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Starting the New Year Right – Goals Make a Difference
by Len D’Innocenzo & Jack Cullen, CRKInteractive
Everyone knows goals are important – Everyone of us has set goals for our personal life as well as for our business life. As we begin the New Year, many of us will set some goals. They may include losing some weight, exercising more, quitting smoking, being active in our community, or spending more quality time with our family. In their business life, people will set goals to be more organized, earn more money, grow a business, complete a training course, get that promotion, or join a professional association.
These are certainly all worthy goals. However just like last year or the previous year, most of these goals will not be achieved. Why? Usually because they were not set properly to begin with, or the person setting the goal was really not committed to achieving it. |
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Your attitude is critical – To achieve anything worthwhile in life you must have a positive mental attitude no matter what other successful attributes we possess. A positive mental attitude is the energy that when combined with our other skills and attributes, allows us to reach our goals. Success is achieved and maintained by people who work hard with a positive mental attitude. We believe work actually becomes fun when we set and achieve specific goals. All successful people have a definite purpose combined with a positive attitude. They constantly ask, “Where am I going? What do I really want? What are my goals?” When this happens, we know your work becomes more enjoyable and rewarding instead of an unpleasant means of paying your bills. You become self-motivated and enthusiastic. And that enthusiasm turns into achievement!
The importance of self-management – Good self-managers enjoy their work because they accomplish more and they give themselves more credit. You can increase your performance by improving your self-management abilities. Setting personal and business goals are tools that will help you improve your self-management.
The Secret To Achieving Goals
- Be Positive - State what you want to do. If you want to avoid or stop doing something, state your goal in terms of what you want to do instead.
- Set a Deadline - A deadline provides you with the needed time frame for achieving your goal. It gives you something to aim for.
- Be Specific - You’ll want to measure your progress as you work toward your goal. The more specific your goal, the easier it is to measure your progress. Always quantify your goal.
- Be Realistic - Goals should be realistic and yet cause you to “stretch” to reach it. Setting unrealistically high goals will cause you or your people to feel badly for attaining only 90%, or worse, they may not even try to make it. Better to set smaller goals, meet them, and then set a higher goal.
- Write Your Goal Down - You must be able to write your goal down. Your goal statement must answer as many of the following questions as possible.
- Who?
- Will do what?
- When?
- Where?
- To what extent?
- To what degree?
- How much? How long? How hard? etc.
Example: My goal is to improve my sales productivity 25% over last year by December 31. I will achieve this by solidifying my existing customer base and aggressively calling on the top decision makers at targeted accounts.
The example above emphasizes doing something. It describes what the accomplished goal will look like.
Your goals should be S.M.A.R.T. goals.
- Specific – State exactly what you want to achieve, how you’re going to do it and when you want to achieve it. A specific goal that is well defined has a much greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal. We suggest you begin with a goal that you can achieve within a week to a month. It’s easy to give up on goals that take too long to reach. If you have a big goal, break it down into a series of smaller weekly or daily goals. After you achieve one of the smaller goals, move on to the next. To set a specific goal you must be able to answer these questions: Who: Who is involved? What: What do I want to accomplish? When: Establish a time frame. Which: Identify requirements and constraints. Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal. Example: A general goal would be, “I want to lose some weight.” But a specific goal would be, “I want to lose 20 pounds by joining a health club and working out 3 days a week and eating healthy meals.”
- Measurable – To know if the goal is attainable you need to set the criteria for measuring your progress. Measuring your progress makes it easier to stay on track and reach your goal within the time frame you wanted. The excitement that comes from achieving your goal drives you on to set new goals. A goal doesn’t do you any good if there’s no way of telling if you’ve achieved it. “I want to feel better” isn’t a very good goal because it’s not specific and it’s difficult to measure. “I want to workout 3 times a week for 30 minutes,” is a better goal because it’s specific and measurable. To determine if your goal is measurable, ask questions such as – How much? How many? How will I know when it is accomplished?
