Setting sales goals can feel like making a New Year's resolution—the perfect opportunity to give your business a fresh start and a clear direction for the year ahead.
But as the stupor of the holiday season wears off, that initial excitement wanes. That burst of optimism that accompanies the New Year might start off strong—like the people who start going to the gym five days a week and posting on LinkedIn every day.
But as January turns to February and Q1 leads to Q2, those ambitious sales goals you set for the team can become sidelined, forgotten as easily as many New Year's resolutions.
Sound familiar?
As a founder or sales leader at your company, it’s your responsibility to set realistic sales goals that pave the way for long-term success.
But that’s easier said than done.
The right goals are at the intersection of achievable and challenging—they keep your team motivated, your momentum strong, and your leadership satisfied. They aren’t just a fleeting New Year’s promise you make at the start of January—they’re a year-long commitment, a guiding star that you keep in front of your team for the entire year.
Let’s look at some killer sales goal examples and discuss actionable steps you can take to set sales goals that will help your team grow, grow, grow.
SMART sales goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound) give your sales team clear direction and structure.
That means they motivate your team by giving them specific work to do, and a clear finish line they can celebrate once they’ve crossed.
Here’s how SMART goals work in practice for your sales team:
Why does this work? Because when you set goals that are specific and challenging, science tells us you’ll get higher performance 90 percent of the time. Plus, a study by the Journal of Applied Psychology shows that presenting weekly progress reports of your goal increases your success rate by 40 percent.
The point? Specific goals that you can measure are more motivational to your team.
According to our very own Nick Persico, Director of Sales and Marketing here at Close, there are three main types of sales goals:
Let’s talk more about specific sales goals examples you can set for your team.
Your main sales KPIs will set how you track your results-based goals. What results matter to your business?
When you determine this, you’ll know how to set results-based sales goals for your team. These goals should be your guiding principles, the finish line that you’re all working towards. Everything you do should be pushing these results-based goals.
Here are some powerful results-based sales goal examples your team can set to drive measurable growth:
There are plenty of other results-based business goals you might set, such as reducing customer acquisition cost and customer churn rate, but these are less related to sales and more related to the teams working with your existing customers, such as the customer success and support teams.
Your sales development team is working hard to create new leads and get them qualified to hand them over to account executives. In most cases, your SDRs are paid commission based on their sales activities—which is why activity goals are especially important for these individuals.
Here are some sales goals examples based on activity:
Finally, we have efficiency goals, the goals that help you measure and improve sales performance. “These goals are set around the deals your team is working on,” says Nick. “Are you squeezing the most out of these opportunities? Where can you improve?”
Here’s how he explains the separation of efficiency goals from results and activity-based goals: “Your whole sales team and individual team members should have results-based goals. Then, the folks generating new meetings at the top of the funnel should have activity goals. And then, everyone should have a spread of efficiency goals.”
Want to make your sales process more efficient? Here are some sales performance goal examples you can swipe for your team:
Setting efficiency goals helps your team find new ways to improve sales performance, maybe by using automation or improving follow-ups.
So you’ve got some great examples of sales goals to set—but how do you set goals for your team? How do you decide which goals are important and which ones are attainable?
And, most importantly, how do you make sure your reps are motivated to actually achieve those team goals?
Let’s dig into how to set the best sales goals step-by-step.
Setting results-based goals is like setting that north star in the sky for your whole company—when you know the overarching goals you’re trying to achieve; everything else will fall into place.
So, start with what you know. What are your company's overall goals? Get a little deeper than "make more money" or "increase our bottom line" in a certain time frame.
For example, let's say your goal is to increase MRR (monthly recurring revenue) by 14 percent by the end of the next quarter. Sales goals like increasing new customer growth and average order value will help you get there.
Even if you’ve only been in business for one year, you have enough data and insight to predict how things should progress in the next 12 months.
Review the number of new customers who bought your product or service last year to determine the product-market fit. How much revenue did they bring in on average? How quickly is your customer base growing? What’s your best-case scenario? Worst?
Look backward to get a baseline of where you (realistically) want to go in the future. (This is called sales forecasting—grab templates to do this here.)
No matter what you do, you can’t force a lead to convert. Likewise, you can’t control all the results on the way to reaching your sales goals. But you can control your actions.
Your team can still get amazing results by focusing on what they do—instead of just obsessing over results. These are called activity goals—where you focus on the repeatable actions your team takes that can land sales.
An example: A quarterback is playing in the Super Bowl. When they throw the football, their goal isn’t to win the game. Their goal is to complete the pass.
The trophy may be the motivation, but when they run onto the field, their focus is solely on making every right move. If they do that, they’ve done everything they can to ensure success.
If your team has this same mentality, they can hit their monthly sales goals, annual sales goals—and beyond.
So, going back to our example above, let’s say you want to increase MRR. An important activity goal that will help you reach your overarching goal is for your SDRs to book more meetings.
Always show your sales reps how their individual activity goals relate back to the larger goal—this will help them feel more motivated to reach their goals.
Lastly, it’s time to work on sales performance goals, improving efficiency within your sales process.
Again, these efficiency goals always relate back to your main North Star results goal—they’re the smaller actions that get you closer to reaching those bigger goals.
Nick walks us through an example: “Let’s say your sales team has booked a ton of meetings, but nobody is showing up. You want to look at meeting attendance rates and increase that. Then, your sales development reps will focus on what tactics they can use to increase the meeting attendance rate.”
But there’s a caveat—efficiency goals are only attainable if you focus on one at a time.
As Nick says, “There’s always an opposite reaction to something you’re trying to improve. If reps focus on improving meeting attendance rate, they’re probably going to book fewer meetings because they’re focusing on getting those individuals to show up.
“What you do is focus on one goal each month or quarter and make that better. As you go through this cycle, the overall numbers will increase over time because the behaviors of those previous goals will stick.”
So, look at your sales funnel and see where you need to make improvements. Then, choose one efficiency goal for your team to work on and improve their sales performance.
In the ultra-accountable, totally transparent, and excessively experience-driven world of startups, being "sales-y" gets a bad rap.
Now, we’re not advocating returning to the days of sleazy, fast-talking salespeople undercutting prospects and colleagues alike. Instead, foster a culture of friendly competition—where it’s in everyone’s best interests to bring in as many sales as possible.
Pair that competition with the right incentives—so everyone knows what the prize is for coming out on top—and you’ll build a sales team that not only respects each other and enjoys working together but who constantly strives to improve performance.
Here are a few ideas of when to reward your team:
As much as you think your company culture and perks are enough, the truth is: Your salespeople need a reason to bust their butts and hit those sales goals. Making some component of their compensation scale with the number of new customers they sign or milestones, they hit is a great way to boost performance.
If you’re a new sales manager or a business owner just setting up your first sales team, it can be hard to know if the goals you’re setting are realistic and motivating enough for your team.
If you’re worried about setting goals your team can achieve, try these six tips to set better sales goals.
Want some help in setting (and achieving) your sales goals? Close can help you track activity metrics and sales team performance while you stretch to reach your goals. Learn more about Close’s reporting features in our on-demand demo, or start a free trial to test it out for yourself.