Partner Article

Is your business plan missing a step?

Creating a solid and comprehensive business plan is key when starting out with a new venture, but does your business plan cover everything it needs to?

A short search on the internet can quickly produce thousands of articles offering advice on how to write the perfect business plan, however one element is often overlooked – activity based sales.

So ask yourself one question – does your business plan include activity based sales strategies? And have you thought how they will fit within your wider plans?

At Bang Creations we work with entrepreneurs and businesses who have an idea for a new product and need our advice on taking that idea forward as a commercially viable product. We work with them on every element, from the design through to the manufacture and marketing.

But what we increasingly see in our conversations with these entrepreneurs is that this one key element is often being overlooked.

So what is activity based sales?

What we mean by activity based sales strategies is those mechanics and practical behaviors you may use to generate leads and routes to market. This may include putting together an activity-based workflow of the sales process you will follow, to help you clearly see the process from all angles.

Part of the strategy should cover how you are going to analyse and improve the sales process as you develop it.

What model will you use to track and evaluate your progress?

Does the model have within it the ability to identify areas in need of improvement?

A lot of what we are talking about here is sales tactics – nice and simple. But a robust plan will include a more detailed methodology, outlining who you want to contact, how you will make contact, what you will say – even preparing a tailored script that you have tested and learned. Then details for how you will keep a contact log and the process for following-up in a few different ways until you have secured a yes or no (avoiding being left with a maybe).

The reason it is useful to have an activity based methodology this thorough is that people are often less confident ‘selling’ to people on the phone or face to face, and can often find it easier to follow a set list of actions, rather than sitting around thinking and worrying about it.It is easy to fall into the trap of becoming inefficient and ineffective if you do not have an adequate plan to follow, or in simple terms, a list to work through.

So where do I start? There are actually surprisingly few resources out there that promote and enable the use of simple, manageable and activity based sales strategies. Yet it is these strategies which may prove vital for the success or failure of a business and its ongoing growth potential, particularly when it comes to new products. Begin by asking yourself:

Who am I going to sell to?

How do I find them?

How should I approach them?

What should I say once I have reached them?

Also ensure that you have your ‘lift pitch’ prepared. Imagine you only have the time it takes for a lift to reach the second floor in which to convince a new customer to use you - could you do it? Can you summarise your business and your unique selling points in just a few seconds? And in a fluent and understandable way - ditching the jargon and getting straight to the main points?

We often hear from business owners who are worried that ‘I am not a sales person, can I really sell my product?’. The answer is yes. A good product will sell itself – but only if you are reaching the right people, with the right message.

Preparing yourself by planning out your route to customers and perfecting your lift pitch so you are clear on your USPs will help with this.While an activity based sales strategy is just one part of what it takes to create a solid business plan, it is an essential one. It can be tempting to gloss over it because it lacks glamour – but do this at your peril, as while practical is rarely sexy, sexy is rarely as useful!

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Alan Ward .