazon to deliver exceptional value to its customers with confidence. This unwavering commitment to customer-centricity, coupled with a clear strategic vision and meticulous execution, instills a sense of control and capability, driving the company’s sustainable success and reinforcing its position as an industry leader.

“A business plan is a guess at the future and how you intend to exploit it.” – Eric Ries

The financial plan , a critical strategic plan component, outlines the company’s financial goals and strategies. A robust financial plan guarantees that the organization can manage its resources efficiently, meet its financial obligations, and achieve sustainable growth. It also provides a basis for financial decision-making and helps attract investors by demonstrating the company’s financial viability.

A financial plan provides a comprehensive overview of how the company intends to manage its finances to achieve its goals. The essential components of a financial plan include:

• Investment : This section details the initial capital required to start the business . It includes funds for purchasing equipment, inventory, property, and other startup costs. Investments are often divided into fixed assets (like machinery and buildings) and working capital (funds needed for day-to-day operations). It’s essential to provide a clear breakdown of how these investments will be allocated and the sources of these funds, whether through personal savings, loans, or investor contributions.
• Operating Cost : Operating costs refer to the daily expenses required to run the business. These include fixed costs (rent, salaries, utilities) and variable costs (raw materials, sales commissions). A detailed analysis of operating expenses helps the budget and ensures the business can sustain its operations without financial difficulties. Understanding these costs is also vital for pricing strategies and profitability analysis.
• Expected Revenues : Expected revenues are projections of the income the business anticipates generating from its operations. This section should include sales forecasts based on market analysis, pricing strategies, and anticipated sales volumes. Revenue projections are usually presented monthly, quarterly, and annually, helping stakeholders understand the business’s potential income streams and market viability.
• Time to Break Even : The break-even point is when the business’s revenues equal its total costs, resulting in neither profit nor loss. This metric is crucial for understanding how long it will take the company to generate profit. Calculating the time to break even involves analyzing fixed and variable costs against expected revenues. It helps set realistic financial goals and timelines for the business.
• Target Profitability : Target profitability outlines the financial goals regarding profit margins and net income. This component includes profit forecasts and targets, which help measure the business’s financial performance over time. It involves setting short-term and long-term profitability goals and understanding the necessary strategies to achieve these targets, such as cost reduction, pricing adjustments, and sales growth initiatives. Financial statements show target profitability by detailing projected revenues, expenses, and net income, allowing for analysis of expected profit margins and financial performance against set goals.
• Funding Requirements : Funding requirements specify the capital needed to support the business’s growth and operations. This section should include detailed information about the types and funding sources required, whether from equity investors, loans, grants, or other financial instruments. It should also outline the intended use of these funds, the timeline for securing them, and their associated terms and conditions.

When Tesla Motors was in its early stages, founder Elon Musk aimed to revolutionize the automotive industry with electric vehicles. The feasibility study for their first mass-market car, the Model S, included a detailed manufacturing plan. Tesla analyzed the initial investment needed for their Fremont factory, estimated operating costs for production, and projected revenues from anticipated sales. They assessed the break-even point based on production capacity and sales volume targets, ensuring that future profitability would justify their high initial capital expenditure. This comprehensive feasibility analysis helped secure investor confidence and laid the groundwork for Tesla’s eventual success. Tesla’s financial plan demonstrated a clear path to achieving long-term financial goals, ultimately paving the way for its dominant position in the electric vehicle market.

A financial plan generally involves forecasting future financial conditions and strategies for leveraging opportunities. It is an educated prediction using market analysis, projected revenues, operating costs, and investment needs to chart a course toward profitability. It outlines how the business intends to capitalize on market trends, manage risks, and allocate resources efficiently. By setting financial goals, identifying funding requirements, and establishing a timeline for reaching profitability, the financial plan provides a roadmap for exploiting future opportunities and navigating uncertainties.

