True sales planning is one of the most important things that a business can do each year. It forces business leaders to think through – in significant detail – what is necessary to accomplish their business goals.
Sales planning is more than a tactical plan set from on high: “Your quota is $1MM, now go sell!”
Instead, it’s about planning to sell profitably.
Selling profitably is something that is not as straightforward as it seems. We see examples all the time, in companies big and small, that believe they are selling profitably and selling well–but simply are not.
There are examples of strategic decisions to sell certain products or services at lower margins or even at a loss. These may include gaining traction in a new market, gaining a marquee client in a new industry, or an initial sale with high likelihood of highly profitable add-on services.
But these examples should be few and far between and only done based on a specific plan, not because you didn’t realize it was an unprofitable sale.
How Increasing Utilization Affects Profitability
We’re going to talk about increasing gross margin. One of the best ways that you as a business owner can go about figuring out how to improve profitability without increasing sales. One of the best ways to improve gross margin is by increasing throughput or increasing utilization.
It’s easiest to talk about in terms of the manufacturing sector. Products get created in a manufacturing building. They go in on one side, and come out as finished goods. If products are being manufactured at a 100% efficiency rating, that means that we’re going as fast as we possibly can. But nearly no one is going as fast as they possibly can. If a realistic efficiency rating is more like 80%, what would happen if we increased it by just 10%? What if we could go from 80% to 90% efficiency?
How Discounting Affects Profitability
When we’re thinking about cash, we have to think about the discounts that we might be offering, and how discounting affects profitability. Clearly, we want to try to take discounts if we get them. But what about discounts that we’re offering, sales or incentive discounts for people to either buy more, do different things with our products, or buy them at certain times? What about sales discounts? What is that doing to the cash and profitability of our business?
Improving Cash Flow: Days Sales Outstanding
Today we’re going to be talking about the important topic of DSO. DSO stands for Days Sales Outstanding. Most importantly, it means how long it takes for your customers to be paying you. It’s important because it directly relates to how much cash you have, which is the most important factor in the health of your business.
If you sell products or services and no one pays you, you will have no cash. You might have made lots of money on paper, but if you have no cash, you’ll be out of business. It’s very important that we track DSO – days sales outstanding – to understand how long it takes for our customers to pay us.
5 Sales Planning Steps to Profitability
True sales planning is one of the most important things that a business can do each year. It forces business leaders to think through – in significant detail – what is necessary to accomplish their business goals.
Sales planning is more than a tactical plan set from on high: “Your quota is $1MM, now go sell!”
Instead, it’s about planning to sell profitably.
Selling profitably is something that is not as straightforward as it seems. We see examples all the time, in companies big and small, that believe they are selling profitably and selling well–but simply are not.
There are examples of strategic decisions to sell certain products or services at lower margins or even at a loss. These may include gaining traction in a new market, gaining a marquee client in a new industry, or an initial sale with high likelihood of highly profitable add-on services.
But these examples should be few and far between and only done based on a specific plan, not because you didn’t realize it was an unprofitable sale.
Sales Planning: Setting the Stage for Business Growth
Establishing a plan for business growth in the coming year requires thoughtful planning. An objective review of your sales strategy and tactics, and building a sales plan are a key to the success of your business.
We offer some tips on what to contemplate when building a sales strategy recognizing that as your year unfolds, the strategy and goals may change. The sales metrics and milestones you establish should be reviewed throughout the year to ensure they remain relevant to your overall company goals and to the changing environment.
Importance of Sales Forecasting
The single most important element in the forecasting process is the Sales Forecast. Generally, Sales drives everything else; it is what determines the expense spending plan. If the company is a manufacturing company, the sales forecast will drive the production plan.
There are several different ways to approach Sales Forecasting. Typically it starts with the Sales Department figuring out how much product they can sell in the following year. Sales people are naturally optimistic by nature, usually overestimating achievable sales. There are several factors that can impact the forecast:
Cash is King
55% of businesses are failing in the first four years. According to The Brookings Institute 11% fail every year thereafter. This is all attributed to lack of cash. Here are 6 elements of cash flow management to watch:
Sales and Accounting – They make a great team.
Sales and Marketing is a far more regular team than sales and accounting. CEO Matt Garrett outlines the many ways that sales and accounting are actually on the same team.