TIME FOR A REALITY CHECK

Setting a realistic goal is important to your success. Choosing a target that is too easy to hit won’t stretch you. You need to make an extra effort to produce your best results. But, if you set a goal that is unreasonably high, you will become frustrated and discouraged. So, how do you know if your goal is realistic? Here are four different ways of checking the reality of your goal. Choose whichever one you like best, or use all four:

1. Straight-Face Test. One way to use this method is to state your goal out loud, to a friendly audience, in a strong confident voice. If you can keep a straight face, it’s probably realistic. Another way is to ask yourself the question, “Can I really do this?” If the most honest answer you can give yourself is a self-assured “Yes!” it is most likely a realistic goal.

2. Prior Experience. If the straight-face method seems too simplistic, review your prior experience. Have you ever had a month where you reached the level of success implied by your current goal? If you have, no matter how improbable the set of circumstances was the last time, your goal is still realistic. If you did it before, you can do it again. And remembering that your goal is supposed to be a bit of a stretch, if you even came close to your current goal in some prior month, consider it realistic.

3. Numerical Analysis. If you got an inconclusive answer using the first method or are lacking sufficient experience to use the second, try looking at the numbers. Let’s say you want to get four new clients this month. How many people do you think you will have to have sales conversations with in order to get four clients? Eight? Twelve? How many people will you need to make contact with to arrange that many conversations? Forty? One hundred twenty? Don’t worry if you don’t know for sure; just take a guess.

However many you think it is, do you have that many people already in your pipeline, and the time or resources to contact them all? Sit down with your calculator, and crunch some numbers. Starting from where you are right now, with the resources you have available, can you deliver the level of effort needed to reach your stated goal in one month?

4. Peer Comparison. Have others you would consider peers accomplished a similar goal in their business in one month’s time? Do your colleagues or competitors who have been in business about the same length of time routinely get that much business? If so, you have probably set a realistic goal, no matter how unattainable it may seem to you right now.

If any of these tests make you fear that the goal you have set is unrealistic, change it now. There’s no fun, and even less value, in struggling to meet a goal that was never achievable in the first place.

One final hint: if you are just starting out in business, you might consider setting a goal based on a certain number of leads acquired, prospects contacted, or sales conversations had, rather than closed sales. Remember the length of the marketing cycle for our software consultant in the previous chapter. If you are starting from scratch to fill your pipeline, closing a sale in the next twenty-eight days might be out of reach for you.