I can still remember my Sandler Sales Coach Mike telling me that my sales territory was like a black box. That Black Box is covered with: Buttons, Dials, Switches, Levers, Cranks and flashing lights. Mike said it is up to me to figure out which Dials to turn, levers to pull and cranks to turn to get the money to pop out. Mike did not sugar coat it. He said “It’s no ones responsibility but yours to figure out what needs to be done to make the money pop out.” He said that over time the Box Changes and we have to figgure out what new sequence of button pushes, crank spins and lever to pull will get the money to pop out. Setting goals gets us looking at that sequence, regularly setting goals helps us adapt to the change circumstances we call our market and life.

Mike helped me to set behavior – action goals and track them if they don’t work we will tweak them. Salesforce CRM is one of the tools I use to track my goals, behaviors and actions. We can’t control other people, but we can control our own behavior like cold calling. Mike told me the top 7 figure earning Salespeople live in their CRM. Mike was big into tracking and holding me accountable to my goals, no excuses. Mike hasn’t been my coach for the past 5 years or so, and boy to I miss his sound advice.

2020 has been the year with plenty of reasons to not meet goals. Lets face it about anything anyone planned went out the window. Yup it’s been that type of year or has it? Well to be fully honest it took me a 6 weeks of fumbling around to even start to get a new focus on my goals. What I did was to focus on the few that I could continue to work on. Those goals that would improve the situation and were not dependent on things effected by the pandemic. One bright spot was online learning: Earning 107 Badges on Salesforce Trailhead, A Cybersecurity Cert. a Security Super Badge, Renewed by Salesforce Admin Cert. and Completed Sandler Sales Foundations class. Was I all that focused, well to be honest not as much as I could have been. Yet because I did have goals I was able to pivot and be more productive than if I didn’t have goals. I achieved my financial goals in ways I did not expect, because my goals kept me focused on getting results. Good goals are like that focused yet malleable enough to change with the circumstances.

Goal setting is about setting Your Goals based on what you want to achieve. If you don’t do the daily – weekly – monthly behaviors that contribute to the achievement of your annual goal then you have decided that Goal is not important to you. As Robbin Sharma said “Live your day as if it is your whole life in miniature”. I can remember falling short on making my cold call commitment, Mike said he didn’t care if it was 5:00PM on a Fri make the remaining calls or you are Whimping on Your Goals. Yes he was that subtle. Yes I was glad he pushed me. When I face my challenges I often channel my inner Mike and ask what would Mike do…..? As Coach Wooden said “The right thing to do and the hard thing to do are usually the same thing to do”

So what will it take to get the Black Box we call 2021 to spit out results? Well you have to figure out what dials, levers, and cranks to activate in your situation to make that happen. To get started just make a short list of 3-5 things you want to accomplish this year. Over the next few weeks flesh it out with the steps you need to take “dial turns & lever pulls” break them down into monthly and weekly actions. Net set an appointment with your self once a week to review and track your progress. Start small at first and build on it. Oddly enough I found that just by having goals, I often achieved my goals, but not in quite the way I planned. Setting your goals it the first step. Don’t wait until Dec 2020 or Jan 2021 that way too late Start Now!

Here are a few tools:

Salesforce CRM for Tracking:  https://www.salesforce.com/products/guide/lead-gen/

https://www.briantracy.com/success/personal/op/14-step-goal-setting-guide.html