How to Set Sales Targets and Achieve the Targets

Knowing how to set sales targets and achieve the targets is a valuable skill in every business. Setting a goal and crushing it can be hard. It requires effective planning, zeal, self-discipline, and a clear objective. In the business space, it may even be harder as you will need to bring in several thousands of people to meet this target. You have to spend on resources, ads and employ several working marketing strategies.

If your estimations go right, you will be able to meet your target. What if they go wrong? That means you’ve caused a loss to your business.
You don’t have so much time to play raffle draws on your business. This isn’t a game of luck; it is a game of intention.

How can I set sales targets and achieve the targets? What about the budget? Do I have to increase product prices to increase my sales rate? And how can I calculate my sales target effectively? Relax. You may have a lot of questions disturbing your mind right now.

You don’t have to worry; this is why this post was created. It is aimed at showing you how to set sales targets and achieve your sales target in the most possible, easiest, fastest, and fun way. And as well, answer the basic questions you need to know about sales target.

Shortly before revealing the core aspects of this post, you need to understand the concept of Sales Target. Knowing the meaning will help you to get a firmer grip on how important hitting the right target is to your business. So that brings us to the definition; what is a sales target?

Sales targets at a glance

Do you know archery? It’s a sport. In the setting, you have an arrow, a bow and you stay at a distance away. From this distance, you shoot an arrow to hit the target. The closer you are to hitting your target, the higher your points.

Now, apply the archery concept to your sales tagets. Comparing both:

The target is your sales target. The bow is the path through which you launch your big idea, the people, and the products.
The string is the trigger, your unique plan, and marketing strategies that launch your big idea. The arrow is your big idea. The force with which the arrow is shot determines how fast it hits your target; the time. The points you hit on the target are your profits. And who pulls the trigger? You!

Simply put, launch your big idea through a unique set of plans and strategies by pulling your trigger through a path. With the required amount of force to hit your target. And within a certain time to earn the desired amount of profit.

In a more professional term, sales target is the number of products you have to sell to make a desired amount of profit within a particular time frame. To make it easier, estimate the number of people you need to sell to.

Using a simple multiplication

If you have a product worth $100 and you intend to hit the $10,000 sales target. Then you simply have to sell your $100 product to 100 consumers. A $1000 product only needs 10 consumers. A $10,000 worth of product? you said it right, only 1 consumer.

Having understood what the sales target is, it is time to dive into the core aspects of sales targets. You are about to get into the most interesting parts. Pay close attention to the next paragraph so you don’t miss out on anything.

The next paragraphs explain how to set your sales target. Number 5 is my favorite!

How to set sales targets

1. Master your sales game

Applying the archery concept above, Mastering archery requires a lot of practice, mindset shift, and body coordination. A master archer can hit the target perfectly even with his eyes closed.

Have you also seen this famous drama? Jumong. Jumong is known as a legendary archer but he wasn’t always like this. He was a weakling who loved women and wine. His story changed to being an expert archer after he met a prisoner who trained him to be perfect.

This prisoner later happened to be his father. The reason for the story is not to talk about Jumong but to apply his archery concept to your business.

Nothing beats mastery, it is an accumulation of several mistakes, failures, and not giving up.

At this stage, you may be the weak Jumong. Just as he found it hard to wield a sword and pull a string, you find it hard to hit your sales. To be the expert Jumong? You need to practice being an expert, you have to master your sales game. Only then will you be able to meet your targets.

2. Set realistic goals when setting sales targets

Nobody knows your business more than you do. The major reason why you do not hit your target maybe because you set unrealistic goals.

To set realistic goals you can use the SMART method developed by George Doran in 1981. SMART is an acronym for;
S- specific
M- measurable
Attainable
R- Realistic
T- Timely

3. Make a List of these goals according to priority to boost business productivity

The topmost 20% of your goals will bring in 80% of your required results. So give priority to the most important goal. For more on how to do this, see the post titled The Best Way to Improve Business Productivity.

4. Effective planning

After setting your realistic goals, create a path to achievement by making a layout of your plans. The pricing of your products, your marketing strategies, the channel to find your customers, and estimate the number of people you want to purchase your products.

5. Analyze your marketing activities

The more people you reach, the more you sell. The goal is to achieve your sales targets, and exceed them, not undersell. Why do you think big companies like Jiji and Jumia make ads? Simple, to reach more people. So use every possible means of advertisement to reach a larger audience.

6. Analyze your budget

It is making more profit, not losing all. Estimate your chances before expending your resources on a particular channel. Calculate the expected profit on every expended resource. The output on every process must be greater than the input

7. Understand and analyze customer feedback on products

Customer feedback on products is important. You need people to buy your products. When customers leave satisfied, they come back to purchase more and recommend you to others. This will increase the number of sales and hence hasten your sales target journey.

There you have it, 7 ways to set your sales target. Setting this target isn’t enough, crushing it is the real deal.

However, you don’t have to break a sweat to achieve your sales target. There’s a fun way to do it and that’s number 3 on the Triple C list!

How to achieve your sales target

1. Calls - utilize calls to achieve your sales targets

Are calls effective? Isn’t cold calling privacy intrusion? These are what you think that made you leave out an important part of your selling process. Calls are the most effective ways to figure out your customer’s primal desires. What they want deep down in them. Because, you hear them speak, not just read their text. You get to see their reactions if it’s a video call.

According to Rain Group, 69% of buyers report that they accepted one or more cold calls in 2019. 82% of buyers say they have accepted meetings with salespeople after a series of contacts beginning with sales cold calls. About 51% of company owners say they would rather hear from sales reps via phone compared to email, faxes, drop-in visits, and other media.

And rather than focus on the rejection, focus on those that are interested.

2. Create a network

This is a third-party strategy. To hasten the rate at which you achieve your sales target, you can create a network of marketers or affiliates. They will sell your products and earn a commission in return. This will increase your reach as your affiliates will have their own marketing channels too.

3. Challenges

Have you ever seen your favorite musician or social media influencers start a challenge? This is very common on TikTok. Musicians do this to promote their songs. You can do this to promote your business too.

Say, for example, you sell a book. You can tell your customers to buy your book, take a picture with it, post it on their social media pages, and tag you.

If you sell a digital product, you can tell your customer to write how beneficial your product has been to them or make a video explaining the importance of buying one to a prospect.

The customer with the highest engagement wins your prize.

Conclusively, while applying the methods discussed in this post will help to achieve your sales targets, the Triple C is a self-formulated technique gotten from personal observation of promotion.