Over the last year and a half we have always preached about making a Sales and Marketing plan that has monthly to do's for your business in marketing and sales. Now we are going to talk about setting goals. Making a great sales and marketing plan is just the 1st step. The 2nd step is holding yourself accountable for that plan.

You can make a plan, but if you do not have goals tied into it, then whats the point? I have seen many people make great sales and marketing plans, but they do not set goals to reach for that year. You want to make sure that you are measuring your efforts, and setting goals is a good way to do that.

When you set your goals, you want them to be high but realistic. If you set them for average, then you most likely will get unaverage results. In this very competitive world you cannot just settle for the average 15 to 20 % increase in business. You want to set them higher so you will get close to them if not exceed them. We have always told our clients to set a goal of a 35 to 38% increase in sales from last year. What happens is that they work really hard to reach those goals and they either meet them or they do a 28 or 30% increase which is nothing to sneeze at.

When we set goals, we set the goals and then put the action steps to reach those goals. Then they are posted on the office wall for that month. Not only is the Yearly sales and marketing plan on the desk in plain site, but up on the wall is January's goals and the action steps to reach them. The sensible way of doing business, is plan and then execute the plan.

If you do not have goals to reach, then what is the point of having a plan?