Why is hitting target so difficult these days?

Recently the Bridge Group determined that an average of 50% of sales folk are not achieving their targets.

We reference the ’sales torment’ on our website, what we mean is things in the sales world have got a whole lot tougher these days. The complex sale, the plethora of different communication channels now available but seemingly on lock down, a buyers impatience to be contacted and their laser focus on getting speedy turnarounds at a great price.

Generally sales leaders and their teams need be a whole lot savvier and commercially aware but the basics still stand. Usually a great sales leader is motivated by achieving their numbers, so what needs to happen if their team is missing its sales targets?

Firstly I would suggest a look at their sales strategy, maybe re-evaluate their sales processes, their coaching and the skillset and motivation of the team.

I have listed our top ten areas for consideration in case the numbers start going in the wrong direction - the truth is there are lots more but these ten are a great place to start:

1. What is my purpose in life?

It may sound obvious but link the overall objectives and goals to the sales targets with the team then breaking these down specifically for themselves, what is their role in achieving the overall objectives. Once the goals are documented they can be used to isolate the opportunities and shortfalls. If the goals don’t exist the targets will be unattainable and don't forget these need to be SMART.

2. When to raise targets

Recent Forbes research determined: “Employees avoid exceeding targets if they know it will inflate future expectations. Too often, work targets are routine adjustments based simply on historical performance.”

A lot of thought needs to go into determining sales targets and when to raise them. Hitting a sales target needs to be celebrated and rewarded, by raising targets simply because someone has achieved leads to demotivation.

3. Don't forget your role as a coach

If you’re not coaching your team you could actually be part of the problem. We all want to create highly successful sales teams that sell but if we aren’t mentoring and coaching it is unlikely we will get the respect that is key to creating great sales teams.

The Sales Executive Council found that sales folk who received 3 or more hours of coaching per month had 17% higher goal achievement than others who received less than 2.

4. Rubbish leads

Do you have a list of your top most wanted prospects and have you defined what makes them your top most wanted? Once you are able to define what a good lead looks like you need to work closely with the marketing team to make sure you have the best content and targeting tools to drive qualified leads across multiple channels.

5. One big happy family

It's simple, your sales and marketing teams needs to be friends. My own experience of hitting targets consistently usually involves strong alignment between sales and marketing. Quite often when things are going bad its because sales and marketing folk have a negative impression of each other and are not aligned. Prospects don’t care about sales and marketing they just want one face with the same goals.

6. Going through the motions

You need to be fixed on delivering the right culture within your team to deliver. Quite often if there is a lack of motivation or folk are not engaged properly then guess what, you’re likely to be missing targets. My usual advice would be to jump on this with coaching were possible as the rot usually sets in pretty quickly if not combatted.

7. Be dogmatic

My own experience has proven to me that you need to be dogmatic in sales to deliver numbers. Quite often it would take me up to 9 or 10 contacts with a lead to begin making any kind of progress. You will see most internet stats tell you that most folk give up after 4 contacts but the same stats will also show you that 80% of most sales are successful after the 5th - 12th contact. These can be taken with a pinch of salt but my own experience is in line with these.

8. Use the data

Make sure you use KPI’s to determine campaign success. How many calls/emails/contacts do I need to make in order to deliver £xyz of target? If you aren’t tracking the data including connections, conversations, meetings, proposals, wins and losses for example how will you improve and grow each year?

9. Stay close to your funnel

I would suggest that you should be deep diving into the sales funnel every week to stay on top of each of the higher opportunities but also to identify if any patterns of win or lose are forming. These can seriously help shape future success. Build a scorecard of your opportunities before assigning them to the funnel.

10. Don't let prospects fall through the cracks

Another reason for laser focus on the pipeline is what I call sales cycle scope creep. Seemingly nothing has changed but things are taking longer to close - when this happens there’s more chance you can lose a prospect. So a deep dive to see where you can tighten things up will usually help improve the pace of conversion.

If you have any questions or any particular challenges you would like to discuss please feel free to leave us your details and we’ll be in touch shortly.