Goal setting: Going beyond s.m.a.r.t sales objectives

As salespeople who set objectives, we are usually told to be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound.

In today’s article, we will discuss a SMARTER way of establishing our sales goals in a business environment where ethical business practices has become a challenge, as well as the availability of limited resources to achieve sales goals.

Here are the seven areas of the SMARTER objectives every salesperson must know:

1. Specific: As a salesperson, you must be specific when defining your goals and about what you want to achieve – if they are general, you are less likely to get to your final destination. Specific goals result in specific, focused actions whereas in contrast, vague goals result in vague actions. Ad hoc ways of doing things lead to random results.

“Specific”, therefore, means setting goals with numbers and deadlines linked to them. For instance, ‘I want to increase my sales this year’ is not specific; rather, choose real numbers that you can work towards.

An example of a specific goal will be: ‘By the end of 12 months, I would have sold GH¢5,000,000 worth of product “X” to both existing and new customers. Based on that, my quarterly sales target is GH¢1,250,000.’ Quoting from Zig Ziglar, “You can’t hit a target you can’t see.”

2. Metrics: It is a method of measuring something or the results obtained from something. In simple terms, metrics helps in measuring your progress against what you want to accomplish in the year. From the above ‘specific’, you can define a number of metrics as a guide in meeting the stated goal.

Examples of metrics a salesperson should consider include:

• Tracking the number of lead targets per month, and how many of them you can qualify within a week.

• Tracking the number of new prospects per month and how many of them you can close within three weeks, as well as how many you need to meet your target.

• Track the number of quarterly sales to achieve in order to meet the target.

• Track the cumulative sales with a specific target per quarter.

3: Attainable/Action Plan: A salesperson should set attainable targets, and like the saying goes, “Not to shoot for the moon knowing very well that the moon is farther than they could ever reach”.

As a salesperson, your goals must be challenging so that so that you’ll push yourself to achieve it, but not something that is unattainable. Such a goal will set you up for failure. On another hand, salespeople should avoid setting targets which are so low that they fail to inspire them to success.

It is not enough to set attainable goals, but in addition every salesperson must document the actions that define how they plan to achieve their goal. It is, therefore, important to prioritise your actions so that more time and resources are allocated to the most important activities first.

For example, you might want to prioritise established customers first because of the amount of repeat business you will get from them to grow. Your next priority may be prospects who have been referred to you by your established and happy customers.

4. Realistic: Salespeople should be realistic about their goals. For instance, setting a sales target of GH¢ 50m a year when you don’t have the resources to achieve that, and secondly, where your previous annual sales achieved averages GH¢ 5m in the last two years is not realistic.

Just like any other assignment you set out to do, you want to make sure you’re capable of executing it. Having said that, salespeople are encouraged to set BIG GOALS in situations where they believe that with the right effort and right set of circumstances, their goals could be met. As Zig Ziglar reminds us, “If you can believe it, you can achieve it.”

5. Time-bound: I don’t know about you, but personally, deadlines are a big motivator for me, and the same may apply to many salespeople. As is often said, “A date grounds your goal in reality, and you can look forward to when you will receive the reward that it provides.” For salespeople, each of their goals should have a concrete timeline that they can work towards. However a word of advice, don't keep changing deadlines for your goals. Just keep to the original one laid down and rather do an assessment of why you were able to achieve or not achieve it.

6. Ethical: Ethical issues such as integrity, honesty, truthfulness etc have become very important in selling. So my question is, are you going to achieve your goals in an ethical or unethical way? Therefore in looking at their goals, salespeople must ask whether those goals sit comfortably within their moral values. Goals set for this year must meet very high ethical standard.

7. Resourced: Salespeople must understand that goals cannot be achieved without adequate resources committed. This may include sales managers, money, time, mentors, coaches, information sources or support from friends and colleagues. To an extent, to achieve some sales goals may require you to make some sacrifices, such as long days away from the family, staying out late to network, investing some of your leisure time to learn and perfect the art of selling.

Conclusion S.M.A.R.T.E.R goals help salespeople to focus their attention on two additional elements very key to surviving in the modern business environment – Ethics and Resources. — GB