Sales Roadmap

What is a sales roadmap? Why is having one integral for companies of all sizes, from those who are still hard at work developing their first products to those that are already well-established names in the industry? And most importantly, what are the steps you should follow when putting one together? 

When your company was an early-stage startup, your team probably put together a product roadmap. Simply put, a product roadmap is an overview of your product and the steps it will take to bring it to market. It details your team’s vision for the product, outlines the strategy for bringing it to fruition, and enumerates the short-term and long-term goals for the production process. It also helps different parts of your team understand their contribution to the finished product. 

Although it may be similar in many ways to a product roadmap, a sales roadmap is all about your go-to-market plan. Because it’s a high-level view of your sales strategy, a sales roadmap focuses on your team’s overall goals. It’s less about how you’ll close individual deals and more about how you will get the word out about your product. Aligning your product, marketing, and sales teams is one of the major goals of a great sales roadmap.

A sales roadmap — also referred to as a sales plan — is best thought of as a work in progress. When you’re a startup, your company’s sales roadmap might be pretty straightforward. That’s because your product offerings are likely to be fairly limited. As your company grows, so will your sales plan. You’ll consider the range of products that you are selling, the size of your marketing and sales teams, and recent changes in the market. When you think about how to write a sales roadmap, keep in mind where your company is today and where you want it to be tomorrow.

Companies often take the wrong approach when they think about how to write a sales roadmap. If yours is focused mostly on setting weekly, monthly, and quarterly deadlines, then it probably isn’t as effective as it could be. Instead, it should touch on what you want your company to achieve. That way your team can help you reach your goals, rather than focus on an upcoming date on the calendar.

There are plenty of examples of sales and marketing plans available on the internet, but the truth is that a sales plan sample doc can only take you so far. Because every company has different products, customers, and markets, it doesn’t make sense that they can use the same sales roadmap. That’s why more than 600 companies ranging from startups to market leaders have turned to Winning by Design, the leader in accelerating and optimizing recurring revenue for B2B organizations. Our customized sales playbooks offer turn-by-turn directions and examples of best practices to drive sustainable growth. These playbooks help your go-to-market team forecast, assess, and overcome the kinds of obstacles that are common for B2B companies.

Our customers have a lot to say about how we have helped them put together the perfect sales plan. Peter Gerolamo, who works in account management, said that collaborating with Winning by Design was invaluable for his team. “We worked with Winning by Design to create a roadmap for how to become more successful salespeople,” he said. “We not only focused on the ‘why,’ but also the ‘how’ of selling. I’ve seen firsthand how it’s changed the way our team approaches sales calls. It’s great sales training for any organization.”

Sales Action Plan

When they are putting together a sales roadmap for the first time, companies often ask questions like, “What is an example of an effective sales action plan?” or “What are the seven steps to creating a sales plan?” They assume that there’s a simple formula out there that all companies follow, so they scour the internet for a sample of an action plan to improve sales performance or to achieve a sales target.

At Winning by Design, we advise our customers to think about the process differently. Instead of a one-size-fits-all sales action plan, we offer a more individualized approach based on how you do business. We take a close look at your company and look for opportunities to optimize recurring revenue growth. We design a customized playbook that everyone on your team can use to visualize key moments in the sales process.

To help make your team more cohesive, Winning by Design applies a shared language and a universal methodology that can be used at any stage along the customer journey. This makes for a seamless and well-orchestrated experience across marketing, sales, and customer success. It also makes the pass off from business development to sales or from sales to customer success much easier.

We provide your team with clear processes, vetted strategies, and well-defined GTM playbooks. Your customer-facing teams and managers get clear directions for exactly how to deliver impact to their customers. Our customized blueprints allow your team to easily visualize each step along the sales process. We also offer onboarding to ensure that new members of your team are familiar with the process and coaching to reinforce your existing team’s skills.

Winning by Design’s methodology — called SPICED — was created with SaaS-based companies in mind. It’s based on the fundamental principle that recurring revenue comes from recurring impact. It’s different from most other methodologies because it doesn’t end with closing the deal. Because up to 93% of a customer’s lifetime value comes after the initial sale, it’s crucial that B2B companies focus on the impact that they provide for their customers.

How does our approach help to strengthen your team? Mike Bender, a VP of Sales, said that his company turned to Winning by Design to improve its software demonstrations. He reported that the WbD team immediately diagnosed the problems he was having and helped him craft a solution. “We saw that improving our demos was an area of opportunity,” he said. “We would talk to our prospects for an hour straight and be surprised that we did not win the business. WbD helped us to prepare for these demos, plan a compelling story arc for our demos, and to properly validate that our demos are resonating.”

Bender said that Winning by Design’s process went far beyond the training sessions offered by other companies. “I’ve been through countless half day trainings where you take away a tidbit or two,” said Bender. “WbD is a more comprehensive program. In addition to interactive classroom content, WbD includes practical sessions to review recorded calls, role plays, and the practical application of what they taught in the classroom. This process reinforced the training making it stick.”

Sales and Marketing Plan Sample

Whether you’re a small business looking for a sample marketing plan or a corporation searching for a presentation on putting together a sales action plan, your best option is Winning by Design. When Senior Technology Executive Doug Tilford wanted more than just a simple sales plan template, he called on our team of seasoned professionals. “The WbD team did a complete evaluation of all elements of the business that would impact sales success, from organizational alignment to compensation to messaging and beyond,” he said. “Then they created a success plan to ensure that our company had real results.”

Tilford said the results were much more than he could have gotten from a sample of a sales and marketing plan. “We have given the sales team a process to ensure that their sales calls are extremely effective,” he said. “In addition, we have focused our messaging around the impact we have as a company and what our customers gain by working with us. In the end, we win more sales.”

Winning by Design gives you more than a PDF of a sample marketing plan or an example of a marketing and sales strategy business plan. When it comes to the recurring revenue model, we have one of the industry’s most highly rated programs geared toward everyone on your revenue team. Training Industry, the leading research and information resource for corporate learning leaders, named Winning by Design one of the Top 20 Training Companies in 2022. We have also racked up more than 500 five-star reviews on G2 and are ranked among the best in the following categories: Sales Training, Sales Consulting, Customer Success Training, Account Based Marketing Consulting, and Revenue Operations Services. 

Many companies rely on the courses available through Winning by Design’s Revenue Academy, known for top-rated training and coaching programs. The Revenue Academy offers role-based instruction for your entire team, including Sales, Sales Development, Business Development, Customer Success, and Revenue Management. Your team learns exactly what they need to know to excel in their jobs, whether they’re Account Executive, Sales Development Representatives, Customer Success Managers, or Sales Managers.

Enterprise Account Executive Jordan Lillegard said that the courses he took with Winning by Design were “the most valuable sales training” that he’s experienced. “This is training for the current generation of software sales,” he said. “The way that the team has built this training has the present as well as the future of software sales in mind. The process started off with context on why sales is different now than it has ever been and why we need to change our perspective on the nature of the vendor-client relationship. I feel that I have tools now that will make me valuable to organizations for years to come.”

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