Setting Goals and Achieving Objectives

Success consists of exceeding a set of measurable values over a defined time frame. The exercise of goal setting helps build a team. Forecasting helps the team focus on performance, both past and future. Leadership helps focus efforts on achieving the goals.

Team Building

Team building is a complex leadership task. It deals with personalities as well as goals. The leader builds on individual strengths and helps overcome weaknesses. The team works towards a common set of goals, which they need to know. They must also have a clear understanding of the strategy and tactics. The more the team players are involved in setting the goals, the more readily they will accept and agree with them. The result is an increased probability of success. Typical goals are sales quotas, profitability, market share, new product introduction deadlines, customer satisfaction, new customers, retained business, etc. Marketing builds the corporate image and generates leads from the web, trade shows, advertising, and so on. The sales team generates sales using lead follow-up combined with promotions, discounts (if any), and minimum acceptable pricing by quantity. Determining the real reason for a lost sale is important in that the situation can be better handled the next time. Spiffs and contests can focus attention on short-term goals. Determining the reasons for getting a sale is equally important. The team needs to keep doing whatever it was that resulted in the sale although incremental improvements should improve the rate of success. Cross-fertilization of opportunities and wins can help spread team successes and leverage off past sales successes. Success breeds success.

The best sales tactic is to increase the number of face-to-face customer visits. More customer visits will produce more potential sales. More potential sales mean more successes. Major accounts and OEM sales potentials require support from the factory. Two-way communications and field-support are part of building the successful team. The sales reps are vital in defining and refining successful products, as reps are generally closer to the buyer than the factory. Understanding customer needs and the political situation or agenda results in more orders. The best reps excel in both technical expertise and building customer relationships. The manager can increase sales by being active in the field about 25-30% of the time. While in the field, it is easier to provide product knowledge as well as spread the corporate message and culture. Field visits with the reps develop relationships that build trust, understanding, and sales. Regular field activity keeps the company and its products at the top of the mind of the rep. Routine phone calls maintain focus on developing situations and provide a chance to discuss problems, tactics, and strategies. As commission from sales is generally the driving force of reps (but perhaps not the only one), the idea is to show them how to maximize their income by selling more of your products. Split or double commissions where appropriate, helps motivate co-operation.

Forecasting

The forecast helps manufacturing produce the right product mix at the right time. Forecasting also helps overall corporate planning in the growth and use of company resources. Forecasting is an iterative team function that needs monthly updating. Corporate goals for sales and profitability growth are a starting point. However, field input can help refine targets, provide comments, major opportunities, anomalies, and a sanity check. Forecasting is a blend of historical data and perspectives, current regional economic realities, knowledge of probabilities of all current opportunities and corporate goals.

A simple spreadsheet based on product, quantity, probability and time of order can track this vital information. ACT!, Goldmine, or a Lotus Notes-based database would be better and easier for widespread corporate use. The routine and regular updates from the sales managers and regional sales staff can indicate realistic sales potential or problem areas. A weekly or monthly management review of these tracked opportunities keeps them visible to all concerned and moving forward. Comparing past forecast accuracy helps determine the credibility of the current forecast and provides feedback to those who generated the data point. These forecast comparisons should be used to encourage more reliable forecasts, not embarrass the salesperson.

Marketing

The marketing team has to keep the 5 P’s of Marketing in focus. They are:
> Product
> Packaging
> Price
> Placement
> Promotion

Bryan Webb, P. Eng.
Technical Product Marketing Professional

Copyright 2007, Use with full credit.