planning

Calculating the number of leads needed for a campaign seems simple. You can do it on the back of an envelope: Firstly, work out the real target: Consider your revenue target, reduce this by any annuity revenue to get your “sales target”.

There is never enough money and never enough resources in a business. Whether you work in a multinational corporation with billions of dollars to splash around, or a micro business with only a few staff, budgeting is always tough.

Market sizing is often done with a degree of rigour, but far less rigour is applied to the task of sizing your own sales funnel. The proposition that "there is plenty out there" might be true, but sizing is not just about working out if the market can support you.

Many businesses lack a clear plan for growth; Sales and Marketing struggle with plans that are not sufficiently actionable, not aligned to the strategy, not followed, or simply non-existent. Marketing and Sales planning is difficult.

Christian Maurer, a Paris-based Consultant, Trainer and Coach, writes... To determine the success of a sales-effectiveness initiative, you need to define measurable objectives, and track them against a baseline that shows where you currently stand. The most common measure of success is a revenue objective. It can be easily measured, and the base line easily established. And yet, measuring things this way can provoke much debate. In 'The Complete Guide to Accelerating Sales Force Performance', Andris A. Zoltners et al. write that the influence any particular sales-force has on revenue varies widely. This is why they warn readers against using just one indicator (e.g. revenue per sales person) to measure performance. So what indicators should you measure?

Otherwise intelligent, well-educated, highly-regarded, wealthy people in huge offices make dunderheaded decisions every day, because they are surrounded by people afraid to tell them that they’re not wearing any clothes.  So, let's ask right now!   Will your corporate boondoggle known as the 'sales kick-off' motivate sales, your team and your channel partners?

Charles Besondy, President of Besondy Consulting & Interim Management, writes... Is revenue flat or heading south? Time to invigorate the sales force with the latest sales techniques, right? New head of sales takes the reins with the job of transforming the revenue engine. Time to bring in the sales trainers, right? Not so fast...

Great plans don't come from inspired enlightenment, but from following a great process. Whilst we believe we have built such a process for integrated sales and marketing planning, in a time-poor world the processes need to change. But to what?

Charles Besondy, President of Besondy Consulting & Interim Management, writes... Every company, including my own firm, is working hard each day to find, keep, and grow customers. The urgency for revenue now is real.  But, I asked myself this morning a very direct question. Am I implementing strategies and tactics that are perpetuating this short-term thinking? Or, do I have strategies and tactics in place that will in good time create a consistent revenue flow?

2-day module to learn how to design and plan campaigns

The market needs to be ready to hear your message. Your demand generation efforts will fail if the market isn’t ready. By the same token, if you spend all your efforts getting the market ready and fail to follow through with demand generation, then it’s all for nothing. How to Plan Campaigns that Move Buyers outlines how to condition the market; softening it up, and positioning a strong brand, and how to follow that up with rhythmic demand generation.

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