Reasonable Goals

We're back from the trade show where we met a lot of good people and made some new contacts. We also have 10 strong leads to follow up on. We have a history of squandering leads so I hope our news sales administration will not continue that trend. It is now time to execute. We need to create a sales goal that is reasonable but ambitious. Unreasonable sales goals lead to downtrodden sales people and ultimately lower productivity and lower sales.

Make sure the targets can be reached. Do not fall victim to sales people, investors or anyone else that pushes targets beyond what you know is reasonable. We received a total of about 100 leads from the show. Ten of those are qualified and should be quoted within a week or two. One of those ten should result in an order. That is a reasonable goal. And if it is not executed then there will clearly be a responsible party. And action can be taken.

Unrealistic goals lead to ambiguity and the inability to make adjustments. Essentially you are solving the wrong problem when you set unreachable targets.