3 guidelines for setting targets for sales people
Many sales targets are no help to sales people
Most sales people are told to bring in a certain amount of revenue. But that is all the guidance that they are given. Some aren’t even given a revenue target.
For anyone in sales to perform their best, they need a bit of guidance. Here are three elements that should be in any sales target:
Set the right figures
Giving people a turnover target is important. But make sure you specify the right profit as well. It is important that sales people sell work that makes you enough money!
Tell people the type of work you want
Can a sales person build their target from repeat business or from building the revenue of existing clients? What about new work? Are you happy with anything? It is a good idea to give guidance on the type of job and the type of customer that you want.
Set activity targets
It can be really useful to give some sales people guidance on what you actually expect them to do on a daily basis. Agree how they are going to win the business and how much activity they should be doing. What social media activity are you expecting? Should they make cold calls? How many meetings do you expect them to hold every week. Then everyone knows that they are doing what is expected of them, even if they having some quiet weeks.
Do be sure to set this in conjunction with sales people and keep an eye on it. One company said they expected a certain number of quotes every week. They got them, but often the estimator’s time was being wasted as sales people were just bringing in quote requests from unsuitable customers to meet their targets.
These targets apply to you as well!
If you do sales, try setting yourself these targets. You will find that they really help you stay focussed.
