How to Set Sales Goals & Quotes

Goals and quotas tell your sales staff exactly what you expect from them.

Sales goals and quotas help your business define its performance expectations and tells your staff what is expected of them within given time periods. A goal is the number of sales you want to reach. Set this number higher than historical sales to encourage growth. Sales quotas are your expectations for individual salespeople and the staff as a whole. Be sure your staff knows that they must exceed their quotas and will be rewarded for reaching their goals.

Things You'll Need

• Financial records

Instructions

1. Review the sales and financial records of your business. Determine the average amount of sales made in your store(s) daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly.

2. Gather your sales staff for a meeting. Involve each of your sales professionals in an open discussion about the sales trends of your business. Listen and take notes about each of their ideas and expectations.

3. Review the ideas that came from your sales meeting. Use the ideas that mesh with your own and take a close look at the others for incentives you had not considered. Set business goals using these ideas.

4. Break your sales goals and break them down into specific time frames. Make your yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily goals higher than your historical numbers to encourage business growth.

5. Establish quotas for each of your time periods. Explain to the staff that these quotas are the minimum number of sales you will accept from them.

6. Make it clear that you want your business to grow. Set up a reward system that shows them you are willing to offer bonuses, awards and other recognition to all sales professionals who reach their quotas and allow you to reach your higher goals.

References

• Sales MBA: Setting Sales Quotas for Your Sales Team
• Sales MBA: Sales Manager's Guide to Establishing Sales Quotas
• Sales Force Assessments: Setting Sales Quotas and Targets