Sales Plan 2026: A 5-Step Guide for Two-Channel B2B Strategy


"Business success depends on strategy, team, and processes – and how
successfully we connect them."
🎯 Sales Plan 2026: A five-step guide for strategic planning of a two-channel business

If your company imports and sells technical products in the Baltics, your management team is well acquainted with the challenges of the two main sales channels: project sales directly to larger clients and continuous stock sales through existing resellers. The 2026 plan cannot be just a simple revenue number—it must be a strategy for how to balance and develop these two channels. This article shows five practical steps on how to create a sales plan that will make your two-channel business successful.

📈 Why is a "simple number" insufficient as a plan?
Many managers set a general revenue target for the year before it begins and divide it by 12. This is not a plan; it's a forecast. Without an action plan, the team becomes disconnected, motivation drops, and results depend on chance. A real sales plan answers the questions: Who? What? When? How? How much?

1. STEP: 🧠 Analysis – Start with facts, not wishes
Before setting numbers for the new period, understand your current position and opportunities.

🔍 Internal Audit (Look at your own company):

  • Which 3-10 products/services provided 80% of the profit?

  • Which 10 clients provided 80% of sales revenue?

  • What is the cost of retaining key clients (including top resellers)? (e.g., purchase bonuses, co-marketing, client events)

🌍 External Audit (Look around – simplified SWOT):

  • Strengths (S): In what ways are we better than competitors? (e.g., better service, specialized technical know-how)

  • Weaknesses (W): Where do we spend too much time/money? (e.g., outdated systems, dependence on one large client). Do we lack sales representatives with suitable personality traits?

  • Opportunities (O): Is there any new growing segment in the market? Does business technology allow for increased efficiency? Should we change the ratio of active salespeople vs. consultative salespeople in the sales department?

  • Threats (T): Is a main competitor lowering prices? Is legislation/standards changing in our field?

2. STEP: 🎯 Strategy and Goals – Where and why?
Now set goals that directly arise from the analysis, not from a "feeling."

Quantitative Goals (WHAT do we achieve?):

  • "Increase sales in the Premium product segment by 25%, because its margin is 20% higher." (Suitable if analysis showed this opportunity).

  • "Increase the share of stock product sales through resellers by 10%." (Suitable if self-justifying products for stock sales are missing or only partially represented in some resellers' stock selections).

Qualitative Goals (HOW do we achieve it?):

  • "Launch three new partnerships related to co-marketing."

  • "Conduct 10 project pricing analyses for reference clients."

  • "Conduct training for reseller sales teams on new product families."

3. STEP: 📋 Action Plan – Who does what and when?
This is the heart and skeleton of your plan. Turn goals into projects with specific responsibilities within the company.

Goal / Activity
Responsible Person
 Deadline
Metric (What we measure by)
Resources (Budget)
Launch three new co-marketing partnerships (Negotiations with resellers, plan coordination)
 Sales Manager
Q1 2026
3 new signed co-marketing plans (with selected resellers), each with an annual turnover with the company of at least 100k EUR
Co-marketing budget covered 50% by the company, and no more than 5,000 EUR related to one reseller (client events, familiarization trips, materials, etc.)
Sales Process Optimization (Creating an updated sales process)
CEO in cooperation with Sales Manager and external consultant
Feb-March 2026
Freeing up sales representatives' resources for active sales to 80% from the previous 50%, including hiring an additional sales assistant
30,000 EUR (external consultant, software setup, recruitment and salary cost of sales assistant)

Training for reseller sales teams on new product families
Consultative salespeople in cooperation with the Sales ManagerJanuary-March 2026
Achievement of the required competency by resellers
2,000 EUR (product samples, other training-related costs)

4. STEP: 📊 Monitoring and Adjustment – How do we keep the plan "alive"?
The plan must be a living document, not a fossilized PDF.

  • Regular Reviews: Short (30 min) monthly meetings with the entire management team to review progress based on metrics.

  • Simple Monitoring: One centrally visible Dashboard (Excel, Google Sheets, Power BI) with all key indicators.

  • Adaptability: Define in advance: if which indicators fall (e.g., 2 consecutive months below 80% of the target), Plan B is activated (e.g., additional marketing campaign).

5. STEP: 📈 Numerical Plan and Forecast – What does success look like in numbers?
This is the numerical heart of the sales plan. All strategic decisions and actions must be translated into specific financial indicators. These are calculation-based forecasts based on historical data and decisions made in previous steps.

Create a unified calculation model (e.g., Excel), which includes the plan on four levels:

Indicator Level
What to plan?
 Example (Q1 2026)
General Level
Total turnover and average sales margin for each quarter/month.
Turnover: 400k EUR, Margin: 22%
Product Group Level
Turnover and margin for each main product group (e.g., "Automation", "Power Current").
"Automation" Turnover: 150k EUR, Margin: 25%
Top Products Level
Turnover and margin for 10-15 top products (those providing a larger share of profit).
"Sensor type X" Turnover: 30k EUR, Margin: 40%
Top Clients Level
Forecasted turnover and margin for 10 top resellers and/or direct clients.
"Reseller A" Turnover: 70k EUR, Margin: 18%

Compilation Principle: Start with actual numbers from the last 2-3 years. Then adjust them, considering decisions made in steps 2 and 3 (e.g., if you plan training, this should be reflected in the sales growth percentage of the relevant product group) and market trends.

🔗 How do all five steps fit together?
The five steps form a cohesive cycle where each part supports the others.

🎯 In Summary: A good sales plan is a proactive management system. It combines analysis, qualitative strategy, concrete actions, a detailed numerical forecast, and continuous monitoring. It is precisely this last, 5th step, that makes your strategy translatable into the language of numbers and allows data-based decisions on how much, what, and to whom you actually plan to sell.
📞 Contact: +372 5094 786
I wrote this article to help Estonian companies build more effective and fair sales planning systems for 2026. Would you like to analyze the weaknesses of your current system and enhance or create a new sales planning system?