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter Drucker

The investment story of a business plan is a compelling narrative designed to attract investors by highlighting the business’s unique value proposition, market potential, and strategic vision. It should not only convey the business’s potential for substantial returns and its competitive advantages but also why it stands out in the market with its unique value proposition. The investment story must be engaging, credible, and backed by data to instill confidence in potential investors.

The critical elements of an investment story in a business plan include:

• Executive Summary : The executive summary in a business plan is a concise overview of the investment story. It is the first impression for potential investors, partners, and stakeholders, highlighting key aspects such as the business concept, market opportunity, competitive advantage, financial projections , and the management team’s expertise. An effectively crafted executive summary can engage readers, encouraging them to delve deeper, thereby increasing the likelihood of securing funding, partnerships, and support. It highlights the unique opportunity to be part of a venture with a strong market demand, innovative solutions, and a proven track record of success.
• Exit Strategy : An exit strategy occurs when a business owner or investor exits or liquidates a current investment after achieving a goal or mitigating loss. It could involve transitioning ownership of a company to another company, e.g., through a Merger or Acquisition , another investor through an Initial Public Offering (IPO), or one’s family member. Planning an exit strategy for the business is a crucial aspect of business planning. You first need to define your objectives, understand your reasons for leaving, and determine your financial goals. Next, it’s essential to understand your business’s value . This comprehensive understanding will not only help in setting a realistic price but also in identifying areas that might need improvement before selling. Picking the right exit strategy for a business is pivotal. Consider various types of buyers, such as strategic buyers and companies within your industry looking to expand their market share. Financial buyers, including private equity firms or investors, might also be interested in your profitable business. Internal buyers, like employees or management team members, could also be potential candidates. Each type of buyer will have different expectations and approaches, so understanding your options for a business’s exit strategy will help you target the right audience.
• Growth Opportunity : The investment story should also include the immense growth opportunity of the business. It details how the market is poised to expand at a significant compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next few years. The company can capitalize on this growth through its innovative product offerings, customer base, and strategic geographic expansion. By leveraging its core competencies and continually investing in research and development, the business aims to capture a substantial market share. Strategic initiatives such as diversifying product lines, enhancing digital presence, and exploring new market segments are critical drivers for future growth. You can show growth opportunity by projecting increasing revenue streams and expanding profit margins over time, supported by assumptions of market expansion, customer acquisition, and efficiency improvements.

WhatsApp’s compelling investment story in its business plan revolved around its revolutionary approach to messaging, which addressed the global demand for instant, reliable, and accessible communication. WhatsApp’s exit strategy was meticulously planned, focusing on building a massive user base with an easy-to-use, ad-free messaging platform. By prioritizing user growth and engagement over immediate monetization, WhatsApp positioned itself as an attractive acquisition target for larger tech companies looking to expand their user base and integrate seamless communication tools. The culmination of this strategy was Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp for $19 billion, marking one of the most significant tech acquisitions and underscoring the importance of strategic user growth and positioning in exit planning.

The investment story of a business embodies the proactive vision and strategic execution required to shape market realities. The company showcases its potential to redefine industry standards and capture emerging opportunities by presenting a clear, innovative roadmap. This forward-thinking approach, underpinned by robust financial projections and a compelling growth strategy, illustrates the company’s commitment to anticipating and actively driving future trends. Investors are thus invited to partake in a journey where the business doesn’t just adapt to the future but strategically crafts it, ensuring sustainable success and substantial returns.

Making a business plan helps the investors understand their investments, and it helps the founders organize and strategically improve the plan upon review. More importantly, the main elements of a business plan gives the founders direction from their vision until the operation on what needs to happen to succeed. Overall, the business plan should answer and address all questions or concerns that might be brought up and, ideally, lead to the business’s success.

