Sales Training Motivational Speaker | Gavin Ingham» achieve your goals

Bert Was Not Feeling Great About His Sales Targets

Gavin Ingham — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 17:51:32 +0000

Bert was not feeling great about his targets. They felt like a they were looming over him and he couldn’t escape from them. Like Bert, you will probably at some point or other have felt over-faced by seemingly unachievable targets. That’s why it is so important to have a strategy for helping you to achieve your goals. What is your strategy for helping you to achieve your goals? What works for you? What has worked for you in the past? How do you keep yourself focused when your targets are over-facing you and you don’t know what to do?

What Should I Set Goals About? Goal Setting Tips & Strategies

Gavin Ingham — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:39:00 +0000

Many people know that they ought to set goals but they don’t for a variety of reasons. One that comes up frequently is that they don’t know what to set goals about. There are three distinct groups of people that this article will be of use to…

The first are people who are new to goals, goal setting and personal development. If this is you and you are thinking, “What goals should I set?” don’t worry! This is a very common question and a good one to ask. This article will help you to answer it and to get started setting some goals that can you more of what you want in your life.

The second group of people approaching goal setting are those who already set goals. You set goals already because you know how effective they are. You set goals already because you understand how much focusing on your own personal development and personal success can improve so many aspects of your life. You know that if you get one new thing or “remind” yourself of one core truth in this article then that could bring massive benefit for you.

The third group are the, “I don’t see the point of setting any goals” group. I hear you. This is a very common stance particularly in today’s society when people see goals as something that’s done to them and not something that they do for themselves. If you are in this group it might make sense to read my article “Why people don’t set goals even though they know that they should” before you continue with this article. On returning to this article you will find it helps you to set goals that you will see the point in setting.

Effective goals setting is all about setting the right goals. Setting goals that mean something to us. Setting goals that are in alignment with our values. Most people set goals that they were told to set or that they feel that they ought to set…

Salespeople chase targets set by their sales managers and directors.
Teenagers chase careers that their parents have coerced, convinced, cajoled and indoctrinated them to pursue.
Dieters set goals based on idealistic visions of beauty from magazines, models and their imagination.

You get the idea!

This kind of goal setting is no fun and is ultimately doomed to failure. Failure when you don’t achieve your goals and failure when you do!

When you set the right goals, goal setting is not like this. The right goals will motivate you. The right goals will empower you. The right goals will get you up early in the morning and keep you up late at night. The right goals will be in total alignment with your values and beliefs and every step you take towards achieving them will be an achievement in of itself.

Effective goal setting is also about setting goals that are all about what you want rather than what you don’t. When you think about these core areas that we are going to discuss make sure that you think about your goals in the positive (“I want to work with children and young people”) and not the negative (“I don’t want to be stuck in a stuffy office with a bunch of suits”). We’ll talk more about this and how to set goals another day but in the meantime, think in the positive…

Effective goal setting is about setting goals for all of your life. Many people only set goals for their career and theirfinances with the occasional weight loss goal at New Year! This is a fundamentally flawed plan as chasing one goal in one area of your life at the expense of all other areas of your life is likely to lead to imbalance and collapse. Even if you do want and do achieve your goal the end result could be catastrophic.

To help you with some ideas for what you should set goals about and to make sure you set goals across all areas of your life we are going to look at the core areas within which you should be setting general and specific goals.

1. Money and finance

Despite my protestations to the contrary earlier on in this article you should set money and finance goals. Many people fail to set any goals around this area and consequently fail to ever achieve anything.

One delegate I worked with had no goals in this area and no guidelines. Every month he spent his salary before the end of the month and every month he went further into debt. In today’s society of buy now pay later many people are on the slippery slope to financial ruin. Their short term goal is to get everything that they want as fast as possible! Their long term goal has not been thought through at all.

When I first started out in my career I wanted to save money but I never seemed to get around to it. I had no goal and no plan and I most definitely had no money. Once I set a goal to save a certain amount of money every month leading to a bigger finiancial goals I had a plan. I needed to deduct money from my salary every month to save towards my goal.

Another goal I set was for my daily charge out rate as a consultant. At the time I set this rate I had no idea whatsoever how or if I would ever hit it. It seemed a pipe dream to many around me. Within 5 years however I had overachieved my goal and had “reset” it twice… but more about how to set your sights on the stars and the importance of thinking big in another article (That said, if you haven’t read The Magic of Thinking Big then you really should).

2. Career and work

In my experience many people are going through the motions in their careers. They go to work at 9am and come home at 5pm day in, day out. It’s just like the Sheena Easton song, “My baby takes the morning train, he works from nine till five and then, he takes another home again”, over and over!

