It’s that time of year again to begin planning your budget for next year. This is the time to evaluate last year’s budget and make serious decisions to reduce spending or increase sales. You may also considernew and innovative approachesto reach your goals. Have you thought about the role of your sales team in budget planning?
Enabling your sales team to take their portion of the budget puts the onus on them to achieve.
Sales Budget A sales budget includes many elements that contribute to their success. Within the budget are projected sales quotas and the expenses required to reach those numbers. Those expenses would cover meals and entertainment, travel, sales materials and office equipment. They would also include salaries, commissions, bonuses and might also include the costs of marketing or advertising. Who better than the sales team knows the forecasting and what opportunities are coming down the pipeline? The sales budget could be considered a micro view of an overall company budget and could make your budget planning more effective.
Sales Enablement Another consideration for including sales in your budget planning is sales enablement. Sales enablement is defined as any information, processes or technology that empowers sales teams to sell more and sell better. Investing in tools and other technology to modernize your sales team creates new opportunities for your sales staff to automate many of their tasks so that they can spend more time talking to their most important prospects. Allowing sales to have access to data and reporting can help them to be more effective at qualifying leads. Including sales in your budgeting also informs their day-to-day priorities so that they can better meet their quotas.
Maximize Sales Sales reps want to have more control over their budgets and spending so they’re able to make more informed decisions. Including sales in budget planning maximizes their potential for meeting their numbers while remaining within the confines of their budgeted expenses. Enabling sales with new technology and tools, plus the added benefit of easily accessible data and analytics, gives them the power to make more accurate sales projections and meet their customers where they are.
Launchpad Media Management offers data analytics and other powerful sales enablement tools in a system that is available anywhere and at any time. The LaunchPad Media Management tool can also be used to set up budgets and measure the success with customizable reports. Sales managers can drill down in the tool to see budgets by sales rep and make sure your team is meeting their goals.
Including sales in your budget planning empowers them to sell with real-time data insights and accessible information. Instead of budgeting from the top down, consider starting your budget with your sales team. The LaunchPad Media Management tool can help. Learn more by requesting a demo - click here.
