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In any business, the main focus is to make a sale. Means relying on sales force to convert the
sale for revenue generation is what a business needs for the longer run. Most of the
companies has sales goals and for sales manager and force achieving them is the hardest part.
Bill Febry, Leinenkugel Brewery’s former sales development manager, also thinks that
setting and achieving goals is the most important part of managing the sales force. He thinks
working with the sales force is a needed element in achieve those sales goals, and it is the
most important element of a sales manager’s position. He also said, when the sales force is
unable to achieve those goals, it is the sales manager’s job to find out what problems are they
facing, how they can rectify it. Now, the question is how to measure the performance of sales
force. It can be done by sales goal(quota). It is a way to synchronize the sales force and
direct them to the right path. The goals are benchmark for the sales force which has specified
time period and for this they are compensated if they achieve their goals.
Sales goals can be very helpful and fulfils a variety of purposes such as motivating the sales
force, helping them in focusing the selling efforts, assesses the return on investment by firm
on its products and services, comparing the sales results in different sales territories in
different regions.
There are different types of goal or quotas, very often goals are described as either input or
output based. Input of sales reps work or validity of those measures, Customer Relation
Management (CRM) systems are introduced in the firm’s operations. Input based goals are
also known as activity based quotas. Output based goals are results which are expected to
be achieved by the sales representatives. It can be the number of orders received, revenue,
volume of sales and profits from it the firm received by the sales persons sales convert.
The
which has been recently introduced in the top five measurements. In this, it can be seen that
how well a salesperson is organizing and dealing with the stream of customers in the different
stages of the sales funnel.
Expense quotas are the costs that are needed by the sales representatives to convert a sale
which firms thinks and allocate to sales rep to spent in order to be successful. In this cost,
demonstrations, entertaining customers, products sampling, lodging, various other travel
costs, etcetera, are included. It is being calculated, say 1 to 3 percentage of the total sales
made by the representative.
Having additional metrics to measure the contributions of the sales representative is a must.
But having too many is a headache as well as hard to focus on. There is maximum cap for it.
As it is been said, even seven to nine metrics can be more difficult to manage. It is very
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important to choose the few right metrics to track the performance of the sales
representatives.
Goals are time bound. They need to set for a period of time whether it is yearly, quarterly or
monthly. Most of the firms set yearly goals. Setting the duration of the goals depends on the
kind of organization and selling season you have.
Asking salespeople for their inputs on setting the goals varies widely based on the
organization. Over 60 percent of the firms, ask their salespeople for input. There is one
drawback of it which is that salespeople can set lower bar of the sales volume to make it easy
for them to achieve. To avoid this, some firms go for the top-down and bottom-up goal
setting approach to satisfy both a sales manager and representative on approved goal.
Guidelines for sales manager to follow while setting goals for representatives:
 Easy to understand, hard to achieve, properly defined time duration for completion
 Setting important tasks
 Setting reasonable number of goals such as three to six
 Motivativaing sales reps
 Etcetra…