Now there is nothing wrong with this if you are doing what you want to do and you are on path… It’s when you’re not that the problems occur and most people aren’t.

By a certain age many people fail to set goals for their careers and their work believing instead that they have found their place in life. The can dream of other things, they can wish for other things but they cannot have them. That’s the sort of thing that only happens to others.

By setting goals for our career and our work we can start to reclaim our right to build the career and life that we want.

Most people set goals around work like… doing as little as possible, getting home early on Fridays, getting a small bonus at the end of the year. This is fine if this is what you really want but for many it isn’t, they’ve just long forgotten what they really do want.

Spend some time and think about what you want now and set some goals around this are.

3. Loving relationships

How many people do you think have settled for relationships that are less than they want. I have no idea what the answers is but, as a citizen of this world, my firts thought would be… quite a lot.

Many people set a goal of just being in a relationship (“I want a partner”) but none around the actual quality of the relationship itself. This will often see the relationship bounce around on the turbulent waters of life before being smashed apart on the rocks. Ouch!

Think about what you really want out of your relationship and set some goals around this area. Once you have some goals you can start to think about what you need to do to bring them to fruition.

One friend of mine set a goal that he wanted his relationship to always be as fresh and as exciting as it was when he and his partner first met. Colleagues and peers told him that this was impossible and that life just wasn’t like that! My friend, in partnership with his wife, worked out what they would need to do to head towards that goal and he and his wife set out in pursuit of their goal.

They’re 10 years into their marriage now and seem, if it’s possible, even happier than they were when they first met.

4. Family and friends

How many people do you know who would like better relationships with their family and their friends? It shocks me how many people wish they had closer relationships with their mothers, fathers, siblings and extended familes.

It’s not surprising that in the close-knit bosom of many familes, relationships come under strain and resentment and ill-feeling grows. Spending time to set goals around your perfect relationships with your family and your friends will help and guide you in taking the actions that you need to take to bring that to reality.

5. Social activities and hobbies

Want to learn a language? Leran to play the piano? Travel the world? Got to the pub more often? Got to the pub less? Play tennis? Do regular exercise?

Most people would like to spend more time doing something. Many people would like to do things that they have never done at all. In a world of infinite opportunities this is a shame.

Many of these things may not attract you any more but some may. Taking the time to think about what you really want to do in your spare time and setting goals around it will help you to focus your attention onto activities that get you more of that you want in your life.

6. Personal develoment / spirituality

By personal development or spirituality I am talking about bettering yourself. About learning things. About improving. About seeking out to be everything that you can be.

I am not just talking about religion… although, for some, this is exactly what I am talking about.

Failing to include personal development goals is a mistake. Growth is important for humans as a race and people are happier when they feel that they are growing.

Goals in this area could be things around religion, personal development, learning stuff, communicating getter etc.

7. Health and fitness

Far too people set decent health and fitness goals. Many people set dieting goals or weight goals but these are not necessarily the same thing at all.

Health and fitness is something that many people do not take seriously when they have it but is something that everybody should set goals around if we want to keep it.

I used to run competitively and for years afterwards I ran 6 or 7 days a week and visited a gymn at least three times a week. I also ate incredibly healthily. About 5 years ago I realised that it was 15 years since I had run any kind of race or competition and that I had no plans to ever do so again.

I was also very busy with work so removing my old goal was welcome. Unfortunately, I “forgot” to set another goal to replace this one and over the next few years found myself not do anything enough exercise and eating poor food when I was travelling and in transit! 5 years on I am paying the price of my lack of health and fitness goals as I am having to work hard to meet my newly set goals to get me back to where I want to be.

What to do now!

I hope that this article has got you thinking about the infinite number of goals that you can set and the wide variety of areas in which you can set them. Your next step is to start to think about what goals you would like to achieve in each of these areas. Get your personal development logbook or if you haven’t got one your diary or a large piece of paper and head it with one of the areas we have talked about. Underneath scribble down everything you would like to do or ever thought about doing in this area.

At this stage it matters not where you are in relation to that goal or how likely you think it is that you think you can achieve it. The important thing is that you let you mind be more open to possibility and you capture that creativuty and energy. To get your mind in gear think about what you wanted to do when you were a child, a teenager, between 20 and 30, between 30 and 40 and so on…

We’ll be talking more about goals, setting big goals and avoiding roadblocks in the near future. In the meantime, get thinking about what you want to achieve and look through my recommended resources below.

Resources:

The Magic of Thinking Big, Achieve Your Goals, Unlimited Power, The Ultimate Goals Programme.

