This is the final part of the “Sales Planning For Success” series, in Part 5, we discussed how we would expand on our activities and track our efforts.
Part 6 will focus on the Bridge-Plan, I hear you ask the question, What is a bridge-plan?
So, you’ve followed the series and principles shared in these series ( Parts 1 – 6 ) thus far, you feel you have a real grasp on how you’ll smash your target and create amazing customer outcomes – Great!
Imagine this; You are a few months into the FY, and so far, you’ve only managed to generate a few opportunities which is considerably less than you had hoped for given the time of the year and the targets you set for yourself.
Panic begins to kick in, you have a business review with your director and you’re somewhat struggling to see your end goal of exceeding your target.
You have a slight doubt and begin to ask yourself the question, “What is my contingency plan and how do I present my business to my leadership team to fill them with confidence?
This is when the “bridge-plan” comes into effect. The bridge-plan contains formulas that calculates where you’d potentially end up( in real-time ) based on the opportunities you have now and what you intend to create based on your forecast from specific activities.
Taking the example below; on a personal target of £2M, with £0 deals closed and and £750k in committed deals ( deals your are certain you will close ).
Definitions:
- Target – input your yearly target
- Closed QTD – input the amount of opportunities won to date
- Committed deals – these are deals you’ve listed as having a strong certainty to close. In terms of % of propensity to close, I will make this 90% or above
- Total – works out the total of all the above
- Total pipeline + bridge – total your “pipeline” deals + your bridge plan above
- “Bridge plan” – this relates to your activities and the opportunity values you aim to derive from them. An example would be key events you have planned with partners and what revenue you expect to derive from these
- “Low upside” – these are deals you cannot commit, yet you are working on them and at some stage will progress through the stages. To attribute a percentage, I’ll give this a certainty of 40% to closure
- Expected deals- these are deals you are expecting to happen
- Expected finish – works out your committed deals, expected deals and total pipeline and bridge
- Gap to target- this works out the difference between your target and expected finish
- 20% from low upside- works out 20% of your opportunities you deem to be low upside
- 20% close from bridge plan- 20% of the value of the opportunities derived from your all the events in this category
As you can see from the above, after this bridge-plan is filed out, you and your director would have a much clearer understanding of your “Gap to target”. With this gap in mind, you can begin to either increase your prospecting activities or ensure you execute effectively.
I really hope you’ve gained insights from these series, I’ve tried to keep these principles as simple as possible. That said, some of the formula’s may come across as complex and therefore not easy to implement.
Impact Coaching is a service I offer, this would be beneficial for anyone who wishes to spend an hour with me, this could be done either face to face or over zoom. You can contact me here if this is of interest to you.
To Our Growth
Mike