Business 101 - Part V - Inside Gal - Sales: Setting Goals

Hi All,

I have taken a few momments to evaluate my shop today. This is something that I like to do mid-month. It helps to keep me on track and identify what my goals are and how to go about them.

The following questions I actually type up, print out and spend about a half an hour during my day thinking about. I file the finished "Monday Mid-Month Meeting Minutes" in my sales binder.

What can you do now to finish your month strong?
What are your goals and objectives for the coming month?
Start with the end in mind - work backwards and break your goal into attainable steps. What will you do?
Discern skills and tools necessary to obtain your goals.
Mehtods for tracking your progress.
Have a support partner - who can you talk to and bounce ideas off of re: small business and your goals?
Establish a 30/60/90 day game plan.

Also, YTD (Year-To-Date Sales) can be helpful. If you track your sales with the date and amount of dollars, this can help you with what to expect for the next year around.  Setting and attaining your financial goals will be made that much easier.

Hourly Checks - when I worked in sales we had a YTD Sales Goal each day. We would break down sales each hour by time and check the financial progress each hour, on the hour. This can really help to let you know how much you need to make in order to make your goal, go above and beyond it, or if you have beat your goal or not.