Sales close plan templates

Today, the best close plans are living, online documents not static ones that are continually referenced and updated as the deal progresses.

Today, a close plan absolutely must reside within your CRM as a living, editable page — populated with live CRM data — that can be shared with whomever needs to view it and referenced easily whenever you visit the opportunity page.

That means no more static docs and no more email back-and-forths. Share it with your customer, who should have the ability to edit it, add comments, and update completed tasks and due dates. In terms of format, your plan can be either a narrative document or a spreadsheet, whichever suits your needs. When creating your close plan, begin with the end in mind. Ask your customer to determine the target date that she wants the contract signed and your solution live and ready to use.

Another way to frame it: the date when she can begin reaping all the benefits and value of your awesome product or service. Setting this date — and getting customer buy-in — is a crucial step that can keep your deal from slipping into the next quarter. Close plan templates can vary greatly, and the level of detail they include can depend on the size of the deal.

But overall, try to keep them simple. Close plans are meant to save you time, not create new administrative chores. Here are some of the elements in a typical plan:. There are even some who believe that any deal worth winning should have a close plan. As a general rule, if the deal feels important, go ahead and draw up your plan. While every organization will differ slightly in how they go about their plan, there are 8 key elements to address when outlining your plan:.

The best way to make sure your team adopts a close plan in those crucial moments is to make it easy for them. Create a template with key fields and make sure everyone knows where it is and how to use it.

There are all sorts of tools out there to help you with this, including a bevy of specific online close plan applications. On a budget? Google sheets is free and easily shareable! Now that your template has been created, you can customize each plan to best fit your needs and the needs of your prospects.

Deal Scorecard Create opportunity qualification scorecards based on any sales qualification methodology. Sales Playbook Create repeatable best-practice Sales Playbooks for different business lines. Great companies use ClosePlan to shorten sales cycles, improve forecast accuracy and grow revenue. Relationship Maps Create relationship maps, org charts, account maps and influence maps natively in Salesforce with easy-to-use drag and drop tools.

Leverage your Salesforce contact records. Keep you data in Salesforce. Learn More. Deal Scorecard Reinforce your qualification methodology. ClosePlan supports any sales methodology. Build your own best-practice sales playbooks in ClosePlan that align with your sales strategy Build playbooks for different business lines — Enterprise Sales, Commercial Sales, Renewals, Services, etc. Reduce end of quarter surprises and increase win rates with consistent repeatable sales processes Learn More.

Create a sales plan with actionable steps and a scheduled timeline. This template features sections for listing clearly defined goals, methods for measuring success, action steps, ownership for each step, and deadlines.

These are all important components of a sales action plan for reducing risk and increasing the probability that you will reach your sales goals. Finding the right sales template provides easy organization and efficiency, which frees up resources and time that can go toward reaching business goals. A template can also be a powerful communication tool for sales and marketing teams to develop and track their progress against sales targets.

Depending on the nature and scope of your company, some templates can be a component of an effective business plan. A sales plan outlines sale goals for a cycle, as well as the steps you will take to hit those targets. The sales plan document also defines tools, high-level tactics, target customers, competitors, obstacles, among other details. A strong plan will communicate company goals to the sales team, keep everyone focused on strategy, and delineate priorities.

While many people confuse the two terms, sales forecasting and sales planning are distinct concepts. A sales forecast is a future projection of sales based on business and environmental conditions, while a sales plan defines the concrete steps needed to achieve the sales forecast.

You can create a sales forecast for your entire business or for a particular initiative over any period of time examples include an economic forecast; an industry forecast; a company forecast; and a short-, medium-, or long-term forecast. Sales plans are helpful tools when budgeting for advertising or travel costs, identifying new sales markets, planning for staffing needs, and creating a timeline to reach milestones.

But a sales plan is just one piece of the business planning and management — and it relies on accurate sales forecasting. You can get free sales forecasting templates here. Large organizations, small businesses, and startups can all equally benefit from sales planning.

Sales forecasts and plans are most often used by the sales team, although marketers, executives, and even customers may interact with the documents as well.

A sales pipeline is a visual representation of where prospective buyers are in the sales process. A salesperson provides the prospect with a quote including the product or service and price.

The sales funnel is a visual representation of the average conversion rate of potential customers and qualified leads move through the sales process. Sales teams can use the sales funnel to help understand the volume of sales, as well as the percentage of each sale that has passed through each sales process stage. The sales pipeline represents what the seller is doing during the sales process; the sales funnel shows the sales process conversion rates.

The sales funnel feeds the sales pipeline; once a lead is converted into a prospect, they move into the sales pipeline. A high-quality sales plan is one of the key parts of the sales forecasting process as well as the operational plan and the marketing strategy.

When done right, a sales plan can provide the following benefits:. While creating the sales plan, take the following steps in order to create a quality and realistic plan:. The sales plan contains numerous sections that provide information to readers, and help guide decisions that will contribute to meeting sales goals. Sales planning is an activitiy to gain and retain customers, meet changing market demands, and ultimately, ensure business success.

While premade templates can help you get started developing your plan, you need a tool to manage all of your sales processes and operations that is accessible to your team in real time and allows you to collaborate and track sales activity across multiple reps.

Smartsheet is a work execution platform that enables enterprises and teams to get from idea to impact - fast. Top performing sales organizations rely on Smartsheet to stay on top of leads, accelerate productivity, and exceed every quota.

Use Smartsheet to build a strong opportunity pipeline, reduce risks and identify blockers, and refine your sales forecast.