Happy New Year Everyone!
I hope you all are refreshed and ready to take on the new year. I know I felt like I was limping into the end of 2018 on energy levels as it came to a close. Today I am refreshed and ready to take on 2019!
I had quite a few things that went well and some set-backs that I was not sure I wanted. During the break from Christmas to New Years Eve I focused on reflection and narrowing down my goals for 2019. 2018 had quite a few goals in each of the categories and this year it looks like two, maybe three per category. I have decided to refine and make my goals very actionable as well as give me a gauge to see if I am hitting them.
Take for instance this year I plan to play video games once every two weeks with my son. Now I am an outdoors kind of guy and would rather play catch, football, waterski, sky dive, just about anything besides sitting inside playing a video game. Especially since I will probably get beat every time I play my son. I will take my beatings so that I can have quality time with my son and let me know I value him.
As I sat and created my goals I purchased a huge wall calendar to post in my office as well. This is to mark all of my events for the year, trips, etc so that I can have a good picture of what is going on with my schedule. I am also using that as a gauge to see how I am meeting my business goals during this year.
I am also sitting down to plan how I can achieve my goals. This is like planning sales goals which I hated doing this when I started out in sales. It was like having my toe nails pulled out with pliers as some kind of torture. The fact is that we need to have actionable ways to achieve our goals so we are not just getting busy and hoping we hit our targets. It is actually good to sit down an prepare before we start working.
Specially trained long-range shooters will spend time measuring distance, wind speeds, elevation, bullet speed and a few calculations before they ever pull the trigger. They spend time doing this so that they hit their target accurately. Another mental picture you can use to visualize this idea of planning is if you were going to chop down a tree, wouldn’t you want the sharpest axe, so you do not have to swing as many times at the wood?
We only have so much time in a day that we can not add to at the end of the day. We need to make sure we are being efficient and planning is how we do this. We need to sit down and plan how we are going to hit our targets. If it is sales numbers, how many sales calls per day do you need to make to get a customer to say yes? How many houses does it usually take before your customer is ready to buy one? How many meetings do you usually set up before you get your prospects to buy your product or service? Use your past year to get a gauge on these answers.
As a side note: if this is your first time you likely are going to have to make changes a few times. It goes with the territory. It is okay if you don’t have it fully correct the first or second time. As long as you are working, refining, and getting better you are going to improve. We were not perfect at riding our bikes as kids on our first try.
I urge you to sit down an make a plan at this beginning of the year so you can be more efficient and not lose as much time and energy this year. I am taking this early part of the year to see how I can be better and how I can gauge my performance so that in the years to come I can have this process down more efficient as well.
I look forward to carrying this discussion further so if you have any more questions feel free to post a comment below or reach out via email. Also, if you have some ideas that you would like me to discuss in the future feel free to reach out and if I can not answer them I will definitely help you find the answers.
Until next time have a great weekend and enjoy your planning sessions!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
Sales and Leadership Enterprises