Goal-Setting – Still the Overlooked Secret to Success

Often it’s the basics that determine the difference between thriving in your life and business or merely surviving in business. Goal-setting is one of those bottom-line, essential basics.

Mark McCormick in his book What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School tells of a Harvard study conducted between 1979 and 1989.  Researchers found that the 3 percent of 1979 MBA graduates who had created clear, written goals were earning, in 1989, on average, 10 times more than 97 percent of their graduating class. They also found that the 13 percent of the Class of ’79 MBA graduates who had set goals, even though they were not in writing, were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent of students who had expressed no goals at all.

Goals and the clarity of goals made a lifetime of difference for these Harvard MBA graduates.

Goal-Setting Process

In my consulting practice and workshops, I often include a 9-step goal-setting process. I’ve found that one of the most overlooked steps in the process – the one so many of us dearly want to skip over – is one of the most intuitive.

That skipped step: identifying obstacles and challenges that are likely to appear along the way and thinking through solutions.

These obstacles are usually quite easy to identify. Begin with the top two: you and everyone else.

Consider the obstacles you put in your own path: procrastination? Chaotic time management?  Inability to delegate? Then consider the obstacles others contribute: Interruptions? Lack of support? Lack of training?

Once you’ve identified your obstacles, then set about finding workable solutions. I encourage you to hold to your goals. Resist the urge to reduce your goals; instead, improve your solutions. And remember, well-planned and supported goals – the ones most likely to succeed – include lifestyle and family goals as well as business ones.

Take the time to set goals for your company and your life. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll succeed.

2010 – It’s Time to Make the Sale!

We all know that great productivity methods and advanced business leadership skills depend for success on a third element: sales. And if ever there was a time in our economy to boost our sales techniques and improve results, it’s now.

As we go into 2010, my clients are telling me that they are hitting the road with tighter workforces, tighter margins and greater needs for productivity in all departments, especially in sales. In response, I’ve teamed up with a national sales expert for a 10-workshop series I’m calling Make the Sale! – Powerful Selling Strategies for Business Owners.

We’ve set this up for business owners because owners are (or should be!) the best sales people in their business.

Business owners who learn to sell can typically outsell anyone they hire to sell, even while running their business. Much to my chagrin, I outsold every sales person that ever worked for me. Why? Because business owners have the passion, belief and know-how to answer client questions and deliver on their commitments, as well as make decisions on the spot.

Think of this Make the Sale! series as our gift to you, a self-propelled economic stimulus package for you to put in place immediately. I’m jazzed about Make the Sale! because my clients need it. You need it; in fact, we all need big sales to pull us out of the slumps of 2009. I hope you can make it a part of your 2010; I’m sure that this program can make a difference for your business.

The Sales Strategies Details

Make the Sale! is a 10-session series providing beginning to advanced sales techniques for business owners. Don’t forget: We’re focusing on owners because the higher you go in the organization, the better your sales techniques need to be. The workshops are limited to 15 participants, and designed for owners of small to medium-sized businesses. This is an in-depth, in-person course, the only one of its kind offered in northern Nevada.

The sales techniques learned during Make the Sale! – Powerful Selling Strategies for Business Owners are based on individual preferences and personalities, and you’ll build your style through real-world application, using your own strengths to create personal sales techniques that will work for you in your ongoing businesses.

Make the Sale! includes sessions focused on defining target markets, developing personal sales approaches, planning for and conducting a sales interview, determining individual buying motives, closing sales, and everything that comes in between.

The course begins Feb. 5, 2010, and meets weekly on Wednesdays for 10 sessions. So, my final question to you is: Are you ready to make a powerful leap forward into 2010? I hope so, and I hope to see you there. (Click here to read more about this series on my dedicated Make the Sale! Web pages.)

Realizing the Personal Aspect of All Productivity

Recently in one of my business coaching workshops, a client hit the nail right on the head when it comes to company productivity.

“Let me see if I’ve got this right,” he said, “What you’re saying is that company productivity is really all about personal productivity. It’s all about us.”

