online business · sales planning ·Dec 31, 2020

Why and How to Make Your Sales Goals SMART?

All entrepreneurs set goals and milestones as part of their business model, however, only a fraction of them manage to build a prosperous enterprise. In many cases this is because their goals are not SMART.

What makes a goal SMART?

It’s Specific – you have the details of the goal down to a tee.
It’s Measurable – you know the criteria that will define your success.
It’s Achievable – you know for a fact that you can attain the goal.
It’s Relevant – the goal is designed to help your business grow.
It’s Time-bound – you have a well-defined timeframe for the goal.

Let’s set an example for a SMART sales goal. For example, you want to increase your profits – this definition is not clear enough.

Here’s how to make it SMART:

I want to increase my sales of Christmas decorations by 50% before the new year: from $4000 a month to $6000 a month. At the same time, my expenses should not go up by more than 20%.
I will achieve this goal by talking to twice as many leads every month – going up from 25 to 50. For this, I will attend twice as many conferences in October, November and December. This means that there must be at least two new conferences each week of each month.

Conclusion

When you set a clear objective, you know exactly what to do and what is going to happen in the near future. This increases your motivation to work and drive to success. This is why the SMART principle works – use it in your sales process to boost profits.