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You’ve Set SMART Goals. Now What?

So you’ve set your Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Bound goals. Whew!  But wait!  Now what?  How do you put them into action?

Well the simple fact that you’ve set SMART goals will help prompt you to begin, because you know exactly what have to accomplish and by when. But here are four tips that can help you get – and keep – moving to achieve those goals.

1. Post your goals somewhere where you will see them often. It could be your cube wall, your computer background, or your bathroom mirror. The more you see them, the more top of mind they will be and the more results you’ll get.
2. Share them with your manager (of course) as well as a friend or colleague who can be an accountability partner for you. In doing this, you not only make your intentions/goals public, and that alone increases the likelihood of your follow through on them, but you also give your accountability partner permission – or instructions – to ask you about your progress against them on a consistent basis. That will keep you going!
3. Review and revise your list on a quarterly basis or as needed. This doesn’t get you off the hook, but it does acknowledge that business changes and your goals may need to change accordingly. Chances are, most goals will remain consistent, but allow for a tweak here and there and even, sometimes, a complete replacement of a goal.
4. Measure your progress. The frequency with which you measure your progress depends on each goal itself…some may require weekly monitoring, some monthly, some quarterly. But even the most lofty, long-term goals should be checked for progress at least quarterly, enabling you to get back on track if you’ve fallen behind. And ask for help when you need it…you probably won’t get dinged for asking for help…you will likely get dinged if the goal isn’t achieved.
5. Report your progress. Make sure the people who need to know where you are against your goals, in fact, know where you are against your goals. Don’t wait to be asked...be proactive and share the information. 

Goals don’t have to prompt sneers, headaches, and even hives. Set SMARTly, monitored, and reported, they can be great tools to help you succeed. As business philosopher Jim Rohn says, “We want to set the goals that our heart conceives, that our mind believes and that our bodies will carry out.”

Be SMART!

jkl

 

SMART Goals: T = Time Bound

“I’ll get around to it.” How many times have you heard – or said – that in your life? Many of us operate in a normal mode of procrastination. And even for those of us who like to get things done, it’s difficult to firefight the crises we seem to have every day, let alone work on the goals we set to further our business.

This is where the “T” in SMART goals comes in. Setting a timeframe for each of your goals gives you a target against which to work. And while customer situations typically have deadlines established for you (the proposal is due on…we need your response by…the work must be done before…), that’s not necessarily true for goals that aren’t externally driven, so you have to establish the timeframe to accomplish them.

A time-bound goal does the following:

1. Gives you the impetus to get started on the goal rather than pushing it out due to a vague deadline and commitment.
2. Encourages you to continue working on it throughout the process.
3. Helps you focus your time and energy to get it done.
4. Enables you to track your progress against the goal.

So how do you decide what timeframe to establish? It depends on the goal, but think of this. Give yourself enough time to achieve the goal, but don’t push it out too far. Too little time can mean a half-baked project; too much time can result in a lackluster project that gets sidetracked along the way to completion.

Here’s an example of a not-so-SMART goal: “I will launch a monthly customer newsletter.”

What priority will the owner of that goal give to that project? When do you think it might be launched? Chances are, never…or at least not until there’s a deadline associated with it. But we can tweak that goal to make it SMARTer: “I will launch a monthly customer newsletter by July 15, 2011.” You now have a timeframe to help plan your focus, time, and milestones.

Speaking of milestones, it’s often valuable to break a larger goal into smaller increments, each with its own timeframe. For instance, if you want to launch your newsletter, above, on July 15^th, you may want to establish the following stepped timeline:

• Content template completed – April 1
• Design template completed – May 1
• Mailing partner selected – May 15
• First draft of all articles – June 1
• Final mailing list – June 20
• Final copy – July 1
• All testing completed – July 10

By meeting each of the stepped milestones, you will ensure you can launch your newsletter by July 15^th. If you fall behind on one milestone, you can plan how to make up the time across subsequent steps to stay on track to meet your final deadline. You take control.

Finally, it’s often helpful to have a mixture of long-term, mid-term, and short-term goals. Completing a short- or mid-term goal gives you that sense of accomplishment you need to continue working on your longer-term goals. It speaks well of you as a project manager and it shows you are able to move the business forward rather than just managing the day-to-day crises of the business.

No more, “I’ll get around to it.” Move to, “I’ll get right to it” with time-bound goals.

jkl

 

SMART Goals: R = Realistic

You know, I’d like to be a world-class figure skater. I really would. But it’s reality check time. I’m in my forties, I’m not that flexible, I don’t have five hours a day to practice, and I can’t ice skate. So it’s probably not in the cards for me to be a world-class skater.

