A sales strategy sets choices about the customers to serve, the offer and the approach to the market. A sales plan sets out the work, resources and timing needed to act on those choices. Review both when evidence suggests the assumptions have changed.
State the choices before setting activities
Define which customer problems the business can address and which accounts are suitable. Explain what distinguishes the offer and what it cannot provide. Make exclusions explicit so the team knows when to decline an opportunity.
Use customer evidence to support these choices. A description of an ideal customer is a working hypothesis, not proof that every matching company needs the product. Record what still needs testing through research or conversations.
Choose how to reach the intended customers
Decide how customers will encounter and assess the offer. Options include responding to enquiries, contacting selected accounts and working through partners. Choose an approach that fits the buying situation and the team’s ability to support it.
Distinguish routes to customers from methods used in sales conversations. An outbound programme tells the team how contact begins; it does not by itself explain how to discover requirements or assess fit.
Give each approach a reason and an owner. If resources are limited, state which work takes priority instead of asking every team to pursue every channel.
Translate the strategy into an operating plan
For each priority, record the work required, the responsible person, dependencies and review date. Include preparation and delivery support alongside selling activity. Check that the plan does not promise more than the business can supply.
Consider this fictional example: a business chooses to serve regional distributors with recurring reporting problems. Its initial plan might assign one person to test the problem through customer conversations, another to prepare a scoped demonstration and a delivery lead to review implementation requirements. The next decision is whether the evidence supports a wider sales effort.
That plan gives the team work it can perform and review. A general instruction to increase pipeline does not provide the same direction.
Test targets against capacity and timing
Define the outcome and period before breaking a target into activities. Record assumptions about available staff, customer demand and the time needed for buying decisions. Separate an ambition from a forecast based on current evidence.
Check whether the required workload is feasible. Include time for onboarding, preparation and internal coordination. If a plan depends on new hires or product work, show when those resources are expected to become available and what happens if they are delayed.
Define handovers and opportunity evidence
Agree how enquiries are assessed and passed to the person responsible for follow-up. Specify what information accompanies the handover and how unsuitable or incomplete enquiries are returned for review.
For active opportunities, define the evidence needed at each stage. A shared process helps colleagues interpret records consistently; it does not guarantee that customers will follow a fixed sequence. The pipeline-management guide covers stage definitions and stalled-deal reviews.
Choose measures for specific decisions
Link each measure to a question the team needs to answer. Are the selected accounts suitable? Are customers agreeing to relevant next steps? Which delivery commitments remain unresolved? Define the records and period included in each measure.
Use counts and examples together. A changed conversion rate identifies something to investigate, but does not explain its cause. Customer mix, timing and incomplete records may affect the result.
The dashboard guide explains how to keep snapshot totals separate from conversion measures. Avoid adding metrics simply because a tool makes them available.
Give the team the support needed to execute
Identify which information, product knowledge and skills each role needs. Provide approved explanations and a route to specialist help. Use coaching for an observed skill gap rather than assuming every missed target is a training problem.
Configure tools around the agreed work and review whether people can keep records current. Check ownership and handovers before adding automation. A reminder can prompt an action, but it cannot decide whether the action remains appropriate.
Review assumptions as well as results
At the review date, compare the planned work with what happened. Discuss what the team learned about customer needs, suitability and delivery. Decide which assumptions remain supported and which need revision.
Keep a record of the resulting decision, its owner and the next review. If the strategy changes, update the operating plan too. The purpose is to make better choices from evidence, not to preserve a document written before that evidence was available.
