Setting Goals and Achieving Them–November 2011

-Sales- “Coach’s Corner”

“Begin with the end in mind.” –Dr. Stephen Covey

I love the above quote because if implemented it leads to achieving the desired results. If you can imagine the outcome or visualize yourself finishing what you want to accomplish, you are 80% on your way to success!

A technique used to increase success and also adopts the theory of beginning with the end in mind, is setting goals and making a plan to achieve them. Achieving goals can be one of the most rewarding experiences both professionally and personally because it forces us to step out of our comfort zone. One’s comfort zone does not remain the same size over time—it is either shrinking or expanding. When we step outside our comfort zone and succeed it stretches and expands our reach moving us to a higher level. Competitive sales professionals know this and therefore carve out time in order to map out their success through solid goal planning.

As your Director of Sales I am looking forward to being able to work with each of you when it comes to improving the lives of our prospective buyers and resident/owners. I am excited to learn about your natural talent and then explore ways in which you can get more out of it when it comes to selling new homes (and brokered homes). To kick this effort off I thought I would begin by writing a monthly “Coach’s Corner” with a sales focus. At the beginning of every month, “Coach’s Corner” will give you (Jensen’s Sales Representatives and Sales Managers) a sneak preview of what to expect regarding that month’s sales focus. Can you guess what November’s focus will be?

If you guessed “setting goals and achieving them” you are correct. Let’s make this goal setting relevant to our objectives as Sales Representatives and Managers at Jensen’s by zeroing in on and answering the following questions:

1. How will you know when you have been successful in your career? What will you need to accomplish in order to define yourself as a success?

2. Write out one goal for your career that you would like to achieve any time within the next year.

3. How many NEW homes have you sold to date this year? How many NEW homes would you like to sell next year? What was the Company’s NEW Home sales target for your community in 2011 and what is the company’s NEW home sales target for your community in 2012? What will it take to hit your sales target?

4. Write out a step by step plan for achieving the two goals in questions 2 and 3 above.

5. How do you define yourself professionally today? What adjectives would you use to describe yourself?

6. How do you wish to define yourself in the future? What do you want people to say about you?

Consider these pointed questions as they are designed to help you develop career goals and begin to work on creating a plan to achieve them. We will review and discuss them at our next meeting or phone call. Good luck and I look forward to hearing your success stories!

–Patrick