How to Build a Simple and Effective Sales Plan for Your Early-Stage Startup
Today, I want to talk to you about planning and sales planning.
This is not a complex email with endless Excel formulas and tabs.
This is a simple and easy-to-use guide to build your first sales plan, or sales budget, as you want to call it.
Most of the founders I talk to don't have a sales plan. At least the early-stage ones are below the <2M ARR mark.
They have a financial plan with goals and estimations, but they don't know how to get there from a sales point of view.
That is why most people fail.
They overhire or underhire; they pay too much, too low.
The problem with missing your sales plan is that it will lead to another more significant miss: your financial plan.
You should have a sales plan, whether just starting or already delivering a few million ARR.
But first, what's a sales plan?
A sales plan is a simple document where you plan for your sales efforts and budget.
The ultimate objective is to compare the sales goal you will assign to your team (1 person or ten people, same), measuring and planning for conversions and adding the costs to it.
A good start is as follows:
Sales Goals, annual and monthly (or quarterly)
Your Total Costs, including:
People
Tools
T&E
Marketing (I usually don't include it, but it can be included as a more overall GTM bird-eye view).
Conversions
KPIs
NRR
LTV-CAC
Marginality
Total Cost vs Ebitda %
These are simple data any company with some sales traction can have.
Maybe NRR and LTV/CAC can be more difficult if you are too early, but the rest should be there.
Summary
If you are the Founder of an early-stage startup and are getting some traction, you should start planning for your sales team.
Understanding how much you will spend on people, travel, and events and measuring that against your goal and conversion is a great start.
You don't need to be a sales expert to do so; grab the template below and drop me an email if you need any help.
