Planning sales for 2026 + major updates

If you haven’t planned sales and growth yet for 2026, you’re already late. So do it this week, your growth depends on it.

In this newsletter, I’ll walk through how to come up with napkin math for your sales plan. I’ll also update you on major developments with SalesMVP Lab.

Table of Contents

• How do to a basic sales plan

• Major product launch for SalesMVP Lab

• How do SalesMVP Lab + Oleno co-exist?

How do to a basic sales plan

For most founders, numbers you put in a spreadsheet will be irrelevant in 90 days. But the exercise of “quantifying your gap” is enlightening. And this is where I focus for my sales plan.

There are typically two types of sales plans - top down and bottom up.

• Top down plan: You come up with a revenue number you want to hit. Then you work your way down to how many deals, meetings, leads, and outreach you need to do.

• Bottom up plan: You use your current lead flow and conversion rates to tell you what’s a realistic number you can if all of your numbers stay consistent.

The best plan uses both. The exercise will highlight a gap of leads, deals, customers. Then you can have a realistic conversation (or if you’re solo, either converse with ChatGPT or do deep thinking), about what you really need to do to hit your desired revenue for the next year.

Here’s an example of my sales plan for SalesMVP Lab if I want to add USD $200k ARR next year.

Let’s break this example down:

• In the first column, I have the different conversion points in my sales process. My sales cycles are pretty straightforward, going from intro meeting, to verbal, to close. I would add whatever steps make sense in your process.

• I also added days/week/month breakdowns for each key number (meetings, convos, prospects, etc.)

• I also added my conversion points in my LinkedIn outreach.

• The second column, I started at the top with a $200k ARR goal. Then I used my real numbers for average contract value (ACV), conversion rates in my sales cycles, and conversion rates in my prospecting cycles.

• I worked my way down, dividing the ARR by ACV to give me number of clients. Then dividing my conversion rates down to give me steps, meetings, convos, outreaches, and connects.

• I divided all these number by working days/weeks/months to tell me what I need to do daily to be on track.

• In the 3rd column, I went the opposite way. I started with what’s realistic for me to do, so 22 LI connections a day (staying within LI limits). Then went up the spreadsheet, multiplying by the conversion rates.

• When you go down the spreadsheet, your numbers should get bigger. When you go up, your numbers should get smaller.

• In the 4th column, I calculated the gap between top down where I want to be, vs current ability given my conversion rates/channels.

So what this plan tells me is that I can’t reach my number on just LinkedIn prospecting alone. I would need to significantly improve my response rates (which are already pretty high), or find ways to increase deal size (which is more plausible).

This tells me that I need to find another channel that will have better conversion. In my experience this year, that will likely come from referrals/intros, or speaking gigs.

So this means for me to add $200k ARR next year, I need to:

• Send minimum 22 connection requests a day on LinkedIn

• Send minimum 6, but likely 15 new DMs a day on LinkedIn

• Have at least 1-2 fruitful conversations a day on LinkedIn

• To drive 1-3 intro calls a week.

• I need to have more frequent speaking gigs - 80% of my current clients came from 2 speaking gigs.

• I need to actively ask partners and existing customers for referrals, and focus more on customer success stories to drive word-of-mouth.

So now, with a simple napkin-math exercise, I basically have my marketing plan done. I know exactly how many meetings I need to drive, and how many I can realistically expect from my LI outreach. And then double down on other channels that worked.

This plan works for any stage that you’re at. It’s more precise if you have good data. It’s less precise if you’re really early on - but you can use assumptions based on your anecdotes.

If you’re really early stage, don’t plan all of 2026 as a big number. Just focus on the next milestone. If you’re at 5 customers, then do the plan for getting to 10 customers (so 5 new customers). Then adjust the days to 60-90 days sprints. This will make it more manageable.

Major product launch for SalesMVP Lab

In 2025, I really leaned into the “labs” component of SalesMVP Lab. Labs has become a product studio for various startup ideas. I’ve been using AI to build MVPs and take them to market.

In my last update, I mentioned how I launched yourLumira, a companion journaling app for people going through therapy.

In December, I launched a flagship product: OlenoAI.

Oleno is an autonomous content engine that turns your knowledgebase and sitemap into SEO content that LLMs actually want to cite.

So far, I’ve launched two content studios:

1. Programmatic studio: Daily SEO posts that drive demand for your product, based on topics you should write about.

2. Competitive studio: Fully researched brand/competitor comparison posts, with external citations for competitive claims.

Oleno:

• Finds your best topics by scanning your sitemap and knowledge base

• Researches what competitors already rank for via Perplexity + Google

• Creates unique angles so your content stands out

• Writes and verifies every claim against your knowledge base

• Adds internal links + authority external links automatically

• Passes 80+ quality checks before publishing

• Pushes directly to your CMS—zero copy/paste

• Scores topics by information gain so you write what matters

• Generates 7 unique angles per topic for differentiation

• Enforces your brand voice across every article

• Structures content for featured snippets and AI citations

• Auto-generates schema markup for rich results

• Automatically inserts product screenshots into relevant sections

There will be many more studios launching in 2026, this is just the start.

I’ve used my FOUNDER framework to build, market, and launch the product - and now using it for my sales process as well. So dogfooding SalesMVP Lab to run Oleno.

And also dogfooding Oleno to market Oleno.

Here’s an example of the programmatic SEO post.

Here’s an example of the competitive alternative post.

P.S. I made 0 manual edits to either posts - the system just runs. You can push in either live mode or draft mode to your CMS if you want to edit first.

How do SalesMVP Lab + Oleno co-exist?

Oleno is now a permanent product of SalesMVP Lab, and is about 50% of my time. Coaching will remain for the other 50% of my time.

Oleno was created to serve a personal need, where I was trying to automate some of the marketing behind SalesMVP Lab and yourLumira. After showing it to clients, the demand was too high not to pursue it as a separate product.

Coaching is not going away - I still have 3 slots open for anyone who needs help with figuring out leakage in their sales cycle or hiring/onboarding their first sales team.

What changed for SalesMVP Lab is how I coach. I am no longer offering group coaching, only 1:1 and fractional leadership.

For those who are earlier stage and benefited from the content/theory of our group coaching sessions, that is now offered as a course as part of pclub.io. You can learn the full FOUNDER framework + also access dozens of other sales masterclasses on the platform.

Hope everyone had a good year end for 2025. Reply to this email with your highlights!

If you’re looking to improve SEO/GEO and inbound leads, check out oleno.ai.

For more practical sales, marketing, and GTM tips, connect with me on LinkedIn.

If you’re looking for more hands-on help improving your sales cycles or hiring your first sales team, reach out for coaching packages.