The sales budget rests solidly upon the promotional program. The amount of expenditures to get a given amount of sales revenue is limited. The practice of some companies of starting with a sales goal, then budgeting a fixed percentage of those revenues for sales overhead, another fixed percentage for direct marketing expenses, and still another fixed percentage for advertising, is not a positive management approach to a serious planning problem. In contrast, the sales executives in well-managed companies, working as a group, develop the marketing, promotional, and distribution expense plans simultaneously. Next, the expenditures essential to carry out the promotional, marketing, and distribution phases are planned. These expense estimates then become an important part of the input data for the profit plan. Although practice varies, these decisional inputs are separately included in (1) the promotion and advertising plan and (2) the budget of selling expenses.