Visionaries Plan for Sales Success | Effective Sales Planning

Without plans, most individuals and firms fail at marketing before they even begin. Plans provide goals for your growth. Plans provide your investment a purpose and a return. Without a plan, you will end up wherever you happen to wander.

Visions Are Realistic

A good personal or firm plan must begin with a vision of what you want your business to look like in some distant time. A vision is reality in the future—this is different than a dream. Your vision of a future business state usually entails producing top- line revenue. So, revenue is a great place to start. What is the total amount of revenue in your future state? You may want to visualize the revenue in service categories or markets.

The vision you have established is your “What.” Once you can visualize your “What,” then develop your “Why.” Why do you want to grow to a certain size? Is it to provide you a better life? Provide better service to more clients? Create a firm that can be passed on to another generation of professionals? If you have a strong “Why,” you can accomplish almost any “What.”

With a vision of the future, you must set forth action plans that will likely lead to your desired result. Use action plans that include steps such as involvement in a trade group, writing articles in important journals, speaking at industry meetings, and meeting with important targeted clients and prospects.

Action Needs Vision

Many professionals begin their plans with the action steps. This is a huge mistake. When you begin your plan with the action steps, you will not have the motivation to carry out the steps. Having a firm grip on a solid and important vision will provide the motivation to keep going when circumstances weaken your drive.

Remember, though, all plans are dynamic, not carved- in-stone documents. Be prepared to reach for unexpected opportunities. All plans begin with intended strategy. But circumstances will prove that certain actions do not work. Other circumstances will give rise to opportunities you did not con- sider. With a dynamic plan, your realized strategy will be a happy ending.

Summary

Remember that marketing is an investment activity. What you do with your billable time determines your income this year. What you do with your marketing is an investment in your future income. As part of your marketing plan, clearly set forth the amount of time and dollars you are willing to invest. Make sure the amounts invested make sense as related to your intended result.

Finally, it’s not what you know about marketing or what you plan to do about marketing that counts. It is your commitment to marketing action that will achieve results for you.