Building a business plan from scratch takes a long time; hence, using a financial model template will help save time and resources. Financial model templates are powerful tools that can significantly enhance your business plan by providing a structured, accurate, and efficient way to forecast financial performance. They streamline the process of creating detailed financial projections, allowing you to easily input critical data and generate comprehensive reports that showcase your business’s potential to investors and stakeholders.

By leveraging pre-built models tailored to various industries, you can ensure consistency, reduce errors, and save valuable time, ultimately leading to more informed decision-making and a more substantial, more convincing business plan.

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39 Best Infographic PowerPoint Presentation Templates for 2024 (Giant List)

Find the best infographic slide templates to use for your PowerPoint presentations, and get some useful tips on how to use them.

Do you need to add lots of information to create a great infographic template for PowerPoint? Are you wondering how to make an infographic-rich presentation to capture your audience?

Make the first step in the right direction. It begins with getting quality data presentation templates to work with. Don’t worry—we’ve got you covered with some of the best for 2024.

5 Best Infographic PowerPoint Templates (Video Overview)

Here’s a video preview of some of our best infographic presentation templates. Use it for a closer look at top infographic PowerPoints.

For more information on PowerPoint infographic template PPTs, keep reading the article below for some helpful templates and tips.

Best New Infographic PowerPoint Presentation Templates From Envato for 2024

These are some of the best PowerPoint infographic templates trending now on Envato Elements.

1. Infographic PowerPoint PPT Presentation Template

This infographic PPT presentation template set has 170 professional slide designs. It also comes with creative PowerPoint infographics. The custom vector icons and visual slide designs are ready for you to edit.

2. PPTx Infographics PowerPoint Slides

This modern PowerPoint graphics presentation template set has beautiful slides. Make the most of creative PPT charts, timelines, and icons. Scale and recolor the vector graphics and customize the slide setup.

3. Tech Multipurpose PowerPoint Presentation Deck

With 100 dynamic slides and handmade PPT infographics, this template is ready to rock. It’s made with Slide Master, which makes customization easy. Change colors, edit graphics, or quickly drag and drop your images with just one click.

If you’ve got a presentation soon, grab a PPT template that has everything you need.

4. Sante Infographic Template PowerPoint

If you have no time to learn how to make an infographic in PowerPoint, here’s one of the best PPTs to help you turn ideas into persuasive presentations. This creative infographic template for PowerPoint comes with:

• easy to edit icons
• slide transition animation
• company profile slides
• portfolio slides

5. Eargo Infographic Template PowerPoint

You’ll have all the PowerPoint graphics every startup and business planner needs. Present to investors, key employees, and other stakeholders with confidence thanks to Eargo. This infographic template for PowerPoint comes with:

• over 250 slides
• 30 color themes
• 2000 vector icons
• light and dark backgrounds

Take your business to the next level with this PowerPoint graphics template.

6. Quantum Education Infographic PPT

This infographic template for PPT is fun and easy on the eye. It packs 30 unique slides and loads of useful graphics. You’ll get charts, maps, and device mockups in this infographics PowerPoint template.

You can resize and customize every infographic slide.

7. Infonova Infographic PowerPoint Template

The best PowerPoint presentation templates offer you creative control. This option is no exception. You’ll get a host of customizable infographic slide designs with this download.

This infographic template for PowerPoint is ideal for creative agencies and creators. It comes with free web fonts and it’s based on Master Slides. Just drag and drop your images, it’s that simple!

8. Water Infographic in PowerPoint

Here’s a leading choice for presentation graphics that works for some topics. It comes with minimal white backgrounds and blue, editable charts and graphs. There are 20 infographic slide designs you can customize to suit your presentation.

This infographic template for PowerPoint also has free fonts and so much more.

9. Gets Travel Infographic Template for PowerPoint

This infographic slide template for PowerPoint is great for travel-related presentations. It features stunning graphics with editable colors.

Each of the 50 unique slides in this creative infographic PPT theme is fully editable. Moreover, it comes in both light and dark backgrounds.

