{"id":4229,"date":"2020-03-05T10:26:44","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T15:26:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/199.250.223.35\/~craftbrewery\/?p=4229"},"modified":"2020-03-05T10:29:23","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T15:29:23","slug":"brewery-sales-plans-avoid-these-mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craftbreweryfinance.com\/oldversion\/brewery-sales-plans-avoid-these-mistakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Brewery Sales Plans&#8230;Avoid these Mistakes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The sales plan is your road map to brewery growth.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In this post, I want to share 3 Mistakes to Avoid when building your brewery Sales Plan. These are mistakes that I have made (and hopefully learned from).<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sharing them with you so that you can avoid these pitfalls, and build a great sales plan for your brewery.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3 Brewery Sales Plan Mistakes to Avoid<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Starting too late&#8230;(or not finishing the plan)<\/li>\n<li>Not involving the right people<\/li>\n<li>Using poorly designed financial planning tools<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Mistake #1: Starting the Plan too Late<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The goal is to have your sales plan done and communicated to your team several weeks before the start of the new sales plan period.<\/p>\n<p>The new sales plan period may start with the new year, January 1st, or it may be a mid-year sales plan update and start on April 1st.<\/p>\n<p>To make sure you start on time, create a sales planning calendar with deadlines so that the plan is done and communicated to your team. Here&#8217;s an outline:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sales Plan Timeline<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Start the plan 10 weeks before you need it done<\/li>\n<li>Get a high-level sales plan draft on paper 6 weeks before you need it done<\/li>\n<li>Finalize + Communicate 2 weeks before the plan start date<\/li>\n<li><em>Example: Start your sales plan in mid-October, and get a good draft done by mid-November, before the holidays kick in. Finalize the plan and communicate the information to your team by mid-December.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Mistake #1a: Not Finishing the Sales Plan<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;re busy, and have other things that may seem more important than finishing a sales plan.<\/p>\n<p>This is\u00a0understandable, but remind yourself (and your team) that this is an important project. The sales plan is the Road Map to Brewery Growth.<\/p>\n<p>One tip to help finish the sales plan is to keep it simple. Use 30,000 foot planning. For example, project top-line annual sales through the taproom, self-distribution, or wholesale.<\/p>\n<p>Project top-line annual sales by beer brand, or by market territory or by wholesaler.<\/p>\n<p>Keep it simple, build some momentum, and finish the plan. The details can come later.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mistake #2: Not Involving the Right People in Sales Planning<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m a big fan of\u00a0sharing info so that employees can make better decisions.<\/p>\n<p>If information is useful for owners, it&#8217;s likely useful for employees.<\/p>\n<p><strong>To help create better outcomes with your sales plan<\/strong>, consider including these folks in the planning process:\u00a0inventory manager, brewing manager, and packaging manager.<\/p>\n<p>A rounded group of individuals is best, and provide different perspectives on future sales opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, this process gives your managers a front row seat in the planning process and gives them a voice in shaping the plan.<\/p>\n<p>Involve the right people in your sales planning. You&#8217;ll get a better plan, better buy in, and better understanding from those involved in process<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mistake #3: Using Poorly Designed Financial Tools<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It hurts to invest time and resources into building a plan only to find you&#8217;ve used the wrong tools.\u00a0 Don&#8217;t do that.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve built hundreds of sales plans in my day, and have put together a set of models that you can download and use to build your brewery plan.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/craftbreweryfinance.com\/oldversion\/downloads\/craft-brewery-finance-annual-subscription-plan\/\">Get instant access<\/a> <\/strong>to the sales models and step-by-step video instructions with your annual subscription.<\/p>\n<p>Already a subscriber? Head over to the Online Courses section of membership and get started today.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0Wrap Up + Action Items<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The sales plan is your road map to brewery growth.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do these 3 things to build a great sales plan:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Create a calendar with deadlines so that you start and finish your plan on time.<\/li>\n<li>Involve the right people in your planning process. I&#8217;ve found that a good combination is to include the sales manager, inventory manager, packaging manager and head brewer. Throw a finance person in there as well.<\/li>\n<li>Use proven sales models to build your plan. This will save time, money and headaches in the planning process.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Now, it&#8217;s up to you. Get out there and build an amazing sales plan in your brewery.<\/p>\n<p>Yours in Brewery Sales Plans,<\/p>\n<p>Kary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The sales plan is your road map to brewery growth.\u00a0 In this post, I want to share 3 Mistakes to Avoid when building your brewery Sales Plan. These are mistakes that I have made (and hopefully learned from). I&#8217;m sharing them with you so that you can avoid these pitfalls, and build a great sales [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4230,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_meta":"","_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sales-and-marketing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craftbreweryfinance.com\/oldversion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4229"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craftbreweryfinance.com\/oldversion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craftbreweryfinance.com\/oldversion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craftbreweryfinance.com\/oldversion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craftbreweryfinance.com\/oldversion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/craftbreweryfinance.com\/oldversion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craftbreweryfinance.com\/oldversion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craftbreweryfinance.com\/oldversion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craftbreweryfinance.com\/oldversion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craftbreweryfinance.com\/oldversion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}