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The Secret Sauce to Sales Management Success! Part 2

Guest post by: Ralph Burns

Article Overview: The "secret sauce" to sales management success is getting your sales reps to set their own goals for themselves.

The Secret Sauce to Sales Management Success! Part 2

Most of us have had some sort of training on goal setting. We discussed that goals are very important. Many studies have proven that goal setting, and writing them down is critical to your success. That is all well and good, but most people do not actually set goal for themselves, they definitely want things and they have dreams about what they want but rarely do they ever write them down.

The "secret sauce" to sales management success is getting your sales reps to set their own goals for themselves.

Just to review, we talked about why goals are so important, why they are the secret sauce for your sales management success and sales success at your company and how to tie those goals into the perfection mindset. And lastly we discussed why they actually do work and some things you can explain to your sales people in the goal setting workshop.

We explain in far more detail inside the Sales Management Mastery Academy in the "Setting the Bar Higher Course".

One of the most important things to remember when you are setting goals and helping your sales people in setting goals, this isn't about you setting goals for yourself. I am going to assume that you have set goals for yourself. You can take some of the information in this show to revise your own goals, however this about you helping your sales people to set their own goals.

The most important part of this process is for your sales people to make their goals personal. This isn't you dictating to them, but about your sales people making the goals personal to them.

Secondly, how to set them quickly and what tools we use at The Sales Management Academy to make sure that those goals are achieved.

When it comes to goal setting for your sales people, you never want to set the goal for your sales people, you don't want dictate what they should achieve. On the contrary, the sales person should dictate to you.

First off, you set the tone as the sales leader and sales manager, and as we talked about, it is it is very important for you to set expectations and tone, and set the bar higher for your individual sales people. But in this case, the trick is to get them to tell you what they want. The reason is fourfold:

1. The feel in control of their destiny

2. They take full ownership of the task

3. The goal sends a strong message to them of what can be accomplished in advance of its realization

4. When you pester them about achieving excellence, all that you have to do to remind them is to say "you set this goal, not me, and I am just reminding you of what it is that you want". You can use their goals to turn around and motivate them using their own words. And it really does work like magic. There is nothing more powerful in motivating somebody than using their own words

repeated back to them to motivate them.

What about time frame? This is always a big question, but it is a simple question to answer.

Depending on your organization, set your goals in sync with the organization. If your sales people work on a monthly, quarterly, or annually bonus schedule, then make them do monthly, quarterly, or annual goals. If they are on a quarterly or annual schedule, then set your goals on a quarterly or year end structure.

Go along with however your company operates.

The idea is to keep things as consistent with the company's policy and the bonus structure and with the commission plan as possible.

Since sales people are commission driven, if you set the sales reps goals timeframes so that they match the payout schedule with your company, then all components will work in harmony.

Another question that we get all of the time is: "how do you actually set goals?"

There are 3 steps to setting successful, motivating goals with your sales people:

1. Make the goal SMART

Not just an intelligent goal, but SMART stands for; specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic, and time and resource constrained.

All 5 components are critical to the successful accomplishment of the goal, because without one part, the whole goal does fall apart.

It also depends not only on writing a goal statement, but also the ability to define the goal clearly. For review on the SMART system:

• Specific

The more detail that you establish for the goal the more meaningful it becomes.

• Measurable

Goals need to have the ability to be specifically measured, in an individual amount. An example would be putting in a measurable amount of commission that they want to make.

• Action oriented

Needs to be stated not only in the present tense, but also using action oriented verbs

• Realistic

Goals need to be realistic in order for them to be motivational. If it is not realistic, and it's a pie in the sky, then it is not achievable.

• Time and resource constrained

Time and resource constrained: A goal that has a definitive deadline of completion.

If some people miss their goals then you need to monitor to them for follow up. Let them know that mediocrity in goal achievement is just as intolerable as mediocrity in goal setting, they both tie in together.

I have typically found that, I was always on a quarterly based bonus system, they would write out their goals at the beginning each quarter. That would be a very effective way for them to achieve what their annual goal would be, and it would drive people towards success. It was a goal written by them, and was motivational and I used it to reach the desired end, be it a quarterly goal or a year end goal.

2. To put all of this in a 250 word action plan

Once you determine what the goal is, and there should be only one goal for the action plan. Those who have multiple goals can save them for the next quarter. Then write down smart goals on a single sheet of paper, and then in no more than 250 words how they will achieve the goal using legitimate details. Don't allow them to be vague. We give you examples of this in the academy.

3. To schedule a preset day to review the goal as well as a day to review the goal's completion. In our case, if you have quarterly goals then make your Friday call in or your Monday conference call at the beginning of that quarter. It is also helpful to have them state their goal in front of other people so that they declare it to the world to commit them to the goal as well as creating some peer pressure.

We would typically do this on a quarterly basis. At the end of the quarter, on a call in day, or a meeting during the week, we would go through the quarterly goal and the attainment. For us, we had a sales lag of about a month, so we would do the goal review day about a month after the end of the quarter. You should have goal setting days and goal review days to keep everyone on target; goals and actions continually overlap each other throughout the year, they are driving toward a finite end. Goals are set well above quota, so that they are driving towards perfection goals and excellence goals that will motivate them and help you achieve your objectives for your sales force.

Just to review the importance of goal setting. We talked about it in previous shows in relation to the secret sauce. This is the secret sauce; the driver that drives your sales team so that they have tremendous sales results for the organization. First off, set your goals using our SMART tactic, record the goal and action steps to achieve on a sheet of paper, and finally, you and the sales person keep a copy of it and review it on a weekly basis, and set goal review days at the end of each quarter to make sure that you and your sales rep are in complete alignment with the goals that they want to achieve for themselves and for the organization.

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Article Tags: sales management, sales management training, sales manager, sales manager training, sales training



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