Sales goals are the lifeblood of any B2B business, driving revenue and growth while serving as a key indicator of overall success.
In today’s competitive marketplace, having well-defined sales goals can help companies stay focused, motivated, and on track to achieve long-term success.
What are sales goals?
Sales goals are specific, measurable, time-bound objectives set by organizations. With smart goals, companies can achieve revenue targets, increase market share and achieve sustainable growth.
A broad objective like “increase revenue” does not provide sales teams with a clear roadmap for how to achieve it. Effective goals require breaking down high-level objectives into specific, actionable behaviors and tasks that can be tracked and measured on a daily or weekly basis.
Consider incorporating these objectives into your performance management scheme:
- Number of new leads
- Conversations with C-suite executives
- Frequency of cross-selling or upselling products
- Weekly Pipeline-Velocity
How to achieve your sales goals
Sales goals are the backbone of your B2B organization – but achieving your goals may be easier said than done. Use these practical strategies and tactics to help your sales team set and achieve goals that will move your organization forward and maintain your competitive edge.
1.Identify and communicate SMART sales goals
Setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals are the first step to achieving sales success.
SMART goals provide a framework for sales reps and teams to focus their efforts on specific objectives and track their progress toward achieving them. Here are 5 SMART sales goal examples:
- Generate 50 new leads per month from targeted accounts by Q2
- Schedule 10 meetings with C-level executives by the end of Q3
- Achieve a 25% conversion rate on inbound leads by the end of the year
- Increase average deal size by 20% within the next 3 months
- Close 3 new deals with existing customers by the end of the quarter
Your organization should set individual goals that align with reps’ strengths and skill sets. Doing this will help establish team goals that foster collaboration and healthy competition among reps.
Once you establish your sales goals, communicate them clearly to your team. Identify why each goal is important and explain the incentives and rewards tied to meeting or exceeding expectations. You can do this through bonuses, promotions, or company recognition.
2.Provide accountability and guidance through sales coaching
Sales coaching provides critical accountability for your salespeople. It also empowers them to identify the gaps between their current performance and their goals.
Within your company, your sales coaching program might include the following:
- One-on-one coaching sessions
- Team feedback
- Performance metrics tracking
Effective coaching can help sales teams identify and overcome challenges, improve their sales techniques, and build stronger customer relationships. All of which can move your team closer to achieving your most important goals.
You can also enhance the impact of your sales coaching by incorporating the right technology into your approach.
With Pitcher Coaching, you can teach your sales team to use your key messaging more effectively as they engage with prospects and customers. Using Pitcher’s sales enablement analytics will also help you assess each rep’s individual performance, so you provide helpful feedback during your coaching sessions.
3. Collaborate to create best practices for your sales team
Sales teams that collaborate can leverage the strengths of all team members to improve overall performance and increase the chances of achieving sales goals.
Encourage open communication and collaboration among your team members and create opportunities for group brainstorming and problem-solving.
A great way to do this is through creating and maintaining an up-to-date sales playbook of documented strategies, tactics, and best practices. Your reps can share what worked (and what didn’t) and then use these to help guide them on each step of the sales process.
Sales playbooks distill the collective knowledge and skills of top performers. They provide a structured, repeatable approach to the selling process that can help drive success and growth.
New sales reps can use playbooks to quickly get up to speed on your sales process and learn best practices. Experienced sales reps can use them to stay up-to-date on the latest techniques and approaches.
4. Track progress and measure KPIs
Setting goals won’t help you scale if you’re not measuring your progress. When you’re regularly monitoring KPIs, you can spot problems more easily and adjust your strategy to get back on track.
Some KPIs you can track:
- Sales revenue
- Sales growth
- Customer acquisition rate
- Sales conversion rate
You can leverage a variety of technology solutions to track sales progress, including:
- CRM software
- Business intelligence tools
- Sales enablement solutions
With Pitcher’s sales enablement platform, you’ll get insights into the performance of individual sales reps and the team as a whole. You’ll be able to identify areas for improvement and take corrective action.
With real-time analytics, you can find out exactly what content has been downloaded, opened, and presented during sales interactions. This will allow you to see what actions your reps are taking as they progress toward meeting their goals.
With these metrics, you can make data-driven decisions in your sales organization, and personalize sales coaching to address the challenges of each individual sales rep.
5. Drive conversions with personalized sales content
Sales enablement technology can help reps provide personalized and relevant customer content, such as sales collateral and product information. This can improve engagement, drive sales, and provide valuable data on how customers interact with content.
With Pitcher, you can create and store a library of customizable, reusable content, including presentations, case studies, proposals, and more. Reps can easily tailor the content to meet each prospect’s specific needs and interests. This helps to ensure that every buyer gets relevant, personalized materials throughout the sales cycle.
Sales enablement software can also automate the process of content distribution. This will ensure that reps have access to the most up-to-date and relevant content.
6. Provide customized training
With in-depth sales training, your reps can learn essential selling skills like prospecting, lead generation, negotiation, and objection handling. Sales training can also provide sales reps with a better understanding of your company’s products or services, and the value they provide to customers.
But despite the many benefits of training, delivery often falls flat. Gartner research indicates that B2B sales reps will forget 70% of the information they learn within one week of training. A whopping 87% will forget the majority of what they learn within a month.
You can fight against these odds by creating personalized, role-based training for your sales reps. AI-enabled training can help your organization identify sellers’ learning styles, recognize the most effective learning materials for that style, and make customized recommendations to sellers about how they can present information to buyers.
With Pitcher’s just-in-time (JIT) sales training, you can provide reps with the right information and training exactly when they need it. This helps improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their sales interactions.
JIT training can be delivered in a variety of formats, such as short videos, interactive quizzes, or tool tips. This allows sales reps to access the training on their own time and in a way that best suits their learning style. You can customize JIT training to meet the specific needs of each sales rep, ensuring they receive the most relevant training for their role and experience level.
For example, if a sales rep is struggling to close a deal, JIT training can provide them with the specific information and resources they need to address objections and close the sale. This can help to improve the overall performance of the sales team and increase the likelihood of achieving your sales goals.
Reach your sales goals and build a high-performing team
By implementing these strategies, your company can improve performance and achieve its most important sales goals.
Did you know that teams that incorporate a sales playbook into their workflows are 33% more likely to be high performers with a win rate of over 50%?
To find out how you can use sales playbooks to achieve your organization’s individual and team goals, download our free ebook, Upgrade Your Sales Playbook.
Get fresh insights monthly, straight to your inbox. Subscribe to the Pitcher newsletter here.