How to Create a Sales Growth Plan

To develop a strategic plan for sales growth, start with the basic sales formula. Total sales is how many customers you have multiplied by the number of times they purchase from you and how much they pay.

So for example, 100 customers who average 10 purchases per year with an average value of $1,000 per purchase results in $1,000,000 in sales.

Open a spreadsheet and plug in your specific sales drivers: 1) number of customers, 2) average number of purchases per year, and 3) average purchase amount. When you multiply these together, you should see (approximately) your total sales for last year.

Play “What If?”

Assume your strategy is to increase sales by 10%. How can you make it happen? One way would be to increase any of the three drivers by 10%. For example, increasing the number of customers by 10% would mean:

If you don’t believe you can increase your number of customers, you can focus on either of the other two revenue drivers: have your current customers purchase from you 10% more often or increase the average sale by 10%.

An alternative strategy would be to increase two of the drivers by 5% each. An example would be:

You might be surprised to see that the result is more than a 10% increase in total sales. That’s due to the effect of multiplying, or working on, the drivers together. You can use this multiplication effect to your advantage by always increasing two or three of the drivers at once.

Finalize the Plan

Try out a few scenarios and see what happens to your sales total. Once you’ve decided on the right combination for your business, create separate plans for each driver you plan to increase and track progress monthly.

Small increases in the three revenue drivers lead to large increases in revenue.