Figuring out what could be in the cards for you is what setting realistic goals is all about. Look at the root of the word realistic. It’s “real.” A SMART goal is something that you can reasonably make real. Realistic goals need to achievable with the resources, knowledge, and time you have available. They need to apply to your situation…they need a reality check. You may be able to find or prioritize some of the things you need but, ultimately, the goal needs to be doable to be realistic.

An example of a not-so-SMART goal in this area might be a public elementary school’s goal that, “We will hire only candidates who have their doctorates in early education.” That’s a grand goal, but it’s probably not going to be doable in today’s economy and public school system.

After a reality check, the goal could be made SMART by stating, “We will hire only candidates who graduated in the top 25% of their class.” That may be challenging, and the school’s administration may need to put some plans in place to be able to achieve the goal, but it’s certainly doable.

The goal should also be real to your world, real as in relevant. Setting a goal that has nothing to do with what you want to achieve, or nothing to do with the mission or vision of your company, does nothing for you. Goals should be tools to help you live that mission and reach that vision.

For example, if a business unit has a mission of first-call resolution, a not-so-SMART goal would be to “keep all service calls under two minutes.” That goal simply serves to negate the mission. If service representatives have to try to resolve issues on the first call, but are pressured to keep the call less than two minutes, they are in a lose-lose situation. Either they probably won’t resolve the problem in one call and, therefore, not contribute to the mission, or they will extend the call past two minutes and underperform their goal.

An example of a SMART goal in this situation would be, “90% of service calls will be resolved in the first conversation with the customer.” That’s it. That goal helps the service representatives exemplify the mission of the company.

Back to me being a world-class figure skater. It’s not going to happen. But you know what could happen? I snow ski, I have the knowledge and the skill and a decent amount of time in the mountains. So a doable goal for me just might be, “I will ski double-black diamond runs in the next year.” It will take some work and some planning, and maybe some lessons, but I could do it…I really could.

Reality check. Is your goal doable within your world? Does it support the bigger picture, mission, or vision of your business? If the answer is “no” to either of these questions, take the time to rethink the rewrite the goal so it is realistic and relevant. That way, it can help, rather than hurt, you!

jkl

 

SMART Goals: A = Attainable

I know of an organization that historically set goals it could never attain. It believed in the theory of big hairy goals…the only problem was that its goals were just too big and too hairy. The result? Frustration, self-doubt, and team criticism among the members…all because they always fell short of the goal. Here’s the kicker – the team actually accomplished a lot, but there was no celebration. Instead, they felt like failures. In reality, they set themselves up for failure simply because their goals were always unattainable.

On the contrary, I’ve known salespeople whose annual goals were so low they were able to reach them within six months. Their plans for the future? “Well, I can just sit back and do nothing for the next six months.” They weren’t at all motivated to do more…they had done what they needed to do.

And then I've worked with colleagues whose goals spur them on every day, who must stretch to reach their goals, but who know that their goals are, in fact, reachable. Their goals serve to focus, motivate, and drive them along the way to achievement.

Motivation sits at the crux of setting attainable goals. Goals set too high or too low can actually backfire and de-motivate you. If too high, you won’t commit to them because in your subconscious, you know you can’t reach them anyway. If set too low, they simply become a nuisance…a box you have to check as part of your job.

Take a look at these not-so-SMART goals:

• Goal set too high: “I will add 80 new contacts to my CRM each week.” (That’s probably not doable.)
• Goal set too low: “I will add one new contact to my CRM each week.” (OK, you could probably do that within the first hour of each week…then what?)

But when goals are set within your “stretchable reach,” you begin to brainstorm ideas around how to achieve them; you look for the skill, attitude, and plan that will result in, “I got it!” Goals that make you stretch within your reach actually make you look at opportunities you may have dismissed or overlooked before.

Let’s take the goals above and turn them into a SMART goal: “I will add 60 new contacts to my CRM each month, aiming for 15 each week.” (This goal will likely make you stretch by committing time to networking, calling, etc., but it is a goal that you can reach.)

SMART goals also give you confidence. When you reach a goal that made you really push yourself and do your absolute best, how great do you feel? You’re on top of the world and ready for the next challenge! That’s how goals should work – they should build skill, experience, confidence, and energy.

Here’s another not-so-SMART goal: “I will lose 25 pounds before my high school reunion in two weeks.” (How “fat” will you feel walking into your high school reunion when you haven’t lost that weight? But it’s an unattainable goal – seriously, 25 pounds in two weeks?”)

