Last month I met with a client 2 days before the end of the month, and he was three sales short of his quarterly target of 30 sales. We could have been satisfied with that, but instead we decided to keeping going full out for the target until the end of the quarter. We came up with the great "Get my business coach off my back" sale.

My client sent out an email to all his prospects who were trialling his product and considering buying it. He said something like "We're three sales short of our target for the quarter. I think that's a pretty good result, but my business coach is telling me it’s not good enough. So help me get mybusiness coach off my back! Until midnight on Wednesday you can buy the product for x dollars." (And he offered a generous discount.)

The result? Six sales over the last two days of the quarter. Not bad out of a quarterly target of 30.

I had another client send me an excited email in the last week of the same month telling me that she had hit her target of 40 million for the month for the first time (she's in Indonesia so unfortunately that's rupiahs, not dollars).

I think there is incredible value in having a sales target, for two reasons.

Firstly, it puts your attention on sales, and keeps it there. And putting your energy and focus on a certain part of the business will generally produce results there regardless of anything else.

Secondly, sales is often an area that small business owners don't love, and will avoid if possible (even while recognising that sales is the life blood of the business). A sales target will keep us in action and stop us putting off those calls that we've been avoiding. There's a good reason that all sales team have targets, and even if you're the only member of your sales team, I recommend you set a target too.

The photo is my display for my target this month - I'm launching a new program on the first of May, and I've got 8 registrations so far towards my target of 10. Let's hope my coaching is better than my drawing!

How do you go with sales targets (or the lack there of) in your business?