This is the time of year for creating plans, determining budgets, and setting goals. Many people are reluctant to set goals, or to set “stretch” goals, because they feel like they are setting themselves up for failure. In the past, we may have mentally beat ourselves up when we have failed to achieve our goals. We may have tied our self esteem to our goals. Today I want to share a valuable tip I learned from my Sandler Sales’ Coach about evaluating our performance relative to our goals.
Let’s say I set a goal to acquire 5 new customers via referral from my existing customers in the first quarter of 2010. At the end of the first quarter, if I haven’t landed these 5 customers, I will have failed to meet my goal right?
The problem with this approach is that I am measuring my performance based on factors that are beyond my control. I have no control of if and when I receive referrals. I cannot force referrals to become customers.
Maybe from history, I know that for every 10 times I ask for a referral, I actually receive 2. Further, I know that if I follow up and meet with those two referrals, one of them will become a customer. So now I know that in order to land 5 new customers, I need to meet with 10 referrals. In order to meet with 10 referrals, I need to ask for referrals 100 times. That may sound like a big number, but if there are approximately 60 working days in a quarter, I only have to ask for about 2 referrals a day.
Whether you ask for 2 referrals a day is totally within your control. You can (and should) take full responsibility for executing your plan.
Bottom line, what we want to do is evaluate our performance relative to the execution of our plan. If we execute our plan and don’t meet our goals, we need to adjust the plan.
P.S. – the second lesson to take from this example is the need to track daily activities and results. If you don't know how many referrals you need to ask for in order to land a new customer, start taking notes in your calendar.
