Have some of your sales team been missing their monthly quota recently? Or maybe your marketing team’s strategies haven’t really been hitting the mark. No matter which part of your company isn’t reaching its goal or hitting its target, you certainly need to take some action. Otherwise, there is no way you will achieve your revenue and turnaround that you had planned for the year. And that could have some very serious consequences!
The best way you can start to take the action needed to improve things is to find out why the target isn’t being met in the first place. There can be a whole range of reasons why this could be the case, but here are some of the main ones that companies experience.
You Don’t Have A Target
You might simply be missing targets because you don’t have any in place! This is very bad practice for a business. If you don’t give your company any goals or targets to work towards, there is no way you will be able to measure your productivity and success. Plus, it doesn’t really give you or your employees anything to aim for. So, it’s important to set up some targets so that you have something to work towards. These goals don’t have to be huge – to start off with, make sure they are targets that are challenging but also achievable. Take the time to think up some targets right now if you don’t already have any.
You Need To Motivate Your Staff
If your staff aren’t feeling motivated, their productivity could suffer. And once your employees aren’t working to their full potential, your business will start to suffer. One great way to motivate your employees is to give them regular feedback. That way, they will find out what exactly their strengths are and can then work on projects that take advantage of their strengths. One effective way to provide feedback is by getting everyone to take part in a 360-degree feedback session. You can learn more about 360-degree feedback. As well as offering regular feedback, you can motivate staff by offering lots of perks, such as complimentary snacks and drinks and regular career development opportunities.
You Raise Your Targets Too Soon
So, back in the early days of your company, you were meeting your targets and goals with relative ease. But that seems to be all in the past. What’s changed? Well, your main problem could be that you are raising your targets too quickly. You, of course, need to raise targets to reflect your sales, but you shouldn’t be too quick to do this. Otherwise, it can actually be very demoralising for staff. That’s because they have to start working incredibly hard, and maybe even putting in some overtime hours so that they can reach their KPIs. All your staff will find it super hard to meet these new targets and will become discouraged. They may give up on their targets altogether.
Your Lead Generation Isn’t That Hot
Your staff can waste a lot of time working on getting leads that are never going to convert into sales. It is very important that you train each and every one of your employees so that they can understand what a good lead is. That way, they won’t end up barking up the wrong tree and chasing bad leads. There are two quick fixes if your team keeps on uncovering the wrong types of leads. Firstly, you might need to overhaul all of your content marketing because it sounds like it isn’t appealing to the right people. It’s also important that you start to push this content in front of your target audience.
Following Up Isn’t Working
Another reason why some businesses start to miss their targets is that their following-up process isn’t working anymore. Did you know that 80% of sales are made after the fifth contact a business has with a customer? So, you need to make sure all of your sales team members know that they need to keep on contacting their leads. But you should also ensure that your sales reps don’t just check in with customers when they follow up. They need to always try and educate the customer as people are more likely to spend money on a product or service if they are well-educated about it.
There is no reason you need to carry on missing all your targets. Just follow all of the above tips, and you will start to notice things turn around in your company before your very eyes!
