Sales plan template

What's in the template

How to write a sales plan

1. Start from what actually happened. Pull last year's revenue by customer and by type of customer, your win rate, the average order and the customers you lost. A target set without these tends to repeat last year's mistakes.
2. Split the target into existing and new business. Contracted and repeat revenue is fairly predictable; the gap between it and the target is what the sales team has to find.
3. Pick two to four target segments where you already win, judged by margin and win rate rather than by how big the market looks, and say in one sentence why customers there choose you.
4. Work out the pipeline the gap needs. Divide the gap by your win rate by value: if you win a quarter of what you bid for, every £1 of target needs £4 of opportunities.
5. Turn the shortfall into activities with numbers, owners and dates. "Meet 25 target contractors once a quarter" can be checked; "raise our profile" can't.
6. Give every target account one owner, by territory, segment or named list, so two people never chase the same buyer.
7. Cost it and agree it with whoever holds the budget, then put the review dates in the calendar before the year starts.

Example: a fictional 80-person flooring contractor

A fictional commercial flooring contractor working across two regions sets a 2027 target of £8.0m. About £3.5m is expected from existing customers and framework agreements, which leaves £4.5m to win. Last year it won 25% of what it priced, by value, so it needs about £18m of tenders and quotes over the year: roughly £4.5m a quarter.

Activities: visit the estimating teams at 25 target main contractors every quarter; apply to join two housing association contractor frameworks; contact school business managers in January about summer work. Resources: a second estimator from March, because quoting capacity limits how much it can bid for, and a £12,000 budget for samples and the showroom. Review: a 30-minute pipeline meeting every Monday, a monthly forecast with the managing director and a quarterly review of the plan itself.

Rules for prospecting by email and phone

UK: under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) you can send marketing emails to companies, limited liability partnerships and some government bodies without their prior consent, but you must say who you are and give a valid address where they can opt out. Sole traders and some partnerships are treated like individuals, so they must have agreed first unless the soft opt-in applies. Before live sales calls, screen numbers against the Corporate TPS and TPS registers and your own do-not-call list. A named contact's details are still personal data under the UK GDPR. The ICO says its guidance is under review after the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, so check it before each campaign.

US: the CAN-SPAM Act covers commercial email sent to businesses as well as consumers. Header details and subject lines must not mislead, a cold sales email must be identified as an advertisement, and every message needs your valid physical postal address and a working way to opt out. Opt-outs must be honoured within 10 business days.

This is a summary to plan around, not legal advice.

Common mistakes

• A target with no arithmetic behind it, such as last year plus 15%, with no view of where the extra orders will come from.
• Treating all revenue alike. Renewals and new customers need different work, so plan them separately.
• Too many segments. A team spread across eight markets is a newcomer in all of them.
• Activities without numbers, which nobody can check at the monthly review.
• No capacity check. If estimators, engineers or delivery teams can't handle the extra work, the plan fails after the sale.
• A plan reviewed once, in January. Book the reviews when the plan is agreed.