Achieving 2010 sales goals
It’s now late December and either you are on vacation or in the office catching up on your paperwork. Most customers are doing the same, so now is an excellent time to sit down and set your goals for the coming year. Here are some goal setting tips for you…
- Top Down. If you have objectives set by your management they should, of course, be in there. If you have larger personal or life goals they should also feed into your 2010 sales goals.
- SMART. Make your goals SMART ones…
- Make your goals tangible. What will it feel like to achieve those goals? Imagine what you will buy with the commission, what will you do on your President’s Club trip, how will it feel when you get presented with the Sales Person of the Year award at the next annual sales meeting? Use all of your senses here… imagine what that champagne will taste like!
- Include professional goals as well as sales targets. What job do you want to be doing this time next year? Do you want to move to another company? Do you want to set up on your own as a rep? What new skills do you want to attain in the next year?
- Learn from your mistakes. Take the opportunity to look back on 2009. What did you do well, what could you have improved upon and how? What will you do differently this year?
- Reward yourself along the way. Regardless of what your company’s reward policy might be, give yourself some treats along the way for goals/milestones achieved.
- Keep the number of goals manageable. Nobody was ever one-sixteenth committed to anything. Better to have two really crunchy, very specific, achievable goals than sixteen flaky goals including how often you should back-up your PC.
S = Specific. What, why, and how?
M = Measurable. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it!
A = Attainable. You probably won’t really commit to a goal that’s out of reach. Too easy and you won’t get that sense of achievement when you get there.
R = Realistic. Is it something that is under your control? If not it’s a hope not a goal.
T = Timely. Set a timeframe. Include milestones along the way… don’t just set a year-end goal.
The observant amongst you will notice that I promised to give you five tips and actually gave you seven… now that’s what I call value! More on exceeding the customer’s expectations in 2010.
Happy New Year and good selling in 2010!
[...] will recall that in late 2009 we looked at how to set sales goals for 2010. Well it may have escaped your notice but it’s getting to the end of Q1, so how are you [...]