SALES PLAN A sales plan defines and documents the analysis and objectives that inform our organizations

sales activities. Like any plan it is a living document that should be reviewed and adapted to meet changing circumstances. The aim of marketing is to increase sales of the goods or services produced or to increase take up of services offered. There is no point in stimulating demand, for instance, if the costs of buying extra stock or machinery, tooling up the factory, or providing more staff to work with people are beyond the resources of the organization. Nor is there any point in making forecasts of sales without the means to measure the change and a set of criteria to determine if extra sales have actually improved the position of the business. All organizations will require a sales plan to determine the costs of extra sales both directly (for instance extra stock, more sales staff, new machinery) and indirectly (increased warehouse space, extra transport costs). It will also need a financial plan to help it know when costs will be incurred, what for and at what level and also when income will be generated. Once the purpose of a marketing plan has been identified and market research carried out, a sales plan can be drawn up. A sales plan consists of the following: 1. Market Segmentation: This basically determines what are the various market segments and how the company is going to deal with each segment separately. 2. Resource Development and Allocation: Based on the internal market audit, decisions will need to be made about the resources to be committed to the sales plan, the personnel, physical resources, financial resources etc. required and how they are to be acquired. 3. Distribution Network: This consists of decisions about where we will display our products for sale and how do we plan to manage these locations. Apart from our products we also need to consider dealer networks and workshops. 4. Marginal Cost Analysis: This consists simply of a calculation of what extra sales will be generated at what cost in terms of the advertising budget and wage costs. It is not necessary for a marketing drive to generate a profit since it may have other purposes: to increase market recognition prior to introducing a new product for instance or to clear a warehouse of stockpiles etc. But the marginal cost or marginal benefit of the marketing drive (i.e. what is lost or gained compared to the situation now) must be calculated. The next section is going to discuss these points as our strategy in detail. Market Segmentation The entire market of automobile purchasers can be divided into 2 broad segments- Personal and Corporate. Personal auto purchasers are those who purchase automobiles for themselves or their families. They tend to look for comfort, space and value

for money. In most cases, this is a very arduous decision making process since purchasers spend their hard earned savings on it and it happens once every 10, 20 years or even a lifetime. There are also different segments of personal car purchasers based on age and behavior. Corporate Purchasers are basically those who purchase automobiles for their companies or firms for its various operational functions. These purchasers buy in bulk and definitely look for the economical options in majority of the cases. In some cases when the car is to be used by highranking officials, the purchase behavior might differ. Strategy: With personal purchasers, the strategy is to equip the showrooms with the best sales teams comprising of smart and appealing individuals. The salesperson should be able to clearly understand the needs of the consumer and inform him about the alternatives that suit their needs and can be supplied. With corporate purchasers, personal selling becomes very important since these decisions are mostly based looking at numbers and motivated by reference. A strong Word-of-Mouth brand presence and personal selling to the company decision makers can achieve this objective. Resource Development and Allocation One of the most important tasks of a firm is to decide on the sources of appropriation of resources and their dissemination. In the sales plan we decide where and how much resources to allocate. Physical Resources: The showrooms that we set up will display all kinds of vehicles manufactured by us and also auto parts that we manufacture. Similar products will also be supplied our various dealers. Personnel Resources: Each showroom must be equipped with educated, trained and well-informed salespersons. Initially, it is advised to have 3-4 salespersons in each showroom to serve clients who comes in to purchase cars and auto parts. However, this number can be decreased or increased based on customer traffic after the first few months. Financial Resources: As a part of the sales plan, a good portion of the resources should be spent on incentivizing salespersons and dealers. To start off the company a strong push is required by the intermediaries in the value chain. In addition, our showrooms should look very professional and well architected. And finally, the employees and salespersons must be given lucrative rates to work harder to achieve sales. Distribution Network Since it is a start-up automobile manufacturing company, we plan to distribute both ways, through dealers and slowly faze them out as we develop our own retail distribution network. We will have warehouses at Dhaka and Chittagong and showrooms at Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Sylhet, Comilla and regional distributers at Barisal and Rajshahi. We will also set up our own workshops across cities where we have a strong consumer base, but

initially we will start with Dhaka and Chittagong. We will also ensure that our car parts are available in various workshops around the country. Marginal Cost Analysis In order to truly understand whether the effectiveness of the sales plan it is necessary that we conduct a marginal cost analysis of our strategy. It would require us to weigh the revenue from sales forecasts against the estimated expenses of our costs. Revenue Forecast Category Automobiles Auto Parts Workshops TOTAL Sales Plan Budget Category Sales Team Dealers Showrooms Personal Selling TOTAL Marginal Benefit

Units 15 150 5

Amount 75,00,000 7,50,000 50,000 83,00,000 Amount 9,50,000 20,00,000 20,00,000 5,00,000 54,50,000 1.52

Description Hiring, training, motivating Fees and Incentives Interior Design Building Corporate Relations