Anyone can be good at anything once. Anyone can get lucky. The question is, how can one have great results sustained over a long period of time?
I think the answer is pretty simple. Let’s review:
- Set “micro-goals”. Everyday, you should have a list of 3-5 things that contribute to your short and long term goals. For example: You want to win an award, like sales person of the year. You would need to figure how many sales (widgets), or what volume of dollars you would need to sale roughly for the entire year. Next look at your current closing ratio. Based on your closing ratio, how many sales do you need a month, a week, a day to hit your goal? Once those number are quantified, then we take it one step further, how many calls, appointments, opportunities do you need in order to hit those target numbers? Those become your micro-goals. I need to make 60 phone calls, set 4 appointments per day to statistically hit my daily and weekly goals. If I am hitting my daily and weekly goal, then the compound effect of that would lead to success with achieving my quarterly and yearly goals.
- Review frequently. Inspect what you expect. Any great manager should be doing this for any/all of their employees, but if you hold yourself to this same standard it can be very eye opening. We know based on the above numbers where we need to be, in order to hit our goal, so then we need to review. How many times last month did I hit my targeted number daily? If was in negative of hitting of my daily objectives, then it will be very unlikely for me to be on target for my quarterly and yearly goal… but no problem, you can make adjustments moving forward. Maybe you need to tighten up your daily schedule, eliminate more distractions, work another 30-60 mins in the day. Whatever your goal, you need to review progress frequently and continue to make adjustments.
- ABL – Always Be Learning. – In an age where everything moves at blinding speed, it is extremely important you stay up to speed on the ever changing conditions and environment within your industry. Using the phrase “thats the way we have always done it”, is a losing cause, or “that’s just how we do things” is going to get you behind the market place and potentially out of business. You must continue to adapt, be nimble and EXCEPT change. And to pile on top of that type of mentality, just because you have always done something a certain way, does not mean it was the right way, or the most efficient way. Staying open to change, and have the willingness to learn is the only way to have sustained results overtime.
Having been a top performer at the last 4 companies over the last 15 years, these are some of the major items I have picked up on and implemented into my personal game plan. I owe it to myself, to give my best, be my best, and sustain my best results.
