With a new start to the financial year in Australia companies and organisations are implementing their new budgets and are looking to the next twelve months of business. Along with a financial review in all aspects of the business in the end it will come down to what level of sales will be needed to generate the income and profit required. The very nature of this exercise is done from a landscape of rising costs due to inflation, interest rates, wages and other forces that require careful consideration and an understanding of the market.

That Extra Mile

Many of the overheads of a business are set and future increases can be to some extent anticipated and factored into the budget calculations. The same can be said for the sales budget however it is in sales that the boundaries can be pushed out provided the sales team has the potential to increase the level of sales by going that extra mile. New sales targets will be greeted by salespeople in many ways and their response will to a large extent depend on how the individual as performed in the previous twelve months.

New Targets

In most cases from the companies view point the level of sales needed is not up for negotiation and it is left to the salespeople and their Manager to deliver. This leaves us with the question of how to get all the sales team to respond positively to the new targets and feel they can reach them and meet the goals set. Quite often sales incentives and rewards are seen as the best way to achieve the result but these can become counter productive if they are seen to be out of reach to the individual salesperson. Most salespeople are competitive and that drive needs to be nurtured if their best is to be achieved.

Personal Best

All those in sales come from differing backgrounds and their situations vary considerably, for example a single person will not have the restrictions on their time as some one with a family so it is counterproductive to expect they will perform the same. It is therefore critical to have rewards that reflect this difference and it is due to these differences that a plan to use their personal best as a benchmark to encourage performance. This approach, with a minimum level of sales required takes more time and management but in the end will lead to a more stable team with less staff turnover and the associated costs of training.

Results Are Everything

The days are gone of the Sales Manager thumping the table at the sales meeting, under pressure from management, to get the targets set and putting the fear of the sack into the sales staff. Results are everything and a company or organisation will only survive if the sales targets are met but it is the astute Sales Manager who takes the time to understand the dynamics of getting the best from all the sales staff.

There is a saying “a star team operates better than a team of stars”.