When discussing ways to help your sales team hit its targets, motivational ploys may be top of mind. However, motivation in the form of commissions and bonuses only works if your sales team knows how to reach its targets. These five ways to help your sales team hit its targets will help your sales team reach the end goal without a new incentive program.

1. Help Your Sales Team Work More Effectively, Not Just Harder

How many times have you heard someone on your sales team say something to the effect of, “I’m spinning my wheels, but I am not getting anywhere”? If this is happening to anyone on your sales team and is causing missed targets, what you need to do is help your sales team work more effectively, not just work harder. Pinpoint areas where your sales team’s work efforts can be streamlined, made more efficient, and more effective and give your sales people coaching on how to get better results with a similar amount of effort to what they are putting in now.

2. Use Scaled Targets as Incremental Markers to the Big Goals

Big picture thinking has its time and place, but big picture thinking might not get your sales team where it needs to go unless details for your sales targets are provided. Breaking down quarterly sales targets month by month or even week by week can provide your sales team with wayside markers that let them know long before the end of the quarter whether or not sales are on target. This allows for early corrective action and can be more motivating early in the quarter, which for many sales people can be a slower period when targets seem remote.

3. Make Sure Your Sales Team Knows Its Targets

If your sales team perceives its targets as only a number that should be reached at the end of the quarter, the chances that your sales team will regularly achieve its targets might not be as strong as they could be. Make sure that your sales team knows and understands its targets by:

• Outlining individual contributions. For each of your sales people, break down the expected individual contribution for each new target based on past average contributions to build accountability.
• Coaching on the targets that need to be hit. Sales targets are more than an overarching number. Help your sales team understand how to hit targets by strategic selling.
• Explaining how targets are set. Taking the time to explain the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of sales targets can help engage your sales team and take away any intimations of arbitrary goal setting.

4. Ensure That Your Sales Team Is Ready to Meet Its Targets

Lack of preparedness could be a major reason why your sales team is missing its targets. Being underprepared for initial sales calls, presentations, and even unexpected phone calls can damage your sales team’s ability to convert prospects into customers. So how do you make sure that your sales team is prepared? It starts with research. Your sales team cannot be prepared unless it knows its market and its prospects’ needs inside and out. Coach your sales team to consistently research ahead of calls and presentations to increase preparedness, and make sure that your sales team is preparing adequately by tracking metrics like time spent on prospect research and preparing presentations.

5. Facilitate Your Sales Team’s Plan for Success

Strong planning is behind any success in sales. Your top performers are likely already attuned to this fact, but the average performers on your sales team may not yet have learned how integral planning is to meeting sales targets. Help your sales team become more effective in reaching targets by providing information and training on best practices in sales planning. If your sales team is in the mindset of planning for success, success is likely to be the ultimate result.