10. Foodism Infographics PowerPoint Template

Pitching an idea for a new restaurant? This infographic PowerPoint template is your go-to choice. There are many PPT graphics in this download.

Find 35 infographic slide designs inside. This infographic in PowerPoint also includes two versions with light and dark backgrounds. Few free presentation graphics can say the same.

11. 3D Finance Infographic Template PPT

Deliver dynamic presentations with these great-looking 3D infographics for PowerPoint. This modern template has many PowerPoint infographic examples for financial pitches. Enjoy 35 unique slides in both dark and light versions.

12. Portfolio Infographic Template for PowerPoint

Use this infographic template for PowerPoint to design your next portfolio. It contains 34 well-made, unique infographic slide options. It also features:

• 20+ color themes
• over 4,000 infographics for PowerPoint
• fully editable elements
• drag & drop picture placeholders
• help file and free support service

Play with it and make it your own!

13. Headline PowerPoint Infographic Template

This flat infographic style PPT theme is set up for multi-purpose business presentations. Each infographic slide includes over 4,000 customizable icons. Choose from more than 20 color themes with free fonts used.

14. A New Infographics PowerPoint Template

A New is a great choice if you need an infographic template for PowerPoint. There are over 30 infographic slide designs to put to use. Scroll through the charts and icons, and see what your slideshow needs.

Each of the PowerPoint graphics is customizable and resizable. Instead of free presentation graphics, try out A New.

15. Project Management Infographic PowerPoint Template

PowerPoint infographic templates like this are designed for project managers. Your audience is sure to appreciate your use of infographic slide designs. This set of PowerPoint graphics offers:

• editable graphics
• drag and drop image placeholders
• a help file

16. Pitch-Deck Infographic Template for PowerPoint

Infographic slide designs can help bring ideas to life. PowerPoint infographic templates like this are tools to deliver professional pitches. Change the colors to match your brand and use:

• and so much more!

With a layout based on master slides, this template is easy to edit. You can change the photos by easily drag-and-dropping. Few free presentation graphics for PowerPoint can do that.

17. Business Plan Infographic PowerPoint Template

PowerPoint infographic templates like this help you pitch a business plan. Use this fully customizable, well-organized PPT to show what keeps your team moving. It has loads of features, including:

• 665+ unique layouts
• 4,000+ vector icons
• over 60 premade color themes
• drag and drop image placeholder
• smart object layout & texts

Moreover, it’s regularly updated so you can use it many times and for different purposes!

18. Flanify Infographics PowerPoint Template

Flanify is one of the best new PowerPoint infographic templates available today. It’s got a minimalist design that helps you emphasize your content. There are three dozen unique slides featuring all types of graphics.

You’ll find charts, device mockups, and other icons. This infographic PPT is based on master slides, so it’s super easy to edit.

19. Kopikoe Foodie Infographic Template PPT

This infographic template for PowerPoint has everything you’ll need for a foodie PPT. Audiences react well to infographics because they make advanced concepts easy to understand. This pack includes 30 infographic slide designs for your next project.

With loads of vector icons, you have virtually unlimited creative options. Unlike some free presentation graphics found online, these are professionally designed.

20. Imperial Multipurpose Infographics for PowerPoint

These PowerPoint infographic examples revolve around the health industry. This template includes a full collection of infographics and 30 slides. It features free fronts, a help file, and many other useful tools. You can fully and easily customize every vector icon and image.

21. Juici Foodie Infographic Template PPT

When searching for an infographic template for PowerPoint, aim for high-quality elements. This infographic template PPT gives you that. You’ll also get:

• 100% resizable and editable icons
• drag and drop picture placeholders
• device mockups

If you want a template to pitch about food and drinks, look no further!

22. Inventive Infographic Template for PowerPoint

Premium tech layouts like this go beyond any free presentation graphics online. This creative infographic template PPT bundle includes 35 infographic slide designs. Customize every icon and use the master slides – which help you make bulk edits across the deck in a flash.