SMART goal: “I will lose 25 pounds before my high school reunion in two months.” (That’s doable and you’ll feel like a million bucks walking into that event!)

Push yourself…give yourself a break…find the right middle ground between the two by setting attainable goals.

jkl

SMART Goals: M = Measurable

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” We’ve all heard it, but how often do we heed it?

Here’s a pretty common goal: “I’ll build my pipeline.” OK, it's a common goal, but not such a SMART goal. How do you measure it?  What does “build my pipeline really mean?” I imagine five people will give you five interpretations of “build my pipeline.” As a result, it would be pretty difficult for someone to look at the goal and determine if you had met it or not.

Compare that to this SMART goal: “I will sign 50 new clients by year end.” This goal sounds and feels much different, much better, much more solid. That’s because it’s measurable. It’s easy to tell if you meet this goal. At year-end, if you signed 25 clients, you know hit 50% of your goal; if you signed 60 clients, you hit 120% of your goal.

We’ve very good at writing goals using soft language. We don’t really want to be held accountable for something that can be measured. But that’s a little shortsighted. Measurable goals can be a great asset to you in your business. Measurable goals:

• Allow you to quickly and easily report your performance against the goal
• Level the playing field across like positions for equitable reviews and evaluations
• Provide you, if you’re a people manager, the ammunition to justify the ratings given to employees at year-end
• Help you stay on track and motivates you so you can be proactive in achieving it

Some tips to help you develop measurable goals:

• Incorporate quantifiable metrics in your goal.
• Use standard measures. Examples can include dollars, hours, people, sales, and percentages. Certainly that’s not an exhaustive list, but it gives you a start.
• Establish how progress will be measured. Will you use a survey, contracts signed, budget line, or something else? Define your method of measurement and use that measure consistently.
• Include milestones to hit along the way to ensure you’re on the right track. In the example of signing 50 new clients by year-end, you may want to set quarterly milestones to check your progress toward the annual goal.
• Track your progress. Establishing quantifiable metrics only works if you actually track your progress. Set up a simple system to consistently remind you how close or how far you are from your goal.

Here’s another example of a not-so-SMART goal. “My people will be happier.” Transformed into a SMART goal: “Overall employee satisfaction, as measured by the annual employee survey, will increase by 20% over last year.”  Which goal will make it easier to tell whether you actually met the goal?

One last comment about measurable goals. Make sure you're measuring the right thing. It's easy to get off-track and measure something that's either not important or perhaps even detrimental to your goal just because it's easy to put numbers around it. If your goal is increased profit, you might find yourself wanting to measure new account signings. But if those signings are all sold at a loss, it's not really going to increase your profit. (Most of us can sell a LOT of business if we don't need to make any money on it!) Instead, you'd want to measure signings that hit a particular profit threshold. 

Measure what you want to manage. Goals are pretty good things to manage. Measure them.

jkl

 

SMART Goals: S = Specific

The word “goal” typically generates a pretty nasty reaction in 90% of the business population. Sneers are common, headaches abound, and hives have even been known to occur! Why are we so afraid of setting goals? Perhaps we don’t want to be held accountable? Perhaps we simply fear failure?

I think one reason for all of the above is that we simply don’t know how to set good goals. And if we don’t set good goals it’s really difficult to measure our progress against those goals to see if we’re achieving anything or not. And then we have a difficult time trying to justify to our boss, or even ourselves, where we are and why.

Goals can actually be fantastic tools to help us achieve what we want – or need – to achieve. But only if we create them to help us.

A couple weeks ago I mentioned SMART goals as a great first step in holding yourself and your colleagues accountable. SMART goals help you articulate very clear thing that you want to accomplish and, by doing that, make it easier for you to plan and track your progress against those goals. And that means a better chance of meeting and exceeding those goals, which means success!

Over the next few blogs, we’ll be examining each component of SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Bound. You’ll get tips on how to ensure the goals you develop are SMART and you’ll see some examples of SMART – and not so SMART – goals!

Let’s start with S – Specific.

We seem to enjoy living in a nebulous world when it comes to goals. We’ll toss something out to our boss, colleagues, or even ourselves, like, “I’m going to rock this place this year.” Really? What does that mean? And how will anyone know if we hit that goal?

Jack Canfield in his book, The Success Principles, states, “Vague goals produce vague results.” Your mind wraps around your goal and shoots for that, whatever it is, specific or not. And while your mind is powerful, unless you tell it what to accomplish, it’s going to be shooting in the dark trying to hit something. And that’s how you get vague results.

