Establishing Sales Goals

Every organization should have goals; and every individual in the organization should have goals, but this is especially true for your sales team.

by Brock Henderson Principal, Henderson & Associates [February 26, 2008]

Before getting too far into this let me give you a warning: sales goals should be established by you (or your sales manager) and the individual salesperson. If the salesperson considers their sales goal too high for them to reach, they will give every outward appearance of trying, but won't actually make any effort.

When establishing a sales goal, you will probably have to lower your expectations—and they will have to raise theirs. However, some salespeople will want to set unrealistically high sales goals. Don't let them.

People set unrealistic expectations for a couple of reasons. (1) They want to impress you and please you. They are insecure in their role in the company and are attempting to validate themselves to you. (2) They are new to sales, or to your company and products, and don't have the experience to accurately judge what it takes in terms of time and effort to reach those goals.

Either way, you will have some moral issues when they don't meet their goal.

By the same token, if you/your Company is new to setting sales goals, your expectations could be out of whack. If this is the case, it is much better to set your expectations very low and then be pleasantly surprised when sales exceed them.

The best way to determine a sales goal is to look at past performance and then add a little each year. Goals should not be overly easy and they shouldn't be overly hard. Past performance tells you what the "comfort zone" of the salesperson is, but then you need to push them beyond that comfort zone slowly and gradually.

Setting a sales goal isn't easy, but it is even more difficult to meet those goals if you don't have a goal-reaching plan. The plan is there to help you obtain what might seem unobtainable.

1. Make the goal as specific as possible. State the dollar amount of the goal and the time period it is to be accomplished in.
   
   Break the goal down into small units that don't overwhelm the mind. For example, if you want sales of $120,000 for the year, then breaking it into monthly goals of $10,000 makes the annual goal seem more obtainable. You could break it down to a weekly goal of $2,400; however, sometimes this can present its own problems. If a salesperson has a very bad week, seeing that bad week compared against the goal could be demoralizing and hinder the next week's recovery.
   
   
2. Put the goal in writing. This makes it more psychologically concrete; you want the goal to be as real as possible.
   
   Post the goal where the salesperson can see it and be reenergized by it. Many people put their goals on the bathroom mirror so that they can see the goal every morning and it helps them get focused. Others track goals on a white board in the office, or a post-it note on the dashboard of their car. It simply needs to be somewhere that is highly visible for you to help you stay focused.
   
   
3. Identify, (again in writing), all the obstacles in your way. All too often the biggest obstacle is ourselves. It is frightening how often we are our own worst enemy when it comes to getting things accomplished. Setting goals helps get us past ourselves and keeps us on track towards success.
   
   
4. Identify, when possible, those individuals or groups that can assist you in reaching your goal.
   
   Perhaps the salesperson has been told that they would be referred to someone, but for various reasons that referral has yet to happen—make it happen. If you have a friend who knows someone you want to meet, let the friend know you want to be introduced right away. Don't wait for others! Take charge and ask for the introduction or referral.
   
   
5. Write down an action plan for obtaining your goal. A lot of people miss their goal because all they do is establish the goal, and don't give any thought as to how to obtain the goal.
   
   If you are trying to lose weight then you need to plan on exercising; but be specific, I am going to walk 2 miles every day. If it is sales, then you are going to write 5 letters, make 15 phone calls, and make at least 2 presentations each day.
   
   
6. Do something every day towards obtaining that goal. (It is amazing how many people will set a goal and then not take any action towards obtaining the goal.)
   
   Take a book with you wherever you go and read it while you are waiting; it is amazing how much reading you can get done just waiting in the checkout lane of the grocery store. You don't walk a mile with one giant leap, you accomplish it through thousands of small individual steps. So too, sales goals aren't accomplished with one great flourish of activity, it takes thousands of small individual acts that accumulate and build on each other until ultimately you have reached (or probably exceeded) your goal.

Now set some goals and start acting on them, then just watch what great things you will accomplish.

—End