Over the years, numerous readers of this column have indicated that the goal to increase sales continues to be an ongoing challenge. The most recent reader to share this thought was Grant DeNormandie, a Northwest Indiana resident, who is the President of Dustcatchers Inc. located in Chicago.

What would happen if you invested time in the next week doing the following:

1. First separate clients into A, B or C categories based upon one of the following criteria: Total annual sales volume, average purchase value, frequency of purchase or your ideal customer target profile. Any of these inbound revenue delineations would work. The secret is the separate categories.

2. Establish WAY SMART goals for each of those three categories based upon historical trends and current capability and capacity to handle new growth.

Sales Training Coaching Tip:

W=Written, A=Aligned to your plan, Y=Yours, S=Specific, M=Measurable, A=Attainable, R=Realistic, T=Target Date

3. Then look at your incoming revenue cycle so that you set your sales growth goals to work with those cycles instead of against them. What this means is instead of taking your projected sales growth and dividing it by 12, you subscribe higher growth numbers to your key sales months such as second and third quarters while leaving first and fourth quarters at current revenue levels.

4. Use an Excel spreadsheet with the first page listing all 52 weeks in the first column, total projected weekly sales growth for all A, B and C categories in the second column. The third column is actual sales received or billed depending upon your accounting method.

5. On the next page within that Excel file, the first column again is the listing for all 52 weeks. The second column is the projected weekly sales growth for only type A customers. In the third column you list again the actual revenue received or billed.

6. Copy and past the previous page two more times to reflect B and C categories.

What you have created is a sales dashboard that is very specific and allows you to see the actual results of your efforts on a weekly basis by category. By tracking your sales using this process, you then can be more specific in to any course corrections within your specific sales growth goals.

Monitoring your sales growth is not a one size fits all approach. The more specific you are to the gaps between where you should be (projected sales per week) and where you are (actual dales per week) the easier it is to close those gaps. What I do know to be true is that my clients who have embraced this simple tactic (think action) have increased their sales by 10%25 to 25%25 within 30 to 90 days because they are aware of what is happening right now instead of waiting to the end of the month or the quarter.

Give it a try and let me know how it works.

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