Setting sales goals is extremely important for entrepreneurial businesses. Do it right, and your entire sales team is bought into their role in delivering the needed revenue to meet the business’s goals. Do it wrong, and your goals are meaningless. Your sales team is deflated and not bought into their role in supporting the goals of the business.
Vital as it is, many teams struggle with doing this effectively. There are two high-level approaches to setting Sales Scorecard goals:
- Top-down
- Bottom-up
Throughout my years in sales, I’ve experienced both methods firsthand—each with its own advantages and pitfalls. In this blog, I’ll share stories from my career that illustrate the realities of both approaches. These insights can help you set your Sales Scorecard goals for 2025 with confidence.
A Story About the Top-Down Approach
I was on a sales team with seven total reps that took the top-down approach to setting Sales Scorecard goals. It started with the CFO casting a 30% YOY growth goal. Why 30%? Because that’s the growth they wanted. I call this the “spaghetti-on-the-wall” approach.
Sure, 30% growth would be nice, but the goal was based on a dream, not a plan. It had nothing to do with past performance or plans to invest in enabling that growth—it was just left to the sales reps to figure it out or work harder!
There were some advantages to this approach:
- The math was simple! Last year’s revenue x 130%, divided by 7. That sure didn’t take very long.
- The sales goals (not the people) were aligned with the business’s goals.
As you might imagine, the disadvantages in this case outweighed the advantages:
- We were not engaged in the process, so we weren’t bought into the numbers as a sales team.
- These numbers were unrealistic. We were given a significant increase in our Sales Scorecard goals without being given anything to drive the increase (new products, sales tools, more reps, etc.). Maybe they thought we would work 30% more?
- We didn’t feel like it was fair. The revenue goal was divided by seven without considering territories, skill levels, or other variables.
The result? By May, no one was on track to reach their goals. As a result, goal attainment—and the associated bonuses—were no longer a motivator. We were all focused on how we could make enough money to meet our own personal goals, and we lost visibility of the business goals, which of course fell short.
A Story About the Bottom-Up Approach
In a previous life, I was wearing a marketing hat at a technology company and learned about their bottom-up approach to setting annual Sales Scorecard goals.
The goal-setting process required gathering a lot of input from individual sales team contributors. It also took into account the macroeconomic environment, market conditions, the historical performance of the company and individual territories, and resource availability.
All these factors were considered when developing the first round of Sales Scorecard goals. Then, the company revenue goals were taken into account, resulting in an upward adjustment of the original goals.
There were some advantages to this approach:
- The sales team felt involved in setting the goals.
- Incorporating historical context into the goal-setting process ultimately made the goals more realistic and achievable than in the top-down scenario.
There were also some disadvantages to this approach:
- This was a very time-consuming process, and the goals were not communicated to reps until mid-February.
- The lack of involvement from senior leadership in the initial part of the process was risky. Though the goals seemed achievable, they could have hindered the company’s performance.
- While the process was collaborative, uplifting the goals affected the team’s buy-in of the final goals.
The result? In this case, there was buy-in, and the sales team was invested in pursuing their goals and associated bonuses throughout the year. In the end, the company fell just short of its revenue goals.
Here is a comparison of the two approaches:
Aspect | Top-Down | Bottom-Up |
---|---|---|
Goal Ownership | Limited for sales reps | Strong ownership from sales teams |
Speed of Process | Quick and efficient | Slower and more collaborative |
Realism | May overlook ground realities | Grounded in field-level insights |
Strategic Alignment | Fully aligned with company vision | May require adjustments to align |
The Answer is Somewhere in the Middle
It’s clear that neither approach is perfect, so what’s the best solution?
Instead of choosing top-down or bottom-up, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Business goals need to be factored in, reps need to be involved, and historical data and market realities must be considered.
The keys to making this work are:
- Top-down alignment: Establish a collaborative culture where everyone is on the same page. This is broader (and more challenging) than setting annual company goals. The spaghetti-on-the-wall scenario is symptomatic of a leadership team not aligned with the rest of the company. Maintaining open and honest communication about company goals on an ongoing basis and valuing the insight of team members should be the foundation of the goal-setting process.
- Informed and action-oriented decision-making: Company leaders set annual goals based on historical data, market trends, and plans to make investments in products, tools, or strategies that will enable the desired growth.
- Sales team involvement: Start by involving the sales team as described in the bottom-up approach.
- Collaboration: Once the goals have been set, let the sales leadership go to work! With everyone on the same page in this collaborative culture, the role of the sales leader is to coach the reps and team to collaborate on a Sales Scorecard that will support the business goals.
This approach balances ambition with practicality, fostering buy-in across the organization while ensuring alignment with the big picture. It may take longer than the top-down approach, but start earlier! The result is that everyone will be aligned and invested in reaching their goals as a team.
Need Help Setting Your Sales Scorecard Goals?
Convergo is rolling out our Sales Scorecard Workshop to help teams get this right. Stay tuned for details, or contact us today to start the conversation!