Set these 6 sales objectives to finish the year strong

Sales objectives are goals that give your sales team a clear road map of what they need to do to help your company achieve its overall goals. Each objective comprises specific, measurable action items that help salespeople make sure individual and team-wide goals are achieved. Setting objectives for your sales team is a great way to get motivated and see great results. Check out these 6 examples of sales objectives that we recommend you use to get your team inspired.

6 Examples of sales objectives:

• Increase lead prospecting 1 hr per day.
• Reduce customer churn to <1%.
• Increase month-over-month/year-over-year revenues by 10%.
• Improve customer retention by 25% by the end of the year.
• Reduce cycle times.
• Increase win rates by 5% month-over-month.

#1 Increase lead prospecting 1 hr per day:

Generating more leads is the best way to make sure you always have a deal in the pipeline. When you take an extra 1 per day to follow up on leads you’ve pushed to the side or find some referrals from happy customers, you’ll be surprised at how many more qualified leads you can generate to ensure you meet your other sales goals. To achieve this sales objective, we suggest you put an hour on your calendar every day specifically for lead prospecting. That way you can’t forget to do it and it’ll become a habit.

#2 Reduce customer churn to <1%:

Customer churn is the percentage of customers that stopped using your company’s product or service during a certain time frame. You can calculate churn rate by dividing the number of customers you lost during that time period by the number of customers you had at the beginning of that time period. Reducing customer churn should always be a goal for companies and reps. Depending on what your current customer churn rate is, you should aim to get it as close to 1% as possible. You can do this by:

• Focusing on your best customers and keeping them happy.
• Analyzing your churn rate month-to-month or quarterly. 
• Show your customer how much you care and give them specific attention.

#3 Increase month-over-month/year-over-year revenues by 10%:

Increasing month and yearly revenue is a pretty obvious sales objective, but that doesn’t make it any less important. This metric can be adjusted, but increasing MoM and YoY revenue by 10% is a great, attainable goal. Because a revenue sales goal is so important but also requires tremendous effort, take steps to prevent you or your team from feeling overwhelmed. Set activity goals for the reps you manage or for yourself to make the task seem more manageable. These can include the following:

• How many demos each of them should look to arrange during a weekly period.
• How many calls each rep should aim to make per day to meet quota. Use available data to qualify your quotas. For instance, it takes 106 dials for an SDR to get 1 scheduled meeting.
• Record everything on leaderboards for convenience and so the rep is also informed on their stats.

#4 Improve customer retention by 25% by the end of the year.

Lowering customer churn and improving customer retention are similar goals in one respect: you want to keep the customers you have. Keeping and renewing your customers is cheaper, faster, and hopefully easier than prospecting and qualifying new leads. The first step to improving your customer retention is to find out where it is right now. Becoming more aware of how many customers you retain on a monthly and yearly basis is a great way to set goals in the future. We recommend choosing a percentage you want to aim for, something like 25% increased customer retention by the end of the year. Here are some methods to try out when it comes to keeping your customers:

• Have a smooth onboarding process to make a good first impression.
• Ask for customer feedback, ask them if they’re happy with how your product is performing for them.
• Always be looking to make their life easier. You don’t stop marketing your relevant products to someone just because they’re a customer, if they mention a pain point you can solve, tell them!
• Reward promoters and loyal customers. This can be as simple as a shoutout on social media or a free goodie bag.
  

Even if you fall slightly behind this goal, you’ve still improved customer retention and become more aware of how profitable it can be. Always keep in mind that your primary concern is to solve the pain points of your customers—doing a good job of this will ensure that you have recurring customers at all times.

#5 Reduce cycle times.

Cycle times is simply how long it takes a rep to complete a deal from start to finish. This can apply to you as a rep or you as a business owner, either way reducing cycle times and closing deals faster is good for business and customers alike. No one likes a deal to drag on so encourage your reps or yourself to find ways to cut back on how long it takes you to finalize a deal. Try some of these tips if you’re unsure of where to start:

• Automate repetitive tasks.
• Set agreed-upon goals for each sales call.
• Explore prospect objections before responding to them.
• Be clear about pricing very early on.
• Make it ridiculously easy for prospects to sign contracts from any device.
• Focus on your highest-performing channels.
• Be a person you’d want to talk to.

These are some simple and easy ways to start reducing your cycle time today. Once you start performing these tasks daily, they’ll become a habit that will completely change the way you close deals.

#6 Increase win rates by 5% month-over-month.

We already mentioned increasing revenue month-over-month which is similar to win rates, but the difference here is to focus more on the individual rep so if you’re a business owner this is a great objective to focus on. Win rate is the ratio of deals won to the number of total closed opportunities. Calculating win rates per rep is not only helpful to a business owner to show who is closing the deals in their pipeline, but it’s also helpful as a rep to see hard numbers on how many deals they’ve won. The actual metric can vary depending on what’s productive for you as a rep or your team, but using leaderboards or incentives like bonuses is a great way to increase win rates but also motivate your team. It’s always important to keep in mind that some reps close less deals that are worth more money as opposed to some that close a lot of small deals, so use this metric objectively and however works best for your team.

Which Objectives Will You Try?

These are 6 very basic, yet helpful sales objectives to constantly have front-of-mind as you motivate yourself or your team to perform at their best. If you do utilize these goals, be sure to adjust them to whatever makes sense at your company and in a way that will encourage—rather than discourage—yourself or reps. Let us know how it goes! Comment down below some of your favorite sales objectives and why.