When I run sales training courses I always provide my delegates with a whole set of documents and templates they can use in their business. One of the ones that many comment makes a huge difference in their lives is the following sales project plan.

How To Sell: A project plan to structure your time

This is a fantastic one page project plan to get you thinking about the key reason and actions needed to make any sales strategy work.

My Goal: The most important part of the process where you clearly articulate the reasons why you are undertaking the sales project. What will it do for you? What are your objectives?

Resources I need: A fantastic way to get you thinking about what and who you will need to call on to make this sales project a success.

Resources I have: Never forget to be aware of all of the existing resources you have  and how you can include them. Databases, relationships with potential referrers, marketing materials – these are just some of the resources you might have available to you.  You might even have sales training available to you!!

Priority: Once you have made a list of the action points required you can prioritise them according to your own rating system. This could be  A – D or 1 – 5 e.t.c.

Time: Depending on your way of working you can use this for two elements. Firstly is the actual time you think it might take in minutes or hours and/or the second is the date by which it will be achieved.

Who: Are you going to do it ot can you delegate it or outsource it?

Action Plan: The actual items that make up the overall sales strategy. For instance if the Project is New Business Generation by a Targeted Calling Campaign, some of these could be:

• Acquire list
• Clean list
• Develop reason to call
• Develop powerful reference points to use in opening statements

Result/ Outcome: Once this part has finished what will success look like? What will have happened?

Purpose: This is the reason you are doing this in the first place. What will these actions help you achieve. Psychology shows us that one of the single biggest reasons we fail to do things is because we don’t have a strong enough reason why. Sometimes we just lose sight of that reason.

You can download the sales project plan by clicking the link above the document.

If you use this to structure your sales projects and activities I know you will sell more and be more effective.