This is from a Question & Answer call our team recently did in our new program called The Accidental Salesperson. We thought you might like to hear the kinds of questions coming from non-traditional sales teams.

“I seem to set goals, but then do not hold myself accountable for achieving them.”

This has a lot of potential starting points here. Many times, the reason we don’t accomplish the goals we’ve set is not in the how-to. It starts in the, “Why did you put it as a goal?”

So, let’s say you set a goal of generating 10 new clients in 2013. And le’ts also say in past years, you’ve generated only 3 new clients. Then going from three to many more than that in one year is big. I’m wondering, “Well, how did you arrive at that?”

So I think the first question you have to ask on your goals is, “Are they realistic?” We’re not big fans of the whole, “Are they measurable? Are they achievable? Are they realistic?”

Just look in the mirror and ask yourself ,“You know what? I’ve only accomplished this once in the last 10 years, but I’m going forward again times two,” and if you really believe it, then that’s fine.

 The second thing is I think sometimes we don’t flesh out the goal.

A lot of times, companies will come to us and say, “OK, we want to grow our business 25 percent next year.” We say OK or we say, “What’s that based on? What gives you the feeling like that’s achievable and possible?”

“Well, the market is expanding and the economy is getting better and we’ve added a new salesperson and we’ve got a new product…”

OK, fine. Then, sounds like it’s in your comfort zone. It’s not too far out of our comfort zone. The 25 percent is possible. Then the question is, “Well, how?” How are you going to do it?

Brian Tracy mentioned this a lot in his work. Tracy has some good and some not-so-good points. This is one good one. He says the most important part of a goal is how to.

So I have this goal of getting 10 clients. OK. How am I going to do that and what do I need to learn to do that? What new skills do I need to do that?

This is the thing that I would probably ask you: If your goals are right, then the question is the how-to. How, specifically, are you going to accomplish that and what skills do you need to accomplish that?

So it’s the how and the skills. Then there are probably two sides of the same coin. For example, if your goal is to make 10 calls a week to past clients, then again I’m also going under the belief that you’re not in front line sales so you also have other responsibilities.

That’s not all you’re doing. You’re delivering. You’re answering phones. You’re negotiating for companies, whatever role you play. Then sales is probably a secondary role.

“What skills are going to make me better? What skills are going to make me want to pick up that phone?” Because here’s what I know: Fear will stop you. Fear stops all of us from achieving our goals. It’s not so much the goal scares us. It’s the how-to that scares us. Read more