Have your say:

Why not share some of your ideas, goals and experiences by commenting below.

Why People Don’t Set Goals When They Know That They Should

Gavin Ingham — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:28:06 +0000

Whether for business, career, health, finance, social or hobbies, everyone knows and understands the power of goal setting. For years, experts and gurus have carped on about the value of setting goals. For decades, authors and speakers have written books and created programmes about goal setting. Everyone knows that they should set goals to help them to achieve their aims and objectives…

So why is it then that so many people don’t set goals when they know that they should?

Well its certainly not through lack of education! Whenever I attend a seminar, from investing in property to building your business, the subject of goals and goal setting seems to get mentioned. Somtimes in detail, sometimes in passing but its nearly always present. And every time it heralds an orgasmic groan from 80%+ of the keen audience. They’ ve heard it all before…

SMART – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timed. Yeah, got it thanks pal!
Well Formed Outcomes from NLP or Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Yeah, done that one too buddy!
The Yale Study – the 3% with written goals achieved more than the other 97% put together. Yawn! Yeah, heard that one too. Got anything else?
(Interestingly, that one is more than likely not true by the way but more of that another day).

So it’s certainly not lack of education or knowledge that stops people fom setting goals.

Perhaps its lack of time then. That’s what a lot of people say. Yes, that must be it, people don’t have time to set goals. They don’t have time to write them down. They don’t have time to review them regularly. They don’t have time to change their habitual actions.

Yes, that’s it…

But then again, perhaps not! Figures (looked up rapidly on the web – stats attributed to Nielsen Media Research Inc.) suggest that the average person in the US watches 28 hours of television every week. The figure in the UK was stated as even higher at 32 hours per week. So even if we allocated a generous 1 hour for reviewing and revising goals every week and allowed 30 minutes of visualisation exercises every day there would still be plenty of time left to ensure that you did not miss your favourite programmes!

So not lack of time then.

So what is it, really, that stops people setting goals? The truth is that there are probably many, many reasons but I decided to share with you the top 7 reasons from my experience as to why people don’t set goals…

1. Lack of belief & scepticism

Many people don’t believe what they hear. They don’t believe what is taught to them. They don’t believe that they could achieve significantly more than they are currently achieving in their business, their health and their lives just by setting goals.

This is not surprising. We are all creatures of our own circumstances. We form our beliefs based on our experiences and the people who surround us. If no-one around you has any goals or has very limited goals then it is hardly surpising that you feel sceptical or are not ambitious with them yours either.

I suppose I am what you call pretty creative. My mind goes at 100 miles an hour and I come up with loads and loads of ideas. Some are good. Some are great. Some are appalling. Some are impractical. Some are practical. Some are world-beating. Some are pretty poor (oh ok, not many!). But I’ve always been like this. Most people around me are not like this so they are not very supportive when I set goals. Theys say things like, “Well, you set that goal to (do whatever) once and that didn’t work. Why should this be any different?”

This is hardly going to help me now is it!

On the other hand it would be quite feasible for them to focus on the goals that I have set and achieved. The goals that I have set and then overachieved on and then some. And there are more than enough of them to dwell on!

2. Setting the wrong goals

Some people just set the wrong goals. They set goals that they think that they ought to set. They set goals that their family wants them to set. They set goals that their teachers, their peers and their college professors wants them to set. They set goals that their boss thinks they ought to set. They set goals that they pretend they want but that they really don’t.

How many people do you know who lead seemingly successful lives but underneath it all are pretty unhappy? Probably quite a lot. I have met many ex-school chums who are doctors, barristers and accountants who absolutely hate their professional (and personal sometimes) lives. They know exactly why… because they set the wrong goals. They set the goals that their parents wanted for them. They set the goals that their schools pushed them towards. They set the goals that they were supposed to set rather than the ones that they really wanted.

Setting the wrong goals will at best see your goal setting efforts fail but worse than that you could succeed in achieving something that you really don’t want. Getting to the top of the wrong mountain having spent your life climbing it is not a nice experience! There’s every chance that you’re going to throw yourself straight off it again!

Because so many people view goals as something that is done to them, something that others prescribe for them, something that they don’t want, then many people see goal setting as a “no no” for them.

3. Previous diappointments

Let’s be brutally honest here, most adults are not very resilient. We say we are but in reality we’re not. We try something once and if we fail, we refuse to do it again for fear of embarrassment or comparison with others who have succeeded.

As kids we leap up from our failures and try again. When we’re learning to walk we stand up and stand up and stand up until we can flipping well walk! But somewhere down the line, something changes. We learn the pain of disappointment and we start to settle. We settle for second best. We think, “Well, if I don’t set my sights to high I can’t feel too disappointed.”

