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The sales process · Strategic plan

Know what an order costs you to win before you argue about the ad budget.

Financial goals for sales and marketing are the cost side of the same arithmetic. What you will pay for an enquiry, what an order costs to win once salaries are counted, and how the money splits between the two functions. GullySales records cost per order before work starts and reports it against the baseline.

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Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.

A founder and sales adviser discuss a customer proposal

In one paragraph

Financial goals for sales and marketing are the cost side of the same arithmetic. What you will pay for an enquiry, what an order costs to win once salaries are counted, and how the money splits between the two functions. GullySales records cost per order before work starts and reports it against the baseline.

Operational goals came before this and people goals come after. The numbers here are the ones your accountant will ask for, and most owners can answer only the first of them.

Cost per enquiry is everything spent to bring enquiries in during a month, divided by the enquiries. Cost per order is the same total divided by the orders won. The second number decides things and the first only describes them.

Then compare the cost per order with what a customer is worth across the whole relationship, not on the first invoice. A dealer who reorders every month and a one-time installation are two different businesses on the same sheet.

Where this sits

Stage 1 of 10, strategic plan. What the business is for, what it is aiming at this year, and the numbers that say whether it got there.

The stage after
Customer research

If you want this done for you

Stop marketing and sales from competing for the same rupee of budget.

Read the sales and marketing budgeting page

The work

What this step is actually like.

  • “Count the salaries, or the number is fiction”

    Ad spend, the agency fee, the salesperson's time, and the hours of whoever answers the phone. Leave the people out and you will congratulate yourself on a cost per enquiry that was never real.

  • “Payback is the question the bank asks”

    How many months before an order returns what it cost to win. In a business running on an overdraft this decides the whole plan, and your CA will tell you what the business can carry.

  • “The split between sales and marketing is a decision”

    Not a leftover after salaries are paid. Decide in advance what goes to bringing enquiries in, what goes to converting them, and what goes to work that pays back slowly. Then say out loud which one you would cut first.

  • “One average across everything hides the answer”

    Split the cost by source and by product. A figure that looks acceptable as an average is usually one cheap source carrying three expensive ones.

What we do

What you end up with.

The artefacts this step produces, what each one is for, and how you know it is finished.

  1. A cost sheet by source

    Six columns: the source, the spend, enquiries, orders, cost per enquiry, cost per order. One row per source, one sheet per month.

    Result: You stop a source that is not working in week three instead of at year end.

  2. A ceiling per source, agreed before the money goes out

    The most you are willing to pay for an enquiry from each source, and what happens when it is breached.

    Result: A decision made calmly rather than in the middle of a bad month.

  3. What a customer is worth over the relationship

    First order, expected repeats, and how long a customer usually stays with you. Your accountant already holds most of this.

    Result: A cost per order you can judge instead of merely know.

  4. The payback line

    One sentence stating how many months of trading it takes to recover what you spent to win an order.

    Result: You can answer the cash question before your bank manager asks it.

Where this fits

Three pieces of sales work, in this order.

This work sits inside sales process design, at stage 0, foundation. The audit comes before it, and sales management keeps it running.

  1. Step 1

    Sales audit

    Find where deals are being lost and what to fix first.

    Start here if you cannot say where orders are lost.

  2. Step 2 · you are here

    Sales process design

    One written way to sell, from first enquiry to repeat order.

    Start here if every salesperson sells differently.

  3. Step 3

    Sales management

    A target, a review routine and someone who owns the number.

    Start here if the team has targets and no routine.

Tell us what you need Your brief is read before we call. Scope, fee and term in writing.

FAQ

Questions owners ask before they call.

Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.

Tell us what you need
What percentage of revenue should we spend on marketing?
There is no honest universal figure, and the ones circulating online come from other countries and other trades. Work it from your sales arithmetic and what a customer is worth to you over the relationship.
What counts as spend?
Everything you would not be paying if you stopped selling: media, production, software, agency fees, and the salaries of the people doing the work. If you leave salaries out, write that on the sheet.
Our cost per order is high. Should we cut the budget?
Not first. A high cost per order is more often a conversion problem than a spending problem, and reply time is the cheapest thing to fix. Cut spend only once the enquiries you already pay for are being answered.
How is your own fee budgeted?
It goes in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you, and splits three ways: our time, your media spend, and production costs. Budget the second and third separately, because media stops working the day you stop paying and production does not.
How long is the contract?
The term is agreed in writing after we have spoken, along with the fee and the reporting. It is never a default twelve months, and renewal is decided on the numbers against the baseline recorded at the start.
How soon will we see results?
Fixes to reply time and follow-up are the quickest to show, because the enquiries already exist. Process, CRM and training changes show as the team uses them. Each one is tracked against the baseline.
Who will actually do the work?
The person you speak to before anything starts. We work from one office in Nagarbhavi, Bengaluru, with no account managers in between.
What do you need from us?
To start, last month's enquiries in any format and time with whoever handles them. After that, access to the accounts the work touches, such as the website, Google Business Profile or CRM.
What if we are not happy with the work?
Tell us and the plan changes. Everything is reported against the baseline, so a number that is not moving is visible to both sides. The term is in your written scope, and the refund and cancellation policy sets out the rest.

Where to go next

The work that carries this step further.

Services

The rest of strategic plan

Or read the whole sales process in order.

Your next practical step

Tell us what you are trying to grow, and we will read it before we call.

Eight short steps, mostly taps. Skip anything you would rather answer on the call.

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