Your sales goals should continually evolve to fit the business’s needs and the direction it’s heading. Having a set of goals gives your sales team something to aim for and a blueprint to build a sales strategy. But how do you define goals for yourself and your team? This guide looks at the importance of sales goals and why every startup needs them.
Have the required information
You’ll need to know everything about the business to set your sales goals. This includes internal and external factors, such as the real capacity of the company based on its resources and skills. Once you’ve laid out this information, you can begin thinking about realistic goals and sales KPIs for your sales team. Essentially, you need to define what ‘realistic’ looks like at your startup.
Evaluate the sales team
As a startup, you might find yourself in a position where you need to scale quickly and build a sales team. That’s great news, but it does mean managing expectations while everyone finds their feet. It takes time and money to get the right reps in place, let alone keep them happy. Before defining quotas, ensure the team can handle what you’re asking and understand the process. You’ll need to evaluate what they’re ready to tackle and clarify achievable goals with an intelligent analysis of your team’s capabilities.
Be strategic and stick to the process
People reach their goals by being strategic, no matter the initial aim. They research best practices, develop their own versions and aren’t afraid to fail. With that mindset, it’s only a matter of time until you achieve success. So when thinking about your sales goals, look at the bigger picture and embrace your inner strategist. Not all of your goals will land, but that’s fine if it turns out to be a learning opportunity. As long as you carry on with the process, you can expect to hit your targets.
Start from the bottom
To achieve sales targets, you’ll need to understand how to reach them. You can do this with a bottom-up revenue approach that projects micro-level inputs to assess revenue for a given year or set of years. It can help you estimate the business’s future based on sales reps’ performances or individual sales. Essentially, a bottom-up revenue approach looks at your company’s health by examining the basics. It can lead to smarter goal setting.
Think about the type of goal
There are many different ways to reach your sales targets. Therefore, you should think about the type of goals and what they mean for your business. Perhaps you’ll focus on closing goals, the most basic sales goal where reps work to reach a set number of total sales. Alternatively, you may set size-related goals, which see your sales team focus on increasing the size of each sale rather than the numbers. Knowing the type of goal gives you a clearer indication of how to reach the right targets for your business.
The importance of sales goals
Setting reasonable sales goals is vital to achieving your targets and moving your startup in the right direction. So whether you’re focusing on the type of goals or evaluating the capabilities of your sales team, make sure there’s a clear plan of action designed to help you attain those all-important sales goals.