In order to set sales goals I must also have my personal goals in order.  AspireNow will address personal goals in the Discover Your Purpose and Smooth Sailing sections in the months ahead.  But for now, I can take a look at the basic questions I must be able to answer to have a good grip on what I will do over the next year.

Setting Personal Goals

1. What are the key reasons I am selling?
2. How can I best balance my life to maximize these features in my life?
3. How important is money to me?
4. How much time am I willing to dedicate to my success in this career?
5. How can I best structure my day?

The answer to these questions varies slightly for each person.  They must be answered, though, to have a full picture of where I am headed.  Once I've answered these questions, I look more closely at the financial aspects (this is because salespeople are most frequently measured by the amount of revenue).

Setting Sales Financial Goals (leads to activity goals)

1. How much money do I want to earn this year?
2. What % of each revenue dollar sold does my compensation plan pay?
3. How many appointments must I make to achieve my annual goal?

The SWEAR Formula to define activities required to achieve financial goal:

1.  Suspects - out of 100 people  how many potential suspects must I call/write-to/email to get an appointment?  (answer = a)

2.  Prospects - how many of these (a) who I meet will become I legitimate prospect? (answer = b)

3.  What is my closing ratio (% of prospects where customer buys)= (cr)

4.  Suspect ratio:  divide closing ratio by (a)  = % of suspects closed or (sr)

5.  Number of face-to-face meetings required to close prospect? (answer = n)

6.  Average sale amount = (as)

7. Commission percentage of each dollar is: (cp) express as .05, for example

8. Average commission per sale:  (as) x (cp) = (ac)

9. Amount  I want to earn is: (i)

10. Divide amount I want to earn (i) by average commission (ac):  (i)/(ac) = (NS) number of sales required

11. Multiply number of sales required (NS) by number of face-to-face meetings required (n) and divide that result by closing ratio (cr) = (NS) x  (n) / (cr) = (MR) meetings required, in one year, to achieve sales success.

 

Now I take 46 selling weeks (the number of weeks I'm actually going to work is not 52, but 46 due to 2 weeks of 

sales training, 3 weeks vacation and 1 week of holidays ), and apply the MR to determine the exact number of appointments I'll need per week, as follows:

 

12.  Selling Weekly Earnings Activity Requirement:  (MR) divided by 46 weeks in selling year

    MR divided by 46 = SWEAR

 

If you do not yet know your suspect ratio or closing ratio, keep track!  Here's an example to use until you know yours:

1. a = 30

2. b = 10 (prospect ratio)

3. cr = 20% 

4. sr = 2 out of 100 or 2%

5. n = 6 (a reasonable number for most salespeople although I personally require 4)

6. as = $100,000 (used for sake of this example, yours may vary)

7. cp = 5% or .05

8. ac = $100,000 x .05 = $5,000 (avg. commission per sale)

9. i = amount I want to earn in commissions = $80,000

10.  NS = 80,000/5,000 = 16 (sales required this year to achieve my goal)

11.  MR = (16 x 6)/ (.2) = 480 (meetings required, in one year, to achieve sales success.

12. SWEAR = MR /46 .....  480/46 = 10.43

 

This means I'll have to schedule 10.43 meetings per week to achieve my goal.  I will need to improve my closing ratio, commission percentage, or amount of average sale if I intend to make more money in the same amount of time.

 

Also, using a similar equation, you can determine total number of calls/emails you'll need to send out using the suspect ratio as follows:  NS x n / (SR) = 16 x 6 / .02 = 4,800 / 46 = 104.3 prospecting events required per week.

Again, the closing ratio, commission percentage and average sale amounts can affect this activity number too.

Try it with the following numbers:  Average sale = 500,000, earnings goal = 200,000, closing percentage is 30%, and average number of appoints to close sale is 4 and see how drastically this affects the number!

Setting Account-specific goals

1. Account specific goals are important, such as, defining our products on the customer's standards list.  This is an example of an account-specific strategy.
2. For now, pick three strategies (product/service focus, account to succeed in a certain way, etc.).  
3. In my experience, I've found that starting with large goals for the annual picture but breaking them down into smaller distinct wins helps achieve long-term big picture results that otherwise I could lose sight of.  So, break down large goals into smaller ones.  Then focus on those.

We've made a lot of headway in our selling planning.  Planning is essential to success.  

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