When I first started running sales teams I hated the idea of annual sales plans. I found them to be arbitrary at best, and distracting at worse. I’d always insist that I’d be better off spending the time selling, or working with my sales team than wasting time creating false assumptions designed to make my management team happy. Over the years I’ve learned that sales planning, done correctly, can have tremendous benefits. It should create alignment between sales, marketing and the rest of the...
