The goal of every business is to make a profit. Therefore, as a retailer, you want to improve your sales and beat them to remain in business. Running a business isn’t easy. After putting in the hours, you want to generate revenue.
Remember, setting the right sales goals from the start is crucial. This piece will provide a few actionable tips to retailers who need to meet their retail sales targets and those who want to grow them continually. Since every business is different, these will vary; however, you want to consider the historical sales data, sales initiatives and events throughout the year, the capacity of your sales team, and employee input.
Let’s go over a few tips you can follow to meet and beat your sales targets.
Set challenging but achievable sales targets
Goal setting is always challenging. On one side, you want to set retail challenging but achievable sales targets simultaneously. According to Kevin Graff of Graff Retail, you need to apply the 70% rule when setting your goals which stipulates that goals should be achieved at least 70% of the time. If you fail to, it means they are too high, and you risk your employees losing motivation. On the other hand, if goals are achieved 90% of the time or more, it means they are too low, and you need to push your employees the way you are supposed to.
Clarify your sales targets
One mistake most business owners make is setting value goals like wanting to increase sales without defining how they will achieve the objective. You want to set SMART goals; specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based. Therefore, you can aim to get at least 20 new customers to join your loyalty program, see a 25% increase in sales by the end of the month, and so on.
Ensure you properly manage your sales quota timeframes and frequency
When you set your sales targets, you will start with annual revenue goals, then break that down to quarterly and monthly. However, when dealing with your sales team, you want to have short-term goals like weekly and daily. By doing this, you will motivate your team and keep them focused.
When communicating your sales targets and goals, you can do the following to ensure everybody is on board.
Repeat the goals throughout the day
This doesn’t mean having to bore your sales team with the same daily conversation. However, you must keep reminding them of the goal you are trying to achieve and what short goal they should focus on to achieve the bigger goals. It’s good also to check how they are doing, as this will keep them accountable and motivated.
Make the sales targets visible
This can be done in the back room. You can set up a board dedicated to sales and ensure you update it regularly. Also, you can make them visible on your POS system to relevant employees. Vend allows users to see their targets on the home screen. It can be a powerful tool for identifying top-performing team members and tracking goals for each member.
And since achieving goals needs a lot of motivation, you can do the following to keep your team pumped up to meet the sales targets;
Have the members share the sales goals
There are many ways to motivate staff members, including offering commissions and bonuses. However, some of these incentives can create unhealthy competition where employees only care about their interests rather than helping the business succeed. For example, if you own several stores, you can set sales goals for each store and offer rewards for those that hit their quotas. However, the store goal must be met to unlock their rewards.
Other things you can do to meet and beat your sales targets such as investing in employee training, ensuring the staff knows the products inside and out, educating them in the art of selling, and so on. By doing this, you will be on your way to improving and beating your sales expectations.
