Building strong and achievable sales goals is not just about setting a revenue number and hoping for the best. It is about understanding your team, and staying realistic and organized by tracking sales in a manageable way. Ambitious goals can be motivating, but expectations that are too high or disconnected from reality can ultimately hurt morale and undermine your program.

This guide walks through a practical approach to setting sales goals that are realistic, measurable, and designed to support your sales team throughout the academic year.

Assess Your Starting Point

Before setting new goals, take time to step back and evaluate where your student media group currently stands. Ask yourself these key questions:

1. How is your sales team structured?

Student sales teams come with unique challenges. Reps may have packed class schedules, limited availability, or varying levels of experience. Maybe your strongest salesperson graduated, or you’re onboarding new reps.

Understanding your team’s capacity is critical. When goals don't reflect who is actually selling and how much time they can commit, frustration can build quickly.

2. What did your publication bring in last year?

Did you hit your revenue target? Which products sold best and which struggled?

Review performance from the last two to four years and look for patterns. Understanding why things happened is just as important as knowing what happened. Every win and loss should inform your approach for the year ahead.

3. What are your most important goals?

What is the one goal that, if achieved, would make everything else easier? For many publications, that might be as straightforward as increasing revenue by 10 to 15%.

Clarity here keeps goals focused and achievable.

4. What are the local market conditions?

Most student media publications operate in college towns, where sales cycles are seasonal. Summer months are often slower, while fall and spring bring more opportunities. Local business conditions should directly influence how and when you set your goals.

Set a Clear Revenue Goal

Once you understand your starting point, set a single, clear revenue goal for the semester, the year, or both. This goal might be broken down by product, client type, or individual sales reps, but the top-line number should be specific and time-bound.

Rather than framing the goal as “we need to sell $30,000 this year,” connect it to a purpose. 

For example, you might say, “Our goal is to raise $30,000 so we can cover printing costs, pay our staff members, and continue telling stories that reflect our campus community.” 

When student sales reps understand why revenue matters and how it supports the publication, the goal feels less intimidating and more motivating.

Break Big Goals into Achievable Objectives

Large revenue numbers can feel overwhelming, especially for student sellers. Breaking them into smaller, achievable objectives makes goals feel more manageable and easier to track.

This might look like:

• Revenue goals per sales rep
• Monthly or weekly targets
• Product-specific benchmarks

Clear objectives give your sales team something concrete to work toward and make progress visible along the way.

Align Goals with the Academic Calendar

Student media sales cycles follow academic calendars, not fiscal quarters. Midterms, finals, breaks, and graduation all impact selling time and energy. Plan for heavy prospecting at the beginning of each semester, even if deals do not close immediately.

Build goals that account for slower periods and leverage seasonal opportunities, like back-to-school promotions for local businesses.

Apply What You Learn

Sales goals should never be static. After each semester or year, take time to reflect, ideally during quieter periods before things pick up at the beginning of a school year. What worked? What did not? Did staffing changes affect performance?

These insights should directly inform future planning. Over time, this reflection helps student media publications build stronger and more resilient sales programs, brick by brick.

What’s next?

Effective sales goals do not just drive revenue; they create clarity, confidence, and professionalism for sales reps. The right goals don’t pressure students, they empower them.