A sales plan sets out how much the team must sell over a chosen period and links that amount to buyers, actions and dates. To draw up a sales plan, first define the result — contracts, shipments or money received — then calculate sales to existing and new customers. Next, divide the amount between salespeople and work out when each required step must be completed for the result to fall within the right month.

It is not enough for the head of sales to tell me the team will catch up. If a purchase requires a sample to be tested, and the sample is still in the warehouse, I want to know the test date. Has the salesperson already agreed it with the buyer? Or is the end of the month approaching only in our report?

I believe a plan starts to help the business owner at an uncomfortable moment: when the head of sales shows which part of the total no longer adds up, even though the month is still under way. Then there is time to choose a different action. If we discuss only the percentage achieved, that conversation will begin after some options have already disappeared.

Monthly sales plan: where the figure came from

The company expects money to come in, the head of sales brings contracts, and a salesperson talks about proposals sent. Everyone is busy selling. But a contract with payment due next month does not meet the company's needs today. So the first thing I establish is which event counts towards meeting the sales plan here. From this point on, we will discuss payments received from sales; if your goal is shipments, count them by shipment date.

The amount needed tells us nothing on its own about where it will come from. I divide the calculation into three parts:

  • Money from deals already in progress: which payment we expect this month, what still needs to happen before it, and what confirms the timing.
  • Sales that have yet to begin: repeat orders and new buyers, separately for each source.
  • The gap between what the company needs and what the first two parts can justify.

That last line must not be hidden. If there are no buyers or time to make those sales, dividing the amount between employees adds nothing. The owner needs a choice: provide resources for a specific source of orders, change the buying terms, or accept that the money expected falls short of what is needed. The head of sales brings a calculation of the consequences of each option.

For the first part, going through the deals is enough. The full order value and this month's payment are different amounts. If there is an advance payment, the plan for incoming payments includes that advance; the balance belongs to its own period. One order must not appear in the total twice, once as a contract and once as a payment.

The second part needs a history of comparable sales. Use sales of the same product, from the same enquiry source and under the same buying terms. Separate out a one-off large order: you cannot demand a repeat of a record if you do not know who will buy that volume again. For similar small orders, the calculation looks like this:

  1. Divide the missing amount by the average payment per order received in the required month. This gives the number of orders needed; round it up.
  2. Divide the number of orders by the proportion of enquiries that lead to payment. This gives the number of enquiries needed; round this up too.
  3. Compare that number with how many enquiries the chosen source brings in and when they can arrive.

It is easy to get an attractive answer here from figures that have nothing to do with each other. Payments from old deals divided by this month's enquiries do not show what happens to those enquiries. You need a group of enquiries that have already been followed through to their outcomes. Count repeat purchases separately from first purchases: they follow a different path to payment. Examine large deals individually, without using an average order value.

Now for the calendar. Let us work through the calculation using an illustrative sale involving a sample test, unrelated to any client case. The buyer pays after placing the order, places the order after deciding on the test result, and starts the test after receiving the sample. Work backwards along this chain from the date the payment is needed. This gives us the date by which the sample must reach the buyer.

That date gives us something concrete to discuss. The warehouse confirms readiness to dispatch, the carrier confirms delivery, and the buyer confirms the time needed for the test and the decision afterwards. Add up the time needed for consecutive stages; account for stages that run at the same time together. I will not accept a shorter testing period simply because the plan otherwise fails to add up. First, the buyer must confirm they can finish in time.

If there is no sales history, the calculation remains an assumption. Record known timings with a reference to what was agreed, and unknown ones as separate questions with someone responsible for answering each. The deal stays in progress, but an amount with an unsupported payment date is shown separately from incoming payments whose dates are confirmed.

Sales plan progress: what the percentage hides

To calculate progress against a sales plan, divide the actual result by the planned figure and multiply by 100%. If the planned figure is not zero, the formula shows what proportion of the goal has already been achieved. There is something else I want to know from this report: which future payments have lost their basis while we were counting the money already received?

The percentage will not notice this.

If the sample did not arrive in time for the scheduled test, the amount of money you have today has not fallen. The chance of receiving it later has worsened. The payments report will stay the same until the day the payment was expected. So waiting until mid-month for the first serious conversation is too late: the deadline for taking action on this deal has already passed.

Comparing progress with the proportion of days that have passed also needs a basis. When sales are evenly spread, it helps spot a shortfall. When payments follow an agreed schedule, a straight line will mislead you: before a large payment, the team looks weak; afterwards, it looks healthy. The payment date tells you nothing about how ready the other deals are.

I need the head of sales to examine the missed deadline itself. In our example, we first find out what happened with the test. If the buyer has kept the time slot and is ready to accept the sample through another delivery option, the salesperson arranges dispatch. If the buyer has moved the test, the head of sales recalculates the expected payment date. If the salesperson never arranged the test at all, they first obtain a real date to replace their assumption.

