BUSI 431 Week 7 Sales Plan Project Final Draft Example

Sales Plan for Summit Air Solutions: Final Draft

Executive Summary

Summit Air Solutions distributes high-efficiency commercial air filters and provides scheduled filter-change service to buildings in a three-state region. The plan aims to lift annual revenue from $6.2 million to $7.4 million in one year by winning 45 new service accounts among health care facilities, schools and colleges, and large office buildings. The strategy is consultative: representatives will sell total cost and air quality outcomes rather than filter prices, build relationships with every member of the buying center, and grow accounts through excellent service. The plan covers the selling process from prospecting to partnership, territory and time management, coordination within the company, and the goals and metrics by which the sales team will be judged.

Company and Value Proposition

Summit's value proposition is simple: cleaner air and lower total operating cost with no burden on the customer's staff. Its pleated filters cost more per unit than commodity filters, but scheduled replacement by Summit technicians keeps air handlers running efficiently, reduces energy use and frees the customer's maintenance staff for other work. Castleberry and Tanner (2019) emphasize that business buyers buy value, not products, and Summit's sales materials will always present value in the customer's own numbers.

Target Segments and Buying Centers

The three segments were chosen because indoor air quality matters to them and because they have many air handlers. In hospitals, the buying center includes the facilities director, infection-control staff, a purchasing agent and, for large contracts, a vice president of operations. In schools, it includes the maintenance supervisor, a business manager and, for public districts, a formal bid process. In office buildings, the property manager usually decides, with input from the building engineer and the owner's asset manager.

Ethical and Legal Standards

Every representative will follow Summit's code of conduct: no claims about filter performance without manufacturer data, no gifts above customers' policies, and full disclosure of service limits. In public school and hospital bids, representatives will follow procurement rules exactly and will not contact evaluators outside the permitted channels.

Adaptive Selling and Prospecting

Representatives adapt to each buyer's social style, adjusting pace, detail and emphasis, a practice that research links to stronger performance (Franke & Park, 2006). Each representative spends Monday mornings prospecting, with a goal of ten newly qualified prospects and two first appointments per week. Leads come from customer referrals, professional associations, public bid notices, webinars and building lists, and are qualified by need, ability to pay, authority, contract timing and potential annual value above $15,000.

Call Planning, Presentation, Objections and Commitment

Every call has a written objective and a planned commitment. First calls aim for permission to survey the air handlers; second calls present a total cost comparison built from the survey, a filter-loading demonstration and a reference from a similar facility. Representatives use the textbook's methods for common objections, compensation for price objections, revisit for contract timing and referral for infection-control questions, and no meeting ends without a concrete request, whether a single-building pilot or a multiyear agreement.

Building Partnerships Through Service

After a sale, the representative visits within two weeks of the first service to confirm satisfaction, introduces the customer to the service supervisor and schedules a quarterly review of filter changes, energy data and any issues. Complaints are handled within one business day with a named owner. Palmatier et al. (2006) found that relationships built with individual salespeople strongly affect performance, which creates a risk when a representative leaves; Summit reduces that risk by building ties at several levels, so every account knows its service supervisor and has an annual meeting with Summit's operations manager.

Managing Time and Territory

Castleberry and Tanner (2019) describe time and territory management as allocating limited selling time to the accounts and activities with the greatest return. Summit's four representatives will each manage a territory designed by workload, not by geography alone. Zoltners and Lorimer (2000) found that many sales forces have poorly aligned territories, in which some representatives have more accounts than they can serve and others too few, and that better alignment can raise sales without adding staff. A representative who is stretched across too many accounts neglects the best prospects, while one with too few runs out of opportunities; balancing the two is a free source of growth.

Each territory is built to contain roughly equal workload, measured by the number of current accounts weighted by size, the number of high-potential prospects and estimated travel time. Accounts are classified by potential into three tiers, and representatives allocate time accordingly.

Each representative plans the week on Friday afternoon, grouping visits by area to reduce travel, keeping Monday mornings for prospecting and reserving Friday mornings for proposals and follow-up.

Managing Within the Company

The textbook stresses that salespeople depend on many departments to keep promises to customers. Summit's representatives will meet weekly with operations to confirm service schedules for new accounts and to flag any capacity limits before promising start dates. Customer service will receive a handoff sheet for each new account listing contacts, building access rules and service preferences. Marketing will supply case studies and webinar leads, and representatives will report which materials help close sales. Finance will approve pricing below standard margins and review credit for new accounts. These routines keep the sales team from promising what the company cannot deliver, which protects the trust the plan depends on.

Changes Since Draft 3

The final draft reflects feedback from all three earlier drafts. The group shortened the adaptive selling section and moved its table into an appendix the representatives will carry, consolidated the objection responses into the call planning section, and corrected the total cost figures so they use the same building assumptions throughout. The goals were also revised: the first draft's target of 60 new accounts was reduced to 45 after the territory analysis showed that four representatives could not realistically serve 60 new accounts while keeping current customers satisfied.

Goals, Metrics and Review

Research on sales performance suggests where to focus coaching. Verbeke et al. (2011) ranked knowledge of the selling situation and adaptiveness near the top of performance drivers, with unclear roles pulling performance down. Summit's sales manager will therefore hold monthly coaching sessions on account knowledge and call planning, and will make each representative's goals and responsibilities explicit to reduce ambiguity. The team will review results quarterly, comparing activity and outcomes by territory and adjusting territories or tiers if workloads become unbalanced.

Activity Table

References

Castleberry, S. B., & Tanner, J. F., Jr. (2019). Selling: Building partnerships (11th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.

Franke, G. R., & Park, J. (2006). Salesperson adaptive selling behavior and customer orientation: A meta-analysis. Journal of Marketing Research, 43(4), 693-702. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.43.4.693

Palmatier, R. W., Dant, R. P., Grewal, D., & Evans, K. R. (2006). Factors influencing the effectiveness of relationship marketing: A meta-analysis. Journal of Marketing, 70(4), 136-153. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.70.4.136

Verbeke, W., Dietz, B., & Verwaal, E. (2011). Drivers of sales performance: A contemporary meta-analysis. Have salespeople become knowledge brokers? Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 39(3), 407-428. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-010-0211-8

Zoltners, A. A., & Lorimer, S. E. (2000). Sales territory alignment: An overlooked productivity tool. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 20(3), 139-150. https://doi.org/10.1080/08853134.2000.10754234