23. Osprey Education Infographic PowerPoint Template

Get amazing PowerPoint infographics for your creative business presentation. PowerPoint infographic templates like this give you an array of functional icons. With 30 clean master slide-based layouts, easily edit this PPT as much as you’d like.

24. Edulacti Multipurpose Infographic PPT

This is a creative PowerPoint template for multipurpose business presentation or personal use. This PowerPoint includes 30 infographic slide designs and several icons, such as:

• flow chart infographics

All the included PowerPoint infographic examples are fully editable.

25. Gatzruts Infographics PowerPoint Template

This minimalistic PPT theme is ready to use for many types of presentations. It features a ton of creative, clean infographic slide designs. All these business graphics PowerPoint elements are editable.

As it’s based on master slides, it’s easy to quickly adapt to your needs. Try out this premium choice instead of free presentation graphics for PowerPoint.

26. Mental Concept PowerPoint Infographic Templates

Check out these PowerPoint infographic templates to give a powerful mental concept pitch. These are designed by creative pros with you in mind. It’ll stand out from free infographic templates for PowerPoint.

Make sure to use the various features, including:

• 204 total slides, with 17 unique mental concept slides
• 12 color variations
• 280 fully editable vector icons
• master slides for easy editing

27. Realth Business Infographic PowerPoint Template

It’s important to make a solid first impression right out of the gate. An infographic template for PPT like Realth helps you do just that. In fact, it’s got 30 multipurpose slides built in.

From these, pick and choose to suit your message. The PowerPoint infographic examples help you present:

• growth stats
• pricing packages
• app layouts
• team members
• and so much more

All the graphics are editable, and the used fonts are free.

28. Maps: Set of Infographics for PowerPoint

These PowerPoint infographic templates have a wide variety of clean map designs. Use them to pitch about locations, migration plans, growth stats per region, and so much more. Find 25 unique slides inside, picture placeholders, and over 90 color themes.

29. Puckup Brand Guidelines Infographic PPT

Not sure how to make a branded presentation? Don’t worry, because the PUCKUP infographic template PPT is surprisingly easy to use. All elements are editable with a couple of clicks.

This infographic template for PowerPoint is great for presenting your brand. Easily add your logo, your company’s color palette and typography, and voila! It’s way better than free presentation graphics.

30. Brand Guidelines Infographic PowerPoint Template

Here’s an elegant choice for presenting your brand. Not all infographic PPT options have to be bright in order to be eye-catching. This template is the go-to download for 2024.

This infographic PowerPoint has everything you need to crush your branding proposal:

• 34 unique slides
• picture placeholders

Free presentation graphics may fall short for your brand needs. Choose this one instead!

31. Funnel Infographic Template for PowerPoint

Logistics rule the world in 2024. Are you trying to show the strength of your business’s processes? An infographic template PPT like this is a top choice.

Use each of the professional infographic slide designs to explain things like:

• case studies
• business and marketing plans

32. Nursing PowerPoint Infographic Template

This colorful, creative presentation theme showcases your information and crafts a visual story. It’s an impressive tool for presenting medical-related topics. Unlike most free presentation graphics, it has many unique slides and color schemes.

This infographic in PowerPoint offers:

• light and dark background options
• editable elements
• an icons pack file

33. Mental Health PowerPoint Infographic Templates

This template has several color scheme options and PowerPoint infographic examples. Present with clarity, show your process and progress, and more.

There are easy-to-customize layout options, in both light and dark backgrounds. It also features tons of icons and picture placeholders.

34. Market Research Infographic PowerPoint Template

In need of top PowerPoint presentation graphics for your market research pitch? This one will do. It’s a great pack that includes:

• 15 unique infographic slide designs
• drag-and-drop image placeholders
• easy to change colors
• shapes and other elements

This doesn’t include the images, but everything else is right there. Try this one instead of free infographic templates for PowerPoint.

