Can you think of BIG customer service or sales goals you would really like to achieve as a part of your organization?
What’s your ultimate sales goal?
Maybe it’s landing that dream client you’ve been pursuing. Perhaps it’s increasing your monthly or annual sales. How about improving your level of customer service by following up with customers?… Or receiving a promotion?…. Or even starting your own business!
Whatever the goal is, you need to put some work into achieving the goal. The interesting part about the work/action required is that it doesn’t necessarily have to be BIG steps, but the steps need to be consistent.
(Identifying communication styles is another helpful strategy for achieving sales goals. Read about how to do just that in this post)
Setting Effective Sales Goals with the Rule of 5
Here’s where the Rule of 5 comes in. (I gained this simple, yet effective strategy from Principle #23 in Jack Canfield’s book, “The Success Principles”)
If there were five specific things every day that would move you toward your goal, would you do them?
Remember, these specific goals or steps don’t need to be big ones. It could be something as simple as growing your social media accounts by 10% each month. One of the specific steps you might take each day to get there is interacting (i.e. liking, sharing, commenting) on five other pages each day.
That’s one of your five steps. The other four could be something like:
- Follow five new (relevant) pages/accounts each day
- Read one blog post or article about social media strategy each day
- Listen to one podcast episode each day about social media strategy
- Moderate and respond to comments on your social media platform every day
When it comes to sales goals, let’s say your goal is to connect with new customers on a regular basis. The idea behind this step is to improve the lifelong value of that customer and keep them coming back. Depending on how many customers you have, one of the steps to achieving this goal could be sending one email each day to a new customer. Another one of your five steps could be a daily phone call to a new client.
(By the way, you won’t want to miss this post about focusing on the ABMs versus the ABS of sales before you go)
A few things to keep in mind
What is your specific goal? What five “specific” things would you do every day to move you towards the sales goal? Reminder…..The five specific things do not need to be BIG, but they must be consistent.
Food for thought. Could you knock down a tree with one BIG swing from an axe? Not likely! Could you eventually bring down the tree if every day you took five swings at it with a very sharp axe? At some point, no matter how large the tree, it would have to come down. Do you agree?
Some of us may have the discipline to go out every day and commit to five swings to improve our sales numbers or service strategy. Others would tire and give up.
Which side describes you best? If you want something bad enough and the goal is BIG, are you willing to apply the Rule of 5 in your business or sales routine to achieve the goal?
Have you applied this principle, or something similar? Why did you do it? If you haven’t, what prevents you from giving it a try?
If you’re ready to take your sales goals to the next level, we can help. Click here to learn about our sales growth training or call us today.
Did you learn a lot about setting sales goals in this post?
Here are three posts to read next:
- How to Identify Communication Styles in Sales and Service
- 5 Sales Team Training & Development Topics You Need To Know
- Sales Team Development: Five Critical Areas You Can’t-Miss
This post about setting effective sales goals was first published in 2014 but it was updated in 2021 just for you.
