In the first quarter of 2023, retail sales in Canada were up 0.7%, and it’s expected they’ll continue to rise in the coming months. With an average year-on-year growth rate of 4.7 annually, this sector isn’t slowing down, and expansion and the opening of new stores are happening all the time.
For retailers, having a strong sales team is essential, and setting tough yet achievable sales targets has become the standard in businesses. Not just in Canada, but around the globe.
An integral component of successfully planning ahead is setting sales targets. In the retail sector, sales targets are fairly straightforward to set because they’re easily quantifiable. By analyzing the market as well as your business’s situation and past sales numbers, you can then look forward and make predictions about your company’s future sales. From there, you can set goals, including your retail sales target.
Since the Canadian retail market is becoming increasingly competitive, setting ambitious yet achievable sales targets and getting as close as possible to them is incredibly important.
Here are 7 tips and tools to help your sales team easily reach their sales target.
7 Tips and Tools to Help Your Sales Team Easily Reach Their Sales Target
- Set Clear and Attainable Goals
If you want your employees to reach targets and perform well, you need to set goals and objectives that are well-thought-out and attainable. You need to conduct market research, and your market research needs to take into account your location as well as the niche your product or products falls into.
One of the perks of retail is that your targets are easily quantifiable. For example, you may aim to sell X units of your product in a year. From there, you can break that down in terms of staff and figure out how much each person needs to sell for your company to be successful as a whole. Once you can see what you’re aiming for in terms of figures, getting the job done becomes easier.
It’s also important to consider the danger of setting targets too high or too low. If you are overly ambitious and set your sales target too high, your strategies won’t be effective, and your sales staff are likely to become disillusioned. But if you set your sales target too low, your employees simply won’t be motivated to sell more than they have to, and your company will miss out on potential sales.
If you strike the right balance, you’ll be able to use sales targets to motivate your staff to aim to achieve at a high level, and you’re more likely to increase sales.
- Invest In Your Staff
Investing in your staff means training them properly and providing them with all the tools they could possibly need—both tangible and intangible—to succeed.
In the retail sector, this translates directly into teaching your staff how to interact with and talk to customers, and how to sell to them without being pushy. Good communication skills can be learnt, and regular training sessions will equip your staff to handle all kinds of customers, whether they’re pleasant or irate.
It’s also essential that they know everything they could possibly need to know about the product they’re selling, and it’s your job to train your staff so that they have this knowledge.
- Establish An Efficient Sales Process
By establishing a clear and efficient sales process, your sales team will have a far easier time achieving their goals.
In the retail space, this may be about streamlining your point of sales system in your store. Or, if you’re conducting sales over the phone or via a website, make sure that it’s easy for customers to purchase your product.
- Provide Employees with Helpful Performance Feedback
Feedback is an important part of helping your sales team to grow and improve. Providing constructive criticism to employees who are failing to meet their targets can help them to realize where they’re going wrong, and what they can do to rectify the situation.
Positive feedback will provide affirmation for doing a good job, and motivation to continue to work hard.
Monitor your sales staff’s numbers and occasionally observe them in action. Visit the store or listen to their phone calls with customers—not to put them under pressure, but to see where they’re going right or wrong.
- Foster a Collaborative Work Environment
The more your employees work together and feel like the environment encourages collaboration, the better the professional atmosphere will be and the more likely your team will hit targets.
Encourage your staff to ask each other for help and remind them that although there may be incentive programs for individuals, achieving the company’s overall sales target is a win for everyone. In retail, customers want to see that the staff work well together and there’s a positive workplace culture. This encourages them to shop as they feel comfortable and relaxed. In turn, this helps to boost sales targets.
- Track Time Usage and Make Decisions Based on Data Analytics
If your sales staff work in-store, you need to analyze how much time they spend on the floor interacting with customers and how much time they spend taking breaks. If they’re making telephonic sales, review data that shows how long their phone calls are and which calls result in sales.
Employee time usage is one of the most essential aspects of achieving sales targets. If employees are efficient with their time, they’re more likely to make sales. If they’re not using their time well, their overall performance will drop, and they won’t make as many sales.
- Adopt a Customer-Centric Approach
Sales staff in the retail sector deal directly with customers, so it’s absolutely vital that they understand that the customer is king. Not only do customers make purchases, but they also spread the word about the experience they have during the purchasing process.
If your customer service is exemplary, you’ll enjoy higher rates of word-of-mouth advertising, and satisfied customers may post about their experience online. This can help to drive up sales and help teams meet targets.
Sales targets are a great motivator in retail, and they can assist businesses in growing their profits and incentivizing their staff. By equipping teams with the right tools and techniques, growing in this competitive industry becomes a more realistic proposition.
Meta Title: 7 Ways to Help Sales Team Reach Targets | Retail Insider
Meta Description: Running a retail business is all about reaching targets and making money. Here are 7 tips and tools to help your sales team achieve their sales target.
