Of course, I include all the overheads of running the business, stock costs, staffing costs, premises costs etc. and I try to factor in the likely increases that will be coming during the next 12 months. For me this year it is staffing costs, (the increase in minimum wage coupled with having a member of staff going onto maternity leave that I need to cover) but I also think we will see a rise in delivery costs and likely increases in dress prices as suppliers have to also cover increased production costs and import duty as a result of Brexit.

Then I look at my personal goals and cost those out. This could be a simple as paying yourself a little more next year than you did this year, or something more directly rewarding, like taking you and your family to Disneyland! The ‘what’ isn’t important, what is important is that it matters to you and will improve your life in some way.

By doing this, it means you are actually invested in achieving your goals, it gives them meaning and foundations based on you personally and this in turn drives you to achieve them.

Now you need to look back, I have actually used 2019 figures for this exercise this year, because I feel happier basing my targets on real numbers achieved for a full year, but you can use 2020 or 2021 if you’d like to, what’s important is that the targets you’re setting are based on fact, that way they will be realistic and are therefore more likely to be achievable.

Stick with me here, I know it’s not exciting, but you’ll feel such a sense of achievement once it’s done, you’ll be happy you did it!

As a rule of thumb you should aim to increase sales by 10-20% on the previous year, but remember, you are the one setting the targets and so they can be as stretching or conservative as you like, just make sure they will challenge you and move the business forward, whilst hopefully also giving you a better life this year than last year. It’s also vital that they are not too high and impossible to achieve, as this will simply demoralise and demotivate you and your team and the targets will become meaningless as you’ll stop trying to hit them.

The final thing to consider is which are the important numbers to track, if you read my previous ‘Knowing your Numbers’ article, you may already know where I’m going with this, but I believe there are just 4 key numbers you need to track and apply a target to, and the rest will fall into place as a result:

1. The number of items sold

2. The number of brides seen (1^st appointments)

3. The customer’s average spend

4. The conversion rate

These numbers are effectively the only ones that matter, of course you can add any others, add on sales, reviews, storage etc, are also useful track, but keeping it simple will mean you are more likely to keep on top of it.

You may wish to add total revenue too, but steer away from including balances in this, as they will give you a false impression of success.

The 4 numbers above are what will keep you focused on the right activity.

Make sure you have a target for each one, preferably weekly, but monthly at least and share them with your team. Give each of your stylists their own target too, simply a percentage of the overall store target pro-rata’d for them is all that’s needed. They then know where they fit and what they contribute to the store’s success, helping them feel empowered and valued. You may choose to reward them on this too of course, but that’s another article for another day!

Now you have your targets set, all you need to do is work out how you’re going to reach them…if you need any help or support with that or implementing anything in any of my articles, feel free to get in touch at anna@yourretailcoach.co.uk

Also. if you’d like to download the free spreadsheets that will help you track and measure you store targets for the coming year, just visit www.yourretailcoach.co.uk/targetsandtracking and request the downloads and they’ll drop into your inbox.

Let’s get planning, and make 2022 your best year ever!!