Magic goals: Setting and reviewing goals

Modified on Sun, Jun 16 at 9:27 AM

About magic goals

ResaleAI can help you set better daily goals using smart comparison dates.

It compares to the equivalent day last year from the same day of the week, so you always compare a Saturday to a Saturday and a Monday to a Monday.

You specify what percentage growth you’re aiming for, and let RAI do the rest!

Your team will see the day’s metrics on the Daybook in real-time.

It updates live, so they always know how they’re doing compared to their daily goal.

Setting up your goals

On the Daybook or the Monthly report, click the menu dots in the top-right corner and choose “Goal setup”

On the Goal settings page, there are two sections - first, choose your general preferences. Next, adjust certain days as needed.

1) Choose your default settings

Choose your general preferences, and it will set all of your goals going forward

Sales growth - What percentage would you like to aim for over last year's sales?

Average transaction and Trade percentage - What targets should your team aim throughout the day?

Minimum sales goal (Optional) - If you had slower days last year, you can boost the goal so it is never lower than this amount
- Example: Last year you did $850 on a stormy Tuesday
- Your sales growth is set to 10% up, which would set your goal to $935 for that equivalent Tuesday this year
- You want to make sure your goal is always $1000, so you set that for the minimum sales goal in settings
- On that Tuesday, it would use $1000 instead of $935. But other days that month would still be set at 10% up over the previous year
- Note: this can cause your total goal for the month to be higher than expected, if many days would have been lower than your chosen minimum

(If you are a brand new store without one year of sales history, you can skip this step for now.

In the next section, you can input a dollar amount goal for each month instead, using the targets from your business plan. After you've been open for a year, you can come back and set a percentage growth goal!)

2) Review and edit your goals

Now you can visually see your goals for this year compared to your comparison sales from the past two years.

Review the graph to make sure everything looks good.

Hover on any day to see the specifics.

If anything looks off, you can simply drag-and-drop to change the goal!

Or click on any day to edit, and you can specify the exact amounts.

Below the main chart, it shows the average transaction goal each day, and the required customer count to hit those goals.

These can be helpful to tell if your goals are attainable.

If the customer count or average transaction is way too high or low one day, that sales goal may need to be adjusted.

Adjust any individual days as needed, then click “Save” at the bottom!

Tools for fine-tuning your goals

Update monthly goals in advance

To adjust your goals for all months going forward, change your default goals in the first section. You can choose a start date for the change to go into effect.

You can also adjust only a particular month.

In the "Review" section, click to go month-by-month and adjust each month as needed.

This will only override that month, but will keep your general settings for other months.

We recommend looking a few months ahead and adjusting goals as needed beforehand.

Note that you can’t adjust goals for days in the past. So if you adjust your overall goal towards the end of the month, it will only change the days still remaining.

Set a dollar amount goal instead of a percentage

You can also total dollar amount goal rather than a percentage goal.

In the "Review" section, click to a particular month, and click the "pencil" icon next to the goal to edit the whole goal amount. Type in any number, and save.

It will still distribute the daily goals based on last year's pattern, so individual days are still relatively higher or lower based on your sales from the equivalent day last year.

Intuitive adjustments won’t override daily changes

If you adjust individual days, it may end up altering your total percentage for the month.

For example, let’s say your default goal is 5%. It will set each individual day to be 5% above the equivalent day from last year.

If you edit several days to be higher because you’re doing special events, the month’s total goal may end up at 7%.

If you want to keep it at 5% for the month, click the "pencil" icon to edit the total monthly amount. Change that to 5% again, and it will shift the curve up or down accordingly.

This will slightly tweak all days to get to the right monthly percentage, but it keeps the same overall distribution, so the days you adjusted will remain relatively higher or lower.

Support for new stores

If have less than a year of sales history, we can also support you!

Set each month’s goal to the total from your business plan, and it will help you set the goals for individual days.

It looks at how sales from other stores were generally distributed last year, then distributes your monthly total in a similar pattern (for example, you’ll end up with higher goals on Saturdays than Mondays).

Review any special dates

Timing of holidays

Be sure to review any holidays!

If the holiday falls on the same day of the week every year, the comparison date from last year will be correct (since our comps adjust for the day of the week).

But if the holiday falls on the same numeric date every year, you may need to adjust your goals, because it will not be comparing to the date of the holiday last year.

For example: the 4th of July in the US

Last year, July 4th was a Tuesday, but this year it’s a Thursday.

This means your goal for Thursday, July 4th this year is actually being compared to Thursday, July 6th from last year, so it is shifted by two days. (Typically it is only one day, but 2024 is a leap year)

If your store is typically closed on the 4th of July, you will need to edit your goals for July 4th to be zero.

And you may need to increase the goal for July 2nd (since it may be comparing to when you were closed last year).

This will be true for any holidays that fall on a particular date, like Christmas on the 25th.

Timing of special events

If you had a large Back to School event last year, your goal on the equivalent day this year will likely be high. But let’s say you end up doing the event at a different time this year.

In that case, you may want to adjust your goals so the event day this year is higher, and the other day is lower where you did the event last year.

If your event last year was the last weekend of August, and this year it will be the 3rd weekend, you can drag and drop your goals to roughly swap the 3rd and 4th weekends.

If your state has a sales tax holiday, you may also want to check the timing of this year compared to last year.

The majority of states had theirs on the first weekend of August last year, and it will be the same time this year, so you wouldn’t need to adjust – but it’s good to double-check for your state.