A much SMARTER goal would be, “I’m going to bring in $500,000 in sales in 2011.” Now that’s a goal on which your mind can easily focus and which you can measure. At the end of 2011, it will be a simple matter of adding up the sales you made throughout the year.

Specific, well-defined goals serve a multitude of purposes:

• They paint a picture of the future in your mind.
• In painting the picture, they focus your mind on exactly what you want to achieve – you know what you’re shooting for. They help make an idea more concrete.
• They tell you what is expected and when.
• They help you set your priorities and manage your time
• They enable you to easily measure your progress

A specific goal is so clearly defined in that anyone reading it will understand what you intend to accomplish. The top level of your goal should include what you want to accomplish, as specifically as possible, and when you want to accomplish it. A second level of the goal lists the actions you need to take to reach that goal. In the example above, it may be the number of cold calls you have to make each day, the number of appointments you have to get each week, or the number of asks you have to make each month. Also be careful with the words you choose. Think how much stronger and more specific the word “will” is than the vague word or “want” in the statement of your goal. Get your mind wrapped around a c-c-c-commitment!

Here’s another not-so-SMART example: “I want to increase leads through marketing campaigns.”

The SMART version, “I will generate 120 leads into the business during the second quarter (April – July) 2011 through email marketing.  

The second level of this goal would be how many email marketing campaigns need to be created, when they will be sent out, and the capture mechanism. During the quarter, you’ll prioritize you time on doing those things that will help you meet your goal. And at the end of the quarter, it will be easy to see if the goal was met.

Look at the goals you’ve set this year. Are they specific? If not, rewrite them to be well defined, describing exactly what you want to accomplish, as specifically as possible, and by when. You’ll be on your way to SMART goals.

jkl

 

There's No "I" in Team

Give me just one more post on football (two in total, that’s not bad for a college football freak, is it?). In watching the bowl games, I was continually reminded of just how focused the players are as individuals. Repeatedly, announcers would talk about the drive, the work ethic the players have in order to be a successful quarterback…or lineman…or receiver. But once these individuals get out on the field, it’s no longer about themselves as individuals – it’s about the team. If you watched The Orange Bowl on Monday night, you witnessed exactly that. You saw a bunch of Stanford individuals come together to create a mighty force that won them their first bowl victory since 1996.

I think the idea of individuals working together to create a successful team is just as important in business as it is in sports. In sales and account development, where individuals are typically held to individual quotas, it’s pretty easy to forget the team. In customer servicing, where individuals are interacting with customers on a one-on-one basis, team dynamics don’t tend to play into the strategy all that often.

But what if they did? What if the team’s success was deemed as important as the individual’s success?  What if individual sales, development, and servicing people viewed their ability to be successful as critical for the team’s success, not just their own success? And – hold on – what if each of these individuals also saw themselves as members of their prospects’ and customers’ teams, critical to helping them succeed? How would that change the energy, the – forgive the pun – teamwork of your sales and servicing processes? I think it would radically change every one of these.

If you listen to the interviews of the MVPs of the bowl games, you rarely hear an individual talk about his own stellar performance. Rather, he gives credit to his teammates for holding a strong offensive line, for making great passes or catching those passes, for being aggressive defenders.

In sales, development, and servicing it should be the same. If sales and account development individuals relied on their teammates to back them up, if service people were quick to help their colleagues, if, heaven forbid, these all played nicely in the collective sandbox to make their customers successful, you’d be well on the way to a highly-functioning and highly-productive team. And think how much advantage you’d have over your “opponents.”

Teamwork – it’s not the answer to everything, but it sure makes you a stronger competitor. 

jkl

Does One Size Fit All?

Every holiday season, I think about some doozey gifts I’ve received. You know those one-size-fits-all clothes? If you’re like me, you’ve quickly discovered that one size does, indeed, not fit all!  Rather, different shapes, different weights, different heights require different sizes. And it’s just not quite right when it bags or pinches, is it? 

So if clothes can’t really be one-size-fits-all, can other things in our lives? Can the solution you sell fit every prospect? That’s kind of what happens when you try to sell to anyone and everyone. I call that a “one-solution-fits-all strategy” and that feels a lot like “one-size-fits-all clothes” – in that it doesn’t fit at all.

But in a tough economy like we’re currently in, doesn’t it make sense to try to sell to anyone who will listen? Absolutely not! If you try to make your solution fit the wrong prospect, it’s like trying to make a one-size-fits-all sweater work on an XS or XXL. You won’t succeed, but you sure will create a lot of frustration in the process of trying.

