
If you don’t have the right goals set in place for your stores and staff you need to kick yourself in the butt, because you are foolishly leaving thousands of dollars in sales on the table. There is no excuse for not taking the time to set meaningful goals for your stores and staff and then getting them to constantly pay attention to them.
We’re fairly ‘famous’ for our 5 Foundations of Driving Results. The first foundation, Focus on Goals, when executed properly in your stores, will significantly drive effort levels and ultimately more sales. Just get it done.
10 Ways You Can Make Goals Work For You:
- Set your goals on the shortest time frame possible. Make them daily.
- If it fits your store, track individual performance.
- Get your staff involved in setting the goals for their own store.
- Talk about goals all day long. When you call a store or see a staff person for the first time the first question you should ask is, “What’s your sales goal today?”
- Challenge staff with goals that are achievable, but that will make them stretch higher than ever before. Apply the 70% rule to your goals: Goals should be achieved at least 70% of the time. If not, they’re too high and risk de-motivating your staff. By the same token, if goals are achieved 90% or more of the time they’re too low and aren’t pushing your staff.
- Set goals not just for total sales, but for each of your key selling metrics.
- Make sure everyone knows the targets they are chasing every shift. You can’t be on the sales floor if you don’t know what your goal is.
- Make sure the goals are realistic and relevant to your teams.
- Break the goals down into smaller ‘bite-sized’ pieces to make them more relatable. Think hourly.
- Set goals for profits and margin, not just sales when appropriate.
Blog Authors: Kevin

Kevin Graff is the main guy behind all things Graff Retail. A renowned retail expert, Kevin is recognized in the retail industry as a speaker, author and expert trainer. Kevin's main passion is to help retailers drive staff performance.