These are different instructions. Telling everyone to make more calls leaves each of these causes in place. A call is needed if it secures a specific decision: agreeing to receive the sample, finding out the test result, obtaining the order terms. The number of phone numbers dialled does not, by itself, change the buyer's calendar.

An owner can easily object here: if you allow expectations to be revised, the team will simply lower its own performance targets. I am against lowering the goal after the fact too. But refusing to report a new payment date will not bring back the old one. The report must keep the original sales plan, the amount already received, the revised estimate of incoming payments and the gap to the goal side by side. The head of sales proposes actions to address that gap; accountability for work left undone is a separate matter.

A timely response is visible on the day of the delay: either there is an agreed way to keep the payment within the month, or the owner has been told how much money is moving beyond it and why. That gap must not stay only in the salesperson's head until the next report.

The sales team's plan: who gets the shared resource

Adding up individual sales plans is not enough. Suppose several deals need the same sample for testing. Each salesperson has agreed a date with the buyer and justified the expected payment. Separately, everything adds up. Together, it does not: the sample has been promised to different buyers at the same time.

Here I expect a decision from the head of sales. A salesperson is entitled to pursue their own order; the head of sales must choose which order gets the shared resource first. Otherwise, whoever gets through to the warehouse first will make the choice, and the consequences will show up in someone else's individual plan.

Build the sales team's plan using one way of grouping sales: for example, add up the sales assigned to each salesperson. Totals by channel or product show the same money from another angle; do not add them to the overall total. After adding up the figures, the head of sales examines actions that need the same person or equipment:

  • Which deal needs the resource, and by when.
  • Who confirmed its availability and how long it will be in use.
  • Which payment will move if the resource goes to another deal.
  • What the head of sales decides independently and which ways of speeding things up need the owner's approval.

Removing the scheduling clash is not enough. For the deal that has been pushed back, the date of a required step changes, and the payment calculation changes with it. As long as an employee's individual plan has been corrected but the overall total remains unchanged, the report keeps promising the same money.

I also look at what it costs the team to rescue the month's result. If initial meetings and sample shipments to new buyers have been cancelled to secure urgent payments, some of next month's preparation has already been lost. That cost must not be hidden behind the amount achieved. I examined it separately in the article “Sales plan met. Do you have to carry it all yourself again?”

A salesperson's sales plan: what to hold them accountable for

Equal amounts in individual sales plans are convenient for the head of sales. But I do not consider them justified until I see what each salesperson is working with. One has repeat orders, another has new enquiries, and a third first needs to re-establish contact with buyers. Requiring the same amount of money does not make the time needed to secure payment the same.

The debate needs to focus on individual deals. If an employee says they cannot make it in time, they show the required step and the timescale that does not fit. The head of sales finds out where that timescale came from and what the employee has already done. This makes it clear where help is needed, where the calculation was wrong, and where the salesperson has not yet started the necessary work.

I link a salesperson's sales plan to a note opened alongside the deal record. Below is a template for the same sale involving a sample test; fill in the amounts and dates from your agreements:

  • Result for the month: receive the payment specified in the order; the calculation includes only the amount expected this month.
  • Basis for the timing: the test date set by the buyer and the agreed process for placing the order after the result.
  • Next action: the salesperson arranges delivery of the sample in time for the test and gets confirmation of receipt.
  • What is needed from the head of sales: resolve a clash in the sample's schedule if it is already committed to another deal.
  • Confirmation of completion: the buyer has received the sample and confirmed that the test will take place at the agreed time.
  • Reason for revising the payment date: the test is being rescheduled; the salesperson tells the head of sales on the day they find out.

Sending an email does not complete this item. I need a reply that confirms how the purchase will proceed. If there is no reply, the uncertainty stays in the note, and the head of sales decides how to resolve it. A record of a completed call says too little about the result here.

The number of calls is useful for calculating workload: does the person have time to contact everyone they need an answer from? But making it the main goal is dangerous — easy, short conversations will take up the time needed for difficult ones. How to turn a monthly amount into the work that needs doing is covered in the article “Sales are down. There is a sales plan — but what should salespeople do differently?”

When a delay goes unnoticed

Even a plan like this is useless if the new test date is in the messages, but the deal record still shows the old payment date. The head of sales calculates one thing; the salesperson knows another. The owner finds out about the discrepancy when they are already asking about the money.

I see a specific task for daily checks here: compare what has been agreed with what the calculation is based on. The head of sales needs to see changed timings, unanswered messages and actions that did not happen. Each needs a decision on who continues the work and what confirmation they obtain. If the head of sales has only read the message about a delay, nothing has changed for the deal yet.

RENTROP has AI ROP for this task — daily sales team monitoring: it analyses calls and messages alongside the deal record, shows who needs a reply, which deals to take through to payment and which to recover. The service only reads data; decisions and instructions remain with the head of sales.

I expect the head of sales to have that uncomfortable conversation before the owner has no option left but to demand the impossible. A sales plan is useful while it can help you choose an action in time to affect the month's result.