Most of the salespeople I train are not working on achieving things for themselves but rather focusing all their efforts on achieving their company targets.
There comes a time when a salesperson will question the effort they are putting into their work. When driving in traffic to an appointment “Why am I doing this”? When sitting in front of a customer who is raising objections to buy “What am I doing this for”?
If you don’t’ have personal goals to look forward to then all you end up doing is grinding out day after day trying to achieve the company’s sales targets with little enthusiasm and very little motivation for what you are doing.
One of the most memorable events of the 2010 soccer world cup in South Africa was that magnificent goal which Siphiwe Tshabalala scored during the opening game against Mexico.
So, did Siphiwe Tshabalala see the goal posts when he scored that goal?
Of course he did. How else he could have been so accurate. He hit the ball past Oscar Perez into the top-left hand corner of the net because he had something to aim at: Goal posts!
What about you? When you look up do you have something to aim at or are you just hoping that in 5 to 10 years you will end up “Somewhere” having achieved “Something”.
Goal setting is a simple business. But we sometimes complicate things unnecessarily by believing that goals have to be grand! “In 5 to 10 years I want a Porsche”, “I want to have my own business”, ” I want a holiday home in Spain”.
We say 5 to 10 years because it’s so far away that there is no real commitment and no pressure to achieve.
Remember: If it’s not written down it’s not a goal, it’s a dream.
There is nothing wrong with having dreams as long as you have realistic goals that you are achieving while working on the dream.
You can simplify things by having long term, short term and immediate goals.
A long term goal is one year, a short term goal is three to six months and an immediate goal is something you can achieve within twenty four hours. Something you have been putting off for ages, something as simple as servicing your car.
It’s not the size of the goal that’s important, what’s important is achieving what you set out to do.
As long as you are doing something useful everyday then in five years’ time you will be satisfied with what you have achieved.
Make a list of the goals you want to work on. Then allocate them into long term, short term and immediate goals. Take each list and prioritize your goal for that list and start working on them.
We get a thrill out of owning things, that’s what drives us and motivates us to work.
In sales you need something to motivate you to go out and perform every day. You need simple and achievable personal goals to work towards.
Without goal posts you simply can’t score goals, even if your name is Siphiwe Tshabalala!
Related Tag: Sales Training Programmes
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