In sales we’re all used to having targets to hit.

Depending on your industry these may be monthly, quarterly, by tertial or yearly.  And are often measured using a combination of these.

In goal setting terminology, sales targets are outcome goals – eg achieve $1 million in sales during 2020.

A personal example would be to weigh 55kg by June 2020.

But sales targets on their own are’nt a great way to increase your chances of success.  Unless you combine them with a more immediate way of tracking your progress.

This is where process goals come in. 

A process goal is something you can do regularly on a shorter time scale that relates to your outcome goal.

In a sales context this may be to make 10 prospecting phone calls per day. 

For the weight loss example it could be to incorporate 2 fasting days per week.

The key here is for the process goal to maximise the success of achieving your longer term outcome goal.

Why do process goals work? 

Firstly the challenge with longer term goals is they can seem too far in the future to stay motivated or focused on them.

It’s pretty common for many of us to leave things until nearer the deadline.

For some things this isn’t an issue and can result in focused action.  

But in a sales context, being last minute usually means its too late to make any difference!

Attempting to hit your target last minute is also likely create a lot of stressful thinking, which in turn has a negative impact on performance, making it even less likely you’ll hit your target.

The solution……

Have meaningful process goals in place.

These ensure you take consistent effective action and increase your probability of hitting your targets.

How do you know which process goals to focus on?

One way to do this is to project yourself into the future and imagine having hit your sales target.

If your sales target’s for the whole year, imagine it’s 31st December 2020 and you’re celebrating your success.

Then look back over the year and ask yourself:

“What key milestones did I hit to achieve success?”

For example you may need to secure 10 new contracts over the year to hit the annual target.

Then ask yourself:

“What actions did I take to achieve these milestones?”

This may involve how many sales appointments you completed to get one new customer.  And then how many prospecting calls you had to do to secure one appointment.

The number of prospecting calls give you your process goal – eg make 10 phone calls a day.

Once you have your process goal make sure you schedule this in as a priority in your calendar.  If you leave it to when you have time, or feel in the right mood, you’re unlikely to do it!

The next step it to track your progress in a way you’ll see daily.

This helps to implement the process and also gives you immediate positive feedback.

Set yourself a target number of calls to make a day.  Make this an achievable number which you can do even on a day when everything is going against you.  The key here is to ensure that you succeed on a daily basis.

Lock in Your Habit By Celebrating

Reinforce your behaviour by celebrating your actions.  In this example after every call you make.

Find something that makes you feel great in the moment.   Something simple like telling yourself “Great Job” and smiling.

By setting an achievable minimum (based on your targets for the year) and celebrating taking action, the likelihood is you will feel inspired to do even more.

Take it Up a Level

Once you’re consistently implementing your process goals, the next step is to improve your conversion rates.

If you’re currently landing one appointment for every 10 calls you make what can you do to improve this ratio?  And likewise how many appointments are you converting to sales?

It’s frequently quoted that sales is a numbers game and to some degree that’s true.

However it’s a massive over simplification.

Sure if you aren’t having sales conversations you’re not going to make any sales, but you have to find the balance between number of calls and the impact and quality of the conversations within the call.

I’ll address ways in which you can become more impactful in future posts.

In the meantime test this out yourself and let me know how process goals are impacting on your results.

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