3 Stages of writing a 30-60-90 day plan and why it matters

30-60-90 day sales plans have been used as a way to ensure success for new sales team members with clearly outlined actions and goals. If you haven’t heard of or used this plan before, now is a great time to start for your next job interview, new sales job, or even for your personal life. See below what a 30-60-90 day plan is, the elements of it that you should consider, when to write one, and why it’s important.

What is a 30-60-90 Day Plan?

The 30-60-90 day plan is a three-month strategy for successfully training new sales team members or selling in new territories. It clearly lays out all the actions and goals that will help salespeople get to know their new company or region and learn how to best reach their highest (and healthiest) level of productivity. With a robust 30-60-90 day sales plan, businesses are much more likely to make the most of new territories, reps, and managers.

Why Write a Sales Plan?

Coming into a job interview or new sales job with a detailed 30-60-90 day sales plan will show the manager:

• You know what you’re doing
• You’re confident in your abilities
• That you’ve carefully thought out crucial elements to ensure success
• You’ll hit the ground running if hired

We all know to be prepared when starting a new job or interviewing for one, but having a plan like this laid out will take you to another level above other candidates.

3 Stages to Writing Your Plan

Like we’ve discussed, having a 30-60-90 day sales plan prepared is going to set you apart from less-prepared sales reps. If you’re unsure of where to start, the first steps are to:

1. Aligning the current teams goals
2. Identify your own priorities

Writing a sales plan is not just about you, the sales team also needs to be considered. In the interview process, ask the current sales reps what their goals are and what they’re being pushed to. After finding out where the current reps are, identify your own success. Here are some examples of goals you can use and measure at the end of 90 days:

• Have the ability to demo the product at a high level.
• Become known, liked and trusted with all current customers.
• Have a list of 100 potential customers to prospect over the next 12 months.

It’s important to answer these questions before writing your plan to provide direction. Now let’s get to writing your sales plan.

Stage 1: 30 Days

When applying for a job, success in the first 30 days is likely completing your onboarding and training process successfully. In addition, you can also add the following criteria if you want to be more specific:

• Understanding corporate priorities, new roles and responsibilities
• Intermediate knowledge of key products and services
• Knowing the product’s position in the market vs. the competition
• Developing key connections within the organization with customer support, sales leadership, team members etc
• Going through previous rep’s sales CRM data and outlining a few key accounts to target

The 30-day section of your sales plan should define your success goals and briefly explain how you plan on achieving them. It should also share how you‘ll know you’ve been successful in meeting these goals.

Stage 2: 60 Days

With the first 30 days up, you have to amp up your sales efforts in the second month. Here are some pointers to include in the 60-day section of your sales plan. Notice how some of them are mandatory, while others are more flexible depending on your role, experience, and onboarding process.

• Started developing at least five new leads — Mandatory 
• Have shadowed the top two performing sales reps in the company — Mandatory 
• High-level understanding of key products — Mandatory 
• Completed role-playing sessions with other sales professionals in the team
• Have contributed to a sales meeting by adding value to the conversation
• Completed all formal sales onboarding or training that needs to be done

Stage 3: 90 days

Your 31-90 day plan sets out what you’re planning on doing for the rest of the time in the specific sales role. At the 90-day meeting with your sales manager, discuss any 3-4 points from the following success criteria:

• Clear and optimized prospecting list in use — Mandatory
• Daily schedule established for prospecting, following up and staying on top of everything else — Mandatory
• Become a solid member of the team — Mandatory
• Had at least one round of feedback on performance from the sales manager
• Closed at least a couple of deals without too much babysitting from others
• Foot in the door with a couple of exciting key accounts