Track Your Progress

You probably already know that it is important to track the progress you are making toward your goals. If you need to close 100 deals, that is an average of 2 a week, and if you track it, it can be easy to see your progress. Arguably more important than tracking your progress, is tracking your activity. Are you having enough conversations? Are you being methodical and consistent? Your activity is an excellent indicator of your future success.

Just as we learned in high school science classes, things in motion tend to stay in motion. Consistency reduces the necessity to have to start again and again. Once you have consistency, build momentum. Many things are easier when they are faster. Visualize two people with poor balance trying to get across a balance beam. One moves slowly, teetering back and forth until they finally fall. The other almost runs across, it may not be pretty, but they make it. That forward momentum was their advantage. Evaluate which things you are already doing well, that you could do a little faster. What impact would that have on your progress?

Review Data Around Your Goals

Because you did the work to track your efforts, you now have data to analyze. How are you progressing on both your goals and your activities that support those goals? At what stage of your sales funnel (new leads, qualifying conversations, overcoming objections, closing deals, getting referrals, etc.) are your conversions lower than expected? Why? What is working and what is not? Ask yourself similar questions for other goals in your life as well. Let's go back to the balance beam analogy. Where did you fall off? Double down on what is working, and as we will discuss in the next section, adjust what is not.

Review is time set aside for self-accountability. It requires striking a balance – be careful not to let yourself off the hook too easily with excuses, while not going too far in the other direction with excessive criticism over every detail that didn’t go perfectly. The data is a valuable tool for objective decision-making, allowing the review exercise to be more about facts than feelings.

Adjust Your Goals

Now that you have reviewed your data and identified what is not working, it is time to course correct. It is even valuable to make minor improvements to things that are working. In the example of the balance beam if you are doing everything else right, but if you are going in the wrong direction by an angle of even 1 degree, you will fall off the balance beam. Small adjustments make a big difference. Do you need to increase your activity, improve your messaging, redefine your target market, or embrace new tech? Commit to at least one area of improvement, and then re-evaluate the impact it has at established intervals. By making corrections early and often, you greatly increase the likelihood of achieving and even surpassing your goals.

It is important to spend time with other goal-oriented people. Business owners, sales people, and those with goals similar to yours understand many of your challenges and fears. They can be a soundboard, and help you identify necessary corrections sooner. They can challenge and refine your ideas, leading to increased success with less trial and error. You can benefit from the experience of others to adjust with accuracy.

If you are looking for support for any of these three steps, email me and let me know. I’ll do my best to connect you with other professionals in your area.