- Attainable – Once you identify the goals that are most important, you then must figure out ways to make them come true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and desire to reach them. You will recognize opportunities to bring yourself closer to achieving your goals. Ask yourself whether the goal is within reasonable reach. For instance, completing a marathon is not an achievable goal if you’ve never run before. However, completing a 5K run an attainable goal if you take the steps required to train. History shows people can attain most any goal they set when they plan their steps wisely and establish a time frame that allows them to carry out those steps. Goals that may have seemed far away and out of reach eventually move closer and become attainable, not because your goals shrink, but because you grow and expand to match them. When you list your goals you build your self-image. You see yourself as worthy of these goals, and develop the traits and personality that allow you to possess them.
- Realistic – To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective you are both willing and able to achieve. Goals can be both high and realistic. Is the goal realistic for you? The purpose of a goal is to shift your focus from where you are today to where you want to be in the future. However you can’t ignore your limitations. Your goals need to be within your capabilities. If your business has suffered a serious setback and revenue declined 20% last year, a goal of increasing your revenue by 50% this year may not be realistic. Instead, your goal might be to get back the 20% revenue you lost and then build on that. You are the only one who can decide how high your goal should be set. A high goal is often times easier to reach than a low one because a low goal is not as valuable and creates low motivation. Some of the hardest jobs you ever accomplish may actually seem easy simply because you enjoyed what you were doing. Your goal is probably realistic if you truly believe that it can be accomplished. Another way to know if your goal is realistic is to determine if you have accomplished anything similar in the past.
- Timed – Set a specific timeframe for achieving the goal; next week, three months, by the end of March. Putting an end point on your goal gives you a clear target to work towards. If you don’t set a time, the commitment is too vague. It tends not to happen because you feel you can start at any time. Without a time limit, there’s no urgency to start taking action now. Remember, the time frame must be measurable, attainable and realistic. Not too much time, which can affect project performance
Achieving large goals through small steps – Suppose your goal is to improve sales productivity 25% over last year by December 31st.
You can’t accomplish this goal or any other without first identifying what actions need to be taken and prioritizing them. In this case you won’t achieve the goal until:
- On-going revenue from current customers is estimated
- Target accounts are identified and potential opportunities are listed
- A plan is created to approach decision makers at target accounts each month
- Target accounts are approached and interest is created with the decision makers
- Opportunities are qualified and requirements and priorities are identified
- A solution is proposed
- The opportunity and sale is closed.
Achieving large goals is accomplished through a series of smaller steps and activities:
Step 1. Estimate business from current customers.
Step 2. Evaluating the account base to identify new opportunities.
Step 3. Identifying targeted opportunities.
Step 4. Calling on top management to create interest in your company.
Step 5. Identifying the important business issues, needs and priorities.
Step 6. Recommending a solution with your products and services to address the customer’s key business issues and objectives.
Step 7. Answering the customer’s questions and closing the sale. Each step has a specific objective. They are what you expect to accomplish. Objectives are the end result you are looking for from each step. Think of your objectives as mini-goals.
Click To Download and Print the S.M.A.R.T. Worksheet >>
Celebrating your victories – Keep in mind the importance of achieving each of the steps is to help you reach your ultimate goal. The key is to know what actions you have to take and prioritize them so they get DONE!
As the saying goes “Success is the journey, not the destination.” Enjoy the experiences along the way and celebrate each small victory. These small celebrations will help you get through the certain difficult times you will encounter. Every road to achieving your goals will have its bumps. Celebrating your victories will help you get through them.
Avoid being a victim of next year’s circumstances. Set your goals now. Review them several times over a few days and redefine as needed. Know what actions to take and when to take them.
Have a safe, healthy and prosperous 2005.
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About Len D'Innocenzo - A co-founder of CRKInteractive, Len D'Innocenzo has also founded and sold two successful businesses - Information Technology, Inc. (a computer and micrographic distributor) and Micro-Rep, Inc. (a manufacturer's representative firm). Len adds his real world experiences and extensive training expertise to each and every CRKInteractive course.
About Jack Cullen - A co-founder of CRKInteractive, Jack Cullen also has over twenty years of senior sales and administrative management experience. He was Vice President of Sales for Okidata Corporation and Zenith Data Systems prior to starting in the sales training business. Jack adds his real world experiences and extensive training expertise to each and every CRKInteractive course.
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