As a salesperson, setting goals is a great way to keep your team motivated and focused on a certain outcome. It helps you build the career you desire. Without goals, evaluating your performance would be quite impossible and there wouldn’t be much progress made.
You must establish achievable, realistic sales goals to set yourself up for success. You want to set goals that’ll improve motivation and encourage growth while challenging you to work hard. However, setting sales goals for the team won’t necessarily be as simple as it may seem.
To set an objective for yourself, you need to use the system called “SMART goals” to help you. What are SMART goals? How does it work? Well, continue reading this article to find out.
S.M.A.R.T: What Does It Stand For?
SMART goals can help build a strong foundation for reaching business success. SMART is a popular business acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-based.
A SMART goal includes all these elements to help focus your efforts and widen the odds of accomplishing your goals. Each component of the SMART system works together to establish a clear and trackable goal that’s carefully planned. Each component also has its own meaning.
SPECIFIC
When setting goals, you want to be as specific and clear as possible with what you hope to accomplish. Narrow your goal by including numbers and adding a timeline. This in return will better your understanding of the necessary steps in achieving those goals.
Specific goals are more likely to be achieved. Try using concrete numbers in your goals like the specific amount of money in revenue you want to make. You can also include how much you want to spend on expenses within a year.
Also, list specific dates you want these goals to be accomplished. Doing so will provide you with a greater target to work towards. If you have trouble making your goals specific, consider these five “W” questions:
- Who: Who is the person involved in this goal?
- What: What do I wish to achieve?
- When: When do I want to attain this goal?
- Where: Where will this goal be accomplished?
- Why: Why do I want to achieve this goal?
Some examples of short specific goals would be:
- “I will develop enough confidence to present my business plan to the bank. I will do this by faithfully completing every assignment in the Business Success program. This is to get a small business loan to start my business.”
- “To actively promote my business, I will implement low-cost ways of promoting my business, including creating a social media plan.”
- “I will lose 10 pounds in two months by running on a treadmill for 30 minutes, six days a week.”
- “To improve my small business’s bottom-line, and make more money, I’ll cut my business costs by 10 percent this quarter.”
- “I want to obtain a membership at my local gym and work out four days a week to be healthier.”
MEASURABLE
A SMART goal must have a standard for measuring progress. Without concrete numbers, measuring growth and success is quite difficult. Use measurement to outline your sales goals, as you need evidence that’ll prove you’re improving towards your goal.
Setting milestones down the line gives you the chance to re-assess and course-correct as much as you need to. Think of what metrics you’ll be using to determine whether you meet the goal. This results in a more tangible goal by providing ways to measure your improvements.
To make your goals more measurable, ask yourself the following questions:
- How many or much will this goal accomplish?
- How’ll I know if I’ve reached my goal, or is there anything to measure my success/failure towards my goal?
- What’s my indicator of progress or how will I come to know whether I have achieved my goal or not?
You must quantify your improvement and know the numbers. Figuring your goals out is an intelligent thing to do. However, understanding the road towards accomplishing them is better, and only possible if you have the answers to those questions. You must measure your progress in achieving your goals periodically.
Some examples of measurable goals would be:
- “I will apply to three open positions for the manager of a development team at a tech startup.”
- “ I will pitch my first three clients within two weeks, aiming to pitch five per week thereafter.”
- “By December, I will only have organic foods and healthy snacks in my pantry.”
- “I will improve the number of projects I complete monthly by a factor of two.”
- “I’ll be ready to take my first Etsy order within four weeks, aiming to sell minimally five cards per week.”
ACHIEVEMENT
It isn’t wise to set a goal that’s impossible to reach. Set an achievable goal that you’re able to sensibly accomplish within a specific timeframe. Determine whether your goal is something you can achieve now.
Or, are there more preparatory steps needed for you to take to better prepare yourself. Your smart goals should be a balance of something that challenges you and requires hard work, yet is still achievable.
This will allow you to stay focused and motivated. It’ll also help you figure out ways to realize your goal and work to accomplish it. You should ask yourself:
- Do I have the capabilities and resources needed to accomplish my goal? If not, what am I missing?
- Is it a feasible recourse?
- Does the end outweigh the means?
- Have others achieved it before?
Some examples of achievable goals would be:
- “I’m going to lose two pounds every week by choosing healthy meal options over-processed foods.”
- “I will competently outline what I can do for businesses, I will perfect my pitch, and work on my portfolio.”
- “I’m going to compose a book by writing 2,500 words per week.”
- “I have a reasonably successful small business that is ready to handle a growth in sales.”
RELEVANT
You want to contemplate whether or not your goals are relevant when setting smart goals for yourself. They should be practical in that they can be realistically achieved given the available time and resources.
