SMART Goals Template
Write the goal in your own words, then answer one prompt for each letter. The builder puts your answers into a SMART goal, flags what is missing (no number, no date, a vague verb) and adds milestones and an action plan. Up to 10 goals on one sheet, ready to print or copy. Load the examples for a sales rep, a sales manager and a field service crew.
What SMART stands for
Each letter is a test the goal has to pass. If one fails, the goal is a wish, not a plan.
Specific
What exactly will be done, and who owns it. "Book discovery calls with new contractor accounts" beats "prospect more".
Measurable
What you will count, where you are today and the number that means done. Without a baseline nobody can see progress.
Achievable
What you need and what could get in the way. A stretch is fine; a target nobody believes in is ignored by week two.
Relevant
Which team or company goal it feeds. For a rep that is usually the quota or the team's pipeline goal.
Time-bound
A date, plus checkpoints on the way: a weekly count in the one-on-one, a milestone at the halfway point.
Where it comes from: George T. Doran proposed SMART in "There's a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management's goals and objectives" (Management Review, November 1981). His letters stood for Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic and Time-related; most templates today, this one included, use Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. Doran also wrote that not every objective will meet all five criteria.
A SMART goal generator that asks instead of guessing
There is no chatbot here making up a goal for you. You answer the prompts, the builder puts your words in order and checks them with fixed rules:
- Is there a number in the target, and is it different from where you are today?
- Is there a real date, and is it still ahead of you?
- Does a vague word like "improve" or "more" have a metric and a number behind it?
- Is it linked to a team or company goal, with checkpoints or milestones on the way?
Every word in the statement is one you typed, so the goal sounds like you and matches what you agreed.
SMART goal examples for sales and field teams
Each one names the action, the number, the date and why it matters. Change the numbers to your own.
Outside sales rep
Book 12 discovery calls a week with new contractor accounts by November 30, up from 7, to feed the team's Q4 goal of 30 new accounts.
Inside sales rep
Raise the share of booked meetings that take place from 70% to 85% by the end of the quarter, by sending a reminder and an agenda the day before each one.
Sales manager
Hold a 30-minute coaching one-on-one with each of my 6 reps every week, 24 a month instead of 10, by January 31.
New rep in onboarding
Run 5 product demos on my own, each reviewed with my manager, by my 60th day.
Account manager
Hold a business review with each of my 15 top accounts by March 31, with the next steps from each logged in the CRM within one business day.
Field service crew
Cut repeat visits on residential HVAC service calls from 9% to 5% of jobs by March 31, to support the company's customer satisfaction goal.
SMART goals or OKRs?
A SMART goal is one well-written target for a person or a project, often agreed in a one-on-one or a review. OKRs set a few ambitious objectives for a team or a company for a quarter, each measured by key results and scored at the end. Many sales teams use both: OKRs for the team's quarter, SMART goals for each rep's part in it.
Setting goals for a whole team for the quarter? Use the OKR template.
Turning a quota into the numbers behind a goal? Start with the quota calculator.
Agreeing goals with your reps: the one-on-one meeting template has a growth thread with one current goal: write that goal here first.
More for sales managers and reps: sales coaching software, sales quota, sales onboarding.
Agree the goal in the one-on-one. Write it from what was said.
Goals are usually agreed out loud, in a one-on-one or a review. Record the conversation with ParrotNotes and you get the transcript, a summary and the action items, so the goal you write down matches what you and your manager agreed. Free for 100 minutes of recording a month.
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