There’s Just Less Time in February

9 Feb 2015

I’ve always found February a bit of a strange month. It’s usually a fun one for me because it’s my birthday month, but it’s also the shortest month of the year…and the only one that has any possible variation in length. Which makes sense, I suppose, in a strange sort of way.

I’ve always wondered if really target focused sales people find February an unfair month. Compared to say, January, you might lose a good couple of days of selling time in which to meet your target. When you consider the difference that two days might have on a person or company’s decision making process, this could potentially have a real effect on a sales person’s ability to reach their goal.

Some sales people might like the challenge, while others feel pressured by the reduced available hours.

With a flexible and easily configurable CRM system, however, the sales manager does have a variety of options when it comes to setting up their targets.

They could just set the targets globally, month-by-month, with a company total that is evenly spread out over the entire sales team…more of a team goal in that sense, almost.

Alternatively, the sales manager could set up targets on a user-by-user basis, taking into account the experience of each member of the sales team. At the same time, they could adjust each monthly goal by a tiny margin to account for the changing number of days available.

Finally, sales managers have the option to set how much of each target, either via the global or per user set up, needs to be taken up by different types of business, i.e. New Business, Renewal Business, etc. They can tailor this by the trends they have seen over the past years through their monthly and annually scheduled reports.

This customisability gives a sales manager the ability to fit an individual sales person’s ability and past behaviour to work out a target that challenges them, but doesn’t overwhelm them…even in this strange, short month.