Setting Realistic Goals

When we make a sale, or take one step closer to meeting our goal, we are overcome with a felling of achievement which motivates us to sell more.

I’m sure that anybody who is reading this article has been in the situation where they may have been given unobtainable goals from one of their bosses, sales manager’s, or some higher up somewhere in the company.

When goals are given that are unrealistic, the mission is doomed from the beginning. It immediately gives a feeling of despair to the sales team, which can be devastating to morale.

The sales team will do their duty and work as hard as they can to obtain the goals, but when they fall short, they will have feelings of failure, and will be reluctant to move on.

Simply stated, unrealistic goals, take the fun out of selling.

A personal story . . .

During my years in the banking industry, I managed a sales team in a small branch inside of a grocery store. This is what is known as In-store banking. It was estimated that seven thousand people came through the grocery store where my branch was located on a weekly basis.

With that statistic, my sales team was given a goal of opening up six checking accounts per day, among other things.

This would be a monthly goal of one hundred and eighty checking accounts per month. To me and my team, this was highly unrealistic.

Then, In-store banking was brand new to the banking industry, and these goals were being handed down by people who never once stepped foot in an in-store branch.

Please understand, I am not bitter about this, I am just stating the facts, and believe this to be an on going problem with companies.

This problem works both ways. Sometimes the goals being handed down are not enough, and a sales team will fall short of what their potential could be.

Needless to say, my sales team never met their daily, weekly, or monthly goals. We did however, fight the good fight and manage to hold our own. But morale was never what it should have been.

Every six months my team and I would attend the semiannual sales rally, where we would sit and watch as the other branches so proudly accepted their awards for meeting their goals. It pained me to watch my team walk away empty handed knowing that they worked so hard.

My point is, when goals are being set, they need to be realistic and obtainable. The more you or your team reach their goal the more motivated they will be.

Once you are reaching your goal at a steady pace, challenge yourself or your team, and raise the bar. Challenge them to reach higher on a daily basis

Keep in mind, when you raise the bar, keep this new goal realistic as well, you don’t want to become over confident and put your goals out of reach.

One last thing . . .

The goals that are being set, should be put in place by a person or people who know you, your staff, and your demographics. Not by somebody in an ivory tower.

If they are not being put into place by the appropriate people, suggest this idea to someone in your organization that you can trust.

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