Why Do You Need a Sales Growth Plan for Your Business?

This may seem like an obvious question but how many times do we move forward with an idea without a plan?  Every successful business has a plan for growth.  Whether you are building new products, expanding into new markets, or looking to grow your customer base, it is important to have a strategy in place.  The same holds true for your businesses.  It is not an easy task to find and keep new customers. Fortunately, there are a few simple strategies that can be used to increase sales and grow your business.  This article will discuss how to get started on setting up a sales growth plan for your business. It will cover the basics of what you need to do, how it can help your business, and what questions you should ask yourself to get started.

1. How to Get Started 

It is important not only to have a sales growth plan but also have it written down. Having a process that is written gives your team structure and helps them understand their roles in the company.

Questions you should ask yourself before getting started:

What are my goals?

Always start with the end in mind.  If you know where you want to go you can create a map to get you and your team there.  If you need help with mapping it out or even figuring out where you want to go, there are many resources.  You can find a mentor that has a business like you want to build.  Follow them around, ask a lot of questions.  Plenty of Contractors want to help.  Find one that is not a competitor and ask if they will teach you.  You can always contact us to start a discussion.

What are my strengths?

Be honest with yourself and your team.  Ask someone else for help.  You have some amazing strengths, make sure you are able to see them clearly for what they are.

What are my weaknesses?

Same rules apply here as above: be honest and ask others for help!  You do not have to beat yourself up over this but do not overcompensate here either.

Which parts can be improved?

You should have a good starting point but we all can improve somewhere, right?  What are you doing right and what can you do better?  Your processes are no exception.  So, do not be afraid to ask the question.

2. What are the Components?

The components of a successful sales growth plan are not always easy to define, but there are some commonalities. The following components have been found to have the most impact on the effectiveness of a company’s sales growth plan:

Market penetration

If you can navigate the current market and find a way to reach more customers through marketing, community outreach, and other things like this, it will help your business develop brand awareness.  Brand awareness is when people see your name all the time and it becomes synonymous with their need for your product when they need it.

Choose one or two major initiatives to move the needle

There may be more things that you need to do but bite off a chunk at a time and complete it before you take the next bite.  If not, you will have so many things you are chasing, and it will get confusing to you and your team.

Create a timeline with specific deadlines and milestones

Demonstrate how these initiatives will contribute to the success of the company objective

Determine who is accountable for each component 

If you can get others involved in creating your success the better off you will be, and you will not be overwhelmed with all that needs to be done.

Assign responsibility for communicating this information

Communication is paramount to your success in anything.  Make sure you have a clear line of communication between all parties, internally and externally.

3. How do You Know if Your Current Sales Growth Strategy is Working?

Ultimately, you want to know if your current strategy is working and if it’s not, you need to know what you can do differently.  Sales leaders need to ask themselves:

Am I seeing the results? Do you see growth or is it still flat?

Are we gaining new customers or are we losing them as fast as we are gaining them?

What would happen if I changed our sales growth strategy, or what would happen if I did not change our sales growth strategy?

Conclusion/Final Thoughts

It should be pretty clear if the current growth strategy is working or not.  If you are having a tough time reach out to others that can have a fresh perspective.  Find a coach or mentor that can give some clear unbiased feedback but more than likely you will know it is working because you are growing your business in both revenue and customers.  There are plenty of books and podcasts that can help you learn as well.  Here is a webinar that Pricebook Digital and I will be doing on November 16th, 2021.