If you’re like most people, you’ve probably set a sales goal at some point in your career. And if you’re like most people, you’ve probably also struggled to meet that goal. Why is it so difficult to achieve our sales targets? In this blog post, we’ll teach you how to meet sales goals, by exploring the obstacles that keep teams from meeting their goals and learning how to overcome these obstacles.

What Are Sales Goals?

Before we learn how to meet sales goals, first let’s understand what sales goals are.

Goals are specific targets that your team needs to hit in order to hit their overall target. These are generally linked to broader business objectives. The finance department, the CEO, and the sales team work together to come up with sales goals that will help the company reach its long-term goals.

Sales goals are objectives that a sales team sets in order to increase their chances of achieving success. By setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound goals, a sales team can stay focused and motivated to reach their sales targets.

Don’t just set one big, ambitious goal for your sales reps. Set smaller, more attainable goals that are easier to reach.

Your sales team will be more successful if you establish smaller goals that can be met quickly. These more frequent rewards will boost confidence and productivity. Build to that larger sales goal incrementally for best results.

Consider the organization’s broader objectives and your unique team when creating your sales goals. When it comes to setting sales goals, you’ll want to consider the organization’s broader objectives as well as what will work best for your unique team. It can be difficult to maintain a network of sales goals, but it’s important to avoid making your team’s approach too generalized. You also don’t want to demotivate them by giving them a confusing array of unrelated numbers to chase after.

Consider your company’s objectives and how you can help meet them when setting your sales goals.

When setting your sales goals for 2019, make sure they’re realistic. This means they should be aligned with your available resources, including your human and capital assets.

Success in sales often comes down to having the right tools. With the right tools, you can set and achieve ambitious goals.

Why You Need to Set Sales Goals?

Having clearly defined and measurable goals for your team will help your sales team succeed. This is because:

Sales goals are important for a number of reasons. They hold everyone on your sales team accountable, provide a way to measure success quantitatively, and motivate and gamify sales reps’ daily tasks. Additionally, targeted visualization is a powerful tool for humans to achieve their goals.

When setting sales goals, make sure they are challenging yet achievable. Having goals that are too low may not be motivating, whereas goals that are too high can be discouraging.

What are you working towards right now? What’s your goal weight?

If you understand the text, then good. Now multiply that by two or three.

It’s important to break your goals down into strategic sales goals and action plans to help improve your sales KPIs. This will allow you to better focus your efforts on achieving your overall goal. By taking the time to do this, you will be able to increase your chances of success.

Setting specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely (SMART) goals for your sales pipeline is key to success.

What Keeps Teams From Meeting Sales Targets?

There are a number of factors that go into setting up and reaching your sales targets. Some of these factors are in your direct control and include things like the number of phone calls you make, and the amount of research that goes into identifying the best target audience.

Unfortunately, you can’t always predict what’s going to affect your business. For example, the coronavirus outbreak has hurt many businesses, but it’s impossible to predict.

Many sales teams fail to meet their sales goals because they:

Don’t set unrealistic sales goals – it’s easy to feel overly confident at the beginning of a sales cycle, but this can lead to setting the bar too high. Be realistic in your goal-setting to avoid disappointment later on.

Don’t approach the wrong audience: If you’re not using the best lead generation tools, you’re wasting valuable time with people who don’t need your products.

Don’t measure success: Don’t waste time measuring your success if you’re not doing it right. Measuring your sales progress is essential, but if you’re not doing it correctly, then you’re wasting your time.

Don’t give up too soon: According to a recent study, 60% of customers say no four times before committing to a purchase. This means that if you want to be successful in sales, you can’t give up after the first or second no.

Don’t set vague goals: Different approaches are needed to achieve long-term and short-term targets. A clear understanding of how to accomplish each type of goal is essential.

Don’t increase goals too frequently: As team members achieve targets, they may become discouraged if they feel they have to go into overdrive to meet the next big goal.

All of these challenges can be dealt with by carefully assessing the situation and developing a sales strategy. Target sales goals that are well-thought-out and properly implemented can stimulate successful customer journeys that drive revenue and increase sales.

Setting Retail Sales Goals

Want to hit your quota? Set the right sales target. There’s no one-size-fits-all formula, as every business is unique.

When determining your goals, you should consider the following:

When creating your retail goals for 2019, you’ll need to take into account historical data, initiatives, and events, as well as your team’s capacity.

Goal-Setting – How to Meet Sales Goals

1. Set your goals high, but make sure they are attainable.

You want your goals to be difficult, but not unattainable.

To find the perfect balance for sales quotas and your workforce, you should apply the 70% Rule. This states that the amount of work your employees do should be no more than 70% of your overall revenue goal.

If goals are not being met 70% or more, they are probably set way too high. This may cause your team members to get discouraged.

If you want to push your employees, then set them goals that are slightly out of reach, but are still attainable. That way, they’ll always feel challenged and like they’re constantly improving.

2. Properly manage sales quota frequency and timeframes

When setting goals for your salespeople, you’ll typically start by setting an annual revenue target, then breaking it down into quarters and months. But when working with your sales reps, you may also want to set short-term goals for each week or day.

If you set frequent sales quotas, your associates will be continuously motivated.

As HBR points out, under monthly plans, if a salesperson starts off their first month of the month with poor results, they may become less motivated by the end of the month, essentially giving in.

If daily quotas are put in place, it would help to prevent any type of unethical behavior from happening.

The researchers hypothesized that stores with daily quotas would have better sales results than those with monthly quotas.

If you want to improve sales productivity, consider setting daily quotas. This is especially effective for low-performing salespeople, who may see an 18% boost in sales productivity.

This is a question that is difficult to answer.

According to one study, the daily quota system helped prevent those employees from quitting after a slow first month, which is typical for new hires.

The study found that daily quotas increased sales volume, but frequent quotas motivated salespeople to sell more low-ticket items. This is likely because they shift their mindset to smaller, daily goals.

This resulted in decreased profitability because sales representatives continued to promote low-margin items.

If you find that employees are pushing low-margin items, consider ways to incentivize them to sell higher-ticket items instead. This may include more frequent sales quotas or finding creative ways to showcase your high-margin products. By doing so, you can help improve profitability in your store.

3. Clarifying your team’s targets makes it easier to achieve retail sales goals

Setting a goal without setting a specific target is not a smart idea. To make sure your goals are smart, make sure they meet the following criteria: 1. Be as detailed as possible. 2. Be measurable. 3. Be achievable. 4. Be relevant. 5. Be timely.

Sales goals examples:

Your sales team’s target should be clearly outlined, such as getting 10 new loyalty members per day, or seeing a 20% increase by month end. By increasing the average order value by 15% by end of the quarter, your sales team can more accurately measure and achieve their goals.

Conclusion

If you’re looking to know how to meet sales goals, it’s important to understand what obstacles might be standing in your way. By clarifying your team’s targets and understanding the challenges that can prevent you from achieving them, you’ll be well on your way to success.