35. Hot Pitch Deck Infographic PPT

Next up is this stylish and modern infographic slide design. There are over 100 fully animated slides. Moreover, you’ll find:

• 2,000+ vector icons
• 100+ device mockups
• 50+ theme files
• and lifetime updates!

Use the master slides to quickly add a personal touch to this infographic template PPT.

36. Environment Infographic PowerPoint Examples

This infographic PowerPoint template comes with everything you need to create an environmental impact presentation. It comes packed with premium features like:

• 20 education and science slide designs
• .PPT and PPTX. files
• Fully editable and easy to use
• Documentation

37. PowerPoint Infographics Solutions

Work with a PowerPoint infographic template that offers everything you need right out of the box. These infographic PowerPoint examples feature:

• 50 ready-to-use slides
• Over 200 icons (PSD+EPS+AI+JPG+PNG+SVG+PPTX Vector)
• Color themes
• Objects are organized and grouped

38. ECO Infographic Template for PowerPoint

These infographic PowerPoint examples are great for putting together a sustainability infographic presentation. Use the high-quality illustrations and other great features:

• 33 unique slides
• Includes opening and closing slides
• 11 color variations
• Simple line vector icons
• Handmade infographics

39. Infographic PowerPoint Examples

No need to learn how to make an infographic in PowerPoint when you have access to this clean PowerPoint infographics template. Take advantage of its amazing features:

• 80+ unique slides
• 80+ fully animated infographics
• Resizable and editable graphics
• 16:9 widescreen ratio

5 Popular PowerPoint Infographic Slide Design Types

We’ve already established that infographics in PowerPoint are powerful storytelling tools. But let’s go one step further and look at specific examples of the best infographics. We’ll also see how to use them to explain concepts.

1. The Brain Infographic

Some dedicate their whole lives to studying the human mind, and yet there’s always something to learn! The value of a brain infographic is that it’s an intuitive way to show thoughts and ideas and how they connect.

Use an infographic and this tutorial to create a brain graphic that shows the pieces of a thought.

2. The SWOT Infographic

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats: every business situation has them. You need a way to show them in your presentation. That’s where the classic SWOT infographic makes its impact.

When you lay out all four components, you’re likely to find insight while creating a strategy.

3. The Puzzle Piece Infographic

You’re probably familiar with putting together puzzle pieces in the real world. Don’t miss out on using this concept as an infographic! As a PowerPoint visual, puzzle pieces can show how the parts of an idea join into a cohesive whole.

Use this article to see how to use puzzle pieces. The best graphic PPTs often use them to tell a story of how everything fits together.

4. The Gantt Infographic

When you’re running a project, you need a way to show that many tasks are running side-by-side. That’s the purpose of a Gantt chart. It’s a special infographic that’s beloved by the best project managers.

Use our tutorial to see Gantt infographics in action . You’ll learn how to use them to plan a project and the resources you need to succeed.

5. The Funnel Infographic

A funnel is yet another infographic you can leverage in PowerPoint to explain a concept. Funnels show inputs, how they progress, and what they ultimately lead to.

Funnel infographics are common in explaining sales processes. They’re easy to build in PowerPoint with templates. Make sure to check out our tutorial on how you can use PowerPoint funnel infographics .

How to Customize an Infographic PowerPoint Template (Fast!)

So far, we’ve looked at powerful PowerPoint infographic templates. But you might be wondering how to use them to design infographic slides of your own.

Let’s learn how to customize three separate slides to build excellent infographics. We’ll use the PPTx Infographics template to rapidly build our infographic slides.

Let’s look at five example slides. These show how easy it is to customize a PowerPoint infographic:

1. Performance Gears

The best PowerPoint templates include abstract designs to build infographics for PPT. Use a little imagination, and there it is! These infographic PowerPoint slides might be perfect for expressing your idea.

