Too often, business owners who want to see an increase in sales think that saying “Get more sales!” to their sales team will make it happen. But, “Get more sales!” doesn’t provide team members with clear instructions on just how they are expected to get more sales. In fact, saying “Get more sales!” paralyzes many people. Sure, most salespeople will agree with you, many will work hard to do more of what they are doing, which yields some results, but few will be able to break that request down and really analyze what “Get more sales!” means.

Further, what things can the team do to get more sales?  Can we entertain more, or should we advertise more?  How much is more?  And what we really need to get more sales is some more sales people…

So “Get more sales!” can mean a lot of different things.  If, when you say, “Get more sales!” you mean you want more new customers; your sales team should be prospecting. If you mean you want to get more orders from the customers you already have, then your sales team will have to manage their accounts more closely. If you mean you want to get more dollars from each sale you make, then … well, you see the point. “Get more sales” doesn’t really articulate what you need specifically.

What does a budget have to do with this? Everything. Business owners who go through a solid, bottom-up budgeting process usually engage in discussions that can provide more specific direction to their team instead of “Get more sales!” So, if the answer is “Get more customers!” the next questions are, “How do we change our process so we can get more customers? Are we going to qualify harder and throw prospects out earlier in the sales process? Are we going to add bandwidth to the sales staff (by taking away non-sales activity, or by adding salespeople)? How much improvement can we expect, and will that add 5%, or 20% to the sales?

These detailed concrete discussions never happen if you don’t sit down and put real numbers into a budget.

Something else magical happens in this process. As the team members engage in these discussions and become part of the decision-making process, they start to become more committed to the outcome. Instead of strategies and goals set “from above,” these are goals and strategies that they choose! Now you can hold them accountable to these goals. The budget is no longer a goal to shoot for (with no consequences if it’s missed) but a baseline that, if missed, will disappoint everyone if it’s not reached. When this is the case, you can set up bonuses such that missing the budget means you don’t pay bonuses. Meeting the budget means your team is doing their job; you can only pay a bonus if the team exceeded what was laid out.

Once you do a budget, you will see that what was once drudgery and an exercise in lying and surprises can turn into a process where you can gain understanding of what drives your business. From there, you can create clear and concrete plans and targets that empower each member of your team to work together to improve performance. Isn’t that well worth your time?

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Brad Farris is a small business advisor with Anchor Advisors, Ltd. in Chicago, Il. Since 2001 Anchor Advisors has been helping creative professional firms to grow, by helping them clarify their purpose, get the most from their people, keep their eye on key performance measures, and implement consistent processes. Brad is also the author of The Business Owner’s Champion: 6 Practices to Build your Nerve and your Business.