You can't expect to see your sales improve if you're not prioritizing your time in the right areas of your business. The core of your organization's growth starts with sales, and you can only take your business to the next level by increasing sales revenue. Here are some ways that show you how to create sales goals to boost your small business to the next level.
Decide What You Want to Achieve You need to pinpoint exactly how much money you need to make. That might be hitting a certain dollar amount in sales, growing them by X%, or increasing sales a certain amount for a given product.
Try breaking up your sales goals into smaller ones. So if your goal is to increase sales by 30% by the end of 12 months, break that down into quarterly or monthly goals. That might look like:
- Sell 50,000 of our new candle line of products
- Office must sell 2,500 per week of new candle line
- Get every salesperson to boost his numbers by 15%
- Increase profit margin on all products by 5%
Each of these is a goal in and of itself, and they all should contribute to that overall goal of increasing sales by 30%.
Create and Assign Tasks to Accomplish Sales Goals
Goals won't achieve themselves! You'll need to create a list of items that need to happen in order to make your goals a reality. You might be the person to own these tasks, or you might need to assign them to others on your team.
So the action items for your sales goal might be:
- Hire 2 more salespeople
- Increase prices by 5%
- Invest 20,000 in marketing (social media, Facebook ads, direct mail promotions)
For each item, make sure it has an owner and a deadline. Many tasks can be (and should be) completed long before you measure results for that goal, so put them on a calendar and make sure the owner knows she's responsible for it. For items that will take more time, it's a good idea to meet with your team monthly to track their progress and remove any obstacles that are keeping the business from moving toward that goal.
Start with a Baseline In order to grow your sales (and measure that growth) you have to know where you are right now. Dig into your accounting software or sales data to answer the following questions:
- How many customers have you averaged each month over the past year?
- What dollar amount is your average sale?
- Has there been any growth or shrinkage in your numbers over the past year?
Answering these questions gets you a baseline you can use to measure future results. Ideally, they'll improve from where they are right now.
If you want to grow your business, you'll need your focus on what you know your business can do and what you want it to do. Setting sales goals -- even if you don't accomplish them every time -- keeps your sights set on the horizon.
Determining where you need your sales to be can be difficult without an organized sales process. Do you need some help with your sales? I have a gift for you. Jeffrey Gitomer, one of my favorite sales experts, and I are giving you a free, five-part webinar series called, "How to Really Make Sales." You might know Jeffrey from his New York Times Bestseller, "The Little Red Book of Selling." Jeffrey is an authority on sales, and I know you'll benefit tremendously from the knowledge and advice during the "How to Really Make Sales" five-part webinar series.
Register here: http://www.getsales14.com
Mark your calendar: The Webinar series will take place LIVE on GoToMeeting at 1pm and replay at 4pm and 7pm that same day.
- Thursday Nov. 6, 1pm ET - How to Network and Make an Appointment
- Wednesday Nov. 12, 1pm ET - How to Make a Sales Call
- Thursday Nov. 20, 1pm ET - How to Close a Sale
- Thursday Dec. 4, 1pm ET - How to Build a Relationship
If you miss one - not to worry, it will replay twice after it's recorded, so it will be available for you when you are ready to learn.
Get your gift today:
- Visit this link: http://www.getsales14.com
- Enter your first name in the registration box
- Enter your email address beneath that
- Attend all five FREE sessions on attracting the right clients and customers into your business.
We only have 1,000 spots open for this series. Between Jeffrey's contacts and mine, we're going to fill those well before the start date of the event. I want you to get in before we reach capacity. Register here today.
This article was originally published under the title How to Develop Sales Goals for Your Small Business at succeedasyourownboss.com
Melinda F. Emerson, SmallBizLady is America's #1 small business expert. She is an author, speaker and small business coach whose areas of expertise include small business start-up, business development and social media marketing. She writes a weekly column for the New York Times, publishes a resource blog, www.succeedasyourownboss.com which is syndicated through the Huffington Post. She also hosts a weekly talk show on Twitter called #SmallBizChat for small business owners. As a brand, she reaches 1.5 million entrepreneurs a week on the internet. As CEO of Quintessence Multimedia, Melinda develops audio, video and written content to fulfill her mission to end small business failure. Forbes Magazine named Melinda Emerson one of the #1 Woman for Entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter. Melinda has been featured on MSNBC, Fox News, NBC Nightly News, and in Fortune, The Washington Post, USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Black Enterprise. She is the bestselling author of "Become Your Own Boss in 12 months; A Month-by-Month Guide to a Business That Works," and the ebook How to Become a Social Media Ninja; 101 Ways to Dominate Your Competition Online.