Take this turning gear icon slide. In the updated version below, I’ve shifted the elements to show how teams at my company work together.

Simple drag-and-drop actions and grabbing icons from other slides brought this slide to life. Then, I updated the text to match my intent in this infographic template for PowerPoint.

2. Hierarchy Charts

If you work in a corporate environment, I’m certain that you’ve seen org charts before. These exist to show off the company’s reporting structure.

In this case, it’s as simple as typing in the placeholder boxes to update the names and titles. I’ve also added a photo in my example to really “put a face with a name” in my organization. This chart uses SmartArt, a built-in PowerPoint feature that’ll adjust the graphic as you adjust the text.

Learn more about SmartArt PPT infographics .

3. Brain Infographic

Brain charts are infographics that you’ll find in the best PowerPoint templates. They can show how you divide your thinking and showcase the “parts of the whole” that make up your strategy.

In the example below, I’ve left the same basic structure intact. I just updated the descriptions and some of the colors and icons. It’s a simple tweak that shows what my creative agency spends its time on.

Brain infographics are very popular, so we created a resource to teach you how to customize them. Check out our screencast to learn more.

4. Sales Report

PowerPoint infographic templates help you tell stories with your data. Slide 15 in our template is a great choice for creating a data-focused slide.

To edit a PowerPoint chart, edit the data that feeds it. Right-click on the chart and choose Edit Data. You’ll see an embedded version of Excel, Microsoft’s data powerhouse. Just type over the data placeholders, and your chart will update in real time.

Learn more about working with data in this PowerPoint tutorial .

5. The Conclusion Slide

It’s a mistake to think that the last slide is the end of your presentation. Instead, it helps to see it as the start of a conversation with your audience.

You know what’s the best part of PowerPoint infographic templates? Yes, that they include other useful slides. Slide 50, the conclusion slide, is perfect for every presentation. That’s because it can help you continue the conversation by sharing your details.

To update this slide, type over the placeholders. That adapts the slide to your brand-specific details.

For even more ideas and to learn how to create a conclusion side, don’t miss out on our tutorial .

Common PowerPoint Template Questions Answered (FAQ)

You’ve already seen infographic templates for PowerPoint. But you might still have questions about how to use PowerPoint to your advantage.

PowerPoint is an advanced app. It’s easy to use, but there are many professional-grade features. Let’s look at five common questions you might have as you level up your presentation skills:

1. Does PowerPoint Support Custom Fonts?

Every graphic designer is trying to gain an audience’s attention when presenting. It helps to use custom design options in PowerPoint. That sets the presentation apart from those who only use the built-in, standard fonts.

Try out custom fonts with the help of this tutorial .

2. What Size Should I Choose for My Infographic Slide?

The goal for your PowerPoint presentation is to use the full-screen space. You’ve got to set your infographic template PPT to the proper dimensions. Don’t waste any pixels!

Using pre-built PowerPoint infographic templates gives you several size options.

3. How Much Does PowerPoint Cost?

Microsoft has pivoted its business models in recent years. Once upon a time, businesses and power users would buy a license for the latest version of the app every few years. Now, it’s all about subscriptions.

Many users choose Office 365, a monthly subscription package to keep apps up to date. Another option is the free, browser-based version of the app.

4. Can You Create PowerPoint Infographics From Scratch?

Infographic templates for PowerPoint are perfect for creating interactive visuals. But you can also create PowerPoint graphics with the help of a feature called SmartArt.

5. What’s the Best Way to Present Data in PowerPoint?

Presentation graphics can include data. It’s far better to use a chart than to show data in a table or a wall of numbers that are hard to interpret. With the help of presentation graphics and charts, it’s much easier to explain trends and data.

Grab a Fresh PowerPoint Template With Great Infographic Slide Designs

Any of the best PowerPoint presentation templates from Envato Elements will help make your points clear. Choose the best format for your info. Put together just the right PowerPoint infographic slides that tell your compelling story.

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