Sales training ideas – Setting sales goals and objectives when selling.

When selling you need to have daily, monthly, and yearly sales goals for cold calls, presentations, and sales. Let’s start with cold calling.  

• How many cold calls do you plan to make?
• How many leads do you want to get?
• What are you trying to accomplish with your cold call?  

First, how many calls do you want to make? How many calls you will make depends upon the logistics of your sales territory. For example, if you are selling office products door to door and you have many companies in a small geographic area, your goal may be twenty, thirty, or even more cold calls per day. If you are selling a product only to manufacturing plants that are twenty to forty miles from one another, you may be able to fit in only three to five calls a day.  

When setting a goal for the number of cold calls, err on the high side. You will need to do some research to get an idea of what is typical for your industry, and then add to that number. For example, if ten cold calls a day is a decent number based upon demographics, geography, and what the typical salesperson is capable of, make your goal twelve. If the typical number is three, make your goal four.  

If you are a new salesperson at a new company, most of your “call” time will probably be devoted to cold calling. As a result, you should be making far more cold calls than the average sales rep who is busy with all other aspects of the business. Again, your goal should be to make more calls than anyone else out there. 

Next, how many leads are you looking to get? Are you looking for five leads out of every ten people you talk with? Two out of ten? One out of ten? Again, your goal will depend upon what you are selling and what the industry averages are for your product or service.  

Find out the average number of leads the top salespeople are getting and work to achieve that number. Eventually your goal will be to surpass it, but set your initial “leads” goal at the average of the top producers. If you hear numbers between two and three out of ten, set your goal at three.  

If the top producers no longer cold call, discover what numbers they were at just before they stopped cold calling. In addition, find out what they do now to bring in new business, and see if there are any ideas you can work into your own search for new prospects. 

Now that you have set your goals, what about the objective of your cold call? Is your objective to set up an appointment, and then return at another time and do a full-blown presentation? Is it simply to drop off information and get the name of the key decision-maker, or is it just to find out if there is any interest at all? And, if there is interest, are you prepared to go for a sale right then and there?  

Once you’ve set your cold call goals, next determine how many presentations you want to do and how many sales you want to get. Again, break them down to daily goals so you know what you have to do every day. Having goals and keeping track of them is the surest way to success in sales.