Setting business goals is critical to achieving success in your business. The better defined these objectives are, the greater possibilities of scope we will have to expand a company since they represent the north towards where we want to go. Without goals, we simply could not know where we stand and we would have a hard time keeping customers over time.
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Consequently, different problems may arise from not having defined business objectives, because sales representatives end up selling for the sake of selling, executing processes that are not aligned with some larger objective. When objectives cannot be contained through process improvement, changes, and new projects, they are not feasible to achieve.
To implement any improvement of processes or projects, such as incorporating new technology, is often confused with objectives when they are not, since they are mere means to achieve an objective, not the objective itself. Then, the objectives that we thought we had set were not such and we ended up mistakenly focusing on the north toward which we wanted to go.
The purpose of this article is to identify the main problems of not having commercial objectives, even if the sales processes manage to close deals.
Whether you don't have set business goals or they aren't compatible with your company's resources to accomplish them, here are the top issues that companies face today.
One of the most common problems for companies, when there are no clear business objectives, is the impossibility of knowing if they are profitable or not. Your sellers are likely to get good deals if they employ the right strategies to impress your customers, but those strategies won't be focused on meeting a specific goal, although selling a certain number of products could be considered a goal in itself.
However, a measurable, achievable, temporary, relevant, and specific business objective will seek more than selling in a general way. How much do you want to sell in a month, in 6 months, in a year? Whom do you want to sell to? etc. All these questions you should ask yourself when you are leading your sales team because you want to reach a goal.
Selling is not a goal, it is a result. Selling $100,000 in a month to a European market is a goal. Therefore, selling for the sake of selling cannot be considered a commercial objective, since it does not go anywhere, it does not seek to achieve any goal of improvement. It just gets stuck in the comfort zone of selling whatever, more or less, to stay in business and avoid financial collapse.
As you do not have defined commercial objectives, it will be difficult to establish how much your company has grown in a certain period to prepare metrics, because you will not have real indicators of what is being sold. So, when you only sell just to sell, you cannot identify a parameter on which to base yourself to see if there was an improvement in the results or not.
It is also possible that many companies do not have the objective of growing or are not interested in expanding their market and are satisfied with selling and staying at the same level without going backward but not advancing either. Even so, it is not advisable to run a company without having a course to follow, because it would be like sailing a ship adrift in the middle of the ocean.
You can expect to find solid ground at some point, but if you don't know the path that will take you to it or the conditions of the place where you will arrive by chance, you could be in danger of being shipwrecked before your plans are carried out with all that uncertainty involved. Similarly, it happens with companies that do not define their commercial objectives and are content to sell for the sake of selling.
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When there are no indicators or records of how the commercial activity of the sales process is working, it becomes difficult to establish improvements because it is impossible to identify the problems that arise within the same process. To determine what is failing, it is essential to obtain measurements and follow-up of each sequence of the commercial process. Only then can you correct the error, increase efficiency and improve results.
Since improvements are not feasible due to the scarcity of real performance indicators and profits made each month, the fate of a company that does not set business goals will be uncertain. It will be the same for organizations that define unrealistic and unattainable business goals. In addition, selling without a clear objective is likely to lead to a drop in sales closings due to the inability to retain customers.
The absence of commercial objectives is perceived during the sales process, causing customers to stop being interested in the brand and avoid buying. This is manifested in the fact that there will be no new product launches, as well as no up-selling and cross-selling strategies to ensure customer loyalty.
Not knowing where we are going as a company significantly reduces the chances of maintaining a coordinated and trusted alignment between sales and overall goals. To avoid this, all areas must be aware of the decisions made by senior management, so that the objectives set by each one are in line with those previously defined.
In this way, the general objectives can be met through joint interdepartmental work, which in turn will define objectives to facilitate compliance with the former. Well-defined business objectives based on the knowledge and analysis of the general objectives ultimately constitute the north towards which your company will move, through the actions of an effective business plan.
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In summary, the problems of not having defined business objectives are diverse and throughout this article, we only mention the most frequent ones. Having objectives is essential for any company that wants to grow and remain in time. And just as the general objectives are important to define the direction of our actions, so are the departmental objectives, of which the sales objectives allow businesses to close successfully.