It’s not your fault. They trained us to be like this, our parents and our childhood advisors. You said you wanted to play football for a living, they told you to be realistic. They didn’t want you to be disappointed. You said you wanted to be a barrister, they said you’re not clever enough, set yourself a target you can hit…

Hanging onto previous disappointments will stop you in your tracks where goal setting is concerned. It’s bad news.

4. Fear!

Fear paralizes many people into inaction. Fear paralizes many people into virtual inaction. Fear paralizes many people so that they just keep on doing the same old things that they’ve always done.

Fear stops them setting new goals incase they achieve them. Fear stops them setting new goals incase they don’t achieve them. Fear holds you inside your comfort zone and stops you setting big goals.

I often ask people in seminars, “How much would you like to earn?” They might say, a million! Or more! But when I ask them to set a goal around what they want to earn they are much less ambitious… They say 30k when they’re earning 20k or 50k when they’re earning 35 or 40k. Few say £250k when they’re earning 25.

Why?

Fear. Fear that it’s too big. Fear they cannot do it. Fear it’ll hurt if they fail. Fear others will ridicule them. Fear that things like that just do not happen to people like them.

5. Laziness

I guess laziness had to come into it somewhere. Goals require energy. Without energy you’re not even going to take step 1 towards your goals. Many people I know do not set goals because they are just too lazy. Sure they don’t say that, they say they’re too busy but they’re not. They’re too lazy.

One of my friends works 9-5 Monday to Friday. He never goes in to work early and he never goes home late. He takes any work home. He never has to. His life outside work consists of TV, the pub and his mates.

He told me one day that he would like to set up a small business. He was quite enthusiastic about it. But he told me that he coud not afford to give up his job. Together we sat there and figured out that if he were to do a couple of hours a day after work and 4-5 hours at the weekends he could be turning over enough money within 6-9 months to leave his job without losing his standard of living.

Wow! Was I psyched for him…

Unfortunately, I was more psyched than he was. When he realised that his goal meant not watching TV, not coming in from work and slopping down in front of the football, not going to the pub every night and cutting back on some of his leisure time, he quickly lost interest.

And there’s nothing wrong with that. You should only set goals that you really want and that are really important to you but the point is profound…

No-one else can do it for you as I couldn’t do it for him. If you’re lazy, you’re goals are going nowhere.

6. Comfort zone

Setting goals will take you outside of your cofort zone. Setting big goals may take you a long way outside of your comfort zone. Setting goals and chasing your dreams could take you on a journey that you could never imagine.

I have a goal for this site… I will share it with you one day. It actually makes me feel quite uncomfortable. I have to take actions that stretch my activity levels. I have to make decisions that seem strange at times. I need to promote in a way that I have never promoted before…

For many, getting outside of their comfort zone is really uncomfortable. In seminars, when we discuss how to get outstanding results, we come up with many, many new actions and activities that would take the delegates in the direction they want to be going in their lives. Excited as they may be, when they start thinking about the reality of changing their behaviours, many delegates feel challenged by the thought of being off comfort zone island. They quickly get out of the sea and seek refuse on the safety of their own little island of habitual behaviours.

7. I want it now

In today’s society we want everything now. We are living in an instant gratification, short termist culture. If we want something we buy it. Never mind whether we have the money or not, if we want something we borrow the cash and we get it. Now!

People are really focused on now… Live now, pay later. Live now, worry about it later.

Goal setting requires a focus on the future… saving for your retirement rather than blowing your spare cash on lottery tickets and hoping for a lighting strike, forking our for a wedding day but never thinking about the marriage itself, going on a crash diet but not thinking about the exercise necessary to be a healthy person.

I want it now is not the best way to set goals. I want it now doesn’t worry about goals. I want it now will be blown about in their life by the winds of want and desire and instant gratification.

Resources:

The Magic of Thinking Big, Achieve Your Goals, Unlimited Power, The Ultimate Goals Programme.

Have your say:

Why not share with us some of the reasons and justifcations that you use for not setting goals?!

If Selling Is So Simple Why Can’t Everyone Do it?

Gavin Ingham — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 11:22:28 +0000

How many people do you know who have tried selling at some point in their lives? Out of all of those people, how many failed?

The answer to the first question is easy, probably quite a few. At some point or other in their lives many people have had a go at selling even if only as a student or in their first job. You may not know the answer to the second one… it’s probably most of them!

Probably most of them.

