A sales Action Plan that gets results

A sales Action Plan is a critical tool that, if implemented properly, will ensure that the national branding of the product is maintained at a regional rep level. This is a requirement in order to achieve global and national branding for a product.

A sales Action Plan is a set of guidelines designed to steer the sales force in a direction that follows the overall brand strategy. A sales Action Plan can be presented either during a presentation (live or online as a webinar), on paper, electronically or a combination of any of these formats. Most companies provide an updated sales Action Plan to their sales force for every new sales cycle. Some companies have 2, 3 or even 4 cycles per year. Typically, the marketers present the sales Action Plan during a product presentation at the sales meeting, and a complimentary tool (paper or electronic) is provided for the sales reps to refer to as reminders.

There are two critical parts to an Action Plan;

1) The sales portion
2) The marketing portion

Sales directors typically lead the development of the sales portion of the Action Plan , whereas the marketers develop the marketing portion of the Action Plan.

The assistance and input from other internal departments, such as medical, sales training, as well as that of external parties such as agencies, is valuable. How many people get to provide input truly depends on the strategy of the brand and the tactics to be implemented for that particular cycle. For example, if a brand is launching a key clinical paper, both Medical and Sales Training would have a lot of value to offer in the Action Plan.