How to Set Them and Why
People often avoid setting goals because life changes at such a rapid pace. There are several misconceptions about goals and why they are necessary. In addition to offering some of the standard goal setting and goal achievement information, we’ll give you a unique way to define, establish and break down your dreams into daily activities.
From prioritizing your daily To-Do list to creating your Ten Year Plan, goals are evidence of your dreams. Goals are not set in stone; they can change as your life changes. And they should! The idea is to create a framework that will more readily allow for you to track your progress and give yourself a stronger purpose that causes you to do the hard things now so you can enjoy the great things later.
In the sales world, goals are given and goals are driven; it is important to have goals in sales. Your personal goals are more important than the goals your company gives you because they have deeper personal meaning to you. Use the company as a vehicle to reach your personal goals. When individual goals are married to company goals this creates a unique union and each work to bring both the company and the individual to accomplish more in less time.
A key factor to consider: Your goals must be in agreement with one another. If one of your goals is to become the highest producer in your company, and another goal is to be a dedicated parent, you may experience conflict. Let’s say for instance that in your industry in order to the be the best of the best, you will have to spend late hours at the office and be required to travel out of town frequently, and for extended periods of time. If that is the case, then it will be difficult for you to achieve the second goal of spending ample, quality time with your family. You cannot be in two places at once. Your goals must be congruent.
The easiest way to begin is to first give yourself permission to dream again. Remember when you were a kid and all you had to do was lay in the grass, look at the clouds and dream about what you wanted to be, do or have. Put yourself in that same mindset. You will likely need a refreshing environment. But if you don’t have time to find one, just find some quiet space and some time. Get up an hour earlier than anyone else in the house for a few days. Go on a long walk or a hike by yourself. Sit up late at night and look at the stars. In other words do something different and put yourself in a position to allow your mind to begin to dream again. I know in todays fast paced world that is a lot to ask, but it is necessary to allow your mind to free itself of the daily grind.
Begin to think about what your life is like 10 years from now. How old are you? Where would you like to live? Who do you want around you day to day? What kind of vacations do you take? Do you imagine of traveling to far away places? Can you see yourself driving that new car, the new boat? Working because you want to not because you need to? Maybe you just want to be debt free and donate time and money to your favorite charity. They are your dreams so make it what you want. Dream big my friend, dream big!!!!
Once you’ve had some quality time to dream begin to prioritize what comes first. Pick out a few of your goals and build a plan. It may not come to you at first but keep the image of your goals top of mind. Next put a dollar value on your goals. Nothing is free! Break that amount of money into reasonable monthly amounts. Now add that to your mandatory monthly revenue. Cut out a picture of an image that represents your goal and put it on your bathroom mirror. Put the same picture on your dash, and another one at your workspace.
Once you’ve defined your monthly mandatory revenue, define how much more in commission or bonuses you need to reach your monthly mandatory. In sales you don’t have income limits. You are limited by time, effort, size of sale, and number of sales. Want more, sell more! It’s real simple. However, we don’t want to over simplify the ability to find a suspect, turn them into a prospect, follow a sales process, disqualify 10-15 suspect, another 10 prospects and close one deal. We do want to define how many more sales we need to make to reach our new monthly mandatory minimum. Once we’ve defined the number of additional sales, we need to refer to our closing ratios and then determine the number of minimum daily activities necessary to fill the pipeline and move deals through them. This will be your new focus. Focus on the fundamental and everything else will work out.
Show me a salesperson with strong personal compelling goals and I’ll show you a sales professional that will accomplish more, faster! That is the beauty of our profession, we are only limited by what is going on between our ears!
If you’d like to find some easy templates and are interested in making 2017 your best year ever sign up for our December and January special on Goals.
S – pecific
M – andatory
A – ttainable
R – esults
T – time frame
Optimism May Help You Live Longer
#GoodSelling
CEO & Head Coach