Creating a Goal-Setting Habit

            Seems like the hardest question to ask someone is, “What are your long-term goals?” Why is this a difficult question when the answers can be awesome and incredibly motivating?

           

For some, the question about long-term goals forces them to examine if their current behavior/path are actually helping them go anywhere. If the focus is solely on the short-term and to worry about the future later, asking about long-term goals is a reality they don’t want to face. This mentality is why a lot of people in their 50s or even 60s are trying to plan for retirement now and finding out they are going to need their kids, other family members or the government for help.

           

For others, the big, long-term goals are exciting and motivating. It’s the details and the “how to” that is tough to get their head around. They’ve got amazing dreams but haven’t had much help flushing those plans out and getting specific action items behind how they’ll hit those big goals.

           

Still, there are others who have a hard time defining the big goals. They know how they want to feel (successful, accomplished, secure, growing …). They just don’t know what will get them to that feeling.

           

The reality is dreaming big and defining big goals is hard. But so what? If it didn’t take time, and effort, and re-evaluation, and obstacles, the big goals probably wouldn’t be so cool.

           

While goal-setting might be more important and interesting than a habit like preparation or organization, it is still just a habit. So practice and consistency are critical. Becoming a strong goal-setter is something to work on, something to get coaching on and something to develop.

           

A great way to start the habit is with a simple 1-2-3 approach to weekly goal-setting.

           

The first step is reflection. Carve out time to get out of the go-go-go, pause and think. Ask yourself how your past week went and if it was productive? Whether the answer is yes or no, ask why? This will get your mind in the right place.

           

The second step is to plot out the three most important things you can do the next week. Most people either don’t have a weekly plan or they have some have laundry list where they lump the important and not-so-important altogether in a task list format. The key is to develop a tight focus that you can build your week around.

           

The third step is to plan your schedule for the week. Take the key areas of focus and make sure you have time allotted to attack these priorities.

           

Effective goal-setting can get much, much deeper, but everyone needs to start somewhere. And creating the habit is the most likely way to make goal-setting a cornerstone of career success.

The Most Important Career Choice You Haven't Made Yet

 Wherever you are on the long path that is your career, it’s a wise move to pause for a minute and ask an important question: What are you chasing? Is it security or freedom? The key word is “or.” It’s not “and.”
 It’s “or” because people who seek security are saying that they want someone else to take care of them. Those who seek freedom are saying that they are comfortable taking care of themselves. Yet, people confuse these opposites because of the desire to have both. They want to be taken care of and to have full decision-making authority over their career.
 Here are a couple examples that further illustrate the difference:

1. The most secure human being is a prisoner. He gets three meals a day, clothes, shelter and even a doctor is provided if he’s ill. What is forfeited for all this security is his freedom.
2. A car seat is designed to secure a child. It protects the child in case of an accident and restricts movement during a car ride. Mom and dad feel happy to know their child is secure. The child has no freedom.

 While there is certainly appeal to both, the goal of freedom more often nets the larger return.
 Our recent economic plummet has revealed that many “safe, secure jobs” were not quite that. A lot of honest, hard-working people in the home industry, car industry or many other businesses have found themselves looking for work. After 15, 25 or 40 years doing one thing, they aren’t terribly marketable and finding a new career is difficult.
 When seeking the freedom of being an entrepreneur, you are no more or less safe from economic downturns than your employee counterpart. However, as an entrepreneur, you understand you have more flexibility in decision-making. You have choices.
 First, you know you aren’t going to lay yourself off. Second, you know that when critical decisions are being made about the future of the company, you’re the final say. So as long as you’re confident, the freedom makes you powerful, especially during the tough times. The person relying on others for security has no voice.

Observations on a Day with 5 Self-Made Millionaires

Our annual Top Gun event in L.A. was a big hit as some of the brightest up-and-comers gathered to learn from some the biggest players in our industry. After spending time with five brilliant men and women – all of whom reached self-made millionaire status before turning 40 years old – a few big commonalities jumped out:
 1. They chase different rewards than the masses.
First, they never use words like “stability” or “security” when talking about goals or a happy life. They talk about how good it feels to overcome obstacles and how you have to be bold and aggressive. They like risk, as long as it’s well-calculated. They like adventure and pushing themselves. They want influence and to leave a legacy, not just to survive life and get by.
 2. In the matchup vs. Fear, they win.
It all starts with what people are fearful of. For most, fear is making yourself vulnerable and possibly feeling embarrassed if you go for something and fail. For these five, doing what’s comfortable and plugging away is the scariest thought in their minds.
So all five strive to be in situations where they will be tested. Winning is rarely a certainty, even though each is confident that they’ll find a way to win.
  3. What everybody else is doing is irrelevant … and usually wrong.
Instead of chasing status or envy and hoping it leads to success, they went the other way. They worked long hours when others wouldn’t. While others worked to make other people money, they faced ridiculously stressful challenges making their own money building a business. They wanted independence and control. They all tell stories of friends and family members who advised them to do easier things, but who now, are very proud of what they’ve accomplished.
  4. They’re aggressive learners.
We’re certainly not talking about school here. As one of them says, “school won’t make you successful, your hard work and your determination will make you successful.”
We’re talking about mentors and books. Only two of the five turned an original idea into their success. All of them cite great mentors who helped shape their thoughts and goals. All of them talk frequently about how little they know and how much better they need to get. They’re all hungry to improve.