You can imagine my response: “Excellent,” I said. “Gold Stars.”  All productivity, whether your company is a small firm or a global corporation, derives from the personal. And what does that mean to you, the leader or owner of a company?

It means that your company’s productivity begins (or ends) with your personal leadership and productivity. You get your team to be more productive by setting an example of personal productivity.

Leadership Matters in Productivity

Productivity starts at the top, in your office. Think of who has the most invested in your company or department. I’d wager that that person is you. If you own the business, it’s your money on the line. If you’re the managing executive of a department, it’s your career and reputation on the line. Your investment in productivity is huge.

Now, consider the essential nature of productivity. If I’m on your sales force, I can bring in all the work in the world, but if it can’t be done within budget and without cost overruns or rework or, at worst,  orders cannot even be filled, then we do not get the net result we’re looking for.

In fact, we do our business more harm than good when we over-sell and under-deliver; i.e., when productivity cannot meet needs. This is no small order, either, and is especially challenging now that many workforces have been reduced and everyone has to be more productive without having a nervous breakdown.

Productivity can mean the difference between survival or not and/or profitability or not.  Right down to whether the business owner can pull a paycheck or not.

So, when my client said, “It’s all about us,” you can see, he was right. Productivity begins with you, the leader, personally, and it is also fundamental to your net profit.

– Success begins with a blueprint.
Valerie

Business Motivation – November 6, 2009

DO THE NEXT THING

Keeping a little ahead of conditions is one of the secrets of business. The time to repair your roof is when the sun is shining. So, do things before they need to be done.

Let your advance worrying become advance thinking and planning. Position yourself ahead of time in the best place for you.

You’ll gain the advantage in any situation through the medium of time. When you think ahead of any approaching action you’ll always have the advantage. You’ll be the winner.

When you do what is necessary, all the odds are in your favor.

(Reprinted with permission, Sam Maitz, Director of Marketing Technology, Leadership Management® International, Inc.)

Getting Excited About Productivity

— the best-kept secret to business success in any economy

Many businesspeople I consult with hear the word productivity and immediately fall into a deep sleep. There’s just nothing exciting about the word.

But I have to tell you that the difference productivity can make in your life and business is very, very exciting. Improve your productivity and you improve your chances of spending quality time away from business, leaving you more time with the ones you love.

How to Improve Productivity

Productivity is fundamental to meeting any business goal. And in challenging economic times, being strong on the fundamentals can be a make or break for a business. But how do you improve and increase your productivity?

This is one of the essential business concepts I tackle during some of my first meetings with clients. We go through many steps and use several different tools to reveal the truth underlying the hours spent at the office. When we do, we almost always discover that too many of the hours we spend at work are virtually “lost hours”, which in turn contribute to long days – and weekends – at work instead of play.

I want to share with you one of the first steps toward discovering these lost hours and the holes in your own productivity:

Know – and understand – what your time is worth. Your productivity will always be tied to how you spend your time, so seriously evaluate how you spend each minute and hour at work.

• What are your high-payoff activities, and how much time do you spend on them?
• How much time are you spending on low-payoff activities?
• How much time is lost to no-payoff activities?

Once you’ve taken this step, you should see some opportunities for increasing your productivity. And when you increase your productivity and begin to see the ripples of effects this can have on your work and home life, I guarantee that the word productivity is going to begin to sound a lot more exciting.

Business Motivation – November 2, 2009

You Can Make Up Your Mind To Be Anything

You’re special and unique among all the creatures on the planet earth. You’ve been endowed with the capacity and the power to create desirable pictures inside your mind and to find them automatically printed in the outer world of your environment.

You’ll gradually grow into any condition you desire, provided you first make yourself in habitual mental attitude the person who corresponds to that condition.

Picture yourself vividly as winning, and that alone will contribute immeasurably to your success. All your dreams can come true, if you have the courage to pursue them.

(Reprinted with permission, Sam Maitz, Director of Marketing Technology, Leadership Management® International, Inc.)

Business Motivation – October 30, 2009

You Always Have A Choice

You don’t have to buy from anyone. You don’t have to work at any particular job. You don’t have to participate in any given relationship. You can choose.

