Goals VS. Expectations

This time of the year was always interesting to me, I would get to sit back and watch the salesman cruise through December because they are all convinced that everyone is on vacation or they aren't buying cars becuase they are out Christmas shopping and that this was a month to just get what you can get and move on. Well I changed all that by taking the philosophy that they will not work on GOALS anymore. Instead we implemented a system of monthly Expectations. The difference being that when you do not hit your goal you can always use the addage "Well we will get them next month". Expectations can have consequences attached to them!

Bob, I expect to have you sell 15 cars this month...if not then we will need to go a different direction.

This way they know ahead of time that there are ramifications to not hitting the expected # that month.

The problem with most managers setting goals is that they get caught up in the...well it's july and it might be slow this month so i will throttle it back a little.

The GM should set all of the expected numbers for each sales person and lay out the consequences of not hitting those numbers prior to the quarter or year (whichever calculation) they choose to use. That way there are no suprises!

I have witnessed a bunch of managers that could feed the owner or GM a whole lot of smooth talk by trying to explain a rough month, this way the manager and salespeople share a common focus of getting the job done. Sales Managers should always take a vested interest in helping a struggling salesperson during the month instead of abusing him or yelling and screaming to pump him up for the next month. Sales managers set the pace of the pack...and most don't!

TRAIN< INSPIRE<LEAD your people and you will be amazed what you get!

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Comment by Jeff Nabel on December 20, 2012 at 4:27pm: Goas vs Expectations, very good. I look at goals and expectations a little different, in that you have to be careful not to lower expectation when setting them in the first place. So becareful when you set expectations, be sure they are realistic, based on the dealerships regimentations in place to achieve those expectations. As an example regardless of up markets or down markets a well regimented dealership knows how to dig in harder on the phones making cold calls and outside prosecting to keep of volume of opportunities when times get tough and perhaps they make less cold calls and outside prospecting (average stores) when over run with traffic, but all the same reach their expectations. A good manager always knows' what he or she "got", this applies to people, and market trends, but is not limitted to that of course.

Before we move on to why we don't impliment these disciplines all the time, let's first cover goals.

Goals should be personal, such as buying homes, or making investments, buying a rolex, heck the only way of achieving these these goals is to achieve those sales expectations.

Now back to "Before we move on to why we don't impliment these disciplines all the time, let's first cover goals" well these discilplines should be in place at all times. That's what seperates dealerships that exceed expectations and stores that are average in their markets. If you get over run with traffic during up markets hire and train more salespeople that will be disciplined to find those opportunities that are not walk ins, and grow the store at each spike.

So set expectations and set personal goals.

Comment by Patrick Comley-White on December 20, 2012 at 12:37am: Excellent post, Wayne. Managers need to be actively involved with their sales team. If you as a manager lose focus, the catch up, as you have said, is even more difficult to achieve. Well put!

Comment by Michael Baker on December 19, 2012 at 9:41pm: Maybe the reason for the nominal response here, is that the discussion commencement is from the historical perspective of sales management vs. the current consumer in the marketplace. This business model of the past is waning so fast. One of the reasons that I have left the yesteryear thinking, as so many consultants are challenged with the current model of the past antiquity.

Comment by Jim Boldebook on December 19, 2012 at 6:40pm: I like that Wayne. Expectations vs Goals. And the owner should start that process with the GM and management. You're 100% right: people create self-fulfilling prophecies all the time based on weather, season, events, playoffs, start of school, end of school, the first nice days of the year, the first bad weather days of the year. Its endless. I'll never forget til the day I die how I sat in a review/forecast meeting of a large dealership group polling the GMs on profit expectations for the coming month/quarter. Most of the GMs were way too conservative in my opinion, but one had the balls to stand up and say he expected a loss. Later I asked the owner how he could actually stay seated while a GM projected a LOSS! I don't remember the response I got, but I know if I had been the owner I would have had a forecast of my own. A new GM for that dealership.

Comment by Bob Carmack on December 19, 2012 at 5:53pm: Good Post. Managers must MANAGE ACTIVITY in order to achieve the goal. Daily activity & results have to be measured against forecast (forecast to actual). If the sales person is not achieving their daily activity and fall behind around 2 units a week, they rarely catch up. (forecast of 15 turns into 7 or 8 sold) As a manager, do you require a written monthly forecast, back into the numbers and determine how many ups, demos, closes, etc are needed to reach forecast or do you simply ask the sales person how many they want to sell each month? Do you do a daily one-on-one and review activity against the forecast and have corrective action (what am I going to do, SPECIFICALLY, to catch up today and/or this week, BEFORE the end of the month when it's too late). MANAGING Daily Activity Controls Daily Results, and Yes, most managers/dealerships don't have a system in place to do so.