Increasing Sales and Hitting Targets

There is a popular video that has made its way around the Internet that features a high-energy presenter speaking to a group of university students about success. The takeaway line that he uses, and that has sparked memes, t-shirts and knock-off videos is “When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful.”

As sales professionals, you must have a personal drive to be successful. It’s what gets you up in the morning, motivates you to make the extra follow-up call and keeps you working late into the night to finish proposals. You want to be successful, and whether your desire for success is equal to your desire to breathe, there are a number of things that you can do to help increase your sales and hit your sales target.

Setting Goals

Certainly there is no shortage of people on the Web willing to tell you the secrets to success, but while there is a multitude of “tried and true” sales tools and methods, what everyone seems to agree on is that you have to set attainable goals. It’s a proven fact that when a salesperson has a goal, writes it down, commits to it and shares it with someone, they will have a better chance of actually reaching that goal. Certainly there are a number of factors that play into that, but it really does start with you and a goal.

Mark Victor Hansen, founder of “Chicken Soup for the Soul,” once said, “You control your future, your destiny. What you think about comes about. By recording your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be. Put your future in good hands - your own.”

Understanding Your Current Situation

Now, this is not intended to be a motivational blog post. But as a salesperson, how high you set your daily, weekly, monthly goals is likely dependent on a number of outside factors, many of which may be outside your control. Geography, historical success, market research, competitors, past and present product performance, and customer support and experiences, are just a few of the factors in play, and any or all could have an impact on how high you should set your targets. So, it’s important to be realistic about establishing your targets.

So, what you need to be realistic is to better understand the things you can control. You need access to a intuitive systems that provides easily understood information from across your business so that you know what number you should write down on paper. This is where Business Intelligence (BI) tools like Phocas can help.

Business Intelligence Can Help You Hit Your Targets

As a central location for aggregated data from multiple sources, BI provides a clear picture of cross-selling and upselling opportunities and reveals details about what customers are buying or who has stopped buying all together. You’ll be able to see what areas of your sales territory need attention and what contracts are due for renewal. BI also reveals trends, and Phocas makes it easy to understanding the trends using Dashboards with charts, graphs, maps and other visual representations of your company’s data. From the Dashboards, you can click on charts and graphs, and drill down into increasingly more specific details, including individual customer transactions.

In addition, because you are likely on the road, Phocas BI can deliver the same data to your mobile devices, so you won’t miss sales opportunities and you’ll know instantly when customers have stopped buying.

Armed with visibility, insight and knowledge, you can more effectively manage your tasks and establish your priorities so you can focus on increasing sales and hitting your targets.