How to Ensure You Meet and Exceed Your Q4 Targets

After what has been a tough couple of years for businesses, many still have to strive harder than before to meet targets.

For many companies, this means generating more quality LinkedIn leads and working with them to extract maximum value from them. Of course, this is a lot easier said than done, but we’ve created a brief guide on what you can do to help ensure you meet your targets for Q4 and, even better, to exceed them.

Set Ambitious & Realistic Targets

If you’re going to meet and exceed your targets, you will first need to know your targets. Make sure not to just pull any figure out of the air – spend some time to consider which targets are both ambitious and realistic.

• Ambitious: You should be aiming to perform the best that you reasonably can. Ambitious targets are essential for your company’s financial well-being and the morale of your team. Talented team members want to be challenged to help them perform at their best, whether it’s lead generation or converting LinkedIn prospects into customers. 

• Realistic: Although ambitious, your targets should also be achievable without your team members having to work themselves into the ground. Unrealistic targets are only likely to cause resentment and demotivation, potentially decreasing productivity. Decreased productivity is only likely to have the opposite impact to the one you were aiming for. 

One way to set realistic targets is to look at previous figures as a benchmark. If you can identify areas where you genuinely feel you can improve, then raise your targets accordingly.

Take into account any new tools you have at your disposal, and it’s also a good idea to confer with your team for feedback on your targets and expectations. If your team tells you that your lead generation targets are not realistic, for example, it’s a good idea to listen. 

Define Your Strategy

Setting targets is all very well, but how are you going to achieve those targets? What is your strategy? 

You will need to develop a plan to know what you need to do and who is responsible for which tasks. Develop a sales funnel to see how each task interacts with other tasks and see what your pipeline looks like.

Speak with your team to get input into your strategy; their knowledge and experience on the frontlines will provide insights that will help to make a comprehensive lead generation and sales strategy that runs smoothly. A different perspective could help you develop a much more effective plan than if you tried to create the system alone. 

Plan to have checkpoints throughout your campaign. Checkpoints will help your team understand what’s expected from individual tasks and whether or not they are meeting their own targets. Checkpoints will also help make it easier for you to identify what is wrong if overall targets are not being met. 

You should also ask yourself how you will monitor the performance of your campaigns. What information will tell you how well your campaign is performing and how will you gather that data. Create KPIs that tell you the key metrics that will help you evaluate how well your campaign is going and help you to make the right decisions. 

Monitor Your Pipeline

Monitor your pipeline throughout the campaign. Monitoring your pipeline will help you see if targets are being met and identify bottlenecks and other issues. If you don’t keep an eye on your pipeline, then problems might occur without them being immediately evident, and it could be a couple of weeks before you realize you have a real problem. When you pay regular attention to your pipeline, it will help you nip any issues in the bud before they can develop into something more problematic. 

If your pipeline is not looking in good shape, you need to ask what is causing it. Is your team underperforming in lead generation, for example? If so, what do they need to help them get back on target again? There are numerous potential causes, and identifying the cause will help you get your campaign back on track. 

Consider Your Tool Stack

Any worker needs the right tools for the job. When working with LinkedIn leads, there are three main tools that your team should be using. Those tools are:

Email Tools: Email platforms will help your team send out high-quality emails to large numbers of people at the same time. Segregation tools will help you to send the right message to the right people, helping to enhance the effectiveness of your lead generation and sales.

Phone System: An effective phone system is important for any sales team that makes outbound calls. A good phone system needs to offer more than just good quality and affordable calls. It also needs to provide tools that help maintain records on interactions with LinkedIn leads and other prospects. 

LinkedIn Tool: A LinkedIn tool will help you make the most of the powerful marketing opportunities that LinkedIn offers. With the right tool, gathering LinkedIn leads is much easier, and automation tools help you operate more effectively and efficiently. 

The tools mentioned above are the essentials that will help your sales time to work efficiently. Other tools are available that will help to improve their efficiency further. 

Hold Weekly Team Meetings

Regular team meetings are crucial if the team is going to stay on course; ideally, you should have team meetings at least once a week. Team meetings should be an opportunity to give feedback to your team about whether or not targets are being met and what can be done to rectify any issues. Also, highlight the positives and commend your team on a good performance to help keep motivation and productivity high. 

Team meetings should also be an opportunity for your team members to have a say. Ask them if there’s anything they’re struggling with and where improvements can be made with lead generation or any other aspect of your campaign. Their feedback is important because they are at the heart of the campaign, so they are the first to notice any issues that arise.  