Why are "talented" people afraid of sales?

There are a ton of really smart, personable, strong communicators who are unemployed.
There are a lot of potentially great companies who need but can't find good salespeople.
The problem is a lot of people who could do tremendously well are flat-out frightened to sell.
Talented people should be really attracted to sales but they rarely enter the profession on purpose. And it's a shame. The upside in sales is tremendous:

• you can make more money
• it is the only truly stable profession (our ever-expanding government notwithstanding)
• you're most likely to have the most freedom of time
• you are also very likely to end up in a fun, highly social work environment.

 So who's to blame for the fear of sales? Our lovely school system takes the lion's share. The same system that still thinks teaching calculus is more important than teaching the perils of credit card debt does a miserable job preparing soon-to-be grads of what they'll actually be doing in the "real world." More college graduates start their first professional career in some form of sales, yet most graduates take 0-1 classes about sales. It is rarely communicated to naive graduates which positions are expendable in a weak economy and which positions are not. For the record, people who drive revenue are always in need.
 There are other factors for the fear. In sales, there are no trophies for 7th place so the offspring of over coddling baby-boomers find themselves in unfamiliar water when they're told performance matters. And there's still the misconception that sales is about being pushy when that is rarely an adjective used to describe a great salesperson.
But as companies are learning to survive and thrive without fluff positions, the reality is soon enough, the smartest and most motivated of the unemployed are going to notice that their friends in sales are making more career progress, making more money and enjoying a more social work environment. And contrary to where our school system guided them, they'll wind up joining their employed friends and they’ll be selling.

To Build a Better Team, Build a Better You

            A very common question is, “How do I coach a better team?” Depending on who’s asking, the answer can be long. However, the starting point and the finish line are the same … a long look in the mirror.
             For many leaders and managers, oftentimes the effort is misplaced. Team leaders focus on trying to get someone else to do something, such as making someone else see the big picture. Or getting someone else to be more organized or have a better student-mentality. Most often, this approach nets frustration and limited improvement. It’s a control issue. We cannot control the behaviors of others. We can only influence it.
            So focusing effort inward will always net a larger result.
            For example, if a team leader repeatedly runs into working with team members who aren’t organized, start with the mirror and ask the following types of questions:

• Is organization a major strength of mine?
• Am I role modeling a systematic approach to keeping things organized?
• Do I communicate consistently how important organization is to my success?
• Do I communicate to my team members a clear picture of what “being organized” looks like?

After answering these questions, only two scenarios can exist. One, you’re doing things perfectly and you simply need better team members. More likely though is the second scenario: You will find areas for personal improvement. As you begin to attack these areas and role model aggressive commitment to improvement, as long as you have at least a mild level of influence, your team will gravitate toward improvement too. That’s a fairly immediate return.
The greatest win, though, comes later. As you develop stronger skills and habits, your future team members will be stronger in these areas from Day 1.
First, new team members with an already high level of competence will recognize your strength in an area such as organization and be attracted to your team. And with team members who still need development, because you’ve labored through the effort of self-improvement, it will be easier to recognize and fix the weakness in new team members.
This process works for most of the topics that team builders struggle with. Having a problem with attitude, time management, work ethic, professionalism …, begin with yourself. As you improve, so will your team.

Teaching Trainees to Build Great Relationships

A few key ways a sales trainer can help trainees become experts at relationship building:

• Teach people how to shake hands and make confident eye contact.
• Instruct a trainee to use the customer’s name three times in the first five minutes of the conversation.
• Recommend trainees scan their environment and take a genuine interest in anything around the customer that is likely to be important to them (pictures, books, awards …).
• After sales calls, inspect that the salesperson knows at least two pieces of personal information about the customer and recommend that they get this information before talking business.

 Shifting focus from spilling all your information to gathering personal information will create an immediate shift in having people interested in speaking with you. As you practice and develop relationship selling, it will also lead to repeat business and larger orders for you and your team.