3 Reasons Your Business Isn’t Reaching Its Monthly Targets

Monthly targets are essential for all companies as they show constant progression. So, if you don’t already have monthly targets or goals, that’s a big problem! Assuming you do, this post will tackle the massive elephant in the room – you never hit your targets. Why does this always seem to happen, and how can you put a stop to it? We could pick a handful of reasons behind your struggle, but these are the most obvious three:

Your targets are unrealistic

First of all, how realistic are your targets? What are you basing your goals on? Let’s say your previous month’s sales amounted to $10,000. Is it realistic to then suggest that your target for this month is $30,000? What are the chances you can realistically triple your sales figures in 30 days? Especially if history dictates you’re always around the $10k mark. Setting unrealistic targets and goals will mean that you always struggle to hit them. Instead, you need to be more realistic and honest in your expectations – think small steps every month, rather than giant leaps.

Perhaps the best piece of advice is to focus on your business rather than any others. Too many companies will set unrealistic goals as they are comparing themselves to others. You see a rival business hitting huge sales figures, so that’s what you aim for. In reality, they can hit those figures as they’re bigger than you and have more money. Instead, you need to look inwards – identify where your business needs to improve, then measure this based on previous performances. This way, your goals become more realistic as they are tailored to your business.

You don’t have shared team goals

Setting monthly targets for your business is one thing, but what about your team? Team goals are critical as they will basically help you work towards the overall target at the end of the month. One of the best tips for setting team goals is that you must identify what you want to achieve. Effectively, this will be your overall monthly business goal. From here, you can then look at your team and figure out what everyone needs to do to get to that goal. As a result, you have a team of people all working towards the same target, but everyone has their own goals to achieve. It adds extra motivation, while also ensuring that your overall business target is being met.

For example, what if your monthly goal is to improve customer retention by a certain percentage. You can now set team goals that target this overall result. Perhaps your customer service team has a goal to improve satisfaction rates. Maybe your sales team has a goal to do with increasing sales to current customers. Even your marketing team can have a goal focused on retargeting and drawing people back to your business. When all of these team goals are achieved, the overall target will be well within your reach.

There’s no action plan

Similarly, your business needs an action plan to see how the month will unfold. This will fall in line with your team goals, but they are two separate things. The team goals are the targets your employees have to aim for, but the action plan refers to how they will do this. It’s almost like painting a picture or drawing a roadmap to see how you get from A to B.

Without an action plan, targets can easily be missed. You set the monthly goal, then just leave it at that. Your employees may be a bit confused as to what they should be doing every day to hit the targets. Instead, you should plan out what you want to achieve every week in the four-week cycle. Effectively, an action plan is almost like breaking down the team goals into even smaller goals for them to hit each week/day. They work towards these, making it easier to plan their schedules and be productive. As such, the smaller goals are met, leading to the team goals being met, which means the overall monthly business target is met! It’s like a domino effect, and it all begins with your action plan.

If your business consistently fails to meet its monthly targets, there’s a high possibility it’s down to these three problems. You need to set realistic goals, or else you will never see any progress. Team goals are essential for breaking the main goal down into manageable chunks, with an action plan to further make the team goals easy to achieve.