Every sales professional needs a plan, a clearly articulated sense of where they are, where they want to go, and what they need to do, step-by-step, to get there.  I say “clearly articulated” because a lot of people have a vague idea about these things, which they think constitutes a plan, when in reality they have nothing concrete to go on.

Write down the where and write down the what.  Then you can see it, analyze it, and revise it as you put it into practice.  Yes, your plan might need to change, but you can’t make changes to something that doesn’t exist.

The change may be your adding to the plan, or subtracting from it, or perhaps nearly starting over.  None of this is possible, however, unless you’ve first written the plan down.