The Importance of Planning and Setting Business Goals | Sales Management | Sales Leadership

There is a well-known cliché that says, ‘A person going nowhere normally gets there.’ So if you find your desire is not as strong as it should be, it is possible you have not firmly set out the goals you want to achieve. Perhaps your personal motivation is lacking. I have seen numerous examples of people who appear not to have had the talent, skills or ability, yet they become outstanding successes in their own right and in their own field. And the one thing they all have in common is that they were deeply motivated towards their goals and objectives in life.

The great Andrew Carnegie was quoted as saying, ‘Give me a man of average ability but a burning desire and I will give you a winner in return every time.’ So now follow these simple steps in deciding your goals and building your desire and motivation.

Put aside one weekend when you and your business partner will decide exactly what it is you really want. Draw up a list of everything both long and short term, both tangible and intangible in your business life, in your private life, in your social life, and for your hobbies and pastimes. Then, in each category decide what is the first goal you are going for. You must be able to achieve this goal with reasonable dateline.

Make it too far away and your motivation will not be strong enough. Whatever you do, don’t make this goal too high.

Many ill-informed teachers of success stress you must set yourself big goals and aim high. The basic premise is, of course, correct – reaching high can broaden one’s thinking. It’s sound advice but they fail to back it up by teaching one of the rules of success, the cliché that says, ‘Success by the inch is a cinch but by the yard it is hard.’ If you set too big a goal you will have difficulty in believing you will achieve it – and if you don’t believe it, you are making its achievement virtually impossible.

Large goals are therefore best broken down into a series of realistically managed stages. This now leads on to another of those success laws, which says, ‘Seeing ourselves progressing motivates us.’ You have all heard it voiced in the expression ‘Success breeds success.’ Don’t fight these rules and laws, use them. Equally, don’t break them.

The human brain is a goal-seeking mechanism, as human- kind’s incredible developments have proved. Programme your mind towards achieving goals; give your mind and brain a chance to perform with some objectives to aim for. You will become more creative and more constructive when you aim at a firmly defined objective that you want at all costs.

Having now drawn up your list of goals, set a firm date for achieving them. As I have already said, a human being always responds to deadlines. With that first goal, make sure you have a clear and complete picture of exactly what it is you are going for. The brain and the mind must be pointed in the correct direction with a clearly defined end-result. Losing weight by the end of June may sound like a goal for people putting themselves on a diet, but it is not. They should state exactly what weight they want their body to be by the end of June.

Somebody who says he wants to be the star salesperson that year should decide exactly what it is that makes up the star salesperson. Break the target down into a series of monthly achievements with a clearly defined goal per month. Another person might say she wants a new car. She decides the date but perhaps she hasn’t decided the model, make, colour, price and all the extras she wants with it.

I said earlier that it is of paramount importance for those of you who have a business partner to discuss your goals together. The preparation of your goal list has very little to do with anyone else other than your partner! Two people pulling together in the same direction become an unbeatable force. Two people working together with separate goals could be a recipe for disaster.

The final state of goal setting is to write your goals down and have them readily available. I personally write my goals in my diary as soon as I get it in the New Year. You might find it more pertinent to put them on a large sheet of paper on the wall. Remember, a weekend spent planning the future and deciding your goals and objectives will not be wasted. This should be your own personal master plan.

WITHOUT GOALS AND PLANS TO REACH THEM, YOU ARE LIKE A SHIP THAT HAS SAIL WITH NO DESTINATION!