“Begin with the end in mind!”
This crisp thought by author and educator Stephen Covey conveys the importance of setting targets. Having targets is essential both in life and in business. Targets are the goals that a business aims to achieve. They act as parameters to judge the performance of a team or an individual at every level. They determine the short-falls in a businesses’ goal achievement and ways to overcome such short-falls. A business needs to set targets to better understand and measure its performance.
Every business leader is expected to set targets for their business, however, the question arises,
As a leader how do you set targets?
How to set better targets?
Targets give direction to business. They help create focus and make it easier for businesses to meet their end goals.
To set better targets for yourself and others, you must keep the following in mind:
1. Set clear targets:
The more unambiguous a target, the more likely you are to achieve it. Vague and general targets are harder to achieve as it is tough to create an action plan for them. It is also a challenge to measure the results of such goals.
To “increase lead conversion rate” is not as impactful as a target of say, “to increase lead conversion rate by 10% in the next quarter”.
2. Set achievable targets:
Achievement of end goals is impacted by multiple factors and a lot of these are beyond a business’ control. Under these circumstances the best way to set a target is setting simple achievable targets. A business must focus on targets that are actually in control of the person looking to achieve them.
For example: A direction by the management to the sales team demanding them to get “more leads” is not as effective as giving them clear instructions to follow-up with 10 old customers in one week to gauge their needs. Clearly stated targets make the tasks more manageable while at the same time increasing the accountability of the sales team.
3. Set smaller targets:
The best way to set a target is to break down complex targets into simple understandable targets. This not only boosts morale of the team, but also increases the chances of getting better results. Sometimes even better than expected.
For example: Your company has an annual target of USD 300,000 and the per sale value of USD 30,000. This means you need to make 10 sales per annum to achieve your target. When setting targets for your Sales team of 3 people, you need to break down the target. You need to evaluate how many sales campaigns are needed to close 1 sale. Say you got 1 sale in 600 emails/LinkedIn mails or Google ad clicks. So, you need 600*10= 6,000 of these campaigns in a year. That works out to be 500 of these in one month and around 17 in one day.
Now if you have 3 employees to handle sales, your sales associates now have a target of implementing 6 campaigns each in one day.
This target is clear, achievable and purely dependent on their performance. This will increase the satisfaction and sense of achievement of the team.
Takeaway
Author Dr. P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar has rightly said:
“To know your strength is to know your target and to know your weakness is to know your limit.”
Smart business leaders understand that a simple, yet profound method of getting better results at work is – “Setting better targets!”
So, start setting better targets for better productivity and a healthier work culture!
We would love to hear your take on the problem of target setting in businesses. What do you think works and doesn’t? Please share your views in the comment section below.
