- Sales Forecasting Tutorial
- Sales Forecasting - Home
- Sales Forecasting - Introduction
- Factors to Consider
- Generating Sales Reports
- Balancing Time and Prospects
- Common Hurdles
- Assigning Responsibilities
- Sales Forecasting - Word of Caution
- Sales Territory Planning
- Logistics vs Customer Service
- Sales Forecasting - Team Selling
- Ranking of Customers
- Common Territory Strategies
- Sales Forecasting Useful Resources
- Sales Forecasting - Quick Guide
- Sales Forecasting - Resources
- Sales Forecasting - Discussion
Logistics vs Customer Service
When it comes to territory planning, it is important to consider Travelling Logistics. If a capable salesperson requires one, ten, or sixty touches (touches may mean outreach of marketing, voice calls, sales calls in the field, or any mixture of the three) to impress a prospect and make him a customer, then there must an official approximate assigned value of each touch.
Another important point is to determine the interval of time associated to each of these activities regarding prospecting (which maybe on a daily, weekly or a monthly basis) and the usual frame of time needed to achieve at a certain present amount of business with all the types of pre-existing prospects (that may range from Higher Value to the Lowest Value, etc.).
Customer Service Maintenance
Once a prospect becomes a customer, it is important to find out the amount of time that must be dedicated to maintain the prospects of that customer and the persons that collectively make up the sales team – whether it is a salesperson, a coordinator of sales, a sales support personnel backing up the technical end or any team of the aforementioned people. Some important questions to ask here are −
Does the prospect contain various contacts of costumers (that may be an agent, buyer, management team, officer of a senior level, etc.)?
Is there any involvement of team selling (For Example, prospect manager, engineering team, research and development team, sales manager, etc.)?
What are the expenses associated with each type of sales carried out by your department/team (time and money spent on overhead, travel, demos)?
In addition to this, it is also necessary to know what are considered as special situations, like a significant order that is incomplete, but possesses the potential to increase the whole team's sales by more than one-fifth once finalized or if there are any new areas in the market that can be explored with a new product in line which has immense chances for growth.
In the end, it’s important to know where the company stands today, when it comes to a normal sale and to what degree the conditions of sale will change according to the salesperson, prospect, circumstances, etc. For this, you should always be updated about the number of customers/clients/prospects that you’re dealing with.
It is also helpful to be sure to know your job profile – whether you are in the role of being the only point of contact or are authorized to act like a sales support personnel. You should also be aware of the degree of involvement of your manager or any senior managers in the sales process.