A sales budget is an integral plank for achieving your business goals and motivating staff to deliver against a regularly reviewed plan and set of actions. It enables you to: 

  • Align sales goals with business strategy
    Revenue goals must be set in line with the strategy with buy-in from senior managers for all departments.


  • Identify growth levers
    Activities that are proven to scale, especially digital advertising such as Google Ads, plus other conversion optimisation activities such as product bundles, price positioning, outbound calls etc.

  • Set growth targets

These will be based on your BAU (Business As Usual) growth, Stretch revenues & Unidentified revenues for each of your key market segments. Growth levers can be applied to each segment as relevant.


  • Run sensitivity tests 
    Vary uplift percentages based on what-if scenarios, assumptions & robustness of action plans. Once there is a settled opinion, your sales budget can go through sign-off.

  • Create a realistic action plan to achieve success 
    Your agreed budget will have an action plan for each growth line that can be implemented across the business:
    • Management and staff buy-in is high as actions are known
    • Appropriate sales commission plans are in place for inbound & outbound leads
    • Capabilities are mapped to activities and personnel and any gaps covered off
    • Additional product lines which can be added from 3rd party suppliers
    • Marketing activities are planned out
    • Product development plans are updated
    • Production / inventory / fulfilment can handle expected demand
    • Regularly tracking of performance & risks managed with mitigation actions
    • Cash flow needs are anticipated and expenses controlled
    • Regular reviews are held to adjusting strategies based on which growth levers work best or need to be changed, market conditions, other unforeseen challenges. 

1. Analyse your overall ecommerce performance for the year 

 

Set up a high level ecommerce report in Reports > Report Builder which shows revenues split out by user smart type (e.g. Retail, Trade, Distributor), region (e.g. UK, EU, Americas, Asia, Oceania) and country levels. Include other key data such as product categories, product tags (e.g. Make Model Year), ad revenues and costs, coupon usage & CES* ratings (*customer satisfaction scores need to be maintained when scaling).

Exclude VAT & Delivery From All Reports
Sales budgets do not include VAT or delivery so always exclude them when running reports in Advanced filters, and check what else you wish to include or exclude at the same time.


This gives you a high level sense of the business and .
Take 10 minutes to talk through the highs and lows of the year, learning points that can be applied to the new budget, and where you can foresee growth or risks both as quick wins and the short to medium term.

2. Create the budget spreadsheet

  • Create a spreadsheet with two tabs:
    • Tab 1. Revenues
      Shows the overall YTD revenues split into your main market segments e.g. Retail, Dealers, Trade, potentially even into country level.

      Within each market segment you will have separate revenue sections for:

      Business As Usual (BAU)
      For example, price increases and performance improvements that were introduced part way through the year being applied to all months. Typically 5-10% growth of the current actual revenues.

      Stretch Revenues
      For example, increased ad spend, Prospect Manager leads, known customer growth plans from Account Managers. Typically 5-15% growth of current actual revenues in addition to BAU growth. Further examples of stretch targets are given later on.

      Unidentified Revenues
      New, emerging, or uncertain opportunities; new markets or geographies; strategic partnerships. Assign these to a Business Development / Sales Manager / Director. Typically around 5% of the current actuals. No extra costs should be associated to these in the budget until they become firm prospects. 

    • Tab 2. Actions & Costs
      As you add BAU and Stretch revenues in each market segment, add in the actions to achieve each line including annual / one-off costs, start and end dates, owners, risks and mitigations. 

3. Populate the budget spreadsheet

  • Generate monthly sales revenue by Smart Type in Order Information Reports > Months Of The Year for the overall year and each user Smart Type you wish to separate out in the budget so they can have their own growth targets. Export the data as a CSV and transpose the columns into rows.

    This is an example of how it will start to look for the overall summary and then each market segment will be added, only Retail is shown in this case but you may have another for Trade and another for Distribution.


  • Use the C-F-AOV report for even more information
    Drill deeper down into your numbers with the C-F-AOV Report in Admin > Reports > C-F-AOV Report . This shows the number of Customers / orders, Frequency of purchase, Average Order Value. Sales are split by markets i.e. user smart types (e.g. Retail, Trade, Distributor) and countries.


Account for initiatives and changes throughout the year
Remember to factor in changes and initiatives that have been introduced during the year and increased or decreased the revenue run rate from the date they started. This paints a more accurate picture of what's likely to happen going forward



4. Example 'Stretch Target' initiatives

  • Known leads stored in Prospect Manager
  • Pulling growth levers e.g. digital marketing spend, price position, product bundling, more outbound calls etc
  • Established customers' growth plans - via Account Managers to look at Big Spenders, Rising Stars, Falling Angels (as defined in User Sales Classifications) and their revenues via Customer Order Analysis with sales targets set on customer records in User Manager and ideally managed automatically by setting up a VIP Club dealer discount management.
  • Newer customers' projected revenues - these joined part way through the year, so their revenue can be extrapolated - rising stars need Account Managers to start formulating growth plans.
  • Contracts ending, renewing or starting up part way through the year.
  • Customers who have gone into liquidation through the year - remove revenues / adjust if starting back up.
  • High & low performing products via Top Products report,  impact of discontinuations & replacements, new product launches. 
  • Large orders being regularly received


There should not be big surprises about when orders will drop when staying close to your customers and prospects.


5. Build Scenarios & Run Sensitivity Analysis

Develop multiple scenarios for your forecast (e.g., conservative, moderate, best-case) based on different assumptions about market conditions and performance. 


Test the impact of variables (e.g. pricing, customer acquisition at retail / dealer / trade & country levels) to gauge risk and opportunity potential. Update the actions and risks in the C-F-AOV Report.


Throw in a sense-check by looking at the current sales budget performance and what was good, what failed and why, and how this impacts the new scenarios.

6. Incorporate Feedback from Sales, Marketing, Finance & Operations

Collaborate with key stakeholders (sales, marketing, finance, operations) to refine revenue estimates, account for capacity and capabilities, and identify new opportunities. Ensure alignment across departments and identify factors that might influence performance (e.g., product availability, marketing campaigns, sales efforts, commission plans).

7. Regularly Monitor & Adjust

Track actual sales against the forecast and adjust the budget as needed based on real-time performance, market shifts, or new opportunities.

Hold regular review meetings, sales dashboards, and performance tracking tools and stay agile and responsive to market conditions or unforeseen events.