One Hour of Goal Setting
As part of my sales training for my clients, we hold monthly telephone calls with small groups of sales people. On those calls, we talk about deals they struggle with, opportunities they see and tactics on how to land those prospects.
On a recent call, I was asked about goal setting. Specifically, “How much time should we spend in goal setting activities?”
My answer surprised them. I suggested that for every hour they spend setting goals, they should spend 20 hours planning them out. 20 hours!!!??!
The idea with “goal planning” is to give yourself a roadmap of EXACTLY how you will accomplish the goal.
Doubling Your Business
Let’s say you have a goal to double your business in the next year. Pretty awesome goal I’d say! But before you hit the streets to accomplish it, write it out on a piece of paper, place it in front of you and set aside 4 hours for Goal Planning.
During that four-hour block, write down all of the necessary elements of that goal. Here are some ideas:
- What will I have to give up to accomplish this?
- How will I need to re-energize to accomplish it? (Fitness, Health, Nutrition)
- What will I have to make sure happens every day?
- What technology will I need to put in place to generate the leads I will need to generate?
- Where is this business going to come from (current/new)?
- What assets will I need to draw from?
- What marketing will I need to engage in?
- How could social media help me do this?
- Will I need an email newsletter?
- How can referrals be a help?
- Who else has done this (inside my firm or someone else I know)?
- Is there a coach that can advise me?
- Do I need a board of advisors to help keep me on track?
For each one of those, you could likely come up with another paragraph or two beneath that lays out “how” to get it done. After you’ve completed that list, you now have all the elements of the plan.
All that’s left is to assemble those in order and put them into your calendar. Time activate them.
Let me know how your “goal planning” is going. I find it to be extremely helpful.
Oh, and if you set the goal and begin to plan it – and it loses it’s luster, maybe you don’t have the right goal. Isn’t it better to find that out early – before you devote a portion of your life to it?
