Sales Plan of Action for 2020

What were your sales in 2019?

How about 2017 and 2018? What do you think you will do in 2020? I like to budget anywhere from 3.5%-7% increase for the ensuing year. Why? Well, we all need goals and objectives to move our business forward. I know many operators are not necessarily thinking about their sales goals let alone creating a plan of action to improve one’s sales.

1. What areas do we excel in and which ones need improvement? Send a note to your key members of your team and ask them this question and to list their answers in the following categories:
   • Concept
   • Facility
   • Service
   • Management
   • Food Program
   • Beverage Program
   • Marketing
   • In-store Merchandising
   • Sales
   • Other

   In the note show them the previous 2 years in sales and what you think the operation can do in 2020. This should be a discussion point in the next step.

2. Assemble a master list from the responses. Send this back to the team to think about each line item in each category and ask them to be prepared to discuss what the team can do to enhance the Brand and as a result increase the sales.
3. Then, Assemble the team for a 1-hour meeting to discuss the findings and what they feel might be a good plan of action in each area going forward to improve the business. Generally, people sign up for certain tasks and accountabilities during this meeting.
4. Write up the Plan with tasks and accountabilities of each person. This is just memorializing what has been discussed and resolved in step 3. Be sure to Prioritize the tasks. Sometimes long lists can be daunting, and people have a harder time finding their own priorities, so it is up to you as the leader to designate these.
5. You as the owner/manager of the business will need to have a short visit with each team member each week to review their task list, how they are doing and what you can do to assist them to achieve success.
6. Publish the weekly/monthly sales to team members showing the differences in the current year (2020) from 2019 and 2018.
7. Meet monthly with the team for 1 hour to discuss sales, obstacles, successes, ways to adjust the pathways, etc. You should discuss the sales increases/decreases and why the sales changed and what you can do to move them in an upward manner. Sometimes the Plan needs to be changed. Don’t be fearful of doing this but make sure the team buys into any changes.

For assistance in the planning and facilitating of this process call Arnold at 206.679.1037. He has done this a number of times with various teams and sales do go up. This is a guarantee.