Setting targets

Anna Turner likes a targeted approach.

- By Anna Turner

The only sure way to grow your business and ensure more profit is to set targets. Targets help focus on the things that will make a difference in driving up profit. They will stop you from guessing and steer you in the right direction.

In this article I want to focus on some of the most important targets and how to set them up.

The targets must start well before the job starts. Set targets that will win you the right work at the right margin.

Sales targets

You have to be in it to win it. But how much do you have to be in to win? Set monthly sales targets based on the amount of work you need to win to keep your pipeline strong. To do this you need to work backwards.

First, start tracking where your sales are coming from. Look for win rates by suburb, type of work, size of the job, client demographic, and client source. Stack the odds in your favour by prioritising the quotes you are more likely to win.

Track your sales conversion rate. Track what percentage of the jobs you quote, by number of quotes and overall contract value, versus the percentage you win. This will give you the volume of quoting you need to do each week to ensure you always have a strong pipeline.

It might take a year or two of data collection to know your conversion rate and where your sales typically come from, but it's well worth keeping track of this data because it is the only surefire way to help you increase sales.

Profit targets