And the funny thing is, the more you define your target audience, the easier it is on you and your prospects…the easier it is to find the right prospects (and not bug the wrong ones), the easier it is to listen to and truly understand their challenges (because you “get it”), and the easier it is to help them overcome their challenges through your solution (because it is, in essence “tailor made” for companies like them).

You aren’t a one-solution-fits-all company; you shouldn’t have a one-solution-fits-all strategy. As you look to 2011, take the time to figure out the type of prospect for which your solution is tailor made, create your story, and go get those prospects.

You’ve outgrown the one-size-fits-all clothes. Now outgrow the one-solution-fits-all strategy.

jkl

 

What's Love Got to Do With It?

We hear it all the time, don’t we? “My gosh, I LOVE that restaurant!” Or perhaps, “I LOVE that store!” Or even, “I LOVE that car!” “I LOVE that song!” “I LOVE that beer!” I could go on and on. When did a word reserved for our deepest emotion for people (and yes, our pets) become a way to describe our emotional attachment to things? Why do we love to love things?

Perhaps I just typed it. Perhaps it’s not actually a description of an emotion in and of itself, but rather a way to describe our emotional attachment to something. After all, it’s pretty commonplace knowledge that emotion sells. Why else would we have sappy, funny, clever commercials? They create emotional attachment!

Business decisions are no less immune to emotions. People, even the ones you think only decide on the pros and cons, ROI, and features and benefits, are still people. And emotions play a big part in decision-making. Consider a couple examples. Are you more likely to try to make something you can afford solve your pain or figure out how to afford something that solves your pain? Are you more likely to rationalize an emotional decision or love a rational decision? Going a bit further...look at the following words. Which have the most energy to them, either positive or negative? Maddening, Sane, Equal, Frustrating, Return on Investment, Angry, Excited.  Honing in on emotion sets the brain in motion more quickly and more passionately than logic.

Is there no logic to decision-making, even in business? I think logic definitely plays a part, but it doesn't dominate the decision as we think it does. When you show up and flaunt numbers and stats and specs in front of your prospect, you are relying on logic...and you may make a connection. But that logical connection certainly won't be as strong as if you focus on what frustrates them, or what makes them mad, and then show how your product or service can ease that frustration or take away the anger…now you’re talking! The connection you make is emotional, then backed up with logic that provides rationale.

So if you want to get someone to make a decision, use emotion. Hone in on those things that make them crazy, angry, frustrated, excited, relieved. Make them feel their pain, then show them a way to get rid of it. After all, you LOVE what you sell, right?

Stay tuned…in my next blog, I’ll delve into keeping that love strong through the customer experience.

jkl

 

Sales is Full of Opposites

As we come to the end of the year, I like to think back on any themes, or ideas, or revelations that came to me in the past 12 months while -- doing client work, training salespeople, drinking in a bar, etc...

One thing I found myself saying over and over again this past year is that "Sales is full of opposites"...what we think, imagine, or believe would be the truth, or the norm...is exactly the opposite when it comes to selling.

Here are some examples:

• We THINK the more we talk and explain our product the smarter we will appear...the exact opposite is true; the less we talk, and the more we let the client talk, the smarter we will appear...
• We IMAGINE we will burn out in sales by prospecting hard every day and filling the pipeline with new prospects...the exact opposite is true; we will burn out in sales by NOT prospecting hard every day and by not filling with the pipeline with new prospects...
• We BELIEVE clients will not like us if we go to NO in a sales call...the exact opposites is true; clients will like us MORE if we are waving around the reality of NO...
• We THINK we can save more sales by getting a MAYBE vs a NO...the exact opposite is true; we will save more sales by Embracing NO and getting at underlying reasons than we will playing the guessing-then-stalking game we play in the Neutral Zone...
• We IMAGINE we will be bothering clients if we contact them after they buy to see how they're doing...the exact opposite is true; what is really going to "bother" clients is when we DON'T contact them after they buy...or EVER!!

There are many more I could list, but you get the point. 

While there are opposites in all areas of life, why are there SO many in sales?  I believe the main reasons are -- the whole 'Role playing' thing: where we step into roles of seller and client and act out of the roles vs our "normal selves"...and the Conflict Avoidance issue...the fear of conflict causes us act in ways we normally wouldn't in order to avoid a particularly touchy situation.   

So what do we do with this knowledge?  I believe we stay aware of it and just do a "Costanza", in that Seinfeld episode where George decides to do the exact opposite of everything his instincts tell him to do...and what do you know, everything works out!

Happy Holidays...

GB