Oh, for sure, they’ll tell you that they did well. They’ll tell you that they sold bucket loads! They’ll tell you that they were a top sales performer. They’ll even talk knowledgeably about how to sell. It’s amazing what a good game people who only sold for a few weeks and never had any sales training can talk! They’ll talk about open questions and wants and needs like they know what they’re talking about but… seriously… most of them failed!

Not all, but most!

Top salespeople lead an enviable life. They earn great money. They win promotions. They have job security. They have respect, opportunity and friends. They have freedom, career choices and financial independance. They have fun, challenge and variety.

So if you had all of that, why would you leave? Mostly only if you weren’t getting those things at all! I met a friend of a friend in the pub the other night and he looked scathingly at me when I said that I was a sales training expert and told me that he left sales for “more security” and opportunity. He earns in a month what I earn in a day. I recently heard that his company are looking to “cut back” in his department. Nuff said!

But why this tirade? And why today?

Simple. This week I worked with a really great team of salespeople. They were enthusiastic, interested, open and up for it. They embraced the fact that selling is simple and they wanted to master those simple skills. Sales is so simple infact that nearly anyone could be very successful in sales. So simple that everyone in the room could achieve sales success if they chose to go for it…

So if selling is so simple why can’t everyone do it?

Because selling is about attitude. Selling is an attitude. Selling is an attitude that leaves behind a trail of techniques. Now don’t get me wrong here… sales skills are very important, very important indeed. Anyone who has been through a sales training programme with me or who has attended one of my sales seminars will know just how important I believe sales skills are…

But they’re not the key factor in this equation. They’re only a part of the equation. And on the other side of that equation is attitude. Without the right attitude you won’t be able to access your skills. Frankly, without the right attitude, you’re in trouble. If you can get and maintain the right attitude then you will make a success of yourself in sales and selling. Period. If you can’t, you won’t. It’s goodnight sweetheart!

I would far rather hire someone with all of the right attitudes and potential and train them on the skills side than I would wrestle with someone with all of the skills and experiences who cannot be bothered any more! The former salesperson I can train because they want to learn, the latter I have to remotivate and reeducate. Possible but much harder…

You’ve probably worked with or recruited a salesperson who had all of the right attitudes but was light on skills. They probably did pretty well. It usually gets put down to “beginner’s luck” but it’s not “beginner’s luck”, its “beginner’s attitude”.

And it’s at this point that many people not in sales might be tempted to conclude that sales and selling is easy. Something for thickos, something that anyone can do.

Just so wrong!

The hardest thing in the world is getting, keeping, maintaining and improving the right attitude. In sales you never know when you might run into someone who is going to be your best ever client. You never know if the next sales call is going to win you a multi-million account. You never know which meetings are going to convert and which aren’t…

And this makes it hard becuase you have to be on top sales form for every call. Top sales form for every presentation. Top sales form for every meeting. Top sales form for every negotiation. Top sales form for every conversation. Top sales form for every communication. Top sales form. Top sales form. Top sales form.

Not for you the mindless “going through the motions” that some non-salespeople can get away with for periods of time. You have to be switched on, tuned in, fully focused, up for it, raring to go, playing from a 10, on the ball…

Salespeoople often say to me that cold calling (for example) is repetitive and boring…

Wrong attitude! You have to be on top sales form for every call. It might be your 47th call of the week or the day but it is your client or prospect’s first experience of you. You have to be on top form, you have no safety net!

To make matters worse, salespeople get faced with problems and challenges every day. Difficulties, challenges, issues, rejection and objection are a part and parcel of our daily lives and we need to smile through them and stay on top sales form.

So if selling is so simple, why can’t everyone do it?

Because selling is about taking personal responsibility for your own attitude, your own behaviours and your own results. Selling is about smiling when you don’t feel like smiling. Listening when you don’t feel like listening, Caring when you don’t want to care. Standing up when you feel like lying down. Pushing on when you feel like giving up. Firing on all cylinders when you feel like throttling down. Taking responsibility when you want to pass the buck.

Selling provides virtually unrivalled opportunitites for anyone who is prepared to commit themselves. Your degree won’t help you. Your qualifications and exams won’t help you. Your CV won’t help you. The only person who can help you is you. And that’s too much of a leveller for most people.

Handbrake off, safety net removed, crash helmet discarded.

Most people want to blame someone else. It’s all about what they didn’t get, who didn’t help them, who let them down, whose fault it is, why they weren’t on top form, why they deserve another chance, why they should have done better…

If you want to maximise your sales performance and be a top sales performer you need to let all of this go now and focus on delivering the right attitude at the right time, no excuses.

Why not take a look at my Sales Success sales training audio programme – it’s what sales motivation is all about.