Each goal should line up with your values and wider, long-term goals. Growth takes time, so you shouldn’t rush to set unrealistic goals. If you believe that your goals can be achieved, then they’re likely realistic. You should ask yourself:
- Why is the goal important to me?
- How will achieving it help me?
- Is the goal practical and within reach?
- Can I reach this goal, given the time and resources?
- How will this goal contribute toward my long-term goals?
- Am I able to commit to achieving the goal?
It’s good to start new things and expand. However, it should be a branch of vision that already exists and not an inconvenient addition.
Some examples of relevant goals are:
- “I want to be promoted to CMO because I enjoy digital marketing. I’m currently excelling in X, Y, and Z digital marketing practices. I believe that via a promotion I can further grow the business via X, Y and Z.”
- “Improving the customer experience on mobile devices is a core initiative for my company this year.”
- “By increasing blog traffic, we’ll boost brand awareness and generate more leads, giving sales more opportunities to close.”
TIME-BASED
A SMART goal must be time-based, for setting concrete deadlines is one of the most significant aspects of smart goals. A goal without time constraint means no sense of urgency, which results in less motivation to accomplish the goal.
What is your goal time frame? Having a deadline can help motivate you and allow you to prioritize. Creating an end date or set time length for each of your goals can help maintain productivity. It can also make it easier to map out your task timeline.
If you were unsuccessful in accomplishing your goal in that time frame, then take the time to ask yourself why. Maybe your deadline was unrealistic, or your goal was unachievable. You could’ve run into some unexpected obstacles. For a time-based smart goal, ask yourself:
- Does my goal have a deadline?
- By what date do I wish to achieve my goal?
Some examples of time-based goals include:
- “To achieve my goal of being in leadership, I will update my resume with relevant qualifications. This is so I can apply to three open positions for the manager of a tech development team this week.”
- “By increasing average views per native video on Facebook, we’ll boost our social media following and brand awareness. With this, we’ll reach more potential customers with our video content.”
Why Should I Use SMART Goals in Sales?
Using SMART goals in sales will allow you to set boundaries. It defines the steps required to take, necessary resources to get there and milestones that show improvement along the way. Some businesses often set themselves up for failure when they set unrealistic, general goals.
Your goals shouldn’t be vague with no sense of direction. Making your goals specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based will set you up for success. This method can help push you while giving you a sense of direction and helping you organize to reach goals.
SMART goals make you more likely to accomplish your goal both effectively and efficiently.
How to Set SMART Goals in Sales
Increase Monthly/Annual Revenue
Specific: “We will increase our revenue by $50,000 this quarter. We’ll also save on some operating expenses like daily cleaning services, thus saving $2,000 monthly.”
Measurable: “We will increase sales over the next quarter by focusing on the following outcomes:
- Having 10 meetings booked weekly.
- Five phone calls daily.
- Prospecting to 30 people daily.”
Achievable: “Sign seven new contracts with customers.”
Relevant: “Keep it relevant. We’ll launch two new premium features based on the most requested features. We’ll also focus on getting our most active users upscale to our premium partner program.”
Time-based: “By the end of the first quarter of 2020.”
Increase Customer Lifetime Value
Specific: “Increase customer lifetime value from $3000 to $5000.”
Measurable: “Maintain a Net Promoter score of 9/10. Have 6/10 long-serving customers switch to annual billing.”
Achievable: “Engage 10 best serving clients in case studies and promote to your email list. Send monthly personalized emails to your clients offering to help solve their bottlenecks.”
Relevant: “Reduce first response time from six hours to three hours and then to two minutes. Adopt live chat support by the end of January. Update knowledge base monthly with new educational resources.”
Time-based: “At the end of the first quarter of 2020.”
Blog Traffic Goal
Specific: “I want to boost our blog’s traffic by increasing our weekly publishing frequency from five to eight times a week. Our two bloggers will increase their workload from writing two posts a week to three posts a week, and our editor will increase her workload from writing one post a week to two posts a week.”
Measurable: “Our goal is an eight percent increase in traffic.”
Achievable: “Our blog traffic increased by five percent last month when we increased our weekly publishing frequency from three to five times a week.”
Relevant: “By increasing blog traffic, we’ll boost brand awareness and generate more leads, giving sales more opportunities to close.”
Time-Based: “End of this month.”
Conclusion
Running a business can be quite difficult without SMART sales goals for you and your team to work towards. Using the SMART method can help you in moving forward with your career and accomplishing the success you desire. Goals can be quite challenging.
However, the SMART system will organize the process and provide structure before you begin. At Business Marketing Engine, we are a diverse team of individuals with one goal: to help our clients grow their businesses. For our services, visit our website. For more information, contact us today.