Most sales forces use sales goals to focus attention on what’s important and give salespeople direction about what to do. Goals energize people and encourage them to keep going. Very often, companies link sales force incentive pay to goal achievement. This makes effective goal setting essential for directing and motivating sales teams and controlling sales compensation costs.
7 Ways Sales Teams Can Set Better Goals
Most sales forces use territory goals as a tool for motivating and managing salespeople. Even in today’s data-rich environment, however, it’s often difficult to overcome the uncertainty inherent in goal setting. Especially in unpredictable selling environments (volatile economies, strategic shifts, markets with lots of new products), accurate goal setting is a big challenge. Matters are also complicated by digital sales and communication channels that influence customers and blur the effect of salespeople’s effort on customer buying decisions. Increasingly, companies need to prepare for the reality that territory sales goals may miss the mark. Sales force motivation could suffer if goals are too aggressive. On the flip side, salespeople could get undeserved incentive payouts, should goals be too easily achieved. This piece outlines 7 strategies to help companies set better sales goals.