Everyone wants to be successful, but not everyone knows how to define that success? Is it a nice car and a big home in a great neighborhood? Is there a specific time you know you have "arrived", like when you are driving your yacht or playing golf at a very exclusive resort? Or is it when you finally break $100,000 in sales, or better yet, personal income?
The answer to all of this is very easy to determine. The way to succeed is to first have a goal. When you reach that goal, you have succeeded. That's when you set another goal and do it all over again. You can have more than one goal and have a series of smaller goals to get there.
Let's say that your ultimate goal is to make $100,000 in income this year. What activities do you need to accomplish to hit that goal? Assuming that each sale makes you $1000, you are going to need 100 sales over 50 weeks (you get 2 weeks vacation), so we have now broken it down to bite size pieces. Two sales a week will garner you $100,000.
Break it down some more and you find that to get those two sales you will probably need to make 10 appointments (these are all hypothetical numbers). By attending some networking events you can get 5 of those appointments, and the rest will have to be from working the phones and asking for referrals from your current clients.
By reducing that big goal to daily activities, we now have a set of "micro-goals" (MG's), which are really just tasks, but sound a lot better. Making sure you work those MG's each day is how you can succeed.
Someone once said that if you do something 21 days in a row it becomes a habit. Since getting those MG's done each day is a good habit, you should make it your priority.
I like to do things a bit old school, so I sit down each Sunday afternoon while I'm watching a ball game and make a punch list of items for each day of the upcoming week on a legal pad. Most of the items will be repetitive, like "post meaningful content" or "make 30 phone calls". Others may be ordering supplies or networking.
As I work my way down the list I literally check off items. This shows completion, which denotes "success". What I have found is that the daily tasks get done more quickly and efficiently by doing them each day. What may have taken 3 hours a month ago only takes 2 hours now, which opens up more time for appointments, last minute emergencies or napping.
A great example is this blog. My goal each week is to produce two articles for this blog, as well as another three for my insurance blog. That is a lot of content to come up with and it can take up a lot of my time. Actually, the hard part is thinking of new topics. I have to force myself to get it done each day, but since it has become a habit, instead of taking up two hours of my day I can knock one out in about 45 minutes if I focus.
Speaking of focus, the punch list is great for those of who have a shorter attention span than others. I'm easily distracted, and with the pandemic still going on, I work from home a lot more. My home office has a TV, my music collection, my computer (with all of the infamous time killers like Facebook) and a futon, for napping. No one gets a nap until they complete the MG's!
Breaking it all down into micro goals will help you tremendously. Try it for month and see what happens. And pat yourself on the back when you complete a task. Keep up the good work!
Chris Castanes is a professional speaker who helps sales people succeed through workshops and humorous presentations. He's also the author of "You're Going To Be Great At This!", a humorous look at sales. For booking information, click here. He's also the president of Surf Financial Brokers selling life and disability insurance in several states.
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