You probably hear the word "company objectives" all the time at work, on TV, or from your friends – but what exactly does it mean? How can we transform something so abstract into something more concrete? What does this have to do with sales commissions?
Clearly defined objectives are an essential part of driving a high-performance sales team for a few reasons: it gives them direction within everyday work, and it also keeps them motivated and competitive with themselves and their fellow sales reps.
Without establishing and implementing objectives, there's no definable metric or goal you can measure growth against and report to your peers.
Objectives are the rubric for defining desired actions and behaviors. They guide what you’ll reward sales reps for in your compensation plan—beyond just deciding when to pay commissions.
This is why it's crucial to have well-defined company objectives, translate those into short- and long-term goals, and analyze who and what can help you reach those objectives.
What are company objectives?
Company objectives are the measurable outcomes your business is working toward. They can be short-term (improving customer service scores) or long-term (expanding market share). Building a list of business objectives creates the foundation that guides and directs the rest of your planning, actions, and responses. It's not enough to figure out objectives; you'll also have to accomplish them.
Strong objectives provide:
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Direction — keeping teams focused on what matters most.
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Motivation — giving sales reps clear targets to compete for.
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Accountability — enabling leaders to track performance and measure ROI.
If your company doesn't have a defined set of objectives, you'll want to get as much perspective into this process as possible. Ask yourself questions like: What do we want to be known for? What can we do better? What are our competitors doing?
Examples of company objectives include:
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Increasing profitability by 15% year over year
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Reducing employee turnover by 10%
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Improving customer experience scores by 20%
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Acquiring 100 new mid-market customers
- Uphold a positive corporate culture
You want to accomplish objectives as immediate, effective, and straightforward as possible – but, depending on who and how they've developed, that's much harder than it sounds.
How to align objectives with sales compensation
When objectives aren’t tied to compensation, they risk becoming abstract. Sales reps need to see how their day-to-day efforts connect to business goals—and how they’ll be rewarded for achieving them.
That’s why objectives should serve as the rubric for sales compensation plans. Instead of just setting quotas, companies should translate objectives into clear behaviors and actions that earn incentives.
For example:
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Objective: Improve customer retention → Sales behavior: Prioritize upsell and renewal conversations.
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Objective: Expand into a new region → Sales behavior: Prospect new accounts and build pipeline.
The hierarchy of goal-setting
The key to creating a successful set of company objectives is to develop a clear hierarchy of goals. Psychologist Angela Duckworth introduced the idea of a goal hierarchy, working from the top-down by defining a few, overarching capital-G "Goals" that your company wants to work toward. From here, you can define mid- and lower-level goals that provide stepping stones in the right direction (to the top of the hierarchy) so you can reach your company's goals.
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Low-level goals: Daily or weekly activities, such as making 1,000 prospecting calls per month.
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Mid-level goals: Milestones tied to performance, such as hitting sales quotas or acquiring new clients.
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High-level objectives: Strategic company missions, such as growing market share or improving cash flow.
By completing low-level goals, teams can better accomplish mid-level ones. Objectives sit at the top of this hierarchy, defining long-term missions. When sales reps understand this structure, they see how small daily actions ladder up to lasting business success.
How to define your company objectives
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Start with your mission and values – Ensure objectives align with the company’s identity, mission, and purpose.
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Gather input across departments – The more collaborative, the better. Go to the IT department, speak to the customer service reps, and listen to the finance director about their own division goals and insights.
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Make them measurable – Define success with metrics, not vague aspirations. No goal or objective is unreachable, as long as you can outline what steps you will be taking and repeating, to get there.
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Use software to track progress – Manual spreadsheets create errors and slow insights. It's easier to track and identify areas of needed growth with the proper tools – software that contains historical company data, and data analytics or reporting software that sheds insight on your company's strengths and weaknesses.
Why sales tracking software is essential
When setting objectives for sales reps being able to provide visual feedback through leaderboards, dashboards, and reports will have a profound impact. Having software ready to measure and track progress automatically is key to goal completion. It's not a matter of calculating ROI with Excel spreadsheets anymore. It's easier to track progress (or lack thereof) with intelligent and insightful tools that set you up for success.
A SaaS-based system, Performio has saved more than 500,000 administrative hours and calculated more than $3 billion in commissions. Performio's sales tracking software provides easy-to-read interfaces so that data entry, making corrections, and understanding analytics dashboards are easy to generate and understand.
Final thoughts
Defining company objectives is the first step to building a motivated, high-performing sales team. By aligning objectives with compensation, structuring them into a goal hierarchy, and tracking progress with the right tools, businesses can create a culture of accountability and growth.
Ready to align your company objectives with a modern incentive compensation platform? See how Performio can help.