If there is anything the year of Covid has taught me it’s that it doesn’t matter what your business is, everyone needs sales goals they can track and focus on throughout the year. Sometimes those goals we made in the beginning of the year can seem overwhelming. But, it doesn’t need to be that way. Last week, we talked about gut checking your business. This week, I want to talk to you about how you meet those sales goals.
It’s been a tough year. Some businesses won’t survive, but the skills we work on together will help you beat it. And you know the really good news? We still have six months to meet those 2020 goals.
Today, we are going to make things quick and easy. I am going to outline four incredibly simple steps to help you understand how to meet your sales goals.
This exercise is designed to take no more than five minutes.
So let’s get down to it. I want each and every one of you to know what you’re working with. The truth will set you free! So, let's help you get there.
How to meet your 2020 sales goal:
1. Know where you stand. A lot of people I work with can’t even tell me their exact year to date income. The first step to finishing strong is knowing where you are now. Take a moment. Sit down with some tea and figure out your year to date sales.
2. Know how much you need to make your goal. If you don’t have a sales goal for the rest of the year, now is the time to set one. The rest is simple subtraction. Take your total sales goal for the year and subtract where you are now. The result is how much you need to make the rest of the year.
3. Divide that by six for the months left in the year. This is to understand how much you need to make each month.
4. Divide that by your per hour cost OR average profit per unit. This is to understand how many billable items or hours you need each month. Per hour cost is for service based businesses and average profit is for product based business.
5. Divide by four. This is a simple way to understand how much you need each week so you can easily track it.
Let’s look at some examples!
Example One: Lauren has a service based business that charges 100 dollars an hour with an average of 75 dollars per hour as profit.
If Lauren wants to make $50,000 in the remainder of this year she would do the following math:
$50,000/6 (months left in the year) = $8,333 per month
$8,333/ $75 (average profit) = 111 billable hours needed per month
111/4 (weeks in a month) = 27 billable hours per week needed to meet your goal
Example Two: Jane sells earrings online. She charges 25 dollars a pair with 15 dollars of average profit.
She wants to make an additional $15,000 this year:
$15,000/6 (months left in the year) = $2,500 dollars per month
$2,500/$15 (profit per pair of earrings) = 166 pairs of earrings need to be sold each month
166/4 (weeks in a month) = 41 pairs a week
See!! It’s super doable. But, you wouldn’t know where to start if you didn’t do the math!
So, do the math for you. Where do you want your business to be? What do you need to get there? Take a couple of minutes today and know what needs to happen to guarantee your success.