by Eve-Angeline Mitchell | Jun 25, 2018 | Increasing Revenues | 0 comments
As a business owner, where do you go for good advice on how to hit sales target goals? Search no further – we’ve got you covered. To hit sales targets, you need to do a combination of things, like setting reasonable goals, ensuring your current customers remain loyal and bringing in new customers (which means going out and prospecting in some way). You also need to set activity goals for your business and your employees. Otherwise, you’ll have a difficult time consistently meeting your goals.
If you aren’t doing any of these things, then, to be honest, you’re making things much harder for yourself than they need to be. There are things that you can do that will make that easier, overall.
Identify Your Weekly Sales Target
Identifying your weekly sales target is paramount to determining how to hit sales target goals. Why? It helps you set a tempo for your sales staff and breaks down your overall goals into more manageable pieces. It also creates a better metric by which to measure your sales throughout the quarter.
There’s also the problem of, “out of sight, out of mind.” Not only are your targets less intimidating when they’re broken down into smaller chunks, but they’re also at the forefront of your mind and the minds of your sales staff.
What your sales targets should look like
Your sales targets depend on what you want to achieve. Your total sales revenue is by far your most natural measurement. However, the amount by which you want to increase your sales revenue might seem intimidating, even on a weekly scale, and regardless of whether you’re using dollars or percentage increases as your targets. Sales revenue isn’t necessarily the best metric to use when you’re setting your target goals.
Your best bet is to set goals for growth, rather than revenue, and the best way to grow your business is to focus on new business. There are two forms of new business: New customers, and existing customers who buy new products or services. Set your sights towards new business, and decide how much new business you need each week to meet your sales targets.
Finally, encourage your sales staff to work as a team on that growth. You can reward individual performance, but that’s not always a good idea because it trains your sales team to focus only on short-term results. Bringing new business in is the best way to increase your revenues and your bottom line, and a team-based approach is a great way to identify and bring in prospects for new business (your sales team members also start seeing their jobs a little differently).
How to Hit Sales Target Goals with Prospecting
Here’s the deal: The average salesperson loses 15-20 percent of their existing customers each year just through attrition. Prospecting is the single best method to hit sales target goals, not only to replace customers lost, but also to continue growing your business. When you prospect, you expand your business opportunities. Those opportunities help you meet, and even exceed your goals.
Set Activity Goals
Sales activities are how you execute your plans to meet your targets, so what should you be doing? It turns out there are two parts to this: Pre-sales activities and actual sales activities.
Prospect and new customer identification
Above, we discussed the need to bring in new business to hit your sales targets, and how prospecting will help you with that. However, you can’t just start cold-calling everybody in the book. You need to identify those who are most likely to want or need your products or services. That includes determining which of your existing customers might benefit most from a new product or service of yours, and contacting potential new customers you believe would benefit from doing business with you.
You should evaluate how you stack up to your competitors and see what you can offer that they can’t. Maybe it’s a better price, maybe it’s a more robust plan or contract, or maybe it’s a superior product. Whatever it is, you need to be able to explain it clearly and concisely to your customers and prospects. Develop a plan for your prospecting that’s centered around these things, and then decide how much time your team should devote to it each day.
Plan out your activities
Once you’ve identified your best prospects and determined how you can give them the best value for their needs, it’s time to make a plan. How are you going to contact prospects? How are you going to present yourself and your products and services? Sit down with your team and brainstorm. Discuss your pricing strategies, your meeting scripts, and visuals, and determine possible customer objections and how to address those.
You might even want to discuss who each person should contact if a customer has a question or objection to which they can’t respond.
Finally, set your activity goals:
- How many calls should they make each week?
- How many meetings should they arrange?
- Which points should they be covering in each call or meeting?
- How should they handle follow-ups?
Consider putting together visuals that help you see what you’re trying to do, and improve your team build confidence in what they’ll be doing.
Execute your plans
Actual sales activities are carrying all of this out. Make your calls, hold your meetings, follow up with your prospects and your customers, and network and build your relationships. Encourage people to give you feedback on what you’re doing so you can better serve them, and use their feedback to modify your activities as necessary.
How to Hit Sales Target Goals with Excellent Customer Service
Customer service is a critical part of carrying out your sales activities. The bottom line is that if you can’t keep your existing customers from jumping to the competition because your customer service is lousy, then you can forget bringing in new business. That’s especially true when you’re working towards selling new products and services to customers you’re in danger of losing.
Treat your employees the way you want them to treat your customers
How do you ensure you’re providing the best service you can? One great idea is to treat your employees the way you want them to treat your customers. Remember, you wouldn’t have a business at all without your customers, and you wouldn’t have your customers without your employees. Treating them as anything other than the most important assets you have discourages them, demoralizes them, and harms the loyalty they feel to you. If you don’t seem to care about them, why should they care about you and how your business is doing?
On the other hand, if they feel well-cared for and like they matter, they’re more likely to want you and your business to do well because they feel loyal to you. That, in turn, shows up in how your employees treat your customers. Instead of merely punching the clock for a paycheck, they’ll feel enthusiasm for their work, which will shine through in how they deal with prospects and customers. They’ll take care of your customers to the best of their ability if they know you’re taking care of them.
Listen to, and respect, your customers
We touched on this above when we discussed how to hit sales target goals with your plans and activities. Nobody’s going to come back to a business that doesn’t listen to their concerns unless they have no other choice. You will have dissatisfied customers. It’s your job to do everything you can to make things right for them. Listen to their issues, validate their concerns, and be respectful to them. Focus on their needs and do what you can to meet them.
When you do everything you can to serve your customers well, they go and talk to their friends and family about how great you are. It is one of the most potent drivers of both your brand recognition and your reputation. Like we said above, you wouldn’t be in business without your customers.
Putting all of This to Work is How to Hit Sales Target Goals
If you successfully put all of this together, then you’ll have much less difficulty hitting your sales targets. Take it steady, though. If you’ve seen your sales flatten out, or even decline, you might feel panicked and impatient. However, if you try and rush all of this, you’re sure to hurt yourself and your business.
The best thing to remember with how to hit sales target goals is to take it one step at a time. Your team will be more energized, your customers will be happier, and you’re far more likely to achieve the growth for which you’re aiming.
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