Your team meetings should also be backed up by data because data shows objective facts that don’t lie. Use statistics to show what is working and what is not and use them to focus on aspects that need improvement and ask how things can be improved.

As before, make sure to also highlight what is working well and commend your team for where they have performed well. It’s important to keep morale high for a motivated team. 

Solve Issues & Support Your Sales Team

Even the best of strategies can experience unexpected problems, so you should always be prepared to fix things when required. Where you can, try to foresee potential issues and have contingency plans in place so any issue that does occur can be acted on quickly. If something happens that you don’t have a contingency plan for, then work with your team to have the issue rectified as soon as possible. 

One of the most important things you can do is to make it clear to your team that you are approachable; that they can come to you should they identify any problems that need rectifying. Just as important is that you take any feedback into consideration and act on it where possible. Putting your teams’ recommendations into action will encourage more feedback from your team going forward. 

Also, make sure that you’re doing what you can to support your team as much as possible. Make sure that they have all the tools and other assets at their disposal that will help them to achieve your targets. 

Getting Back on Track if You Fall Behind

In order to catch up, you first need to understand why you’re falling behind on your targets in the first place. You should dig down to find the cause rather than just making assumptions from surface data.

For example, if sales figures are lower than expected, then it can be easy to blame the sales team. After all, they are the ones responsible for making sales. However, it might not be your sales team that’s the problem – they might even be over-performing with what they have to work with. 

When looking at your sales performance, it pays to look at what lead generation efforts are producing. If you have LinkedIn leads of poor quality, then it would be unreasonable to lay the blame on the sales team. Examine your leads and ask yourself if they meet fit in with your typical buyer’s persona. Examine the funnel to ensure that your leads are being adequately nurtured.

Also, consider the data you are getting with your leads. If your sales team has to spend time trying to reach the lead because they have insufficient data, they will become a lot less effective. LinkedIn leads can be a very potent marketing tool, but they will not be as effective if you have difficulty reaching your prospects. 

If your lead generation is working well, then you need to examine the sales team’s processes. Is their pitch effective? Are they using their time efficiently? Are they focusing on the right leads? Looking at their processes will help you to identify where things are going wrong and help them to work more efficiently and effectively.

You should also take a closer look at the copy that’s being used. Will your copy resonate with the audience, and is it clear what your message is? 

A lack of sales could also be a case of simply not having enough manpower to meet targets and this can apply to all departments and not just your sales team. 

Sales Hacks to Hit Targets

In Salesflow, you have access to some powerful features that make for great sales hacks that will help you meet your targets.

One such tool, in particular, is the new Groups and Events feature. This feature allows you to connect to members of LinkedIn groups and events in your industry and filter them to find those that match your buyer persona. 

You can then use this list to send highly targeted messages at scale. This feature gives you an opportunity to tap into an excellent source of warm, qualified LinkedIn leads. After all, if they’re attending events relevant to your industry, then they clearly have an interest. 

Also, make sure that your conversations are synced with your CRM platform. Synchronizing SalesFlow with your CRM will mean less work for your team. Instead of having to spend time keeping and tracking conversations and lead generation, your team will have more time to instead focus on the important task of making sales. 

Using your CRM will also mean that your sales team have all the information they need at their fingertips. 

Preparing for the Next Quarter

If you follow the guide above, then you will have gathered a lot of data that will help you be even more prepared for the next quarter. Armed with the right data, you can become more ambitious with your targets as your previous targets become easier to reach. You will also be better equipped to handle any issues as/when they occur.

The right data will also help to make it a lot easier for you to communicate with your team, and vice versa. Your sales and marketing teams can grow while you will also continue to learn what it takes to get results. 

With every aspect of your campaign improving, leading to more sales, you can look forward to seeing your business flourish.   

Summary

Above is a brief guide on how to ensure that you meet your targets for Q4 – and beyond. Use resources like LinkedIn leads to your advantage with help from tools that maximize their effectiveness. Communicate with your team and encourage feedback from them. If aspects of your campaign like lead generation are not going according to plan, then it is best to know as soon as possible so you can work on rectifying the problem. 

Perhaps most importantly of all is to arm yourself with the right data and make sure your systems are integrated with CRM tools that empower your sales teams with the information they need. When you give your sales and marketing team the right tools, they will help your business not only to meet your targets but exceed them.