You steer the course you choose in the direction of where you want to be today, tomorrow, or in a distant time to come. You hold the tiller.

You can decide to alter the course of your life at any time. No one can ever take that away from you. You can decide what you want and go after it. It’s always your next move.

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Reprinted with permission

Sam Maitz, Director of Marketing Technology

Leadership Management® International, Inc.

For more information about Strategic Essentials small business training and education programs or our coaching and consultation services please call 775.826.8282 today!

Strategic Essentials primarily serves business owners, business leaders, entrepreneurs, managers, supervisors and decision makers in Reno, Sparks, Carson City, Tahoe, Truckee Meadows and surrounding communities.

Strategic Essentials is a Managing Partner for Leadership Management International.

Business Motivation – October 28, 2009

The Highway To Success Is A Toll Road

You must give up something to get whatever you want in life. The greater the value, the greater the sacrifice that will be required. Everything has a price.

You pay a price if you want to make things better, and you pay a price for just leaving things as they are.

Nothing worthwhile will come easily to you. Work, continuous work and hard work, is the only way to accomplish the results that last.

You’ll find no success at bargain basement prices.

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Reprinted with permission

Sam Maitz, Director of Marketing Technology

Leadership Management® International, Inc.

For more information about Strategic Essentials small business training and education programs or our coaching and consultation services please call 775.826.8282 today!

Strategic Essentials primarily serves business owners, business leaders, entrepreneurs, managers, supervisors and decision makers in Reno, Sparks, Carson City, Tahoe, Truckee Meadows and surrounding communities.

Strategic Essentials is a Managing Partner for Leadership Management International.

Business Motivation – October 26, 2009

You Have Unlimited Potential

No matter what the level of your ability is, you have more potential than you can ever develop in a lifetime.

Don’t think about the things you can’t do. Think about the things you can do. There is no such thing as no chance.

You have powers you never dreamed of. You can do things you never thought you could do. There are no limitations to what you can do except the limitations of your own mind.

Your range of available choices right now is limitless. Look at things as they can be. Never say never.

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Reprinted with permission

Sam Maitz, Director of Marketing Technology

Leadership Management® International, Inc.

For more information about Strategic Essentials small business training and education programs or our coaching and consultation services please call 775.826.8282 today!

Strategic Essentials primarily serves business owners, business leaders, entrepreneurs, managers, supervisors and decision makers in Reno, Sparks, Carson City, Tahoe, Truckee Meadows and surrounding communities.

Strategic Essentials is a Managing Partner for Leadership Management International.

The Full Issue of LMI Journal Now Online

 The October 2009 issue includes the following articles:      

1. Gaining the Most Value for Your Time, pages 1-2, by guest author Paul J. Meyer:   Consider making changes in these areas where the slight edge increases your value as a leader.
2. Developing Your Self-Image, page 3:  The factor controlling how much of your real potential you can use – or will use – is your self-image.
3. Is Your Work Environment Fulfilling? page 4:   Action steps you can follow to successfully control your attitude and response to workplace events, circumstances, and situations.
4. Enhance Your Problem Solving Skills, page 5:   Practice this time proven formula when approaching problems.
5. Using a Powerful Tool:  Goal Setting, page 6:   Defining where your organization stands now and where you want it to go.
6. Build Up Personal Leadership Skills, page 7:  A personal goals program is the most positive approach you can make when breaking through demotivators and building a strong sense of personal leadership.

Download Complete October 2009 Issue of LMI Journal in Adobe Acrobat Reader Format

LMI JOURNAL, VOLUME III, NUMBER 10
Leadership Management Institute
Reprinted with permission

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Strategic Essentials is a Managing Partner for Leadership Management International.

For more information about Strategic Essentials small business training and education programs or our coaching and consultation services please call our Reno office at 775.826.8282 today!

Strategic Essentials serves business owners, business leaders, entrepreneurs, managers, supervisors and decision makers in Reno, Sparks, Carson City, Tahoe, Truckee Meadows and surrounding communities.

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